Will We All Be Ready? (Luke 12:35-59, Jeff Kliewer)

Hallelujah. Jesus, you are king. You came to Jerusalem riding on a donkey because you are so humble.

You are worthy of all praise, and this morning we welcome you. God, we are here because we are ready, because we desire your return to this earth, and we're looking for you, and we thank you,

God, that we can look into your word and experience you even now, even this morning, to meet with you, to live by this bread, which is your word.

Thank you, God, for your word. Now make us awake. Awake, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

So today is Palm Sunday, as everyone knows, and the story of Palm Sunday is interesting because in the book of Luke, we learn from chapter nine, verse 51, that Jesus had set his face to go to Jerusalem.

From that point in the text, the ninth chapter, the 51st verse, Jesus is on a mission to get to Jerusalem.

Coming from Galilee, his face is set toward Jerusalem, so he is traveling there, and that part of the scripture from that point on is called the travel narrative.

It ends in the 19th chapter, verse 44, when he arrives, and he enters

Jerusalem, but just before he goes into the city, we're told that probably looking down on the city from a hill, he weeps.

He weeps because on the day of the visitation of the

Son of God, most of Jerusalem wasn't ready for it. The triumphal entry probably involved mostly

Galileans who were following him and his disciples, but as he looks down on the city of Jerusalem, most of the city is asleep, especially spiritually, and although some might come out just for the show of this man riding in on a donkey who claims to be the

Messiah, most of them don't believe that he is the Messiah, and very few of them have their eyes open to see that he's more than just a man, that this is

God in the flesh. Most of Jerusalem is asleep at his first coming, and so today, we're gonna stick with Luke 12 as part of the travel narrative because the text today talks about the return of the king, the second coming of Christ, and the question is, today, if he were to come, would you be found ready or sleeping?

The return of Christ could very well be today, or it could be 100 years from now, we don't know, but Jesus is coming, and the point of Luke 12, if you'll turn with me there, the main idea here is the

Lord preparing his disciples to be ready for his coming, to be found faithful when he appears, and we will see that some are ready and receive a wonderful reward, but others who are not ready receive punishment, and it's a devastating day to them.

So we learn of this in Luke 12, we're gonna pick up in verse 35, right where we left off last week, and continue through the text.

Luke 35 through 40, this is about being ready at his coming.

Stay dressed for action, and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks.

Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.

If he comes in the second watch or in the third and finds them awake, guys, this is not a good sermon to fall asleep, it will not look good.

If I, even if I'm boring, just keep yourself awake today. Blessed are those servants, but know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into.

You also must be ready, for the son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

I'll tell you, I think the most that a church has ever been ready for the second coming of Christ was due to me.

When I sang at a talent show, people were just praying, come Lord Jesus, put us out of our misery.

It was a talent show for the whole church, and my friend Rocky was the guitarist for the youth group, and I was a youth pastor at that time down in Florida.

I think it was around 2002. And the song I sang was, I wish we'd all been ready.

Some of you remember DC Talk, great song, but not when I sing it. So I remember walking up onto the stage, and my friend

Rocky was up there, and I just looked out and I saw some of the youth, and they were just slowly shaking their head no. And I looked back confidently at them with a, yep, it's gonna go down.

So Rocky begins to play, I wish we'd all been ready. The melody is playing, but I had never tried to sing it without DC Talk singing along.

So just from the melody, from the music, I had no clue what was the cue for me to enter with my singing.

And so at some point, I'm just lost, and I'm like, you know what, I'm just diving in. So I go in and Rocky looks at me, shaking again, no, no, not here.

And I'm like, yep, I'm going for it, I'm all in. And from that point on, it was the worst rendition of any song anyone has ever sang.

And people were, I single -handedly made the church ready for the second coming in that song.

But I wanna read you the lyrics because seriously, the lyrics to this song will open your eyes.

And unfortunately, I wasn't the one to deliver it, but just think, a man and wife asleep in bed.

She hears a noise and turns her head, he's gone. I wish we'd all been ready.

Two men walking up a hill, one disappears, one's left standing still.

I wish we'd all been ready. There's no time to change your mind. The sun has come and you've been left behind.

