I want to study with you this morning one of the great prophetic chapters in God’s Holy Book, Luke 21.  This chapter begins with the setting for the prophecy that is to follow.  This took place just a few days before the crucifixion.  The treasury talked about here was the treasury from which the money was drawn to pay Judas thirty pieces of silver to get Jesus.   

The chapter begins, “And looking up He saw them casting into the treasury their gifts, the rich people, and he saw a certain poor widow.  She cast in two mites, two leptons [that’s just two coins], and He said, ‘Truly I say to you that this poor widow has cast in more than they all, for these all out of their abundance cast in their gifts, but she, from her great poverty, put in all of her living; everything she had she cast in.’ ”  Verses 1–4. 

She didn’t know that her money might be taken and used to crucify the Lord of glory.  All she knew was that she believed that this service, the service of the temple, was ordained of God.  By the way, had the services of the temple been ordained of God?  Yes, they had, but there was a lot that she did not know.  I am more impressed all the time about how much I don’t know!  There was a lot she didn’t know, but the Lord commended her, because she did what she did with what she did know.  Now there were other people in those days that knew some things that this widow didn’t know.

If you look in Luke 8, you will find some other women mentioned who knew a little bit more than this widow did.  Because they knew more, they followed a different course of action. 

It says in Luke 8:  “And it occurred, afterward, traveling through the cities and villages, preaching and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God.  And the twelve were with Him, and there were certain women who were healed from evil spirits and sicknesses—Mary who was called Magdalene, from which seven demons had been cast out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, the steward [that’s a manager] of Herod and Suzanna, and many others which ministered to Him from their possessions.”  Verses 1–3.

You see when Jesus was here, He did not receive manna from heaven; He didn’t have a place to stay; He did not have support except as people who heard the Gospel that He preached and who had benefited from what He did said, we want to help this man.  So they took of their possessions and they ministered to Him.

Now this widow wasn’t in that category.  She did not know what those people knew, evidently, so she didn’t know the other people that we just read about who took their possessions and shared with Jesus.  By the way, it was all right to give Jesus both tithes and offerings.  Did you know that?  There was nothing wrong with that, but this widow didn’t know that, so she did the best that she could.  The Lord commended her for doing the best that she could from what she understood.

Sometimes preachers are afraid to talk about money, but we should never be.  Jesus was talking about it, it seemed, almost constantly.  Have you ever gone through the gospels and just marked down every time Jesus talked about money?  That would be an interesting study for you sometime.  You’ll be surprised. 

Jesus talked a lot about money.  He told a story about people that received different talents.  A talent was a certain weight of silver.  That was one of His stories; it is in different gospels.  He told a story in Luke 12 about the rich fool.  Have you read that story?  Jesus had a lot to say about money.

In Luke 16, He told a story about the unjust steward who mismanaged his lord’s goods.  He said, if you can’t even manage the unrighteous property (the word mammon, in verse 9, is a Greek word that means property, wealth or money or riches or real estate—all of that), that you have down here, who is ever going to give to you eternal riches?  That’s a pretty strong statement, isn’t it?  The unjust steward looked over the situation, and he was trying to figure out a way to get himself out of trouble. 

Have you read the statement in the Old Testament in Malachi 3 where the Lord accused His people of being robbers and thieves?  Oh, friend, if you have robbed the Lord in tithes and offerings, if you have not been a faithful manager, consider the words of Jesus when He said that if you can’t even manage the property you have as a steward in this world, who is going to give to you eternal riches?

It’s not too late.  Go over your own accounts and figure how much money you make, and ask yourself whether you have been faithful.  If you haven’t been faithful, then you want to get things straightened out.

The disciples were with Jesus.  This was the last time when this incident occurred.  It was the last time that Jesus was in the temple.  We know that by comparing Luke 21 with Matthew 23 and 24.  Matthew 24 is a parallel chapter in prophecy with Luke 21.  The other parallel prophecy is in Mark 13.  Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 are all parallel prophecies, and we know that this was the very last time that Jesus was in the temple by comparing those three passages.

As He went out, verse 5 tells us that certain ones were speaking concerning the temple because of the goodly stones and gifts by which it had been decorated.  Jesus said, “These things which you see—the days are coming in which there will not be a stone upon a stone which will not be thrown down.”  Verse 6.  They were in a state of shock.  Jesus hadn’t taught about anything like that.  This temple was regarded as one of the wonders of the world.  It was one of the most beautiful buildings in the whole world at that time. 

