This morning is from Joel chapter 3. Do you know that in our study of Matthew 24 we've been reading through Joel as it very much corresponds to Matthew 24? And this is our third week in the study of Matthew 24. So we are in chapter 3 of the book of Joel. Listen now as I read to you from God's holy and inspired Word. For behold, in those days, and at that time, when I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there on account of My people, My heritage Israel, whom they scattered among the nations. They have also divided up My land. They have cast lots for My people, have given a boy as payment for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine that they may drink. Indeed, what have you to do with me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the coasts of Philistia? Will you retaliate against me? But if you retaliate against me, swiftly and speedily I will return your retaliation upon your own head, because you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my prized possessions. Also, the people of Judah and the people of Jerusalem you have sold to the Greeks. that you may remove them far from their borders. Behold, I will raise them out of the place to which you have sold them, and will return your retaliation upon your own head. I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabians, to a people far off, for the Lord has spoken. Proclaim this among the nations. Prepare for war. Wake up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near. Let them come up, beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble and come, all you nations, and gather together all around. Cause your mighty ones to go down there, O Lord. Let the nations be wakened and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat. For there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, go down, for the wine press is full, the vats overflow, for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon will grow dark and the stars will diminish their brightness. The Lord also will roar from Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem. The heavens and earth will shake. But the Lord will be a shelter for His people and the strength of the children of Israel. So you shall know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Then Jerusalem shall be holy and no alien shall ever pass through her again. And it will come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drip with new wine, the hills shall flow with milk and all the brooks of Judah shall be flooded with water. A fountain shall flow from the house of the Lord and water the valley of a case is Egypt shall be a desolation in Edom, a desolate wilderness because of violence against the people of Judah, where they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall abide forever in Jerusalem from generation to generation, for I will acquit them of the guilt of bloodshed whom I had not acquitted. For the Lord dwells in Zion. May God bless to us the hearing of His Holy Word. Now let's turn over to our New Testament reading from Matthew 24. Matthew 24, and I'll begin in the middle of the chapter at verse 36, where we left off last Lord's Day. Matthew 24, beginning in verse 36 to the end of the chapter. Here is the Word of God. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then two men will be in the field. One will be taken, and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken, and the other left. Watch, therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore, you also be ready for the son of man is coming in an hour you do not expect. Who then is a faithful and wise servant who is whom his master made ruler over his household to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, my master is delaying his coming, begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and in an hour that he is not aware of and cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. May God bless to us the hearing of his holy word. Now, let's join together in the singing of Psalm 94, the psalm that we have been singing in connection with Matthew 24, Psalm 94. And we will sing A and B. We usually remain seated for this song, but why don't we stand at this time? This is a song that seems more suitable to stand. in a parable this morning to start us off with Junior. He was in a parable a couple of weeks ago. Supper was just about over. The family was enjoying the delicious cookies that Mother had baked that day. Can I please have one more cookie, Mom? Junior begged. No, Junior. You have had enough. Come upstairs with me and I'll brush your teeth. And then when we're finished, you go back down and clear off the table, and then I'll come and wash the dishes. After Junior's teeth were brushed, he headed back to the kitchen as his mother had told him and began to clear off the dishes. But as he did, he kept thinking about those delicious cookies that he had eaten at supper. Perhaps he could have just one more. His mother was taking a long time to come and wash the dishes. Maybe he could just have one before she returned. He did. It was very good. She still didn't come back. There was no sign of her. Maybe he could have just one more. So he climbed on the stool and gently removed the lid without making any noise, carefully reached in, grabbed another cookie and suddenly he heard his mother's voice. Junior, she exclaims. Junior looks up with terror to see his mother glaring at him. Come with me, she demands. It's too late. Nothing can be done. Junior is caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Junior will be lovingly corrected by his mother, and hopefully he will learn a lesson. But his story illustrates to us a danger that is far more serious. The danger that any of you would be among those who are caught, so to speak, with your hand in the cookie jar when our Lord returns. That is, that you would be found unprepared to meet Him when He appears in glory with His angels to judge the earth. There are three things that I want you to consider this morning. from our Lord's instruction in Matthew 24, 36-51. First, that the Lord is coming back, and we don't know when that will be. Secondly, that when He does come back, it will be too late to prepare yourself at that time. And thirdly, that you are