May God then bless us together
this evening as we turn to his word. And we'll turn to the chapter
we read in the gospel according to Matthew, chapter 24, and we'll
read verse 42. Matthew, chapter 24, verse 42.
Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. Watch therefore, for ye know
not what hour your Lord doth come. Well, we live uncertain lives. None of us know what will happen
this evening, let alone what will happen tomorrow, the coming
week. months and years if we're spared. We do not know what our
lives will bring. We do not know what we will pass
through, what joys and sorrows we will go through. But there
is one thing that we do know. There's one thing that is sure,
one thing that is certain for every single one of us and every
single person in the world today and every single person who has
ever lived. We will all stand before Christ
one day. Whether it be soon, or whether
it be 10, 20, 50, 70 years time, however long it may
be, one day, as certainly as you see me standing here tonight,
your eyes will see Christ. And we will all stand there.
before him. That will either be when our
Lord Jesus himself returns and we see him coming in the clouds
and we are then the earth is brought to an end and all are
brought before him or it will be when we come to die. Whether
the earth goes on for many years after we've passed At that time
we will stand before Him, whether it's at His coming or our time
of our death, whichever comes first, we will stand before Him. But the teaching of Scripture is
that as much as this is a sure and a certain event, something
that will and must happen, we do not know when it will be. We do not know when the Lord
Jesus Christ will return. We know he will. We know he has
promised it and he's faithful to his promise, but we do not
know when. And he tells us in the chapter we read, of that
day and hour knoweth no man. No, not the angels of heaven,
but only my father. No man knows when that day will
be. And clearly also no man knows
really the day of his death. If we're ill, people can predict
how long we may have left to live, but no man really knows
the day or the moment, the minute of our death. We do not know. So death, the end of this life,
the end of living in the world as we know it today, is a certain
event, and it's something, as I taught you this evening, that
I'm sure it's something we don't really like to think about. We
don't really like to focus on death. It's sad. It's morbid. It's something we shrink away
from just on a natural level. It's natural to shrink away from
death. But it is something that we should
think about because it's something that will certainly happen. More certain than anything else
you may have thought would be in your life. Everything else
may not come to pass. but you will stand before Christ. Sometimes something happens in
our life or in our family or something, an event in the week
perhaps passed that reminds us of how brittle life is, of how
easily it is broken, and how quickly we can be called to leave
this world. What Jesus is teaching in these
passages, he's of course talking about his second coming primarily
in the passage that we read in chapter 24, but he's of course
preparing for that day, whether it's through his coming or through
our death. He says the vital thing is that
you watch, but you don't only watch. Because
two verses later in verse 44, he says, therefore be ye also
ready. For in such hours you think not
the Son of Man cometh. Watch and be ready. And these two things go together.
You must be watching and looking. But not only watching and looking,
you must be ready. for that day. You must be prepared
for that day. Pardon a few illustrations if
you will tonight. If we were sitting in our car
and if you were sitting at a set of traffic lights and you are
watching to wait for the green light to know that you could
move on, you're watching for that light. Looking, you're not
taking your eyes off to see whether that light changes to green.
But if you were sitting there in your car with your eyes fixed
on the traffic lights, but the engine was turned off, your seatbelt
was off, and you were laying back in your seat, completely
unready to move, then watching isn't really going to do anything.
You can watch, but when the light changes, you're not ready. You're
not ready to move on. You're watching, but you're not
prepared. Probably many of us here have
undertaken music exams, some instrument or another. I did
a number of music exams in the piano. And we used to go to actually
our teacher's house, which was the music examination center.
And we would go in a room at the front where you would wait
with a lot of other nervous children to be called into another room
for the actual exam. And what they did was the examiner
in the other room, he rang a little bell. And when the bell rang,
you knew it was time for you to venture in. You were listening,
listening for the bell, trying to hear it, and in your nervousness,
perhaps hoping you wouldn't hear it, hoping that it might all
go away, but you were listening because that meant it was time
to go in. That meant it was time to start the exam. But can you
imagine if you heard the little bell and you went into the room
and you sat down on the piano stall and you made yourself ready,
and then you suddenly realized, I've never even looked at this
music before. I've never even practiced any
of it. I've not prepared for this exam
at all. I have no idea what I'm doing.
