A Sample Contraction

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Don Filcek; Matthew 24:15-28 A Sample Contraction

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsek takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called
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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Here at Recast, we have a worship folder.
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Inside that, you're going to find upcoming events as well as announcements. Inside the worship folder, if you're new or newer to Recast, welcome, we're so glad you're here.
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Finally, if you'd like to give to Recast this morning, we have an envelope for you to do that with, and you can drop that off as well in the slot at the welcome table.
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Honey, your office is a mess. This is a disaster. It's worse than your desk at home.
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Have some self -respect. Hey, to be fair, the desk itself is squeaky clean. Can you see anything on there?
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Here at Recast, we partner with Bill and Cheryl Smith in their ministry. Bill works for Youth for Christ in some of the juvenile homes around Kalamazoo.
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Definitely ask him about some of his work. It's really cool, and we're so happy that we are partnering with him.
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Mom wants to remind you that next week, Sunday, we have Daylight Savings, so don't forget to put your clock forward one hour.
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Remember, it's spring forward. Somehow I know
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I won't forget that. Finally, if you're interested in baptism here, if you've made a decision to follow
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Christ, if you've asked Him to save you from your sins, then the next step after that is to get baptized to publicly declare your decision for Christ.
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We occasionally have baptismal services here. If you're interested in getting baptized, please stop by the welcome table.
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We have more info about that for you, or you can also email the church office if you're interested in more info on that.
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But that's not all we've got going on at Recast. Also, recastchurch .com is the place where you'll find more news, announcements, updates, etc.
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Well, good morning, and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Felsick. I'm the lead pastor here, and it really is good to be all together.
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It's always going to be my preference. It always has been and always will be my preference that we have one service here, and so I'm just really glad that we're able to be back together again.
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No more 9 o 'clock and 1030 separations. And the fact of the matter is, we're united together in the hope of our
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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and it's good to be all together gathered. This morning, we're going to be looking at a text that contains, jumping in, kind of thinking through where we're going, it contains some of the most cryptic and diversely understood statements of Jesus.
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As we're marching through the book of Matthew, we come across some of these texts that wouldn't necessarily be high on my list of texts that if I was just on my soapbox or on my preferences, we wouldn't hit these, and so that's one of the benefits of going through books of the
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Bible a little bit at a time and taking it on and coming to understand it. The things that Jesus says in this section of Scripture from Matthew 24 through 25 are intriguing.
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They've received a lot of attention, because how many of you acknowledge that the end times is a curiosity to you?
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It's kind of curious to understand how it's all going to end, and so that's exactly what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 24 through 25.
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And yet, the things that he says are intriguing, they receive a lot of attention, but they have to be approached with a serious and significant level of humility.
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We can't come to this text and say, I have the only answer or the only possible answer to this text.
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I spent a lot more time on this message than I do on most. A lot more time reading, a lot more time researching, and yet I still feel obligated to clarify that as I talk throughout this message, you're going to receive some of my opinions, some of my understanding, some of my interpretation.
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The fact of the matter is, I recognize that as I was reading this week, good and godly people, even very educated people, people much more educated than myself, very widely on interpretations of this passage, and when
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I take a stand, I'm disagreeing with some people that I highly respect, either direction. And so, as we go through it, let me explain why here at the start, why there might be a diversity of opinions on this.
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Well, Jesus is answering here in our text a couple of questions his disciples have already asked previously, and they don't have easy answers for the perspective of time.
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It's not easy to just answer their questions directly, nor does Jesus have a will or a desire to answer their questions directly.
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When his disciples ask the question, when are all of these things going to take place? Well, he says outright later,
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I don't even have the answer. Only the Father knows these things. So Jesus told them that the temple will be destroyed, and so they're wondering when that's going to happen, and they further ask him when he will return to Jerusalem as he predicted.
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When's that going to happen? Because he said that that's going to happen. And what's going to be the sign that he is ready to usher in his kingdom?
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What is all of that about? And he's pushed down for us any curiosity as to when.
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That's been part of the early part of chapter 24, pushing back that curiosity.
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Throughout this passage, and even moving forward as we talk about this in a few more sermons here in this section, he's going to continue to try to quell that curiosity.
