Go ahead and find Luke chapter 21. Again, you can hold your place there. We'll be making reference to this passage again through the message today. Also a couple of other places that we'll maybe turn to this morning, but... I've been thinking here, obviously, today is December 31st, it's New Year's Eve, a day that has some significance for us, a day where we tend to reflect on the year behind us, a day on which we tend to look forward with expectation for the year and the events ahead of us. certainly a significant day and thank you for being in church here. I'm closing out 2023 in church services today. Tonight we'll talk a little bit more maybe about the significance of this, but I was just thinking here this week that Our church has had a good year and kind of a landmark year, a year where some important things have happened. Obviously, it's been a busy year for us and God has been good. Certainly the year has not been without its challenges and without its frustrations and without its disappointments for us as individuals, as families and as a church together. But of course, God has been good and God has led along the way and we're thankful to to see the way the Lord has worked all along the way and has been gracious to us. And we could spend time here this morning certainly focusing on the good things of the past 12 months, the bad things of the past 12 months. I really don't want to do that this morning. I just had been reading in the book of Romans in the last week or so and I came across a something that always challenges me every time I read it, and it seems especially significant in being in the last week of the year. In Romans 13, it really ties into what we're talking about here this morning, what the Lord is talking about here in Luke chapter 21. In Romans 13, verses 11 through 14, he writes here, and that knowing the time that it is now high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and in envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof." And back to verse That last phrase in verse 11 says, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. And one of the things that with each passing year and with this year 2023 passing on into a new year, A year where a lot of things could happen or in a year where really anything could happen, I suppose. But one thing I'm reminded of is exactly what it says here is that crossing from one year into the next, we ought to be reminded that now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. Some of us in this room, and I'll include myself in this, some of us in this room believed a long time ago. I believed over 30 years ago. I came to know Jesus Christ as my Savior. It's been a long time. It seems like 30 years ago. And for some of you, you say, 30 years, that's nothing, kid, right? Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed? And we may not see the end of this day. We might not see the end of this year, except the Lord comes back this afternoon or something and praise the Lord for it. But we're certainly closer now today than we were a year ago. We're closer now than we were a week ago, and we're closer now than we were a day ago. Every day we draw closer to the fullness and the fruition of our salvation, the Lord's return for His own. Every generation of Christians, and we'll see this in some of the things that we write, every generation of Christians, starting with the very first generation of Christians in the first century, believed that they would not live to see death. They would see the Lord come back for them. And they met the Lord a different way. They met the Lord through physical death and to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. I certainly hope to be of that generation that doesn't see the Lord through physical death, but through rapture. But I don't know. But I know that one way or the other, that statement is still true. Salvation is nearer than when we believed. I'm one day closer to the end of my days, whatever that might mean, on this earth. I don't know when that might be, and I'm not here to say in the next 12 months in the year 2024 is the year where the Lord returns. And I'm certainly not making the prediction in the year 2024 is the year where I meet the Lord the other way. I really hope not. But I know that no matter what 2024 may bring going into this new year, we're closer today and we'll be closer tomorrow than we were when we believed. I'm challenged by that at the beginning of a new year is that we are drawing closer to our final day on earth, whatever that might mean in our redemption. What Jesus said here is using that parable. He said, he said, when you see the fig tree, and all the trees and when they begin to shoot forth, he says, you now know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. You can look around in nature and you can see that the times are changing and the seasons are changing and things are coming to pass and you can start to see from the subtle signs in nature that summer is coming, springtime and summer is coming. And in the passage all before this, Jesus is giving what's sometimes called the Olivet Discourse, where Jesus is speaking to his disciples and to those who would hear him about the signs of the times. Those things that would indicate and show and point forward to the Lord's return. I think it's interesting that in all of those things, and we're familiar with what some of those are, you know, as I talked about in this passage, wars and rumors of wars and false Christs, and in this passage, commotions and natural disasters and famines and pestilences and persecutions against the faithful, betrayals of Christians from their own loved ones and friends