Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.15UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.11UNLIKELY
Fear
0.12UNLIKELY
Joy
0.55LIKELY
Sadness
0.26UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.39UNLIKELY
Confident
0.07UNLIKELY
Tentative
0UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.87LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.92LIKELY
Extraversion
0.25UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.67LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.82LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
The Second Coming of Christ
Part 6: Be Ready for the Rapture
Matthew 24:40-25:13 (Initial reading: Matthew 24:40-44)
Sermon by Rick Crandall
Grayson Baptist Church - July 22, 2015
*Some of the shortest questions have the longest impact: "Do you love me?" "Will you marry me?" Tonight I want to ask you a question like that.
It's a short question, but it will determine your destiny for all eternity: "Are you ready for the rapture?"
With all His heart, God wants us to be ready, so in this Scripture, the Lord stresses 3 essentials related to our readiness.
1. First: Jesus stresses the priority for us to be ready.
*Remember how this conversation all started.
It was just two days before the cross.
Jesus had just finished condemning Jewish religious leaders in a scalding way.
He condemned them for their spiritual pride and their hypocrisy.
Jesus also condemned them for their stubborn rejection of Him as the true Messiah.
*Then on the way out of town, the disciples stopped to admire the Temple.
Matthew 24:1 says: "Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple."
I can imagine them saying, "Lord take a look!
Isn't it wonderful?
Aren't you impressed?"
*Jesus was not impressed.
And in vs. 2, the Lord told them, "Do you not see all these things?
Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.''
*The disciples were shocked.
The destruction of the Temple was one of the last things they expected, so they began to question the Lord.
Matthew 24:3 says, "Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, 'Tell us, when will these things be?
And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?'''
*The disciples asked three questions that day:
-"When will these things be?"
-What will be the sign of Your coming?"
-And "What will be the sign of the end of the age?"
*We've studied the Lord's answer for several weeks, looking at the mysteries, the Old Testament background, and the final fulfillment of His words.
But the first thing to notice tonight is this: Jesus spent most of His time in these Scriptures stressing the priority for us to be ready.
*Jesus began His answer in Matthew 24:4, and in Matthew's Gospel the Lord's answer goes on for 94 verses.
Counting the judgment story at the end of Matthew 25, Jesus spent 62 of these 94 verses focusing on being ready for the rapture.
When the disciples asked their questions, the Lord spent two thirds of His answer on the priority for us to be ready.
*The Lord described the rapture starting in vs. 40:
40.
"Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left.
41.
Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.
42.
Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming."
*Being ready for Jesus' return is so important that next the Lord told four parables to help His followers understand.
We see the first of the Lord's parables starting in vs. 43.
There Jesus said:
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.
44.
Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect Him."
*Someone breaking into our house is a terrible, frightful thing, especially if we are home in the middle of the night.
We want to be ready for that, especially if we know when the thief is coming.
If you had solid information that a thief was coming to break into your house, can you imagine not getting ready?
-- No way!
We would do everything we possibly could to be ready.
*Ella Edwards was ready.
Ella was a tiny, sweet-as-sugar, senior adult lady we knew at church in West Monroe.
Miss Ella was as good as gold.
She was like a grandmother to our children when their own grandmothers lived hundreds of miles away.
*Before she moved to town, Miss Ella lived way out in the country by herself for many years.
One day I asked her if she was ever afraid living way out like that by herself.
She laughed a little and said, "No!
-- I had a shotgun by the front door and a shotgun by the back door, and I knew how to use them!"
*Ella Edwards was ready for a break-in, and Jesus wants us to be ready for His return.
It is urgently important, so Jesus stresses the priority for us to be ready.
2.
He also stresses the proof that we are ready.
*What is the proof that we are ready for the rapture?
-- Well, there are several good answers to this question.
But in the Lord's second parable, the proof of our readiness is our faithful service to the Lord.
Please listen to the Lord starting in vs. 45:
45.
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.
*What is the proof that we are ready for the rapture?
-- Here it is our faithful service to the Lord.
But please don't misunderstand me.
We cannot be saved by serving the Lord.
We could never do enough to earn our way into Heaven.
Salvation has always been by grace through faith in Jesus Christ!
*In the Old Testament salvation was by grace through faith in the promise of the coming Messiah.
In the New Testament salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
That's because Jesus IS the promised Messiah who came to die on the cross for our sins.
*Salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, because Jesus is the Risen Savior who gives eternal life to anyone who will trust in Him.
That's why in Ephesians 2, Paul says to all Christians:
8.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9. not of works, lest anyone should boast.
*We are not saved by serving but we are saved to serve, so in the very next verse, Paul said, "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."
If I am really a Christian, I don't just have a Savior, I serve a Risen Lord.
*Remember that the first disciples had a hard time with this concept of being a servant.
Mark 9:33-35 tells us that the disciples had been in an argument as they traveled down the road with Jesus.
33.
Then He came to Capernaum.
And when He was in the house He asked them, "What was it you disputed among yourselves on the road?''
34.
But they kept silent, for on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest.
35.
And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.''
*This incident in took place maybe 8 or 9 months before the cross.
But this wasn't the only time they argued about who was the greatest.
In Matthew 23:11-12 just days before the cross, Jesus had to tell them again:
11. "He who is greatest among you shall be your servant.
12.
And whoever exalts himself will be abased, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
*Then in Luke 22:23-27 just a few hours before the cross, even after the first Lord's Supper:
23.
They began to question among themselves, which of them it was who would do this thing (i.e. who would betray Jesus).
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9