admonished, therefore, to prepare yourself for His coming now. You don't want to be caught with your hand in the cookie jar. Well, let's look at each of these points in order. First of all, the Lord is coming back, and we don't know when. Jesus shows us that the event is certain, but the timing of the event is unknown. It's not for us to know. We have seen in Matthew 24 that Jesus' disciples were quite ready quite desirous for the end of the age to come and for Jesus to return in His glory, they yearned to see Him glorified, which was a good thing. They yearned to sit on the twelve thrones that Jesus had told them that they would sit on, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, to have the whole world in subjection to them. They were ready for Him to bring the kingdom of glory right away. And so, when Jesus had told them that we saw back in verse 2, that the temple would be utterly destroyed so that not one stone would be left upon another. They had automatically assumed that when that happened, it would be the end of the age and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Matthew 24.3, they ask Him, when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age? You see that they run all of those things together. They expect the destruction of the temple to occur at the same time, contemporaneous with his personal return. The word that they use in verse three is quite important. When they say your coming, as it's translated in our Bible, it's the word parousia, which refers to a special kind of coming. I've talked to you about that already. First of all, this word is only used four times in the Gospels, and all four times it's in Matthew 24. It's used a lot in the epistles, but always to refer to this event, the personal coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. His bodily coming, His physical presence. It was used, this word in general, to refer to when an important person like a king was coming personally, not sending someone else in His name, but He Himself is coming. So, they say, when will be the time of your parousia, your coming? The disciples, as I say, had hoped that this would be very, very soon. Maybe in the next few weeks. But Jesus tells them that although the destruction of Jerusalem will take place in the present generation, His parousia will come at what time the Father has appointed. An unknown time. He warns them repeatedly against supposing that the events of this world are a sign that He has come or that He's coming very soon. He tells them over and over that it's not a sign of the end. He says wars and rumors of wars are not a sign of the end. Famines and earthquakes are not a sign of the end. The coming and going of false prophets and false Christs are not a sign of the end. He says these things are going to go on all through that period before His coming. The parousia will come without any particular special warnings. The destruction of Jerusalem, however, which they also had inquired about when the temple was destroyed, would be given with a very clear sign. It would be preceded, I should say, by a very clear sign. As soon as they see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, he says in verse 15, then flee. Flee to the mountains. Now, the abomination of desolation refers to foreign armies that would surround the holy city to destroy it and to destroy the temple. Daniel had spoken of two such events in his prophecies. One of them had already occurred in 168 BC when Antiochus Epiphanes, leading the Greeks, had come in and desecrated the temple so that it was unusable for several years by the Jews while he occupied the city. The other abomination of desolation would occur in the future of Jesus' disciples, the time of Jesus' disciples. Both were in the future of Daniel. But in 70 A.D., when the Romans would come in the same way that the Greeks had come and surround the city, only instead of this time it being only for a short period of time that the temple would be desolate, they would make it desolate forever. It would be final. Now, we know that this is so because in Luke, We read the parallel account, and it's made clear here by Luke that it's talking about the armies surrounding Jerusalem. Luke says, instead of saying, when you see the abomination of desolation, he has the words of Jesus to be, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, So apparently when Jesus was speaking, of course, he said a lot more than what is quoted here. And he would have explained what he was saying using different words, as a good speaker will do to explain the thing. So he said, when you see the abomination of desolation and then he would have said, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, flee to the mountains. So this sign of Jerusalem's destruction would be so clear. that Jesus is able to actually tell His disciples when they are to flee. That when you see this, flee and you will avoid the judgment that falls upon Jerusalem. You will know ahead of time that it's coming and you will be able to avoid it. As soon as they saw the city surrounded, they were to flee. And we learn from history that this is exactly what the disciples of Jesus did in 70 AD. That when the Roman armies came and surrounded the city, that there was an opportunity for them to escape, and they fled to the mountains. And others were not aware of what was happening, that this was going to be a terrible destruction of the city. And the Christians, knowing what Jesus had said, fled at His word, and they were spared. And it's even said sometimes that not one of them perished. And you can imagine that that may be true, because if they believed Jesus' instructions, flee when you see this happen, and they did, then none of them perished. So the destruction of Jerusalem would come with signs preceding it. But you can see that the parousia would come without any warning signs. All we're told, as far as the timing of it, is that it will occur subsequent to two other events. In verse 14, Jesus says that the parousia will not occur until the gospel of the kingdom is preached in all the world as a witness to all nations. And in verse 34 and 35, he says it will not occur until all the things that he had spoken about regarding the destruction of Jerusalem had taken place. The