Be Ready for the Lord

Introduction

Today we light the candle of HOPE. Where does our HOPE come from?
Romans 15:4: For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
Hope springs from faith; and faith is confidence in the truth of the Word of the Lord.
If we believe in God’s Word than we know we have nothing to fear.
Jesus died on the cross to give us the gift of hope in eternal life with Him.
Without Him, we are all doomed to perish in the fiery pit of hell.
Without Him, there is no hope, only the crying and gnashing of teeth of tormented souls.
Without Christ, we face the horrible judgment for the sins of humanity we inherited.
God saw the calamity of our fate and made the ultimate sacrifice through His Son’s death on the cross and resurrection into eternal life in heaven.
Through Jesus, we have been granted an everlasting pardon from all our sins.
A desperate future has been replaced with a glorious future.
Only God in His mercy could do such a thing and it is in that knowledge we find HOPE.
This HOPE does not come without a price: WE MUST BE READY when the time comes
In today’s Scripture, Jesus Himself is telling us two things about getting ready:

Jesus starts out this passage by saying “But in those days, following that distress.”
There will be a tribulation, but the second coming of Christ will be AFTER
Previously in verse 19, Jesus had just said: “those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.”
There’s been some pretty terrible things that have happened in human history until then.
But Jesus is saying that what is coming is worse. What will this tribulation look like?
The tribulations that are coming; are coming from God Himself.
Jesus spoke about the Great Tribulation in what we call the Olivet Discourse.
The Olivet Discourse is covered in Matthew 24 and 25, Mark 13, and Luke 21.
Jesus has triumphantly returned to Jerusalem by this point and has overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the temple.
He’s now speaking to the disciples immediately after that.
Revelation describes precisely what Jesus is talking about and how bad it will get.
There will be three sets of seven judgments poured out from heaven on God’s orders.

The first seal released a rider on a white horse with a bow, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.
The second seal released a rider on a fiery red horse who came with the power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other.
The third seal released a rider on a black horse holding a pair of scales.
The fourth seal released a rider on a pale horse who was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague.
The fifth seal released the souls of the those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained.
The sixth seal released a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth. The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.
The seventh seal hurled fire on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.

The first trumpet hurled hail and fire mixed with blood down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
The second trumpet sent something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
The third trumpet sent a blazing star, from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.
The fourth trumpet struck a third of the sun, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and a third of the night.
The fifth trumpet sent a star falling from the sky to the earth. Locusts came down on the earth and were given power to harm only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were not allowed to kill them but only to torture them for five months. During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
With the sixth trumpet, a third of mankind was killed by three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths.
With the seventh trumpet, God’s temple in heaven was opened, and there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, thunder, an earthquake and a hailstorm.

The first bowl caused ugly, festering sores to break out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.
The second bowl turned the sea into blood and every living thing in the sea died.
The third bowl turned the rivers and springs of water to blood.
The fourth bowl poured out on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire.
The fifth bowl plunged the kingdom of the beast into darkness.
The sixth bowl dried up the great river Euphrates.to prepare for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.
The seventh bowl caused flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake.

Now that you know what is coming, wouldn’t you really rather avoid it?
Even Jesus admits that no one knows when – even Him – only the Father knows.
Jesus warns us to be on guard and He is warning us in no uncertain terms.
What does Jesus mean by being on guard? We know that we cannot earn our salvation,
Jesus said: “If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.”
We cannot put off making the choice to accept Jesus as our Savior.
Jesus is telling us, warning us, not to put off this decision.
And if we make this decision, we also need to make changes in our life.
Choosing a life in Jesus Christ is choosing to reject the wisdom of the world.
The world will come to a frightful end and these 21 judgments are meant to bring about a change in people in the hopes of finally winning them to Christ.
We can heed the warnings of Christ Himself and take the path He has laid out for us.
OR … we can do this the hard way and face God’s judgement.
We are all free to choose, but as for me, I choose the easy way.
I choose Jesus.