Mick Roberts - Class 6: Are You Watching? (Youth Program Class 2)

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Thank you, Brother Mike. And now, Brother Mick will continue with his second class, which is entitled, Jesus Really Is Coming Back. Are you watching? Amen. So, when we began earlier on, I asked you the question about whether you'd thought about the Lord coming back today when you woke up. So, now I'm asking you again this sort of similar question about, so while you're watching, have you been watching this week?

2. 0:45

   Have you been watching this month? And if you have been, what have you been watching to enable you to feel in tune with what God has set out for us in his word regarding the return of his son? Because we saw how many times Jesus talked about watch. You must watch. You must watch.

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   Watch. Because it's like a thief in the night. It's going to be at a time when people aren't ready, ill-prepared. It's going to be suddenly, just like it was in the days of Noah at the time of Sodom. So, you've got to watch. Otherwise, you won't be ready. That's the message. That's the warning.

4. 1:19

   So, the question of are you watching and what are you watching, and I suppose how are you watching is really what I want us to think about for this second class. Try and get some practical things for us to take away. What we're not going to do is have a big, detailed, verse-by-verse exposition of lots of passages of prophecy.

5. 1:40

   This is about whetting our appetite. It's about reminding you of some things that maybe you know, or making you curious enough to go and find out more about things it would be good to know. Okay? That's what it is. So, if you're tired or you're feeling your attention span is pretty small this afternoon, I'm asking you just to bear with me for 40 minutes.

6. 2:00

   Because we're talking about the return of Jesus. He really is coming back. And this next 40 minutes might just tip your mind to a point where you say, actually, yeah, I better take this a bit serious.

7. 2:16

   So, I thought it would be really neat. I was trying to think of a way of giving a simple way of trying to remember some of the things that we talk about. And I thought, okay, if we think of a handful of things, a handful of themes that we might think about, I've made an assumption that we've all got around about five fingers.

8. 2:39

   Give or take a few. And I thought maybe what we could do is maybe just sort of try and get into a point where we could literally, on the fingers of a hand, think about five things that might be worth us watching. Now, you know, if we had the time and the space and you were that way inclined, you might be the kind of person who would sort of draw around your hand and maybe write the themes up where the fingers go.

9. 3:04

   And maybe if you even did that, and you might want to do that at some point, I don't know, but if you did that, what you could do is sort of calibrate your fingers to a point of view of 0% through to 100% at the tip. And just say to yourself, so with regard to that particular issue and my watching and my awareness, am I at 0% or 50% or at 100%?

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    Because it might be as we talk about these things, you might feel, well, you know what? There's two or three of those things that I do have a bit of an awareness of, but there's a couple I've never really thought about that, and I've never really been interested in that. And maybe it might spark the idea of taking a slightly closer look.

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    So five things. And I thought we'll keep it really straightforward to remember as well. We'll maybe let them all begin with the same letter of the alphabet. So it's dead simple. Okay? Each one we're going to think about begins with the letter P. P. Okay? And here's the first. Prophecy. Prophecy about Israel.

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    Now, you've probably had so many classes about this. You've looked and studied these things perhaps at Sunday school or youth groups, at camps. And you could probably quote to me lots of passages all about God's dealing with this people. How he is going to take them and disperse them and bring them back together and establish them in the land.

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    And then, at an appointed time when there's peace and the Jews are back in Jerusalem, Jesus will come back. And again, intellectually, we can know all of that just dead straightforward. Will you just open your Bible with me at one of these passages in Deuteronomy? Deuteronomy and chapter 28. Right towards the end of the chapter.

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    This is a long chapter where God is telling the people through Moses, if you listen, if you obey, you're going to get blessed. If you don't, if you choose to ignore me, if you choose to go in your own ways, then you will be punished for that. There will be a consequence to your faithlessness.

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    And that's what it says at verse 58 of Deuteronomy 28. If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in the book. Now, just pause for a moment. We've talked about watching. We've talked about the idea of Jesus coming back and this idea of perhaps being a bit complacent.

16. 6:11

    This is how God deals with his people. He wants them to observe carefully. It's not, here's a few ideas, make it up as you go along. With Noah, it was, here's what I want you to do. And it says that Noah did all that God commanded him. That's how God wants us to respond.

