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I want you to open your Bible,
if you will, please, to the last page of Scripture, to Revelation
chapter 22, and while you're finding your place, which ought
not take you very long, I don't think, start at the end and go
backward, all right? While you're finding your place,
may I ask, how many of you did your homework and you read this
chapter? Would you raise your hand? Look at this. I tell you,
this is a church full of overachievers. I like it. Very good. So I wanna
challenge you to do the same thing between tonight and tomorrow
night. Read it again, not while I'm
preaching, but on your own time, all right? And ask the Lord to
speak to you. In fact, if I could challenge
you to do something, if you can do it this way, read it on your
knees. Did you know when you read the
Bible on your knees, it does something because it brings you
into a posture and an attitude of prayer. It leads you to talk
to God. It's helped me through the years,
frankly, to read my Bible on my knees because when I do it,
I did it this morning, when I do it, it helps me respond to God
and talk to God about what God is talking to me about. And so
try to read it prayerfully, and if you're in a situation where
you say, well, if I get down on my knees, I'm not gonna get
back up again, don't do that, all right? But read it prayerfully,
because it's a powerful chapter. It's the last thing God left
us under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and this is what it's
all coming to, friends. This is what we're leading to. Look at
Revelation 22, beginning in verse one. And he showed me a pure
river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of
the throne of God and of the Lamb. in the midst of the street
of it and on either side of the river was there the tree of life,
which bear 12 manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month
and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
And there shall be no more curse. I want to stop here and say,
thank you, Jesus. Won't that be a glorious day?
But the throne of God and of the lamb shall be in it and his
servants shall serve him. And they shall see his face,
and his name shall be in their foreheads, and there shall be
no night there. And they need no candle, neither
light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light. And they
shall reign forever and ever. And he said to me, these sayings
are faithful and true. And the Lord God of the holy
prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants the things
which must shortly be done. I love that word. I'm not preaching
on it tonight. I have preached on it before, but I love that
word shortly. Isn't that a beautiful word?
It's not an exact time, but it is an exact promise. How many
of you remember when you were children and you asked your dad,
how much longer till we get there? And he gave that vague answer
shortly. Didn't he hate it when he got
that answer? but inevitably you arrived and I want you to know
that shortly Jesus is coming, shortly all this is coming to
an end, shortly we're gonna be in the presence of God forever.
When's he coming? Next time somebody asks you that,
just tell them shortly, because that's a Bible answer. Shortly
it shall be done. And then Christ's words in verse
seven, behold, pay attention, he says, look, behold, I come
quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth the
sayings of the prophecy of this book and I, John, saw these things
and heard them. And when I had heard and seen,
I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel, which
showed me these things. Then saith he unto me, see thou do
it not, for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets,
and of them which keep the sayings of this book, worship God. And
he saith unto me, seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this
book, for the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be
unjust still. And he which is filthy, let him
be filthy still. And he that is righteous, let
him be righteous still. And he that is holy, let him
be holy still. And behold, I come quickly, and
my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work
shall be. I want you to do something, if
you will, tonight. I want you to go to verse number seven,
and I want you to mark the first four words, beginning of verse
seven, Jesus is speaking, and he says, I come quickly. Then I want you to come to verse
number 12 and mark the same exact four words. He repeats himself
for emphasis, behold, I come quickly. And I want you to connect
those two statements in your Bible. And I want to ask you
a personal question. Once you've marked it, I want
you to lift your head and look me in the eye for a moment. And
I'd like to ask you, what difference has that made in your life? We
all say we believe it. If I went around this room tonight
and I said, do you believe in God? Oh yes, I believe in God.
Do you believe that his son died and was buried and rose from
the dead? Yes, I believe that. Do you believe he ascended to heaven? Yes, I
believe it. Do you believe what he said, that he's coming back?
Oh yes, I believe he's coming back. Do you believe he could
come at any moment and people give their mental assent, they
give their nod of the head and they say, oh yes, I believe Jesus
may come any moment. That's what the Bible says. So
I came to ask you tonight, if you actually believe that, What
difference did that make in your life today? And perhaps more
importantly, what difference will it make in your life tomorrow?
