you would turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 21. I'm going to finish up this morning the Olivet Discourse of Luke 21. We'll look at verses 34 through 38. Next Sunday morning we have a guest preacher, a missionary who's traveling through, Matt Koontz, Some of you know of him, we've spoke of him, asked for prayer for him and his family. He's a missionary with the organization Reaching and Teaching, which is the sort of the parent organization missions group that John and I go through as we go to Ecuador. And Matt has been a great help to us and assistance to us in our trips there and an even bigger part of our trips going forward in next year. And so looking forward to having, he's been with us once before on a Wednesday night and shared about his mission's work, but I'm excited to hear him next Sunday morning. Starting next Sunday evening and then going through our Christmas Eve service, we'll have an evening service, morning and evening. two more weeks in December and then our Christmas Eve service. I'm going to preach an Advent series coming out of the book of Luke and we'll get back into Luke in the new year. But I'm very much looking forward to that and covering some very important themes that prepare us for the birth of Christ and for the salvation which God has provided for us in Christ. And so I look forward to that. But this morning we look at Luke 21 verses 34 through 38 which are not unrelated to Advent because these are verses which encourage us to watch and to be very vigilant. Which is really the spirit of Advent is even as we've sung this morning songs like O Come O Come Emmanuel. which really is a song that, as you sing it, is a song that could have been written, and it's certainly in the spirit of those who live before the incarnation, who are anticipating and hoping for the coming of the Messiah, of the one who was prophesied in Isaiah as coming to be God with us, Emmanuel. And so God's people look forward to, they long for and hope in the coming of Messiah. We look forward to his second advent, his coming again. And that's exactly what Jesus is speaking of in Luke 21, starting in verse 34, as he encourages vigilance in light of his return. So let's read these verses and then we'll consider them this morning. Starting in verse 34, Luke 21. starting in verse 34. But watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell in the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place. and to stand before the Son of Man. And every day he was teaching in the temple, but at night he went out and lodged on a mount called Olivet. And early in the morning, all the people came to him in the temple to hear him." Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father God, we come before you and we come to your word this morning and we seek help, we ask for grace, we pray that you would teach us God, that you would reveal Christ to us, help us to understand the truth as it is in Jesus, and that we would be able to humbly receive this truth. And God, we pray that it would not only inform the intellect, fill the mind with information, but that God, your truth would change the heart. of those of us who are here gathered this morning, that you would touch our hearts and that your truth would bear fruit in our hearts. And not fruit that is choked out by the cares and concerns of this world as you warn us against, but God, fruit that would grow up and bear fruit for eternity. God, we pray that you would help us to glorify you and you give us your spirit. We might have insight. We might have help. We pray all of this in Christ's name. Amen. Jesus concludes his teaching here about future things and about final things in what's sometimes called the Olivet Discourse in Luke chapter 21. starting really in verse 5. He speaks of the temple, the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, but his vision goes beyond the destruction of the temple and the end of the world and the religion of the Jewish people. Up to this point, The Jewish religion looked forward to Christ, but with the coming of Christ, this worship is no longer accepted. Any worship that is offered in the name of that's not offered in the name of Jesus is unacceptable to the Lord. And so, this is really in many ways the end of the entire system of sacrifice and religion under the Old Covenant. And so, this isn't the end of the world. To the Jewish people, 70 A.D. would seem like the end of the world. It was the end of their world, the end of this Old Covenant religion, the beginning of a new era. But Jesus' vision goes beyond this to the end of the world, at the end of time, with his coming again. And he concludes this teaching about the future, about the end, about final and future things with a call to vigilance. Look with me at verse 34. He says here, watch yourselves. You see, watch yourselves. In the New American Standard version of the Bible, it's translated, be on guard. In the King James, it's take heed to yourselves. All of this language that very vividly is a call to vigilance, carefulness. And then in verse 36, we see, stay awake. Or in the New American Standard version, keep on the alert. The final word on final things is a call to vigilance. All the things that Jesus would have us know, the concluding note that he wants us to remember, the sort of the capstone teaching of his message about the end times