I just want to express thanks again to, you know, we're not the biggest church in town, not that that's something that we need to aspire, but we are certainly one of the most one of the hardest working churches in terms of those who throw themselves into the various aspects to make even this church what it ought to be. It's not just one person, is it? It's a group of people who are committed and who make it go, and I'm thankful. I don't really express that often, even at all. I need to express it more. You know, a few encouraging words to one another go a long way, do they not? And we need to be encouraging one another all the more in these days, especially this morning since I'm going to be winging this entire message without the aid of a PowerPoint. You say, well, what happened? Well, I was going to finish it off this morning. Sure enough, Spectrum was offline, and I had to be online to put it together. No internet, and it seems like Spectrum these days is going out more often than they're on. And so I'm gonna have to, and you're gonna have to pay attention here. I'll try to make things clear to you as we go through this. You know, a hundred years ago, they didn't have PowerPoint. The Apostle Paul didn't have PowerPoint. So it's not really typically in the history of the church, something that you have to have in order to make a sermon. So, but we get used to these little niceties. And so, But take your Bibles this morning and turn to Luke chapter 17, and I want to go through verses 22 through 37. Last week, we went through two verses. This week, I'm gonna go through a bunch. I didn't count how many there are there, but whatever it is, 22 to 37. I'm gonna read right now verses 22 through 37. You follow along in your Bible as I read from the New American Standard Bible. And he said to his disciples, The day shall come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, look there, look here. Do not go away and do not run after them. For just as the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it shall be also in the days of the Son of Man, that they were eating, and they were drinking, and they were marrying, and they were being given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same as it happened in the days of Lot. They were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building. But on the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, let not the one who was on the housetop and whose goods are in the house go down to take them away. And likewise, let not the one who was in the field turn back. Remember Lot's wife, whoever seeks to keep his life shall lose it. And whoever loses his life shall preserve it alive. I tell you, on that day, excuse me, I tell you, on that night, there will be two men in one bed. One will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two women grinding at the same place. One will be taken and the other will be left. And answering, they said to him, where, Lord? And he said to them, Where the body is, there also will be the vultures be gathered. Our text today speaks of the second coming of Christ, and that at that coming, he will judge all who are committed to lawlessness or sin, and keep them from entering his kingdom. It's a time of judgment. For us who are believers, The coming of Christ, as we know it, at first with the rapture, when He meets us in the air, and then later He comes to earth with us to bring judgment on this earth, as we see in the book of Revelation. That event, that package deal from rapture to tribulation to second coming to earth to the millennial kingdom to even eventually the new heavens and the new earth, that package deal is something that we look forward to. It is, you know, when I think of the second coming, actually there's not a day that I don't think about it, at least in a little bit, some days more than others. I don't, there are days I just dwell upon it. There are days I remember that as I see things now, this is not the way it's going to be. There is coming a change. And so it's characteristic of you and I as believers, as spiritually mature believers, that we long for the second coming of Christ, not for personal gain, but for the glory of Christ. We desire to see Jesus vindicated and exalted instead of reviled and dishonored. We desire to see him get and receive what he truly deserves. Those who are without Christ have little interest, no interest in his coming. You see, the glory of God is the goal of redemption, and the salvation of sinners is a means to accomplishing that goal. The Bible says many times, and I've written some of these out in the back of your bulletin there, there are many, many verses which talk about the second coming of Christ. 1 Thessalonians 1.10 says, we are to wait for God's Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead. Titus 2.13 says, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 2 Timothy 4.8, Paul speaks of you and me who have loved Christ's appearing. Or in Revelation, John says, as he quotes Jesus, he says, yes, I am coming quickly, even so come, Lord Jesus. We look forward to that. And yet there are scoffers who deny it. Peter talks about them in 2 Peter 3, where he reminds us, he says, know this first of all, then the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, saying, where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation. And so they fit their worldview, they attach their worldview largely to an evolutionary type of worldview, which says everything remains the same, or it's called uniformitarianism. Everything remains the same, things just continue as they are now, they continue