What will change because of that? What will you do differently?
What needs to be eliminated and what needs to be added? What
priorities need to be arranged? Watch please, if you are really
living on the edge of eternity in any moment, you may step out
of this world and into the next. What difference has that made
in your life? It's one thing to say, Jesus
is coming. We say it almost lightly, almost flippantly. When's he
coming? When people least expect him.
In any moment, like a thief in the night, I want you to know
the Lord Jesus is coming. Now, I'm gonna just testify for
a minute. I'm not afraid of that. If the thought that Jesus is
coming makes you afraid, it probably means you don't have the right
relationship with him, because I've never once been afraid of
my wife showing up. I get excited about it. I love
her and she loves me. And when you have the right kind
of relationship with the Lord, you're not afraid of his return. You're
excited about his return. So I want to testify and tell
you, I know that Jesus is my savior and I know that I belong
to him and he belongs to me. I'm not afraid of him showing
up. I'm looking forward to that day. But on the flip side of
that, I want to say to you as a Christian that I do fear that
I may stand before the Lord Jesus someday and realize that I spent
my life on this planet giving my attention and my energy and
my time and my resources to things that did not matter for eternity. And so I want you tonight to
go to the end and work your way backward to where you are at
this moment. If Jesus Christ is coming, what difference should
that make in your life? Now, he says it twice in the
scripture that we've read tonight. And I think this is interesting
because those two statements really divide two sections of
this chapter. So here's what I want to do,
and I'm going to do it very quickly. First of all, I'm going to show you three
things that will happen when he does come. And then I'm going
to show you three things that should happen until he comes.
Sounds like every alarm in the building is going off tonight.
Jesus could come just that fast, you know. And the next sound
you hear may be the trumpet sounding, so get ready for it. Any moment,
Jesus may come. So let's start here. What three
things will happen when he does come? Well, back up, if you will,
please, to the first part of the chapter. Notice the way it
begins. Here's the first thing. Look at verse number four. Let's
start here. The Bible says, and they shall see his face. Circle that word see in your
Bible in verse number four. Here's the first thing that's
gonna happen when Jesus comes. Number one, we're gonna see him. Isn't that
glorious? Can you see me tonight? It's rough to look at, isn't
it? But look up here just a second. Can you see me tonight? Yes or
no? Yes. And guess what? I can see you.
As you know from the platform, you sure can see a lot. Oh, yes,
you can. It's a different vantage point.
But do you understand, as sure as I see you and you see me,
there's going to come a day that we're going to see the Lord Jesus
Christ face to face. Do you understand? This is not
some children's fairy tale, some figment of imagination, something
we dreamed up. This is the exact promise of
the Word of God. There is coming a day that you
are going to see the Lord Jesus Christ. Revelation chapter one
says, someday every eye will see him and those who pierced
him will wail because of him. Let me give you some good news
if you're a child of God, you're not just gonna see him for a
moment and mourn, you're gonna see him for eternity and celebrate
because you're gonna live with him for all eternity. You know,
1 John chapter 4 says, no man hath seen God at any time. We
like to quote that, don't we? Nobody's seen God at any time.
God's a spirit and no man has seen God at any time. But did
you ever notice that in the very same book of the Bible, in 1
John chapter number 3, the Bible says that when we shall see him,
we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Look, please, you haven't seen
him yet, but you're going to. Now I've seen him only through
eyes of faith, but someday soon, I'm gonna see the Lord Jesus
and what a day that's gonna be. And look at the verse, everybody
look at verse number four. When you see him, God is gonna stamp
his name on you. That's glorious, isn't it? Now,
this may look a little odd. His name shall be in their forehead.
Somebody says, I don't want anybody's name on my forehead, but let
me explain what that means. It means, watch this, that there's
coming a day that the Lord's gonna put his mark on you. His
good name, his glorious name, the name of his glory is gonna
rest upon your life. I promise you, you're gonna want
that name on you someday. And if you're a Christian, His
name is going to rest on your life. And what does that mean?
