Blink of an Eye Week 2

We have been in this couple weeks in this series called Blink of an Eye, talking about the Lord's return and some of the things and the signs and some of the things that will happen around that. And 1 Corinthians 15, 51 and 52 has become our kind of theme text for this. It's where you'll see the phrase that is our name of the series, I guess. But Paul says in verse 51, 1 Corinthians 15, he says, but let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed. It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever, and we who are living will also be transformed. Come on, there's some people that are gonna be alive when Jesus comes back, and I think it could be some of us. I really believe that. And so he is coming back, and it is going to be epic and incredible. Let's pray one more time over this word. Father, in Jesus' name, just a fresh anointing on your word, speak to us, speak to our hearts, God, where we are, in Jesus' name. And everybody said amen. Amen. So yeah, it is gonna be a, man, it's coming, and I believe it is gonna, I think we are

on the precipice of the Lord's coming. I really, I believed that for a while, and so much so that years ago, we were doing one of our big outreach nights in the youth ministry back when I was the youth pastor. This probably was almost maybe two decades ago or so, but we were gonna do a big outreach night, so we were gonna go to every single school and pass out tickets and, I mean, get everybody to come to the service, and that night, the gym was gonna be packed out, and it was, man, the gym was, we couldn't fit any more students in that room. And so as we were planning on that night, we were in a meeting, and I kind of felt like the Lord kind of put it in my heart. I was like, man, I wanna preach on the rapture that night. Like, I wanna preach on the, you know, Jesus catching away the church and the rapture happening, and so we started talking and getting creative, and sometimes things can come up in a creative meeting that sound like a good idea in the meeting room, and then when it comes to, like, fleshing it out, it turns out to not be such a great idea. Sometimes that can happen to you. And some of you have heard this before, and some of you were there that night, and I apologize right now if you were there that night, but anyway, our plan was, as we were talking in that meeting room,

I was like, what if we, like, what if we, like, staged a rapture during the service? And it was so real that it kind of freaked out the kids, and they thought the rapture was really happening, and then they were like, oh, I missed it, I missed it, and then we were like, okay, that wasn't the real rapture, but now you need to get ready, and, like, the altars will be flooded, and so that was the plan, and so we were gonna stage a rapture, and even in the creative meeting, we were like, we could have, like, half the room disappear. We were like, well, I think people will see them crawling out, like, that won't work, and so we were coming up with different ideas, and so the night comes, the room is packed out with all these unchurched, unsaved kids, and I'm preaching on the rapture, and it's supposed to go down that when I get to a certain point in that message, I mean, the trumpet sounds, Jesus appears, and the rapture, and then, again, so I get to that point in the sermon, and I get to my sentence that's supposed to initiate the sequence of events for the rapture of the church, and so I say that sentence, and I kind of pause for a second, and there's no trumpet blast, so then I circle back around, I preach a little bit longer,

and then I come back, and I say the sentence again that's supposed to cue the rapture of the church, and I say the sentence again, and still no trumpet blast. Turns out it's true. No man does know the day nor the hour, and I mean, I'm like, I'm the one supposed to be initiating this, and I'm like, well, I don't know when it's gonna happen, and so I circle back around, and as I'm coming back around to say my big cue sentence again to initiate these things, I look back, and the kid that was supposed to be the trumpet player that night, because we had a real trumpet player, that kid was not there. He had come up sick or something, and so this kid that we were supposed to have was first chair in the band. We got some little middle schooler who was like last chair in the band, and he was, as I'm preaching, I look back, and everybody around him is going, play, play, and he's just like sweating, and he's scared, and he won't play the trumpet. They're like, play it, and so then I circle back around, I say it again, and then finally they convince this poor kid to play his trumpet, and it's supposed to be a blast, like heavenly blast to initiate the coming of the Lord, and it's not, because he's so nervous,

and he's so intimidated by the moment that instead of this big blast, it's kind of more of like a, he's like. Mm, mm. It's just this horrible, like it was like an animal was dying in the back of the room. Well, the trumpet blast was supposed to drown out the sound of the machinery that was gonna make Jesus appear, and so the spotlight gets blast on this place where Jesus is gonna appear. We had a big curtain across the back of the stage, and so Jesus was gonna appear behind the curtain while the trumpet was so quiet that now. And the light kicks on and all you hear is just gzhzhzhzhzh. and it's this lift that's just lift up Jesus. But that was supposed to be happening during the tremor blast that did not happen and was way too short. And so now everybody is just this awkward silence of gzhzhzhzhzhzh and everybody is kind of looking that direction cause they're like something is going on back there. You don't talk about a twinkling of an eye, a blink of an eye this was full out like slumber, okay. This is not a blink of an eye.