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So I find it ironic whenever anyone uses this passage to try to determine when
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Jesus will return. That's exactly an abuse of this text. He outright says that the angels do not know, and neither does he.
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Only the Father will tell him when it's time to roll. So far, so good, but the difficulty in this text comes in the form of Jesus intentionally weaving his answers about the destruction of the temple in their time and their era with the same discussion about the return of the end of the age, which for our perspective is still out in the future.
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So these two events are separated by hundreds of years. And in this text, the debate comes about because it isn't clear when
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Jesus is talking about the end of the age and when he's talking about the destruction of the temple, which happened in the lifetime of his disciples.
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But one thing is for sure, in this text he refers to both of them, and you're going to see that. And I actually think that Jesus demonstrates himself to be brilliant.
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He doesn't need me to tell him that, but he's brilliant in the way that he weaves these two things together.
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Jesus here accomplishes a message for his disciples in their lifetime while still leaving things for us to gather about yet future things for us 2 ,000 years later.
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He navigates one conversation with the ability to speak to us and to them in their immediate context.
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He speaks to them in 30 -ish AD, and it has meaning to them. And he speaks to us in 2021 and has meaning to us.
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A tough thing for us to navigate. But my goal this morning is going to be to explain the text first, and then we're going to come back to it to uncover applications for our lives in the here and now.
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How do we live as a person who's going to take in this text and believe it and trust it and let it impact us?
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Jesus has given us this word for our faith. He wants us to live in a way that takes this passage and this text into account.
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So if you're not already there, open your Bibles to Matthew 24 or your device to Matthew 24, verses 15 through 28.
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Again, Matthew 24, 15 through 28. We're going to read that together. We're going to take in God's word. And then we're going to ask
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God to apply it to us, and we'll talk through it. And then we'll have some time of singing and communion and other things.
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But Matthew, chapter 24, verses 15 through 28, recasts God's holy and precious word. A privilege for us to take in together.
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So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, let the reader understand, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
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Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house. And let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak.
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And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days, pray that your flight may not be in the winter or on a
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Sabbath. For there will be great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now and never will be.
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And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short.
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Then if anyone says to you, look, here is the Christ, or there he is, do not believe it. For false
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Christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.
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See, I have told you beforehand. So if they say to you, look, he is in the wilderness, do not go out.
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If they say, look, he is in the inner rooms, do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the
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Son of Man. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word. Your word that guides us and directs us into the truth.
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It is the truth. It is that which conforms to reality. Although this might be cryptic in our minds and difficult to discern,
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I pray that by the end of this message, these cryptic statements would snap into focus in terms of what you desire for us to do with this text.
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One thing that we know for sure is that your Son is coming back. He is coming back for his people.
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We know that from the entirety of Scripture. We know that from the book of Revelation.
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We know that from various texts, from Thessalonians, from different places in the Bible. I pray that you would help us to make sense of what
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Matthew records of the words of your Son here. I pray that that might light us in our hearts with a passion and a zeal for the return of Jesus.
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That we would be a people who are longing correctly, living our lives in the here and now for you, and at the same time longing for that day when your
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Son will return for his people. Father, I pray that you would speak through me with accuracy, that you would speak through me with a clarity, that you would diminish all distractions from the hearing of your
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Word, and let your Spirit make this apply to our Monday, our Tuesday, our Wednesday, and carry with us throughout this week.
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Give us strength because we are gathered in your name. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay.
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Well, I encourage you every week to get comfortable and keep your Bibles open to the passage at hand. So if you happen to lose your place there just in that short time,
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Matthew 24, 15 through 28, and feel free to get up and get more coffee, juice, or donuts while supplies last back there.
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Take advantage of that. You're not going to distract me if you need to get up and stretch out in the back or anything like that. This teaching of Jesus occurred in a context, and context matters.
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Like, when is he saying this? Why is he saying this? He left the temple for the last time in our previous chapter, and he walked with his disciples up the hill outside of Jerusalem that overlooks the temple side of the city of Jerusalem.
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Climbing up this winding hill, they would have been, I mean, if they weren't in good shape, they would have been gassed walking up this trail.
