Grace Chapel Bible Ministries
241103 The Immanency of the second coming - 2024/11/03
And that's a thumbs up, so her spirit's good, Mike's spirit's good, so they're going into the battle with the armor on and that's a very good thing. Updates on Rob Richardson, we talked last week about a stomach, biopsy came in, it's negative, so they'll do one more biopsy and then they'll take the mass out. And then Zach Walsh continued to pray with cancer and Robbie Dean, we talked about Robbie Dean last week, Pastor Robbie Dean, we prayed for him, he went for a triple bypass surgery. He's out, he only had to do double bypass, if you call it only, but he's recovered, you know Robbie Dean, I don't know of Robbie Dean, so he's recovered from surgery now. Alright, that's my additions. Anybody else, any additions that we have? Okay, alright, Mike, you're up. Ah, it depends on what manuscript you're looking at. If you're looking at it, a different manuscript, the count is just off one. I think the Masoretic text, and so that's counting, so that first part is part of it. For the choir director, Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who spoke to the Lord the words of this psalm in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul, and he said, I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my guide, my rock and whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my sins. The cords of death encompassed me, and the torrents of ungodliness terrified me, the cords of shield surrounded me, the snares of death confronted me, in my distress I call upon the Lord, and cried to my guide for help. He heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry for help before him came into his ears. Then the earth shook and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains were trembling, and were shaken because he was angry. Smoke went up out of his nostrils, and fire from his mouth, the vower, coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down. With thick darkness under his feet, he rode upon a tear up and flew, and he sped upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his hiding place, his canopy around him, darkness of water, thick clouds of skies from the brightness before him passed his thick clouds. Hellstones and colds of fire, the Lord also fundered in the heavens, and the most high uttered his voice. Hellstones and cold fire, he sent out his arrows and scattered them, and lightning flashes in abundance. And routed them. Then the channels of water appeared, and the foundations of the world were laid bare at your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils. He sent from on high, he took me, he drew me out of many waters, he delivered me from my strong enemy, and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my state. He brought me forth. Also into a broad place, he rescued me because he delighted with me. In order to stop there, but I'll stop there. And this is the Word of the Lord. All right. Our opening hymn this morning, it could be not that one, but we're going to put the other one on there, but we'll start with sweet five violence. Let us stand. And we'll remain standing for opening hymn. Yeah, it'll be on screen. There's a land that is fair to take. And by faith we can see it apart, for the Father will grow the way, and prepare us a dwelling place there. In the sweet, by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore. In the sweet, by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore. We shall meet on that beautiful shore, the land of the glorious songs of the flesh, and our spirits all around no more, not a sight for the blessing of breath. In the sweet, by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore. In the sweet, by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore. To our faithful Father above, we will offer a tribute of praise, for the glorious gift of His love, and the blessings that hallow our days. In the sweet, by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore. In the sweet, by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore. And as turned to our Lord and Prayer Father in heaven, we thank you for this day. We thank Heavenly Father for the freedom that we continue to enjoy in this land. And though it's been challenged, our laws, our constitutes, our way of life have been challenged over the past years. And as we come into this week, we do pray, Heavenly Father, that your hand will be on this election coming up, and we pray, Heavenly Father, for good government. Not only for good government that we pray for, but we also pray that we use the freedom, not only for this day and that ever on, and according to your grace and your mercy, that we will use that day and freedom to grow and grace. To grow in grace, to grow in knowledge, to spread the gospel, and to do what you'd have us to do. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you open up our hearts to the study of the Word of God this morning. May it be a source of blessing and challenge that we continue to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in whose name we pray. Amen. And you may be seated. We are in Revelation 1. Last time that you're all here, we were in Revelation 1-1. But when we look at Revelation, there is a, as we will find, that there is a, what was, what was, what is, and what is to come. Now remember that Revelation is not a book of, um, of gloom and doom. Please do not look at the revelation for those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to be looking at the, at the positive aspect of it, and remember that it's not Revelation, but it's Revelation. It's the revelation, it's one revelation, the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when his authority established on this earth, there is going to be some, it's going to be some breaks. There's going to be some breaks, there's going to be some new crushes, there's going to be some hurt, there's going to be upon this earth. Because as we finished off last week, remember that the Lord came in in his first Advent, what's Advent mean? Coming. Coming. The, the coming, that first Advent, he was meat and mild. He comes into this world gently, almost without notice, except from a few, from a few eyes to shepherd the magi knowing about it. Of course, mother and dad knowing, coming in, and those, those prophecies around Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth knew. So these things were, were the, that quiet town in Bethlehem, that, that, um, that serenity, that's not going to come with the next coming, ladies and gentlemen. That's not, that's not coming with the next, um, the next Advent. Because that second Advent is going to come and it, the world is going to take notice. And that, that is going to be quite the, quite the chance of scope. So the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God showed him to his bond servants, the things which must soon, this is where we're going to start this day today, is soon take place. And he said, communicate to his angels, to his bond servants. This soon is, is the Greek takas. By definition, got it in your notes there, takas, pertaining to the, a point of time, subsequent to another point, either in a vent of discourse, or the time of discourse itself. With emphasis upon relatively of a brief interval between the two points. Soon, this is from Lewa Nida, but there is an expansion of the definition. Soon, what does takas, takas mean? First of all, this soon and, or shortly, and shortly means the interval of time, something that's soon going to happen. Soon will, soon will be done with the, the morning service and will continue on with our day. Soon will, you know, just this interval of time. The, there is shortly, shortly, shortly or soon. There's quickly, okay, something's coming quickly, something's soon to come. And shortly, and soon from God's perspective, we can look at that as what Peter said. For a thousand years and like a day, and a day is like a thousand years to Lord. So in the Lord's perspective, it's soon. But if you remember, we started out and saying that the perspective is, there's three perspectives here. There's a perspective of those who have received the revelation in the time of John. There is the perspective now of how we're looking at revelation. And there's certainly coming to time for those people, if this is the generation or the generation coming that's going to enter into the annual 70th week, certainly, this is going to mean a lot to them. The soon for those people, they expected, the early church expected Christ to come, went soon. They were in great anticipation. And the first book of Acts, you have even the apostles. They saw Jesus go up into the clouds and the angel said, hey, you know, man of God, wait, what are you looking up in the air for? He's going to come back just the way he came. So they were expecting a soon approach. There was, there's Paul, Paul had to address this in Thessalonians, because those people thought soon meant an element of time. So when people, their friends and their loved ones were dying, they were upset. I said, well, what, you know, they're not going to participate in the resurrection because they're dead and Paul had to handle that. Because they thought the soon meant a few dead. For us today, how do we answer the, the, the soon, then I'd have to, if I would answer another way, I would say, well, it's don't count the Lord as being, being slow. Because when it does happen, when it does happen, remember that what scripture says time is time is nothing, vapor. And what is it in light of eternity? There's one day that we're going to look in eternity. When we're in eternity, we're going to look back on these days and nothing. So we see soon in that category. But there, but what this past, what I see soon being for whether we're talking about, oh, yeah, one more soon, soon for the future. Those that go into the generation that's seven weeks, they're going to experience a, a trial and tribulation like they've never tried before, especially the, especially the Jews who are in Jerusalem at that time. And Israel for those who do not receive the mark for those who reject the Antichrist. Remember what, and, and Jesus is all of the discourse. He said, when you see the abomination, desolation come. And what is that? That's when the Antichrist comes and he, he sets himself up in the temple. That temple, by the way, may be a big elaborate structure. It can be a tent. So that, that structure could go up like that. We don't, we don't have to wait for a big construction project. Remember the first tabernacle was just a tent. So when, when it comes that this, the Antichrist, the one who will come, he will stop all sacrifices and then he will set himself up as God. And Jesus says in Matthew 25, when you see this, 25, 24, when you see this, get out, go, move. And the Jews are going to suffer greatly, but Christians, and I do believe we talked about last week, that I do believe Christians will be going into the tribulation period. Not all of it, that is going to be cut short. The rapture will happen within that tribulation period. But, but whoever is going to be in it and whoever professes the Christ, whoever does not receive the mark, they're going to receive tribulation, trials and tribulation like this, this world has never seen. Satan is at his desperation. He's