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    So when he talks about the Lord Jesus coming back and those things that will herald his return, then I think in the same way, it's not Jesus saying, here's a few things I'm laying out before you. It's up to you what you make of them. I think we've got to observe carefully. That's how God deals with his people.

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    So verse 58 tells us that if you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues, great and prolonged plagues, and serious prolonged sickness.

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    There's going to be all manner of consequences for their failure. Verse 64, thinking about this nation of Israel, the prophecy being made, then the Lord will scatter you among all people from one end of the earth to the other. Now, if we think of any nation being scattered from one end of the earth to the other, humanly speaking, it would be impossible that you would expect them ever to come back together again.

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    You'd expect them never to be able to retain a sense of identity. You would never expect them to be able to be strong enough to come back and to inhabit a land and protect it in the way that they have, especially when they're such a small, tiny, tiny insignificant land, a tiny, tiny nation.

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    Now, how many people here have been to the UK? Can I just have a quick look? Who's been to the UK? That's quite a few. Good. I didn't spot you when you came. There's not many of us, but... Okay, so if you've been to the UK, you know how small the UK is.

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    How many times would Great Britain fit into Lake Superior? Would it fall in there and disappear? Would you spot it? Would it sink? It would disappear. Now, if you look at a map of Great Britain, the bit that we call whales, the bit when you look at the map that's on the left-hand side, the little bit that sticks out, that's about the size of Israel.

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    Tiny, tiny, tiny. And God says, I'm going to take the people that live in this little place called Israel and I'm going to scatter you all over the world because of disobedience. And he goes on.

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    And there you shall serve other gods which neither you nor your fathers have known. Verse 65, among those nations, you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place. But there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of souls, and your life shall hang in doubt before you.

25. 9:34

    You shall fear day and night and have no assurance of life. Now look at the picture that's on the screen. He's a young kid, probably, I don't know, about 10. And his crime is that he's a Jew. That's all. And this is in the lifetime of maybe your parents or your grandparents that these things have happened.

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    It was a crime, effectively, in parts of Europe to be a Jew. It was the solution to kill the Jews, to put them to death. What other nation, what other people could there be in the world that would attract such hatred? And despite 6 million Jews being killed during the Second World War, they have to have a law that says you're not allowed to deny it because people dismiss it already.

27. 10:28

    There is hatred. There is disbelief. But God's word tells us that this is what would happen to a people. For centuries, dispersed and hated and punished. And their life would hang in the balance. Your life shall hang in doubt before you. You shall fear day and night and have no assurance. In the morning, you shall say, we wish it was evening.

28. 10:55

    At the evening, you'll say, you wished it were morning because of the fear which terrifies your heart because of the sights which you see. And I know that some of you in your modern history studies would have looked at the events perhaps that have happened in the Second World War. And there are things which have happened within touching distance.

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    And if you're doing it as history, it seems, oh boy, it's black and white. This is like years ago. But there are still people around now that you can talk to. Parents and grandparents. Think about people in the meeting that you might know. What do they know about these things? Because this was prophecy in action before us.

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    And God has always said that we have to watch Israel. And if you had these words with you, no matter where you lived, no matter what age you lived in, you could have read these and seen before you, why is it that these people are being dealt with the way that they are?

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    Their only crime is the fact that they're Jews. But they're treated differently to any other people. And you know when you come to the prophets who said that they would come back into the land. If you just go to Ezekiel, that passage in Ezekiel 37. The vision that the prophet had of a valley that was just full of skeletons, just full of bones, dried up bones.

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    And it's revealed to the prophet that this is actually going to tell a story of a people who were punished and scattered and left broken and empty and lifeless. Their life hung in the balance, as it said in Deuteronomy. They were now, at an appointed time, it says, going to be brought together.

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    So the prophet reads in verse 37, the opening verses, the hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out of the spirit of the Lord, set me down in the midst of a valley and it was full of bones and he caused me to pass by them all around and behold, there were many in the open valley and indeed, they were very, very dry.

34. 13:25

    What do you see? Oh Lord, you know. He said, prophesy to these bones and say to them, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live and I'll put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live and you'll know that I am the Lord.

35. 13:54

    And God has said that this people, Israel, are his witnesses, they're evidence of his existence and power and if we want to know when the Lord Jesus is coming back, there's some watching to do with regard to Israel. We're told very clearly that God has a purpose with this people and when Israel was born again to stand up, to breathe life into it again, in 1948, the 14th of May, it's quite interesting that there's an article, I think it may have been in one of the very eminent journals not too long ago that talked about will Israel survive beyond its 60th birthday because it's it's neighborhood that it lives in.