Children died, the days grew cold, a piece of bread could buy a bag of gold.

I wish we'd all been ready. There's no time to change your mind. The sun has come and you've been left behind.

It's a powerful thought. Picture of the return of Christ to rapture the church, to catch the church up to be with him.

And those who are not ready on that day are left behind.

Let's see this in the text. Chapter 12, verse 35, it says, stay dressed for action.

That's a picture of being ready for action. And keep your lamps burning. And be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast.

Now to get a picture of what Jesus is painting here, we need to understand something of the

Jewish culture and how the wedding feast worked. You see, a wedding in ancient

Israel had three phases to it, three parts. The first took place when a husband and wife contract, well, bride and groom, contract together to be married.

And at that point in time, the bride's family pays a dowry to the groom's family.

Now, they're not married at that point. They still need to wait, and this would be similar to what would be like an engagement period for us.

There is a waiting, usually it would take about a year. And then on one night, in the middle of the night, this is the second phase, the groom and his best men would go through town with torchlight to the bride's door and knock on her door.

Now, she would have been alerted ahead of time to know probably this is the night, but she needed to be ready.

And so on that night, the torches are moving through the street, here come the groom and his men, and she goes with him to the third phase of the wedding feast, which was a feast, a banquet, that would last for days.

It would be a joyous celebration. Now, imagine just growing up in Capernaum or some small town in Israel.

There's not a Cavs game on TV and an HGTV show that you love to watch.

There's not a lot going on. When a wedding banquet took place, that third phase, it was the main thing that happens in your town for the whole year.

You looked forward to that day. It was a celebration for all of the town to come out, everyone who knows the bride and groom.

It was a big deal. So in our parable here that Jesus is telling, verse 36, the master comes home from a wedding feast.

He has been at the party. Notice, these servants were not invited.

They were missing out on something. They were missing out. So that they opened the door for him at once when he comes and knocks.

Verse 37 says, blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.

The master comes home from a wedding feast. The servants weren't invited and yet they were ready.

They miss out on something in this world for a feast that is greater.

Because notice what happens next in verse 37. Truly I say to you, he, who's he?

The master of the house. He will dress himself for service and have them recline at table.

They missed out on the wedding feast. Now they're getting a wedding feast here and he will come and serve them.

This is a picture of the Messiah. Jesus, when he comes, yes, you may have missed out on some of the partying while you were here on earth.

But when he comes, there is something called the wedding supper of the lamb. Where the

Lord himself will serve us. It's recorded for us in Revelation 19, verses six to nine.

So sometime, while really it's not too much to say, all hell is breaking loose on earth for a seven year period called the tribulation.

In heaven, there is a feast taking place, a banquet. And the lamb of God, Jesus, is the host.

He's serving us. So if you would say it this way,

I think you'd be right to say that right now, we are engaged, the contract has been signed.

God has sent his son, Jesus. The dowry has been paid, it's the precious blood of the lamb and we are waiting for him to come back to bring us to where he is, to the marriage supper of the lamb.

The next thing that happens is a midnight procession. Jesus accompanied with angels in his wake and he shows up when least expected in the middle of the night to call us up to heaven, to go to the supper.

That's the next thing that happens. We call that word, the theological word for the catching up of the believers when

Christ comes is called the rapture. It's the second phase when he comes in the night like a thief, unexpected, and calls us up and we go to the marriage supper of the lamb.

Verse 38, if he comes in the second watch, okay, now we're talking some time has passed.

The night is going on. We're into the second watch of the night. Or in the third, the night has drawn long.

Say it's been 2 ,000 years since these promises were made and scoffers and mockers are saying, where is the promise of his coming?

We don't see him. Why do you Christians still believe that Jesus is coming soon? Why do you think it would be in your lifetime?

Why do you think it will happen? In the third watch and finds them awake.

Again, wake up if you're getting sleepy. Finds them awake. Blessed are those servants.

But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into.

If I could tell you, like some have tried to do, that the rapture will happen in four years and three days and so many hours, each one of us would be ready on that day.

