The Approaching Day

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. Christian greetings to each of you this morning again. This day that we call Mother's Day. As I was thinking of mothers just a bit, I was thinking of how that we view ourselves. [00:00:33] Not every woman that's here this morning is a mother. But there's one thing that all of us can say, or if I would ask the children this morning, how many people do you think are here that don't or didn't have a mother? There is no such thing. Sometimes mothers haven't filled that role, but mothers have worked together with God in bringing life to everybody that lives. There's no such thing as a person that doesn't or didn't have a mother. [00:01:10] So we all have our memories of that relationship, whatever it was like. We're not planning to speak much about that. I'd like to just repeat a quote from Abraham Lincoln who said that No man is poor who had a godly mother. And that can speak for itself. I invite you to turn to the book of Hebrews this morning, chapter 10. [00:01:41] The writer to the Hebrews was encouraging those people to continue faithfully with God. And he said some things to them there that were an encouragement to continue on, to be faithful regardless of the circumstances that they were experiencing. And one verse down there that we often hear read and referred to and commented on, A few weeks ago I was reading and a part of that verse stood out to me in a way that never had before. [00:02:16] I'd like to refer to that especially today as we think of this message. Chapter 10, we'll begin reading in verse 19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh. And having an high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, [00:02:47] having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promised. And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. That's as far as we'll read. We often hear comment on verse 25 where it speaks about not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together [00:03:24] as an encouragement to be in church. I'm not sure what all that was in the writer's mind here when he used that expression. I'm wondering if he was not thinking even in situations outside of the church gatherings. Let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves. Let us not forsake the blessing that goes with fellowshipping with God's children as an encouragement to continue on faithfully to the end. [00:03:58] The phrase that we want to especially notice is the last one there, when he says, as you see the day approaching. We'd like to talk this morning about the approaching day. There are days approaching all of us in different situations. There are those climaxes, those things that we wait for. The children are just looking forward, I'm sure, to the day that's approaching. When school is out and the picnic is here, it's an approaching day. [00:04:33] All of us have those times that we look forward to as a day that's approaching. There's something on the horizon. He's saying here that we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves. We should continue in this encouragement amongst the brethren. We should exhort one another. Our meetings together should not just be a casual or a social meeting, but they should be opportunities to encourage on to faithfulness because the day is approaching. There's coming a day. [00:05:07] Now this book, as near as I can tell, was written still before A.D. 70, which was the date of the destruction of Jerusalem. In the New Testament, we read at least seven times the expression, that day. And it's not always clear, at least not to me, whether that day is the destruction of Jerusalem or if it's the coming of the Lord, the second coming of the Lord. So as I was meditating on this scripture, I was wondering, which one is it? I still don't know. In fact, there may be a third day that he's talking about here that we want to consider together. [00:05:51] But the important thing in this message is that we are aware that there is an approaching day. There is coming something. It is on the horizon. It's just around the corner. Fact is, not only are we encouraged to be aware of this day, but in Revelation, the twelfth chapter, in verse twelve, we are reminded that there is another that is very conscious of that day. [00:06:22] He is the enemy of our soul who says that he came down in great wrath to this earth and he is furiously working because he knows that the time is short. It is speaking about the imminence of the approaching day. There is some day in our future that he is talking about. So as we think about this, let us think this morning in terms of three different days And going back to Matthew, the 24th chapter, we read there where Jesus was in the temple, that temple that was some, what, 40 years later, destroyed. [00:07:08] We'll read verses 1 and 2 first. And Jesus went out and departed from the temple. And his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. Now it seems like the Jews still had a certain pride, a certain satisfaction in that magnificent building where they went to worship. Their mindset was that you go to Jerusalem to worship. It's what we read in John the fourth chapter. And as the disciples were with Jesus, it says, [00:07:39] His disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See you not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. This magnificent temple that was reconstructed, it did not have the glory of Solomon's temple, but it was nevertheless in Israel's mind and history a beautiful place, an important