forever and forever, and there's no change, no change. God does not intervene. Things have always remained the same. There have been no major interventions of God. There's no such thing as a flood. There's no such thing as fire and brimstone from heaven. There's no times when God actually intervenes. Everything remains the same. Uniform or uniformitarianism is the term. But the Bible teaches that the reality of Christ's second coming is just as certain as that of His first coming. For instance, the book of Acts 1.11, where just as Jesus was being ascended to heaven in the presence of His disciples, Acts 1.11, As they were watching, as the disciples were watching Jesus ascend back to heaven, there's an angel who comes next to them and says, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven. So the Bible tells us that Jesus is coming back in a very same way that He left. The second coming of Christ is absolutely necessary to fulfill all remaining prophecies. First, I'm reminded that the promise of God demands a second coming. There were 300 prophecies, or approximately 300 prophecies regarding the person of Christ. One hundred of those prophecies were fulfilled at His first coming. I'm told. I haven't counted them specifically, I'll say that. There are at least 200 other prophecies regarding the person of Christ which are yet to be fulfilled, that will be fulfilled only at His second coming. So the promise of God regarding the person of Christ demands that Jesus Christ come back again. If He came the first time, He is coming the second time to fulfill the remaining prophecies. Even the teachings of Jesus Himself demands a second coming. Over and over again in the Gospels we find Jesus mentioning His second coming. The teaching regarding God's plan for the church demands a second coming. Remember, Jesus said in John 14, He says, If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, I will come again, and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may also be. John 14. The future of Israel demands a second coming. If there's no second coming, the future of Israel is left in the balance. It's not going to take place. There must be a second coming. Zechariah's prophecies, in Zechariah 12, 13, and 14, Talk of a day when the nation of Israel will come and receive Christ as their Messiah. They will look upon Him whom they have pierced, and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son." Zechariah 12, verse 10. Or Zechariah 13.1, he says, in that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David, that's Israel, and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that's mostly Israel, for sin and impurity. There's going to be a fountain opened for the nation of Israel in that day, Zechariah 13.1. Or Zechariah 14, verses four through nine, all speak of that after Israel's repentance, after Israel's salvation, that the second coming and the establishment of the promised kingdom will take place. You see, Israel's acceptance of Messiah precedes Christ coming back as king and reigning as king. Israel receives Christ first, and then the kingdom is set up. And so, there are many reasons. I mean, we could also talk about the corruption of the world, as corrupt as it is, cannot stay as it is. There must be a judgment. Otherwise, God is not holy, God is not powerful, God does not keep his promises, if this world never gets what it deserves. You see. The final destruction of Satan demands a second coming. The hope of the church demands a second coming. But as we saw last week in Luke 17, verses 20 and 21, we saw that the Jewish people failed to understand the two aspects of Jesus' comings. They saw only one coming. They only expected, they, the religious leaders, expected Jesus to come and set up his kingdom any time. In fact, the disciples thought that as well. Everybody in Israel thought that. That wasn't just the religious leaders. Everybody thought that. Even Jesus' own disciples thought that. But Jesus, in verses 20 and 21 of Luke 17, was speaking of His first coming, when He says that the kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed. He's talking about His first, the first aspect of His kingdom. You can't say at His first coming there were signs to be observed as there will be for the second coming, where the Old Testament prophets talked about earthquakes and strange celestial events in the sky, and there were all these signs. And so when the Pharisees come to Jesus and say, give us a sign, they weren't looking for the healing of a blind man. They were looking for something celestial. They were looking for something dramatic. that was in front of everybody. Well, Jesus' miracles were in front of everybody, but they weren't looking for that. They were looking for a different kind of sign. And so Jesus says, look, the kingdom of God in Luke 17, verse 20, is not coming with signs to be observed See, that's not how His first coming—it came quietly, and it came internally. And you had one by one, soul by soul, a person entered into Christ's kingdom. Jesus said to Nicodemus, unless you are born again, you will no wise see the kingdom of God. You have to come to Me individually, soul by soul, in order to be a part of this kingdom. It's internal, it's spiritual. That's the first aspect of the kingdom, but the second aspect is more dramatic, and it's gonna be attended with celestial signs and signs of great earthquakes and tremendous judgment. And so we come to our passage today, here in Luke 17, and we're going to see a passage that describes the Second Coming. It doesn't give us any kind of chronological order here. We'll see