This is the longest rapture ever. So then, so then everybody's looking and instead of like a quick blink of an eye appearing it was a very slow appearing of Jesus. And he comes up and gzhzhzhzhzhzh and he comes up and he's starting to appear over the curtain you can see his eyes and you see his face. It was so awkward, it was so uncomfortable you could tell Jesus was uncomfortable with it like he felt so embarrassed since his kid Eric that we asked to play Jesus that night and every time I see him I ask his forgiveness all over again. He finally gets to the top of the G-lift and it kinda does one of these like gzhzhzhzhzhzhzh kakun kakun and it kind of like And then he holds out his hand for his one big line and he goes, come. And you go, Pastor did anybody get saved that night? I mean, I think so, man there were still some kids that still I think felt sorry for me probably and just came forward and gave their hearts to Jesus. I was actually more worried. I always joke, I was more worried about the Christian kids that night because I felt like there was gonna be some kids

that came to our youth ministry every single week but then when they saw the way that thing came out they were like probably thinking I mean, I thought I loved Jesus I don't know if I can handle all this like y'all are, I don't know what you're doing with this so we're out of here. So I was more worried about losing Christians that night with our poor representation of the rapture. And I've come to learn something and I learned it that night real strong is that the rapture is going to be such an epic and powerful and monumental and transformational moment that it's really hard to bring some sort of a dramatization of it. It's like, it's really difficult. Like we showed the clip last week of the movie from the 70s, right? Like it's just tough to depict the power and the prestige and the magnitude of this event. It's gonna be that massive which is why the return of Jesus is the second most frequently mentioned topic in the Bible. And we said this last week that there are in the New Testament alone that the return of Christ is mentioned some 318 times and in all of the New Testament books there's only four of them out of all of them that don't talk at some point about the return of Christ. And the reason why we are in this information

and when you are reading your Bibles and this information is coming in, this information should bring an implementation in your life. Like that's the whole point of this. This is not about trying to figure out the calendar of event. This is not a matter of like, and we got timelines and we're gonna show up kind of a real basic timeline of some things, but it's not about calendar. This is about character, right? So every time God talks about the future, he's talking about the future. His goal is to change how we live in the present. That's why we talk about the future. So this should be affecting our life which is really what today is about. Like last week we covered that Jesus, we do know Jesus is coming back. We know that he is. We also covered last week that we know when he's coming back. And that we really, there's some scriptural precedent to really add weight to this thought that we are in the last of the last days and that his return, like we are in the season and we could be the generation that sees the return of Christ. We just confidently can declare that.

So we kind of covered that last week and this week I wanna kind of cover what it looks like to like live ready for that. Like today's message is probably just simply titled like get ready. Like what does it look like to live ready for that? So in Luke chapter 21, Jesus is talking about all of these end times events. And it's parallel with Matthew chapter 24. But in Luke 21, we'll take Luke's narrative of this. Verse 34, we're gonna pick it up right in the middle with Jesus talking about all these different end times things. And Jesus says be careful or your hearts will be weighed down. Be careful, your hearts will be weighed down by carousing and by drunkenness and the anxieties of life. And that they will close on you suddenly like a trap. He's kind of saying, this is not how it's supposed to be for you that follow me and know me, but it can happen. So he says, be careful that your hearts won't be weighed down carousing, drunkenness, and the anxieties of life, that that day would close in on you like a trap. Verse 35, he says, for it will come on those who live on the face of the whole earth. So he gives us kind of how to be ready. He says, be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen,

and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man. Three verbs, I kind of want to double click on and double down on here. Watch, Jesus says we gotta watch. We gotta pray, and we gotta stand. Watch, pray, and stand. So let me start with this idea of what it looks like to watch. I'm also gonna be pulling a passage of scripture out of Titus chapter two that also mirrors some of these same things that we read that Jesus is mentioning in Luke 21. But first Jesus says, hey, I need you to be watchful, be watching, and so the way Paul says it to Titus in chapter two, verse 11, he says, for the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. Now there's gonna be two places where the word appear lands in this passage of scripture from Paul to Titus. And they kind of set up this two appearings of Jesus. So the first one we just read, the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. That appearing would be Christmas. That appearing would be the incarnation, the God in flesh, Jesus coming to earth as a 100% God, 100% man. That's the first appearing. Paul starts with that and he says, it teaches us to say no, the grace of God teaches us