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They're gathering height, and eventually they're looking down the valley on the temple area in the city of Jerusalem.
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And while they were walking, looking down on the city, the disciples brought Jesus' attention to the temple itself and said, look at this grand building.
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Isn't it beautiful? Look at the size of the stones. It's just massive. It's this glorious edifice of worship to God.
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And Jesus dropped a bombshell on them, a couple of, a few verses before the text we're looking at, and he said, the temple will be utterly destroyed.
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Continued to walk, and that threw the disciples into a high -speed wobble, as you can imagine. They asked him, when and how will we know that the end has come?
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And when will these tragedies occur? How in the world could the temple be left desolate? And how could it be destroyed?
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And how could those very large stones be thrown down? What kind of cataclysmic events and end times things could happen that would cause that occurrence in the temple area?
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And so Jesus told them, beginning to answer their question, he said, there's a bunch of things that are going to take place over the course of history.
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You can expect routine difficulties and hardships down through the years, but they are not to look at those hardships, not to look at those hardships, as signs that the end has come.
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He tells his followers, these are just the routines of life, these are the cycles of birth pains.
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He used the illustration of a woman in labor, and he says, each contraction does indeed bring the birth closer, but we just don't know how many or how intense the contractions will be.
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History, church, history, our reality, is going to go that way, says
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Jesus. Cycles of contractions. And Jesus in our text now uses the destruction of the temple as a model for the contractions that will lead up to the birthing of his new kingdom.
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He says, this is the kind of type of thing that you can expect to occur in the course of this ramping up of history, leading to the final consummation, the final birth of the kingdom of God.
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And so in verse 15, he gives them a sign that the destruction of the temple is near. He said, I'll give you that.
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I can at least clarify for you in your generation a sign, a way of knowing that the temple is coming.
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Speaking to his 12 disciples, he cautions them that they should be keeping their eye open for what he calls, a really cryptic phrase, the abomination of desolation.
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A devastating defilement might be a good way to interpret that. Devastating defilement, abomination of desolation.
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This is a statement that's mysterious to us, but it was a category in their minds that was meaningful.
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You need to understand that when he said it to them, they got it. When he says it to us, we're like, I have no clue what he's talking about.
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But to them, this was a significantly deep, meaningful statement. They knew when he said, keep your eyes open for an abomination of desolation, they knew what they were looking for.
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The disciples likely recognized that as a phrase repeated throughout the latter half of the book of Daniel.
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Multiple times, that's mentioned in Daniel. Jesus says, this will be some type of desecration.
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There is going to be in your lifetime, speaking to the 12, sometime in your lifetime, you're going to catch wind.
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You're going to hear news that the sanctuary has been defiled, and you're to take action immediately.
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They know what they're looking for. They're looking for the temple, the holy place, to be desecrated. They're looking for it to be defiled.
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It's my belief that, you need to understand that a lot of scripture, when it speaks about end times, it speaks in cycles.
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In the book of Revelation, you have these trumpets and these bowls and these pouring outs of wrath, and there's a cyclical nature to it.
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There's a cyclical nature to history, according to God. The New Testament writers warn us about antichrists here and now.
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Warns us about antichrists, but equally holds out a belief that there's going to be one ultimate, final antichrist.
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Well, in the same way, in that same type of contractions of history, antichrist, antichrist, all ramping up towards one ultimate, final one.
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Then there's tribulation, and he said there's going to be wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and all of this kind of tribulation, all ramping up to a condensed seven -year tribulation.
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That's going to be more intense than any of that, and it's going to be a ramping up of history. In the same way,
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I believe that there are many abominations of desolation. You had Antiochus Epiphanes on the very altar about probably 70 or 80 years before these events that Jesus recorded, before Jesus was born.
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Antiochus Epiphanes, one of the Roman rulers, sacrificed pigs on the altar in Jerusalem, an abomination of desolation.
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So that's the kind of thing that they're looking for in their generation. But at the same time, there's an expectation that much like there's going to be an antichrist in the end, there's going to be a great tribulation in the end,
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I believe there's also going to be an abomination of desolation in the end, one big one, one big massive one, that we, in our time and era, we don't know what that is, but that final generation will have some kind of indication that that is there.
