12/2/07 - Advent 1 - Matthew 24:37-44

THE SON OF MAN IS COMING
- As in the days of Noah
- To take you away

How many years were there from the time God created the world until he sent the Flood to destroy it? Any guesses? 1656 years. For over 1600 years the population of the earth increased. And remember: the Bible records for us that the people back then didn’t just live to be 80 - they lived closer to 800 years each. There must have been quite a few people in the world after that amount of time. But out of all those people after 1600 years of procreation, there were only eight believers. Noah, his wife, and their three sons with their wives. Eight believers on the face of the earth in the year of the Flood.
But it’s not as if the world’s population didn’t have fair warning before God covered the earth in water. Many of them must have saw and even more of them most have heard about Noah building the ark. An ark that was 450 feet long! How long do you think it took Noah and his three sons to build a boat that size? Scripture doesn’t tell us exactly how long it took, but it couldn’t have been accomplished all that quickly. And so for the entire time those four men were building this massive boat out in the middle of nowhere - the rest of the people ate and drank and married and went about their lives. Until the day it started to rain. But by then it was too late. By then Noah and his family were already locked up in the ark. By then the Lord’s judgment had already been sealed. The thousands and thousands of people killed in that Flood had a chance. They were given time and opportunity to repent. But they were taken by surprise nonetheless when the spring waters of the earth burst forth from below, the rain clouds let loose everything they held from above, and the flood waters poured for 40 straight days until even the highest mountain tops were covered.
This event is what Jesus points back to in Matthew 24. “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” The Son of Man - Jesus Christ our Lord - is coming. Just like the flood in the days of Noah - so that he can take you away.
Are you ready for the coming of the Son of Man? There aren’t any enormous wooden arks around to tell us that his coming is near, but we do have different signs of those times, don’t we? Earlier in Matthew 24 Jesus said that these things must happen before the end comes: wars, rumors of wars, famines, plagues, false prophets, fake Christs, persecution, and the spreading of the gospel to the world. Are these things happening? Yeah, they sure are. And so the Son of Man could come at any moment. But are you ready? Are you prepared? Do you have your bags packed and waiting at the front door? Of course, the question is: how are we supposed to prepare? The only way you can be prepared for the coming of the Son of Man is through repentance. That’s what God wanted the people during Noah’s time to do, and that’s what he wants of all people during this time to do as well. He wants you to repent of your sins. And repenting means that you confess - you admit - all of your sins, plead for God’s mercy, and believe that they have been forgiven through Christ on the cross. That is repentance. That is how you prepare yourself for his coming. That is how you know you are ready.
But repentance is usually the farthest thing from our minds, isn’t it? Because although we know Jesus could come at any time, we don’t really expect him to. We’ve lived our entire lives so far without him coming and so have millions of people before us. So why should we expect that he’ll come today or tomorrow or while we’re still alive? And so just like the people during the days before the Flood, we eat and we drink and we plan and we go about our daily lives, and repentance doesn’t seem so urgent. “We’ve got time,” we tell ourselves. “What’s the hurry? Odds are he’s not coming back today.” Be careful. The signs of the end are prevalent. The ark is already built, so to speak. The rain is beginning to fall. So do not let those pet sins linger. Do not allow those so-called “minor” or “insignificant” sins to remain in your lives. Do not keep on trying to convince yourself that what you are doing or what you are saying or what you are thinking really isn’t a sin after all. And there are plenty of those kind of sins, aren’t there? Gossiping, selfishness, laziness, lust, coveting, short temper, worrying… need I go on? There are countless sins unique to each one of us that we don’t want to put away. Sins that we know are against what God wants us to do, but sins we don’t mind doing again. Sins that we have no plans on giving up any time soon.
That is dangerous, my friends. Because an unrepentant sin is a condemning sin. If you are not repentant of a sin, then you are refusing forgiveness for it. And if you refuse forgiveness, you are rejecting the one who earned that forgiveness for you - Christ himself. He will not overlook that. He will not just shrug his shoulders and look the other way. When he comes again he will not make an exception to the rule of judgment just for you. One sin condemns! And so all sins need to be forgiven! Repent of your sins. Not that you have to specifically name everything you’ve done, said, and thought, but repent of all your sins in full - confess them, plead for mercy, and believe that Jesus has forgiven them through his blood.