that in Luke 21. We'll come back to this subject, but we'll see it in Luke 21 more chronologically. Here in Luke 17, verses 22-37, it is described to us. And there are basically three features that are mentioned here regarding the second coming of Christ, a time of judgment and a time of great peril for those who are without Christ. And I'm gonna tell you what these three features are right now, Roman numerals one, two, and three. You can write these down if you're taking notes. The three features, here I go, I'll repeat them again. The three features of Christ's second coming, number one, it will be unmistakable. Number two, it will be unexpected. And number three, it will be unforgiving. It will be unmistakable, it will be unexpected, and it will be unforgiving. The first point, verses 22 through 25, is that Christ's second coming is unmistakable. It's not going to be unambiguous. It will be crystal clear. He will, it will become something that is, that the world will clearly see. Look at verse 22, if you would please. And He said to His disciples, now Jesus is changing gears between verse 21 and 22. He is now switching to His second advent. 21 and 22 is looking at His first advent, that it's internal, it's within you. It's without signs. Come to verse 22, Jesus changes gears. Now He's going to talk about His second advent. Right there in the white space between 21 and 22, Jesus shifts gears. You can just see Him do that. He's going from first into second, or whatever. He's changing gears. And in 22, verse 22, He said to His disciples, the day shall come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. It'll be, letter A in your notes, a painful delay. You will long to see this day, and you will not be able to. He is talking about specifically, as I look, they wouldn't have perhaps seen this, but we had the benefit of the entire scripture. We had the benefit of the book of the Revelation. And so we know that the people during the tribulation, they are under the gun, they are being, The judgment of God is being poured out on them from Revelation 6 all the way through chapter 18 of Revelation. And certainly those people were suffering the pain of God's judgment. Revelation 6, verse 10, there's a statement in Revelation 6, 10, it goes like this, "'How long, O Lord, holy and true, will you refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?' There's a cry out by those who had been persecuted for vengeance." And so, verse 22 is also applicable to us today, because we're We're vexed, as it were, by the encroaching wickedness of all around us. We hear of wickedness every day. Every day you turn on the news or you look at the Internet and you hear of another aspect of the wickedness that has gripped the world. And there's a yearning in the heart of a believer for the preeminence of Christ and for His glory. We are looking forward to that. There's a painful delay. for us today, but there's also the painful delay of those who are actually living out, they're Christians during the tribulation, and they're hoping for the return of Christ. So Jesus says in verse 22, the day shall come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. You will not see it. There's a painful delay But there's also letter B, the powerful day, especially found in verse 24. But in the powerful delay is spoken of there in verse 23 and verse 24, for they will say to you, look there or look here, do not go away and do not run after them. In other words, there will always be people who will say, well, look, he's coming over here, or he's coming over there. Or they'll say, you know, reliable sources have said that Jesus has already returned. And so there will be some confusion. People will say, over here, over there, here, there, everywhere. They're speaking out of ignorance. But Jesus clearly says in verse 24, look, for just as the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines into the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day. In other words, it will be a powerful day. It will be an obvious day that the second coming of Christ, it won't be anything confusing. When He comes, it will be visible to all. It will be globally seen. Everybody can see the lightning. When you're in a thunderstorm here and the lightning flashes, everybody sees it. Everybody knows, there was the lightning, I saw it. Everybody can agree to that. And remember now, this is speaking of the second coming. I want to just emphasize the fact that there is a difference between the rapture and the second coming, by the way. The rapture and the actual second coming of Christ are actually two different events. In the rapture, 1 Thessalonians 4 says, believers meet the Lord in the air. In the second coming, Jesus actually comes back to the earth. In the rapture, the Lord comes to bless his people without any reference to judgment. But in the second coming, there's an emphasis on judgment that falls on unbelievers all throughout the world. We see that here in this passage. The rapture has no judgment attached to it. The second coming of Christ has judgment attached to it. In the rapture, there's no reference to the context of the millennium. But in the second coming of Christ, there's an establishment, there's the concept of Jesus coming back, judging, and reigning as king. The millennial reign of Christ is attached to his second coming. The millennial reign of Christ is not attached to the rapture. It's a different event. And there are other reasons. In the rapture, only believers are removed from the earth. In the second coming of Christ, only unbelievers are removed from the earth. In