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But Jesus here is primarily concerned about answering their question about the temple destruction. They've said, when is that going to be destroyed?
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Walking up the hill, saying that's going to be destroyed, when? And so he's talking to them about that. And he's using this as an example of the types of contractions that are moving us toward the birth of the kingdom.
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And all I can say about this is that Jesus tells his followers that something really bad is going to happen to desecrate the temple.
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And when that happens, what are they told in the text to do? Flee. Flee. Don't look back.
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I mean, in over -the -top kind of language they are told, just get out.
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Leave the city. Speculation about what this might be isn't necessarily super helpful, but Matthew wants the reader to understand and be prepared for that terrible day.
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When they catch word about this terrible desecration, like maybe an idol set up in the temple in their generation, we don't know exactly what it was, but they should head for the hills.
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He says, if you're up on the rooftop, don't go down to get your valuables into the house. The rooftops were flat, people would hang out up there.
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They're not up there roofing, by the way. They're up there hanging out, okay? And don't go down into the house, get your valuables, just go.
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The historian Josephus, by the way, records this actually happening.
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He writes in his history about people going from rooftop to rooftop to avoid the crowded streets trying to get out of Jerusalem when
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Rome invaded about 30 years after this in 66 AD. This is fulfilled in the generation of the 12 disciples.
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They experienced this, but it was in the future. And Jesus predicted here in this text that it was going to happen.
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Those outside the city, he says, don't grab your cloak. If you're out plowing a row in your field, and you've left your cloak back there for ease of motion, don't go that way to get your cloak, head for the hills.
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That's pretty extreme, right? Anybody getting the extremeness of his instructions here? He's telling them, get out.
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I believe that in part to preserve his church. He's speaking to his followers here, and he's saying,
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I want you to be safe. I want you to get out of the city when this whole thing goes down.
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Get out of Dodge, and he says, don't grab your cloak. By the way, don't grab your cloak is actually a Greek phrase. It's used in other
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Greek contexts, not just merely biblical, and it's kind of like our get out of Dodge. It's a colloquial kind of phrase.
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Don't grab your cloak meant go, and go now. And the specificity of verses 19 through 20, you can look at it in your text, make it pretty clear that Jesus is talking about a historical event here.
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He warns about the danger this tragedy will be for those who are pregnant and nursing infants. And further, he warns them to pray that this unknown day of destruction upon the temple or this desecration will not come in the winter or on a
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Sabbath. All of this leads, by the way, toward a dual application. In using this destruction of the temple as an example, he points to the unknown nature of the day.
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Some will be on the rooftop when the destruction of the temple is at hand. Some will be working in the field when that destruction comes.
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And so will it be on the final day of tribulation. People will be living just like their normal lives, and bam, and Christ returns.
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It's going to be a surprise, it's going to be a shock, it's going to be sudden, it's going to be obvious. I believe that Jesus uses the suffering of the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple as an example of the suffering that will increase in the final contractions of the great tribulation.
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Verse 21 seems like, if you read it, it seems like too strong a statement for the localized tribulation of Jerusalem.
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This is where it gets a little convoluted. Is he talking about the destruction of the temple, or is he talking about the end times, and those two things are woven together in such a way that can create confusion in our minds?
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I believe it was indeed a suffering of significant magnitude at the destruction of Jerusalem. And I think that humanity can only stoop so low in certain contexts so that you can say, well, sure, that's localized, but it was localized terror, localized horror, on a scale like we don't even want to talk about.
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It's estimated that between 66 AD and 70 AD, over a million people, historians believe this, they kind of tabulate this kind of stuff, it's estimated that over a million people died in Jerusalem in those four years.
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A million people. We can't wrap our minds around that. A million dead bodies in Jerusalem in those four years.
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They didn't have places to put them. It's just terrible. It was under attack from 67, by the way, the
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Jews revolted, that's what happened, so you've got to put yourself in the mind of like, Jesus walking the streets of Jerusalem.