place. [00:08:09] And they called it, even the disciples of Jesus called his attention to the magnificence of this place that as we read was inlaid with gold instead of mortar or mud like we call it today. Jesus said, you look at this temple. This thing is going to be taken apart, not one stone left on another. In a sense, Jesus was rejecting the glory of Israel's pride in their religious background, their religious beliefs. [00:08:43] This was Jesus' farewell visit to the temple as far as we can tell. Because it was just briefly after this where Jesus was crucified. You see Jesus going out of the temple, turning around and looking at it and saying it's all going to come apart. It is finished. It was Jesus' announcement, along with his farewell visit to the temple, that this temple and what it symbolizes is going to go out of existence. [00:09:15] Some 40 years later, that took place when the Romans came in and went through the town. They destroyed the city and the soldiers for the gold that they saw in that temple took it apart to get their bounty from their invasion of Jerusalem. So was that the day that the writer to the Hebrews was talking about? We really don't know. I don't know at least. [00:09:49] But in Hebrews there, it could be applied to this. Because some of these references that are generally taken to speak about the second coming of the Lord are perhaps more specifically directed to the destruction of Jerusalem. The disciples were especially wondering, how are we going to know when this time comes? What's going on here? Well, one thing that we can learn from this is you look back over the years of history. [00:10:25] The songwriter asked the question, he says, oh, where are kings and empires now? That for a thousand years existed. You look at the prophecies in Daniel. You find the Babylonian Empire. A magnificent, indestructible empire of which Nebuchadnezzar said, look at this great kingdom that I have built. As if though it were invincible. Where is Babylon today? The Medo-Persian Empire followed. Where are the Medes and the Persians today? [00:10:57] And then came the Greek Empire. And it dissembled. And then came the Romans. And in more current times, there was a day when they said, The sun never sets on English soil. Because England had, provinces had possessions across the world. In South America, in Central America, our neighbors to the north. And if you go to Africa, you see the English influence still today in different places. [00:11:32] The sun never set on English soil. But England no longer seems as invincible as it did. And we do not know exactly. I cannot say and I'm not going to try to prophesy this morning what is going to happen. But you know who the two superpowers were. And just a few years ago, that great wall that was both figurative and literal came down and the one superpower has no longer is considered a superpower. [00:12:06] There is still one that is remaining, but I tell you this morning, its foundations are so shaking that there is no guarantee that it is going to be a superpower. In fact, everything depends on God's power, not on earthly superpowers. It could be, it could well be that we need to encourage one another, we need to exhort one another and build each other up because the lifestyle that you and I know today could very easily overnight come to a climax. [00:12:44] We need to exhort one another because the day is approaching. We're not going to go into that very deeply. But the scripture does say the wicked shall be turned into hell and every nation that forgets God. What we so take for granted could well be that on our horizon, even in our day, The possibility is very real that the day of the termination of America's greatness is going to come to an end. [00:13:25] So we need to have our focus and our encouragement on a greater kingdom. There is a second day approaching. That could well be called the day that comes at the end of a human lifespan. There are many signs that tell us that life is but a vapor, like the scripture says. It's like a story that is told, the psalmist said. It is like we spend our years as a tale that is told. [00:13:57] It doesn't take long to tell the story of a lifespan. One time I was asked to give my life story. You know I could tell my whole life story in less than an hour. the tale that is told that's the way life is in this interval of eternity and as we read in the scriptures it is appointed unto a man once to die and after that the judgment [00:14:27] it is appointed there is a day approaching we tend to put that day afar off even though the scripture says it is like a vapor that comes and goes. It's like grass that in the morning is here, the afternoon it's gone or it's dried up. It is like a story that is told. We tend to put that day somewhere way down into the future. [00:14:58] But may we remind us this morning that we do well to encourage one another on because the day is approaching. I think of the days back there when I was with the youth group and one day the message came that Verda and Edna were going across the railroad track and they met the train and Verda was on her way to buy her wedding supplies but instead of preparing for a wedding [00:15:28] she met eternity two young sisters and a week or two later the message came again that another young girl in our youth group had a car accident and was taken into eternity. Story after story could be told of recent years and times right among us that the day is approaching. We are born to die. We are born to prepare for another life after this. [00:16:03] Much