things that were going to come upon that generation. Verse 34 and 35, he says, Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away. So the words that Jesus had spoken about the destruction of Jerusalem had to happen before heaven and earth passed away. Neither one of these antecedents to the parousia gives us much to go on as far as trying to pinpoint the time of the parousia. The Apostle Paul could say in his day, even in Colossians, he says that the gospel has been preached in all the world. So to what extent does it have to be preached in all the world? We don't know. Jesus doesn't give us a sign, you see. And the destruction of Jerusalem, of course, occurred nearly 2000 years ago. And it's definitely already been accomplished. And so conceivably, the Lord could come back at any time after that event. Jesus does not deny that there will be an end. He says that heaven and earth will pass away. He speaks very certainly of His return, of His coming, His parousia. But, He speaks just as certainly that the time will be a complete surprise to us. Look at verse 36. He says, but of that day. Well, of what day? Not the destruction of Jerusalem. that will take place in that generation. But he says, but that day, the other day, that day that heaven and earth pass away, that day of his parousia that the disciples had inquired about. And so he says to finish the verse, but of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my father only. In Mark and in some manuscripts of Matthew, he even adds that even he himself does not know, that the Son of Man does not know the day or the hour of His return. The angels do not know, and even he in his human nature does not know. Now, it is altogether astonishing to see how many there are in the history of the church that have tried to predict Jesus' return. Completely contrary to these words. We are told of persons, even in Paul's epistles, who tried to say that the Parousia had already occurred. And there are those at 1000 AD who gathered on the mountains to meet Jesus, supposing that that would be the end of the millennial kingdom, that they had a track on when the time would be. And of course, on October 22nd, 1844, the followers of Captain Bill, William Miller, gathered in a similar way. And when the Lord did not come, then they said, well, he was a year off. It'll be October 22nd, 1845. And they gathered again. And in our day, there are those such as Jack Van Impey or Harold Camping who continue to set dates and to claim that they know. Now, it's too bad that the church did not listen to one of her early father's origin. One of the church fathers who said of this verse, These words seem to convict those who profess that they have knowledge of the end and the destruction of the world and make announcements as though the day of the Lord were at hand. Calvin, likewise, pointed out that it was a proof of excessive pride and wicked covetousness to desire that we who creep on the earth should know more than is permitted to the angels in heaven. Now let me advise you that if you ever run into someone that tells you that they know when the Lord is coming, you can dismiss them at once based on the clear teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do not listen to that person. Reject what he's saying. He does not know when the Lord is coming back. Jesus makes it clear that it is not only a time that would be unknown to those in His generation who lived in His day that was unknown to them, but that it is a time that will remain unknown in future generations as well, until it occurs that the inhabitants of the earth will not know the day or the hour. In verse 37-39, He says that the circumstances surrounding His coming, the parousia of the Son of Man as He calls it, will be like those in the time of Noah." And he tells us specifically how they will be like the times of Noah. Specifically, that life will be going on as usual. They will be eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day arrives. Just doing the things that human beings do in order to survive. There were no special signs, no special warnings of any kind, nothing unusual. Jesus will come when business is going on in the world as usual. Now, we know that Noah's day was also a very wicked day. But Jesus doesn't tell us necessarily that the day of His return will be a particularly wicked day. That's not the point of comparison that He makes. He deliberately speaks here of those circumstances common to man that are not necessarily evil. Marrying, giving in marriage, just people living and doing what we do as humans, eating and drinking. No one will have any indication to alert them in advance that the day has come. In verses 40 and 41, he shows that believers will not be doing anything different than unbelievers on the day of his return. Not that we won't that believers won't be holy or they won't be living a sanctified life. But as far as the course of ordinary life, they will be out in the field working or in the millstone, the women would work in pairs where they would turn these heavy millstones to grind their grain, one on each side opposing each other. They would be there just doing the normal, ordinary course of events. His disciples will somehow have an inside track, and they'll be up on the mountain when everybody else is doing their ordinary work, or they'll just be there among them. He says one will be taken, these two men in the field, and the other will be left. And of these women grinding, one will be taken and the other will be left. The believer will have no more knowledge of the event, of the timing of the event than the unbeliever. Of course, I don't mean that it will be a surprise to the believer in the same way that it will to the unbeliever. The believer will expect, is constantly expecting the Lord to return. But the point is, is that common to both. There will be no idea of the timing. So you see, then, first of all, from this passage, that the Lord is coming back, and we do not know when that will be, as they knew the coming judgment upon Jerusalem. Now, I want you to see, secondly, that when He does come, it will be too late to prepare yourself for Him. Your destiny will be fixed. Wherever you are on that day, is what you will be as with Noah. The day comes