Somebody tell me something that you are looking forward to. Is there something you do every year that is coming up? Maybe a vacation or an anniversary or something. If you didn’t have it on the calendar, what might remind you that it was coming up?
So, the Super Bowl is coming up pretty soon, right? Now, if you didn’t have a calendar and didn’t know when it was, what are some signs you might look for to know when it was coming? Would you look for colder weather? Would you see that the holidays are over and know it was coming soon? If you saw the Cowboys quit playing football, you would know the Super Bowl was coming up pretty soon, right? That just makes sense. 😊
In fact, a lot of big days get compared to the Super Bowl. Black Friday is the Super Bowl for retailers. Stuff like that. There is a lot of hype around the Super Bowl. It gets built up for weeks and weeks. It’s a major announcement when the half-time entertainment is announced. There are big celebrations for both teams when they find out they are going there. Even if you aren’t a football fan, you know when the Super Bowl is coming on TV. It’s hard to miss. It is the climax; the big day; the highlight; the denouement (as Mrs. Overman taught us) of the football season and people all over the world are looking forward to it.
But there is another day coming that I dare say is going to be bigger than the Super Bowl. It is coming soon although it is not on the calendar and never will be. It is a day that will change the whole world as we know it. It will completely change the way things are done and lives are lived. It is a day that has been predicted for thousands of years and I believe that day will come before I die. I really do, and yet there is not much hype about it and we need to be watching for it. What day am I talking about?
I am talking about the rapture. I’m talking about the day that Jesus comes to get His bride, the church, and takes us back to Heaven. Now, we are going to talk in more detail about that day next week, God willing. I say, “God willing” because it may just be His will for the rapture to happen this week; maybe even today; maybe even before I finish this sentence….
But today, I want to help us all get prepared for that day. I want us to be biblical in our observations about what is going on in this world and be able to see that we are in the “End Times.” Do you believe that? Do you believe we are in the end times? I ask because people have been claiming to be in the end times since, well, the day of Jesus’ resurrection.
I believe Paul thought Jesus was coming back in his lifetime. So, what makes you believe it? What are the signs? I hear people say that the world is going to get worse and worse and yet I read all the way back to the Old Testament and people were doing some pretty nasty stuff way back then. Do you know where they get the idea that the world is going to get worse? Well, one of the passages is in 2 Timothy chapter 3. The Timothys are in between some other “T” books; the books of Thessalonians and Titus in the New Testament. This book was not written BY Timothy but written TO Timothy by the Apostle Paul. Paul is encouraging young Timothy in what is probably Timothy’s first-time pastoring. Paul is passing on what he has learned in all his years of ministry and I can imagine young Timothy reading and re-reading over again this last letter that Paul ever wrote.
Paul is preparing Timothy for what to expect in his lifetime and I believe we can be prepared as well by reading again these same words. Let’s read 2 Timothy 3:1-5. But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God- 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
Now, don’t raise your hand or say anything but how many of you read through this and immediately thought of at least one person that fits this bill? I bet you anything you read about people that are lovers of themselves or lovers of money or without self-control and you thought, “Yep, that’s old Bob right there.” It’s actually not that hard to do. It’s easy to think of people in this world that are defined in this way.
But I’m going to read it again and this time I want you to make sure that YOU are not in this list. Oh, yea, it’s easy to think of others but Paul is not necessarily telling Timothy to watch out for unbelievers. Unbelievers always act this way. That’s just what the average non-Christian does. The problem for Timothy’s church and for Christ Fellowship is when someone who claims to be a born-again Christian has these traits. So let’s read it one more time to make sure we aren’t describing ourselves here. Let’s read it slowly. Starting in verse 2.
2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God- 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
Again, don’t reply out loud and don’t nudge your spouse but how did you do? The problem with looking at it like this is it is too easy to lie to yourself. It’s also too easy to compare yourself to old Bob and if Bob is still too good then you just keep finding other people to compare yourself to until you’re like, “Well, at least I’m not as proud, abusive or brutal as Hitler. So, there’s that.” The problem comes when you compare yourself to Jesus.
My dear family, if this is what the church is going to look like at the time of the rapture, I can’t believe Jesus has waited this long. Good grief, hold on because surely it will be any second! Now, I hear you. I’m being a little dramatic, right? I’m a little hasty because surely there are some prophecies that need to be fulfilled before Jesus can come back, right? Find me one.
