“Is NOW the Time?!?” – FBC Morning Light (11/20/2024)

Good Wednesday morning to you. I hope your week is going well thus far. Today, in our Bible reading, we are jumping into the book of Acts. We have finished the Gospels in our chronological Bible reading plan, and we begin today the book of Acts.

We're reading Acts chapters 1 through 4, and then half of chapter 5, so we're going into chapter 5 as well. I want to look at the beginning of Acts chapter 1, where the disciples are with Jesus. He's going to ascend into heaven here in just a very short while.

They're walking with him to that place where he's going to ascend into heaven. As they're going, the disciples ask a question that is pretty similar to what a lot of people are asking today. What I mean by that is this.

Have you found yourself going in this direction? You look at the world that we're living in right now, and you look at all the things that are going on in our world. You've got political upheaval in our own nation.

The election a couple weeks ago now pretty well settled who the next president's going to be. You've got Congress settled, you've got the Senate settled, and you've got all that kind of stuff. But as you well know, there's a great deal of upheaval in relationship to that.

Even the political party that is coming to power is not so greatly united. Anyway, we had all that political stuff going on. We've had a bunch of natural disasters within the last several months. We've had a couple of hurricanes that have hit.

We've had the terrible devastation in the southeast. People are still reeling from that. That's just in the southeast part of the country. Then there's been tornadoes, and there's been all kinds of natural disasters in our country.

Then there is some international conflicts. There's the stuff going on in the Middle East. There's the war with Russia and Ukraine. There's the stuff China's wanting to do, and instigate, and threats to Taiwan.

You've got North Korea, and you've got Iran. You've got all these things going on around the world that have got the whole world in sort of upheaval. As a Christian, you can look at all these things and you say, oh man, these are the signs of the times.

The Lord's got to be coming back. I wonder exactly when it's going to be. I don't know that we're going to survive even this year, and so forth. We can become consumed with prophetic timing, the timing of the Lord's return.

Because we look at all these things, we think, yeah, it's got to happen soon. We just become consumed with that. Well, the disciples were sort of consumed with the coming of the Lord as well, in this way, because they asked the question in Acts chapter 1, verse 6.

It says, when they had come together, they asked Jesus, saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? Okay, you've promised that the kingdom is going to be restored. This is what God's Word promises.

Are you going to do that now? What are they consumed with? They were looking for the Messiah to come and establish a global, national Israel where the Messiah is globally ruling over all the world, and the kingdom of Israel is going to be re-established and rule and reign over everybody.

Are you going to do that now? This is what they're consumed with. Jesus says, look, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in his own authority. In other words, he's very kindly saying, look, stop worrying about that.

Stop worrying about the timing of these things. Instead, he said, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

This is what's going to happen, and this is what you need to be consumed with. You need to be consumed with the business of gospel proclamation throughout the whole world, and not be consumed with the timing of the establishment of the kingdom, if you will.

I think that point needs to be made to us today. We can become so consumed with fulfillment of prophecy, the end of the age, the coming of Jesus, and we need to be aware that Jesus could come at any time.

The Bible clearly says that, but the Bible tells us that not to be consumed with the facts and figures and the data and trying to figure out the timing and all that kind of stuff. The Bible tells us that Jesus is coming, and he could come at any time, to give us hope and to grow us in holiness.

In the meantime, while we are hope-filled and growing in holiness, we're to be about the business of gospel proclamation and leaving the timing of our Savior's coming, leave it in the Lord's hands. Let's do that.

Let's do that. Father and our God, I pray that you would help us to be consumed about the right things, about being hopeful indeed, growing in holiness, and being faithful in the proclamation of the gospel throughout our communities and throughout the world.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, listen, have a good rest of your Wednesday. I trust the Lord will bless you in it.