You would fail because you had not prepared. You see, again,
you may be watching, you may be ready in the sense that you're
looking for it, but you're not prepared. And Jesus tells this parable
to make this point very clear, doesn't he? That we read in chapter
25 of the 10 virgins. They all were watching to a point. They all went and stood in the
right place. They all went to meet the bridegroom.
They went to do a good thing. And they went to the right place.
They didn't stay at home. They didn't sit back and say,
we don't care. They went. to wait. They all slumbered and
slept. They all grew tired of waiting,
but they were all there watching, ready in a sense that they were
physically there. But then the bridegroom came
at an unexpected moment, but they were watching. They were
in the right place. So they rose up. They got on
their feet. They prepared themselves. They
got their lamps ready for the bridegroom to come. And then
the reality dawned on five of them. We haven't got any oil. I've got my lamp. I'm standing
in the right place. But I can't light my lamp because
there's no oil. They were woefully unprepared. They were watching, but they
were not ready. And they were missing the vital
thing. The one thing that they needed
was oil so that the lamp could shine, so that they could welcome
the bridegroom into the feast. That was what they were there
for. Without their presence and without the lamps, they were
not fulfilling their role. They must be ready, and they
were not. So they go to buy. They go to
get ready. but it's too late. They come
back from the cellars, and the door is shut. In my mind's eye, I often think
there's a big, heavy door. Of course, we don't know what
kind of building the Lord had in mind when he spoke of these
things, but it was certainly a door that was not gonna be
opened again. Five of them were shut in, They were safe inside,
but five were shut out and there was no way that door was going
to open again. They can shout as much as they like, Lord, Lord,
open to us. But he comes and he says, I say
unto you, I never knew you. I don't know who you are and
I'm not going to open this door for you. I came and you were
not ready. You were not prepared. And they
were shut out. Now, death. is much, much, much
more serious than a traffic light or a music exam or even being
welcomed into a wedding feast. We can cope with failing all
of those things. But death is so serious, it is
so certain and it is so vital that we are watching and that
we are ready. We have many examples, naturally
and in scripture, of those who were taken suddenly. Those who
were taken suddenly. And I want to look at a couple
of examples of those who were taken suddenly and were then,
or were unprepared. They were taken
and they were brought to stand before the Lord and they were
brought to stand before him as their judge. As the one who was
going to condemn them. Because they were not prepared. There's that solemn case, isn't
there, in the book of Acts of Ananias and Sapphira. They were
joining with believers. They were meeting with them.
They were with them. They were known in the church. And the people were bringing
money. They were giving gifts that it
might be distributed amongst those who had need. And they
wanted to join in with this as well. They wanted to be part
of the community. They wanted to join in, be numbered
amongst these people, but they were not. like the others were
they? Because we're told that a certain
man named Ananias and Sapphira's wife sold a possession. Nothing
wrong with that. They realized some money and
kept back part of the price. His wife also being privy to
it and brought a certain part and lay it at the apostles feet.
Now it was good that they brought money that it might be distributed
for the good of others. And I don't think it was necessarily
completely wrong that they kept some back for themselves. They
could quite well have given it all. But they kept some back. And Peter says, and Ananias,
why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and
keep back part of the price? of the land. Was it remained,
was it not thine? And after it was sold, was it
not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this
thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men,
but unto God." And Ananias, hearing these words,
fell down and gave up the ghost. He died instantly. And then his wife comes in. And
she didn't know what had happened. And Peter says, tell me, whither
ye sold the land for so much? And she said, yea, for so much.
And Peter said unto her, how is it thou hast agreed together
to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them that
have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee
out. You see what had happened? They
had said that they had sold the land for a certain amount of
money, and that they were giving it all. But actually, they were only
giving part. and they were keeping some for
themselves. They were lying. They were lying to Peter and
the apostles, but more importantly than that, they were lying to
God or seeking to lie to God and deceive in these things. And they both died that day. When Ananias and Sapphira sold
their land, I'm sure they didn't think that they would die at
the Apostle's feet. When they decided to give some of that
money away, I'm sure they didn't think that this is how it would
end. And when they got up that morning in their house and prepared
to go to the meeting that day, I am sure they didn't think that
they would end that day having stood in eternity. But they did. That day, they were in eternity. That day their life came to an
end and it was sudden, and they stood before God that day as
proud, selfish, deceitful liars. Watch, be ready, for you know
not the day nor the hour that the Lord shall come. And as they
stood before God, in eternity. He saw right through them. He
saw what they were and what they had done even more clearly than
Peter did. They were not ready. In the Old Testament we have
the character of Belshazzar. Belshazzar was a king in Babylon
at the time of Daniel and he was having a feast. And in that
feast he gathered together the cups and plates that he had taken
from the temple at Jerusalem, or at least Nebuchadnezzar had
taken from the temple at Jerusalem. And there he was enjoying himself,
having a great feast, a drunken feast. It was enjoyable, it was
fun, it was with many others. It was what he wanted to do And whilst he was drinking and
praising the gods of gold and silver and brass, the same hour
came forth fingers of a man's hand and wrote over against the
candlestick upon the plaster of the wall in the king's palace.