and family members and neighbors and people that they trust, and yet so much more. And in verse 28, where we began to read this morning, it says, and when you see these things begin to come to pass, And thank God that one of the promises that we have in the Word of God is that, yes, things will get worse and worse. And because iniquity abounds, the love of many shall wax cold and that this world is in a state of spiritual decline. And it's not going to get better before the Lord comes back. It's going to get worse before the Lord comes back. But we are not going to live into the worst of the worst of the worst of the outpouring of God's wrath on the wickedness of this world. These things begin to come to pass and it's at that point when we see those things begin to come to pass that Jesus says you ought to pay attention and you ought to lift up your head and look up for your redemption now draweth nigh. What a wonderful phrase, what a wonderful promise that that is in the Word of God that we should look up and lift up your heads in verse 28 for your redemption draweth nigh. somewhat of a challenge to us here this morning to close out the year. But are we ready? Are we ready for the Lord to return? A few different ways in which the Bible instructs us to be ready for the Lord's return, to be ready to meet thy God. In Old Testament, one of the prophets was commanded to go out and his message was simple, prepare to meet thy God. Prepare to meet thy God. and preaching to God's people, and to prepare to meet thy God. and we're challenged similarly here out of this, is lift up your head. When you see the signs of the times coming to pass, when you hear of wars, when you hear of commotions, and when you hear of false Christs and the abundance of false religion and false faith, and when you hear of famines and pestilences and all of these terrible things that are abounding on this earth, it's at that moment we should have the greatest sense of hope. because our redemption draws nigh. That seems like a contradictory statement. You know, when things are getting bad, things are getting good. Yes. We have that hope. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 speaks of this event of the rapture and what it's going to be like. But one of the things it says in leading into that is that we should not sorrow as those who have no hope. because we have a hope, and that hope is eternal life, and that hope is the Lord's return. In 1 Thessalonians 4, and just in verses 16 and 17, it describes this as the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord." What a wonderful blessing that is. What a wonderful promise that is. And we call this, this event, this, this Lord, when the Lord returns in the clouds to receive His own to Himself, we call this event the rapture. It comes from the Latin word right out of verse 17, where it says, And that word caught up, when it was translated from the Greek into the Latin, it's basically a variation of the word rapture. A word is a rapture. That's where we get that word from. We call this the rapture because it is when we will be caught up. It is not when the Lord returns all the way to this earth for the second time. where he actually sets his feet down on the ground, but where the Lord comes in the clouds to receive his own to himself. This event of the rapture is for the saved. There will be many who are left behind in that day, many millions and billions of souls that are left behind on this earth in that day. The rapture is for the saved, those who are alive and remain, those who are what the Bible in another place calls the quick, they're still alive, and then those that are asleep in Jesus Christ. I like that expression because there's a lot more hope for those that are asleep than those who are dead. Death is a picture of sin. It says that we were dead in trespasses and sin. We were alive and without hope. We were not alive and we were dead in trespasses and we had no hope in this world. But you have the quickened. He made us alive in Christ spiritually. And those who have physically died but died in the Lord are not dead. They're asleep in Jesus Christ, and this rapture is for those who are saved, those who are alive and remain at the coming of the Lord, and those which are asleep in Jesus Christ, and those are the ones that will be taken in that instance. when the rapture takes place. And we see from the picture and the prophecy and revelation that when the rapture takes place that the series of apocalyptic events that are recorded for us in scripture begin to take place. This period known as the tribulation period. It'll be a time of great trouble on the earth. as the word tribulation indicates. It'll be a time of great trouble on the earth. Trouble such as the world has never seen. And we say, well, things have been bad in this world before, and some terrible things have happened, and some great tragedies have befallen this world. And man, there have been great, great pain and tragedy and loss of life in various ways in the history of this world. And yet the Bible describes the tribulation period as an unprecedented time of trouble. and not a time that anyone would want to live on this earth and live through on this earth. And certainly one that we don't have to live through on this earth, praise God, but one in which many will. And so again, I ask, are you ready for the Lord to return? Are you ready to stand before God? Are you prepared to meet your God? You'd be ready for the rapture first and foremost by being born again, by being a child of God, by being quickened from our spiritual death and trespasses and sin, by being born again by the power of God. Jesus said to