Luke 17, verses 20 through 37. At least since the publishing of Hal Lindsay's Late Great Planet Earth, which, by the way, was the largest selling nonfiction book of the 1970s, Evangelical, conservative, Bible-believing Christianity has been rife with eschatological speculation. In the 2000s, we saw the publishing of the Left Behind series would extend it out to 12 volumes and included movie versions. It seems that over the last 50 years, there's been something like an almost insatiable appetite for teaching, for speculation about the end times. Our passage discusses what is called the apocalypse in verse 30, the revealing of Christ. The apocalypse being the Greek word behind that word reveal. And let me just summarize what it says before we get into details, establish a kind of frame of reference, because this is a difficult passage. And there's plenty of disagreement about its meaning. What I see here is that Jesus is referring to three phases in which the kingdom of God is unveiled. So phase one, verses 20 and 21, he speaks of its presence in his earthly ministry. That is, Jesus himself embodies the kingdom of God, the reign of God. It is present in the person of the king, and he is that king. So they ask in verse 20, when will the kingdom come? And he says, it's in the midst of you. That is, I am here, so the kingdom is here. This is not what they were expecting at all. They were thinking there would be some kind of a public spectacle. There would be armies. There would be royal pomp. Jesus says, no, the kingdom in this stage is present in me, which means that it's hidden and subtle and spiritual. Phase two would be the presence of the kingdom between the death of Christ and the return of Christ. That's in verses 22 through 25. Again, there is no overt manifestation of the kingdom. It's not obvious. It's not visible. It's not manifest in any kind of spectacular or overt way. It becomes evident, though, when Christ is proclaimed and received, present and embodied through Christian living and Christian community. Phase three, then, verses 26 to the end, is inaugurated by the return of Christ. Then, and only then, does the invisible kingdom become visible, unmistakable, and universal. Then beyond this and all of the confusing details, there is a twofold emphasis that I want to be sure that we don't miss. One is that of the certainty of God's judgment. And number two, the importance of being prepared for that judgment. And so we'll follow those themes as the three phases of God's kingdom unfold. Number one, We look first at Jesus' earthly ministry. This is phase one. Verse 20, being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them. He doesn't answer when, but he says, instead, the kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed. It's not as you would expect. It's not what you were thinking about the kingdom. Verse 21, nor will they say, look, here it is or there. For the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. That is, it's not a political kingdom. It is in the midst of you because I am here. By the way, the older translations that translate it within you, I believe should be regarded as mistaken. He's not talking about a spiritual kingdom that is inside the heart of the individual. The kingdom of God is never spoken of in quite those terms. What he means is it's in the midst of you, that is among you, that is you are looking at the kingdom. As you were looking at me and questioning me, the kingdom is present in me because I am its king. And really, that's the question that the Pharisees were asking. They're really asking, when will the Messiah come who will establish the kingdom of God? It's a shorthand question. What they really want to know is about the Messiah. Jesus perceives that, and so he answers in terms of the Messiah. He's here. I am he. I am the one who will bring about that kingdom of God that you are anticipating. But it's not going to be obvious. It's not going to be overt. It's not going to be visible. It's not going to be political. It's not going to be military. This is a lesson that has to be learned over and over again. That is that Jesus is the kingdom. He is the one exercising the reign of God. The kingdom of God and the coming of that kingdom or the revealing of that kingdom is not about dates. It's not about times. It's not about signs. It's not about turning to the newspaper to see what prophecy has been more lately fulfilled. The kingdom of God is about Christ, about receiving him, about submitting to him as Lord and King, and thereby entering into his kingdom. Phase two. verses 22 through 25. Jesus then turns to his disciples to instruct them about the presence of the kingdom in his absence. That's the key to these uh... these verses and he said to his disciples first twenty two by the way i highly recommend you have your bible open to follow along or you're going to be entirely lost for the rest of the sermon and he said to the disciples the days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it." So what he's saying is that there are coming days, there are future days, when I will not be present. You will be longing for Christ, for the Son of Man, as Jesus refers to himself, and you will be longing for his return, you will be longing for the establishment of that kingdom, and you will not see it. There will be this period where Jesus will be absent. In other words, the period between the ascension and the return of Christ, what we call the church age, there will be a longing for the reign, the kingdom of Christ to be fully established. It's not that the kingdom will be entirely absent. It's that it will be incomplete. It will not yet be consummated. And therefore, the enemies of God will still be about, and there will still be