We would not have had a real sinful day that day, would we? We would have been out preaching Christ. We would have been reading the

Bible. We would have been ready. And when he comes, but that's not how he comes. He comes like a thief in the night so that we be ready every day.

That each morning you wake up and you open these scriptures as if this is the day that he comes.

This is the day that you pray because this could be the day that this world changes forever.

The time is up. Some will be left behind. You also must be ready, verse 40, for the

Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. So there's the good news.

The Son of Man, when he comes, he finds faith on earth. Will there be faith on earth? Yes. Here you have believers.

And we're gathered today on Palm Sunday because we welcome his coming, amen? We want him to come.

We're ready for him to come, but not all the world is ready. Let's see that in 41 and following.

Peter said, Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all? Such an interesting question.

Let's pause and consider that for a moment. Peter hears this and he says, wait a minute, Jesus, you're here with us, but it almost sounds like in your parable you're not with us.

He hasn't seen the full picture unfold. He hasn't seen Christ go to the cross yet and rise from the dead and ascend and leave them, but not like orphans, ascending to the right hand of the

Father. At this point in the story, Peter is still figuring things out. So he doesn't know that Jesus is talking about a second coming.

And yet we on this side of the cross can look and say, yeah, Peter, it's not only for you.

It's for all who would be found faithful. It's for every manager of the house. Verse 42, and the

Lord said, who then is the faithful and wise manager whom his master will set over his household to give them their portion of food at the proper time?

Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.

So again, it's a picture of the faithful are ready. It's us in this room. We are those wise managers.

Now, the Bible knowledge commentary says this only applies to the Jews, the religious leaders of that day.

But looking at the context here, I don't see that. I think Jesus is speaking future. Matthew Henry wrote a commentary and he says this applies especially to ministers, pastors, because they're set over the flock to be a manager or a steward of the flock.

There might be some merit to that because what comes next, you see that the managers, the pastors of the church, many of them were not faithful to feed the sheep.

And today you have teachers and preachers of the Bible who never opened the

Bible in a sermon. They tell stories, they tell anecdotes, they give advice, they give the wisdom of their minds.

And unfortunately, it might be a majority of churches in this country at this point that claim to be

Christian. Have departed from the word of God. Some preach prosperity, how you can give in order to get, how you can give money to the preacher and to the church or the ministry and God will so richly bless you.

That's a common message that you hear. Others have departed from the Bible saying it's no longer true. They don't believe the

Bible. It could well apply to ministers, but I want us to take it a step beyond that. And I think it applies to every

Christian because every one of us is a steward in God's house. It's not just the preachers up front.

It's you that's been entrusted with the gospel. So look what comes now. This warning is severe, but hear it.

Verse 45, but if that servant says to himself, my master is delayed in coming and begins to beat the male and female servants and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful.

That's a graphic image, isn't it? Let those words, he will cut them in pieces.

He will destroy them. This is a picture of death, of harsh, severe judgment.

And who is it? Who goes to this place? He puts them with the unfaithful.

The apistos, pistos in Greek is faith. A, that prefix negates it.

The person who has no faith. The unbelieving. So here the division that Jesus is drawing, and notice, we'll see there is a division that occurs here.

We'll see it more in the text to come. Is between those who have faith, who believe in him and are looking for his coming, that's why they're ready, and those who are without faith.

Apistos, have no belief in him. They're not looking for his coming because they don't believe that Jesus is the

Messiah. They're not looking, they don't believe. Verse 47 now, we'll find an interesting thing that among those who do not believe, they have no faith, there's two classifications here that receive different judgments.

Based on how much revelation they were given. And that servant who knew his master's will, but did not get ready, or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating.

But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating.

Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

What seems to be taught here, and I think is being taught, is that in hell, in judgment, when

God judges unbelievers, he will take account for how much revelation was given to that person.

No flesh will be justified in God's sight, apart from faith in Christ. But there seems to be taught here degrees of punishment in hell.

That those who were entrusted with much revelation, and rejected that revelation of God's word, rejecting the son of God, will face a more severe punishment in hell.

In that eternal conscious separation from God, there will be greater punishment for some than for others.

But despite those gradations of severity in judgment that's being taught here in 47 and 48, notice that there's really only two groups.