Nicodemus, a religious man, a man, if he was attending our church here this morning, we would think that if anybody in this room was a Christian man, it was Nicodemus. He was a Pharisee. The word Pharisee meant the separated ones. It meant that they were very clean and very pure. They were very upright. They knew the law. In order to join this religious sect of the Pharisees, you had to know the Old Testament law, the law of Moses, really inside and out. just a copious knowledge of the rules of what are right and wrong in the Old Testament. I mean, we're talking about way more than just the Ten Commandments. When Jesus talked about the Pharisees, He didn't condemn necessarily their conduct, He condemned their spirit. He said to the people, He says, if the Pharisees tell you to do something, you should do it, but just don't do it the way they do it. You're not going to find someone humanly that is more righteous and morally upright than the Pharisees, but they're on the outside, they're whited sepulchers, and on the inside, they're full of dead men's bones. And if Nicodemus was in this room here this morning, he would be the most Christian-dressed guy in the room. He'd have the most Christian speech and conversation of anybody in the room. And he'd know more Bible than anybody in the room. But he was lost. That's incredible, isn't it? He was lost. And then when Jesus began to speak to him in spiritual terms, because he was lost, he couldn't understand spiritual terminology. Jesus said, you must be born again. And he says, how can I? I'm old. How am I going to be born again? How does that even happen? And Jesus was speaking to him of that which was born of the Spirit is Spirit. He didn't understand that. Jesus said, Marvel not that I say unto you, you must be born again. You must be born again. Salvation is an act of God's grace that we receive by faith. It is not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us. I know a lot of people out there have, again, a lot of biblical head knowledge about what the Bible says, but have you been born again spiritually? Have you been born again by receiving the grace of God by faith and not relying in any way, shape, or form in the works that you have done and the goodness that you have produced? God condemned the righteous works that we could do in the book of Isaiah by saying that even our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. That even when I am at my very best in the eyes of the Lord and in comparison to the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is the standard by which I could save myself, compared to the righteousness which is of Jesus Christ, my righteousness is as filthy rags. And if my righteousness is as filthy rags, then what are my unrighteousnesses? Much worse, right? Jesus used that illustration in the Bible. He says, the eye is the light of the body, and if the light be darkness, then how great is that darkness? And I think that's important for us to understand. If even the best that I can do, if the most righteous that I can be of my own power and of my own accord is still darkness, then how dark is the darkness in me? How deep and dark and wicked are the depths of my heart? And so Jesus, He commanded Nicodemus, He didn't say, well, stop doing the righteous things that you're doing and stop. No, He said, you would just be born again. Be born again. And then all of those good deeds that you do will actually mean something. They'll be done in the Lord and for the Lord. Listen, it's not by works of righteousness, which we do. It's not by church attendance. It's not by Bible memorization. It's not through baptism. It's not through acts of service or sacrifice. It's not by giving offerings into the offering plate at church. It's not by doing good deeds for other people and finding that one good deed a day. And I think that'd be a good thing for us to strive for is to try to be good and kind to people and to be the Christian in the room. That'd be a wonderful thing. But it's not through those good deeds that we do. It's not through acts of self-denial. Some of you may know a little bit about George Whitefield. George Whitefield went to, I believe it was Cambridge College, it was Cambridge or Oxford College. And this was in the 1600s, early 1600s in England. And he went to school at the same time as John and Charles Wesley and kind of in the, later days of the Reformation period and even they began to see some of the challenges and problems that the Reformation was trying to address out of the Catholic Church were starting to crop up in the Church of England which was the state church in England at the time and they began to meet together and try to just be the best Christians they could be. And George Whitefield was a college student at the time. He was a poor college student. He had to work long, long hours to pay for his college, plus go to school. And George Whitefield Also, they already had a very, very busy schedule. We only had just enough time to sleep about maybe six or seven hours a night. And then George Whitefield got involved in what was the early Methodist movement. And he began to commit himself to fasting and praying, in some cases, hours a day. And he was doing all of this, getting up super early in the morning and reading his Bible and memorizing scripture and praying for hours a day. And then he would go off to his college classes in the morning and then he would finish his college classes and he would go off to work essentially a full-time job until late into the evening in order to pay his bills. And then he would sleep for just maybe three or four hours a night. And he would get up all the next day and do it all over