persecution and suffering and martyrdom. And so there will be this longing, this desire to see Christ return, vanquish His enemies, and establish permanently His kingdom and peace for His people. And they will say to you, look there and look here, verse 23, do not go out or follow them. So I think what Jesus is anticipating here is that there will be suffering. And because of the suffering, because of the hardship, because of the difficulty, because of persecution and even martyrdom, you will be longing for that return. And you will therefore be vulnerable to false Christ and false messiahs making false claims. And so he says, when people say, look, look here or look there, Don't go out and follow them as though Jesus were returning to some elite group in some kind of hidden, secret way. So he's setting up a contrast between our time, our era, and the return of Christ. When he returns, It's going to be very visible, very overt, universal, global, unmistakable. But the period we are now in will not be that way. The kingdom will remain hidden. The kingdom will remain unconsummated, incomplete. It won't be fully realized. So he goes on in setting up this contrast. Don't go there or here or follow some some group that's off in the wilderness somewhere claiming that the Messiah has come to them. No, you're still in the church age until there is a highly visible public return. Verse 24, for as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. lightning flashes, the whole sky is illuminated. It's something you can't mistake. It's something that isn't hidden. Everybody sees it. That's the point. That's what the return of Christ is going to be like. There'll be the sound of the trumpet and the shout of the archangel, the apostle Paul says. This is going to be very, very public. It won't be hidden. So will the Son of Man be in his day, but first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. So this era, this epoch, this time will be the time in which Christ suffers, in which he is rejected, in which he dies. and in which he is then raised and ascended and is physically absent. And you'll be longing for him, longing for his return, dealing with suffering, dealing with persecution. False messiahs, false Christs are going to come and make claims. People are going to say, well, he's returned to Utah. And it won't be true. He's not going to return to Utah. America has to all travel to Utah to find him. California is a beautiful place, but it's not the promised land. Jesus is not going to, in some hidden way, return to Lake Tahoe. We're all going to have to travel out there to find the Messiah. Our era is one in which there will be no signs of his return until the return itself. And he's establishing the timetable in verse 25. This is that period of suffering and absence. The return will be visible. Prior to the return, there will be no warnings and no signs. Now, this is where we have to acknowledge this is not the majority view. I think that most Conservative Bible-believing Christians are opening up their newspaper every day and looking for a prophecy that's been fulfilled, a sign that we're closer yet to the return of Christ. We're closer yet, because every day that passes, we are closer. But not because a sign has been fulfilled. Jesus says here, he says repeatedly, there will be no signs prior to the return. So if you want to turn to Matthew 24, we'll see the parallel. where Jesus says this again, and again, and again, and for all the times that he repeats it, that hasn't slowed down those who speculate. Verse 36, Matthew 24, but of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. Verse 42, therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. Some people say, you may not know the day, but you know the week. That's just sophistry. The point is, you're not going to know the era, the time. You're not going to know anything about it. It's just going to happen. In verse 43, it will be as a thief in the night. That's repeated again in 1 Thessalonians 5, 2 Peter 3, like a thief in the night. You don't know when the thief is coming. Verse 44. For this reason, you be ready to for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think he will. You can't anticipate it. There's no way by which one can calculate the time of the return of Christ when the kingdom will be fully established. Continuing, Matthew 24, verses 45 through 51, the wise and faithful servant who does not know when his master will return, the master finds him doing his business. The point there, again, he doesn't know when the master is going to return. That's the next chunk of scripture. Matthew 25, verses 1 through 13, the five wise virgins and the five foolish Virgin, virgins, they don't know. He comes at an unexpected hour. They have to be ready for him whenever he returns. They don't know. That's the point there. The next chunk of scripture, the parable of the 10 talents, again, you don't know when the master is returning and will want to know what you did with the talents that he entrusted to your care. He can return at any time. You have to be ready all the time. It will be sudden. It will be without warning. It will be unanticipated. And he will return bringing judgment upon the world. So continuing Matthew 25, 31 through 46, concluding that chapter, he makes this point in verse 34, the king will say to those on his right, come you who are blessed of my father, enter the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. That's judgment day. Verse 41, he separates the sheep from the goats. And he says to the goats in verse 41, then he will say also to those on his left, depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. The sheep and the goats are separated on that judgment day, when there will be this