Now is the time to watch and prepare

Sermon for Advent 2

Romans 15:4-13  +  Luke 21:25-36

The King is coming! Believe it or not! Like it or not! The King is coming! Jesus is coming! And He will come with judgment for the world and with deliverance for His Church—deliverance from this rotting world, with its violence, with its injustice, with its rampant idolatry and its incessant worship of self, deliverance from sin and from every evil. So, in order for the King to come with deliverance for you—instead of judgment—you need to be found within His Church. You need to be prepared. You need to be living in daily contrition and repentance, watching out for anything that might weigh your heart down and keep it bound to this life, to this rotting world and to the sin that infects it like gangrene. And so, long ago, the King gave His beloved Church certain signs to keep us watchful and ready, signs that point to His imminent arrival, which will bring an end to this world as we know it.

Jesus says in today’s Gospel, And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. That’s what comes at the end of the signs, the Son of Man coming with power and great glory. The King, the Lord Jesus, came in His first advent, not in glory, but in humility. He came the first time to live as one of us, to live under His Father’s Law as our Substitute, to suffer and die in our place, and to offer sinners a time of grace, a time during which sinners are not immediately judged and cast away and destroyed. That time is now! Now is the time to come into the Christian Church and to remain here! But that time will run out. It could run out at any time! And it will be exactly the opposite when Jesus comes again. He’ll come in glory, not to live as one of us but to be King over all. He’ll come, not to offer sinners one last chance, but to put an end to all chances to repent and to escape judgment. When the King comes, there will be no more time to change, to be born again, to turn from sin, and to receive His free forgiveness through faith in Christ Jesus. That means that now is the time to watch and prepare!

But the longer you watch for something that doesn’t come, the harder it is to keep watching. So the King gave us signs—repeating signs, negative signs, for the most part—to keep us from getting caught up in this earthly life. There are three categories of signs given to us by Jesus. Some are given in Luke’s Gospel, others in Matthew and Mark: Signs in nature, signs in society, and signs in the Christian Church.

The signs in nature are these: There will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars. The sea and the waves will roar. There will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. The powers of heaven will be shaken. We see irregular things like these happening all the time in nature, in the heavens, in the weather, in the climate. Unbelievers interpret them very differently, though, don’t they? They turn to fallible human science for causes and for solutions. They use every climate event to promote an agenda that will actually bring further harm to humanity. We Christians, on the other hand, should take all the irregular, frightening events that happen in nature as signs of the King’s imminent arrival. Are those events happening more often now than they did in the past? Will they get worse and worse leading up to the end? Will there be more spectacular signs in the heavens than what we currently see? Maybe. Or maybe not. The point is, whenever you see or hear about irregular events in nature, don’t be frightened. Instead, remember that Jesus is coming soon! And make sure you’re ready!

The signs in society are these: On the earth there will be distress and anxiety among the nations. —how much has the suicide rate increased over the last several years? Men will lose heart from fear and dread of the things that are coming on the world. Doesn’t it seem like people are constantly filled with fear over…something that’s coming, fear that the next shoe will soon drop? You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Israel, Syria, Ukraine, Russia, Iran, China—wars and rumors of wars are a recurring theme in human history, right up to this day. They will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. Christians have been hated and persecuted since the days of the apostles. Now, when Christians behave badly or teach falsely, they bring some of that trouble on themselves. But often it’s just the routine speaking and living the truth of the Gospel of Christ that gets Christians hated. There have been times of reprieve in various places. Most Christians in the United States weren’t hated for being Christians—until more recently. Now, to uphold Christian values and the Bible’s teachings and, more importantly, to confess the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ makes a person practically an enemy of the state. Lawlessness will abound, and the love of many will grow cold. This is happening throughout the world. Here in our country, how many thousands are lawlessly streaming across the border now every single day? How much lawlessness fills the streets of our cities, with drugs and crime running rampant? And the politicians often lawlessly support the lawlessness. And, because of it, many people grow jaded and cynical and, tragically, loveless themselves.

Finally, there are the signs within the Christian Church: Many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Jesus is talking there about Christians. Many who once confessed the Christian faith will stumble, will fall away, and then betray one another and hate one another. The outward, visible Christian Church, by all standards of measurement, is a huge mess and is in a steep decline. There has been much stumbling, much falling away, and much betrayal and hatred. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. Every different denomination within Christianity exists because of false prophets and false doctrine, and because many, many people have been deceived by them.

Now, when you see all that, you’re tempted to throw up your hands and say, “What’s the point of joining a Christian church at all, then?” But listen to what Jesus says. These things are not signs that He has lost control of His Church, or that the Church is pointless. He told us ahead of time that things would be this way—in the world and in the Church. And His message to us is not, “You might as well give up!” or, “Don’t bother with the Church! Just stay home!” No, His message is, When these things begin to happen, stand up straight and lift up your heads, for your redemption is drawing near! Now, yes, it’s true, most of these things have been going on here and there during the entire New Testament period. But it seems to me that they are more widespread and more frequent now than they have ever been. So, Christians, stand up straight and lift up your heads, because that’s where the Lord Jesus will come from! Let Him be your focus, and not anything here below! Notice the signs! And use them for their divinely intended purpose: to shake you out of your slumber, to cause you to watch and to prepare for the Lord’s coming!

Jesus adds a saying that has a few possible interpretations. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all this takes place. That could mean that all the signs Jesus talked about would begin to take place already during the lifetime of “that generation” of people, and on a small scale, one could say that they did. But in the Gospels, especially in Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus uses the term “this generation,” He’s referring to the group of unbelieving Jews. And some have interpreted this saying as a prediction that the unbelieving Jews, as a distinct group, would remain on the earth until Jesus comes again. So, the existence of modern Israel, far from proving that they are still God’s chosen people, actually serves as a sign of its own, as a warning to all people not to forfeit the gift of salvation as they have, as a fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy concerning their perpetual unbelief, proving that, though heaven and earth pass away, Jesus’ words will never pass away.

But Jesus issues a more direct warning in our Gospel: But be on your guard, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you unexpectedly. For it will come like a snare upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Jesus doesn’t want His Christians to get caught in the snare. He doesn’t want us to be caught unprepared when the King comes and to be caught up with the rest of the world in the judgment and the punishment that is coming. So He warns us: Watch out! Be on your guard! Because, what can easily happen, even to Christians? Your hearts can become weighed down, either with indulging in sinful pleasures, like carousing and drunkenness, pornography and adultery and sex outside of marriage, or with the “cares of this life,” which may not be sinful in and of themselves—tending to your job, or your education, or your family, or your house, or your clothes, or your diet, or your health, or the news, or the next election, or your car repairs, or—well, the list of cares is endless, isn’t it? There’s a lot that can weigh your heart down and turn your attention away from the Word of God, away from living in repentance, away from seeking God’s forgiveness in Christ, away from preparing for His coming.

Therefore, always watch and pray, that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will take place and to stand before the Son of Man.

Always watch and pray. That means that now is the time to watch and pray, to watch and prepare. Now, today. And tomorrow. And the next day. Take Jesus’ words to heart! He has sent them to you today as a gift! Repent and believe in Him for the forgiveness of sins! And every time you see or hear any of the signs we’ve talked about today, let it serve as another reminder to repent, to believe, and to look up! Amen.