Sermon Tone Analysis

- When a sprinter walks out on the track, readying himself for the race, he goes through a preparation process

The Reason To Be Ready

Date: 5-05-19 831 Echuca

- When a sprinter walks out on the track, readying himself for the race, he goes through a preparation process

- He comes out & he walks causally around his starting blocks to relax himself & to get a feel for what is about to happen

- He loosens himself up, shaking & twitching, until his body is feeling loose & ready to give it all & explode off the starting blocks

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- He then gets into his lane and carefully aligns his feet on the starting blocks making sure they are in the right position for a fast start

- When he’s in place, he awaits & listens attentively for a “On your mark” &, then, the starter gun which starts the race

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- All this preparation so he can start the race well & finish the race well

- If he wasn’t prepared, he could easily be left behind

- If one of his feet, for example, was not correctly placed on the starting bloke & it slipped off after the starter sounded, then that slip would not only cost him the race, it might even cost him a place

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- Jesus made one thing clear to His disciples – be ready

-- "You too, be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect."

- The main people this was addressed to was His apostles who had the responsibility of taking the message of the Gospel out to the nations

- The main people this was addressed to was His apostles who had the responsibility of taking the message of the Gospel out to the nations

- But it also has a secondary impact on every Christian as well to serve the Lord & to do that faithfully

- Being ready, means being prepared for Jesus’ return at any time

1.

Jesus Is Returning

- It’s been 2000 yrs since Jesus trod the ground of Israel & gave His life on the cross & was raised to life from the grave

- Some have thought that His promise of a return was a mistake

- Some believe that He has already returned – an interesting proposal - but it doesn’t match up at all with the overall message of the Scripture

- Still, others, believe that time is irrelevant to the Lord’s purposes

- Let’s take a moment today to look, briefly, into the return of Jesus

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- The first fact that we can declare is that Jesus said He will return

- It seems obvious that His return is a literal return & not just some spiritual return

- Here the angels say...

– 11 They also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky?

This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven."

- The same way is in a literal bodily return as He ascended in a literal, bodily ascent

- Now you can argue black & blue that heaven is not up in the sky so where did Jesus go

- I’ve actually heard someone say that He journeyed to the end of the universe

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- You need to realise that God often works through the present constructs of the day

- Above the sky was where heaven was thought to be

- But the abode of God is outside the created universe – He is Spirit so it’s probably mixing it up too much to insist on a physical location

a) A Spectacular, Speedy Return

- What is relevant is that this is how Jesus will return as explained by the angels

- In particular, what is mentioned is Jesus’ warning against being deceived & being led astray to another Jesus

- People saying “here he is”, or “there he is”

- To counter that, Jesus says that He will not come in the normal human way

- Nor will He come with signs to be observed

—24 “For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day.

- Not here, nor there, but as lightning is witnessed by all so will Jesus’ return be witnessed by all

- It will be a sight to be observed & it will be spectacular

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- This is very unlike the birth-day of Jesus, where only a select few people saw Him

- A day when no one cared enough, nor even noticed enough, to give Him a room

- A day when all that was available for Jesus was the feedbox of an ass, as Luther wrote

- BUT on the day of His return, every one will know, every eye will see

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Q.

How will everyone see, since He can only be at one place at one time & the world is such a big place?

- We don’t know, but Paul was in Thessalonica – a long way from Jerusalem – when he taught of the coming of Jesus

—8 Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming;

—6 For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, 8 dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

9 These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,

- John was on the island of Patmos, off Turkey, when He taught about Jesus

Rev.1

BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him.

So it is to be.

Amen.

b) But There Will Be a Delay

- The early church was under the impression that Jesus was going to come soon – even within their lifetime

- Of course, we know that He hasn’t come back

- 2000 yrs seems a long time & there have been generations of Christians that have come & gone & will never witness Christ’s return

- What we need to understand is that, as much as the church is to be vigilant, in awaiting His return, the church needs to realise that Jesus also predicted that there would be a delay in His return

—8 And He said, “See to it that you are not misled; for many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and, ‘The time is near.’

Do not go after them.

9 “When you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately.”

Q.

The question that can be reasonably asked is why is He waiting?

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- There are multiply reasons why we might delay, for example, a project, but usually the main reason is that we are waiting for something else to fall into place, first, before the project can advance

- There is something that Jesus is waiting for to fall into place before He returns

- Remember how Jesus expressed the kingdom in...

-- 31 He presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; 32 and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR come and NEST IN ITS BRANCHES."

- So the kingdom has a small beginning symbolised by the small mustard seed, but then huge growth symbolised by the large tree

- The kingdom will grow & become immense & with 2.2 billion Christians today around the world, the kingdom of God has indeed grown

- With the current population of the world at 7.7 billion that represents between a quarter & a third of the entire world’s population

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- Jesus also specifically says, that there will be a caveat on the timing of His return & that caveat is the spread of the Gospel message

- The kingdom of God & the Gospel are intertwined with each other

- The Gospel is the message of the kingdom & when one repents & believes in the Gospel, they enter the kingdom of God

- Jesus, when talking about John the Baptist – that no one has been greater than John yet, He says, the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he

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- This means that the kingdom has a dynamic that cannot be equated with the fallen age of man – it is way, far, superior

- John was a part of that fallen age because his life & ministry were prior to the death & resurrection of Christ

- Yes, he was a prophet of God like all before him

- But the kingdom of Christ is qualitatively different & better

- In my opinion, it is because of the rupture or entry of Christ's saving grace & the subsequent bestowal of the Holy Spirit, into a sin-drenched world

- That the Spirit comes on all who repent & turn to Jesus is vastly different from any era before

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- The imperative, then, is that the Gospel must traverse the world for it is only through the Gospel, that one may know & enter the kingdom of God

-- 10 "The gospel must first be preached to all the nations.

-- 14 "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

c) Confusion Over Two Questions

- One problem, people run into when they read about Jesus’ return is that they conflate His disciples two questions into one & think that Jesus is answering them as if they are only one question

—1 Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. 2 And He said to them, “Do you not see all these things?

Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.” 3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, 1. “Tell us, when will these things happen, and 2. what will be the sign of Your coming, and/even of the end of the age?”

- That may sound like 3 questions, but it’s really only two because Jesus’ coming & the end of the age is one & the same thing

- The disciples were asking about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem that Jesus predicted

- “Not one stone will be left upon another”, said Jesus

- The beautiful temple that had been worked on for years & years

- Herod’s temple was magnificent & left all others behind in it’s wake, even Solomon’s temple

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- But Jesus said “not one stone will be left on another”

Q.

That sounds apocalyptic doesn’t it?