Well, I know that during our youth, some among us belonged, as I once did, to the Boy Scouts of America. And if you did, I hope you still remember the Boy Scout motto, which is to be prepared. Be prepared. You're always to be in a state of readiness in mind and in body to do your duty. Expect the unexpected. Be prepared. Be prepared to handle unusual circumstances. Be prepared to administer first aid. Well, the doctrine of Christ that we are considering this morning could well be summarized by the heading, Be prepared, because today we come to the last phrase in the central section of the Apostles' Creed. And when we move from the first to the second section of the Creed several weeks ago, we made note of the fact that the Creed's second section is its longest and its most detailed. The truths that we find in this part of the creed about the life and the work of Christ are central to the Christian faith. The second section of the creed deals with the past, the present ongoing, and the future work of Christ. With a few brief words and a few broad brush strokes, we have a quick synopsis of Jesus' identity as God's only son, a record of his miraculous conception and virgin birth, his suffering, his crucifixion, his death, his burial, his descent into hell or Hades, And, as we saw last week, his ascent back into heaven and the present ministry that he exercises now as he is seated on his throne at the right hand of his father on behalf of his people. Today, we're going to look at what is still to come. The rest of the story, if you will, our confident expectation that Jesus will return from heaven to earth as judge. The creed says from thence, he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. Now there's a bit of archaic language in that phrase that we need to unpack. For instance, the word thence. Anyone use the word thence in normal conversation this week? I didn't think so. From thence means from there, from there, so it refers back to the phrase we looked at last week, where we saw that Jesus is seated on his throne, so from there he will come to judge the quick, and the quick is not a reference to speed, or being fast moving, but it means living. So we might say in somewhat more contemporary terms, we believe that Jesus will come from heaven to judge the living and the dead. Over the centuries of church history, well-meaning, careful, and committed students of scripture have come to differing conclusions about different passages that speak of Jesus' return and how those are to be interpreted. there are over 300 references to Christ's return in the New Testament. And with regard to the interpretation of these many passages, the development of differing points of view has often led to sharp disagreements, even divisions within the body of Christ, especially when it comes to matters about the timing of and the sequence of events that will surround Jesus' return. It was not my purpose this morning to articulate these varying viewpoints for you and to try to persuade you of one in particular. Rather, we are going to look at this vitally important phrase in the creed and consider truths that all faithful Bible-believing Christ followers hold in common in various portions of Scripture that speak of Christ's return. From there, we will consider the implications these truths have for us as we go about Christ's business for us on a daily basis. In the very final prayer of the New Testament, words that are recorded for us in Revelation 22 20, we hear this prayer, come Lord Jesus. So no matter what your point of view is about the end times, these are words that should be the heart cry of every disciple of Jesus Christ, come Lord Jesus. Now, to ground our minds in scripture about these things, I want you please to open your Bibles this morning to Matthew chapter 24. We're going to begin reading at verse 27 in just a moment. That's on page 830, if you want to use one of the Bibles in the seat rack. But here in Matthew 24, we have Jesus' own words about his return, words that Jesus shares with his disciples in private. This particular teaching session is prompted by a question that Jesus' disciples ask of him in verse 3 of this chapter. In verse 3 of chapter 24 it says, 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 in Eskence are asking Jesus two questions about his return. When will it happen? And how will we know it is near? So prior to where we are about to begin reading in verse 27, Jesus' answer to his disciples includes words of prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, which subsequently occurs in 70 AD. There's a warning and there's a command to remain watchful and vigilant. There are a series of preliminary signs that will proceed his return, such as wars, famines, and earthquakes. And there are additional warnings about being deceived by false prophets who claim that they are the Christ, and even about the Antichrist himself, who will set up what is known as the abomination of desolation in the Jewish temple. Where we begin reading in verse 27 provides some specifics about what the nature of Jesus' return will look like when it happens, and that will be our focus for this morning. So please stand if you are able for the reading of God's Word, beginning Matthew 24, verse 27. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heaven will be shaken. then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man. And then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. From the fig tree learn its lesson. As soon as its branches become tender and put out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near at the very gate. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the sun, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. This is God's living word for us today. Please have a seat. Now there is far, far more contained in these verses than we could ever hope to contemplate in a month of sermons, so forgive me if I don't answer all of the questions that reading them brings to your mind. However, there are a few definite things about Jesus' return that we can conclude from these verses. Included in what we just read are the facts that Jesus' return will be sudden. Jesus' return will be literal. It'll be visible. It will be physical. Jesus' return will be unexpected. And then finally, Jesus' return will be cataclysmic. So let's consider each one of those four in a little detail as much as we can in the short time we have together this morning. So first of all, Jesus' return will be sudden. Since Jesus returned to heaven 40 days after his resurrection, many people throughout church history have speculated about and made predictions about the date of Jesus' return. At times, such predictions have led to mass hysteria, the selling of property, the gathering of people in large groups on mountains or other desolate places to wait for the appointed date. In the 19th century, William Miller, a Baptist preacher, determined that Jesus would return on October 22, 1844. Miller's elaborate calculations and predictions created a phenomena that extended beyond the United States to encompass groups of followers in Canada, Europe, and Australia. At one point, there were at least 48 periodicals or newspapers in circulation that were exclusively dedicated to helping people prepare for Christ's return on that date. Looking at life in the rear view mirror, historians have labeled October 22nd, 1844 as the date of the Great Disappointment. in my lifetime, and most of yours, there was a big push and a widely circulated booklet leading up to 1988 with the title, 88 Reasons Why Jesus Will Return in 1988. Edgar Wissenaert, a former NASA rocket engineer turned prophecy teacher, calculated that Jesus would return at sunset on the evening of Rosh Hashanah, September 11th, 1988. Wissenaert sold 4.5 million copies of his booklet, and I checked it out, and you can still pick up a very reduced price copy of Wissenaert's book at Amazon. But in spite of all such misguided attempts to pinpoint a date and a time for Jesus' return, Jesus tells us in Matthew 24, 27 that his return will be sudden. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Now, we have weather people who give us forecasts for when thunder and lightning storms are likely, but there is no one who knows and no one who can predict when Christ will return. There's just one simple thing from Scripture for us to discern about the time of Jesus' return. Jesus will return at the right time. As was the case of Jesus' first coming, when according to Galatians 4.4, he came in the fullness of time. When Jesus comes again, it will be at God's perfect time, neither early nor late. According to Ephesians 1.10, when times reach their fulfillment, God will gather together all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth. But concerning His return, Jesus is abundantly clear concerning that day and hour that no one knows, not the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. Jesus' return will be sudden. It will also be literal. It will be physical. It will be visible. As we have found to be true with several other points in the Apostles' Creed that we confess, liberal theologians have devoted significant time and attention to undercutting a belief in the literal, physical, visible return of Christ to the earth. Because such skeptics are intent on eliminating any sense of the supernatural from Scripture, they contend that God's kingdom arrived on earth with Jesus' first coming, and that references to his second coming merely point to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. For liberal theologians, any sense of Christ's future coming is purely a personal, spiritual event that takes place when Jesus comes to you. But as we read earlier in Matthew 24, when Jesus speaks of his return, he promises that his return will be accompanied with obvious, visible, unmistakable signs, such as the sun and the moon being darkened, the stars falling out of the sky, the powers of the heavens being shaken. In addition to that, Jesus speaks of a very real visceral response on the part of people from every people group on earth. Visceral, by visceral response, that just means something you're gonna feel in your guts. In verse 30 of the chapter we read, Jesus says, the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. It is hard to construe those words as the description of some sort of intimate personal moment or encounter between Jesus and his people. In fact, with these words, Jesus blows any idea out of the water that his coming is going to be some sort of sweet saccharine, ooey-gooey moment that is somehow about Jesus and me. No, Jesus will come with power and with glory. And just one brief moment's display of that power will knock people flat on their faces, fill them with terror, and cause them to mourn their hard-hearted, stiff-necked, ongoing rejection of Christ. In just the same way Jesus' earlier words in Matthew 24 about the impending disaster awaiting Jerusalem are literally, physically, visibly fulfilled in 70 AD when the city and the temple are destroyed, so too will Jesus' return to earth be every bit as literal, physical, and visible. So Jesus' return will be sudden, it will be literal, and it will be unexpected. Jesus' words of warning to his first and future disciples call them to be vigilant and to remain on guard and to watch and to wait for his return. In the same way that Jesus' return will