Of course, as you can read in the gospel of John, the second chapter, the Jews, after they had built the temple of Herod, spent 46 years in furbishing it and decorating it.  You know you can make a building fairly nice in 46 years—especially when you are the king, and you can tax people to get the money to do it. 

The stones of the temple were of a mint size.  They were white marble, and when a person looked down at the temple from the Mount of Olives in the western sun, it looked like one solid marble wall.  The ancient people were not stupid; they didn’t have our modern conveniences, but they were good craftsmen.  Some historians tell us that those stones, when set together, fit so well that the blade of a knife could not be inserted between them.  I’ve never seen anything built like that in modern time.  It takes a lot of craftsmanship to do something like that.

We can look back in history, and we know, from our point of view, that 39 years after Jesus spoke that word, exactly what He said would happen happened.  That’s what we can do, but that’s not what the disciples could do, just like we can’t tell what’s going to happen next year.  They thought that Jesus must have been talking about the end of the world, so look at verse 7.

It says, “They asked Him, saying, ‘Teacher, when, therefore, shall these things be?  And what shall be the sign when these things are about to be?’ ”  They said, what’s going to be the sign, so we can know that this is about to happen?

Verse 8: “And He said: ‘See to it that you are not deceived, for many will come in My name, saying, “I am the one [in other words, I am the Christ]” and “The time is near.”  Don’t go out after them.’ ”

I want to tell you, friend, that happened!  The Bible says that you and I are like sheep.  It’s often seemed to me unfortunate, but that is the truth.  If one sheep finds a hole in the fence, the whole bunch of them will go through it.  And Jesus said, watch out, be careful, pay attention that you are not deceived, because there are going to be a lot of false teachers, a lot of false christs, a lot of false prophets that are going to come, and many people are going to be deceived.  The New Testament is full of warnings about false teachers.  Would that every Christian would pay attention to those warnings!

According to the New Testament, when someone stands in the sacred desk and preaches or teaches to you the Word of God, you should take your own Bible and check them out and see whether they are telling you the truth.  It doesn’t matter who it is.  The apostle Paul commended the Bereans, because they did that very thing.  Every day they took the Scriptures and checked him out to see if he was telling them the truth!

The people are like sheep.  The great mass of mankind follow their leaders.  They go wherever their leaders take them. 

I’ll never forget the camp meeting we had in Kansas 14 years ago.  We had people there from all over the country, and we had one of the best historic Adventist preachers.  He is still alive, but he is not preaching anymore, because he has had some very serious medical problems.  As a result, he cannot preach, but he still writes.  His name is Elder Ralph Larson.  He was there at that camp meeting preaching.  He was reading to us about some developments that were happening in other Protestant churches, and as I was listening to that, I thought to myself, who’s to guarantee that that’s not going to happen in the Adventist church? 

There just isn’t anybody to guarantee that that won’t happen in Adventism.  It’s already happened in other denominations.  The documents from which he was reading had to do especially with the Methodist Church.  I have always admired the Methodists.  Have you ever studied the history of the Methodist Church and about what happened in the lifetime of John and Charles Wesley and the development of the Methodist movement which was one of the greatest blessings that the modern world has ever had?  If it were not for John and Charles Wesley, something would have happened to England and Great Britain very similar to what happened to France during the French Revolution.

I don’t know if any of you have ever known some old-time Methodists, but I want to tell you, friends, that old-time Methodists that lived over 200 years ago had higher standards of Christianity than some historic Adventists today! 

John Wesley, for a time, was a pastor in the United States.  It was just the beginning of our country at that time; he died right after our country gained its independence.  But when he was in Georgia pastoring, he once refused communion to a woman.  He told her he would not serve her, because things in her life were not right, and he couldn’t give her communion with a clear conscience.

In England, they developed what they called holy clubs of people that were determined that they were going to bring their lives into harmony with everything in the Bible.  John and Charles Wesley did not believe people should use alcoholic beverages.  In 1 Timothy 3, and many other texts in the New Testament, it is very clear that drinking alcoholic beverages is prohibited.  Our translations are a little bit weak in that area because most of the people that translated the Bible didn’t understand the truth on that subject, but the original language is very strong, let me assure you.  You cannot be a New Testament Christian and use any alcoholic beverages at any time.

