Sermon Central
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What Time Is It?
Contributed by Jerry Shirley on Oct 11, 2012 (message contributor)
Summary: It’s time to wake up, clean up, and dress up, because Jesus is soon returning and the saved will go up...who will it be who will show up? Link inc. to formatted text, audio, PowerPoint.
What Time is It?
http://gbcdecatur.org/sermons/WhatTimeIsIt.html
Each morning we wake up to an alarm. I hate that clock. But I’m thankful for it, because if not for it, we would be a mess. We like to sleep. We wouldn’t have jobs, our kids would not pass school. And we couldn’t pastor a church.
Morning people--raise your hands. You get on my nerves. You folks who say you have an inner alarm. I loathe you!
Our text is a spiritual alarm clock. Love it or hate it, it’s a good thing.
When I was a kid in Missouri, the announcer would say at midnight, "It’s twelve o’clock, do you know where your kids are?" In Georgia, "It’s twelve o’clock, do you know where your dogs are?" In Arkansas, "It’s twelve o’clock, do you know what time it is?!"
1. It’s time to wake up.
v. 11-12a We are in a spiritual slumber of lethargy and apathy and indifference and laziness. We need a sense of urgency.
Why? Because our salvation is so near. What? Wasn’t I saved immediately? Yes! But remember the 3 tenses of salvation. I have been saved, am being saved, and will be saved. [redemption complete!]
The first is justification, second is sanctification, and last is glorification...still yet to come. It’s our glorification [return of Christ] which is nearer than when we first believed. Nothing should wake us up like that fact!
Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;
Why do these things?
Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
Also,
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
The unfaithful church members had better wake up. This is more important than baseball, weekend excursions, or family reunions!
8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
9 ...behold, the judge standeth before the door.
The sands of time are quickly running out. Watching the news can be depressing, but it can turn into a worship service as you see it all coming together just as God predicted.
v. 12 Night is a reference to the reign of Satan over this world. Day is the return of this earth to Jesus’ possession.
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
ill.--how annoying it is when the doorbell rings and you are in bed. You jump up, and when you jump up you put clothes on and you look into a mirror and your hair looks like ’bed head’, but you are in a hurry so you run, and you step on a sharp toy on the stairs and fall and break your neck. [don’t fall and break your neck, switch to Directv!]
Paul is saying, when Jesus soon returns...don’t be caught off guard, w/ your pants down. It won’t just be annoying, it will be the most judgmentally awkward moment of your life, and it will be too late to take it back!
The day is dawning, and that’s the time to wake up and look up!
ill.--children don’t sleep well on Christmas Eve. It’s the anticipation. Same w/ the night before your wedding day.
GBC is a sleeping giant. Our potential is thru the roof. What could we do if we would all wake up?! We need to anticipate His soon return!
2. It’s time to clean up.
It’s what we do after we wake up. Hopefully!
"Somebody’s deodorant’s failing...can’t be mine, I never wear the stuff!"
v. 12-13 This imagery is of a soldier out all night partying, and passes out in a ditch in a stuper, and his C/O comes along and says to wake up, clean up, and dress up for battle.
V. 13 is specific w/ 3 pairs of sins. [social sins/sexual sins/spiritual sins]
Christians have no business being involved in such things. These deeds of darkness grieve the heart of God! We are to clean up and lay these aside.
Rioting and drunkenness - carousing is the Greek meaning of rioting. Today it is called ’cruising’ or just ’hanging’. If we don’t know where our kids are, we are asking for trouble to find them. Most teens take their first drink at a party. I have to ask, why were they even present?
Chambering and wantonness - Chambering is living together w/out the benefit of marriage...shacking up. It’s amazing how they have no compunction of conscience whatsoever about this anymore. Society now accepts it as a test drive before marriage. God does not!
