Keeping Short Accounts & The Imminent Return of Christ

Let's turn to Matthew chapter 24, Matthew chapter 24, and the title of this morning's message is the imminent return of Christ and keeping short accounts.

It's very important to keep short accounts. What does that mean? It means we should deal with problems right away, whether it's issues we have with other people, or this is especially true when it comes to our relationship with God, we want to deal with these things quickly.

So I'd like to start by asking three questions. Number one, do you believe that Jesus is coming back?

So any true Christian would say, yes, I believe

Jesus is coming back. So then question number two is, are you ready?

And then question number three, are you watching? The Bible is very, very clear.

We are to be ready and watching, always ready and always watching for Christ's return.

So in this message, we'll go through some of the passages that teach about the imminent return of Christ.

And I'll try to explain what that looks like to be ready and to be watching.

But just to summarize, we want to make sure that we are right now, right with God. And today, if there's any issues we need to deal with, with ourselves, with others, between us and God, that we keep short accounts.

So let's look at Matthew 24, 42 through 44. Jesus says, watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your

Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.

Therefore, you also be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

And now flip over to the next page, Matthew chapter 25. We see pretty much the same thing repeated for emphasis.

Matthew 25, verse 13 says, watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the

Son of Man is coming. So Jesus speaking about himself, he refers to himself as the

Son of Man. This is a messianic title from the book of Daniel. It's Jesus's favorite title for himself.

And he says, be ready. You don't know when I'm coming back.

So now let's turn to the book of Acts chapter one. But clearly we see that Jesus is coming and he could come.

At any time. That has been true for the past 1900 plus years.

Any generation could have been. And right now we could be the generation that sees the return of Jesus.

So Jesus, we know he came the first time born in Bethlehem's manger. He lived 30 years on earth and then started his public ministry, which lasted for three and a half years.

He was then crucified. He rose from the dead, was on earth for 40 more days before he ascended to heaven.

And this is where we read about that in Acts chapter one. Luke writes this, Acts one, starting in verse six.

Therefore, when they had come together, that is the disciples and Jesus, they asked him, saying,

Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, it is not for you to know the times or seasons which the father has put in his own authority.

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all

Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Now, when they or he had spoken these things while they watched, he was taken up in a cloud, received him out of their sight.

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel.

These are angels who also said, men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven?

This same Jesus who has taken up from you into heaven will so come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven.

All right, now let's turn to First Thessalonians chapter four. First Thessalonians four. But you saw right there in Acts chapter one, another clear statement that Jesus is coming back.

But nobody knows when. But we did get a little more information. The angel said that he's going to come in like manner.

What does that mean? Well, Jesus was seen going up into the clouds. Guess what?

He's going to be seen coming down in the clouds. In Mark 14 verse 62,

Jesus says, I am the Christ, the son of God, and you will see me sitting at the right hand of the power and coming with the clouds of heaven.

Now, how is that going to work exactly? How is everybody going to see Jesus coming back in the clouds?

I don't know. But I know that's what it says. So Jesus is coming back.

And nobody knows when. But he will descend. When he does, he will come in the clouds. We see that exact same thing here, this time from the

Apostle Paul in First Thessalonians four. Look at verse 16. First Thessalonians 4 .16

says, For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.

And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the

Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the

Lord. So verse 15 identifies this event as the coming of the

Lord. So he's already come once. So we know he's coming again. Now, the point of this sermon isn't to get into all of the different theological positions.

Because if you ask different Christians, if you ask a Baptist, they're going to give you one belief about the return of Christ.

If you ask a Presbyterian, both agree Jesus is coming back. But they're going to have different details of how they think it's all going to happen.

We're not going to get into that except that this one truth, Jesus is coming back. Nobody knows when.

But what I am going to share with you is not only my personal belief. It's always been the belief of this church.

And this is the mainstream belief of evangelical Christians today.