Not only did John and Charles Wesley not believe in the use of alcoholic beverages and not believe in the use of tea and coffee, but they even experimented with vegetarianism!  They didn’t keep with it, because they didn’t have enough nutritional knowledge at that time to put it into effect.  The Methodists didn’t believe in gambling.  They didn’t believe in these modern dance halls.  None of their people went to those kind of places.  They didn’t believe in going to theaters.  They believed in following the Bible.  But as time went on, a liberal movement developed in Methodism, and you would be hard pressed today to find a Methodist that had the same kind of standards that Methodists had 100 years ago.  I’m not saying there aren’t any, but I know that they are hard to find.

What’s happened?  Well, at our camp meeting 14 years ago, Elder Larson was reading to us from their own publications.  This was not somebody on the outside looking in; this was their own people describing what was happening in their church.  The liberals said to those that were trying to stand for the old-fashioned Methodism, we have got the majority, and you are going to find out that the people are going to follow their leaders.  That’s exactly what happened.  As I was listening to Elder Larson tell us that, I thought to myself, is there any guarantee that that won’t happen in Adventism?

Well, I want to tell you, it’s happened.  Jesus said to His disciples, watch out that nobody comes along and deceives you.  We are living, friend, in very deceptive times.  Unless you are studying your Bible, I personally believe that it is 100 percent sure that you are going to be deceived in the very near future if not already.  Are you studying your Bible every day?  Are you praying and saying, Lord, help me to understand what I’m reading, help me to start living by it?

Jesus said, watch out that you don’t get deceived.  There is more deception today than any previous time in my lifetime, way more.  Part of the reason for it, of course, is because of the Internet.  I have had people contact me from remote corners of the world—some island in the Indian Ocean or in the South Pacific—and ask questions that a few years ago would never get asked from that part of the world.  They are asking questions about things they had not known about, but they know now because they have access to the Internet.  There are books being published and there are web sites on the Internet to teach every kind of fanaticism, every kind of heresy that you can imagine.  If you’re not studying your Bible, you’re not going to make it.  I’m not trying to threaten you.  I just want you to face the truth.

Jesus said, watch out!  We have seen people that are baby Christians—who have just accepted the Christian faith—get some of these books and go to some of these web sites, and they absolutely flip.  They don’t have enough evidence; they are not mature enough; they are not rooted and grounded in the faith enough.  When they deal with this stuff, they think that what they have already been taught isn’t even so.  Both Peter and Paul talk about baby Christians and that they can only have the milk of the Word.  They can’t have the solid food yet, because they are not mature enough in their Christian experience.  The only way you are going to get mature enough in your Christian experience is if you are studying the Bible every day.  You are never going to get mature if you just study once or twice a week; you are never going to make it.  That’s not a threat.  It’s just trying to help you face reality.

Jesus said, watch out!  He said these people are going to come, and they are going to say, the time is near, but don’t go out after them.  (Luke 21:8.)  Do you know, friend, there never was a time when that warning is more needed than right now! 

Let me study briefly with you just a little bit of history.  In the 1830s, the 1840s, and the 1850s, God raised up something that we call the Second Advent Movement.  Its roots actually go back further than the 1830s.  The Second Advent Movement was raised up from people of all different churches—all different Christian churches including the Catholic Church—who began studying Bible prophecy, and they declared that we are living in the time of the end.  We are living in what the Bible calls the last days, and they weren’t wrong, friend!

I have studied very carefully and very thoroughly these prophecies that they were studying, and they were not wrong.  We are living in the very last days, but we are not to say to people what Jesus said the false teachers were going to say—the time is here now; the time is at hand.  In other words, we are not to be time setters.  We are not to set time, because Jesus said we are not going to know when the time is.  (Mark 13.)  When Jesus says we do not know the time, we don’t know the time!

But we humans are always tempted, it seems, to try to figure out something that the Lord tells us we don’t know.  So, 1844 was a climatic date.  It was the termination of the 2300 day prophecy, which was the beginning of the investigative judgment.  We are not going to prove that now, but we have the facts, if there is anybody that hasn’t studied it and you want to know, we have the facts and we can send information to you in the mail or electronically.