to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age while we wait for the blessed hope. Watch, while we're watching for it, right? While we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing, there's the second appearing that's mentioned. This is the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. This is the appearing of the coming of the Lord, the second time. And now, here's the thing. We're living in the middle of these two appearings of Christ. And while we're living in the middle of these two appearings of Christ, one of the things that Jesus calls us to do is to watch, is to be watchful, is to be aware, is to be alert of what's going on. And now, many of the New Testament passages, as we kind of think about what does this look like, like what exactly are we watching for? What is this appearing that we're watching for? What is this second coming that we're watching for? What is this rapture that we're watching for? Like, what are the signs of the time we're watching for? Okay, so all of these things kind of get put into these end times language and discussion. So let's look at like,

what are we supposed to be watching for? And one of the things that's important, I think, for us is we, some of you, when you read scriptures and you read passages maybe about these things, sometimes those passages can be intimidating. Sometimes we read some of the things when, whether it's Jesus talking about the end times or the book of Revelation or whether it's prophecies in the Old Testament, sometimes we get into some of these things and we're like, man, I'm kind of scared of this and I don't understand this. And so we're just trying to kind of make it as simple as we possibly can. But know this, that in scripture, a lot of times there'll be explanation of the rapture of the church. There'll be explanation of the second coming of Christ to the earth. There'll be descriptions of what happens in between those events. And a lot of times, those things all get kind of put together into one, one phased event or synchronized events that are happening kind of all around the same time. And so I do want to put a graphic up. We love our timelines and some of you, I mean, you just love a good timeline. So I do want to put a timeline up. This does not have every end times event

because we're just trying to put the things up that we are kind of able to cover here in these couple of weeks. But let's look at this real quick so that we can kind of see how, when we're reading these passages, kind of how this stuff might lay out. And the reason why it's kind of tough sometimes is that there's not one verse or one chapter that kind of just goes, then this will happen, then this will happen, then this will happen, then this will happen. We are talking about a tapestry of Old Testament prophecies and words of Jesus and book of Revelation. And it's a tapestry that's kind of putting all of these timelines and these events together. So we talked about last week that we are in the age of grace the present church age. We said that we're even kind of probably right, you know, towards the end of that. We kind of feel pretty strong about that. And then what will happen is the rapture of the church. Now, following the rapture of the church, there'll be seven years of tribulation on this earth, the kind of trial and the kind of tribulation and suffering that honestly the world probably has never seen before. It is going to be catastrophic. I mean, when you read about what is going on, especially during the last half of those seven years, it is almost unbelievable, okay?

And then following that will be the return of Christ, okay? Following that, we see a millennial reign of Christ. We call that the kingdom age. That's that thousand years. And then there'll be final judgment for unbelievers and then new heavens, new earth, eternal state. Then we're gonna get into some of these things on a Wednesday series in September. And so we don't have time to get into super heavy detail. We will do that in September on Wednesdays, okay? And then during the seven-year tribulation, we think the judgment seat of Christ will probably happen. That's where us Christians will give an account for our life, okay? So here's one of the things that makes sometimes studying these things difficult and maybe it helps us figure out what we're watching for is let me show you this next graphic. Sometimes the rapture of the church, okay, the rapture of the church, which is the coming of Jesus for his people, and the return of Christ, which is the coming back to earth with his people, okay? A lot of times when you read scriptures that are describing that and the seven years of tribulation in between those, a lot of times that series of events will get kind of talked about as one multi-phased coming of the Lord, okay? So a lot of times, you know,

