Questions of Christ's 2nd Coming

Matthew 24, and I'll read verses 3 to 28. As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately.

! Tell us, they said, when will this happen? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? Jesus answered, watch out that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name, claiming I am the Christ, and will deceive many.

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.

Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these things are the beginning of birth pangs.

Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time, many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. But he who stands firm to the end will be saved, and this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

So, when you see standing in the holy place, the abomination that causes desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel, let the reader understand, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers.

Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be equaled again.

If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened.

At that time, if anyone says to you, look, here is the Christ, or there he is, do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect, if that were possible.

See, I have told you ahead of time. So if anyone tells you, there he is, out in the desert, do not go out.

Or here he is in the inner rooms, do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather. That's why we need to be ready.

But it seems like you're telling me something different. And so I want to clear up that confusion a little bit, or at least help you along to an answer.

And then there's another reason I want to take this slight detour on this score, is because this whole questioning of the timing, this whole question about the timing of the Lord's coming and the events surrounding, is an important question to consider.

So think about it. The Apostle Paul, all the evidence points to the fact that the Apostle Paul was only in Thessalonica for a couple of weeks, for a few weeks.

We know of only definitely three weeks that he was there. Maybe it was a little more. But he talked about these things before he left. This was the diet that he put baby Christians on.

And that's why in 2 Thessalonians 2.5, Paul could say, Don't you remember that when I was with you, I used to tell you these things? That's very interesting.

He considered this to be part and parcel of the diet for young Christians. And that seems, honestly, strange to us.

And I think we might need to be a little, we need some correction at this point. If Paul thought these things were important for young believers, then surely we should at least be able to have some sort of handle on them and understanding of them.

And then after all, all Scripture is God-breathed. And is useful for teaching and rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

So not having a good grasp of what those end days, those very final last days, are going to look like, it's sort of like doing some serious gardening without a spade.

You're not thoroughly equipped to do very much gardening without a spade. Or it's like a soldier going to battle without a helmet. Not thoroughly equipped. Not ready for what he's going to face.

Or, you know, think about it this way. If you were hiking on a long trail, let's say you're hiking the Appalachian Trail and you started in Georgia or North Carolina and you're going up to New York, you're going to want a map of what the end of the road is going to look like.

The end of the trail. You wouldn't think it foolish to have some sort of map at the end of the last bit so that you would know what it's going to look like. You would say, well, I need this map.

Or I might not make it. I might go astray at the very end. And so tonight's like a little map. It's not thorough. It's not everything that could be said. But it is a little map.

It's a helmet. It's a spade. It's a spade to equip us to be ready to understand these last days. And so we're just going to have two points and then some brief application at the end.

The first point is this. The problem. And here's the problem that I want to talk about today. The problem that I kind of want to see if I can tease out a good answer.

There seems to be a contradiction between what the Bible says in some places about the return of Christ and what it says in other places.

On the one side, you have passages that really seem to be saying that Jesus can come at any time. You don't know when.

Watch. You don't know when. It might be tonight. It might be tomorrow. You just don't know. So I don't want to belabor this point, but listen to a few of these passages. You have Matthew 24 on your laps.

There. Matthew 24, verse 42. Therefore, keep watch because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this. If the owner of the house had known at which time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.

So you also must be ready because the Son of Man will come in an hour when you do not expect him. So that seems pretty clear that we do not know when our Lord will come.

You do not know that hour and Christ, so Christ can apparently come in a very surprising manner. He's going to come in a very surprising manner at any time. Then Matthew 25, verse 13.

Therefore, keep watch because you do not know the day or the hour. So again, we don't know. It's going to be a surprise.

Just listen to Mark 13, 32. No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

How closely guarded is the secret? Well, angels don't know, and the Son doesn't know.

Now, this is a passage that makes me want to start stretching and get ready to do some theological gymnastics about the Son not knowing, but the Father knowing. What exactly does that mean? Well, whatever that means, the point is clear.

You and I don't know. Isn't that really the main point? If the Son doesn't know, then we certainly don't know. 1 Peter 4, 7.

The end of all things is at hand. It's at hand. How close is it? Well, it's as close as your hand in your pocket. Not far at all.

