Be Ready Now • Luke 17:20-37
1:09:18 Teaching begins
Notes
The Pharisees do something right today. They ask Jesus, when is the kingdom of God coming?
I don’t think they liked Jesus’ answer, because for them, kingdom means glory in the future. Who wouldn’t want glory? But the kingdom begins now, with humility? Who wants humility?
You do. Because the future is a sequence of events, and judgment comes before glory.
The only way to escape judgment to come is to be ready now.
I’m reading in Luke 17 from verse 20.
1. The Pharisees ask Jesus about the future.
A. When is the kingdom of God coming? You’re here, You say You’re the Messiah. Okay. When is it all going to happen? Fair enough question.
B. They mean, “When is the glory of Israel coming?”
1. The prophets saw God’s glory come upon Israel. They would be bright and shining. Their enemies would disintegrate. Jerusalem would be atop the tallest mountain, and all nations would go up to learn the ways of the God of Israel. They would be the head and not the tail. The lamb would lie down with the lion and a little child will lead them. The prophecies go on and on. You can sum it up in one word: glory.
2. Who wouldn’t want those prophecies fulfilled? When, Jesus?
C. Jesus says, it doesn’t come with observation. You can’t see it. You can’t say, “Look, there! Do you see it?” It’s not glorious as you desire. It’s nothing to look at. If you didn’t know it, you would miss it.
D. In fact, it’s right now! The kingdom of God is within you!
1. You can’t see the heart, but that’s where the kingdom of God begins.
2. Jesus means kingdom, and He is the King. He becomes king of your heart. He rules, you obey.
3. Because He did a work in your heart. He took your sins upon Himself. He paid for your sins with His life. He gave you His new life raised from the dead. He lives in your heart. Your body becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit. God lives in you and you obey Him.
4. That’s why Jesus says, “Repent.” You change your mind about who your boss is. Up until now it’s been you, and everything has to please you. But now you quit disobeying Jesus and you submit to Him and He really is your King, Lord, Boss, the Authority in your life. It’s no longer pleasing you, you please Him.
5. And you respond to Jesus right now. How long does He want to wait for your obedience? Parents, how long do you want to wait for your children’s obedience?
E. We don’t have any record of how the Pharisees reacted to that. I bet they said, “What kind of answer is that? Right now? In my heart? There’s no kingdom of God in my heart! What about the glory?”
F. They could have said, “Would You please explain how that works?” But the interview ends right there. They’re not listening to Jesus.
2. Now Jesus tells His disciples about the order of events in the kingdom of God.
A. Remember disciples are those who have received Jesus as Lord, they listen to His word, they do what He says.
B. You’re going to miss Me. I won’t be here. I’m going away. You’re going to long to see Me.
C. You’ll hear people say that I’ve come back. Never believe those people. They’re not holding fast to the word I’m telling you right now. The Jehovah’s Witnesses say that Jesus returned invisibly in 1914. Jehovah’s Witnesses contradict Jesus’ words here.
D. He says when I return I’m not going to be here or there. My coming will be universal, present and occurring everywhere.
1. Revelation 1:7 BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.
2. Realise, those who pierced Jesus have been dead for nearly two thousand years, yet He says they will see Him. Every eye will see His coming. All the tribes of the earth will mourn because their way of life is over, pretending that they are right and their god is true. At that time it will be clearly seen, Jesus is God, no one else can be. He is the Truth.
E. But first! Jesus must be humble to the point of death, He must be rejected by this generation. He will establish His kingdom in obedience to the Father in humility. He will pay for all sin by His own pure life, then He will rise from the dead. Before glory is humility, even for the Son of God.
F. The order of the kingdom is, Jesus suffers for our sins, He rises from the dead and ascends into heaven, He comes again to the earth and everyone will see Him.
3. Jesus warns that His return means judgment and destruction.
A. He uses the example of Noah.
1. Remember that all life had corrupted its way upon the earth. Every thought of the mind was only evil continually.
2. Jesus describes it with a series of verbs that are continual. They were continually eating and drinking, and getting married, all with violence continually.
3. This is a routine life without God, and it looked like it would continue indefinitely. Why should it stop?
4. Because God said I will destroy the earth for its wickedness. He had Noah build an enormous ark for 130 years, letting people know, judgment and destruction is coming.
