113019B – Matthew 24, 36-44

As Jesus prepared to meet “his final conflict” of his earthly life he spoke to his followers about “the things” that would come “in the last days” and he delivered a pretty clear message:

“GOD is coming at a time you don’t expect, SO Get Ready.”

In the course of his teaching Jesus makes several important points about “the Day of the Lord” which all of us would do well to take into consideration. The main point (of which) is that it will be a day of extreme “SECRECY”

NO ONE KNOWS THE DAY OR THE TIME; not the prophets, not the angels, not the Son but only the Father (period.)

So, what do WE do?  Let’s see:

In the year 375 AD an early Christian writer proclaimed: “There is no doubt that the Antichrist has already been born.

Firmly established in ‘his early years” and ‘in a few years’ he will achieve his supreme power.”

Hippolytus (an early Church Father) wrote that Jesus would come back in the year 500.

We know that the years surrounding the year 1000 was filled with predictions of the coming of Christ… It was recorded that people were “so sure” of Jesus’ coming that they didn’t even “plant their crops.”

In the 1500’s Martin Luther wrote, “We have reached the time of the white horse of the Apocalypse. This world won’t last much longer.

There is also a “little known fact” that Christopher Columbus was a student of “biblical prophecy.” He apparently wrote a volume called “The Book of Prophecies,” in, which he predicted that the world would end “in 1556.”

He even wrote, “There is no doubt that the world must end in one hundred fifty five years.”

The year 1666 saw an explosion in “end time speculation,” because of the sequence of 666. One pastor wrote in his journal, “every time a storm has hit this year the church was “full of people waiting for Jesus.”

In 1800 a man by the name of William Miller predicted the return of Jesus in the year 1844 all over the Northeast, half a million 7th Day Adventists awaited the end of the world on April 3, 1843. Journalists (as you might imagine) had a field day with this one!

Reportedly some disciples were on mountaintops, hoping for “a head start to heaven.” Others were found in “cemetery’s,” planning to “ascend in union” with their “departed loved ones.”

Some “high-society-cultured-ladies” clustered together outside Philadelphia to avoid entering God’s holy kingdom among “the common herd.”  It was hilarious.  But a bad time for Christianity.

In 1992 a guy by the name of Harold Camping predicted the end, again nothing happened and so he changed his date to 1993 and then to1994. All of these people had “one thing in common:” They must have missed the text we read today, that “no one knows” the day and the hour.

Jesus’ point is simply this: Be ready at ALL times.

Yep, at other times Jesus says to “watch for the signs”—but not so that we can put off being ready, but so that we will be ‘ever expectant of his return.’

At the height of WWII, Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer was imprisoned for taking a stand against Hitler. Yet he continued to urge fellow believers to resist Nazi tyranny. A group of Christians, believing that Hitler was the Antichrist, asked Bonheoffer, “Why do you expose yourself to all this danger? Jesus will return any day, and all your work and suffering will be for nothing.” Bonheoffer replied, “If Jesus returns tomorrow, then tomorrow I’ll rest from my labor. But today I have work to do. I must continue the struggle until it’s finished.” Bonheoffer was right, it is not for us to try to determine the “when” of the Lord’s coming, it is for us to be expectant of his coming that we might be found doing what Jesus has called us to do.

We are to be found serving others when he returns…at an unknown, secret time.

Apparently, it will be an ordinary day, kids to soccer, volleyball, basketball, grocery shopping, work, dinner-nothing out of the normal.  And before you know it, Jesus will be standing before you.

Will you be ready?  Will you be prepared?  Will you be found faithful?  Be careful “WHO” you listen to…Do not be taken in by smooth talkers…but rather, always seek the truth…

Just know that – God will come for you, when the time is right, until then, YOU be READY and EVER-VIGILANT. 

Amen.