It's right here. Revelation 1, 3. The time is near. Revelation 22, 7. Behold, I am coming soon.

Revelation 22, 12. Behold, I am coming soon. Revelation 22, 20. He who testifies to these things says, surely I am coming soon.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. So there's this one side of this tension in the Bible that we find. And if there were no other passages in the Bible, you would probably conclude that Jesus' coming is imminent.

He could come at any day or any hour. And it would seem to blunt His commands to be ready if there were things that would need to come before that.

Or things that would be signs of that coming. But there are other texts to deal with. And that's where we get into this tension that I want to talk about.

We worked through one of those texts last time in 2 Thessalonians. There was these two events that Paul said, until these happen, the day of the Lord is not going to happen. The rebellion and the revelation of the man of lawlessness.

And so these texts say that there's going to be several signs, these several visible events that are going to happen. They're going to precede.

They will come before Christ's coming. And Burkhoff, a well-regarded Reformed theologian, said this, According to Scripture, several important events must occur before the return of the Lord.

And therefore, it cannot be called imminent. So, imminent or not imminent, at any time or not at any time.

Burkhoff is saying, well, it's not imminent. And we're going to see if he's exactly right or not. Pastor John read some of these other events in Matthew 24.

So, if you have your Bible open there, look at verse 14. So, in this very same passage, it talks about, you're not going to know, there's this talk about, well, you, there's these signs.

Matthew 24, verse 14. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

The evangelization of the nations will come before the second coming of Christ, which pushes back his coming until that happens.

pushes that, his coming until after that happens. Then there will be these signs in the heavens. Look at verses 29 and 30. Immediately after the distress of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.

The stars will fall from the sky and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. Whatever that exactly means, there's going to be these very obvious signs that will come right before Christ's coming.

These signs will precede his coming. And then there's what people call the great tribulation. Mark 13, 19 and 20 says this, because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning when God created the world until now and never to be equaled again.

We read it in 24, verse 21, for then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now and never to be equaled again. And so, before the end there's going to be a time of great distress, apparently, greater than anything's ever experienced.

And we've already talked about the rebellion and the revelation of the man of lawlessness. Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed.

And so, these two events will come before Christ's coming. And then, there's possibly one more that I just want to mention. In Romans 11, Paul talks about the fullness of Israel being saved.

Romans 11, 26 says, and in this manner all Israel will be saved. And so, depending on how you interpret this passage, Paul seems to be saying that in the end, before the end, there will be a large number of Jews brought into the kingdom of God through Christ before the end.

And I personally think that's what Paul is saying. So do a lot of other people. But there are others who don't read it that way. And if you disagree with me on that, we can talk about it later.

But for now, I just want to point it out as another possible thing that will happen that Paul seems to be predicting will happen before the end, before Christ's coming. And so, as we look at those sets of passages, it seems to be clear that Christ simply cannot return at any moment.

As we look at these events, the rebellion, the Antichrist, the great tribulation, the salvation of a large number of Jews, these great signs in the heavens, it doesn't seem like that has happened or is happening today.

And so, the question is, how do we bring these two sets of passages together? How do we reconcile these passages? It's at hand.

You don't know when. Watch! And, well, that day won't happen until these events, these things happen. So, that's the problem.

I want to lay it out before you. Now, second, this is the proposal. How can we balance these things? Before I get to what I think is the best answer, I want to give you three wrong solutions.

So, wrong solution number one is to say that Christ could not come at any time. Just to blanket, simply say, Christ could not come at any time.

It's to simply say what Burkhoff said, Christ's coming is not imminent. He just can't come at any time. And, so, if this is your position, you're going to simply say this, well, Christ can't come until those events happen, and it's apparent those things won't happen for the next two or three weeks, or the next two or three years, and so, obviously, Christ is not going to come in the next two or three years.

Do you understand that reasoning? That, what, if you take this position, you basically push Christ's coming back the amount of time that you think those events are going to take to happen.

Do you see what I'm saying? So, for example, at the rate we're going, I would say that we are not going to be able to evangelize all the unreached peoples of the world in the next ten years.

if this was my position, then I would say, well, Christ won't come for another ten years. If I'm just going to say what I think, then Christ won't come back for another ten years.