There's the apistos, however severely they're judged, and there's the believing, those who were ready at his coming.

Those are the two groups. And now we'll see in 49 and following, that there will be a separation of these two groups, even while we're on earth.

This is an important teaching. Follow 49 to 53. I came to cast fire on the earth.

And would that it were already kindled. I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished.

Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.

For from now on, in one house, there will be five divided. Three against two, and two against three.

They will be divided, father against son, and son against father.

Mother against daughter, and daughter against mother. Mother -in -law against her daughter -in -law, and daughter -in -law against her mother -in -law.

Notice the speaker in the text is Jesus, and the words that fall from his lips are not what we expect him to say, are they?

Because there is a peace that he gives. There's a peace he gives to the reconciled soul, to the one who makes peace with God through the blood of Jesus.

But not all receive that gift. 49, he says,

I came to cast fire on the earth. There are some who think that that's referring to the

Luke 3, 16 fire of baptism of the Holy Spirit, some say, but I don't think that's what it's talking about.

Look at the context. The word fire here pictures persecution.

There's a fire on this earth, and Jesus, in a sense, is the cause of it.

When someone prays to accept Christ, and repents of sin, and turns to the Savior, there will be many in that person's life that will turn their back on that person, and even begin to maliciously gossip about him, make fun of him, taunt him, turn against him, and the very households will be divided between believers and unbelievers.

Jesus casts a fire on the earth. Guys, you see the news this morning? In Egypt, there are those who bombed churches,

Coptic Christians in Egypt, killing dozens, wounding hundreds, probably.

There's a fire on this earth, and the point of division is

Jesus Christ, the Savior, the Lord of all. They were bombed because they profess the name of Christ, and worship

Jesus, the Savior. There's a fire on this earth. You know, when

Jesus was led to be crucified, and he stood trial before Pontius Pilate and Herod, did you know that Herod and Pontius Pilate despised each other at that time?

But when each of them stood face -to -face with Jesus, they became friends that day.

They became friends. Pilate and Herod became friends in opposition to the true king. The gospel of Jesus Christ divides the world.

It divides mankind. And each individual will get sorted to the right or to the left, to become a sheep or a goat.

There is no other middle ground. And we'll talk about this a bit more in a minute, but as the world divides, we see this happening.

The division of mankind between sheep and goats is an indicator that Christ's return is coming soon, where that ultimate separation will happen, and the sheep will be snatched away, and the goats will remain for judgment, and for seven years of a last chance to believe.

Let's see this, though. 54 and following. He also said to the crowds, when you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, a shower is coming.

And so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, there will be scorching heat. And it happens.

You hypocrites. You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison.

I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny. Again, strong language from our loving

Savior. He calls them hypocrites. Why? Because in their own estimation, they were wise.

They had worldly wisdom. They could look to the southern shore and see a storm coming in, and notice it will bring rain.

They could interpret the signs of the skies. They were weathermen.

They could forecast that much. Just by being wise to the ways of the world. And they thought themselves wise, but they did not interpret their present time.

Namely, that Jesus the Messiah was standing in their midst.

Notice, he's addressing the crowds at this point. And guys, as we study the scriptures, we need to learn to follow the train of thought of the narrator.

In this case, it's Luke. So, you need to know who the audience is. Who is he speaking to?

Flip back just one page to Luke 12, one. In Luke 12, one, he's speaking, and there's crowds gathering, so much so that people are being trampled underfoot.

But he speaks to who? The disciples first. This is a message for disciples.

Then look at verse 13. Someone in the crowd blurts out something. Way off topic.

And now he's talking to the crowds in verse 13. Verse 22, he speaks now to his disciples.

He says something to say to disciples. Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. He sets the disciples' heart at ease.

Turn the pages at verse 32. He's talking to the little flock. His disciples, his who believe in him.

Verse 41, Peter is trying to figure out who is this parable for? Just us, the disciples?

Or are you talking to everybody? Jesus, what are you saying here? He's a little confused. And now we get to verse 54.

Explicitly it says, he also said to the crowds. This is a message for the crowds.

This is an evangelistic appeal to the crowds. The crowds are not receiving the word of God.