going to do everything that he can to destroy every remnant, every follower of Christ. And soon at that point is a hold on, hold on, hold it a little bit for a hold on, wait, it's kind of like, and I thought about this the other day, it's like Moses at the river saying, wait and watch the deliverance of the Lord. He's coming, you know, he's coming whole, whole fast. And, and blessed are they who, and they receive certain crowns, even while they're waiting, those who die in that period will receive crowns. There was a special crown from our because they waited. They took their faith all the way to the dead. So soon means something different to them. So you see the different perspective and how the Bible, and I'll ask you this, even in the time in which we live, maybe it's just me, but you can acknowledge it. Do you see scripture considering what we've been through in the last, let's just say, period of time, last four years? Do you see a different light on scripture and on certain things? I'm saying that, well, I, I thought this to be this way. I always took this verse to mean this, but all of a sudden to me, there's a different light because when you're going through a new application, you see the scripture for what it really means. And that suffering, that suffering's going to bring us to one, one good thing, let me just say this, one good thing about trials and tribulations. It brings you back to scripture, looking for the why, looking for the reason, looking for the comfort. There is another part of this soon, and as soon as imminent, an imminent see, and as imminent see, is what all three past, present and future can lean upon. And some very important implications there, what do I mean by imitancy, if I am saying, right, you know, I don't do well with speech. Imitancy is, is expectation. Imitancy is a, I'm going to say hope, remember what hope is, with hope. Confident expectation, you know, comes from elders, a confident expectation. But imitancy is a, is a, I'm going to find this, my definition, watchful expectation, a watchful expectation. Knowing that the Lord can come back at any time, knowing or knowing that something is imminent. Certainly those in that first generation of Christians thought that Jesus is imminent, he could come back at any time. In our time, we believe that he can come back at any time. And certainly in the tribulation or in the 70th, Daniel 70th week, they believe that he can come back at any time. And they're looking and with each time we look with expectation. And I believe this is where this revelation has taken us here. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his bond service. The things which must soon take place, you know, almost say that the things that are imminent, the things that are going to take place. When I think of eminent, I think it's, I think it gives us more to think about than just soon. Eminent means that any moment, any moment of the day. Eminent means that there's not much time and for that time of preparation, when he comes, he's coming. And so this eminent, the word is used in 2nd Peter 114, somebody give me 2nd Peter 114. Knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. Okay, that's it. Okay, go ahead and do 15. And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure, you will be able to call these things to mind. Okay, so he's, he's got a watchful expectation here. And this is the same word that's used the tech costs. Eminent means that the Lord may return at 8 times the mindset of eminence. If you have this in mind, there's a few things that come. There's a few things of application that come. If we're looking at soon with this perspective, and first of all, let me, let me tell you. First of all, this, actually this expectation, how do I come to this expectation? This is in your notes, this is something that's come to me first of all. It's when we, when we become believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, when we first come and we come from different backgrounds, we come from different walks of life, we come with different, with children. And as you've heard me say before, what we were prior to salvation, we, we generally are after salvation. And we're scoundrels sit here. We're probably scoundrels after we're soft safe. Safe scoundrels, but safe, the way, scoundrels. But there's some growing up to do. We don't, we could say that we love the Lord, but we really generally don't love the Lord. We're, we're, we're, like babies, we're still selfish, we're still going about our way. But then we start kicking in the Word of God. We start, we start, we, we, we get our spirit, we start getting our spirit of floating through the Word of God. And we, we get ourselves under a pastor, what does a pastor do? The pastor helps us, he, he prepares us, he helps us to know our Bible, to learn our Bible. We begin to grow up, and as you learn the Word of God, you start applying the Word of God. You start seeing the faithfulness of the Word of God. You start developing your prayer list, and, and ladies, can I use a tip for you? Have a big prayer list. I mean, a big long prayer list. Because, you know, the more prayers you have, the more you're going to see answered in a short period of time. God will answer, answer, and he'll answer on his timing. So if you have a big list, if you want to have a small list, you might only see a prayer every once in a while. If you've got a big list, you'll, you'll see a prayer every once in a while. What's so cool is, all of a sudden, there's a bunch of them. Whoa, check that one off, check that one off, check that one off. It's like a harvest there. But that motivates you, and you start seeing