This position is wrong, and it's wrong because, well, it makes sense on a certain level, but it's wrong because it's built on confidence, on my confidence, confidence, and my own abilities to understand the Bible, one, but to understand what's going on in the world, to understand how those prophecies are going to be fulfilled.

And so, I'm putting my confidence in Christ not coming on my abilities to predict the future, and also to read the present.

And then it's wrong just on another level because doesn't it really gut all those scriptures about waiting. It just totally takes the power out of all that side of watch and wait.

You don't know when. He says, I'll come as a thief in the night, so be ready. So if I thought my house was not going to be robbed for another ten years, then am I really going to be ready for the thief in the next ten years?

Do you see what I'm saying? I'm not going to prepare for a thief that I don't think is coming for another ten years. And so this position does that. It guts all of those first passages of power and authority.

And it uses the signs, the events, in the wrong way, in the completely wrong way. The signs were meant to intensify our expectation.

They were meant to make us long and hope that Christ is coming. They were not meant to make us go to sleep and say, I'll wake up in ten years when I think the nations have been evangelized.

Jesus said, when you see these things, look up and raise your head. Your redemption is drawing near. So instead of lifting up our head, instead of these signs encouraging us and raising up our expectation, we basically say, I don't see these signs happening and so I'm not going to worry about it.

I'm not going to watch anymore. Until what I think those signs mean, until that happens, then I am not, there's no point in looking.

You can't come for a few years, so what's the point of looking for them today? That's basically using the signs in the wrong way.

It's kind of like saying, I don't need to stop at stop signs because everyone else is going to stop at stop signs. If everyone else is stopping at stop signs, then I can go right through the intersection and no one will hit me.

And that is to use the stop sign for the exact wrong purpose. Stop signs were made to make me stop. They weren't made to make me go.

And that's what these signs end up doing. To say that, you know what, Christ can't come back. He can't come back tonight and I know it, is basically using the signs in the wrong way.

It's diminishing our expectation and it puts us to sleep. It puts us in a very dangerous position where we become lackadaisical, where we stop waiting, where we start doing what we want because, well, you know what, I'll have time later.

So that's wrong solution number one. Just to blanket say, you know what, Christ can't come because those signs haven't been fulfilled. Wrong solution number two. This is the solution that our dispensational brothers and sisters use to say that Christ really can come at any time.

Even though those events apparently haven't happened. And the way they do that is to say there's actually two comings of Jesus.

There's one secret coming which we don't have any idea. There's no signs whatsoever when that will happen where he raptures the church, he takes the church out of the world, and then there's the seven year period.

And after the seven years, there's another, more public coming. And so it's within those seven years where all of these signs are just, they're dumped into that seven years.

And so it's within those seven years that a lot of Jews will be saved, where there is this rebellion, where the revelation of the Antichrist happens, where everything else, it fits into those seven years.

And so for us, as the church, well, these signs are really irrelevant, because they don't matter to us, because Christ can come at any time, and those things aren't going to be happening when we're around.

And so we don't need to worry about the signs, we just need to be ready to go. And the problem with this view is simply that there's just no evidence in the Bible that there's a secret first, second coming, and then a more public, glorious second, second coming, again after seven years.

You could read that into all the texts that you want to read it into, but you can't read it out of any of the texts in the Bible.

that particular interpretation just doesn't work. So that's wrong solution number two, it doesn't work. Wrong solution number three, some people have said that all of those things, all those events, have already happened, and so Christ can return at any time.

All those things have already happened. And so they point to the Emperor Nero, he's the Antichrist the persecution of the church in the early centuries, the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the gradual salvation of Jews.

They all say, well, that's what the Bible is pointing to. So basically, all of the events that have already happened.

And so now, Jesus can come at any time. come. So all the signs have already been met, and so now he can come. Well, to be honest, we can't disprove that completely outright.

But it is, to be honest, it's really hard to swallow that all those events, the rebellion, the revelation of the man of lawlessness, the salvation of many Jews, the sun going black, and the moon going black, and the stars falling from the heavens, that all that has happened.

It's really hard. It pushes the credibility to say that those things have already happened. I mean, bad things have happened. And there's been eclipses, there's been meteorites, and there's been pollution, but I don't know if anything like stars falling from the sky has happened.