Little flock, be comforted. Your Messiah is coming. But as you go out, the crowds are opposed to the same

Christ. They're not ready for him. They won't make peace.

And terms of peace are offered. Did you see that? Make peace with the accuser.

Who's the accuser? In this case, your problem is not with men. Your problem is with God. And the accuser is your sin hanging over your head, a judgment hanging over you from God.

Make peace because the Messiah has come now. Now's the time. Don't wait till you get to that judgment day.

This is what we go forth and preach. So the crowds aren't getting it. They're not making peace while the time of peace is being offered.

Jesus is being offered to them. They don't want him. The same is true today.

And I'm gonna close a little differently today. I'm gonna do a little longer conclusion because I want to underscore this point.

They thought themselves so wise because they could discern the signs of weather and what's coming.

But they didn't recognize Messiah in their midst. They couldn't discern the present time.

And here's what I want to show you. Jesus spoke not only to that present time, but to our present time.

Turn with me to Matthew chapter 24. And I want to show you very quickly 10 signs of Messiah's return.

Michael read for us today, Zechariah 9 .9. Behold, your king comes riding on a donkey, gentle, having salvation, even on the foal of a donkey.

They didn't recognize their king riding in on a donkey. And in our day today, many people are not recognizing the signs of the times.

Christ could be back very soon. He gave us these 10 signs. Let's do them quickly.

In Matthew 24, one to two, the disciples point out the temple and how beautiful all the buildings are.

And Jesus says, these stones, you see how beautiful these buildings are? They're gonna be thrown down.

He says this around the year 33 AD. In the year 70 AD, the

Roman Empire comes upon Jerusalem, tears down the walls of Jerusalem, tears down the temple, and disperses the people to the ends of the earth.

But when you get to Matthew 24, 15, you see a sign, and that is when the abomination of desolation takes place.

The Antichrist sets himself up as glorious and makes some kind of sacrifice in the temple.

That's when you know that that's the final sign. Question for you, how can the

Antichrist go to the holy place if the temple has been torn down?

In May of 1947, the nation of Israel was reborn in a day.

This is the first sign that the return of Christ is probably getting very close. Isaiah 66, verse eight.

Has this ever happened before? A nation born in a day. It's happened just a generation ago.

Israel was reborn as a nation, signed into existence after World War II, after Hitler tried to destroy the

Jews. The nation is given back a place on the map. And did you know that the

Jews today could rebuild the temple within a year? They have, there's a thing called the

Temple Institute. They have all the things that they need to do it. The only problem is the Dome of the

Rock is stationed right there. Muslims have built a temple of sorts of their own right there, but it wouldn't take much time to build.

And perhaps they could even build right beside it, some people think. The point is the first sign of our times is that Israel miraculously was reborn as a nation.

Can you imagine if the Cherokee Indians rebuilt a nation in New Jersey? Or the

Seminoles in Florida? Could that happen? How beyond you're thinking that the Aztecs could revive their nation?

It won't happen. And yet the Jewish people were sent into Diaspora, Diaspora from the year 70

AD to the ends of the earth, and yet in 1947, regathered in a day.

That's a miracle, and it's a sign that the return of Christ could be very near. The second thing, there will be false

Christ appearing. I was watching CNN the other day, and they're doing this series on faith, which doesn't have faith.

It teaches a historical Jesus devoid of the scriptures, devoid of genuine faith in the authority of Scripture.

Now they do teach some true historical facts in that series, but by and large, it's not a faithful teaching of the scriptures.

I was watching, and I saw this Reza Aslan guy sitting on the shore of Hawaii, talking to a man who calls himself

Jesus. Only he spells his with a Z instead of an S. Claims to be

Messiah. And today, on virtually every planet on this earth, there's at least one person claiming to be the

Messiah. According to Matthew 24, verses four and five, see that no one misleads you or leads you astray.

Many will come in my name saying I am the Christ. It's happening all over our globe right now.

People claiming to be the second coming. I've actually known people who, when becoming a little bit deranged, began to believe themselves to be the

Christ. It's a common phenomenon. People believing they are the second coming of Christ, and it's a sign of the times.