And they couldn't make out what this writing was, so they called
for Daniel. And Daniel says very clearly
to him, they have been weighed in the
balances God hath numbered thy kingdom
and finished it. Thou art weighed in the balances
and art found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided and given
to the Medes and Persians. Daniel tells him this word of
judgment, this word of condemnation. And still, Belshazzar, he commands
Daniel to be clothed with scarlet and put a gold chain around his
neck and so forth. In thankfulness that Daniel's
been able to record and able to say what it means, but we
read, in that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. In that night. Only hours after Daniel had read
the words, that night, Belshazzar stands in eternity. When he started
his feast, he did not think he would end that night in eternity.
When he called for the cups and drank more and more and more
wine to excess, he did not think he would end that evening in
eternity. And even when Daniel comes and explains to him what
this word means, I'm sure he did not think that that night
he would be called to stand in eternity. And yet the splendor
of the palace and the enjoyment of the feast in a matter of hours
turned to the horrors of hell. He was weighed in the balances
and he was found wanting. He was not prepared. He was warned
in the evening and he was dead in the night. Ye know not what hour your Lord
doth come. At work, I deal with many tragic
and sad cases. And this week, we had a particularly
tragic one. Someone who had been convicted
of, I don't know what it was, but he was someone that we were
managing. And he was not complying with
the court order. And we made a decision to take
action and return him back to court for them to decide what
to do with him. And he was homeless. He'd been
homeless for many years. He lived on the streets, here
and there, shop doors on the pavement in parks. And we went
out one day not knowing where he was. And so what we did was
we went to court, as we do with people like him who we don't
know where they are, and we applied what's called a warrant for someone's
arrest. It means that because we don't know where they are,
we give the police authority to go and find them and arrest
them and bring them to the court. So in the morning, Thursday morning,
my colleague went to apply for a warrant for this man's arrest.
We didn't know where he was. And they granted that warrant
in the morning. At lunchtime, I received an email
from someone who was managing his case. And it was a forwarded
email from a police officer. And it said that they had found
the man that we were looking for and he was dead. He had died one night on the
streets on the Strand in central London of a suspected drugs and
alcohol overdose. His life, without being unkind,
was a mess. He was addicted to class A drugs,
he was Naturally speaking on a spiral, a fast spiral downwards. But in the morning we've been
discussing him and what to do and in the afternoon we heard
that he was dead. He used his drugs to escape the
reality and the harshness of his life. And he took whatever he did. to probably escape what he was
going through. And yet he woke up in eternity. He woke up before God suddenly
unprepared. Do you see how important it is
that ye know not what hour your Lord doth come? You do not know. And to stand unprepared Before
Christ is the most serious and solemn thing, a solemn position
you can ever find yourself in. Because to stand unprepared before
Christ is to stand before the one who will see right through
you. He will know your heart better
than you know it yourself. He will know your sins better
than you know. He will remember and record and
mention those sins that you didn't even realize you committed and
that you had forgotten all about. And He will see the guilt and
the nature and the state of your heart. with pure, sinless, all-seeing
eyes. It will be as if every event
and every word and every idea and every thought has been recorded
and it's played in front of God. He will see it and you will stand
unprepared with nothing to say apart from, I'm guilty. I have
to acknowledge that was me and I did do that and I did say that
and I have no defense whatsoever. I am guilty and I have nothing
to say. I have nothing to bring. I have
nothing to plead. Nothing to deny because how can
you deny when God already knows? How can you try to deflect attention
or try to get away with it when God already knows and sees it
and God therefore must and shall be just? And the justice of God demands
that all those who stand unprepared before him are cut off and cast
out of his presence into hell. Do you see, therefore, that it
is so important, so vital, that we do not stand before the Lord
unprepared? Watch, therefore, for ye know
not what hour your Lord doth come. Therefore be ye also ready,
for in such an hour as ye think not, the Lord doth come. So there
are those on the one side who suddenly were taken from time
to eternity and stood before the Lord as their judge, but
there are wonderful occasions and wonderful accounts of those
who were suddenly taken and stood before the Lord, not as their
judge, but as their saviour, as their glorious friend. And there we have that account,
don't we, of Stephen in the book of Acts. Stephen was faithful
unto his God. He was greatly used. He was greatly
blessed. We're told that he was full of
faith and power and did great wonders and miracles among the
people. He was used. And he was wise. And the spirit
of God was upon him. But because of the things he
was doing and the blessing that were coming by God through him,
he was challenged. And the people didn't like him
and he was taken and dragged before the council. And there
he was questioned. But you see, even before the
Council, he was given this great help to speak. And he preaches
this wonderful sermon where he goes through the Old Testament
and the workings of God to his people and so forth, and concludes
with the wonderful coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He challenges
them. He speaks to them of how they
are stiff-necked and how they have turned away from the Lord.