It means you get access. Look please, only those who bear
His name get access. And you're going to have access
to the throne of the Creator God of the universe. Now you
can come to the throne tonight in prayer, but you're gonna come
to the throne face to face that day. Face to face in all its
glory. Face to face, what will it be? The Bible says in Corinthians
that we are changed into the same image from glory to glory. In other words, when we see the
Lord someday, I'm telling you, God's gonna transform everything.
He's gonna make you just like the Lord Jesus in the presence
of a holy God when you see him as he is. Well, that's not all. Go back to our passage for just
a moment and notice, please, that when you see him, God's
going to let lots of wonderful things connect to that. See,
every good thing is connected to the presence of God. Look
at verse number one. He showed me a pure river of water of life.
So there's gonna be life there someday. Notice in verse two,
there's not only the water of life, there's the tree of life.
Look, everybody remember in Genesis? Everybody remember in Genesis
when God said to Adam and Eve, you can't eat of the what? Tree
of life. Remember, they'd already eaten
of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and fallen. So God said, you're
not gonna eat of the tree of life and live forever in your fallen
state. That was mercy in itself. And he drove them out of the
garden of Eden. And he sent that angel with a
flaming sword to keep the way of the what? Tree of life. This
is beautiful to me, like bookends on the Bible. The tree of life
was in Genesis, and Adam and Eve never got to eat of it, and
God removed it from them. But when you get to the end of
the Bible, Revelation chapter 22, God brings you right to the
tree of life and says, go ahead and eat of it, because you can
live forever in this state. Watch this, everything Adam lost
in the garden, we're going to get back and much more someday. I'm telling you, Jesus changes
everything. And someday soon, we're gonna
see. The Bible says that a tree of life, the leaves of it will
be for the healing of the nations. I mean, if you know our world
is wounded. We live in one more messed up
world, but someday God's gonna straighten it all out. God's
gonna bring the healing. So there is life and then there is love. And then watch this, there is
light. The Bible says in verse five, there'll be no night there.
You're not gonna need a candle there. You're not gonna need
the light of the sun. Why? Because the Lord God giving them
light. God is light and in him is no darkness at all. Can you
imagine what it's gonna be like when we see Jesus someday? And
watch this, there'll be a new heaven. There'll be a new earth. There'll be a new Jerusalem.
Watch this, please. All of them will revolve around
the God who never changed. He is the eternal God. He's the
everlasting God. He has always been light and
life and love, but he's gonna make all things new someday,
including me and you. How many of you are getting excited
about getting a new body? Would you raise your hand? That's
gonna be nice. And watch this, please. On that day, the greatest
glory will be this. We're gonna be with Jesus. Somebody
says, well, tell me more about the place. It's not about the
place, it's about the person. Well, tell me where heaven is.
Look, I'll tell you where heaven is. It's wherever Jesus is. Wherever
Jesus is, that's where I want to be. Matter of fact, look back
one page in your Bible, look at chapter 21, verse number three. And I heard a great voice out
of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men
and he will dwell with them and they should be his people and
God himself should be with them and be their God. Three times
in one verse, God's gonna be with us. When Jesus came, his
name was Emmanuel, God with us. But look, please, he was God
with us for a moment, and then the Holy Spirit has sent God
to abide with us. But this is wonderful. Someday
God says, I'm gonna bring you right to where I am, and I'm
gonna dwell with you, and you're gonna dwell with me for all eternity.