So the majority of Bible -believing Christians believe what I'm about to tell you. When Jesus comes back, you have to distinguish between his coming back to earth and his coming back in the clouds.

Okay. It looks like if you looked at all the different passages, they're two separate events.

Jesus will come back to take his church back to heaven. And then he will come back again to the earth.

Okay. The scripture talks about this in such a way where it does seem to be clearly two different events.

For example, you can just take a note of this if you want. In John chapter 14, this was part of the responsive reading, this little section.

Jesus told his disciples that he was going to heaven to do what? Prepare a place for them.

Right. And he said, if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be also.

Now, this isn't a trick question. Where is Jesus right now? Or where was he going? He was going to heaven and he's in heaven now.

So he's saying, when I come again that first time, I will receive you and you will be where I am.

So he's going to take believers back to heaven with him. But then there's another event.

We call this the battle of Armageddon. That's seven years later. That's a totally different event when

Jesus actually steps foot once again here on planet earth.

But for the sake of simplicity, Paul says in first Thessalonians four, he says here that Jesus comes in the clouds.

Right. And he catches believers up. Where? Up in the clouds to meet him in the air.

And that term caught up. Okay. Caught up. We who are alive and remain shall be caught up.

That is where you get the term rapture. Okay. Who has not heard of the term rapture?

Okay. So everyone's heard of the rapture. And you say, well, where's that in the Bible? I've never seen the word rapture in the

Bible. Well, you are seeing it right here because rapture means to be caught up. So this is the clear teaching of scripture.

Jesus will come back and he will take believers to be with him. Believers will be caught up.

Verse 17 says that they or we shall be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the

Lord in the air. So who's the them? So just picture this.

Let's say Jesus were to come back today. Now, is that possible? It is possible.

You can't say it's not possible because Jesus said nobody knows when. So you can't say it's not today because nobody has any idea.

So it could be today. Could be tomorrow. Could be 10 years from now. We don't know. But let's say he did come today.

What would happen? Okay. Every true believer on earth. If Jesus came back today, every true believer would be caught up to meet the

Lord in the air. And we're caught up together with them. Who's the them?

Every single Christian who has died up until this point. So Jesus comes back in the clouds.

Every Christian throughout history is raised. They get caught up.

New resurrected body. And then we split second after them. We get caught up and we're all together.

All of God's people together. So that's what Paul is teaching in 1 Thessalonians 4.

And this does, this doctrine is called the rapture of the church.

Again, the word rapture simply means to snatch away or be caught up.

You say, well, why does that matter? Well, it matters because it could happen at any time. Okay.

It could happen at any time. If you knew you were going to die today. If you knew you were going to die tomorrow.

And some people do know. Some people get sick and they know that their time is coming short. And what happens when people know that?

They get their house in order, right? You make certain preparations. If there are relationships that are broken, you try to make amends.

You try to prepare. So if Jesus could come back at any time, what does that mean?

We should be preparing or we should always be prepared even now.

All right. So now we're going to look, we're going to continue on here into chapter 5 because we're reading about this return of Jesus that could happen at any time.

And just forget you don't know that for a moment, that you don't know when. If the

Apostle Paul is teaching the church about the rapture, the obvious question is when, right?

So, and even though we know nobody knows the day or the hour, people are still asking when, right?

Matter of fact, there's a teaching online right now that I listen to.

It's not a prophecy because this guy isn't claiming that God told him this. This is a guy who figured out through using math and all these details in the

Bible. I'm not even sure I understand it all, so I'm not going to try to explain it. But he has concluded that the rapture of the church is going to happen by October 15th.

So he's predicting that it's going to happen last week, this week, but it will happen by October 15th.

Now, on the one hand, I don't want to just say that's ridiculous or whatever because we should be prepared any time.

But at the same time, no man knows the day. So I would recommend people not put a time frame on it because everyone who's done that has been wrong, and we don't want to do that.