there'll be scriptures that are maybe referencing the rapture or referencing the tribulation, then the same verse or referencing the return of Christ, and so sometimes people start to think, oh, is that one event? No, you can look at it as one event that has multiple phases. That's a healthy way to look at that biblically. I guess I put it this way. A lot of times when you go to a wedding and you go to the wedding, now the wedding's gonna have some different phases to it, and so the wedding's gonna have the ceremony. You're gonna be at the ceremony, and then after the ceremony, they're gonna go, go out there, and we got hors d'oeuvres for you, and you wait out there, and then we'll let you know when you can come to the reception. So then you go to the hors d'oeuvres, and you're hanging out there for a while. Still part of the wedding, and then now it's time for the reception, so come in, and then you come, maybe sit down at a table somewhere for the reception, and everybody's introducing everybody to come in, and it's all the other stuff, and so when you go home, you go, yeah, I went to their wedding, and what are you saying

when you say you went to their wedding? Well, yeah, I did it all, man. I was in the ceremony, I was in the little hors d'oeuvre hour and then I was also at the reception. Now, it's all the wedding, and so it's a healthy way to look at that that there are some different phases that get kind of put under that category of the return of Christ or the second coming of Christ, and our call in this is to live watchful for that, and even if some disagree on where stuff's gonna land, one thing that we cannot afford to disagree on, we can't afford to disagree on the fact that Jesus is coming, and we're to be watchful and expecting that to happen, like the prophetic prophecies and the charts and the debates, there's plenty of that that goes on, all that about the details, that can be interesting, and I give you that, like some of you really digest a lot of that, and that can be interesting. However, sometimes all of the debates and all of the dates and all of the different people who think this is gonna represent this and this is gonna represent that, a lot of times that can be a distraction from the main message, and it's important for us as Christians not to let all the debatable details distract us from the core belief of Christ's coming,

and that is this, that if we live watchful lives for the imminent return of Christ, it's gonna motivate us, come on. If we live watchful, it's gonna encourage us. If we live watchful, it's gonna unite us in our mission to reach this world because Jesus is coming back. Somebody say amen to that. And that's what it's about. And so in other words, like us watching for him should affect the way that we are living. So Jesus not only encourages us to watch, but then he says pray. Not just watch, but he says pray. He specifically in Luke, he says pray that you would escape some of this. But in Titus, this kind of mirrored verse that we're using today, chapter two, verse 14, Paul says, who gave himself, talking about Jesus, Jesus gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness. and to purify us for himself a people that are his very own eager to do what is good. I just love Paul's emphasis here as we think about praying and Paul says, Jesus did this so that he would have a people that are his very own. So we're talking about being people of prayer in these end times and that watching is just part of the encouragement from Jesus, not just watching but that we'd also pray.

I want you to think about more this way, think less say your prayers and think more like being in a constant state of communion, a constant state of connection with Jesus because that's really how you live ready is to be in that kind of prayer. Matter of fact, I wanna do something. I want us to memorize, we're gonna do some scripture memorization today. The whole church is gonna memorize a verse together. They do this in kids' church almost every single week but we're gonna memorize a scripture today. It's 1 Thessalonians 5.17. Everybody say 1 Thessalonians 5.17. Okay, are you ready to memorize it? Here we go, this is what it says. Pray continually. We did it, we're done, you memorized it. It's a short one. I know who I was working with. I said, Lord, we can't do a long verse. We gotta do a short verse for these people, all right? No, it's a short verse. Pray continually, pray continually. 1 Thessalonians 5.17. Now that we have that memorized, let's live it out that we would live in this constant state of surrender to God, this constant state of being tuned in to the Spirit of God. That's, man, that's how you live ready.

This idea of like showing up once a week and kind of trying to realign our antennas, our spiritual antennas back onto Jesus, man, that's not how we live ready. The only way you can be watchful is to be a person who walks in prayer. As a matter of fact, one of the, kind of one of the best ways that would make us worthy, because we want to make it to heaven, and we want to live this eternity, that we want to live this life of praise in heaven. Can I tell you the best way to make yourself worthy, to live a life of praise in heaven, is to live a life of prayer on this earth. That you are just in constant communication with Jesus. One of the reasons why it's so important for us to stay so dialed in in our prayer and in our sensitivity, I'm gonna say it that way. Again, think less, say your prayers, more the state of your heart, the state of your spirit, this constant sensitivity and communication with the Holy Spirit. One of the reasons why that's so important is what psychologists call sensory adaptation. And our brain kind of does this automatically, this sensory adaptation, another word for it is habituation. And so what happens is, you come into environments and sometimes things will be on, there'll be certain sounds going on