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The disciples there. This is all happening after that. About 30 years after that, the
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Jews revolt against Rome, try to kick them out. Now remember the Jews and the
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Romans and the crucifixion of Christ, and they're there in Pontius Pilate and all that stuff, and they're kind of working together to get
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Jesus Christ crucified and all of that stuff, all of that happening before this. Now the Jews are saying, no, we don't like you
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Rome anymore, we're going to rally and we're going to kick you out, and the Romans come with power,
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Vespasian, the Roman commander, comes in with power in 66 AD, 67 through 68 it was under attack by Vespasian, who only cut off the attack, he didn't fully take
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Jerusalem, he cut off the attack to go back to Rome to be crowned as the new emperor. They liked him. They're like, he's a good, ruthless guy.
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So he goes back to be crowned emperor, his son Titus carried on where he left off, and in between that gap, because armies have to travel, they had to travel back to Rome, then send
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Titus, so during that gap, Jerusalem was in shambles, Israel was in shambles, and literally there was infighting among the
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Jews for supremacy, so there's ongoing skirmishes and battles, even bloodshed over the temple where people were attacking each other over possession and control of the temple area itself.
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So even localized battles going on during that time. You guys didn't know you were going to get a history lesson here.
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Some of you, I see your eyes starting to look back, it'll be just a second here. Some of you are like, yes, you lean forward, you like the history, but some of you not so much.
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When Titus arrived in 69 AD, Jerusalem was already in bad shape.
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So what did he do? He set one of the most devastating sieges of a city ever recorded in human history.
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Five months of utter and unreasonable devastation. No food. It was five months before the city walls were breached in 70
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AD, but in those five months, the suffering and atrocities in that city were about the lowest to which humanity can stoop.
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Some of the things that Josephus, the historian, records that occurred in that city under that siege are not things that I'm even willing to repeat.
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I wish I hadn't read this week. I won't repeat them. I'm not squeamish. But the things that occurred within those city walls in those five months are unmentionable.
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So when you talk about how deep the devastation was, I don't believe that Jesus is using hyperbole here in terms of how bad that devastation was for those.
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Now it's localized, sure. Has there been more widespread destruction and death over years? Yes, there has.
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But I don't think humanity can stoop much lower than the things that were accomplished during that siege in Jerusalem.
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Verse 21 might sound like Jesus is saying that the event was the worst event that ever occurred in human history, which really doesn't jive when you start thinking about the book of Revelation that predicts an apocalypse and cataclysm on a global scale, a third of the earth's population being destroyed in multiple times.
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But I think Jesus is intentionally melding those two together in verse 21. To his immediate disciples, he says the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem is going to be epic.
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I'm giving you every cause to get out. Get out. Get out, he says to those who are listening to him in that small setting.
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This contraction is going to be a tough one. It's going to be a really rough contraction.
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Get out. And it serves as a model for the contractions that will continue to the very end so that as we read verse 21 from our perspective in the year 2021, we see that really, really, really bad things happen leading up to the end.
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And as a model contraction, Jesus takes us back in verse 22 to the reminder that these days of contraction will be increasingly difficult.
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Those days are the days of the birth pains. Those days, when he says those days in verse 22, those days are the days that we live in now.
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And the days in which the disciples live. That's what he means by those days. I believe that those days are the days of contraction between the first and second coming of Jesus.
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All of history that can be wrapped up into that is those days. And so what he says in verse 22 is that if God doesn't intervene in those days, no human will remain alive on the planet.
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The word that's used in Greek there for all flesh or all people, there is no hope for anyone if God doesn't intervene.
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Natural disaster, lawlessness, wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, pestilence, famine, diseases. Humanity would be done for, says
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Jesus. But he says that the days will be cut short for the sake of the elect.
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There's a theme throughout Scripture that God retains a remnant of people for himself, even at various destructions and judgments.
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And for the sake of his chosen people, that's what's meant by elect, he will cut short the days of suffering.
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In other words, God will make the call to end the age in part based on his love for us.
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Based on his love for his people. A day is coming when the father looks to his right hand at the son and says, it's time.
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Go get your When do you look forward to that day? Anybody excited about that?
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I long for that day. I look forward to that day. And that timing will be motivated out of what according to the text?
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His love for his people. The timing will be based on his love for you and me.