Let me just tell you, you can't beat being a Christian. God lives
in your house now, and you go to live in his house for all
eternity. And so the first thing that's gonna happen when Jesus
comes, number one, we're gonna see him. Number two, would you
write this down? Not only are we going to see
him, we're going to serve him. That's right. For years, I had this
mental picture that when we all get to heaven, we're all going
to have these nice little robes on and we're going to sit on
clouds floating around everywhere and just strumming harps and
we're going to be terribly bored. And I tell you, that doesn't
sound like heaven to me. As a matter of fact, I've heard
preachers preach that when you get to heaven, you're going to
know everything. That is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible
doesn't say you're gonna know everything. It says you're gonna
know even as you are known. Do you know how terribly boring
it would be to get there and suddenly you know everything,
you've done everything, there's nothing else to experience? Let
me tell you something about the God of the Bible. The God of
the Bible is an infinite God. That means there is no end to
who he is. There is no exhausting of God's
amazing character and nature. And I believe I believe that
we're gonna spend the rest of eternity going deeper into who
God is and learning more of that. I'm telling you, the greatest
adventure you've ever lived is what is facing you when Jesus
Christ comes. We're not gonna sit around bored
to tears. No, here's what we're gonna do. Everybody look at verse
number three. There should be no more curse, but the throne
of God and the lamb should be in it and his servants shall
what? Serve him. And I tell you, the
greatest title ever given to any man was this, he's a servant
of the Lord. In fact, I was studying today in the Psalms, and I came
across one of the Psalms, and one of the inscriptions said,
a Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord. And it just struck
me, pastor, it struck me. It didn't say David, the giant
killer. It didn't say David, the king
of Israel. It didn't say David, the sweet psalmist of Israel.
It didn't say David, the daddy of Solomon. You know, it said
David, the servant of the Lord. And I tell you, the greatest
thing that could ever be said of your life here and there is
that you are a servant of the Lord. And I'm going to tell you,
I want to be a servant, but I don't serve him perfectly here. In
fact, I fall short many days and fail the Lord. Any of you
there with me? But I'm going to tell you what's going to happen
when Jesus comes, we're going to serve him perfectly. We're
not gonna have this old flesh to deal with, praise God, and
a sin-cursed world and other fallen people around us. And
on top of that, this will make you shout, the devil's gonna
be shut up for all eternity. And his servants shall serve
him. There's a third thing that's
gonna happen when Jesus comes. Not only are you gonna see him and you're
gonna serve him, but number three, you're gonna sit with him. Somebody
says, what do you mean by that? Oh, you see, there's a seat of
honor there. He's the Lord Jesus, the seat
of the right hand of the heavenly father. But everybody look at
verse number five. I love this. There's no night
there. They don't need the candle, need
the light of the sun for the Lord God giving them light. And
what's the next word, church? And what? They, circle that in
your Bible. It doesn't say he shall reign.
We know he's gonna reign, but watch this. It says they. Thank
you, Jesus, for this. God lets us get in on his reign. The Bible says they shall reign
forever and ever. In Revelation 20, we're gonna
reign with him on the earth. Now I'm gonna tell you what I
believe. I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ will come back and
set up his throne on this earth and rule and reign for a thousand
years. I believe that's what the Bible teaches. And I believe
we're gonna rule and reign with him. But do you understand by
the time you get to Revelation 22, he's not talking about the
millennial reign of Christ. He's talking about the eternal
reign of Christ because the Bible says they shall reign forever
and ever. And I tell you, the Lord Jesus
has already been exalted. At this moment, he's seated at
the right hand of the heavenly father. Watch this, please. Satan is
already under the foot of the Lord Jesus. You understand that,
right? Satan bruised the heel of Christ at Calvary, but when
Jesus came out of the grave alive forevermore three days later,
Jesus put his nail-pierced foot squarely on the head of the serpent. And I want you to know, I'm serving
a conquering Christ tonight. Romans 16 verse 20 says that
God will also brew Satan under your feet shortly. Same Bible
word found in Revelation. Shortly, watch this please. Shortly,
the devil's not only going to be under Christ's feet, he's
going to be under our feet. That's what the Bible says. The
only way the devil can be under our feet is we have to be seated
with Jesus. Isn't that thrilling? That means
someday soon, Jesus Christ is going to give us ultimate and
complete victory over the world and the flesh and the devil.