Number three, world wars. There's gonna be wars, there's gonna be rumors of wars.

See to it that you're not alarmed. These things must take place, but the end is not yet. Verse seven, for nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

Rather than just localized struggles and localized conflicts, what's in view here is nations, and beyond that, kingdoms, regions.

When bombs fell in Syria last week, they were delivered from this country, thousands of miles away, while the king of China sat with the president of the

United States. This world has become interconnected, and there are kingdoms that war against kingdoms, not just localized struggles.

The first two world wars are not that far along in our past. True world wars, 1914, the 1940s.

Now the world is so connected that the wars that are being fought are global in scale.

The next one, famines and earthquakes in various places. That's a fourth sign. They say that Venezuelans today, over the famine that's been happening in Venezuela has cost the average

Venezuelan 18 pounds of body weight. That's the food shortage that's in Venezuela right now.

Because of communism, that failed ideology that fails over and over again. When Mao Zedong attempted the great leap forward in the 1950s, he starved tens of millions of people by famine because of those policies.

Famines on earth, and earthquakes. There was an earthquake just this last week, didn't make the news, but in South Africa, 6 .5

on the Richter scale. What about that earthquake under the sea that caused the tsunami that killed 100 ,000 people?

Signs of the times, earthquakes and famines. But these are just the beginning of birth pains.

When these signs become more intense, stronger, and more frequent, now you see that the coming of Christ is drawing ever nearer.

Verse nine, then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death.

This is martyrdom, persecution. They say the 20th century was the bloodiest century in Christian history.

There was a lot of martyrdom for the first three centuries under the Roman Empire. But all of the martyrs until the 20th century do not equal the number that were killed within the last 100 years.

Just happened this morning. People killed for the name of Christ. Martyrdom of Christians.

The next sign though is an apostasy. Notice this in Matthew 24, verse nine, you will be hated by all nations, verse 10, then many will fall away.

That word fall away, apostasy. Peoples that were identifying as Christian now walking away from Christianity.

Look at Europe. Look at the nation we live in. Straying away from the roots of Christianity.

Fewer and fewer identifying. I looked at a Pew study that said that of those who are 25 and under, that only 2 3rds identify as Christian any longer.

1 3rd are now saying no, not Christian at all. Of the demographic from 50 and older, it's something like 90, 95 % identifying as Christian.

There is a walking away from the faith, an apostasy from the faith. But what happens here, and I mentioned this earlier, what happens in this apostasy is a division between sheep and goat.

And this for me has been a profound sign of the times that I've seen happening over the last number of years.

It says they will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.

The betraying of one another and the hating of one another. Whereas Christianity was once an accepted and culturally valuable thing, now people will hate you for calling yourself

Christian. For claiming to have the truth. Echoing the words of Jesus that I am the truth, the way, the truth, and the life.

People will hate you for that and call you narrow -minded and bigoted. To uphold this book and the morality of this book, you will be hated by all for that.

It's happening in our day. The next one, false prophets.

I mentioned that Reza Aslan was talking with that false messiah. But Reza Aslan himself is a false prophet.

He wrote a book about Jesus called Zealot, which presents him as nothing more than really a revolutionary.

But empties Christ of his cross power to save. Not presenting

Jesus as a sin -bearer who takes the wrath of God and propitiates God's wrath, turning away wrath in order to save people from their sins.

He produces, rather, a political revolutionary. That's the Jesus that this world wants to see.

Someone who will change society through revolution and protests and all kinds of social justice activism.

That is the Jesus that this world loves, but they hate the idea of a cross, the foolishness of the cross, that saves.

This is where we are today. False prophets, Oprah, preaching a different Jesus, a

New Age mystic. False prophets abound, but there's a departing from the true.

Verse 12, lawlessness increased. We see this in our land. We're told it will be like the days of Noah.

When there was nothing but wickedness all the time, you'll find that in Matthew 24, 36 and following. But we see this wickedness increasing in the land, and the love of many will grow cold.

It's loveless people, people that don't care about someone else, no concern for another.