judgment, believers go into the millennial kingdom. Those who are believers during the time of the tribulation, if they make it to the end, walk right into the millennium, as it were. Believers are gone. they're taken away. It's a powerful day, verse 24, just as the lightning shines and flashes, and the world will be wide-eyed, and every eye, as Revelation 1 says, every eye will see Him, every eye will behold Him. And again, I'm reminded, and I've mentioned this before, Sandy Patty, a number of years ago, she's a Christian singer, And she sang a powerful song entitled, We Shall Behold Him. And every time I hear that song, it sends goosebumps up my spine. If you're interested in it, you can just go type in, We Shall Behold Him, Sandy Patty, on YouTube, and you can watch it for yourself. It's powerful. It's majestic. And so, Jesus is coming again, it's a powerful day. But let us see there, verse 25, there's a purposed delay, there's a painful delay, there's a powerful delay, but there's a purposed delay. Verse 25, note the purposed delay, the intentional delay that's mentioned in verse 25. But first, He must suffer. In other words, before this can happen, before the second coming happens, first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. In other words, right there, Jesus informed them that there's two parts to this, to His ministry. There's His first advent, there's His second advent. One is with suffering, the second is with glory and conquering and judgment. There's two aspects of His coming. Over and over again, as I've said, throughout the Gospels, and the list is as long as your arm, references where Jesus says, I must suffer, I must suffer, I must go to Jerusalem and be rejected by the people, by the religious leaders, and suffer, and go to the cross. He says that repeatedly. And it's like that message went in one ear and out the other. that the disciples and those who followed him didn't want to, they just wanted a King Jesus to come and reign and kick out the Romans. Now, they didn't want someone to go to the cross. Certainly, that was the religious leaders, people who trusted him, began to see things a little differently, I'm sure. there's this reminder that there's a purposeful delay. He must suffer first. Keep your finger here in Luke 17, and go with me over to Acts 3, real quick, Acts 3. And there's an extension here. Peter is now After the ascension, Peter is now a bold preacher of the gospel. It's like after Jesus ascended, after Jesus' resurrection and ascension, it's like Peter became a brand new guy. He was totally different. The Peter in the book of Acts is different than the Peter of the gospels, because the Peter in the book of Acts is powerfully filled with the Holy Spirit, and he gets it. He gets it, and he's unrelenting in his message. And in Acts 3, he has this message. And in this message, he speaks of Christ's first—he must first suffer, and then he will return and make things right. Look at Acts 3, beginning with verse 12. But when Peter saw this, he replied to the people—this is verse 12, Acts 3—men of Israel, why do you marvel at this, and why do you gaze at us, as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the God of our fathers has glorified His servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered up and disowned in the presence of Pilate when he had decided to release Him. But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you. But put to death the Prince of life and the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact which we are witnesses. And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know, and the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all. And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance. just as your rulers did also. But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of the prophets, that his Christ," here it is, through the mouth of the prophets, verse 18, that Christ should suffer, has thus fulfilled. It's been fulfilled. Verse 19, "'Repent, therefore, and return, that your sins may be wiped away, in order that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.'" Stop there. If all of Israel had trusted Christ at that time, theoretically, the kingdom could have come in right then. Theoretically, I say. because in the plan of God he knew that that wasn't going to happen. So when Peter says, you know, repent and therefore return, that your sins may be wiped away in order that the times of refreshing, that would be the millennial kingdom, the times of refreshing, of rejuvenation, of the times of joy may come from the presence of the Lord, verse 20, that he may send Jesus, the Christ appointed to you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time." In other words, Peter believed that Christ would come back after Israel received her Messiah and just before the kingdom. In other words, Peter was a premillennialist Peter believed that Christ would come back before the kingdom, at the very end of the tribulation, and would bring in, and the kingdom would be set up by him, okay? But when the rejection of Jesus by Israel, when it finally ends, Israel's saved, and all of Israel will be saved. In fact, Paul says that in Romans 11, verse 25, that one day all Israel will be saved, Romans 11, verse 25 and 26. Now I say that because if you've been to different churches, there's a large part of evangelical Christianity today that denies any hope for Israel. There's a large portion of evangelical Christianity today that denies that Israel has a future. Israel is off God's plans for now. Israel has been set aside, they say. God's now going to just