more even than we are for this life. Although, we do well to remember too that we are born to live as well as we are born to die. That we live this life to the potential that God has made it for us. But, there is an approaching day. I'd like to think, however, still more of the third approaching day. There is the day where empires meet their destiny. [00:16:35] There is the day when our life comes to an end. The third day is the day of the coming of the Lord. The disciples again in Matthew 24 verse 3 As he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately saying, Tell us, when shall these things be and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world? Now they were referring not just to taking a part of the temple. They were referring now to the climax of history, to the end of the world, things coming to an end. [00:17:09] Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. What a sign. What shall be the sign of the end of the world? A couple of weeks ago we had another sign. And I'm not wanting to make light of what people say. But remember, some of us felt the earth shake a few weeks ago here in Indiana. The most glib statements are made at times like this. Sign of his coming. [00:17:43] I went and checked a little bit to get information about that earthquake. What do you think I found? Here was the earthquake out in Illinois that we felt the tremors of here. But that was one of six or eight earthquakes that day. And the record was that the day prior, and the day prior, and the day prior, and the day prior, as far back as they kept records on this particular location, [00:18:15] there are always earthquakes many more than what I even had an inkling of not saying this morning that there are not signs of his coming but people tend to think about the coming of the Lord in terms of you know the signs how are we going to know when this is close look at Jesus' answer he said take heed that no man deceive you What a sign. [00:18:48] To me it is saying, the Lord was saying, we should live prepared at all times for the coming of the Lord. And that of more concern than the persecutions and the dramatic signs is the fact that we be not deceived. that we be not lulled to sleep by the commonplaceness of life as Jesus said in another place as it was in the days of Noah [00:19:19] so shall it be in the time of the coming of the Son of Man people, they ate, they drank, they married, they gave in marriage and if you look at the context there it is saying as much as anything that life was very ordinary when the flood began Life was just the way it was the day before, and the day before, and the day before. And people got so used to it that they didn't know until the floods came. [00:19:50] And the preacher that tells you that when the flood came, the people began, when it started to rain, the people ran to the ark and began to knock and say, Noah, we'd like to get in, didn't really do their math. I did a little math myself about this and we don't know what the contour and the configuration of the earth was at that day when Noah's flood began but if there was a mountain 28,000 feet high like some of them are [00:20:23] and if the water rose from where it is now to the top of that mountain let alone some distance above it. If that all happened in 40 days, do you know how fast the water rose? Nobody was knocking at the ark, I don't believe. Because it rose 7 plus feet per minute. And if it rises that fast, nobody is going to be out there knocking on doors. [00:21:01] Now, we are assuming some things when we say that. But it may give us a bit of an impression or an understanding that when the Lord comes, that's it. That's the day, the approaching day when He comes. Brings us to the climax of history. And we'd like to go back now to 1 Peter, in the third, 2 Peter I think it is, the third chapter. If I can find it here. where it tells us about this day. [00:21:33] From now on I'd like to just do quite a bit of reading. This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. [00:22:06] For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished. So he gives the account of the flood. God said there's going to be a flood. One day there was no flood. But the next day the world was being inundated, covered, buried in water And nobody was knocking at the door of the ark [00:22:37] I don't believe People are forgetting Back in 1965 when the Pound Sunday tornado roared through our area A hundred and some souls died that evening People said we'll never be the same Things will never be the same. Back when they crashed into the towers in New York City. Life is going to be different from now on. Many of us that are here this morning weren't even around when 1965 was here. [00:23:12] And are we going to say that that's going to make a difference for the rest of time? No, we are subject as human beings to the commonplaceness of life. And we need continual encouragement. These people are ignoring something. If they are saying there will not be a second coming of the Lord, they willingly are ignorant, it says here. They are forgetting. They are defining life, they are interpreting life in the context of the immediate instead of the context of eternity. [00:23:52] We say it's always been this way. Friends, there are very few things that have always been this way. Even our practices have not always been this way. We cannot build on how things have always been in quotations. but we must build by the word of the Lord and as he goes on he says but the heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store [00:24:24] reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men there was a time when there was no earth there was no heaven as the heavens that we see There was a time when all of that did not exist and God spoke them into existence. I cannot imagine this morning how it sounded when God created the heavens and the earth. I don't know if there was sound here. Maybe there was no sound because there was no ear to hear. But however that was, things moved and shook and trembled no doubt. [00:24:59] And he says, the thing that is holding, what is holding this world together and in its place today, what is it? The same word. Yost Miller was a man that used to think beyond my abilities. He talked about the explosion. He liked to use this word, an implosion. What he was saying, suggesting is that God is holding this world in existence by his word. The Word that created it keeps it here. [00:25:30] But the day that God withdraws His Word, there will be an implosion and all of this that we see will go down into that oblivion, out of existence again. It shall be destroyed. However that is, we don't know the details. But we know that it's the Word of God that's holding it. And when God says, Thou is the time, we will see that approaching day. come to reality. Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, [00:26:02] that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us. We are not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. It is only God that is holding this world here as of yet. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, In the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up. [00:26:37] Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness? Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent, that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless. [00:27:09] And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you. We don't understand all of this, but by the word of the Lord we understand this morning that there is a day approaching where all these things are going to take place. This earth and heaven is going to pass away with great noise. When there is an earthquake, there is an accompanying noise. I have no idea how the noise is going to be when this earth and heaven passes away. [00:27:47] but it's going to pass away and there will be a fire that melts the elements the stones, the gold the things that we can see here in this life Peter said here I write this to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance we've heard this story many a time haven't we we've heard it many times but Peter says [00:28:18] I'm stirring your memory remember it again I would say this morning like this you have read it read it again and then read it again and read it again let it be before our eyes because what we believe about this subject is going to determine how we live and where we'll be in eternity therefore it is important that we read it again. As we look at this day, we find three things in the book of Matthew chapter 25 [00:28:51] that are lying ahead of us as that day approaches. The time is not going to allow me to finish this message. May I just conclude by giving the three things that we read in Matthew the 25th chapter where the people gather before the Lord, before that judgment seat, And there, the works of men are going to be judged. Every man is going to receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad, the scripture says. [00:29:29] There will be that judgment as the end of the world comes to be. And along with that judgment, as this world goes up, as the Lord comes back, along with that judgment, there will be a separation. Jesus is coming again. That's the approaching day. Three things are going to happen. As he comes, remember how he says in 1 Thessalonians, the fourth chapter, The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. [00:30:11] Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words. but at that time what all the sequence of events are I don't know what shall be the sign of thy coming take heed that you be not deceived that's the sign that's important this morning he does give us some signs do they relate [00:30:43] to Jerusalem's destruction or the second coming we don't know lest we be deceived Let's do what we do know and focus on what we do know. Then there will be that time of separation. I'd like yet to read what he says in Revelation in chapter 20 where we have a very clear picture of what is going to take place yet in verse 11. And I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it from whose face the earth and heaven fled away. [00:31:18] There was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. Now God doesn't really need a computer. There is so much information out there about all of us that we are even unaware of. But God's record keeping system is even more complete. [00:31:53] He knows all about each one. These books are going to be open. Are these books literal or are they typical, spiritual? It doesn't really matter this morning. In God's record, everything is there. But, thank God, there's another book. The book of life was opened. Every man was judged according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it. Death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. [00:32:26] They were judged, every man, according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. By implication he is saying, and everyone, whosoever was found written in the book of life was taken to glory. So that's the important thing this morning. The real question is, is my name written there?