Are You Ready?

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2015 · 22 February 2015

Someone said, “The Christian exists in a tension between what is already and what is not yet.” We have already experienced salvation; we have not yet experienced the redemption of our bodies. We have already received the power of the Holy Spirit; we have not yet seen the fullness of that power. We have already received life eternal but we have not yet participated in the resurrection. Yes, already He has borne our sins, but we look for Him because not yet has He come the second time to full and glorious salvation.

1 John 3:2 says, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Yes, we have received Jesus Christ, yet we are not yet like Christ. Those who would look and hear the message of the second coming of Jesus Christ but who are not ready for that event should live in fear. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:11, “Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” Hebrews 10:31 says, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Deuteronomy 4:24 says, “Our God is a consuming fire.”

In Matthew 24:3, “The disciples gathered around Jesus on the Mount of Olives and they said, ‘Tell us, when these things will be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” So in verses 4 through 35, our Lord gave the signs. Now He answers the “when” question in verse 36, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”

We are now living in the church age. It comes to an end with the rapture of the church. That is the beginning of the Day of the Lord. The church is taken out. The restrainer, the Holy Spirit, does not restrain evil anymore. There’s the rise of antichrist. He looks like the savior of Israel, but halfway through a period of seven years, immediately after the rapture of the church, he desecrates the Most Holy place, he sets up an idol, calls the whole world to worship himself, and that triggers the Tribulation.

In that Great Tribulation, all kinds of terrorizing events take place. They are called by Jesus, the birth pains of the kingdom. They are the successive pains that come upon the earth that issue in the birth of the kingdom of Christ. They come at the very end, similar to birth pains come at the end of a pregnancy. The judgment of God falls as described in Revelation 6 through 18. Then the heavenly bodies fall and the powers of the heavens are shaken, and in that blackness, Christ appears in verses 29 to 31.

But how long from that sign of the Son of Man in heaven to the actual establishing of the kingdom and judgment, we don’t know. And there is an interval there. In the book of Daniel, it’s at least a 75-day interval, but it might even be more than that. And somewhere in that time period after the Tribulation, Christ is going to come in final glory and judgment. But the exact moment, the exact day is not known.

Now, that’s very important, brothers and sisters. Jesus Christ’s second coming will occur at an unknown time. It could happen in any generation. Before it happens, there will be the rapture of the church, there will be the time of Tribulation, there will be the rise of antichrist, there will be all the signs, the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then some time following that, Jesus Christ will come.

Now, what is to be our response to this sudden coming of Christ? First of all, we saw in our last sermon, alertness. Look at Matthew 24:37-39, “But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

It’s amazing that the people in the time of Noah didn’t believe it was going to rain because they had had somebody telling them that for 120 years. Noah was a preacher of righteousness and judgment. And he gave them a very large sign of coming judgment by building a massive boat, an ark. And it says until the Flood came and engulfed them, they didn’t realize it. They just went on with the routines of life, literally ignoring the preaching of judgment, the sign and the symbol of the coming Flood. And so it will be in the day of the second coming of Christ.

The world mostly will ignore the rapture; they will ignore the abomination of desolation; they will ignore the events that occur during the Tribulation time. They will ignore even the sign of the Son of Man in heaven; they will rationalize it away. And when Jesus comes, they will be shocked. But such is the blindness of the human heart. Listen, the people in Israel couldn’t even tell when God Himself walked in their midst. And the truth is that in that age, sin will be worse than it has ever been.

And then judgment comes in verses 40-41, “And then shall two be in the field and one taken and the other left. Two grinding at the mill, and one taken and the other left.” This judgment will divide humanity. Those taken are taken in judgment. Those left are left to go into the kingdom. The righteous will be left to go into the kingdom and the wicked will be taken away into outer darkness and eternal judgment.

So what is the first response to the sudden unexpected of second coming? Verse 42 says, “Watch therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord does come.” In Matthew 16, Jesus said to the Jews, “You are great at predicting the weather but you have no idea about the spiritual signs.” So the first requirement is alertness. The second is readiness.

Look at verse 43, “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.” “But know this” states a fact. If the householder had known time the thief would come, he would have been watching. Jesus says, “the householder did not know what time the thief would come, so he could not have prevented his house to be broken into.”

And the Lord’s coming is often likened to the coming of a thief. It is not that Christ is like a thief, it is that Christ will come suddenly and unexpectedly like a thief comes suddenly and unexpectedly. Now, that it is hard to imagine people will not be affected by the rapture and all these other events. But sin is so overwhelmingly blinding, and the mystery of iniquity having reached its apex, and hostility toward God reaching a fever pitch, such that people are going to explain it away in other ways.

Verse 44 says, “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” Look for just a moment in Luke where the Lord gives basically the same warning in a few different terms. Luke 12:35-37, “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; 36 and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. 37 Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them.”