And I don't know if Nero quite fits the picture of the man of lawlessness. So we can't prove that one completely, but it just doesn't seem to fit with history.

And so those are three wrong proposals. And they don't do justice to what the Bible says. And so here's what I want to say is my proposal, the proposal that I think honors both sides of this issue.

And it kind of brings them together. And here it is, here's the proposal. It's unlikely, but possible, that the signs have already been fulfilled, and so Christ can come at any time.

time. It's unlikely, but possible, that the signs have already been fulfilled, and so Christ can come at any time.

I'm trying to eat my cake, have my cake, and eat it too, is basically it. Maybe saying it's unlikely, but possible doesn't sit very well with you if you want a definite answer on this.

But I think it really is the only sane, humble answer that we can give. And so I want to go through the signs again, and I think as we go through them, you can see that it's unlikely that these things have happened, but it is still possible that they have.

We're not sure, and so Christ really can come at any time. First, has the gospel been preached to all the nations? I think probably not.

If you've been praying and paying attention to the praying for the unreached peoples, that prayer sheet, you know there's a lot of people who have not heard the gospel. There's a lot of nations where there is no real effective witness of the gospel.

There's lots of language groups and peoples that to anyone's knowledge, they've never heard the gospel, they've never had a missionary, they've never had a pastor or a preacher.

And so it's unlikely that this sign has happened. But we can't be too sure. We can't be too sure.

In Colossians chapter 1, Paul says the gospel that has come to you, that gospel is bearing fruit all over the world. Jesus saying, the same words.

So should we take Jesus' words in Matthew 24 about all the nations hearing the gospel, should we take that literally, or should we take it in the way that Paul says, that it's just in a more of a general sense?

We're praying in the specific sense, and in the specific sense of every single nation, every single language, tribe, and people, that seems to be what Jesus says in Matthew 28, about you go and make disciples of all the nations.

I don't think we take that generally, I don't think we should take that generally. We mean every single specific nation. to say that the gospel will only be preached only to some of the nations before Jesus comes, when we are to work for the discipleship of all nations, it doesn't feel right, it doesn't sit right, it doesn't seem to go together, it doesn't seem right that the risen Lord would come back before his church completed the task that he gave her to do.

And so Jesus, but again, we want to kind of be careful because Jesus' words in Matthew 24, it certainly doesn't mean that a large number of people from all those nations have to hear, it doesn't mean that a large number, a vast majority of all these people need to hear and to believe and to become disciples, it's really hard to measure, isn't it?

It's really hard to measure if a nation has received testimony or not. And that's why I want to say, taking all that information, it seems unlikely, but it's possible that all the nations have heard, and so Christ could come.

We don't know. And then what about the Great Tribulation? Again, it seems unlikely what Jesus and Paul described, has really happened.

But many people, many well respected people, think that Jesus is talking about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The suffering at that time was horrible.

There's no denying that. But I'm not sure that it was any more terrible than any other siege. siege. There's been longer sieges, and there's been more deaths, and there's been crueler invasions.

But perhaps that's what he was talking about. Perhaps the persecution that we heard about in Sunday school, about Chinese and Iranian, people suffering now, or thousands and maybe millions of Christians killed in the Soviet Union and in communist China in the past century, maybe that was the Great Tribulation.

It was horrible. And that kind of persecution is happening more and more in our own world. But, again, I still don't know if it really comes up to what Jesus is saying in Matthew 24 and in Mark 13.

It seems like Jesus has something of great scope and great depth in mind. Something that really has never been seen or experienced before.

But it's possible. It's possible that that is happening now. And that we are just spared it. And so, again, we want to say it's unlikely, but it's definitely possible that those things have happened.

And so, Christ really could come at any time. Well, what about the rebellion and the Antichrist? There's been lots of people pegged as the man of lawlessness as the Antichrist.

Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, Kissinger, Nixon, Nero, you name it, they've earned that title, the Pope.

Our own confession calls the Pope the man of sin. But all those guesses have turned out to be wrong. They've turned out to be wrong. Jesus didn't destroy any of them with the splendor of his coming.

And so, it's likely that another, a greater, a worse, man of lawlessness, a worse Antichrist is still to come.

But, let's give our forefathers, let's give the people who wrote our confession a break. when you're in the heat of things, it's really hard to see clearly.