So after that date, people have been setting dates for the Lord to come.  They set the date for 1851; they set the date for 1854.  Some others set a date for 1884, which would be 40 years later—that was like the children of Israel in the wilderness.  Some other people said, well it will be within a generation; it will be 1914.  People were setting dates in 1927, 1928, 1944, and 1964—there were people all over the world thinking about that one.  There was a fellow down in Dallas, Texas, that even put a sign board on his property that said, “As it was in the days of Noah, 1844–1964 is 120 years, get ready.” 

Remember, the Lord told us not to do that.  Then came 1979.  I was living in the Northwest in 1979, in Chehallis, Washington, and a fellow came to me and said, “I’m not planting my garden this year.”  Well why?  “Because the Lord is coming by October.”  He couldn’t convince me, so that hampered our friendship a little bit—you are accused of being Laodicean, you don’t believe in the Lord’s coming when you don’t go along with this stuff.

Then that very same year we moved down to Keene, Texas, and I was listening to a fellow talk on the telephone.  We were actually in the ladies’ dormitory.  My wife and I and our son stayed in a guestroom of the ladies’ dormitory for several days while we were finding housing.  I was up in the main lobby area, and I was listening to someone talking on the telephone.  They were talking about what was going to be happening in 1987 and 1988 and how significant the happenings would be.  That was less than 10 years away, and I wanted to listen and learn what this was.  Well, they had it figured out that that was the end time, the termination of Bible prophecy about the end time. 

Then the 1991 date was supposed to be real significant, and then I have books in my library predicting the end of all things is going to happen in 1994.  Others thought it was going to happen in 1996; others thought it was going to happen by 2000.

Just less than 10 years ago I was in Michigan, and a fellow there said he could prove to me from Luke 21—the very chapter we are studying—that the Lord was going to come before 2007.  Now there are other people that have other dates—2030 something, 2020 something!

Friend, Jesus said, don’t do this!  Do you know what is going to happen some day if people do this?  Someone is going to set a date, and they are going to think they have that much time to get ready, and the Lord is going to come before that date. 

Look what Jesus said is going to happen, in Luke 21:9.  “And when you hear of ‘wars and revolutions, anarchy and upheavals, do not be terrified for all these things are necessary to happen first, the end is not yet.’ ”  We have had that happen, by the way.  When Adventist preachers started to preach Matthew 24 and Luke 21 and Mark 13 and say that, as we draw nearer to the end, we are going to have wars and rumors of wars, they were scoffed at as calamity howlers in the nineteenth century.  People said, you people are crazy; everything is getting better and better; don’t you see the great advances in scientific knowledge?  They didn’t realize that the Bible predicted that that would happen in the time of the end.  In Daniel 12 it says that in the time of the end knowledge would be increased and people would be traveling all over.  People said, you Adventists are crazy; things are getting better and better; we aren’t going to have more war; we are going to have world peace. 

In 1946 at the Hague in Europe, a world court was formed.  (The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, is located in the Hague, Netherlands.  Founded in 1946 to replace the Permanent Court of International Justice, it is the principal judicial body of the United Nations.)  It was designed that when nations are in trouble they are going to send representatives to the World Court.  The World Court is going to make a decision, and we are not going to have war.  Did it work?  Jesus said, there’s going to be wars.  People said, no, there’s not going to be wars.

It’s been interesting to me, and I’ve seen this happen so many times as I’ve studied my Bible.  The Bible predicted something was going to happen, and men said no, it’s not.  Somehow what men say never happens.  What the Bible says turns out to be the way it happens.

In World War I, we said this is the war.  We are having a war now, but this is going to be the war to end all war.  That’s what we said.  Did it end all wars? 

We had the League of Nations; now we’ve got the United Nations.  Has the United Nations been able to keep us out of war?  Not so far it hasn’t!  Of course, we don’t call it war anymore; we say it’s peace-keeping forces, but these peace-keeping forces have guns and bullets.

Jesus said, in Luke 21:10, 11 that “Nation shall rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be great earthquakes.”  This was in a time when they weren’t having very many earthquakes.  Earthquakes were very rare in Bible times.  People say, well, they didn’t have seismograph yet.  I’m not talking about those little tiny tremors, I’m talking about earthquakes that are big enough that the buildings fall down.  When the buildings fall down, you don’t need a seismograph to know you have an earthquake, and it gets recorded in a history book.