deal with the church only. Israel has been swept away because they did not believe. And God's only, from now on, only working with the church. Israel is set aside. But God made a salvation promise to Israel. And God will keep that promise. And He's not finished with Israel. Paul tells us that in the book of Romans. So clearly, there is coming a day when all Israel will be saved. And we believe that to be in the middle time of the tribulation. We've been talking about that on Sunday nights when we've been talking about the 144,000 that are described in the book of Revelation and the two witnesses. And they will come. These are Jewish folks. They're all Jews. And they're proclaiming the gospel that eventually leads to the salvation of the nation of Israel. And it's a wonderful time, so to speak. I mean, it's no picnic, it's the Tribulation, but it's wonderful in the sense that people are getting it and people are receiving Jesus as Messiah even during the Tribulation. And one writer likened those 144,000 to, imagine 144,000 Daniels. You know Daniel in the Old Testament, the book of Daniel, and Daniel and the lion's den and all that. Imagine 144,000 Daniels. That's what these guys are like. And they cannot be touched, they cannot be harmed by the Antichrist, they are proclaiming the message free from any kind of harm from Antichrist. Man, wouldn't that be a blast? To be one of those guys, and you can't touch me, Antichrist. Touch this, you can't touch me. You can't hurt me, and here's the message. Jesus died for you, and he paid the penalty for the sins of people everywhere. So verses 22 through 25, This second coming is unmistakable. It's unmistakable. It's coming, and it has, there's grandeur to it, there's glory to it. But not only that, verses 26 through 30 speaks of the unexpected, it's unexpected, it will be unexpected. And we see, we see the indifference of, that there is to wickedness. Now, he uses two past events here, two notable events of judgment to make this point. He speaks of the worldwide flood at Noah's time, and he speaks of the time of Lot or Sodom and Gomorrah, two notable judgment times. And the level of wickedness in both of those cases was off the charts. the level of wickedness during the days of Noah were so great that Genesis 6 says that God regretted that He made man. Genesis 6, verses 5 and 6. Well, it says there, God regretted that He made man. Man was so bad, so evil, so wicked, the text of Scripture says God regretted that He made man. We're not suggesting that God's admitting to a mistake. But in order to appeal to us as human beings, the heart of God, the text tells us that he regretted it. But God had a plan. He had a plan going back to Genesis chapter three that he's gonna send a savior. And that savior would be born through a woman, it says in Genesis chapter three. The seed of the woman it speaks of in Genesis chapter three, verse 15. But there's not only that illustration of Judge, but there's the illustration of Lot. So the world was destroyed under the days of Noah by a worldwide flood. The entire world except for eight people were destroyed. But in Lot's time, there's also a group of people that were saved in verses 28 and 29. And that's Lot there at Sodom and also Gomorrah. So both of these judgments, the judgment during the time of Noah and the judgment during the time of Lot, fell upon people who were completely indifferent. And so that's letter A there. There was an indifference to wickedness. Letter A is indifference to wickedness. People just didn't care. They came to a point where they did not care. There's just a total indifference. They were wretched, they were vile, they were just totally evil, and God judged them. Evil men, Paul says in 2 Timothy 3, verse 13, says, evil men will grow worse and worse. Makes me wonder, how can they get much worse than they are today? How could they even gotten much worse in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah or the days of Noah? They were bad then. I think it just appears to be worse today because we have the invention of the Internet, which just propagates everybody's sin at a rapid pace. We see everywhere what's going on in the world at any time, 24-7. We've got cable news all the time, every day, you can watch it. So it seems like perhaps evil is worse than it was in the day of Noah. I'm not sure that it's worse, it's just more propagated and more advertised. And so we're more aware of it being worse, but I'm going to say that it was at least as bad in the days of Noah. And God wiped out that. And so that basically, that's another, that's really another proof that Christ must come back because He has to finally judge sin. And that has not been done at a worldwide level since the days of Noah. So Christ must do it if he's going to be true to his character and his nature. And so, evil men will grow worse and worse. But we see not only that they have their indifference towards wickedness, letter A, but we find their disbelief in the warnings, because in both the days of Noah and Lot, those men both warned their compatriots who were in their realm of influence. Noah was a preacher of righteousness for 120 years, Peter tells us. And so as he's building the ark, he was a preacher of righteousness and he was proclaiming that there was coming a judgment. We find that during those passages found in the book of Genesis. We're also told that Lot warned people as well. He warned his sons-in-laws. In Genesis 19, verse 14, it says Lot warned his own sons-in-law, those men that were going to marry his daughters, were warned of a coming judgment from their future