When history is happening to you, and persecution is happening to you, and it's coming from the Pope, it's really hard to see that he is really not the man of lawlessness that Paul talks about.

And you know, that might be us. It might be us. We might not know what's really going on in our world.

We might not see what's going on behind the scenes, so to speak. We might be blind to this rebellion. We might be blind to it. God's people aren't always the best at understanding when prophecy is happening to them.

Think about the disciples. They walked with the Christ, the Messiah, the promised one, for three years. Prophecy was happening right before their eyes, but they didn't see it.

They didn't see it. They didn't understand it. That's why when Jesus died, the disciples were in distress. They understood some of what the Bible said, but they were totally blind to the fact that the Messiah must suffer.

and then be glorified. They saw it all as one package and they totally missed the suffering part. It was there in Scripture, but they didn't see it.

And so it is with all of these things. You can't be too confident in yourself when it comes to interpreting these things. Perhaps the Antichrist has already come, and maybe he's still around.

I don't think so, but I can't say for sure. And again, so the best way seems to be to look at these signs of the rebellion and the Antichrist and the revelation of the man of God is to say it's unlikely, but it's possible.

So Jesus really could come at any time. And then the salvation of ethnic Israel. Like I said, when I interpret, and you can disagree, when I interpret Romans 9-11, it seems to suggest that there's this future massive conversion of ethnic Jews.

But again, you know what, and you're probably tired of me saying this, and you're like, this is the most wishy-washy sermon ever, but guess what? Being wishy-washy sometimes is being wise, I hope.

I can't be certain about my position on Romans 9-11. Perhaps all that Paul meant was that over the years, as the Jews were gathered, they became a massive amount in the fullness of time, all of the Jews were saved, that were elect.

Or perhaps, and this is what many people say, Israel isn't ethnic Israel, but it's all the Israel of God, all the people of God. I don't think that's what it means, but I'm not certain.

And so again, it seems unlikely to me, it seems unlikely, but it's possible that this sign has been fulfilled. And then there's one last sign that we talked about, and it's the sun refusing to shine, and the moon going dark, and stars falling from the heavens.

And if this is to be taken literally, which I think it is, this certainly I don't think has happened yet. like I said, there's been eclipses, and there's been pollution, and there's been meteorites, but as Jesus is talking about, and he gives the sign, he says that his coming is right behind this one.

When you see these things, then you'll see the sign of the Son of Man in the sky. And so with all of the heavens being shaken, it says the heavens are shaken, and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the nations of the earth will mourn.

And so this final sign could only proceed, maybe it only proceeds by a few minutes, a couple hours, his coming. And it seems like when you see the stars falling from the heavens, whatever that means, and the sun going black, and the moon going dark, then no one's going to be saying, well, Jesus isn't coming for a while.

They're probably going to be really saying he could come anytime soon. And so this sign, it's different than the others. And so until we see this, we don't know.

I guess what I want to say about that is, even on this one, even on my interpretation, there's still people that say this is symbolic. And it's hard to say, well, no, it's definitely not, because we don't know.

We're not on the other side yet. When we're on the other side, all these things are going to be perfect, crystal clear. We're not there yet. And so, I'm not sure.

It seems unlikely, but it's possible. And so Christ could come at any time. And so, that's why I think that's the best proposal.

this position does justice to those passages that say, watch. Just watch. Wait. Keep your eyes open, because Christ could return at any time.

But it also, it gives respect to the signs that Jesus said, these things will proceed. And when you see the vultures, you know that there's a carcass by.

When you see these signs, you know the second coming is at hand. And so, this position, it rests not on our ability to read the signs perfectly, interpret scripture perfectly.

It really, it rather rests on our great ability to miss the most obvious. But on the same time, it gives credence to the fact that scripture is clear.

Jesus wasn't giving these signs. just for his own health. He was telling us these things for our good, and he expected us to understand them. And so, we want to understand them the best that we can, but we want to be humble about it.

And so, this is basically a position of humility, and not certainty, when we look forward, and when we read the scripture. we live in a rapidly changing world.

And when things ebb and flow, and it seemed likely that Hitler was the Antichrist, and the Pope was the Antichrist, and it seemed like the Inquisition, and World War II, and Nero, and the destruction of Jerusalem, that those were, that was it.