be sudden, Jesus' return will also be completely unexpected. Jesus compares what life will be like at the time of his coming to what life was like before the worldwide flood at the time of Noah that we read about in Genesis 7. That moment when Noah, his family, and a matched pair of each animal species entered the ark that God had instructed Noah to make, it was a normal day. just like any other day. People were going about their usual daily business, people were eating, they were drinking, they were getting married, they were giving their sons and daughters away in marriage. I mean, think with me for a moment, those of you who were alive and aware at the time, what were you doing at about 8.30 on the morning of September 11th, 2001? At least where I was in Fairfield, Connecticut, it was a bright, clear, crisp September morning. It had been rainy and stormy the night before, and I remember not sleeping well and going downstairs about 3 a.m. to do some reading until I could lull myself into sleep again. And around that 8.30 time that morning, a group of ladies were down in my office asking me to come up to the balcony of the church in which I was serving at the time because, can you believe it, the audio-visual equipment wasn't working properly. Some things are never going to change. In any event, they came down and were talking to me, and did I have any clue that 16 minutes later, my life, your life, the life of our whole nation would radically change forever? Of course not. And that's how it will be when Christ returns. People will be doing their normal, everyday sort of thing when that trumpet will sound and Christ comes back. And that completely unexpected, unanticipated moment will make 9-11 look like a very small drop in a very large bucket. Jesus' return will be unexpected and it will be cataclysmic. The moment will be cataclysmic because it's not going to be localized, it will be global in scope. The visible signs in the heavens that I mentioned a moment ago as the powers of the heavens are shaken and that will cause life on earth as we know it to cease, the world and its system will come to an end. Think of this. This is the only moment in redemptive history that every person who has ever lived will be able to see with his or her own eyes. When Christ returns, the angel of God will gather God's elect from the North and the South, the East and the West, every corner of the globe. And as further depicted in scenes from the Bible's final book, Revelation, those whom Jesus describes here in Matthew 24 simply by saying that they will mourn, in Revelation it tells us those people will be running for the hills, they will be hiding in caves, they will be calling to the mountains and the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand? Not only will Jesus' return be sudden, literal, visible, physical, unexpected, and cataclysmic, but, as we confess in the Creed, Jesus, when he comes, will come as judge. to judge the living and the dead. Now, the picture that scripture gives us of Jesus as judge is not one with which most people are familiar. If the world at large has any picture of Jesus whatsoever, it is a picture of Jesus as a good shepherd, a gentle giant who is walking around with a sheep curled around his neck, or a picture of Jesus with a group of children who are hunkered down around him, and some of them crawling on his lap, but at least one of them sitting on his knee. As far as I can bring to mind, there simply are no familiar pictures of Jesus as judge. But judge he is. When Jesus comes to earth, he will come as judge. When he came the first time, he came as a lamb. He came as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus came in humility to offer himself as a sacrifice, but When Jesus comes again, he's not coming as a lamb. He will come as a lion, a lion from the tribe of Judah. Jesus will not come again in meekness to offer himself as a sacrifice. Jesus will come in power and glory as conquering king to dispense judgment and to establish his kingdom in which he will rule over all with perfect justice and perfect righteousness. When Paul writes to his young protege Timothy in 2 Timothy 4.1, Paul exhorts Timothy to be ready, to be prepared at all times to preach the word, to reprove, to rebuke, to exhort others in a very patient and faithful way. complete way. And as Paul makes that command to Timothy, this is the rationale behind it. He says, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. that Jesus will one day judge the living and the dead is not an obscure matter in scripture. It's not something that's only mentioned once or twice or rarely. Jesus speaks frequently of his role as judge. For instance, in John 5, 22, it says, For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Jesus goes on in John 5 to say that He has authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man. Now, a few weeks back, we considered the title of Jesus as Son of Man. We noted at that time that that was Jesus' preferred way of referring to Himself. We also noticed on that day, if you were with us, that The title Son of Man refers back to a vision that God gives to the Old Testament prophet Daniel, in Daniel 7, 14, where we read that Daniel seeing the Son of Man coming to the ancient of days on the clouds of heaven, and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed. That's the moment of Jesus' enthronement that we looked at last time. The kingdoms of the earth have been given to Christ. All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Christ when Christ comes back. He will exercise that authority in judgment. He will judge all those who ever have lived or who ever will live at the time of his coming. Jesus will