when the day comes. You will either be ready or you won't be ready. Noah had spent a good part of his life preparing the ark for the day of judgment. He was prepared when God's judgment came with the preparation that God had commanded him to make. But it was too late for those who had not prepared an ark on the day that the flood came. So it was in Egypt on the night of the Passover. If you had not bothered to heed the Lord's instruction and put the blood on the doorpost when the death angel came around, it was too late to scurry about and try to gather your lamb at that point. You were either prepared or you were not prepared. Jesus is warning you not to be deceived. And suppose that you're going to have some sort of advance warning so that you can scamper about and get ready for His coming at the last minute. As soon as you realize that He's come, it will be too late. There will be an immediate, complete, and permanent separation between the prepared and the unprepared in that day. Just as there was a complete, immediate, and permanent separation in the day of Noah. Again, I point you to verse 40 and 41. Two men working in the field. suddenly separated into two entirely different destinies. Two women working at the millstone suddenly separated into two entirely different destinies. The language is very interesting here. Verse 39 speaks of the unprepared being taken away. Arrow is the word that's used here. It's a word that's even used for forgiveness when our sins are taken away, dismissed, put off the account. He says that they're taken away by the flood. They're taken away into judgment. But in verse 40 and 41, he uses a different word that's translated taken. It's the word paralambano. which means received or taken to oneself. You receive something. You take it to yourself. Many received Him, John says of the Lord Jesus, of those that received Him. And so in this case, it seems to refer not to those who are taken away by judgment, but to those who are received by the Lord. The one that's taken in the field, the one that's taken at the millstone is the one that's taken to be with the Lord. As Paul says in Thessalonians, taken to be with the Lord, caught up to be with the Lord. I might mention here, as an aside, that Paul uses a very specific word in Thessalonians when he says that. It speaks of going out to meet an important person. and escort him into the city or wherever it is that he's coming. It was the kind of thing that was done when an embassy went out to greet a king that was coming to the city, and they went out and had a grand procession coming in with him. Well, in this case, we would be caught up in the air to meet the Lord of Glory when He returns to judge the earth. We who believe will be given the privilege to join that great company of angels and of saints that have been resurrected from the grave, and we will be joined together with them to escort our Lord as He comes to the earth. We will be taken away in order to join in that wonderful embassy. Our Lord shows us how very different, then, the destinies of the two men in the field will be and how different the destinies of those two women, one taken and one left, who are grinding at the millstone. They seem very much alike in the world. I mean, there they are doing the same thing, doing it side by side, suddenly separated into two radically different conditions at our Lord's return. Who can comprehend the misery of the one and the joy of the other? See how our Lord describes the difference as he goes on. He illustrates the difference in verse 45 through 51 with a master who returns from a journey having left his faithful servant in charge. altogether different would be that Master's response to that servant at his return, if that servant is found doing his Master's will, versus if that servant is found beating his fellow servants and eating and drinking with the drunkards. Of the one found doing his Master's will, the Lord says in v. 46-47, blessed is that servant whom His Master, when He comes, will find so doing." Oh, that we would be found so doing when He comes. He says, "...assuredly I say to you that He will make Him ruler over all of His goods." What a marvelous thing for the Lord to say to you on that blessed day. To be pronounced blessed by Him is to be one that He is saying brings cheer to Him. It brings gladness to Him when He sees you submissive and doing His will with gladness. He congratulates and approves those who are found in Him at His return. If you are pronounced blessed when He returns, It means that you are blessed. Jesus doesn't pronounce things falsely. You will be given an eternal inheritance, as he says here, made ruler over all of his goods. Nothing that can make for your true and lasting happiness will be withheld from you in that day. You will be brought into the eternal fellowship of God. of His household to live in the delight of the love that has been exchanged for all eternity between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You will be brought into that household as your inheritance to live in the communion of that love forever and ever and ever according to your capacity as a creature. You will be given a happiness that defies comparison with even the greatest happiness that you may have ever known in this world. But alas, if you are found unprepared for His coming, if you are found to be living your life without reference to your Master and to His coming, living as if He has no particular authority over you, no right to command you, Doing your own will, Jesus says in verse 50, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and in an hour that he is not aware of. He will catch him mistreating his fellow servants that have been put under his care. He will catch him totally diverted and consumed with this world, with his drunkenness. He will catch him with his hand in the cookie jar, Verse 51, "...and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Now, that gnashing of teeth is a very graphic way of referring to the anguish that will belong to those who are found rejecting their Lord on that day. Jesus says that He will have His portion with the hypocrites. Why hypocrites? A hypocrite, as you may know, was a play actor. He prefers someone wearing a mask, pretending a