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For the third time in three sermons, Jesus reminds his followers that these waves of contractions will be characterized by attempts to find the
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Messiah and for people to pretend to be the Messiah. Some will be false messiahs claiming to represent
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Christ and we've talked about this. You can go back in the last three sermons. I've kind of hit this time and time again.
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Some will be false teachers we saw a couple of weeks ago. And false prophets leading the weak astray.
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And now he highlights that some will be false heralds saying Jesus is out in the desert.
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Come out to meet him. Or he's in the inner rooms of the city. Come with me to meet him. And as time goes on false messiahs and false prophets will be given the power.
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Will be able to perform miracles and signs and wonders. And according to the text, these are not cheap parlor tricks.
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They will be convincing enough that even the elect would be led astray if that were possible.
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How many of you are glad that it says if that were possible in there? It's just not possible.
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The elect's not going to be led astray. But if they could be, you'd be tricked by these false prophets.
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By these false messiahs. The potency of false teachers will increase. I think we see it in our day and age.
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Certainly not to the point of signs and wonders yet. But we see an increased potency in the messaging of false teachers.
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It will increase as the contractions grow stronger toward that final end. And Jesus adds in verse 25, what he says here, loose translation, you've been warned.
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You've been warned. I'm telling you this beforehand. You've been warned. But all of this text has served one primary function.
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If you've been confused, if this hasn't been, this has not been my traditional sermon. This is a confusing text and it's a little bit technical.
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But let me explain that the primary function of this text is one that matters to us. From verses 1 through 26, we really haven't been given anything that I believe serves as a sign of when he will return.
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He's not budging on that. He's not telling us the when. He has told us instead what to expect life to be like.
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With increasing contractions of upheaval in nature, upheaval in society, he has told us to expect persecutions, betrayals, martyrdom.
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He told his disciples to expect even the destruction of the temple and false messiahs to show up. But now in verse 27 through 28, he says and that is not how my return happens.
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That's not how my return happens. He is not coming back in obscurity.
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Nobody's going to have to take you by the hand and lead you to Jesus. When he returns, you're going to know it.
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Nobody will need to doubt his return. When he returns, all will be aware. He likens his return to lightning that stretches across the sky from the east to the west.
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It's seen by everyone. And I believe that what he's trying to get at here by this lightning illustration is he's saying that his return will be sudden and conspicuous, not hidden.
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It will not be a hidden return this time. The return will not be on a silent night in a remote stable for keeping animals.
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Not this time. This next return will be more like a flash of lightning across the sky that all behold.
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Or it will be like verse 28, cryptic statement. Well, maybe one of the most epic cryptic statements of all.
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There's all kinds of confusion over what this means, but he says my return's going to be like the circling of buzzards that are a clear and visible sign that a carcass is nearby.
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As much effort has been invested in trying to interpret verse 28, pages and pages, ink spilled trying to explain this.
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I think that it's a very simple statement that he's getting at here. I think that Jesus is merely pointing to the obvious and public and clearly discerned nature of his return.
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That's what he's been talking about. He's just illustrating that with gruesome buzzards and carcasses.
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It will be very conspicuous, he says, and not difficult to figure out.
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Not like you're going to have to have a PhD in end times to figure out when Christ has returned. I've never looked up at the sky and seen circling buzzards and thought
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I wonder what they're doing there. Have you ever thought that? Has that ever been a question in your mind? No, no, your question is what's dead?
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Right? It's kind of like, ooh, something's dead. But you know why they're there. It's easy to discern, easy to figure out, and the sign of his coming will be obvious like that.
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Everybody looks up at the sky and sees the buzzards and it's very obvious. You can see that from miles away, right? How many of you know?
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You see the buzzards hovering and somebody in one point can see it and two miles away somebody can see it. It's like they're hovering around.
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Conspicuous, obvious. So, let's take the rest of our time to weed through the cryptic obscurity of this text to make some application points for our lives.
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The first is a pretty obvious and routine reminder from this text and from really all of this.
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It would be an appropriate application from any text if you take it from chapter 24 through the end of chapter 25.
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It ought to be a message that we're reminding ourselves regularly and it's just simply be ready. Be ready.
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That's your first application point. Be ready. Maybe you've been in the faith for a long time.