is a call to vigilance. And what could this mean? Well, the reality is that as time passes between Jesus' first and his second coming, The church will be, and it has been, increasingly tempted to become inattentive, complacent, and distracted. Maybe you've felt this. You've certainly seen it if you've got eyes to see what's going on in the church around us. It's easy to see that for many Christians, for many churches, there's very little sense of urgency. There's very little sense of carefulness, of emergency, really. There's a complacency. There's an attitude which, among Christians and among churches, which enables us to really be at home in the world and to be comfortable with a certain level of materialism and worldliness, so far as we're not carrying things too far. And so we can feel at home in the world and yet be somewhat distinct from the world, maintain a measure of Christian identity, but there's a real softness, a real slothfulness, a spiritual inattentiveness and complacency. And our text is a reminder that we must fight this tendency and be on our guard. And I think about this recent hurricane that we've had. As soon as the power was out and we were cleaning out the fridge, I'm like, never again. I'm going to always have water on hand, gasoline in the shed to fill the generator. We've got a generator now. We're going to be prepared. I'm not going to say I'm going to be a prepper, but I'm going to be a little bit prepper. I'm going to be a little bit more prepared for these kinds of disasters. Well time goes by and you start thinking, it's not gonna happen again. What's the chances that something like that happens again? And you know what, I probably wouldn't be very prepared if it happened again today. Not like I was in the weeks after the hurricane. And so over time we can become less careful, less prepared, and we need to be aware of this tendency to slacken. and to become complacent. We need to be on our guard and to fight this tendency. And yes, it is true that Christians will persevere to the end. This is something that all denominations of Christians have this belief in, the perseverance of the saints. which Baptists do, and rightly so. The Bible teaches that for those who are in Christ, who have put their faith in Christ, that we are held by Christ and none can remove us from the safety of His hands. I mean, we are kept by God and guarded by Him, and so we will be preserved and kept and guarded by God, but although Christians will persevere to the end and be saved by the power of God, this will not happen apart from means, because God uses means to accomplish his purposes, and this includes our vigilance and our corresponding actions taken to keep ourselves in the faith. And so, yes, God will cause you to persevere, but don't think that that will happen apart from things like prayer, and Bible reading, and church attendance, and fellowship, and service. We have to make efforts, and as the Apostle Paul says elsewhere, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work within us, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." Well, which is it? Is it God who is at work in us to work out our salvation, to cause us to persevere to the end? Or are we to work out our salvation? Well, it's both. As we work out our salvation, we can know that God is working through that effort that we're making, and He will cause us to persevere. So God uses means to accomplish his purposes in us. And so what are those means, and how might we fight this tendency to complacency, to inattentiveness, to be on our guard, to be vigilant as Jesus calls us to be here in these verses? Well, let's consider several things in these verses together this morning. The first is a serious danger in verse 34. Jesus says the first part of verse 34, watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life. So here's the danger against which we watch. We are vigilant because of this ever-present, very, very serious danger. And what is it? In a word, it's worldliness. It's dissipation. This is a word that it literally refers to the headache that you get after a night of carousing and drunkenness and partying. It's just the sleeplessness and the hangover and all of the, that's dissipation, drunkenness. The cares of this life, which is interesting because this isn't necessarily evil. Not everything that we care about in this life is evil in and of itself, but this is a reminder that anything, even those things that are lawful, that we're commanded to do, that we're given to enjoy by the Lord, can become a source of danger for us, and we might stumble over them if we're not careful, if we're inattentive. These things can, as Jesus says, weigh our hearts down. We can weigh our hearts down. We fail to run as if to win the prize. And so we need to be very careful about these dangers. We think carefully about them in the context of our own lives. It's very easy to give ourselves over to worldliness. There are things that the world enjoys. things that the world celebrates, the things that the world tolerates, that if we're not careful, we ourselves will enjoy and celebrate and tolerate. We can't depend upon the world to guard us from these things, to be a buffer. In our house, we protect our kids from these things. I've heard people say before, well, you can't protect your kids forever. Yeah, but I can until they're 18, at