part, playing a part. Well, no doubt, he calls him a hypocrite because he pretended that this world doesn't belong to the Lord. He was playing games all his life. He tried to pretend that he did not have to answer to the Lord. That he would never be called to give an account of himself to the Lord. His whole life was a sham, a play-act, a pretense that this is not really the world that God made, the earth that belongs to the Lord. That what is very, very clear, that this is the Lord's world, is not clear, but it's fuzzy and it can't be understood and it's confusing and we don't quite know who the Lord is or just quite what He wants. It's a thing that's uncertain and a thing that we really can't know. If you have disregarded the Lord like that, then this misery that is spoken of in this passage will be your misery. It will come upon you quite suddenly if you happen to be here when the Lord returns. And even if you don't happen to be here, it will still come upon you on that day. You will be drawn out of the grave to stand before the Lord on that judgment day. You can pretend, but you cannot escape this judgment. Once our Lord returns, it will be too late to make any changes. Your destiny will be sealed one way or the other forever and ever and ever. And so, thirdly this morning, see what our Lord does. He admonishes you in this whole passage to prepare yourself for His coming. That's why He's telling us all these things. See, verse 42, He urges you to watch He says, watch therefore. It's the present tense. Keep watching. Be watching. For you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. The idea here is that you would be always looking for Him. Watching for Him. The way a man at a military post is always looking out, watching for the enemy. You are to live every moment of your life under the expectation that He may come at that moment. In other words, don't be caught. with your hand in the cookie jar, supposing that He's delaying His coming. Now, of course, the point is not that everything depends on that particular moment that He returns, and that if you happened to have fallen into a temptation as a generally faithful Christian believer, and He happened to return at that moment, that everything would be lost for you. That's not the point. What matters is that you are living your life all together as one who expects to meet Him at any time, and living as one who expects to give an account to Him. That rather than conducting your affairs as if that great day will never come, that you are constantly watching, expecting, and preparing for that day. that your whole life is shaped by the reality of His coming. So that when you do fall into sin, that you do not remain in sin, but you repent, and you ask forgiveness, and you seek restoration. He uses the illustration of one who knows that a robber is coming. If he knows that a robber is going to come, then he's going to keep a lookout. He's going to remain in a state of preparedness. If a restaurant owner knows that the health inspector is going to come one day, then He is wise if He keeps things in order, so that He doesn't violate the laws, lest His business be closed down for lack of compliance. He will be always ready, you see, knowing that He could come at any moment. That's what Jesus is telling you to do, because He says, you don't know when I'm going to come. It's not something you can get ready for at the last minute. Notice how he personalizes it with his disciples. Verse 44, therefore, you also be ready, he says, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect. Jesus' disciples often thought that certain things perhaps didn't apply to them. I mean, they were Jesus' disciples. They were insiders. But Jesus says, you also be ready. Because you don't know either. It applies to you, too, he's saying. And then he gives this illustration of the master that went away on a journey, left his servant to run things while he was gone. We already looked at that for the consequences. But I want you to notice now how it especially is tailored to the disciples of Jesus. You see, they were soon to be specifically entrusted with the care of His house, of the house of the Lord Jesus. Jesus was going to go to heaven, and His disciples, apostles, would be left to minister until He returned. They would be made rulers over His household. to give to all their food in due season, so to speak, as a steward was responsible for distributing the food to all the members of the household. So the minister of the word of God is to distribute God's word and to bring that word to the people according to the master's will. He is warning them that in his long absence, they must not take matters into their own hands, begin to do things their own way as if he were as if it were their house instead of his house. You know, we're going to make up some ceremonies for the church. We're going to make up this and that. We're going we're going to do our own thing. We're going to make up some doctrines. And we don't like some of these doctrines. So we're going to kind of avoid those. They are to remember he is the master and that one day he will return. They are to be ready always for that return. They are to be sure that they are found doing things according to His will when He comes. And they haven't drifted into living independently of Him as if there is no Lord. Well, you see that this is the great danger. That they would say in their hearts is verse 48. My master is delaying his coming and then begin to beat their fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunkards that the master should return and not find them doing what they were called to do. In this case, administering the word of God that he had appointed for them to minister. Jesus says you. You who have been given, who will be given this special responsibility to take care of my house, you also, you in particular, be ready, because you don't know when I'm coming either. But now I say that if you are wise, you will see how Jesus applies this to His disciples. And you will say, I need to apply that to myself. You. You also. I also, in particular, need to be ready for His coming. That's what you need to say. Some of you would say, appropriately, I am a father and a husband. God forbid that the Lord Jesus