But still, at the same time, I appreciate the zealousness of people who are actually looking and excited about the

Lord's return because there's so many people right now who just don't even give it a second thought.

But we're interested in the timing, okay? Look at 1 Thessalonians 5 starting in verse 1 because Paul answers this question about the times.

He says, But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the

Lord so comes as what? A thief in the night. So Paul's teaching them about the rapture, and he says, because chapter 4 rolls right into chapter 5.

There were no chapter divisions in the original letter. So it's the same conversation. Okay, the rapture's going to happen.

You're going to be caught up. But concerning the time, you don't need me to tell you about that because you already know that it happens like a thief in the night.

Why does Paul call it a thief in the night? That's what Jesus called it. Remember back in Matthew 24 and 25,

Jesus himself said, If the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched.

So it was Jesus who referred to his own coming as taking place like a thief.

What does that mean? When a thief breaks in, does he announce his coming? Who's had their house broken into?

I mean, this is a terrible thing as it is. Hopefully, that's never happened to you. But if it has, the thief definitely didn't call you the night before and say,

Hey, at about 1 .30 in the morning, I'm going to break in tomorrow. That has never happened.

A thief does not announce his coming. Just like the Lord has not told us the time.

So that's why we always need to be on guard, so to speak. We always need to be ready.

We always need to be watching. I don't know how many times in the New Testament we're told this.

And so why do all these authors keep repeating the same thing again in all these different books? Because people need to be told because this is just the common thing for people to not think about it.

Well, it's been 2 ,000 years, and I don't know if it's ever going to happen. No, you need to know that it could happen at any moment.

So be on guard. So like I said, this is the mainstream view within Bible -believing, evangelical

Christianity, Baptist churches, non -denominational churches. We believe that the coming of Christ is going to happen at any time.

And then directly after that follows a time period known as the

Tribulation Period or the 70th week of Daniel. If you've heard of the

Rapture, you've heard of this time period known as the 70 -year Tribulation. Long story short,

Jesus comes back, 1 Thessalonians 4. That's known as the Day of Christ. The Day of Christ then leads into this other period known as the

Day of the Lord. What happens during the Day of the Lord? Well, this is a time of warfare, pestilence, disease, and ultimately

God's judgment falls during this period of seven years. So again, this is going to happen.

It's right here laid out in 1 Thessalonians 4 and then into 5.

Look at verse 3 of 1 Thessalonians 5. Paul, talking about this

Tribulation Period, he says, For when they say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape.

Now, if you know your Bible, you know from Matthew 24 that Jesus, when he talked,

Jesus used this specific term. He talked about the Great Tribulation. He used those exact words.

And he talked about it like a woman giving birth. Remember Jesus, Matthew 24, the labor pains.

So when you read about this, Paul writing it here in verse 3, it should automatically connect that in your mind to Jesus talking about it in Matthew 24.

So there's going to come a time, all of that to say this, there's going to come a time in this world where people in their rebellion, they will think that we have finally reached a point where we have progressed past this idea that the

Bible is the Word of God. We've gotten past all that. So the citizens of this world will think

Christianity, the Bible, worshipping God, obeying

God, all of this is in the past. The Ten Commandments, we can kind of move past all of that.

We are enlightened, and that's all stuff. You know, besides, they'll say all the problems in the world, all the death, all the warfare, it's all caused by religion.

So Christianity is the problem, and we need to get rid of Christianity. You realize we're sort of at that point right now.

I mean, we are in a transition in the Western world. It's already happened in Europe, and it's happening right now here in the

United States. Christianity, religion gets blamed for everything. And these same people, they will ignore the fact that communism and Marxism was responsible for the death of 100 million people in the 20th century, but they'll ignore all of that, and they'll want to blame

Christianity for all the problems in the world. But anyways, there's going to come a time in the world where mankind, based on Psalm 2, it's a fulfillment of Psalm 2, people will break the chains, and they will finally break free from this idea that we need to obey

God and worship God. It'll sort of be like a return to the

Tower of Babel. Who's familiar with the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11? The whole world coming together to make a name for themselves.