But he is faithful to God and he's given help to be faithful. He's clear in his ministry and
he's faithful in it. We even read that as he speaks
the council saw that his face was shining as it had been the
face of an angel. They saw his face as it had been
the face of an angel. So he was faithful, he was used,
he was doing God's service and yet they want away with him and
they cast him out and they cry. When he heard these things
they were cut to the heart and gnashed on him with their teeth
and he being full of the Holy Ghost looking up steadfastly
into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on
the right hand of God. You see He was filled with God's
presence, and he saw by faith Jesus, his Saviour, standing
in glory. And they run at him, and they
cast him out the city, and they stoned him. A painful, lengthy
death. And he cried out, Lord Jesus,
receive my spirit. And he knelt down and cried,
Lord, lay not this sin to this charge. And after this, he fell
asleep. You see, Stephen was blessed.
Stephen had the Lord's presence with him. Stephen was helped.
Stephen was useful. Stephen was faithful. God was
with him. And yet Stephen faced a sudden
end. An unexpected end. The disciples
didn't expect Stephen to die that day. Stephen didn't expect
him to die that day. And yet he stood before the Lord
that day, and he saw him. Lord, receive my spirit, he says.
It's not in fear, because he is confident that Christ will
receive him. And Christ is standing ready
to receive him, and he will be with him there that very day.
And so he looks up, because he's ready. He's not quaking in fear. Oh, it was a painful death. He
would have done anything, I'm sure, to escape the pain of the
death, but he wasn't afraid of death. Because it's described,
he fell asleep. That's what the death of a believer
really is, isn't it? It's a falling asleep and a waking
in glory. Lord, receive my spirit. What's
the difference between Steve and the Belshazzar and others?
He was ready. He was prepared. And therefore
when death suddenly came upon him, he was watching and he was
ready. So he enters into that experience
saying, Lord, receive my spirit. And he did. The death of the believer can
be as sudden, as unexpected as the death of anyone else. And
it was for Stephen. Some of you will know Mr. Brian
Honey said, who passed away this week. I was with him in July. I was down at the church at Shoreham,
I was preaching. Spent a good time with him. I
knew he wasn't well, but didn't know what it was. And now he's
in glory. Now he sees Christ face to face
and worships before his throat. Now he sees what he longed for
throughout his life. Now he witnesses the Christ who
I feebly poorly try to preach. Now he is in glory and stands
there. There is that brief divide and
that stream that he crossed and there he is now in eternity.