should come and find me neglecting to provide for the needs of my family in a selfish way. God forbid that I should be considered worse than an infidel because I don't care for my family. How many fathers abandon their children? God forbid again that He should come and find me neglecting my calling as the head of my household to bring the Word of God to my family, to discipline my children, to see that my family is faithful in the worship of God and in service to Him. Others of you could appropriately say, I also. I in particular should be ready. I am an elder in a church. And how terrible it would be that He should return and find me doing my own will instead of caring for His people. God forbid that I should be trusting in my position rather than serving my Lord in my position. That the blood of His saints should be on my hands. That I should be found taking disciples to myself rather than making disciples of the Lord. Or another should say, I in particular should be ready. I am only a child. And I have not had so much time to prepare for the Lord's coming as others have. God forbid that He should come and find me in my youth unconcerned, indifferent about my soul when I am called to seek Him in the days of my youth. God forbid that He should find me unprepared, because I suppose that I could wait until later to prepare for His coming. And another should say, I in particular should be ready, for I have been a believer for a long time. And I realize that I have not made nearly as much progress as I should after these 5 years or these 20 years or these 40 years. I have not made nearly as much progress. I have not prepared myself the way I should. I need to be therefore all the more diligent that I am ready When He comes, I can put it off no longer. My Lord may come at this very moment. You get the idea. Just as Jesus applied this specifically to His disciples and their particular circumstances with the illustration that He used, so you need to find ways to apply it to yourself, whoever you are and whatever your circumstances. It is God's message to each one of you. You also. Be prepared, because you do not know when the Lord will come. The danger is that you too will say in your heart, my Lord delays His coming. Looks like He's not going to come for a while. Let me tell you what happens when you say that. Why it is such a dangerous thing to say. There's a kind of a downward progression that results. You do something that you know that your Lord would not be pleased with. You look around, you take the first cookie out of the cookie jar. Oh, nothing happened. Maybe you were neglecting your Bible reading, neglecting regular worship of the church at the stated worship times that the elders have appointed. Maybe you're a little slack and caring for your family, but nothing adverse seems to happen of it. You're not called to account for your actions. Or maybe you found yourself using harsh and unkind language a little more frequently, giving a covetous glance at your neighbor's wife or at your neighbor's bank account, surfing the net when you're supposed to be at work, engaging in a little bit of gossip. You get the idea you're neglecting something or you're doing something that isn't quite right, you know, in your conscience, but Nothing adverse seems to result. Nobody seems to notice. Now, let me just make a little digression here. Nobody seems to notice. You know, let me just mention that on the side here, that this is one of the reasons that we need to encourage one another. We have to wake each other up, brothers and sisters, because our consciences go to sleep. That's why parents discipline their children. to wake them up and say, hey, that's not acceptable. No, there are consequences. There are consequences when you do wrong. We need to do that with each other. You see, we've lost that in the modern church. We're too polite with each other. We see our brother in sin. And there's no consequences and we don't give him any consequences. Elders, they're appointed to give oversight. No consequences. We don't want to bother with disciplining. We won't say anything. You see what I mean? We need to help one another. That's just on the side. But now back to the point. You've done these little things and nobody has called you to account. No trouble has come of it. It seems to be going OK. So you begin to grow comfortable in what you're doing. In effect, you're saying, I haven't had to give an account for my slackness. Oh, I guess it's OK. Maybe I won't have to give an account at all. My Lord delays His coming. You see, He's not visiting me about this. I can go on with this and it's not going to make any difference. Very soon, you're very comfortable with that sin, that little sin, that little omission or that little commission of sin. And once you're comfortable with those little sins, then you take on a few new ones. Because those new sins, you see, your conscience is now partially hardened and it still is bothered. It's not bothered by those ones that you're accustomed to, but there's a new one now. And your conscience is bothered a little bit, but you commit it. You take the cookie out Nothing happens. So, you go on. This is why the Bible tells us that those that the Lord loves, He chastens. We sang it in Psalm 94 a while ago. Blessed are those that you chastise, Lord. Because you see, He won't let you go to sleep when you are His elect, when you belong to Him. But if this is your condition and you are hardening like this, well, before you know it, you'll be doing the things that Jesus is talking about. Beating your fellow servants. It doesn't happen all at once. A person doesn't go from a clear and undefiled conscience to beating his servants. He grows into it and saying, oh, you know, it seems nothing seemed to happen when I did that. And he progresses downwardly, worse and worse, assuming that he'll never have to answer for it. Well, this is exactly what your Lord is warning you about in this passage. You see, he is coming. And you will have to give an account to Him. This is not your world. It is His world. And He is the Lord of it. If you're not living in the reality of that, it may be that you're less ready for His coming than you think you are. You may think that you have trusted in the Lord for