Do away with God, and it's just a one world community, and we can do it ourselves.

We'll build a stairway to heaven, and we can forge our own path.

We'll create a world utopia, a one world system, no hell below us.

Above us, there's only sky. If we could only get rid of God and religion, though.

Just a world without religion, that's their goal. That's going to happen, and again,

I submit to you that that is happening right now. Now, I don't have time to get into all the verses, but in 2

Thessalonians 2, right before that time, the Bible says there will be a great falling away from faith.

It actually says Jesus can't come back, or he won't come back, until the great falling away has happened first.

Again, we've seen that. It's already happened in Europe, in the Western world. Christianity, the numbers are down.

There has been, and is right now, a great falling away from faith. So people will finally think we're getting rid of God.

We can finally achieve what we want, world peace. And I'll just go back to verse 3.

When they say peace and safety, what does the Bible say? Then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape.

The return of Christ is going to happen at an hour people don't expect. All the Christians are going to be taken out of this world, and you just imagine, again, imagine it right now.

Let's say this afternoon, how many Christians are there in the world? Let's just say 150 million people worldwide.

What if 150 million people disappeared this afternoon without a trace? Would that send the world into a state of chaos?

Better believe it would. The Bible also talks about this man we call the Antichrist.

He rises to power during that time period. The stage truly has been set.

Also, the Bible talks about during this time, the whole world is going to move against Israel. Israel is going to be attacked.

They're going to try to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. And again, isn't that happening right now?

Didn't we just read about that in the news this past week? So you hear about these things.

You know, sudden destruction comes upon them, and I can understand there's somebody thinking right now, saying, well,

I hear what you're saying, but I thought Christianity was all about love and peace.

Well, Jesus is the Prince of Peace. There will be peace on earth one day when Jesus rules and reigns.

But is Christianity all about love? It's not one -dimensional, but, yeah, God is love.

The Bible says that. God is love. And here is how Scripture says that God has showed

His love to mankind. Romans 5, verse 8. But God demonstrates

His own love toward us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

How do we know that God loves us? To be honest with you, I could look around the world and say, you know,

I don't really see a lot of evidence that God loves us. I don't know. I see a lot of death.

I see a lot of destruction. If it wasn't for the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, honestly, this would be kind of a hard sell, that God even cares about us, because it doesn't really look like it.

But here's what I know. God sent His only Son into the world to die for my sin.

Why would God care about me? Why would He care about you? Because God, the

Lord, is merciful, and His mercy endures forever. He does care about you, and the proof is

He sent Jesus to die for your sin. So, yes, Christianity is about love, and if we love people and we want to see them delivered from this terrible time that's coming upon the earth, we should be willing to tell the truth, that God has provided a way of escape.

It's called salvation. Paul continues here in 1 Thessalonians 5, speaking to believers, he says in verse 4,

But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this day, that is the day Christ comes back, this time period, so that this day should overtake you.

It's not going to overtake believers, is what he's saying. You are all sons of light and sons of the day.

We are not of the night nor of darkness. And then he says this in verse 6,

Therefore, based on all of that, therefore, let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober.

So, again, I would ask you, do you believe Jesus is coming back? And, again, I realize Christians will say yes, and maybe there's some people who are considering this and say, well,

I don't know. I'm considering the information. I don't know if Jesus is coming back. There's others who have already resolved, well,

I just don't believe any of this. Well, time will tell. But going back to those questions, we need to ask ourselves, if it were to happen today, tomorrow, next week, am

I ready? Am I ready? Are we watching?

So what does that mean, to be ready and watching? So if Jesus would come, here's what it looks like.

If Jesus would come back tomorrow, and, again, we don't know, but let's just go with this theory that I mentioned a moment ago.

By October 15th, how many days does that give us? Nine days.