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    We'll see that in a moment. But it's got problems. It's established as a city, as a nation and Jerusalem as a city but it's interesting, the 14th of May, 1948 when this new nation was born and it was put back in the land just as God had said. On the 15th of May, the surrounding armies came to destroy them and Israel didn't have a proper army between them they had 10,000 rifles and they withstood, they held out, they overcame not because of their own strength but because it was God's purpose and those Bible students were so excited when they saw prophecy being fulfilled in their own lifetime.

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    We gathered into the land and born and standing strong and so it has been over the last decades that those who are waiting for the return of Jesus know that Israel must be back in the land because it tells us as we've read that Jerusalem has got to be surrounded by armies. Well for that to happen Israel had to be back in the land.

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    They had to be back in Jerusalem. We're in a generation that can see these wonderful things opening out in front of us. It doesn't take much to search out the story to see these miraculous things that point to the return of Jesus. Did you notice in that passage that we read in Luke 21?

39. 16:40

    All in the context of when Jesus is going to come back. We get the context earlier in the chapter of when is there going to be a sign of the end of times. Jesus talks about events that would happen. Some of them which would happen within the generation he was talking to and some which would happen in the future.

40. 17:02

    Down at verse 29 he spoke to them a parable. Look at the fig tree and all the trees. Well it doesn't take much to see in scripture how trees are used symbolically of nations. It doesn't take much to work out that the fig tree is used as being symbolic of Israel. So Jesus is giving a parable a story with a message a meaning underneath.

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    When you see the fig tree and all the trees when they're budding when they're budding when you can see evidence of growth and there was Israel starting off as a tiny people without an army and now it's one of the most powerful armies in the world it has to be because of the neighbourhood it lives in.

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    It doesn't put its trust in God. And when you see them budding you know that summer is near. So you also when you see these things happening know that the kingdom of God is near. Are we watching Israel? It's the first finger. It's the first thing to think about here. Are you watching Israel?

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    Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until there's a city where the Muslims and the Christians and the Jews all converge all have claims and this city God says his eyes are always on it.

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    And we're told in scripture that this would be a place where nations would cut themselves to pieces in squabbling over it. So when you listen and watch and you hear Jerusalem in the news or on the newspaper when you hear about peace talks taking place because of problems in Jerusalem in the last 60 years there have been some 25 peace talks trying to resolve the problem bringing together the leaders often with the USA as being the brokers to try and bring about a time of peace.

45. 19:25

    So you might be the kind of person that Mary my wife when I sit and watch the news programs Mary sometimes says oh not again not again she wants to watch the sports channel but we're not all disposed you know and I appreciate that that sometimes things regarding the news and current affairs may not switch your light on just may not excite you and I'm just pleading with you to say don't watch it as a news bulletin watch it as information to help you know the nearness of the coming of Jesus that help remain alert and prepared ready for him because there are signs in these things a budding growing Middle East with the fig tree of Israel we read one of the writers talks of a time of peace and safety before destruction we've got to watch these things but when Israel the Middle East when peace gets a mention we have to be there listening to what's being said so that second P is for prophecy about other nations because there's a lot about other nations too in scripture those other trees that we're required to watch I just thought you'd like the quote here the yellow is scripture and the white is from other sources the white is the president of Iran as the Imam said Israel must be wiped off the map Mideast website which interesting site almost all Palestinian groups were formed with the declared aim of destroying Israel by violence and the psalmist records they've said come let us cut them off from being a nation that the name of Israel may be remembered no more people we've got to

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    watch when we hear or see people talking about their attitude toward Israel we've got to listen up and watch because those prophecies that we've read there in Luke 21 about a city being surrounded by armies that's clearly giving us a picture of a time just before the return of the Lord Jesus if you just turn back in your Bibles we were looking in Ezekiel a moment ago if you go to Ezekiel 38 so 37 was all about a nation coming back together and being established Israel and 38 tells us about a confederacy of armies who will come against them threats and endangered because of other nations who will come and it tells us in the opening verses that the word of the Lord came to me saying son of man set your face against Gog the land of Magog the prince of Rosh Meshach and Tubal prophesy against him and say thus says the Lord God behold I'm against you Gog and the prince of Rosh Meshach and Tubal I'll turn you around and put hooks in your jaws and lead you out with your army horses and horsemen all splendidly clothed a great company with bucklers shields all of them handling swords so we've got an Old Testament prophet talking in a language and a way that he would talk he's talking about areas of the world and he's talking about armies dressed and with bucklers and swords that was the language he could use because that was his experience he couldn't talk about tanks and jets and armed nuclear missiles and long range missiles he couldn't talk about those things it was out