5. People died without warning because they rejected warning.
B. Jesus said the same thing happened with Lot.
1. Verbs show continual activity without God, running in a routine of marriages, business, eating, drinking. Also with violence and ignoring warning from God.
2. People died without warning because they wouldn’t listen to warning.
C. It will be the same when I return, says Jesus. My return will be judgment all over the world.
4. Those who listen to Jesus’ warnings will preserve their lives.
A. Some will be prepared to drop their lives in a split-second and flee destruction.
1. They’ll be up on the housetop and see the signal, and realise this is it. I have to flee right now. If I even go in my house and try to figure out what I want with me, I’ll die. I have to take the outdoor steps down and run for my life.
2. They’ll be working in the field and stripped down because it’s hot and sweaty work. If I stop to grab my clothes I’m a dead man. I have to flee right now and fix it later if there is a later.
B. Jesus commands, remember Lot’s wife. The angels commanded Lot and his family to escape, don’t look back! They pulled them physically out of Sodom and said, run! God saved Lot’s wife from Sodom. But she treasured Sodom in her heart, and it was all being destroyed, and she looked back. Pow, she’s become a pillar of salt, just like those cities.
C. “Whoever seeks to keep his life”, means your life in this world. That continual activity without God, filled with violence. No God in any of that, no laying one’s life down for another. It’s my life, and I’ll do what I want.
D. The one who loses his life in this world has lost it for new life in Jesus right now. You preserve that life because it’s eternal life.
5. The ones who ignore Jesus’ warnings will die without warning in judgment.
A. He declares, it will happen day and night. Two are sleeping in a bed, that’s night time. Grinding to make flour happens in the morning. Any time they could come for you.
B. It happens to men and women. There’s no respecter of gender, they will take you just the same.
C. Sleep is disturbed, work is disturbed, night and day. Imagine the tension not knowing if it’s you they’re coming for. But if they come for someone in your bed, you know them. You grind with them, and they’re gone and you’ll be next.
D. The disciples ask, where are they taken? Jesus answers mysteriously: the eagles will know, and you don’t have to know.
1. Eagles and vultures eat dead meat. In fact, the verb translated “be gathered together” literally means to recline to eat.
2. How do they know where to go? They see the prey, they smell blood. They know where to go.
3. Jesus is really saying, that’s all you need to know. If they needed more explanation, He would do it, but He leaves it at that. This taking of men and women most likely means death.
E. I believe in Jesus taking His church out of the world before He returns and before judgment. But this Scripture here doesn’t teach it. It’s taught in other places, but not here.
F. The ones who preserve their lives listen to Jesus’ words and obey Him.
1. Notice these people are supposed to run at the appropriate signal. Matthew 24:15-17 “Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. Whoever is on the housetop must not go down to get the things out that are in his house.
2. Mark 13:14 “But when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION standing where it should not be (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.
3. These three passages refer to Judea and Jerusalem, and to those people at that time Jesus says, flee to the mountains.
4. But these people don’t obey Jesus. They stay, eating, drinking, buying, selling, sleeping, grinding. They have no idea it’s time to run for their lives. When “whoever it is” comes for them they will be taken.
F. The people who have lost their lives for Jesus are ready right now to flee. They’ll preserve their lives. The ones who don’t listen to Jesus don’t know what’s going on, while they’re being destroyed.
6. So what?
A. The kingdom of God begins right now, today. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart.
B. Lose your life of routine without God. This life will not roll on and on. Jesus will break into the routine with judgment and terrible destruction on the whole earth for their sins against God. He said so. It will happen just as He said.
C. Receive Jesus’ kingdom in your heart so that He is Lord and Saviour. You’re not going to see glory and prosperity and wealth and honour now. It’s obedience to the point of death, just like Jesus.
D. Stay ready.
1. Listen to Jesus’ warnings. He speaks in the Bible every day. Are you listening to Him every day?
2. Practice losing your life for Jesus every day. That’s your life now. You might think I don’t believe in the Rapture of the church because of how I teach this passage. I do believe in the Rapture. I also believe this part of the Bible doesn’t teach the Rapture. Either way, the principle is the same: the only way to be ready for Jesus’ return is to be ready now.
Let’s pray.