when maybe we first come into a room, there might be a hum of a fan, or some motor running, or what happened on a plane to you, sometimes when the plane first takes off and it's all that rumble and all that noise on the plane, and at first you hear it, and then what happens, like 15 minutes into the flight, it's like you're not even hearing it anymore. You're not even noticing it anymore. It happens sometimes with cologne, right? Some of you guys, when you put on cologne, you're like, oh man, it smells so good. And then by the time you make it to the car, you're like, I don't even smell it anymore, it's all gone. Well, until somebody later that day goes, oh, I smell, what kind of cologne is that? You're like, oh, you can smell it? He goes, I don't smell it anymore. So what happens is, is your brain is taking that sensory and at first you notice it, but then your brain goes, okay, apparently that is not a threat. Like whatever that sound is, whatever that smell is, it's no longer a threat. So then your brain just decides, okay, disregard it, block it out, and we'll just move on and be ready for the next possible threat. And so that sensory adaptation not only happens in the physical realm, but church, it happens in the spiritual realm. And the things that once shocked us five years ago

don't shock us today. The things that we were convicted of. Oh, how about if I say it this way? There were some things that you pointed, other people, that they would be involved in back in the day and say, oh, I can't believe they do that, and yet now it's become a part of your life. People who once felt conviction for certain things in their life and then that, why? Because we're seeing it everywhere. Because we're seeing it in our culture and we're seeing just morals and holiness and righteousness just being just absolute, dissolving in our culture. And maybe at first we notice and go, man, what are these people thinking? But then the adaptation to that starts to take over. Which is. That's why it's so important for us to have a line with the voice of the Holy Spirit constantly in prayer. So that if I start to take steps, or if I start to make decisions, if I start to treat somebody as a certain way, if I start to take and consume something, that I can sense the Spirit of God. Saying that's not watchful, that's not ready. That's how we, that's why we pray. And Jesus specifically, he even gave us like what we're supposed to be praying for. Can I tell you what we're supposed to be praying for?

He says, pray that you'll escape these things. And I just wanna show in scripture, because there is some debate. Let me put that chart back up there. There's some people that believe that the rapture of the church doesn't happen here, before the tribulation or pre-tribulation. There are some people that think the rapture of the church happens in the middle of the tribulation. Although there are some problems with that in scripture. And some people think that this is all, because remember, sometimes these events get talked about as different phases of one thing. So sometimes people will put the rapture of Christ, or sorry, the rapture of the church with the return of Christ as just one thing. And they think it happens after the tribulation. But what does Jesus ask us to pray for? He says, pray that you won't suffer these things. Pray that you'll escape these things. The New Testament is filled with references to us escaping these things. 2 Thessalonians 2, I won't even turn there, but Paul's talking about the age of the tribulation, and the lawlessness, and the Antichrist. And he says, these things are being restrained right now, but once the restraint is lifted out of the way, there's not very many logical thoughts of what that could be.

You know what's lifted out of the way? It's the church. It's the spirit of God moving in the church, and when that's lifted out of the way, man, look out. You do not wanna be a part of this planet without the church being on this planet. So that's lifted out of the way. 1 Thessalonians chapter five, we read it last week after Paul talks about the rapture at the end of chapter four. He warns that there's a destruction that's gonna come to the wicked. But in that, he's quick to reassure Christians that they will not abide, that they won't be a part of that. Those who abide in Christ will not be overtaken by this suffering. Am I saying that we never suffer as Christians? That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about the kind of suffering that you can't imagine. We all go through trials and tribulations. Still speaking, though, of the day of the Lord in 1 Thessalonians five, in verse nine, Paul writes this. He says, for God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. Christians are told repeatedly in the New Testament that they can escape that level of judgment that's coming. That's one of the things that we pray. And staying in tune and watchful prayer, that's what makes us prepared for that.

And the last thing Jesus said, I won't spend much time on this, but Jesus says to stand. Stand, and I like how Paul kind of brings this part out. In verse 15, he says, these then are the things you should teach, encourage, and rebuke with all authority. These things. But he says, and do not let anyone despise you. You know what he's saying there? He's saying, know what you believe. Stand on the word of God with authority. Know that Jesus, I mean, if the Bible says Jesus is coming back, then Jesus is coming back. And you gotta be able to stand on the truth of the word of God. If I'm supposed to live watchful, then I gotta live watchful. And if somebody doesn't like it, if somebody does not like my convictions, if somebody does not like the decisions I'm making for my life, I can't let what they think about me affect what I'm gonna do. No, I'm gonna stand strong on the word of God, and I'm gonna stand in such a way. That's why he says, don't let anybody despise you, amen. Church, we gotta stand. He says, don't let anybody despise you. In other words, stand in your faith.