Let’s do that together right now. Let’s repent of our sins, expecting that the Lord will come again before today is done. We bow our heads as I read a few words of repentance from Psalm 19. “[O Lord], who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer” (Psalm 19:12-14). Amen.
Be ready for Christ to come today. And if tomorrow gets here, then be ready for him to come tomorrow. And if the next day comes the same thing. It’s better to assume that Christ will come today than any time later. Because whenever Jesus, the Son of Man and Son of God, does come again time will be up. There will be no more chances. Jesus himself says in our text, “Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.” Are these words familiar to you? I ask that because these words are familiar to thousands of people in this country. These two verses are the main basis for what now is known as “the Rapture.” The Rapture is a teaching that Christ will come to gather believers before Judgment Day so that they will not have to endure the terrible things of the Great Tribulation. The unbelievers will be left behind to face the attacks of Satan and to have the chance to repent. The believers, on the other hand, will reign a thousand years and Christ will eventually set up his eternal kingdom here on earth… Don’t buy it. Don’t fall for the Rapture idea because it simply isn’t in Scripture.
The context of these two verses is talking about Judgment Day. And there’s no real reason to take them otherwise. Jesus will come on the Last Day to take you to be with him. The unbelievers will be left behind - but not to continue to live on the earth - they will be left behind for judgment. In other words, they will not be taken with the believers by Jesus to heaven - they will be left. Nowhere in Scripture does it say that Jesus will come before the end of the world to take Christians away and give unbelievers a chance to repent before he comes a third time. The idea of the Rapture is a fabricated teaching. It is the result of science fiction imaginations that have stretched different passages of Scripture to vaguely refer to what they want to believe. It’s important for us to know about these kinds of teachings, but I don’t want to spend our precious time together today refuting errors - it is necessary for us to spend our time today focusing on Christ.
The Christ who will come again for the 2nd and final time. The Christ who will come at exactly the right time. Just like he did the first time. Remember what Paul says in Galatians: “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). When the time had fully come God did this. He had it planned from eternity. He knew exactly when, exactly where, and exactly how he would save sinners. At exactly the right time Christ came into this world in a town called Bethlehem, lived his life in the land of Israel, died his sacrificial death in the city of Jerusalem, and now reigns over all things on his heavenly throne. It was the perfect time and place for him to come. And the result of that perfect timing was the perfection of our souls through forgiveness.
In the same way Christ will return at exactly the right time. We don’t know when. Not even the angels are aware of the day of Christ’s coming. But we know that when he does come, it will be perfectly timed. It will be when believers need him the most. It will be when sin in this world is at its worst. It will be exactly when God had it planned before time began. What a comforting thought, isn’t it? To know that the Second Coming of our Savior that will bring about the ultimate goal of our faith and begin the never-ending ecstasy of eternity has already been planned before this world existed. We get antsy, we get impatient and jittery because we don’t know when that will be. But the Lord does. And that should be good enough for those of us who are his children living under his care.
And maybe just as comforting to us in this portion of Scripture today, and what we will close with today, is what is not said. “One will be taken, the other left.” That’s it. Did you notice that there will be no inquisition? There will be no trial. There will be no final exam. Christ will not take out your list of sins and read them off because as far as he’s concerned, you have no sins. They were already read off and the guilt was already dealt out on Christ as he was dying on the cross. That’s why he suffered so much. That’s why he was there in the first place. That’s why he’ll come back. Because he has gone through all that effort already to save you. And so when Christ does come the work will already done. He will immediately and without hesitation take you to heaven in an instant. When he appears in the clouds surrounded by his angel armies and accompanied by the trumpet blast of God himself, you will be filled with an excitement beyond compare. You will know that your Savior has come. You will know that he has come for you. This is what we look forward to. This is what we prepare for by repentance. This is what we know will happen soon. The Son of Man is coming. The ark is built. The rain is starting to fall. The Son of Man is certainly coming. And he couldn’t come soon enough.
Amen.

“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come Lord Jesus.” - Rev. 22:20