your salvation, but it may in fact be the case that you are not born again. You see, if you're born again, you've come to believe and admit that you're subject to God's judgment. And that you will give an account, that everyone will give an account to Him. And you have realized that you are a sinner who is worthy of condemnation. And you have understood that the only remedy for that condemnation is found in the Lord Jesus Christ who shed His blood for your sin. And that it's found in trusting in Him. And so you have fled to Him for salvation in order to prepare for that coming judgment. But let me tell you, if you're someone who's done that, then you'll not be able to live as if there is no coming judgment. Because your whole salvation and all that you have done is based upon that reality. If you don't believe it, then you never really came to Jesus. See, you were gripped by the reality of judgment if you came to Him. If you've been gripped by the reality of His coming judgment, it won't be possible for you to be dismissive about it. is if it's something that won't happen. It will be real to you. You will not live as those live who do not expect to ever give an account. But you see, if you do trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you are truly born again, then you will live as one who is eagerly expecting Him to come. You will conduct your affairs as one who wants to please Him in heart and behavior. and living a life of love to Him and for Him. You will be like a bride preparing to meet her husband. Not indifferent about what your husband thinks of you, but living to please. Brothers and sisters, don't you see that we are going to meet Him? He is coming for us. He is working in us now. to prepare us as a bride without spot and blemish for that day. Won't it be wonderful to be called forth to escort the King of Glory when He comes? To know that the last hour has finally come and that the day that we will be brought into His house to live with Him forever and ever has come. Do you believe that that is really going to happen? Surely then, your chief concern in life is to prepare yourself for that great day. Surely, your whole life is about nothing else but getting yourself ready to meet your Lord. Does anything else really matter when you understand what this is about? Surely, if this is your hope, you can say with Paul in 2 Corinthians 5, Therefore, we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. Please stand. Gracious Heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, we praise You that You are the King of Glory, the Lord of Heaven, the Owner of all things, the Maker of us and of all things visible and invisible. We praise You, O Lord God, that You are the Judge of all of the earth and that you will come, and that you will administer justice in the earth, and that all of those who are found in Jesus Christ, serving Him as Lord and Savior, trusting in Him for the forgiveness of our sins, will be eternally blessed and given that inheritance in your household, an everlasting possession in the very house of God, receiving and enjoying the communion with Father, Son and Holy Spirit forever and ever. Father, we cannot possibly conceive the glory that will be given in that hour. Help us, Lord, also to realize the terror that will come upon those, the anguish that will come upon those who are found outside of Christ in that day. What a dreadful, destructive day it will be. And Father, we pray that you would help us to be gripped with the reality of these things. We might live our lives accordingly. That we might, as the Apostle said, persuade men who are living indifferently regarding your coming, disregarding the fact that you will return. Father, we pray that You would help us not to be waylaid by those excuses and those justifications that are so often made by others and by ourselves. That these things will not come or that we cannot know if they will come or all of the different ways that these things are avoided. Pray, Lord, that You would awaken us to the reality of these things and that we would be used to awaken others. We pray for those we love, Lord, those that we may be even seeing over this time of the holidays, that you would give us wisdom and grace that we might live, first of all, is those who are waiting for our Lord's return. And that we might also be able to tell them of the hope that we have and to show them the glory that is promised and to warn them of the terror that is also certain. Father, we pray that you would work in our world. We look at our nation. We are a nation that is not ready for our Lord to come. We pray, O Lord, that you would grant us repentance. We look at the church in Canada and we see that the church in Canada is not prepared for you to come, that many will be caught with their hand in the cookie jar. We pray, O Lord, that you would raise up strong gospel preaching. that your word would go forth and that it would penetrate throughout our land, that the word would increase, that it would have victory, that it would bring men to their knees before you. Father, that we would cry out to you as a people and that you would have mercy upon us and pity us. We remember the wicked city of Nineveh and how Jonah preached to them and how they repented and how you heard and spared them from judgment. Father, how we pray that we would see that kind of repentance upon our land, even greater repentance, a lasting repentance. Father, we look to you that Jesus Christ would be known in our land. Make us faithful witnesses, we pray. Father, we pray now that you would bless us as we continue on this Lord's Day, that we would remember to encourage and admonish one another. We would not be slack to allow our brothers and sisters to become hardened before our very eyes. Most of all, we would not allow ourselves to become hardened as we only know our own hearts and the things that go on there. We pray, Lord, that we would not allow transgressions because they seem to go unnoticed and seem to be undisciplined. We pray, Lord, that you would make your word to be very penetrating to us. That it would convict us, that it would prick us, that it would sharply goad us, Lord, and cause us to be miserably uncomfortable until we have dealt with what is amiss in our