again. And for all of that, George Whitefield wasn't born again. putting himself through rigorous acts of self-denial, trying to reform his own heart, going through the motions of prayer and memorizing scripture and all that, and he finally came to a point where he understood, he understood something for the first time, and that's that he must be born again. And George Whitefield got born again. And then George Whitefield became an itinerant preacher in two continents, in England and in the colonies of the United States at the time. And he traveled thousands and thousands and thousands of miles. He would preach in some cases a dozen times in a given day in open air. is that his voice was so loud and so powerful that he could be heard at over a mile away and he would stand up in a public square or he'd stand up on a rooftop or he'd stand up on a wall or on a barrel and he would preach almost always and almost invariably the same message, you must be born again. Why? Because when he got it, he got it. He didn't preach you must fast and pray for three hours a day. He didn't pray that you must memorize scripture and pray that you must be baptized or join a church. He says you must be born again. Because for all the rest of it, as admirable as it would have been, wasn't the answer to the question. He was not ready to meet his God until he was born again. Now, after he was born again, he continued to do many of those things. Continued to live a life of great self-denial in order to serve the Lord, in order to preach. And he gave up a lot of things to serve the Lord in the way that he did. But it wasn't to be saved, it was because he was, and because he had the call of God on his life. Unfortunately, there'll be many sincere and moral religious people that miss the rapture, left behind in the rapture because they are not born again. They have a form of godliness, the Bible says, but they deny the power thereof. And Jesus, in one of his illustrations, one of his parables said that in that day there were many that say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not do many wonderful works in thy name? Did we not preach and teach many wonderful things about you? Paraphrase. And Jesus will say to them, depart from me ye that work iniquity, I never knew you. Can you imagine anything that is more tragic than that? for someone to have sincerely devoted themselves in some way to the Lord and to the Word of God and the ministry of it, and to helping people in the name of the Lord, only to not have sincerely trusted in Jesus Christ as their Savior, to have never actually known the Lord for themselves. Your redemption draweth nigh. We see those signs of the times all around us. You can't read down through this list that's found here in Luke chapter 21, a similar list that's found, I believe, in Matthew chapter 24. You can't read through that and not say that pretty much all those boxes have been checked prophetically. Are you ready for, are you looking for the Lord's return? Your redemption draws nigh. Are we ready for it? Are you born again? As in don't delay. We don't know how much time we have. Don't be so prideful that you resist and refuse to respond. Thinking that someone might think less of you or judge you in some way because you had not truly been saved to this point. One preacher used to say, I wouldn't go to hell for any of you. And what you think of me. And that's really the call this morning is if you don't know that you've trusted Christ or you know that you haven't, but people think you have, are you going to be so prideful that you don't respond and get that taken care of today? For those that have, again, we see here, Jesus is not speaking exclusively to unbelievers. He's speaking to believers as well and he challenges them here that they would take heed to their selves. Verse 34, take heed to yourselves as at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness in the cares of this life so that day come upon you unawares. Challenge with this multiple times in scripture also, not just that we can be entirely unprepared for the Lord's return because we are still lost and dead in our trespasses and sin, but for those who have trusted Christ and have been saved, but we are distracted and were consumed with the cares of this life. And the cares of this life, like the parable of the seed that falls on the thorny ground, the seed begins to, it takes root and begins to grow, but the thorns choke it out because they represent the cares of this life and the materialism of this world. 1 John 2.28 says, Are we ready for the Lord to return because we are abiding in Christ? We know that after the rapture, we'll give an account to Christ. So that every one of us shall give an account of himself to God, and we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and that the sum total of our lives will be tried, yet so as by fire. Those things that will pass through the fire, the wood, hay, stubble, the gold, silver, and precious stones, and only that which survives the fire will be that that has eternal value. 