And so, in the middle of those things, our hopes as Christians should rise. This might be it. We want to lift up our heads and look for our Redeemer.

And that's what our brothers and sisters in the past did, and that's what we want to continue to do. The problem is, is when they started to become certain about what they saw.

instead of saying that the Pope could be the man of lawlessness, they said he was. And so, we don't want to put too much weight on our own abilities to read the times, to read scripture.

And so, as these things happen to us, we want our expectations to rise. We want to lift up our head and start yearning more and more for Christ's coming. That's what the signs are meant to do, but we want to avoid that definite certainty that gets people into trouble, that starts naming dates and planning out things and abandoning the world.

And so, we want to have our expectations rise where we say, this could be it. Let's prepare. We don't know if he's coming. Let's prepare. Maybe I missed something, so I want to be ready.

Either way, Christ's words are going to stand, that he will come as a thief in the night. And so, if he comes as a thief in the night, I want to be prepared for him.

That is the weight of those passages, that you should be prepared. And so, do you see really what the foundational issue on this question is?

pride. And I hope you're all tracking me. I hope you're all understanding what I'm saying. The foundational issue, it's pride and it's humility. Excuse me.

Pride says, I know. I can read the signs. I know what this scripture means. I know. And humility says, I'm not sure, but I better be ready. And so, that's my proposal.

we want to honor scripture. But we don't want to put too much emphasis on this matter, on our interpretation.

We want to be careful. Then two final words of application. First, believers. What kind of servant are you?

When Jesus talked about these things, he had a very practical purpose. And the practical purpose was, what kind of servant are you going to be? You do not know when that time will come.

It's like a man going away and he leaves his house and he puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and he puts the one at the door and he tells the one at the door to keep watch. That's us.

We're the servants. God has given us each our assigned tasks and he's told us to watch. And therefore, keep watch, because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back, whether in the evening or at midnight or when the rooster crows or at dawn.

If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone, watch. So are Jesus' words enough for you?

Whatever you think about all these things, don't miss this. If you are interpreting these things in a way that's making you not watch, you're interpreting them wrong.

So watch, whatever, watch, be ready, and serve. And then unbelievers, young people, listen, listen.

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark.

And 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. So young people, are you living your lives eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage, all good things?

Are you living that life oblivious to Christ's second coming? That is the question. As you live your life, is that never registering in your mind?

Well, then you're living like the people who lived before the flood. And so what happened to those people in Noah's day? They were swept away in judgment. And that's what Jesus' words were for the people that he was preaching to.

And that's how it will be for you at the coming of the Christ. You will be taken in judgment. And so there you will. There you will be. You'll be in your garden.

You'll be out in your field. And you'll be taken into judgment. Or you'll be cooking in your kitchen. You'll be cooking your dinner. And that day will happen.

And you will be swept away into judgment. And just like when the door was shut, it was too late for those people. When the ark was shut, it will be too late for you.

And so the word to you is prepare yourself. Make friends with that judge before he comes to judge you. Make friends with him.

Don't let that day sweep you away like a flood. It's coming. And you don't know the hour. So be ready. Let's pray.

Lord God, I pray that you would penetrate our hearts with your word. I understand if today was hard to understand all of these things and it was very intensive and it's how we had to think about these things.

But I pray, Father, that you would put your people ears to hear and to understand your word. Holy Spirit, I pray that you would shine your light.

And in any place where I have made it dark, will you take that darkness away and make your word clear. Father, I pray that you would work in us a spirit of humility and expectation as we think about the Lord's coming.

Father, please give grace to the humble. please give grace to us. I pray, Father, that you would send your spirit into the heart of unbelievers and make this word stick in their minds so they cannot get it out.

Make it like a worm that will not leave them alone until they are right with you, until they are ready for that coming day. Father, please save them for your name's sake, save them for your mercy's sake.

You are a God of mercy. Oh, look at them and have mercy. You are a God who forgives sin and transgression. Oh, forgive them.

Give them new hearts, repenting hearts, hearts that would treasure Jesus above everything else and long for his coming. Thank you that one day he is coming. Pray that you would prepare all of us for that day.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Amen.