judge both Christians and non-Christians. For those who love Christ, for those who serve Christ, for those who follow Christ, trust in him alone for the saving grace he has, for those who rely on him solely for his cleansing blood and faithfully follow after him as his disciple by denying themselves, taking up their cross and following him for his glory, for all who fit that description, Eternal life is not the issue in Christ's judgment. The judgment for sin, along with its sentence of eternal death, has already fallen on and been settled by Jesus on the cross of Calvary. That is glorious good news. That is the heart of the promise of the gospel. However, in the midst of our rejoicing about that, we must not overlook the fact that Jesus will judge us. Jesus will evaluate the quality of the lives that we have lived for him, the motives with which we have served him, and the nature of whatever, if any, fruit that we have produced. for God's kingdom. This is how Paul puts this truth in his first inspired letter to the Corinthians, Corinthians 4, beginning in verse 2. Paul writes, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself, for I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. "'It is the Lord who judges me. "'Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time. "'Before the Lord comes, who will bring to light "'the things now hidden in darkness, "'and will disclose the purposes of the heart, "'then each will receive his commendation from God.'" So this judgment is something all believers will face. But for those who do not know Christ, for those who do not love Christ, for those who do not follow Christ, for those who have stubbornly rejected Him and refuse to receive the saving grace that He offers, Christ's judgment will be solemn indeed. For all such persons, the news will be tragic. It will be devastating. It should bring us to tears. All such persons from every time and place are, according to Jesus in John 3, 18, already under the sentence of God's condemnation. Whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light, because their works are evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. Those are sobering words. Those are words that come from the lips of Jesus, the one who will judge the living and the dead. For those who live and die apart from Christ, Second Thessalonians 1, 8 and 9 speaks of the eternal destruction they will face as Jesus inflicts vengeance on those who do not know God, on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his might. The promise and the assurance of Jesus appearing and the full, final manifestation of his kingdom are dazzling realities that all who know Christ should be prepared to welcome. We should live in such an expectant state of readiness that is marked by a pursuit of purity and a zeal to do good works. Though the timing of Jesus' judgment and his appearing and his kingdom remain unknown and future, they are nevertheless assured. Such a ground of hope for true believers concerning the future glories that lie in front of us will fortify us for whatever trials we must face in the present. Matthew 27, 44, Jesus tells his disciples to be ready. Be prepared. Be prepared by keeping short accounts with God and with others. Be prepared, take life one day at a time. That's Jesus' counsel in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6, 34, isn't it? Just take one day at a time, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. And live each day as if it were your last. Yes, yes, yes, make plans and provisions for whatever years the Lord may give you or for as long as he tarries. But in your spirit, be packed up. ready to leave at a moment's notice. When Christ comes, he should find his people praying for revival. He should find his people planning for world evangelism. But he should find his people packed up and ready to leave nonetheless. Now if the Boy Scouts can learn to live with their motto, be prepared, then Christians should be massively prepared for the momentous event of Christ's return. Let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, We thank and praise you today for the fact that we have a hope, a living hope, a living hope and a living savior. Thank you for the fact that you have not been silent about what comes next on the calendar of redemptive history. And we do pray, Lord, we join our hearts with that final prayer of all scripture. Come, Lord Jesus, but come, Lord, and find a prepared people, a prepared people who are going to go to a prepared place. Lord, if there's anyone here today who is not prepared, who's not sure, who is unaware, Lord, of what a great gift they have been offered through Christ, through the gift of His saving grace, we pray that they would receive it today, that they would acknowledge, Lord, I recognize, I am a sinner, I need healing, I need cleansing, I need forgiving. And I recognize that can only come to me through what you have done, what you have offered through your son, Jesus Christ on the cross. Lord, please help anyone who needs to do that kind of business with you today to do it, to do it here and now, to have it settled, and to go out of here with an assurance and joy that they do not need to face that ongoing judgment of condemnation. which we live under before we come to Christ. Lord, I pray that you'd continue to help us to encourage one another all the more as we see the day coming nearer, that we would be those people spoken of in Hebrews who, as we see the day coming, would not neglect the gathering together of ourselves, but we would continue, Lord, to come to encourage each other, to exalt Christ, and to nudge one another along in the journey that lies before us. In Jesus' name, amen.