We're gonna see him, we're gonna serve him, and we're gonna sit
with him for all eternity. What a savior we have, Jesus
is coming. But I ask you again, what difference
has that made in your life? See, to talk about heavenly things
and it makes no earthly difference is to miss the point. To speak
of future things but it doesn't change the present is to miss
the point. To talk about coming events but not let it transform
the way you live today is to miss the point. And that's why
when you come to Revelation 22, he doesn't stop by simply describing
what's gonna happen when Jesus comes. He tells us what ought
to happen now. Everybody look between verse
7 and verse 12. Between the two, I come quickly, Jesus tells us
what we ought to be giving attention to. Here's the first. The Bible
says in verse seven, behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he
that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book. And I,
John, saw these things and heard them. And when I had heard and
seen, I fell down to, what's that word, church? Worship. It's amazing to me that the moment
John saw all of this that was coming, the first response, look
please, the natural response was, It's bigger than me. I need to worship. And for just
a moment, he fell down before the angel and what the angel
said, no, no, no, no. Don't you worship me. As a matter
of fact, he says to him in the end of verse number nine, worship
God. Underline those two words in
your Bible. Worship God. No man is worthy of worship.
Only God is worthy of worship. He's the only worthy one. You
remember, right? And so what is the first thing we should
be giving attention to? I want to tell you that in light of
the day Jesus comes again, number one, every day I live now, I
ought to be giving attention to worship. So let me meddle
just a moment. How much time did you spend listening
to the news today? How much time reading? And how much time eating? How much time conducting business?
How much time with family? How much time with friends? And
how much time today? that you give to worship. See,
if you want to find out what's really important to someone,
look at their schedule through the day and what they spend their
money on. And I guarantee you, you've just found what's important
to them. See, when people talk about worship,
everybody wants to talk about going to church, like, you know, this
is some kind of group sport we do together. Matter of fact,
I said to a guy not long ago, I said, we want you to come visit
our church. And he said to me, well, you know, preacher, he
said, I don't go to church. I worship God in the woods. You
ever heard something like that? And you know what I said to him?
I said, wonderful. I worship God in the woods too.
He said, you do? I said, oh yeah, I worship God
out the ocean. I worship God driving down the
road. I said, because I don't go to
church to worship primarily. He had a repulsive look in his
face. I said, I want to worship while I'm there, too. But I don't
go to church to worship because worship's not a group thing.
Worship's the individual heart attitude towards God. You can
be in a group that's called a worship service and not be worshiping
at all. No, friend. Listen, worship in Scripture
is always a personal thing, and it always begins in private.
In fact, do you know what the first mention of worship is in
the whole Bible? First mention of worship in the whole Bible
is in the book of Genesis when Abraham took his son up on top
Mount Moriah to offer him and he said, let us go and worship
there. It was not some big thing everybody
was watching. It was between Abraham and God.
It was a personal thing. And watch this. The verse that
we're reading right now is the last mention of worship in the
Bible. And what is it? It's a private worship service.
And the only person there is John and the man who gave him
the message and God Almighty. And John is learning, look, God
needs and deserves your worship. I wonder, are you a true worshiper?
I didn't ask, can you sing well? I didn't ask, have you heard
some nice music? I didn't ask, when was the last time you came
and heard a sermon preached? I asked, when was the last time
you truly worshiped God? And here's what I'm convinced
of. I emphasize this Sunday morning, so this ought to sound familiar
to some of us. It's interesting how God keeps bringing this subject
of worship up. I'm convinced if we were better worshipers,
we would be better workers. If we learn to get God in his
rightful place in our life, it would rearrange every other priority
because suddenly we would say, well, God is worthy of all. Number
one, if you're gonna get ready for the day you see Jesus, you
need to worship. Here's the second thing I want you to notice in
your Bible, and it's found in verse number 10. He said unto
me, seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book. In verse
seven, he said, keep the sayings of the prophecy of this book.
Now he says, seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book.
Number two, in light of the day, you're gonna see Jesus. Not only
should you give attention to worship, but secondly, you should
give attention to the word. It's interesting to me, but in
the Bible study hour on Sunday morning, I spoke to the adults
and we started in Revelation 1. Some of you remember that.
And where do we begin? We began with the simple law,
blessed is he that readeth and they that keep the words of the
prophecy of this book. So it begins with us reading
it and us hearing it and us obeying it. But when you come to the
last chapter in Revelation, watch, he's not telling John to read
it. He's not just telling John to keep it to himself. Now he's
saying, open this up and give it to everybody else. And I say
to you that in the light of the day that Jesus Christ is coming
again, You and I every day ought to be taking God's word into
our own life, a steady diet of scripture, and then we ought
to be relaying what we're receiving and taking the word of God and
giving it to someone else. Met a lady today at a restaurant
in town. She was a very kind woman, a
Christian woman. And we started talking about spiritual things
and she gave testimony. She said, I know I've been born
again. That's wonderful. We talked about what that meant.