lives. May we not fall into the deceitfulness of sin and that downward progression of hardening. For, Lord, we are a people that are vulnerable to these things apart from your grace. Bless us and feed us now as we come to the Lord's table. Strengthen us that we may go forth with vigor to serve you with the confidence that is befitting to the servants of the Lord who have such a great Savior. For our hope is not in our own works or what we have done, but in the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who shed his blood for us and whoever lives to make intercession for us and who keeps us in his way. It is in his name that we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Let us now prepare to receive the Lord's Supper. I'll ask the elders to come and assist. In our New Testament worship, the Lord's Supper replaces the Passover of the Old Testament. Our Lord illustrated the or our Lord instituted the Lord's Supper at the time of the Passover to show that he himself was that Passover lamb that had come into the world to take away the sins of the world and the Apostle Paul. refers to Him as our Passover that was sacrificed for us in 1 Corinthians 5. When you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and you enter into covenant with Him, you are actually, by that action, preparing yourself for the coming day of the Lord, for the day of judgment when He returns to judge the earth. This morning we read in Matthew 24 where Jesus said that on that day, two men will be in the field One will be taken in the other left. Two women will be grinding at the millstone. One will be taken in the other left. What is Jesus talking about but the great Passover at the end of the world? You see, in that day, the Lord will judge the world in righteousness. And His condemnation will fall on all because of sin. But He will pass over all those who are trusting in the Lamb of God. Jesus Christ, whose blood was shed for the remission of sins. His judgment will not fall on those who are trusting in Him, but will pass over them, because there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. Jesus has already shed His blood for our sins. And God will not require sin to be paid for twice. As in the first Passover, He tells us, when I see the blood, I will pass over you." Now, let this be your great comfort when you come to the Lord's table. When you take the bread that represents His body broken for you, and when you take the cup that represents His blood that was shed for the remission of your sins, let it be your comfort that the Lord sees. He sees you as you come to this table looking to the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins. He sees you marked by the reception of the blood that He has given us in this sign. And He acknowledges that and therefore will pass over you if you come sincerely receiving Him. I do not say that anyone who goes through the motions of drinking this cup and eating this bread will be passed over. Because He will be examining hearts in that day. But I say that if you are trusting in Him as you are professing to do when you come to this table, then the Lord will pass over you and His judgment will not reach you. Let that be your comfort as you come to this table. Let me warn you that You must not come to this table if you're not trusting in the Lord Jesus and trusting in Him alone for your salvation. Because that would be a hypocritical thing to do. That would be to mock God. To say, to do this symbol of trusting, and yet not be trusting at all. So be sure that you are looking to Him when you come. However weak you are, however many failures you may have had, That when you come now to this table, that you're looking to the Lord Jesus and saying, Lord Jesus, You are my salvation. You are my life. You are my hope. Your blood is what I trust in to cleanse me from my sin, because You died on the cross for me. This is how you come properly to the Lord's table. Otherwise, you shouldn't come. If you have not been baptized, and you're not walking in communion with His church, then you should not come either. Well, let's all who are trusting him now let us give thanks to him for the bread and the wine and ask him to bless it. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the bread and the wine which is on this table that represents our Lord Jesus Christ, who shed his blood for us, whose body was broken for us in order that our sins might be washed away. We pray, O Lord, that as we come that you would comfort us in the knowledge of what our Lord Jesus has done. Father, that we would know that even as you passed over the Israelites when you visited them with judgment, when you visited Egypt with judgment, that so at the end of the world, You will pass over all of those who are found trusting in Jesus Christ, who are marked out by the blood of the Lamb. And Father, we thank you that you've given us a visible symbol that we are marked out in order to encourage us and to strengthen our faith. And even as Israel, when they trusted in you, that they put the blood on their doorposts, so we come now and receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, being marked out from the world as your people. And while There are many hypocrites that come to the table. We are not concerned for them, Lord. We are concerned that you do receive all who come in honesty and sincerity, looking to the Lord Jesus and that this is a true mark. that we are your people, that we have been washed, that we have been cleansed. And it is a way in which you even communicate to us the blessing and give us the strength and new faith as we come. So we pray, O Lord, that that we might receive the refreshing of the Lord as we as we partake today, that you would encourage us in the Lord Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen. You may eat and drink as soon as the tray is passed to you. And then I'll ask Dave Alexander to lead us in a prayer of thanksgiving. According to the holy institution, command and example of our blessed savior, Jesus Christ, I take this bread and having given thanks for it, break it and give it to you. Take eat. This is the body of Christ which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of him. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.