myself and my friend over here, we just just get together. We say, "You have any defining moments of the day." Some people call it God sightings, where you see God in just a wonderful way. Maybe not a big one, but a wonderful way of just touch your life, and such a thing. It doesn't mean a big extraordinary thing. It says, "But you start in tune. You're developing your love for the Lord. You're growing in the Lord." And you begin because what we're growing up to be is a, our goal is a personal love for the Lord. And when I say personal love, I mean that you are so occupied with the Lord. It's the first thing you think about when you get up in the morning. When a crisis comes into your life, he's the first one that you run to. That's, you don't have to run to them. You're already there. If you walk, if you walk with somebody, you don't have to run to. You're already there. By the end of the day, you're thinking, "You also have a different view of sin." Sin isn't something you just do at the best. Sin isn't something that you have violated, and you have dishonored someone that you love wholeheartedly, which is the Lord. So sin is a, sin is ugly. You start seeing sin as God sees sin as ugly, and that's even the smallest of sins. Sometimes that's frustrating. Now, with that said, now you start developing a watchfulness to the Lord. You're looking for a blessing of those who love his appearing. That's what Paul says. That there's a blessing for those and a reward for those who love his appearing. And you don't want to be off guard. And it's not about punishment. It's about seeing someone you love. That's why I say your attitude for a revelation of those who love the Lord is not something that you're dreading. It's not doom and gloom. But it's the prospect of seeing face to face the one that you've read as letters for all your life. Back in the day, we used to write our loved ones letters. And when we were at a distance, we just couldn't wait to be with each other again. But letters were going to be good enough. Now that coming together, at this point you're able to be face to face with the Lord. So having this imminency does a few things. It guards the mind from complacency. It guards the mind from complacency. For the watchful slave, he seeks that happiness that comes when the slave will be found both watchful and busy pertaining to the things of his master when his master returns. What's the word for happy or blessed? Maricopa? Maricopa? Okay, I'll give you a smiley face. Maricopa? When you see it in the Old Testament, even the Old Testament, it's a different word in the Old Testament. But blessed when it says we are blessed, it's the word macarias. And macarias means happy. It's the tradition of the soul. And the slave who is looking for the master to come. And is doing what the master would have him to do. That master expected the slave to come back at any time and wanted to please his master. And so therefore, that slave who is constantly, who loves his master, is constantly looking for his master. It protects him from complacency. He's not going to, he's not going to slack off, but he's going to be busy doing the master's business. Okay? So that's one. It guards the mind against complacency. And how do we, and with that, as slaves, as we talked about Doulash, bond service slaves, how do we keep? As slaves, what, okay, let me just say, what's our highest priority? Please our master. Please our master. And how do we go to do that? Stay in the work. First of all, receiving God's work. And we're going to point this out. Coming up here too. First of all, reading God's work, hearing God's work. And heeding God's work. And we'll get to that here before too long. Okay. So in contrast, in contrast to this, is what Peter says here and second, somebody give me second Peter 3, 3. Second Peter 3, 3, and 4. Knowing this verse that there shall come in the last day, scoffers, walking after their old lesson saying, where is the promise that was coming for sense of father's self-sleep? All things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. Now these scoffers, these mockers, they are the unbelievers. But there are those believers too that we'll just call them spiritual slackers. And they begin to believe that tomorrow is going to be the same as today. Next week is same old, same old, each day. And their idea of this too will pass is basic fatalism. It's not fake. It's just that, okay, bad things happen and then we get over it and we move on. But even Christians can have this idea that Christ is never going to return or the day is going by. Listen, time keeps on ticking. Time is a commodity. It runs out. And when that time runs out, and I'll also say that, so you have time, time continues to tick. It's fluid. And as I've often said, so you've got grace and mercy. And grace and mercy are not God's attributes. They are what God chooses to do. It's what God chooses to extend. It's God's prerogative. And so when the grace, in an element of time, when time runs out and comes to its end, the grace and mercy are pulled back. And what do we, what have I said so often? When the grace and mercy train pulls out, the judgment train pulls right in behind it. So the mockers think that time is something that continues forever and ever. It doesn't. And it just doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. And that's good. Luke 1235. Luke 1235. No, not Luke for 35. Luke 1235. The first guy can read it down to 48. Be dressed in readiness and keep your lamps lit. Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding piece, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes to not. Let's sit or those. Okay, go ahead. Truly, I say to you that he will gird himself to serve and have them recline at the table and will come up and wait on them. Whether he comes in the second watch or even in the third and finds them so blessed are those slaves. Pussy. But be aware of this that if the head of the house had known what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into. You to be ready for the son of man is coming at an hour that you do not expect. Peter said, Lord, are you addressing this parable to us or to everyone else as well? And the Lord said, who then is the faithful and sensible steward whom his master will put in charge of his servants to give them their rations at the proper time. Unless it is a slave when his master finds so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you that he will put him in charge of all possessions. But if that slave says in his heart, my master will be a long time in coming and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat, and get drunk. The master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him, and at an hour he does not know. And will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes. But the ones who do not know it and committed needs worthy of a flock will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required, and to whom they entrusted much of him they will ask for more. I love the part in here. I love the earlier in this where when the Lord comes back, and here is the Lord, still in his humble state. Still, oh yes, he is coming back as a king. He is coming back to take his throne literal, just in a literal Jerusalem. But what does he do when he comes back? He hurts himself and serves us. It is just beautiful. The conventional wisdom of how this king is going to be compared to the king of the world is just tremendous. So there is the expectation, and again, what Peter tells us to do is to grow and grace in the knowledge of our Lord's images. Know who he is, get that intimate knowledge down, and that heart will long. And it will long to see the Lord. It won't be so caught up in the things of this world, whether good or bad that we are going to lose track and lose touch with the Lord. Okay, number two. Okay, so the first one, it guards the mind against complacency. This is our mindset of eminence. Second of all, the imminent return of Christ gives those in trials. We all have trials. We all go through tribulation. Remember, we are dealing with past, present, and future. The early church was hammered. And throughout, well, not only early church, but throughout all of church history, there has been the trials, and there has been the tribulation. And there has been the crying, "Oh, how long, Lord? How long?" And there were those that magnificent who stood, and they knew their God. Listen, if you're going to go into persecution, and we don't know what tomorrow holds for any of us, we don't know what, and parents. You know, if you love your children, you teach your children, and you prepare your children for all contingency in the future. You don't know if your children will be what they will have to face in the future, and you can't be there with a net to catch them every time they fall. But the best thing that you can do is to prepare them, and I will say prepare them for the trial. Uh-uh, prepare them to glorify God, prepare them to fight a good fight, prepare them to make choices, even in a face of trials and tribulations to where they go in. And they're going to fight well prepared, that they have their shield, that they have their sword in place. The Spartan mother would say to her child going off in the battle. Come back, carrying your shield, or come back on your shield, but you will have your shield. Come back, being carried on your shield. You prepare, and that's the job of Christian parents is to prepare their children for the battle so that when they go in, that they can stand there, and that's a job of the pastor who is prepared in congregation to go in to any battle. And how do you fight the battle? How do you overcome sin in your life? First of all, it's the mindset, it's knowing who your God is, it's knowing who your fight is, because you're going to lose the fight if you lose why you're in the fight. You're going to lose when, if your objective is not clear, you're going to lose the battle. But when you have a clear understanding of why we are here, then that we are here to glorify God in whatever situation. Roman, and when you get the first two chapters in Revelation, talks about the overcoming, the nikkaos, those who overcome, those victors, and those are the ones who stood firm, and that there are great rewards for those who love Him. The image is so the imminent return of Christ gives those in trials, hope, and what is hope again, help us, confident expectation in the Lord's return. Knowing that the Savior's return is imminent. When I know it is, it gives me the confidence to face, it gives me, it gives me the courage toward man, and confidence and circumstances. Does it mean I'm not going to be shaken up at times? Does it mean I'm not going to be without tears? No. The pressure is there. I'll bring this point up. Pressure is inevitable. Pressure is when the outside circumstances press in, it's not fun. I say one time, the Christian life is easy. It's easy to do it. Amber is sitting back there and she goes, and she's absolutely right. It's not easy. There's going to be times when you go question your faith. Every day you have to look at situational awareness. Where am I? What God said to Adam? Where are you? Where are you in the battle? Where are you in your relationship? Knowing my intimacy, I wish I would use a different word. That's tough