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    of his experience but a well dressed army and a well armed army is what he's talking about and he's talking about lands and peoples related to ancient tribes at the time which again we read them and say well that's not on my map but we can look at these maps we can explore and see what are we talking about here when we read some of these strange names like Gog and Meshek and Tubal and there are plenty of scholars and you will know some of these things from talks you've heard who have pointed to how these could be related to nations such as in the north the likes of Russia and Meshek Moscow and talking of peoples who will come and attack and a confederacy of countries who would be with them and it's interesting when you look at them who they're there down in verse 4 it tells us there about the army being well equipped and with them Persia or Iran Ethiopia Libya in the news right now and with them all of them with shields and helmets now we're not going to do a detailed look and I'm not the expert to do it for you but what I do know is that this tells me enough to know I've got to watch what's going on in the nations around because there are prophecies about other peoples who are hostile towards Israel that's what these quotes are telling !

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    so if I hear anything in relation to hostility towards Israel it's the prophets have spoken about these things and we saw in Luke about Jerusalem being threatened and that's heralding the time when those nations are budding and there is hostility that there will be the return of the Lord Jesus I've got to watch these things now there's a danger here that you might go home or I might go home and do a whole checklist and I just have this horrible horrible image of me being sat in my study with my Bible and a checklist and a concordance and Jesus has come back and Mary knocks on the door and says Jesus is back and I said no he can't be yet he can't be he can't be because this has still got to happen and this has got to happen and I'm trying to work it out so we've got to be careful we've got to be careful but we've got to watch so P for prophecy about Israel P for prophecy about the nations are we watching what they're doing and it is quite a neighbourhood isn't it where little tiny Israel are in an area where there's 325 million Arabs and around five and a half million Jews and if they've got a declared intention that they wish to wipe Israel off the map that they believe that the land is not theirs they wish to retrieve it and Israel arms themselves and defends themselves it's quite a time isn't it God's master plan he will set over kingdoms it says in Daniel whoever he will and there may be political leaders or kings

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    being overthrown literally right now while we're sat in this room I have no idea what's happening with Colonel Gaddafi I have no idea what's going to happen in Egypt now that Mubarak has gone and the military are now in charge I have no idea what's going to happen to Assad I have no idea how it's all going to unfold I could guess I could speculate and I could appear a very erudite and very capable brother and giving you all sorts of speculations which you might write down and say brother X said this brother Mick said that I don't know I can speculate and guess as good as the next man what I do know is and what I want you to know is you've got to watch what's going on in these nations because it's heralding the return of Jesus we've got to make it our business to know what's going on because it's preparing us for the return of the Lord Jesus our third P perplexing problems there's a passage that we read there in Luke 21 that talked about problems with perplexity problems that the world can't solve that's what the idea of being perplexed is getting across insoluble things so how come we've got huge proportions of the country and the world who eat too much and huge proportions who were starving half the world's population living on less than a dollar a day what have you spent this week would it cross your mind would it bother you kind of get conditioned to it perplexing problem though isn't it how do you sort that out how do you get how do

50. 28:58

    you get to a world where it's it's fair and equitable and people are fed it's only going to happen when the Lord Jesus comes back but we've got to watch because the world is struggling with perplexing problems that it can't sort out it can't sort out the drug problem which is now out of control funding the Iraq war in the US five thousand dollars every second and I thought Mary spent a lot of the supermarket five thousand dollars a second in order to kill people in the UK we had a big fundraising event about a month ago to raise money for people in need and basically it was a big thing on the TV and lots of events and people did sponsored everything and huge publicity and managed to raise in the course of the day in particular in the evening 70 million pounds so that's about 120 million dollars or something like that and the following day on the news it talked about that Britain were sending in fighters to bomb Colonel Gaddafi and we spent the same amount of money in two nights of dropping bombs on Libya that we'd spent as a nation trying to save to help those who were in need because the world's got it wrong they're perplexing problems that it can't sort out now we don't look at these things and rub our hands and say oh isn't it great that the world's in a mess we look at these things and we say it's more evidence that the world needs Jesus it's a world that ultimately will cry out that it needs Jesus because there's no way of

