Are You Ready?

by Mike Ratliff

42 Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. (Matthew 24:42 ESV)

I know that I am a finite person who is incapable of knowing everything. I know this very well. I also know that it is impossible for any of us finite individuals to possess the knowledge with certainty of future events. I am fully aware of this so I am not making predictions here or saying that I know for certain that eschatological events are going to happen any day now. No, I am not saying that. No, but what I am saying, and have been saying for quite some time, is that unless God grants us a revival, the Church will continue with its tailspin into apostasy and we will be in for a very rough period of spiritual darkness and possible persecution. The move from Christian orthodoxy into the many forms of apostasy we are seeing is not just an American phenomenon, but is worldwide. Religious tolerance is so close to becoming a requirement nearly everywhere. When this happens, there will be no room for the exclusivity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, there will still be the Church and there will still be Christians, but real Christians will be persecuted, underground, and second-class citizens everywhere. This is the reality of enforced religious tolerance.

What does this tell us? I believe that this could be either another period in history in which the church must go underground for cleansing by the Lord or it could be what must happen that leads up to our Lord’s return. In any case, our Lord gave us instructions.

35 “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, 36 and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. 37 Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. 38 If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! 39 But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Luke 12:35-40 ESV)

The verbiage and structure of v35 speaks of preparedness. Christians who are prepared for their Lord’s return are not encumbered by the things that inhibits their freedom from working (cf. Exodus 12:11; 1 Peter 1:13). Not only that, but our Lord tells us that His servants are responsible to meet Him with burning torches when He returns. Of course, this is simply an analogy of the preparedness of those truly working in the Kingdom to make the way ready for their master’s return. Of course, in this analogy, they do not know when He will return. They must wait for the “knock at the door.” We must also wait. We must wait for that trumpet and shout, but still, until then, what are we to be doing till then? We are to be living with our eyes fixed on what is above where our Master is. We are to be living according to what concerns Him, not according to the ways and means of the world. Does this make sense? This is the essence of Colossians 3:1-4. Yes, I know that I have used this passage a great deal lately. It was pressed into me rather intently in my time alone with God in my time unplugged...

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