"Will You Be Worth Stealing"
12/12/93 Text Matt. 24 Psalm 24:1-10 Matt 24:1-31
.ls2
One day a family decided to go out and have a good time
together. It was a delightful day, everybody got along. The food
was good, and the movie they went had a good story to it. When
they returned home, their joy quickly turned to sorrow and anger.
Someone had broken the lock on the door and gone in.
If you had been there you would have heard Mom yell, the
color TV is gone, Susie cried, my stereo is gone, Bob yelled my
Sega Genesis is missing, Dad screamed, they took my computer.
Rick ran to the basement to see if they had taken his bike that
he intended to one day get fixed. It had a flat tire and a
ripped seat.
He came running up stairs to let his sister know, they
didn’t take my bike, they didn’t take my bike. Susie looked at
him, and said "Rick, it wasn’t worth stealing."
My friends there is a Thief that is roaming the entire
world, and one day He is going to strike out. He’s going to take
everything that He considers worth stealing. His name is Jesus.
Jesus says that He is coming like a thief in the night to snatch
away all those that belong to Him. Jesus said, "watch and pray
because you do not know the hour in which I will return." Just
like the thief, Jesus will be in and out in a hurry, and "He’s
only going to take what’s he considers to be valuable ." It will
happen in the twinkling of an eye.
Husband and wife about to kiss each other in bed, suddenly
she disappears and he’s left searching. Two children playing
Mario Brothers on Super Nintendo together, instantly one is gone,
the other is left. Congregation singing the last hymn in worship
service, swoosh 75% of the congregation is missing. The quarter
back throws the ball to the receiver for the winning touchdown,
he’s wide open and before the cheering crowd, the receiver disap
pears and the ball falls aimlessly to the ground.
All over the world, immediately there are planes without
pilots, cars without drivers, children without parents. Confusion
throughout the world will be the name of the game when the Thief
hits. Will you be valuable enough for the thief to grab you, or
will you be left behind to face the cruelty of the power of Satan
that is going to hit this world?
How will it feel to know that some of your family was sto
len, but you and the rest were not? How will it be to have
pretended that you were a Christian, and now the Christians are
gone, but you’re still here? How frightening it will be to know
that after the Thief has stolen the church, then will great
tribulation come upon the earth? No longer can you can call Mom,
or expect your wife to fix your food, or go to church and meet
your friends, or expect to finally make the commitment to Jesus
that you’ve been putting off for years?
We have lost a healthy fear of God in our world today? We
don’t believe that God will punish us, and we no longer believe
that Hell is a real place. There are 67 verses in the New Testa
ment that deals with hell. Jesus speaks 45 of them. If anybody
knows whether hell is real or not, Jesus should. He’s the only
one that has spent three days dead, and then came back to let us
know what it was like.
ð 7 3
Š I knew a man who suffered a heart attack and his heart had
stopped beating. The doctors got his heart back to beating. Now
this man had nothing to do with God, he mistreated his girlfriend
of some 30 years horribly with his fists and his language, and he
was just a mean person. He told me that when he was on the table
he felt himself leaving his body. He heard the most peaceful
music you could imagine.
He felt being pulled through a tunnel with a bright light
at the end. His experience did not change his evil lifestyle one
bit. He was convinced that he was on his way to heaven. But it’s
possible that the light he saw was being produced by the burning
flames of hell. Heat gives off light.
When Jesus tells those who have talked the talked, but not
walked the walk to depart from him, they’re not free to simply go
where they would like to go. Jesus says depart from me and go to
the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.
Advent is a time for us to watch and to expect Jesus to come, so
that we don’t have to worry about being cast in the lake of fire.
Hell is just as real as heaven, because the same God that made
known one also made known the other.
Because of the love Christ has for us, He warns us not only
of hell, but also to escape the rule of the Anti-Christ. There
is a person who is coming that will appear as a Savior to the
world. He will unite all the nations of the world together under
one world government.
We thought the Bible’s view of a one world government in the
last days, had to be far off into the future. Ten years ago, we
thought the Soviet Union and The US would me mortal enemies until
ð 7 3 Š
one destroyed the other. Who could have foreseen these two
countries working together in peace? Jesus could and so did John
who wrote the book of Revelation. Events are taking place that
are paving the way for the arrival of a new messiah.
