Ready Or Not, Here He Comes Series

being prepared for something. I’ve never liked pop-quizzes or surprise parties. My greatest fear would be

thinking up a sermon during the offering.

-Yet worse to me would be knowing that I wasn’t ready for the Lord’s return. For some that day will come and

they will find themselves unprepared. And they will be surprised, even though they were told it was coming.

-Once growing up my uncle told me that if I touched the electrical fence, it would shock me. SO I

touched it. My Uncle said, " I told you that it would shock you". "Yeah but I didn’t think you meant it."

-It will catch many by surprise. Like I said, Noah preached for 120 years that the flood was coming, yet the rain caught everybody offguard.

II. But as a Believer, It Shouldn’t Surprise You. (vs 4)

-1) It should not surprise you, because you know it will happen.

-The fact of His coming is made throughout scripture 1/8 ratio of prophesy.

-Jesus said He would. NIV John 14:1-3 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God ; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there

to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be

with me that you also may be where I am.

-If Jesus has kept all His promises thus far, why would He break this one. He is returning.

-2)It should not surprise you, because you should be ready for it now.

-The rapture is imminent so we should be prepared today. I remember hearing a story about a man

who was visiting a certain school and made a promise to the tiny students that he would give a prize to

the one whose desk was found in the best order when he returned. He gave no indication of when that

might be. Shortly after he left, a little girl, noted for her messy habits, announced that she meant to win

that prize. He classmates jeered, "Why, Mary, your desk is always out of order! It’s never been cleaned."

"Oh," she replied, "Starting right now, I’m going to clean it up the first of every week." "Just suppose he

comes at the end of the week?" "Well then, I’ll clean it every morning." "What if he comes in the

afternoon?" Mary was silent, then her face lightened up and she said, I know what I’ll do, I’ll just keep it

clean all the time!"

-That’s how we should be. Ready all the time.

-Remember that Ameritrade commercial, where the guy is on the couch and his wife leaves and tells him the only

thing he has to do that day is open up the account, and he starts watching football and falls asleep on the couch, then he hears his wife pull up, then runs to the computer and gets the account open. When the wife makes it to the door, she asks, "Did you get it done." "Yeah." That may work to open up an Ameritrade account, but it won’t work with the Lord. We need to be ready to go now, because it will happen in a blink, in the twinkling of an eye.

-He says in (vs5-7). Scripture uses the distinction between day and night and darkness and light to mark the differences between good and evil. Satan is referred to as "the Prince of darkness" whereas Jesus is referred to as the Light of this World. Jesus when He was being arrested in the garden of Gethsemene tells of the darkness in Luke 22:52-53 Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, "Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? Every day I was with you