And then she said to me, I have a family member that's not a
believer and she's very troubled right now. She said, I'm praying
for salvation. I'm praying with her for that
woman to be saved. And I found it interesting to
me that God would this day put me in the path of someone and
someone in my path that needed the same promise that I need
and that I could take something God had given me and pass it
along to her. And I want to say to every person
in this room, I thank God for foreign missionaries who get
a visa and a passport and get on an airplane and fly halfway
around the world. I'm grateful to God for that. And I'm grateful
for preachers. It's what I'm giving my life
to as an evangelist, traveling from place to place and preaching
the gospel. But I want to say to every sincere
believer in this room tonight, God wants to use you to be a
channel for His grace and His truth right where you are. You
are a part of a Bible-loving, Bible-preaching, Bible-believing
church. And I say, rejoice in that, but
do not keep it to yourself. Get it out to everybody else
you can. In fact, did you notice, he said, don't seal this book.
It's a picture. Look here, please. This is a sealed book. It's closed
up. It's shut up. But God's final picture of his
word is what? It's an open book. I love that.
God wants the book to be open. And that should begin every day
with us opening the Word of God and meditating on it. You said
you were in Revelation 22 today, but I wonder, did this day you
share anything from Revelation 22 with anybody else you talked
to? You know what I've discovered? I've discovered that many days,
what I read in the Word that morning, God not only gave it
for me, God gave it for me to pass along to somebody else that
very day. Isn't it amazing how God makes these divine appointments
for us? How many of you believe in divine appointments? Why'd
that man pull up next to you at the gas pump? Why'd you get
that waitress at the restaurant? Why did you get that house? Somebody
said, I worked hard and paid for it. Yes, but it was God that
gave you the ability to get that home. So why do you think God
put you in that neighborhood? Why did God give you that job
and let you be next to that person? Let me tell you what I believe.
I believe this with all my heart, that there are people all over
this world who are dying for lack of knowledge. They need
to know God and we have the truth of the word of God. We must get
it to somebody else. This book we've been studying
all week, the book of the revelation of Jesus Christ. If John had
not passed it on, we would not have had this very truth. And
yet, I want to say, thank God he did. Now we must pass it on
to someone else ourselves. Week after week traveling, I've
been, frankly, shocked. Shocked at the people God has
put in my path. On airplanes, hotels, and restaurants. Sometimes in the strangest ways,
sometimes at moments that I got aggravated, and I'm sure nobody
in this room ever gets annoyed, but I've been annoyed sometimes.
and a flight delay, something that didn't work out the right
way. I remember I got all messed up some time ago. I was in Texas,
and I got all messed up and had to spend an extra night there
and find a room and go to the hotel late. And do you know what
God did? God put me in a shuttle with
a man in the middle of the night who didn't know Jesus as his
Savior. And we talked, and it was like the Holy Spirit just
slapped me upside the head. You ever have the Holy Spirit
do that? and said, pay attention, son. I'm doing something here.
Stop your grumbling and complaining. I'm up to something here. In
a matter of a few moments, that young man bowed his head and
received the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal savior. Let me
tell you what we're supposed to be. Every one of us are supposed
to be worshipers, and we're supposed to be taking the word of God
to other people. So it brings me to the third
thing we should give attention to every day. In light of the
day, you're gonna see Jesus, number one, every day you should
worship, every day you should give attention to the word, and
number three, every day you should work. That's what the Bible says
in verse 12, the last verse we read, and behold, I come quickly. And my reward is with me. I wonder
when Jesus comes, will you receive any reward? I don't know the
answer to that question. Frankly, you don't know the answer
to that question. Only God knows the answer to that question.