least, and I will. I'll protect them from seeing things and from hearing things and being hurt by the world and exposed to evil because there's no sense in it. There's absolute foolishness to expose my kids to sin and evil. I'm going to help them to point them to the Lord, help them to grow in their character. And they will be prepared when the time comes. But I shelter them. And so they can be sort of careless in their childhood because I am being very careful on their behalf as their parent. The world is not going to do that for you. As you enter into adult life and you enter into the world, you can't depend upon society to always demarcate what is immoral and what is moral, what's good, what's bad, what's appropriate, inappropriate, what you should be watching and you shouldn't be watching. The world is very corrupted by sin and by evil. And the way that our world works is that our society, our community, our world is like a fast-moving current of a river, and that if you just jump into it, you're going to be carried along by it. And so without thinking, without carefulness and vigilance, you will imbibe the values of this world, and it will pose a serious danger to your soul. And so it's something you have to constantly be fighting against. You've got to ask yourself, should I be watching this? Should I love this? Should I prioritize this, do this, say this, think this? Is this in line with the values of the kingdom of Christ? Would I be ashamed if Christ returned today and saw me engage in these things or prioritizing these things? And this requires watchfulness over our own hearts and our lives. It's not just sufficient for us to make sure that outwardly and externally we're not doing things that everybody would agree are sinful or inappropriate. Jesus is talking about our hearts. He's talking about these are spiritual dangers, not just external dangers. We can, sort of like the Pharisees, go through all of the motions. We can have the right religious practices and believe the right and profess the right doctrines, and yet our hearts can be carried away by worldliness. And again, not just evil, but even by, we're talking about this in Sunday School this morning, about how so many people, even who we would call good people, not immoral, worldly people, but just even by normal standards, good people put at the center of their lives family and push church to the corner of their lives, to the margin of their lives, rather than having the kingdom of God at the center. and God's people at the center of their lives. We can make something that's a good gift, family life, but something which is temporary. It has to do with our earthly life and not with our eternal life. We can make that so central that we lose focus on eternity and on the kingdom of Christ. Let something that's a care of this life weigh our hearts down. You see there's a serious danger in this. What is this danger exactly? The end of verse 34 gives us that. that having been weighed down by these things, that day, that is the day of Christ's return when He comes again in judgment, it will come upon you suddenly like a trap. You'll be unprepared for the day of Christ's return. And so we need to Be vigilant and be very watchful. So we see a serious danger here. Secondly, we see a sudden disaster that is spoken of in verse 34. We've just read, that day will come upon you suddenly. The fact is that for all the signs of the times, there is no accurate speculating. about when Christ will come again. You think you know. You think you'll be able to tell. There'll be some kind of sign that will tip you off and you can suddenly be vigilant. I like to think that if someone was going to invade my home that they'd jiggle the lock beforehand for long enough for me to remember the combination of my gun safe, call 911, get the kids in the bedroom and lock the door. But the fact is that it's more likely to happen very suddenly to catch me off guard, unprepared. And this is the picture that we have here. It will happen suddenly. You had better be always prepared or else it will come upon you suddenly like a trap. And verse 35, Jesus makes it very clear. It will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. No one can escape Christ's return. He's not just coming again for those who are a part of the Christian faith. or who give credence to the truths of the Bible. It will come upon all people, to Western people, to Christian people, to Hindu people, to Muslim people, to those who believe it's all a sham, that there is no God. Christ is nevertheless coming, and that day will come upon them, and it'll come suddenly. And so in light of the suddenness of this, you can't prepare at the last minute. There's no hidden knowledge that would enable you to be worldly to a point, to be at home in the world until it's time to sort of get things together and make final preparations for the day of Christ's return. You can't put off repentance and faith until your deathbed. It doesn't work like that. And if that's what you're waiting for, then you need to be warned, as Jesus warns his disciples here. And by the way, these aren't words that are spoken to the Pharisees. These aren't words that are spoken to unbelievers, but to disciples. This isn't a warning that's just relevant to those who won't have anything to do with Christ. Even for those who are within the church who love