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It's always good to take a reassessment. Am I ready? Am I ready?
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Some of you have exercised this for years. You've been around for a long time in the faith.
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Just use this as a chance to double check. To be clear, the next thing that we expect according to the big picture of Scripture when it comes to being ready is we expect the return of Jesus Christ for His people.
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A rapture. And only those who have faith in Jesus Christ to cover their sins will be brought to Him on that day.
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Are you ready for the return of Jesus? The only way, by the way,
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I'm not talking about what you're doing in the moment. The only way to be ready for that day is to ask
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God to forgive you of your sins because you acknowledge that Jesus took the penalty that you deserved on the cross.
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Ask Him to be your Lord. Ask Him to be your King. Ask Him to lead you. And He will.
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And then you're ready. And then you're ready. Now go live as though He's your
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King. And you're ready. So are you ready? That's the first question.
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The second is then to trust in God's love. When you hear about these end times, things can get kind of dicey in our minds.
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If you've asked Jesus Christ to save you and you're glad to have Him as your Lord and King, then
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Scripture calls you an elect one. It calls you a chosen one. And in verse 22 we see
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His love and care expressed in shortening the days of history and tribulation for the sake of those
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He loves. I know that there's a lot of fear and confusion over the end of time and reasonably so because it's murky.
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We don't know all that's going to transpire. We don't know how many of those contractions. We don't know how hard they're going to be. We don't know when we get taken out of the picture.
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But let me encourage all of us to trust Him with that future. He has been so kind and gracious to provide a way for us to enter that eternal kingdom.
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But trust His love to carry you through the contractions of history, whatever comes your way. Trust His love.
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Trust His goodness. The third application, really for the third time in a row, third message in a row.
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He wants us to get this church. Beware of false teachers. Beware of charlatans.
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I mentioned it last week. I'll mention it again. God is calling all of us to a robust ministry of the mind.
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One of the hardest things is how often I think we check our minds at the door. Christians should not be those who check their minds in at the door.
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We should be those who keep our brains active at all times. Always ready.
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Always ready to refute false teaching with the truth. There are, honest to goodness, false teachers.
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There are indeed wolves in sheep's clothing. How many of you know that there's an irony that as the day approaches, and as we know that today we're closer to the return of Christ than we were yesterday.
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Did you already know that? Raise your hand if you knew that. Praise God for that. But as the days march on, the irony is that it's becoming increasingly unpopular to call out false teaching.
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Do you see maybe a little strategy of someone in that? Maybe a strategy of the evil one to make it unpopular to say when you see false teaching?
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You know, I'm even reticent. I'm very reticent to call anybody out by name. It's not a popular thing to do.
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But I think even that's a trick of the evil one to keep us from identifying false teachers. Be sure you are personal.
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Here's the application point. My application point to you, by the way, is not to go out and roast people. It's not the application.
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The application is be sure you are personally digging into God's Word so that you can discern truth from fiction.
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You can tell when you're being sold a bill of goods spiritually and when it is solid and is based on Scripture.
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Be a student. Fortunately, we can, to some degree, lean on others who have gone before us.
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We have godly people surrounding us and we need that in community. Simultaneously, a church is only as strong as the sum total of its parts.
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How much are the individuals connected to the Word? How much are the individuals in our body connected to Christ?
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That's the strength of our gathering. And as much as we are disconnected from this and just coming in to take in some kind of spectacle of Don trying to speak publicly about it, that's not good.
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We need to be students on our own. This Sunday morning message is nowhere near what you need to be equipped in your life.
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You need to be taking in the Word Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I don't know if you're like me, but just the morning's not even enough for me.
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I gotta keep the Word in front of me all day long. If I read the Bible at 5 o 'clock in the morning, shreds of it left at 10.
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You know what I'm talking about? We need to be students of His Word, discerning truth from fiction.
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And then lastly, glory, long for His return. Just ask yourself right now in your heart, do
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I want Him to return? I remember being younger and thinking there were a few things
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I wanted to do before He returns. Anybody with me on that? Some of you that are older remember that, some of you that are younger are living in it.
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Kind of like to get married, kind of like to have kids. Now it's kind of like, boy, it would be kind of cool to see some grandkids or something like that. There's different stages of life.