You see, blessed in the eyes of the Lord is the death of the
saints. We sing that hymn, don't we,
sometimes, we speak of the realms of the bliss and so forth, but
what must it be to be there? You see, those who are ready,
those who are prepared will stand before Christ. Be ye therefore
ready. So the question is, if there
are some who are unprepared and there are some who are prepared,
what does it mean to be prepared? And how are we prepared? Well the vital thing is that
we know life in the soul before we come to eternity, before we
are called to die. We are by nature, every one of
us, dead in a spiritual sense. We are separated from God, we
are cut off because of our sin. The essential thing is that we
have life in our soul which will last forever. And that we know
that life in our soul before we reach eternity. He says, I
give unto them eternal life. So what he gives us in our souls,
that life in our souls, is eternal. So therefore it will cross the
divide of death and it will land us safe into glory. We need life
in the soul. So what is this life? What does
this life look like? How do we know if we have this
life? Well, Jesus describes in a very simple way what eternal
life is. This is life eternal, he says,
that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom Thou hast sent. To have eternal life in our soul
is to have revealed to us God, to know God. To know him as our
father, to know him as the one who has watched over us and who
has loved us, and to know him through Jesus Christ. So if we
are a believer, trusting only in Jesus Christ, looking to him
to save us, looking to him to take away our sins, looking to
him to reconcile us with God, then we have the witness that
we have eternal life. Because to have eternal life
is to know God and Jesus Christ. whom he has sent. But the evidence
of this life, the outworking of this life, is what Paul describes
in Corinthians. If any man be in Christ, he is
a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold,
all things have become new. So the evidence of eternal life
is a change. Something has changed within
us, so that now we have different focus. and different motives,
and different thoughts, and we view ourselves differently. We
view ourselves as a sinner who is guilty. And we view God differently. We view God as just to be angry
against our sin. And we view Christ differently.
We view him as a savior. We view him as a friend who is
full of love and compassion, who is able to save a sinner
like me. There's a change. Jesus describes
it as a new birth. We must have that new birth,
that change, that knowledge of life eternal, that something
has changed in our hearts. Because that life which God gives,
a relationship with Him, will last forever beyond the grave.
And then when we stand before Him, we're prepared, we have
the life that He's looking for. And he sees those sins removed
through Christ. That's what life looks like.
How are we to gain this life? How are we to receive this life
that is so vital? Jesus tells us, doesn't he? I
am the way and the truth and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. He is life and he is the way
to life. He says, I am come that you might
have life, that you might have it more abundantly. It's through
Christ that we receive this life. He gives us spiritual life. It's through his death. It's
through what he paid on the cross that he takes the sin of those
who come and he takes it and he removes it and he cleanses
and he forgives and he gives life. It's through Him. If you're looking for life in
any other way, in yourself or someone else or another religion
or another philosophy or whatever it might be, if you're looking
for it anywhere else, it will not be true life that will take
you to glory. The only way of life is through
Jesus Christ. Look to Christ. That is the only
way. So how are we to receive it?
Well, we know that life through Christ is a gift. It's not something
you can earn, it's not something you can buy, it's not something
you can persuade God to give you. You don't earn it. It's
a gift. It's a gift. It's a gift of grace. So how are we then to receive
this life? Well, we receive life by believing. When God gives us that help,
and that faith to believe that the Lord has come and the Lord
is able to forgive us and the Lord is able to bless us. We
receive life by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. He said
to Mary, to Martha rather, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, that
means trusts in me and casts his hope upon me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live. So Jesus clearly says, I am the
way of life, you shall live if you believe in me, if you look
to me, if you trust me, if you cast your all upon me, if you
look to me as the only saviour who can save you. That's how
we are, by God's grace, prepared for glory, to stand before him
clothed in Christ's righteousness, washed in Christ's blood, trusting
in Him alone, then we receive life and that life takes us beyond
the grave to death. Be ye also ready. So are we? Are we watching? And are we ready, are we prepared
for a day, even if it's now, this evening?
Are we prepared or are we not? Because it will be too late.
If we confess our unprepared state before the throne of God
in heaven, if we confess that we are not ready before the judgment
seat of Christ, that will be far too late because we'll be
in eternity and the place of your eternity will be fixed.
And there will be no going between. It will be too late. So tonight,
don't turn away. Don't fall asleep. and reject
and shut your ears and live contented in a world which can offer you
nothing and can take you nowhere with regards to eternal things.
He said, doesn't he, in this parable, they went to buy and
a bridegroom came. Don't be those who go too late. After he's come, Because those
who were ready went in and the door was shut. Oh, I do hope
and pray that none of us will find ourselves knocking, knocking,
knocking. Lord, open to us. I was watching. Lord, open to us. I was in chapel. Lord, open to us. I knew the
word. Lord, open to us. I was in a good Christian family.
Open to me. No, I never knew you. I do hope and I do pray that
we will be the other side of the door, who when he comes will
be found watching and will be ready. For in such an hour as
ye think not, the Son of Man cometh. Amen.