But I know this, I'd hate to stand and kneel at the judgment
seat of Christ and have there no reward. Jesus said, I'm bringing
my reward with me to give every man according as, mark these
words in your Bible, his work shall be. We don't work for salvation. It's a free gift of eternal life.
Aren't you glad you don't have to earn salvation? Because you
couldn't earn salvation and nor could I. But once we receive
the Lord Jesus as our personal Savior friend, there is a work
to do. It is the Lord's work. I took a pen out a moment ago,
sitting right here on the front row, and I wrote this little question
right here in the margin of my Bible. Just struck me, looking
at those words, His work, and I wrote this question. What is
your work? What's my work? You think my
work's traveling around preaching sermons? No. No, my work is one
thing. My work is to try to get the
message of Jesus to as many people as possible while I have breath
in my body, and to take as many people to heaven with me as possible.
What's your work? You say, well, I'm a businessman,
I'm a housewife, I'm a retired, no, no, no, that's not what I'm
talking about. I'm not asking what you did for
time. I'm asking what are you doing for eternity? What is your
eternal work? What's the thing you're gonna
stand before God someday and be grateful to God that you did?
Everybody's not gonna do the same thing, but everybody ought
to do something. You can't reach everybody, but you can reach
someone. And everybody in this church can't be the pastor of
the church, but everybody in this church can have some work
they're doing for the Lord and for souls. And I ask you tonight,
what is your work, sir? Ma'am, what is your work? When
I think of the work Jesus did for me, I'm so ashamed to think
of the work he did for me at the cross and how little in response
I have done for him. What is your world? There'll
come a day, it'll all be over. As a matter of fact, there'll
be a threshold that will be crossed in every life. It could be through
death. But I believe in our generation, and maybe through the return
of the Lord Jesus Christ, where whatever you have done to that
point, that'll be it. It'll just be like, boom, it's
over. Just like that. Boast not thyself of tomorrow,
for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. And how do I
know that? Well, look at verse number 11.
He says, every time I stop, say the next word. Everybody put
your eyes on verse 11. He that is unjust, let him be unjust.
Circle that in your Bible, still. And he which is filthy, let him
be filthy, what? Still, and he that is righteous, let him be
righteous, what? Still, and he that is holy, let him be holy,
what? Wait a minute, I thought the Lord wanted all unjust people
to be made just and all filthy people to be made clean. Oh,
he does now. Verse number 11 is talking about
a future moment that is just as real as the moment we're living
in. Watch this, please. Where there's coming a time there
will be no more opportunity to be saved. Look, you can sit in
this room, not know Jesus, and you can say, I'm going to put
it off to tomorrow. Tomorrow may get here and tomorrow may
not. But I want you to know there's going to be some tomorrow that
will not come. And those who are lost at that
moment will be lost forever. And I want you to know what's
true of lost men is true for saved people. There is a work
that you and I have now while we have breath in our bodies
that can be done, but there will come a moment where there will
be no more work. Look please, there'll be a moment you pass
out your last tract, you speak your last word for Christ, you
share your testimony for the last time, and I want to ask
you, when you stand before God, what is it that you will hope
on that day you can say? What is it on that day you will
hope he will say? When we come to funerals and
we preachers, we love to use that text that many of you just
shouted out. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. But
I want you to know, none of us can say whether the Lord's gonna
say well done or not. That's up to the Lord himself.
Only God truly knows. And I'll tell you this, if some
of us don't get serious right now while we still have opportunity,
we're not gonna have much to meet when Jesus does come. Because
on that day, we're gonna meet God with the work that lasted
of eternity. When I was about 10 years old,
my dad was preaching one night. My dad was a businessman. He
was not a preacher. He was a businessman. Matter
of fact, when I was a little boy, he traveled all the time
and made a good bit of money and we traveled with him. It was great, wonderful. Then
when he was in his 30s, God called him to preach. He was bi-vocational
for a period of time, took his first church 30 years ago. He's
still pastoring, the only church he's ever pastored. When I was a teenager, he left
his business, walked away from it, became a full-time pastor. Now, I'm going to tell you, that'll
turn your world upside down. It was a great testimony of faith
to me and my sister. Matter of fact, I watched my
mom and dad. I'd never seen them any happier just serving the
Lord, just happy as they can be. I talked to him today on
the phone, just happy in the Lord. My dad was preaching one night.