for me. The imminent return of Christ is I'm in that expectation. That you could return at Amal on that watchful service. As I said, pressure, you're going to receive pressure, but stress is optional. Stress is when you allow that outside pressure to break in and disrupt your heart. The believer who has the Word of God saturated within your heart. They have their love for the Lord. That love for the Lord and scripture places a counter force that keeps that pressure from breaking in. Once stress breaks in, then your emotions dictate over your light and not your doctrine, not the Word of God. Number one, with the mindset of the intimacy of the return of the Lord, it protects you from complacency. Number two, it gives you hope through trials and tribulations. Number three, intimacy of Christ's return motivates the believer. I like this one. It motivates the believer to an attitude of readiness. Now, I don't know who first said this, but it's out there and it's a great line. I love it. I stay ready so that I do not have to get ready. I stay ready so I do not have to get ready. The Christian and the mature Christian is equipped for every circumstance and that they have a -- they know where they are. They know who they worship. They know what the prime directive is in their Christian life, and so they are ready. Most Christians -- I'm not going to say most, but maybe it is most. The only time we get ready is when we go to church, whether we go one or two days a week, we get ready and we go to church. But is that necessarily the readiness I'm talking about? No. A ready Christian, once again, he's occupied. She's occupied with the person of the Lord, and those who are occupied with the Lord, they are ready. And they stay ready, and they will be ready. And if the Lord takes them today, they're already ready for the Lord to come. You see, as I come back to the pressure that we face in the future, we don't know what's going on from one day, from one moment of time, from a period of time to the next. And I'll say this, and somebody brought this up one time, and I thought it was a pre-profowned statement. And he showed a picture of Adolf Hitler -- a picture I really didn't like of Jesus, but let's just leave it like this. You have a Hitler on one side, and you have Christ on the other side. You have to know who you serve and who you bow I need to before you're hungry, because you will inevitably choose the wrong one. And the one who says, "We'll feed you the fastest that will take care of you," that will say, "I offer you to this now. We'll be the one you will generally put your trust and your faith in." You have to know who you serve before you come into the battle. And so to be ready, see, you don't wait to get your spiritual life on track when you go into the trial. Thank God we have another day of freedom. Somebody amen to that. I woke up this morning with the freedom to study God's Word, to grow closer to them, to make sure my armor is low. Tighten my armor a little bit, but make sure my breastplate is over there. Make sure my sword is sharp. Make sure I got my armor and of course my feet fitted for the readiness. Ready to go every day I'm shuring up and my responsibility every day. My wife who is my responsibility, I'm nurturing her, helping her. She has my armor there, is helping me with my armor as I help her. To take that lead, amen, for every day he gives us for that. Because the battle is coming, the battle is coming. We can run away from it and we can ignore it, but there's coming a time when that battle, you may be what we call it in the military. There were always those that would stay in the rear with the gear. They would be the ones with hurt legs, they were sick, they were this, they were that, and they would always seem to be the same ones. They were the ones that stayed in the rear with the gear while everybody was out training. Eventually, if you don't go into the battle, that battle is going to come to you when you're not prepared for it. Every day we prepare for that battle. Once again, the imminent return of Christ is there. Let's look at another passage. Let's go to Matthew 25-1, Matthew 25-1. Now read this one. In the kingdom of heaven, we'll be compared to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were pruned. For when the foolish took their lamps and they took on oil with them, or they took no oil with them. But the prune took oil in the flask along with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep. But at midnight, there was a shaft. If you hold the bridegroom coming out to meet them, then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the prune, "Give us some of your oil." For our lamps are going out. But the prune answered, "No, it will not be enough for us and you too. Go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourself." And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came. And those who were ready went in with them to the wedding piece and the door was shut. Later, the other virgins also came saying, "Lord, Lord, open up for us!" But he answered, purely I say to you, "I do not know you." Be on alert then, that you do not know that they, nor the hour. And this is Jesus speaking of the imminent return, because imminent return, you do not know the hour or so. Here's a point of application. Number one, and this point of application for aminacy of the Lord. Number one, there's only one return of the Lord. It's only one return. Number two, there's only one chance for the believer to get it right when the Lord returns. There's only one chance. And this life is our chance, like I said, each day. Every day is a window of opportunity. Time again. Time. Time