This is really exciting stuff because it actually wasn’t that long ago when one of the last prophecies was actually fulfilled. Let me give you some background. Do you remember in Luke 19:41 where it says about Jesus, “But as he came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. 'How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes. Before long your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side. They will crush you into the ground, and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place, because you did not recognize it when God visited you.'"?
Jesus prophesied there and in Luke 21 that Jerusalem would be destroyed and all Israel would be dispersed and that happened in about A.D. 70 when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish temple, sending most of the Jews into exile. It was also a fulfillment of the prophecy of Leviticus 26:32-33 that says, "I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins."
That happened and Israel was not even a country. It ceased to even exist at all for nearly 2,500 years but was declared a new sovereign state by an act of the United Nations on May 14, 1948. My mom told me the other day that my granddad used to preach on how Israel would one day become a nation again. He didn’t know how but scripture said it and he believed it and it came true the same year my mother became a Christian, 1948.
It happened because it was prophesied to happen in places like Ezekiel 20:34, "I will bring you from the nations and gather you from the countries where you have been scattered -- with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with outpoured wrath."
Isaiah 43:5-6 says, "Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, `Give them up!' and to the south, `Do not hold them back.' Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth…"
I tell you all of that because that was the last of the prophesies that needed to be fulfilled according to scripture. Israel is a nation again and now Jesus is at the right hand of the throne of God the Father just waiting for Him to give the word and Jesus will come back to get us. So, what does it mean to you that His return is imminent? How does it, or better yet, how should it affect your life today?
Let me give you a few words from scripture about how the imminent return of Jesus should make us feel. You might want to write down these verses and go back later and read them thinking about the soon to come rapture. 1 John 3:1-2 tells us it ought to encourage us. See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Philippians 4:4 says, “Rejoice in the LORD always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be evident to all. The LORD is near. It should bring us joy knowing that Jesus will be here soon.
Philippians 3:20-21 says, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the LORD Jesus Christ, 21who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” We ought to be looking forward to that! You youngsters may not really appreciate this but us older folks should. We are going to get new and glorious bodies when He comes. I can’t wait!
Lastly, I could read all of Matthew 24 and 25 because there Jesus warns over and over again what life is going to be like just before the rapture. He says in chapter 24, verses 36-44, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. 42"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your LORD will come. 43But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
Okay, I have one more but let me first ask you a question. Suppose Walmart was having a big sale; I mean a really big sale. It’s a buy one – get 100 free sale or something like that. You would want to know about that, wouldn’t you? And your friend that works at Walmart knows you would want to know and so she calls you and tells you to get up there. It’s sale day. So, what do you do? I would expect you to go up there. But do you know what else I expect you to do? I expect you to call me! I want to know. I want to buy one, get 100. How selfish of you not to tell me about it. You don’t have to know everything about the sale. I don’t have to know when it started or even what aisle it’s on. I’ll find it when I get there. Just tell me what you know.
The very last words written in Mark’s gospel are these: “After the LORD Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. 20Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere.” (Mark 16:19-20) We know that He has just told them the Great Commission to go into all the world and make disciples and so that’s what they did. We know that they didn’t understand everything but what they knew, they shared. Their lives were changed and their futures were changed. How selfish it would have been for them not to tell other people what they knew.
This world and even the global church is getting worse and worse. If you don’t tell the people around you, who is going to? Especially your kids and grandkids. Who are you expecting to tell them about how to live and what the future holds? Are you waiting for the school districts to tell them? Are you waiting for politicians, TV, movies, radio? Because all that stuff is telling them, like it or not. But they aren’t telling them the truth. It’s up to you.
It’s up to you to start out telling them that Romans 3:23 says we are all sinners. Then tell them that Romans 6:23 says what we deserve for that sin is eternal death in Hell. That’s bad news. But the good news is found in places like John 3:16 that says that God sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross to pay for our sins and all we have to do is believe. That belief will be proven in our changed lives, lives that in themselves tell of Jesus coming back any minute now.
Are you ready? Are your loved ones ready? There is only one way to Heaven and that is through Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no man gets to the Father without Him. (John 14:6) Let’s bow our heads and close our eyes as the music plays and ask God what He wants you to do.
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