1 John challenges us to abide in Christ so that when He appears, and when we appear before Him, we may have confidence and not be ashamed. Jude talks about those who saved yet, saved by fear, pulling them out of the fire. Maybe those who are saved yet so as by fire in 2 Corinthians, those who will go to heaven, but the value of their life will be all but lost. Eternal soul will be spared from an eternity in hell, but our lives will have had no purpose and no value to the Lord. So we must abide in Christ. To have confidence and to not be ashamed of His coming, we have to abide in Christ. Abiding in Christ is abiding in a close relationship with Him, walking with Him, walking in the Spirit, walking in the Word and in prayer, and walking submissively in the leadership of the Holy Spirit. It's a challenging thing to do. It's a daily commitment that we have to make to abide in Christ. And if we get away from that close relationship with Christ, then we never know what point He may come. I say it a little bit jokingly, but really not all that jokingly, that if there's been anything that's prevented me from going into a bar or a club at any point in my life, no matter how backslidden I was or whatever it might have been, is the fact that I knew that if I went into a bar, that that's when the rapture would happen. And the last place I want to be raptured from is sitting on a bar stool, right, or in some place of ill repute. Abiding in Christ, walking with Him, abiding in Christ is pursuing His purpose. When your life is fulfilling God's will by your willing service and by your faithful obedience to Him, are you abiding in Christ so that when He appears, when He appears, we will have confidence and we won't be ashamed. And I said just quickly here this morning, how are we, how do we prepare for the Lord's coming? 2 Timothy 4, verses 6 and 7, a couple of verses that many of us will find familiar when I read them for you. It says, Paul, speaking of himself, he says, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, and I have kept the faith." Paul could say with confidence that he was ready to be offered. For Paul, it was going to be by martyrdom. It was going to be by a physical death through being martyred for his faith. And for many Christians since that time, it's been in other ways, and many who have come after Paul could say similarly, I am ready to be offered. Whatever that means. I'm ready to meet God. I'm ready to stand before God. And he qualifies that in the next verse. He says, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course and I have kept the faith. Without getting real deep into that here this morning, understand that in order for him to fight a good fight, it means he had to get into the fight at one point and stay in the fight when it got tough. In order to finish his course, he had to start the course and he had to stay on the course. You can't finish something you don't start. You can't finish something that you quit partway through. You can't keep faith that you never had, never obtained, you never earned. How do we prepare ourselves to meet God? How do we prepare ourselves for the coming of the Lord? We join the fight. We join that good fight. We engage in that good fight. We start running that course. We get on that path and we begin to run that race. We obtain the faith. We learn the faith. We get into the faith. The faith is not just faith in Christ. Faith is the sum total of what we believe about God from the Word of God. We're in that pursuit of the faith all through our lives. Only if we've joined the fight and stay in it, only if we've begun the race and stay on that course, only if we've obtained the faith and held on to it, can we, like Paul, say, I'm ready to be offered. I don't know, again, I don't know when the Lord's gonna come back. Hoping it's sooner than later. I hope that that is the means by which we all go to meet the Lord. But will we be ready? Will you go or will you be left behind? Because you've been saved or because you've been just a good person who doesn't truly know Jesus Christ as your Savior? If you go, will you be ready to stand before the Lord with confidence because you've abided in Christ and you've fought a good fight and you've finished your course and you've kept the faith? We don't know when our time is up, but we're challenged to be ready for it. We're challenged to pay attention to the signs that are around us. We're challenged to understand that the time is nigh and that we are closer now than we were when we believed. Are you ready for the, are you ready for the trumpet? Are you ready to meet the Lord this morning? Let's go to the Lord here in a time of prayer and response. If you join me with your heads bowed for just a few moments here this morning, Lord speak into our hearts and we'll have just an opportunity here to respond in whatever way the Lord leads here today. If you need to be saved today, Don't let your pride stand in the way of that. Don't let what somebody else might think or say or what you think they might think or say stand in the way of you taking care of that this morning. Come trust Christ this morning. As you close out this year and as you maybe consider some some goals and some resolutions for the new year. Do you make one of them to abide in Christ? To engage in the fight, to run, get on that course and start running that race that God's put before you? To grow in the faith and obtain the faith so that you can go forward in it? Would you make that one of your commitments for this year? So that if the Lord does return in this year, in 2024, We'll be ready to stand before Him. We'll have confidence before the Lord. Whatever way the Lord is leading in your heart here this morning, whatever decision that you need to make this morning, let me encourage you and challenge you here to take that step of faith. In just a moment, the piano will begin to play. And as it does and while it does, the time of response is yours. The altar will be open. I'll be here in the front if you need to speak with me about any of these things. But let's do business with God this morning. If you remain there in your seat, please remain in the spirit of prayer and in response in your heart before the Lord. Just while the piano plays here this morning, let's let the Lord