We see the crime that’s fueled by the lust for drugs in the
name of the Almighty Dollar. We see genocide taking place in
Bosnia, Armenia, and parts of Africa, we see the senseless murder
and slaughter taking place in our own communities. We see immor
ality running rampant, and Christian Denominations including our
own, refusing to call sin sin.
We see our young people being hooked on filth on tapes and
cd’s in the name of free speech, while somebody is becoming a
millionaire. We see adult men killing their parents for their
money claiming psychological abuse.
What we don’t see is that Satan and demonic powers and
forces are at work all around us. God sees it. That’s why hell
has been prepared for the devil and his angels. God doesn’t like
this mess anymore than we do. He’s waiting to see if we are
going to stand with Him, or against him.
It says in 2 Timothy 3:1-4 "But mark this: There will be
terrible times in the last days. {2} People will be lovers of
themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedi
ent to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, {3} without love,
unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers
of the good, {4} treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure
rather than lovers of God--having a form of godliness but denying
its power. Have nothing to do with them." As I read this pas
ð 7 3 Šsage, I began to wonder, is the apostle Paul here talking about
those in the church or those outside the church or both.
Jesus is coming like a thief and He’s only taking what’s
worth stealing. The only way to be valuable enough to attract
his attention, is to have surrendered your life to serve God. If
we do not have the righteousness of Christ, then we have no
righteousness at all. In our Old Testament reading we heard
"Psalms 24:3-4 Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand
in his holy place? {4} The one who has clean hands and a pure
heart." The only way to get a clean heart is to have it washed in
the blood of Jesus Christ.
Some of us are planning on one day making a change. Everyday
good people slip into hell planning one day they’re going to
stop be good people and get saved so that they’re God’s people.
When the Thief comes, He won’t be taking back any good people,
just saved people.
Jesus says look, there are some hard times that you will
face. Christians are going to be persecuted for their faith. It’s
already happening. It’s no longer politically correct to be a
born again Christian. Now everyone should have a "private faith."
Jesus didn’t tell us to be quiet, he said preach the gospel to
the whole world. If you are ashamed of me, when I come as a
thief I will be ashamed of you.
Jesus spoke a verse that says, what will it profit a man to
gain the world and lose his soul. It’s possible to choose to gain
something when in reality we may be losing it all. Those who
attempt to save their lives for themselves in the last days,
shall pay a greater price to save their souls in the end.
ð 7 3 Š
For those who are not ready when Jesus comes, they are
going to be in for a spectacular show on earth. The Bible tells
us that the Anti-Christ will be able to do all kinds of deceptive
miracles, signs and wonders. He will build a statue and make it
come to life. He will die temporarily and come back to life. He
will unite the entire world under him.
His key to power will be economics. Everyone who is alive
during the reign of the Anti-Christ will have to accept the mark
of the beast or the anti-Christ either on his or her hand or
forehead. Without this mark, no one will be able to either buy
or sell anything regardless of who he or she is. Some of you are
thinking, I’ll get my brother or friends to buy something for me.
But the Bible says parents will betray children, children will
betray parents, husbands will betray wives, and you will be hated
by all if you attempt to take a stand for Jesus.
Well then, what’s the big deal. You’ll just get the mark and
pretend to follow the anti-Christ. There will be no half-
stepping. The Bible says in Revelation 14, that anyone who
receives his mark of the hand or forehead will be tormented with
burning sulfur in the presence of Jesus and the smoke of their
torment will rise forever and ever. There is no rest day or
night for anyone who worships the beast or for anyone who re
ceives the mark of his name.
Once the anti-Christ is in power for a period of time, God
releases seven plagues upon the earth. There were seven angels
standing above the earth with bowls full of the wrath of God. The
apostle John heard a loud voice from the temple in heaven saying
ð 7 3 Što the seven angels, Go pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath
on the earth."
POUR IT OUT! The first angel poured out his bowl, and ugly
and painful sores broke out on all the people who had the mark of
the beast. The mark, that was their salvation at first, is now
their doom. POUR IT OUT. The second angel poured out his bowl
on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead man, and
every living thing in the sea died.
POUR IT OUT! The third angel poured out his bowl and the
rivers and springs of water and the became blood. The anti-
Christ will have murdered so many people who gave their lives to
Christ, that God will give the world their blood to drink as
punishment.