visible, global, universal, cataclysmic return of Christ, which you cannot anticipate. the day of which you will not know, the time of which you will not know, the epoch, the era of which you will not know. It will be entirely unexpected. And the point is, you've got to be ready. You've got to be ready now. You've got to be ready always. So granted that judgment is not. a very popular theme and not one much heard in the church these days. Because, well, there's all kinds of reasons, aren't there? It's not all that encouraging. It's not all that uplifting, it seems. It's not all that pleasant to think about it. But taking medicine is not always pleasant. Medicine is good for the sick. Food is good for the soul. Jesus is warning, now is the time to get right with God. You don't, He could come today. He could come tomorrow. You need to get right with God now. Don't wait, don't delay. Now's the time to repent. Now's the time to turn from your sin. Now's the time to turn to Christ and surrender to His Lordship. Why? Because you don't know. When that day, you know that that day will come, but you don't know when it will come. All right, phase three, the time of Christ's return itself in verses 26 through 37, which Jesus likens to the days of Noah and the days of Lot. So beginning in verse 26. But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation, 25. Just, verse 26, as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage until the day Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. All right, this went on for 120 years. And they just continued doing the everyday things of life. They just continued with life. Now, the Bible makes much of the wickedness of that period of time. Jesus doesn't emphasize that here, does he? What he talks about are things that are proper, that are ordinary. They're not sinful. They're just the affairs of life. And so the point is that people were just busy about life. They were making a living. They were getting things done. You see how he describes the days of Noah, not the wickedness that grieved God's heart, as it's described in Genesis chapter 6. No, they're eating, they're drinking, they're marrying, they're being given in marriage. And Noah, that preacher of righteousness, is warning them of the judgment that's to come, and they're ignoring it. They're too busy. They don't have time for it. They're living their lives. Then he goes on, likewise. just as it was in the days of Lot." Now, Sodom is notorious for its evil. Does he highlight that? Does he say something about their wickedness? No, again. They were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. They're just doing the ordinary, common, mundane things of life. But on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. So will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. The point? Life's just going to seem to go on in its regular pattern. There will be no warning. The warning will be a general one that will go on over a long period of time, i.e., the church age, that which is going on right now. We are warning that there is a day of judgment coming. Jesus is going to return. He'll establish his kingdom. Wickedness will be punished. The evildoers will be destroyed. That's what's coming. Beware. Repent. But aside from that general warning, there's no way to anticipate it. People just go on with life. That's the state of humanity when Christ returns. People are just doing their ordinary things, nothing special, nothing spectacular, no particular signs to ward them off. No, they're just going on with life, busy, too busy for God, getting on with their own affairs. He continues, on that day, let the one who was on the housetop with his goods in his house not come down to take them away. And likewise, the one who was in the field not turned back. Remember Lot's wife. Okay, here's an additional warning. Remember Lot's wife. What was the problem with Lot's wife? Well, she turned back to Sodom. Why would she turn back? Well, because she was afraid she was going to miss out on the pleasures and comforts and excitement of Sodom. She was with her husband, but her heart was back in Sodom. So she turned back longingly. And this is the warning that Jesus is making to every one of us. Don't be so wrapped up in this world that you miss the warning. Don't be so wrapped up with your goods that you will want to go down into your house, as it were, to preserve what you have and miss and be unprepared, be unready for the time of Christ's return. Don't be out there working in the field, as it were, and be negligent of and ignorant of the fact that you will one day stand before God, that one day Jesus will return, that the kingdom will be established, judgment will come. Remember Lot's wife. She was like one who is so concerned about the things in her house, her little treasures, the things that make her happy, her comfort food, her gadgets and toys, that she neglects the kingdom for the sake of her goods. But she has to have. And Jesus is saying, so it will be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. There will be people like that who will be more concerned about the treasures in their house, more concerned about going back to that house, whether they're on the rooftop or in the field. Remember Lot's wife, whoever seeks to preserve his life, there's the point of the reference to the housetop and to the field. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. What's it mean to preserve your life? It means preserve your autonomy. I wanna live my life in my way. Okay, that's really in some ways the fundamental sin. I make a God out of myself. I make an idol out of myself and what I want and I insist on that over against the claims of God. No, I'm gonna live my life. I'm gonna live it my way. I'm gonna be the captain of my own ship. I'm going to be general of my own army. I'm going to go in the direction I want to go. I'm going to live the way I want to live. So I'm clinging to my life, my way, my life, my lifestyle. Jesus says you do that, you lose your life. You want to preserve your own life to be lived in your own way? That's a ticket to hell. You will lose your life eternally. If that's your outlook, if that's the way that you're living, you've made an idol out of yourself. You made a little false god out of yourself. As Paul will refer to those whose god is their belly. The filling of your sensual appetites or your insistence upon power and control. You're clinging to all of these things. He says, whoever seeks, verse 33, to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. Loses it, what's that mean? Loses it to Christ. Surrenders that life over to him. I think the apostle Paul describes it, well, I've been crucified with Christ, Galatians 2.20, so that I no longer live. I'm taking orders from above. What he says, I believe. Where he sends, I go. What He commands, I obey. I'm taking orders from Him, I don't live any longer. But Christ lives in me, and the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I don't have a life anymore. Paul tells the Corinthians, look, you have been bought with a price. You're not your own any longer. You belong to God. Jesus bought your life on that cross. So, you want to save your life, you need to lose it. You need to hand it over to Christ. You need to surrender that life, surrender to His will. Say in your heart, I will believe what He says, I will obey what He commands, and I will go where He sends without qualifying that condition at all. I'm not laying any conditions on that. That assertion, I will go and do whatever He calls me to do, go wherever He sends me. Why? Because I'm not my own. I've been bought with a price. I've been crucified with Christ. And so I've crucified the flesh and its lusts. It's Thy will be done. There it is. That's the outlook Jesus is speaking of. A complete surrender so that For me, to live is Christ, but to die is gain. Thy will be done. He says, I tell you that in that night there will be two in bed. The one will be taken and the other left. I'm going to just say, I don't think this is talking about a rapture where one gets taken up into heaven or meets Christ in the clouds. I think that he's talking about those who are going to be taken off into judgment, dragged off into judgment. And the reason why I think that is the last verse, there will be two women grinding grain together. The one will be taken, the other left, left to enjoy Christ and his kingdom. And they said to him, where Lord? And he said to them, where the corpse is. There the vultures will gather. That is the corpse that is left behind. He's citing a common proverb that where you see a corpse, there you will see vultures gathering. And so where you see the spiritually dead left behind like corpses to the vultures, that's where this judgment This destructive judgment, that's where this will take place. So what's the point? Let's return to what we said at the outset. The point is judgment is certain. That's what the return of Christ is about. Judgment is certain. Jesus declares it. And he declares it, even as he's on the road to the cross, that he might bear that judgment on our behalf. Listen to the way the Apostle Paul describes salvation. 1 Thessalonians 3, 20. Jesus, he says, delivers us from the what? The wrath to come. See, he's anticipating judgment. How do you escape the judgment that is coming in that day? Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come so that we need not lose our life in that judgment. We actually gain our life by turning to Christ. Now, John 3, 16, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not, what? Perish. Perish in the judgment. That's what the gospel is about. This is what our message is all about. It's about there is a coming day of judgment and Jesus goes to the cross and bears the judgment so that we might be spared, so that we need not perish. And so judgment is coming, therefore be prepared. How do I get prepared? Repent. That's how. Turn from sin. Look to Christ and to His cross as atonement. Surrender to Him as Savior and Lord so that we might be spared on that judgment day. Saved is an old-fashioned word. So that we might be saved on that judgment day. So that we might have not eternal death, but eternal life given on that judgment day. And then to cite the Apostle Peter, 2 Peter 3.11, after discussing these things, asks the question, what sort of people ought we to be? Given what Jesus is saying here, is Jesus reliable? I think he is. Is Jesus credible? I think he's the most credible witness to eternal truth that has ever walked the face of the earth. He is reliable. He is credible. He is calling us to prepare ourselves for that day. The question, what sort of people then ought we to be given the certainty of judgment and the necessity of preparation for that judgment? The ramifications are exceedingly broad, are they not? If this is coming, and if that means preparing for that day, What sort of people ought we to be as we pray together? Our Father in heaven, we are sobered by this passage. Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, warns us with such earnestness, and urgency, and severity. We pray, O Lord, that we would not ignore his words, that we might not deceive ourselves, saying, I'll deal with this later. Grant us, O Lord, the spirit of repentance. Grant us, O Lord, the spirit of faith. Turn us, O Lord, from our sins, that we might lay hold of eternal life and be delivered from the wrath that is to come through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.