the Lord, we can grow complacent. We can neglect this call to vigilance. And this sudden disaster can fall upon us. There can be negative consequences for even believers. We don't want to be ashamed on the day of his coming. And so we need to be prepared. How can we prepare? We look at verses 36 through 38. How can we be prepared? We take stock of the danger. We know that we must be vigilant. As he says here in verse 34, watch yourselves. Likewise in verse 36, but stay awake. If 34 and 35 speak of this negatively, watch yourselves lest this negative thing happen. Verses 36 to 38 give us the positive alternative. Watch yourselves, stay awake, be on your guard and stay alert so that you're doing these things instead. And what are these things? Stay awake at all times, praying. that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man. And then in verses 37 through 38, although this is sort of the conclusion of this entire section, this Olivet Discourse, we have here, I think, an implication, at the very least, that we ought to be heeding the teaching of Christ. You see here, every day he was teaching, And all the people, each morning, early in the morning, all the people came to Him in the temple to hear Him. And so we have a call here to prayer, a constancy in prayer, and a daily attending upon the Word of Christ to learn from Him. And these spiritual disciplines are essential if we're to be prepared, if we're to be vigilant, and at all times to be ready for Christ's return. Paul says here, stay awake at all times. You notice there's a constancy. There's a call to, we can never let our guard down, but at all times we must stay awake. And this involves praying, praying at all times. As Paul says elsewhere, constantly. continually praying. And what are we praying for exactly? Well, we're praying for the strength. What's implied here is that apart from God, we don't have the strength to endure. We don't have within ourselves the strength to persevere. If you think that you can neglect prayer and persevere to the end and be saved, you're mistaken. If you think that you can fight the fight that we are given to fight against the spiritual warfare, against your own indwelling sin, that you could glorify God and serve Him in this world and live life as you ought to live it, apart from what God alone can give you in answer to prayer, then you're mistaken. And so if you refuse to pray, then you'll surely fall to this trap that's mentioned in verse 34. You'll surely fail. We're to pray that we may have strength. And prayer is the means by which God strengthens us, which He gives us His strength. Or as Paul says, the armor of God. We need to wear or put on the full armor of God. In other words, there are spiritual resources, there's spiritual strength that comes from God that we appropriate. And we do this through prayer. And praying that you may have strength to escape all these things, that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man. We need not only strength to escape the world and worldliness, we need confidence before God on the Day of Judgment when Christ comes again. Are you confident when Christ comes again that you'll be able to stand? Well, it's through prayer. It's through coming before Christ and to take in His words daily, learn from Him that you'll be prepared to stand because it's in answer to prayer, and in response to the truth of Scripture, that we hear the gospel. And it's only through faith in Christ, it's only by responding in faith to the gospel that we are prepared to stand before the Son of Man. If you, like the Pharisees, like so many, just assume, I'll be able to stand before God? I'm proud of my works. I think I've done enough good through occasional prayer, through church attendance, through many things like this, I'll be able to stand before Him, proud in what I've done, and He'll accept me, then that day will come upon you suddenly like a trap. It'll be a sudden disaster. And yet if we take heed of the teaching of Christ, what He actually teaches in His Word, which is to trust not in ourselves and our self-righteousness, but in Christ and His merits, then we can stand before the Son of Man and not fall. And so I would call you this morning to a kind of vigilance and watchfulness. Stand before Christ through faith. Pray that he would give you the strength to endure until the end as we pray together. Father God, we thank you. We thank you that you have warned us against the disaster that's to come. We can never say that we have not been warned. We have not been forewarned of the coming disaster, of the coming judgment. You have warned us and you have pointed us to a sure, safe refuge from this coming judgment in Christ. We pray that we would prioritize Christ and the things that he prioritizes, that our hope would be in him, that our confidence would be in him, that we might stand before him clothed in his righteousness. But in the meantime, we pray that in answer to our prayers, God, that you would strengthen us as your people against the temptations to worldliness that we face each day. Keep us from unpolluted and uncorrupted, unstained by this world. We pray that you would preserve us through this life. God, that your word would strengthen us. We pray that we might glorify you in this world in order that we might see you in the next. We pray all of this in Christ's name. Amen.