Matthew 24:36-44<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Often,\nwhen I\u2019m reading the prophetic writings of Isaiah, Paul and even Jesus\u2019 own\nwords, I think that we may have things all wrong. We focus exclusively upon that\none great and horrible day, Armageddon, on which great destruction will take\nplace in our world, when evil will be vanquished by the Lord, and when the\nfollowers of evil will suffer for their deeds and the righteous, of which we\nare all a part, of course, will be gathered to safety, or enlisted to help in\nthe battle to fight side by side with Jesus and his angels, to bring about the\nLord\u2019s victory. By looking only to the end of time and this one great and\nhorrific event we may be missing a point of ultimate importance. We may be\noverlooking what is going on all around us today; I fear we are not considering\nour place in the work of the Lord going on right now; I worry that we are not\ntaking advantage of the opportunities we have already been given to share the\nlove of Jesus and that we are not realistically considering that the end of\ntime comes to all of us, whether or not God is ready to put an end to the world\nand to life as we know it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\ncan\u2019t help but to think of those we have lost in this life, many of them with\nalmost no warning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over\nmy 40 plus years in the ministry, I\u2019ve officiated over the funerals of more\npeople than I want to calculate (certainly more than a thousand), many of these\npeople were strangers to me, but the greatest majority were faithful\nChristians, of which I was well acquainted, who I cared about and respected. A\nlarge number of them looked at their impending death with concern, sometimes\nfear, seeing the end of the world in their own deaths and expecting God\u2019s\njudgment, while a significantly large number who looked upon the same end,\nwelcomed their opportunity to stand before the Lord, confident that they had,\nat least, tried to live faithful lives, trusting in Jesus\u2019 love, his\nforgiveness and his promise. I can still see many of the faces of those that I\nvisited just before they died and left to be with the Lord. Some expressed\nsimply their readiness, some expressed questions of doubt, some believed but\nfeared what was to come, some of them were terrified of death, many were sad\nknowing that they were leaving behind those they loved and some were excited to\nexperience the fulfillment of Jesus\u2019 promises. Few of them wanted to die,\nthough some had such pain, I could understand it that they had. But, with\nfaith, they, so many of them were ready; they were able to face their doubts,\nthey trusted in the love of Jesus; they were confident that they had fought the\ngood fight, in the battle against evil, here and now, the battle against Jesus\u2019\nenemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d\nlike to suggest that, while there will be an end, when Jesus will defeat all\nthat is evil, we are each of us, in our own ways even now, involved in the\nbattles against those who try to rest the world away from Jesus, from faith and\nlove. The war between God and evil has been going on for two thousand years,\nplus, and continues around us, and will not end until the day that God has set.\nWe as Christians are certainly warriors in this war against evil and if not active\nwarriors\u2019 then supporters of other warriors involved in the battle. I\u2019m currently\nreading a book that tells the story of some who lived through the revolutionary\nwar here in North America; the author makes it very clear that while most of the\nbattles took place on fields away from towns and cities, the war was present in\nevery town, city and territory located within the thirteen colonies and even in\nthe adjacent wilderness; there was no escaping the consequences of the war;\nfamilies suffered from a lack of food and other supplies, they suffered from\nthe loss of loved ones, from the contempt of neighbors who supported the other\nside, from occupying armies and from raids from enemy forces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like\nit is in any war, the forces of evil never respect anyone as uninvolved or\ninnocent. And so, evil attempts to work its evil in all of our lives, ever\nworking to corrupt us and enlist us in the battle on its side, trying to turn\nus away from the love and promise of Jesus and making us suffer from the\nattitudes and acts of those who joined on the side of evil. It may in fact be\nthat we should be less concerned with the end of the world, and more concerned\nwith what is going on here and now and whether we will be ready to face the end\nof our own lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Advent\nis a season for preparation, for preparing for the coming of our Lord. As we\nbegin this Advent season it may be appropriate to ask if you, if all of us, are\nprepared to meet the Lord, considering that for many of us that means being\nprepared to die. Jesus spoke about thieves coming in the night and how the Son\nof Man will come much as the flood came in the time of Noah, without warning. Jesus\nspoke like this, not to instill in us fear but to encourage our readiness. There\nhas been a long tradition among the faithful of God that prophets sent by God,\nhave come to us to announce God\u2019s judgment and promise. Those in the past who\nwere ready, who stood with the Lord, who obeyed God\u2019s Law, who lived by faith,\nnever had reason for fear. Be ready, but fear not, for the Lord has prepared a\nplace for us in Jesus\u2019 kingdom where suffering will no longer be able to touch\nus and the battle against evil will not be able to find us. Rejoice in knowing\nthat the victory over evil has already been decided, that in the end we will\nenjoy the great banquet of our Lord, that a place has been prepared for us in\nJesus\u2019 kingdom and that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus\nChrist our Lord. Prepare and ready yourselves, we do not know the time or place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Matthew 24:36-44 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Often, when I\u2019m reading the prophetic writings of Isaiah, Paul and even Jesus\u2019 own words, I think that we may have things all wrong. We focus exclusively upon that one great and horrible day, Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}