POUR IT OUT! The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the
sun, and the temperature on this planet will rise dramatically.
The sun will literally scorch people with fire. The bible says
that even though the people’s skin is burn by the intensity of
the heat instead of repenting before God, the people will curse
God that much more.
POUR IT OUT! The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the
throne of the Anti-Christ and his kingdom is plunged into dark
ness. People will be gnawing their tongues in agony and will
curse the God of heaven, because of their pains and their sores,
yet they will refuse still to repent of what they have done.
POUT IT OUT! The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the Eu
phrates River in the Middle East and a war breaks out which will
leave one third of the world’s population dead. If that doesn’t
sound like a nuclear war taking place, I don’t know what will.
ð 7 3 Š
We’re talking over a billion people. That’s more than the entire
continent of North America. Yet the bible says, the rest of
mankind still did not repent of their murders, their magic arts,
their sexual immorality or their thefts. There will be those bent
on sinning right up until the moment of their death.
POUR IT OUT! The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the
air, and a voice cried out from the throne in the temple in
heaven, "it is done". There will be flashes of lightening,
thunder and the greatest earthquake the world has ever known will
take place. Every island will sink and the mountains will become
flat. Huge hailstones of about 100 pounds each will fall out of
the sky upon people who are still left alive. And the Bible says,
"the people cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because
the plague was so terrible."
Do you recognize that the people on earth realize that it
is God that has the control of the situation, but they are so
locked into sin with the Anti-Christ that they cannot break
themselves out of it? Ecclesiastes says wickedness will not re
lease those who practice it. Just cause we can choose to get
involved in sin, doesn’t mean we can get out it when we get
ready. Simply knowing the truth will not be enough to get us to
turn to God. God is giving us preview of what happens when we
insist on choosing our own way, over the love that He has for our
lives. We go from bad to worse.
Many Christians will be slaughtered by the Anti-Christ as he
comes to power all because when Jesus came as a thief, they were
not serious in the call of God upon their lives. They were not
ð 7 3 Šworth stealing when the Heavenly Theif came. The cost of not
being ready is an extremely high price to pay.
Jesus is going to take so many people out of this world so
fast, it’s all going to be done in the twinkling of the eye.
All the praying, crying, and promising in the world is not going
to make Jesus come back to pick you up. Oh you can still be
saved, but it’s going to cost you your life. Satan is going to
wage war against everyone who claims to know Christ because he
knows he only has a short time, and he is determined to take as
many people with him into the lake of fire as he can possibly
get.
Following Christ will be a life and death decision after the
church has been snatched away. You won’t be able to depend upon
anybody being true to you, and those who you love will be willing
to turn you in. You won’t be able to buy or sell anything. When
you accept the mark of the beast, there is no turning back. There
is nothing in the book of Revelations that indicates anyone who
receives the mark, will be saved. It’s clear on this issue.
Those who receive the mark, suffer the same fate as the anti-
Christ.
Why did Jesus tell us to watch and to be prepared? Why is
the book of Revelations written to tell us all this stuff of what
is going to happen? Why did Jesus talk more to us about what
hell was like than he did heaven? Why did Jesus come and die for
us when he knew that many of us would never yield our lives to
Him, and that others of us would be great pretenders? One word.
Love. God loves us. He wants us to realize the danger that we
are in if we don’t choose to depart from the ways of Satan and
ð 7 3 Š
give our lives to Christ.
Jesus promised if he was killed, in three days He would rise
again. He kept that promise. Jesus promised I am coming as a
thief in the night. He’s going to keep that promise. You may
say, yes but He said that 2,000 years ago. The bible says 2 Peter
3:8-9 "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the
Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are
like a day. {9} The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as
some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting
anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."
When the thief comes, he won’t be interested in what church
you joined, whether you were a good Presbyterian or not, what
your age was, what you intended to do one day, or what your
reason was for not living like you should. The only thing that
will matter will be were you ready when He came.
Being ready yesterday, doesn’t mean you’re ready today.
Your boss appreciates you being on time last week, but he wants
to know why you’re not on time today. The Thief is coming. Will
you be worth stealing, or will someone say after the church is
gone, "look at that them, I guess Jesus didn’t think they were
worth taking. Hey Christian, why didn’t you go with the others,
why are you still here.