I'll never forget the message. I don't even remember exactly
all that he said, but he preached one night on the message, on
the subject, 12 hours to live. He took the text where the Lord
said, this night thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required
of thee. He said, what if you only had 12 hours to live? And
I remember in that message, at certain moments he would say,
now you have 11 hours and 50 minutes left. Now you have 11
hours and 45 minutes left. Now you have 11 and a half hours
left and time was counting down. He got to the end of the message
and he said, now you have 11 hours and 15 minutes left. What
will you do in the next 11 hours and 15 minutes? You're going
to meet God. 12 hours from now. Woman got out of her seat that
night, came forward. She was a prominent woman in
the church. I'll never forget it. She came forward sobbing. I'd
never seen anybody so broken in an invitation. She was just
sobbing. She got to the front. She said to the people of the
church, she said, I've sinned. Sinned against God. Serves no
purpose for me to go into what it was, but the woman had been
living really a double life. She said that night, she said,
it may cost me to say this and to confess this and to make this
right. I'll make restitution. Whatever I have to do, I'll fix
it. But she said, I came tonight
because I don't want to meet God with that. I want to ask you, what is it
you don't want to meet God with in judgment? Whatever that is,
meet him with it now in mercy. Of course, Jesus is coming. I was sitting in our living room
with one of our kids years ago. We were flipping through channels
on the television. She was trying to get me to find
something interesting on, and I was flipping through, and I
got stopped on a documentary. You know you're getting old when
you start liking documentaries. You know what I'm talking about.
That was fascinating to me. It was penguins. I'm just fascinated
by these penguins. They were in Antarctica and they
had 25,000 male penguins all huddled together. It was 40 below
zero. All the females were smart enough
to fly south for the winter, but you know us men, we're gonna
stick it out and prove we can, you know? 25,000 male penguins were all
huddled together, three months of darkness, think about that.
Three months they'd not seen the light, they had no heat,
and they're all huddled together, and you can see them, they're
shaking and they're huddled together and they use night vision cameras
to show this mass of penguins and I'm looking at it and all
of a sudden I notice something about this enormous crowd of
penguins huddled together. Before I could get it out of
my mouth, the person on the documentary asked the scientist that was
giving the talk, they said, what are the penguins doing? They're all facing the same direction.
And I'll never forget what the man said. He said, and the timing
was amazing, he produced it perfectly. He said, they are waiting for
the coming of the dawn. And at that moment, that night
vision camera captured the very moment that the earth tilted
on its axis. And for that split second, for
the first time in three months, the first rays of sunlight broke
over the horizon. And when it did, all 25,000 male
dumb penguins standing there were all facing
with their faces outstretched in the direction of the light
and the heat. Think of it, first time in three months, and they
were all just waiting for the coming of the dawn. And when
I saw it immediately, I thought to myself, that's what we're
doing. We're living in a dark world
and hearts are cold and frigid and look, everything's a mess
it seems in our world, but what are we doing, church? Look, please,
we are waiting on something. What are we waiting on? We are
waiting on the coming of the dawn. Look, Jesus is coming and
any moment the son of God may break the horizon of heaven.
Any moment we may be with him. And I want to say to you tonight,
if that's what you're doing is waiting, that you ought not just
be waiting, you ought to be working. And when Jesus comes, he ought
not find us standing around. He ought to find us busy doing
the one thing he left us to do because Jesus is coming. Our
Father, I thank you for the word of God. If you would like to
know more about the Lord Jesus Christ, you may contact us at
the church website, gospelbaptistchurch.com, or you can go to Facebook and
type in Gospel Baptist Church, Bonita Springs, Florida. Also,
you could call the church office at 239-947-1285. Thank you, and
God bless.
Jesus Is Coming Part 1
| Sermon ID | 32720115597394 |
| Duration | 39:06 |
| Date | |
| Category | Special Meeting |
| Bible Text | Revelation 22 |
| Language | English |
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