This is our culture. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Now, the ninth sign, my favorite, because this one motivates me. It says, and this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

This is a sign of the times. In the 1950s, there was maybe 100 ,000

Christians in China. Today, there's probably 100 million. The gospel penetrating to the farthest places in the world.

We, as a church, support missionaries in Erie and Jaya, and China, and Brazil.

The gospel is going to the farthest reaches of the world. There has been a revival within the last 100 years that is just incredible.

I won't call it a revival, because a revival means that it's reviving something that was already there. No, this has been a penetration of the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth, to the farthest tribes.

It's amazing. In sub -Saharan Africa, they'll have crusades where the name of Jesus is exalted, and four million people will show up in one space.

People coming to hear about Jesus. There's need for teachers to go and train people up in the true doctrines of the word of God.

But it's true in South America. It's true in India. We helped last year. We helped to build an orphanage.

There's an orphanage in India, and we connected with the Apologetics Conference to raise money for them, and we were able to build a kitchen for them so that all the orphans could come and have a big enough place, a dining hall, where they could all gather and eat together.

But when I get those prayer letters from Sam Sundar, every time they go out, they're seeing not hundreds, but thousands of people come to Christ, and they plant churches where they go.

There is a penetration of the gospel to the ends of the earth, the likes of which this world has never seen, and it's happening today.

Even as Western society moves into apostasy and begins to hate, as the text said, the farthest places that never had the light of the gospel are receiving

Christ and growing by leaps and bounds. It's a sign of the times. And the last one doesn't happen until we are raptured out.

The church gets lifted up. The 10th sign, though, is this abomination of desolation. The temple must be rebuilt for this to be taking place.

But just like Antiochus Epiphanes, in 100 years or so before Christ came, he slaughtered a pig on the altar in the temple, just desolating the temple.

In the same way, the Antichrist, when he comes, will desecrate the temple and present himself as the true

Christ. Of course, he's Antichrist. He only looks the part. And the kind of signs and wonders that will happen at that time would deceive even the elect if that were possible.

I bring that sign up now, though, because nothing stops it from happening at this point. Israel is back in the land.

The temple could be rebuilt within a year, and the Antichrist could be there. So in closing, are you ready?

Are you aware of the times? If Jesus comes back tonight, will you be welcoming him?

When he comes back, I want to be found doing something for him. I wanna be right here in church when he comes back on a

Sunday morning or in a Bible study in a care group. I want him to come back on the 22nd when we're in Philadelphia building a church or down in Camden with Seeds of Hope teaching the

Bible. Wouldn't that be a great time? Best of all, I want him to come back when

I'm witnessing to someone. I hope I try to share the gospel with at least one person every day.

And I want him to come back while I'm literally testifying that he's coming.

That's what I want. I wanna just, boom, disappear right after I told someone that he's gonna rapture the church. That would be pretty dramatic.

That person would believe I have a feeling. Will you be found ready at his coming?

We're gonna call the worship team up and we're gonna close in a word of prayer. How do you make yourself ready?

Listen, this isn't about guessing the date. It could, like I said, it could be 100 years from now.

Being ready means being found faithful when he comes. Do you hear me?

Let's bow our heads in prayer. Guys, pay attention. Let's bow our heads in prayer. If you have been wasting time focusing on your sports and your entertainment and every other distraction of this life, you need to confess that now.

Be ready when he comes. If you as a witness have been faithless, meaning you haven't stepped up to testify, ask him to give you that courage now that you would be found faithful in his coming.

Let's pray. It's all eyes closed and focusing now for just one more minute here.

Examine your life, confess sin.

If there's been something holding you back, something that you love, but it makes you unfaithful, confess that to him right now.

Ask for forgiveness. Repent and commit to the work of preaching the gospel.

Until he comes. Ask him for help to give you the gift of faith, to make your faith stronger, to help your unbelief.

So God, we pray for our church right now that we would be ready when you come, that you would find us faithful.

And as Easter Sunday is only a week away, I pray that you unleash right now an army of witnesses to go into Mount Laurel and Marlton, Cherry Hill, all the surrounding areas, preaching

Christ. And I pray that next Sunday when we gather, we will have a few other new believers with us.

Jesus, you're coming, and you're coming soon. Help us to be faithful until you do.