51. 30:51

    solving the problems that it currently faces perplexing problems like oil and gas this is interesting I came across this quote even if demand remains steady the world would have to find the equivalent of four Saudi Arabias to maintain production and six Saudi Arabias if it's to keep up with the expected increase in demand between now and 2030 now where are you going to find six Saudi Arabias with all the oil that they've got you're not going to find them so how's the world going to manage when it hasn't got the oil how's the world going to manage when it hasn't got the gas how's the economy going to continue when it's built upon having the ability to transport and to communicate as it does with gas and oil it can't you've seen the prices of gas going up in this country we have two in the UK it's the world over what's going to happen when nations can't get their hands on the fuel and the oil that they need is the USA going to sit back is Russia going to sit back and let the US build stocks and links in the Middle East they're perplexing problems and human nature being what it is means that men can't sort it out so when we read about problems with perplexity we've got to watch what these problems are insurmountable insoluble problems that the world can't deal with it's evidence that the coming of Jesus is near and it's why men fight wars and rumours of wars because we can't sort things out in the world today there are 51 armed conflicts taking place God rules

52. 32:48

    in the kingdoms of men God will know who and how things will come about to organize and position nations to be ready for when Jesus reappears now I don't know how many of you came there was a really good talk that was given the other night at Markham our brother Bowen gave a talk about the evidence of physical events in the world like the tsunami and the incident in Japan and he has some footage of some incredible scenes of the power of destruction and worlds turned upside down and we might say well some of these things have happened over the years and over the generations and the centuries and they have but when they happen now the impact when there's a tsunami or an earthquake isn't just affecting that immediate locality because it's affecting things like nuclear plants it's having worldwide impact we've got people being laid off in the UK as we've probably got people being laid off work in Canada because something happened the other side of the world in Japan and the car parts and the components can't be provided the knock on effect the ripples of the world are so significant and we're told that there will be earthquakes in diverse places all part of that build up of signs that Jesus said so it's something else to listen out for another P the physical signs of what's happening in the world in which we live may be heralding the return of the Lord Jesus that's without thinking hard about climate change and what that may mean too and just imagine the impact as far as economic pressures when these things happen

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    the UK is broke you're probably having a struggle here too in North America we've got parts of the European community part of the countries in Europe who are broke and haven't got any money left anymore trying to fund wars in the Middle East trying to get hands on oil and at some point when the money runs out what do they do then if it were there was to be an invasion of the Middle East would there be the power the military power and the finance and the spirit in the nation to say let's go and defend and sort out and protect Israel or let's stop people taking the oil away the world is in a mess you know that but the physical signs which have a knock on effect on economic signs are incredible famines and earthquakes just as Jesus said would herald his return and then another P is personal conduct personal attitude just how people are do you want to just turn to this little passage in 2nd of Timothy chapter 3 where Paul says to Timothy that there's going to be this time in the last times when in the last days it will be perilous now some translations talk about this as being in the last days it will be very hard to be a follower of Jesus that's how some translators put it and I think it's quite an interesting angle on this in the last days it will be really hard to follow Jesus because the age prior to Jesus coming back will be a time when people will be like this they will consume vast amounts for themselves

54. 36:36

    with little regard for others back to those images of that little boy and the amount of poverty and the amount we spend on other things but what does it say men will be lovers of themselves lovers of money boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to parents unthankful unholy unloving unforgiving slanderers without self control brutal despisers of good traitors head strong haughty lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God having a form of godliness but denying its power and from such people turn away here's a warning now it doesn't need me to talk to you and I guess when you get to my age you very quickly lose touch with what's going on in the generation here that I'm talking to if you're in your teens or your twenties I'm conscious that I don't have a clue about some of the things that you see or do hear about or witness or are exposed to I can guess at some and I guess I get a glimpse of some but I'm not going to stand here and pontificate and say the world is in terrible state you need to watch out and all that kind of thing but when we read that list did those things resonate with you did they mean anything to you did you recognize those things as being the world in which you're living because Paul says these are the last times and it's going to be perilous because this is how people will be it will be hard to follow Christ that's why you've got to watch if you're watching him you're not watching stuff you shouldn't be watching if you're watching him