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But I think that as we experience the cycles of real life, God has a way of fraying the cord that ties us and moors us to this life.
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It's kind of a beautiful thing in a sense in the way that God helps us in the aging process to accumulate those cycles of hardship that says, boy, today would be a good day for Him to return.
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You know what I'm talking about? You guys have experienced some of that life to kind of go, yeah, I wouldn't be missing much.
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It would be nice to see my grandkids, but alright, I'd rather be with Him. So where are you at in that?
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Are you longing for His return? None of His followers will be left guessing, by the way, was that Jesus when
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He returns. For we will be with Him when He returns. I have to say, like, the contractions in my own life, when
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I think about that unmooring, that severing of that cord, there have been contractions in my own life, and I'd encourage you to maybe track some of those for you as well.
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The death of my parents, my own battle with sin, the tragedy counseling those who are entangled in sin, the weight of leading a church through a pandemic, the loneliness that increases in our culture, and you see it all around us, and the effects that that loneliness has on us, where we're so connected, and digitally, and so disconnected socially.
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The art of face -to -face conversation going away. These are contractions that drive me to increasingly long for the birth of that eternal kingdom.
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Do you long for His arrival? List the things, rehearse the things that God is graciously giving you in your life to loosen your stranglehold grip on this life.
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That's a grace to you. Can you see it that way? As we come to communion this morning, let me encourage you to rejoice in the sacrifice that He made for us.
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He told us that as often, hear this, as often as we eat that cracker, and together as His church, and as often as we drink the cup that we're about to drink, as a church, we are proclaiming
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Christ until He returns. Do you think of communion as a proclamation?
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He told us to. You are saying something, and that means that you're paying attention.
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That's one of the things I don't like about the way that we've done communion through this pandemic. We've done it for a reason. We're going to be over the next couple of months trying to move back to some sense of normalcy, and one of those steps in the coming months is going to be getting back to taking communion the way that we used to.
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The reason I liked it is that you got up and you walked around. You got up and you went back to a table.
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Some of you are newer here, and you haven't even seen the way that we took communion before, because all you do is you just grab it, take it to your seat.
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You don't get an opportunity to look at somebody else in the eyes. We're making a proclamation. When you get up and you get in that line like we used to, everybody who stands up and goes in that line and goes to that table is proclaiming in their actions,
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I'm a sinner. A broken, busted, dirty sinner who needed the Son of God to die for me.
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You're in good company, church, because we're all just jacked up together. Do you know what
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I'm saying? That's the truth. I said it in a funny way, but I mean it sincerely. This is a good place.
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A good place where we can be honest that we're broken. Even now, while you're in your seats, go ahead and take a glance around.
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It's awkward, super awkward, but just take a glance around. Other people are taking the body and the blood of Jesus, symbolically of course, but what are they proclaiming?
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I'm a mess. And such a mess that the Son of God had to give
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His life for me, but equally what am I proclaiming? Oh, I am deeply loved.
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I am so loved that He did that for me. Proclaim that together as we take communion.
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Saying, I'm an unworthy sinner that was bought by the precious blood of Christ, and then let's go out from here rejoicing that He loves us and is coming back for us.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank You that in the confusion of all of this text and talking about history of Rome attacking
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Jerusalem and destroying the temple and all of those things that occurred, that there's one glorious truth that shines through.
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You are returning for Your people. Like a bolt of lightning that starts in the east and stretches across the sky and illuminates every window and everybody sees and everybody knows.
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You are sending Your Son back for us. We long for that day, we look forward to it, and I ask that You would help us to be faithful in the meantime.
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To proclaim the truth. Not our glory, not our obedience, not our goodness, but Yours.
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Not our kindness to society, but Yours. Your kindness and Your great grace expressed.
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And what we're about to remember in taking the juice and the cracker to reflect and to proclaim that You have saved us.
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Father, I pray that You would increase a longing in our hearts for that day, but equally increase a longing in our hearts to proclaim that, because as long as Jesus tarries, it is just simply because there are more
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You want to reach for Your kingdom. Help us to be faithful to that calling. In Jesus' name.