father. These were the men who were gonna marry Lot's daughters, but they never made it because they were judged. Only Lot and his two daughters, and his wife, but she didn't make it. So it was Lot, Mrs. Lot, and their two daughters that got out, but Mrs. Lot looked back and she was judged, as you remember the story. So only, eventually, only Lot and his two daughters got out alive. You remember the story of Lot? Found in Genesis chapter 19. But Lot warned his prospective son-in-laws in Genesis 19, verse 14, that there was a coming judgment, and they just laughed at him. They mocked him. They derided him. The whole idea of coming judgment was not believed. And so letter B there is their disbelief in the warnings. Their disbelief in the warnings. people rejected the message of Lot. They rejected the message of Noah. And despite the judgments of God and the ministry of the 144,000 in the book of Revelation, the book of Revelation says, despite their ministry, Revelation 9, verse 21 speaks of people during that time who refused to believe. Even when The days of the tribulation are the most intense. Revelation 9, verse 21 says, the people of the earth will refuse to believe. They refuse to acknowledge that God is bringing this and that they need to repent. It's interesting, as I look at the lives of Noah and his family and Lot and his family, that God always rescues His own. The ark was an ark of safety. Just as the rapture of the church takes place just before the tribulation, God takes out His own At that, on the day just before the judgment comes, God takes out His own. He removed Noah and his family into the ark of safety, into the ark, and brought destruction to the rest of the world. God saved His own. Lot and his family were saved from the wrath of God, this raining down of fire and brimstone, just before the tribulation. The church is raptured out, and the church is saved before the tribulation. God always rescues His own before He brings this kind of judgment. So we've seen two things already, point one and two, that this time, this second coming, it will be unmistakable, and it will be unexpected. It's unexpected because you go back to the text. I really didn't mention this, and I need to. I got sidetracked here, but if you look at the text. In verse, during the days of Noah, it says, verse 27, they were eating and drinking and they were marrying, they were being given in marriage. Verse 28, same thing, during the days of Lot, verse 28, they were eating and drinking, they were, this time it says they were buying, they were selling, they were planting. Basically, verses 27 and 28 is saying that people were just living out normal daily things. They were living life. They were doing the normal kinds of things so that when the judgment come came it was totally unexpected They were just living life They were marrying and being given in marriage. They were buying they were selling they were doing all the things that you do in life and So it caught them by surprise It caught them by surprise But God spares his own so When we speak of the second coming, number one, it's unmistakable, number two, it's unexpected, and number three, it is unforgiving. It is unforgiving. And we see this beginning with verse 31 and 32. We see the reaction, letter A is the reaction of worldliness Letter A is the reaction of worldliness. Verse 31, on that day, let not the one who is on the housetop, whose goods are in the house, go down to take them away. And likewise, let not the one who is in the field turn back. In other words, as you see the coming of judgment, don't go back to what you want to save or that you want to get out with you. Don't have the reaction of worldliness. Don't do that. There'll be no further opportunity to follow Christ, no opportunity to repent, no opportunity for salvation. The issue at hand is that there is one concern for those who know Christ, is that He's coming, He's going to take us, or He's going to, in this case, He's going to keep us where we're at, but He will take those in judgment who are on the earth. The taking here, some people say, well, is this talking about the rapture? No, it's talking about those who are judged at the time of the tribulation and the second coming of Christ. Hence, the condition of one's heart will be disclosed when the Lord returns. If you are so tied to your home and to your stuff, you will go back. You will try to save it. He says there in verse 31, let no one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house go down to take them away. It's too late. It's too late. And likewise, let not the one who is in the field turn back to go back and get your stuff or to rescue your stuff, whatever that might be, your valuables before it burns up. And hence, verse 32, remember Lot's wife, who affectionately, as they were fleeing Sodom, they were told to flee and not to look back. You remember that? And Mrs. Lot, who lived much of her life in glorious, you know, she was well off. But as the city was being destroyed, she turned around and looked back and she was, as the scripture says, turned into a pillar of salt, whatever that looks like. The first mannequin, I don't know. But she was judged. Remember Lot's wife. She was on the verge of salvation from judgment, but still longed for her world, her stuff, her life, and she turned around. That's the reaction, letter A, that's the reaction of worldliness. That's the reaction of loving the world more than the God who's delivering you. But then there's the removal of the wicked, verses 33 and 36, letter B, the removal of the wicked, the removal of the wicked. Those whose affections