55. 38:52

    you're more likely to be alert and applying yourself than distracted and led astray that's why we have to watch so there's a handful of things prophecy about Israel prophecy about other nations perplexing problems physical events personal attitude and conduct now there's more besides you could break those down even further we've not talked a lot about say politics and climate change and economics but there's a handful of things to listen out and look out for with our Bible in our hands and to talk to each other about these things that we remain alert and ready and how are you going to watch I wonder what would help you what would be the single thing that if you did would make the biggest difference to you watching for the Lord Jesus what would it be just ask yourself that question if there was one thing that I don't do right now but if I did do it it would help me watch for the Lord Jesus better what could that thing be just ask yourself that question I'm going to be quiet for 30 seconds what could the one thing be good good good good

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    I want to know what's gone through your mind in the last 30 seconds. You may have given no thought to what I asked you to do. You may have given very serious thought to what I asked you to do. It's your choice.

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    But whatever it was, if you brought to mind something that you think you could do that would help you watch better, then why would you not do it? What possible reason could there be for not doing it? And if you want five more Ps on the other hand of how you might watch, I think you might watch prayerfully.

58. 41:27

    So when you open up the scriptures and you're asking for guidance to watch, maybe you could watch prayerfully. Lord, as I read, will you help me see these things and to be ready and prepared? That I do wake up in the morning and do consider whether or not this could be the day when your son comes back.

59. 41:47

    Could that be a prayer that I ask every day? Another P could be to be patient. We're not all necessarily intellectual or academic. And I know that some of the things I've talked about, some of you might have felt, oh, this is a bit heavy. This is, you know, can we have something a bit lighter?

60. 42:08

    And some of us might find it a bit hard going sometimes, talking about prophecies and reading some of these long names and people doing diagrams of things, and it's sort of, ah! Well, maybe we could watch with more patience. Just give it a bit of time. Just be patient when you watch and listen.

61. 42:31

    It doesn't all come at one go. Just be patient and build up your understanding of these things while you pray. A third P might be to be persistent. Not to stop, but to be persistent in the way you go about these things. Not letting it slip, but keeping at it. Watch regularly. Or it could be P for being purposeful in your watching.

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    Make it your business. Talk to the brethren and sisters. Why is it that Brother Martin or Brother Ken believe that Jesus might be coming back soon? Why not ask them? Why not talk to them about what do they know about the signs that they see around? What about those older brethren and sisters who maybe can remember things that happened when Jerusalem was back in the hand of the Jews?

63. 43:32

    Or even if they were alive at the time when Israel was established. If they're over 70 or so. Why not talk to them about it? Be purposeful. Make it your business to understand more as you watch. And a fifth P. Watch passionately. With enthusiasm. Because these are life-changing things that we're talking about.

64. 43:58

    They're world-changing things. It's God's master plan that will culminate with the Lord Jesus coming back to establish the kingdom. So there's a handful of things to watch. All beginning with P. There's a handful of things that might inform how we might watch. In order to be ready for when the Lord comes back.

65. 44:24

    I wonder if he comes back. Tonight. I wonder if he comes back. Tomorrow. And if he came back tomorrow. Would you have started the day by asking yourself. Will the Lord be back today? Will I be ready? Am I watching? The last verses that we read together from Luke 21. Verse 34.

66. 45:03

    But take heed to yourselves. Lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing. Drunkenness. And cares of this life. And that day come upon you. Unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch. Therefore. And pray. Always. That you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass.

67. 45:38

    And to stand before the Son of Man. And when they heard Jesus say this. As you've just heard Jesus say this. We could shut the book and walk away. And move on to the next topic.

68. 45:54

    But the chapter ends by saying. That in the daytime he was teaching in the temple. And at night he went out and stayed on the mountain called Olivet. We know where that figures don't we? It was there with the promise.

69. 46:11

    Verse 38. Then. Early in the morning. All the people came to him. In the temple. To hear him. Early in the morning. They didn't wait. They didn't leave it. They didn't think it was. Oh that was quite interesting. We'll talk to him next time he's passing through. It was urgency. It was early in the morning.

70. 46:37

    They wanted to know more. And hear more. About the plan. About his return. About the signs that would herald his coming. That they might be ready. Ready.

71. 46:52

    Will you be ready? Will I be ready? Are you watching? Do you care? Do you care?