Now we can go back to Matthew 24. So what is the difference in being alert and being ready? Being alert has to do with recognizing the signs. Now readiness has to do with a prepared heart, it has to do with salvation. And there is a third thing that is required, not only do we have to be alert, and be ready, but we also have to be faithful. Notice verse 45 through 51, faithfulness. Here again is a beautiful analogy, a parable, which our Lord also uses in Luke 12 in another setting because it illustrates so very clearly the point that He wants to make. It is a powerful, powerful illustration.

Matthew 24:45-51, “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. 47 Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. 48 But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, 51 and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Who is this faithful and wise servant whom his lord has made ruler over his household to give them food in due season? In this parable the lord is like God, the servant is like every man and woman in the world. And every person has been given a stewardship, every one of us has been given a responsibility. It is as if the Lord says, “here, you manage life and intellect, emotion and talent and spiritual sensitivity, all that I give you in creating you in My image, all that I give you in terms of opportunity to serve Me, you’re responsible for.”

In other words, every person in the world - not just Christians - every single person in the world has been given a management test by God. Life, breath, privilege, all those things are granted to us by God and they are a stewardship for which we are accountable. And hell will be populated not only by the devil and his angels, but by people who wasted that privilege, who embezzled God’s substance. Every man and woman in the world will be accountable to God for the wastefulness of their stewardship and who failed and refused to serve God in the way that He commands.

Verse 46 says, “Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes will find so doing.” That indicates that they are believers, redeemed and obedient. Obedience is always the mark. Doing the will of God is always the mark of true salvation. So when the Lord comes, He will find the true servant doing what He told them to do – fulfilling His will and living out their stewardship to the fullest.

Verse 47, “Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods.” What that says is when the Lord comes back and finds His servants faithful and obedient, He is going to put them over everything He possesses. Revelation 3:21 says, “To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.” What you do with this little slice of time now will determine whether or not you will rule in eternity with Christ.

Verse 48-51, “But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, 51 and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Those people, who not being faithful over little, cannot be made lord over much.

And there are many people who are going to be like that. They say, “Okay, I have heard all this prophetic stuff. As I see the signs coming, I will just wait till the last moment. And in the meantime I’m going to focus on myself, and if the others get in the way and try to take anything I have got, I will punish them. And I am going to have my fun and I am going to eat and drink with my friends. I am going to live the worldly lifestyle with gusto.

That is an illustration of an unregenerate person. And that’s why it says he will be given a portion with the hypocrites, verse 51. It doesn’t seem to indicate here that he’s much of a hypocrite. I mean a hypocrite is somebody who pretends to be religious. This guy isn’t pretending to be religious, not beating up people and running around with drunks. But he will go to the same place that religious phonies go, which is to say that the category is broader than just this single illustration. It’s for all the unregenerate people.

Well, the lord of that servant is going to come in a day, verse 50 says, when you’re not looking for him and an hour you’re not even aware of. Don’t postpone choosing. Christ isn’t going to change. If you don’t want Jesus Christ now when sin is to some extent restrained, what makes you think you’ll want Him more in the future when sin is unrestrained and your evil is never higher in the history of man?

And verse 51 says, “When the master comes back and finds his unfaithful servant, he cuts him in two.” The Greek verb is also used in Exodus 29:17 to describe the sawing in half of an animal when it was offered in sacrifice. It is to illustrate the serious, devastating judgment of the Lord. Jesus is going to come when they don’t expect it, and the people are going to pay with a severe price. The man’s going to be cut in half, given a portion with all the rest of the unbelievers and hypocrites, and spend the rest of eternity weeping and gnashing his teeth in hell.

So what is to be the right kind of preparation for an unexpected and sudden coming of Christ? We have to be alert, ready and faithful to His command and His Word and fulfill the stewardship He has given us. We are going to learn more about this as we go into Matthew 25, as we look at the virgins, some of whom were ready and some of whom were not, and as we look at the talents, some of which were wasted and some of which were used.

Now, listen carefully what 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3 says, “For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. 3 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.” Just when you think everything is okay, just when you think you are going to make it and survive, then sudden destruction comes on you like travail on a woman with child. And they shall not escape.

I don’t have any desire to go through that tribulation period. The reality is much worse than any description in the Bible could conjure up in our imaginations. We want to see and meet Jesus Christ. Why would I want to be in an antichrist rule when I could be in the presence of Christ at the marriage supper of the Lamb? The Lord will take us out because our hearts are ready. But for the rest of the world, they’re going to think, “Oh, it will all work out, peace and safety.” And then sudden destruction when they least expect it. I hope you’re ready.

There is an interesting story of three apprentice demons who came before Satan. And he sent them to the earth to do their apprenticeship. And the first demon said, “I will tell people there is no God.” And Satan said, “It won’t work; they know better.” And the second apprentice demon said, “I will tell people there is no hell.” And Satan said, “It won’t work; they know better.” And the third demon said, “I will tell people don’t hurry, there still is much time.” And Satan said, “You will gain many souls.”

Paul said in Romans 13:11-12, “And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.” Listen to God and do what He says. Let us pray.