gives us so much. It's a commodity. And like I said, a commodity runs out. It runs out. There's a place where there's no more time. When an open window of opportunity, again, I will thank God for the day that he has given us today. That we might grow in our lives. In our prayer life, we should be praying to God. Open my eyes. Help me to love you more today than what I did yesterday. And more to moral, more. Just because God's listened, God creates the capacity. It is the Lord. It's the Spirit that opens up that place in your heart. That in itself blessing. And what do you do? When you get that, first of all, you have your heart. And it says that that's that space and the Lord will make space for himself. And said, okay, now we go about to fill that space which God has made for us. Okay, Lord, I'm going to go take in your word. I'm going to learn to love you more, and you're going to fill that space. Lord, what are you doing? I don't have no more room there, Lord, so that's it. And creates a bigger space. What do we do? Okay, I've got more space to fill. Then we begin, we continue on with taking in the Word of God to apply the Word of God to our lives. Our prayer life, we get our spiritual, we meditate on the Word, we're growing, and okay, we fill that space up. What do we do then? Lord, and it's all right to pray. Lord, give me a greater capacity to love me. With selfish, be, be, spiritually selfish, be, be, be like a child. We're supposed to have a faith of a child. When the child gets done eating, you know, how many times, how many times does it? Mom, I'm hungry. She just ate. All right? Good job. Come on. I'm hungry. You just ate, but I'm so hungry. That's what we should be as Christians. And what happens is, amen, because the Lord opens up a greater capacity without a heart to love Him even more. And again, this is part of our preparation. This should be a part of your petitions to the Lord. Lord, I want this. Lord, I want a greater capacity to love me. Open up my heart, Lord, and open up my heart, and I will respond in kind by pursuing me with all the space to fill every space that you've put in my heart for you. All right. There is only one, number one, there is only one return of the Lord. Two, there's only one chance for the believer to get it right when the Lord returns. Time is the element by, is the commodity by which we can use on a date in that time to fill our hearts with the Lord. Number three, when the Lord returns, will He find faithfulness, a bride waiting for Him? Will He find you waiting for Him? And if we're waiting for Him, ladies, you know, what do we do? And when we're waiting for our bridegroom to show up, you know, you can't wait for Him to come. But this, you know, you're getting dialed up and you want to look your best. You don't want to disappoint your bridegroom. You only got one chance for Him to show up and have that to be wowed. And you want the Lord to be, "Wow, this is my bride. This is her." So, are you going to be, is he going to find you faithful and loving his return and excited about his return? Or is he going to find you unfaithful, caring, uncaring in a slothful bride? So, as a bride, we need to, I guess this is something each day we check ourselves. And not only are we looking at the Word of God as a measure of our spiritual growth, but we also check ourselves. One thing that we've often talked about is the fact that with Adam coming in, coming, or when the Lord came into the garden, instead of just quite often because it's important. And that question that the Lord asked, "Adam, where are you?" Adam had a broken relationship with the Lord at that point. Of course, we know this is actually its sin. And he was in the world hiding. Him and Hava or Eve, they were hiding in the wherever they were hiding. They had ran, they wanted distance themselves from the Lord. And the Lord said, "Where are you?" And it wasn't a question that the Lord wanted to find an answer to. It was for man. It was for Adam to answer the question. There's Adam to look in his own soul and say, "This is where I am. I'm lost, and I need you." And Adam would dread it because of the broken relationship. Christians, we don't have a broken relationship. And we should be anticipating his return. All right. I thought I had it set up. With that, any parting words before we go in the song and close it out for the morning? All right. You okay? All right. Let's see what we got. Let's stand. Yeah, we do have it on here. And it's Him 96. And I do also have it up on here. Alan Westfall is going to help us out on this as our music director today. All hail the power of Jesus' name. And then let us remain standing as we close it out in prayer. Just a minute. All right. Talk by it a minute. I'll put my music down here. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. All hail the power of Jesus' name. We pray you for our so great salvation by which we are guaranteed to go beyond this world and to the kingdom of being your children and children of life. We have trials. We have tribulations within this world, Heavenly Father, we have good times and when we do have the good times, Heavenly Father, let it not be so distracted away from the greater things that you would have us to have. For the trials that we face in this life, let it be that our eyes are on that which is greater than any challenge we can have in our relationship with the prepare us for every contingent that we may be found faithful and loving and looking forward to your return. And all of these things we pray and your precious own's name, amen. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]
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