Stand in your truth. Stand in the truth of your word. Stand in your role as a Christian. Stand in your responsibility as a Christian. Stand, because as we learn to stand for him here, then we can stand before him when we give an account for our life. And we will. No talk of the maybe end times is complete without also a reminder of the great deception and the great falling away that happens amongst God's people. First Timothy chapter four, verse one. The spirit clearly says that in the later times, some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Wow. Such teaching comes. through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. Y'all have been there? You scroll on something and somebody preaching something that they act like is the Bible says this and you're like, man, from what I know of the Bible, that's, I don't know if that's what the, I feel like the Bible says the opposite of that. And yet there's people out there teaching it. Second Timothy chapter four. For time will come and people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires,

they'll gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They'll turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. What's that look like? It looks like somebody may be in a particular lifestyle that the Bible condemns. So I'm gonna go find somebody else to tell me that the Bible doesn't really condemn my sin and I'll follow that teaching. That's what's gonna happen at the end times. Second Timothy chapter three is happening now. Mark this, there'll be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanders, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. It's almost like Paul had been on social media there or something like, I don't know. He goes on saying that they have a form of godliness but they deny its power. Who's he talking about there? People like, it's like it could be people like us who have a form, like yeah, see I come to church, it's my form of godliness but there's no power in me. Have nothing to do with these people. And then Jesus was talking about the falling away

in Matthew chapter 24 and Jesus says at this time many will turn away from the faith and betray and hate each other and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people because of the increase of wickedness, the love of, he says, Jesus says, the love of most will grow cold. That is some heavy language. It's not even like this, well, there'll be a small segment. Jesus said the love of most. Who is most susceptible to deception and to a fall? Can I tell you? It's the ones who think they never would. It's ones who think they're just so convinced and they've lost the ability to be watchful. They're outside of a true relationship with Jesus. And now they don't stand on the word of God. And we will give an account for our life. Like what we do with the cross, church, that does determine where we spend eternity. But what we do with our life after that, that determines how we will spend eternity. And there is different levels of reward even in heaven. Oh, I wanna live in such a way that I can stand before God confidently knowing. I've done well with what he's given me to do. I've done the most with what he's given me to do. So Jesus says, watch, pray, and stand. When my kids were younger, sometimes Jamie would like, you know, maybe go away for a couple of days

not to get away from the kids or take it away from me. But like sometimes maybe like on a school trip with one of the kids, like so she would go as kind of one of the chaperones maybe. And so then I would be home with the other four kids by myself, you know, for a few days. And I just wanna be transparent, be honest with you. Like sometimes during those little four-day spans, sometimes I'd let the house go just a little bit. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, sometimes the dishes would stack up in the sink just a little bit, you know. And like the kids are just going and sometimes their clothes would be everywhere. And sometimes the beds would be unmade, you know, just all of that. And so that would go on for, you know, a few days until I would know when she was coming back. And I'm telling you, like if she was coming back Thursday, maybe she'd call me and say, oh, I think we're on time. I'd be like, all right. And I'd hang up that phone. I'm like, okay, kids, come here. We're fixing to get this house in order. Okay, I need you. You go work on the dishes. I need you. You go work on the bathroom. You go get all the clothes picked up.

You go, I'm gonna do this. We're all gonna do this. And so we would get into a mode where we would start getting that house ready for her to return. And how many know when she returned, she still had to clean some things. But I mean, we tried our best to get the house ready for her return. And you know what? That kind of picture of what it looks like to live ready and to live expecting, like if I'm truly living ready and watchful and prayerful about the return of Christ, it's really hard for me then to also live in compromise. If I'm truly living watchful and ready for the return of Christ, it's hard for me to stay in some adulterous relationship. It's hard to stay addicted to pornography if I'm truly expecting that Jesus, if tonight's the night that Jesus could come back, then how can I stay in this unforgiving grudge I have against somebody? Can't, if Jesus could come back tomorrow, then how can I stay in this deception that I'm living in? It's hard if I truly expected he could come. In church, he can, which is why Jesus said, watch and pray and stand.