truly do not belong to the Lord and those who do not genuinely love His appearing will suffer great loss, verse 33. Whoever seeks to keep his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life shall preserve it alive." In other words, you value the things of God more than the things of this world. You value and love God more than you love this world. Those who define their lives by means of worldliness will lose the ability to define their lives by the righteousness of Christ. I'll say it again. Those who define their lives by means of worldliness or worldly attitudes will lose the ability to define their lives by the righteousness of Christ. They do not see their lives in terms of my relationship with God. Their life is only in terms of this horizontal relationship with the world. They love the world. Jesus says if you love the world more than me, you're not one of mine. You can't love God and love the world. You will either love one or hate the other, but you can't love both. You can't love both. And so the consequence is that at the second coming, worldly people regardless of how pagan they might be or how religious they might be, will suffer loss. Verse 34, I tell you, on that night there will be two men in one bed. One will be taken, that is, taken in judgment, and the other will be left because he loved the Lord and he loved the Lord Jesus Christ, he was not taken. Verse 35, there will be two women grinding at the same place. One will be taken, that is, taken in judgment, and the other will be left And then some translations leave out verse 36, which I didn't read later, but in my margin of my Bible, there's, there are, this gets into this issue of some manuscripts include it. We speak Greek manuscripts. You got all these 5,000 Greek manuscripts on which our English Bibles are based or to be, they're supposed to be based. And so some manuscripts have verse 36 in them and some do not. It's not a big deal. It's saying basically the same thing. Verse 36 in the margin of my Bible reads like this, two men will be in the field, one will be taken, that is taken in judgment, and the other will be left. And a similar thing says over in Matthew chapter 24, and I think it's verse 40. So there is judgment, there is coming judgment. The letter C, lastly, as we bring it to a close, is the realization of wrath, the realization of wrath, because this is the conclusion of this entire matter, and it's horrific. The conclusion is, verse 37, in answering, they said to him, where, Lord, in other words, Where do we see this? Where do we see this judgment? Where is this going to take place? And Jesus' answer here, he's gonna talk about the vultures here. He says, where the body is, there will also be the vultures gathered. In other words, the answer, if I could just paraphrase Jesus, he's saying, it's essentially, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. Judgment will be taking place everywhere, and to show that, just take a gander at the skies, because vultures always gather around corpses in carcasses, do they not? There've been times I've been driving down the highway, in certain places, there's a dead something in the middle of the road, and there'll be several birds, vulture-like critters there, feasting away. You ever seen something like that? Well, vultures are sort of like God's cleanup committee. They go where the carcasses and the corpses are and they clean them up so that there's no more carcass or corpse left, they devour it all. I'm not sure that there's anything that they can't devour as long as it's dead. And so, Jesus says it's everywhere. The bodies of those who are judged will lie in order to be devoured by the scavenging birds of the air, the vultures. They gather the dead bodies. And so the world, as it is today, will end with the return of Christ. He will judge. And no one who is lawless, no one who is sinful, will enter his kingdom. They're taken out. They're taken. Only those who are his march from the end of the tribulation into his millennial kingdom. where Christ will rule, the Bible says in Revelation chapter 20, says it six times, that Christ will rule in his kingdom for a thousand years, a thousand years. So my point here this morning is, do you know this one? In order for you to be a part of God's kingdom, the first step is to be born again. Again, as Jesus said in John chapter 3, He said to Nicodemus, He said, Hey, Nick, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. John chapter 3, verse 3. Do you know him? Are you one of his children through faith alone and Christ alone? I'm gonna close with prayer, and then we're gonna sing hymn number 713. We're gonna sing an acapella, but you know it already. It's Seek Ye First. But let's just close with a word of prayer. Father, again, we just thank you for your word, which is clear. Father, it's hard to understand how people today can be confused about what is so clear in your word. Save us, Lord, from over-speculating about minutia and details and overanalyzing these things that are happening around us. Help us, Lord, just to live in the glory of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that it will happen just as surely as the first coming happened. And as every other promise in Scripture is true, so is this one. And as we look for that day, Lord, we long for it to begin. We long for you to come and to take your church so that we can fellowship with you and that you can begin to purge and bring about the salvation of your people Israel, which leads to the return of Christ and the establishment of His kingdom. We say with John, Lord, even so come, Lord Jesus.