Do I believe that? I'm not saying I believe it. Just so, give that disclaimer.

But if I knew that I had nine days left on earth, what would I do? I submit to this.

Whatever I would do is what I should do now. So whatever the right thing that I knew

I would do, I should do it right now. Now, there are those people that if they knew they had one day or nine days, they'd go out on a shopping spree and max out their credit cards because I won't have to pay for it.

I can go buy a new car. I mean, that's kind of foolish because you wouldn't have time to enjoy it.

You'd have a few days, I suppose. That's where some people's mind goes.

You know that. I would suggest not to pass judgment on it.

That might reveal that some soul -searching is necessary. But, you know, what would we do?

I think we know the right answer. If there's anybody out there, we're talking about keeping short accounts.

If there's anyone out there that I've offended, let's say I am estranged from somebody. There's somebody

I need to apologize to. I know I should apologize, but I figure I have time.

We always think we have time. Or there's this personal issue. I know I need to deal with it, but I'm just putting it off.

Or there's some issue with a friend, family member, neighbor, whatever it is.

Well, I'll deal with it tomorrow. I'll deal with it next week. You know this mindset. And then, unfortunately, tomorrow or next week, it never comes, and it never gets dealt with.

So you're going to have very small issues between you and others. And over time, things start out small, but they tend to snowball at a certain point.

And small issues get big, and they turn into large issues. We should deal with that here and now.

Hopefully I'm telling this story correctly, but it was our former pastor here.

He would tell this story from time to time between him and his brother years ago, decades ago.

They had a falling out, from what I remember. Our pastor, when he was younger, he came to saving faith in Christ, and his brother didn't.

So he was trying to serve God and obey God, and his brother was living his own life.

And from what I remember of the story, he would sort of get on his brother's case a little bit.

Hey, you shouldn't be living like that. You shouldn't be going here. You shouldn't be doing that. And after someone hears that for a while, they get tired of hearing it, right?

Because his brother thought that he was standing in judgment of him. So long story short, whenever he would go, our pastor, whenever he would go to visit his mother, he said his brother made it a point to not be around.

And there was this alienation that happened in their relationship. And he knew it was there, and he knew he needed to deal with it.

And one day, God spoke to his heart and said, you know, you're not the Holy Spirit.

It's not your job to... You've told him about Jesus. You've done your part. Stop harping on him and just tell him you love him.

And that's what he did. One day, he went to visit or picked up the phone, and he told his brother, you know,

I'm sorry. I realize I've pushed you away. I shouldn't have said some of those things.

Please forgive me. And you know what? They made up. And their relationship was restored right before his brother died suddenly.

Shortly after that. Can you imagine how he would have felt if his brother had died and he had never made that right?

See, there's people today. There's something between you and your brother, you and your mother, you and your father -in -law, whatever it is.

You know the relationships. Maybe it's something between you and God. We always think we have time, but this is what it means to be ready in light of the

Lord's return. In a moment, we're going to celebrate communion. This is another thing. When we celebrate the

Lord's table, we're to make sure that we're all, you know, people talk about being all fessed up in the church.

You know, you confess all your sins. You keep short accounts with God. You know, if I do something wrong, what am

I supposed to do as a Christian? If I sin today, what am I supposed to do?

Confess my sin to God, ask for forgiveness. That's what we're supposed to do. That's what it means to live in light of Christ's return.

That's what it means to be ready, making sure things are right between you and the Lord, making sure that things are right between you and other people.

So I would just encourage you to consider this. If there's something between you and someone else, maybe forgiveness that you haven't reached out and offered it, or forgiveness that you haven't granted it, maybe it's time to do that today.

And of course, the most important thing, as far as being ready for the Lord's return, there is nothing more important than this.

The best way a person can be ready for Christ's return is to be saved and know it.

Romans 10, 13 says, for whosoever calleth upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. I'll close with Jesus' words again. In Matthew 25, verse 13,

He said, Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the