Jesus predicted that in the last days there were going to be some great earthquakes.  This is not our subject, but let me just tell you in passing, you can study it out on your own if you want to go to the Internet.  There are web sites just on earthquakes now that give you the data you need.  Most people don’t have any idea how many earthquakes we are having.  I didn’t realize myself.  I was blind to what was going on till I was in Southern California a few years ago, and I saw a newspaper that had a map of the area, and it showed the number of earthquakes they had had there over a short time period.  It was about 60 or 70.  I could hardly believe it, because I used to live out there, and they weren’t having that many then, 30 years ago.

Do you realize that when we are talking about serious, major earthquakes, that we have had in the world as many serious major earthquakes between 1980 and 1990, a ten-year period, as we have recorded in the history books between 526 and 1797, a period of almost 1,300 years!

If you look at the earthquake incidents, it’s a very interesting thing.  They stayed at about the same level until about 1800, and then, for some reason, at 1800, they started to increase.  Since 1950, they are going up like a rocket, and this is exactly what Jesus said was going to happen in the last days.  Are we living in the last days?  Yes, we are living in the last days.  If all you knew was this text and you went to the Internet and you looked at the history of earthquakes, you should know that we are living now in the last days, and we began to live in the last days around 1800.  Just look at the earthquake data!

Jesus also said, in Luke 21:11, that there was going to be famine in various places.  Where are we having famines?  Some may say that there have always been famines.  Sure, there have always been some famines, but not like today.  What’s happening in India?  What’s happening in Africa?  What’s happening in China?  What’s happening in the Middle East?  Famines!  It’s an exact fulfillment of the prophecy that Jesus gave.  We were not having worldwide famines in ancient times; we weren’t having worldwide famines in 1750.

Notice what else Jesus said here in verse 11.  Not only are you going to have famines, you are going to have pestilences, or plagues.  Now when I was a boy, we thought we already had pestilences or plagues, because we had a terrible disease called cancer, and in 1945, one out of fifteen people was getting cancer in their lifetime.  We said, this is terrible; we are having a plague.  Do you know what it is today?  About one out of two, not one out of fifteen like it was in 1945.  If that was all, that would be enough of a plague, but that’s just one of the plagues.  Now we have all kinds of new plagues, like AIDS. 

In 1979, I was teaching health science at Southwestern Adventist College in Keene, Texas, when the news first broke about AIDS.  I told my classes the news about this new disease that had been discovered.  We’ve been saying for over 20 years that we are going to cure this thing, but let me tell you something, we haven’t figured out yet how to do it.  Some people have told me that they have figured it out, and I’m not arguing with that, but most of the people that I have heard of that have AIDS are dying. 

In 1989, as I was traveling in England, the news hit that there was a new disease—Mad Cow Disease.  Immediately the United States and the European continent said they were not having any more beef from Great Britain.  The British didn’t like that.  They said not all their cows had Mad Cow Disease, and on television they showed pictures of the Royal Family eating beef so that people would know that it was okay.  Now that’s a whole subject all by itself.  I understand we have a case now in the United States, and the very same thing that we did to Great Britain the rest of the world is doing to us, saying they don’t want our meat.

It’s not just cancer and AIDS and Mad Cow Disease.  There is a whole array of new autoimmune diseases that we don’t understand exactly what they are or what happens.  We just know that they are really serious and that people can die from them.  I have good friends that are involved with such diseases.

Patients that have some of these new diseases go to the doctor, and their doctors spend sometimes thousands of dollars just to figure out what they’ve got.  Then by the time the doctors figure out what they’ve got, they find out that there isn’t really any good treatment for it.  We’ve got all these new mystery diseases that we don’t understand what they are, and we don’t know how to treat them.

I can remember, when I was a boy, my father and mother were both in health care.  My father was a hospital administrator, and my mother was a nurse.  The feeling in those days was very, very optimistic.  You see I grew up in the time when the medical field had just started using penicillin, and they were just developing all these new antibiotics.  When I was in graduate school, we were told that smallpox would be wiped out worldwide.  It would cease to exist.  I was over 30 years of age by that time, and when they told me that, I thought, I’ll believe that when I see it.  I haven’t seen it yet.  We have not succeeded.  In fact, some people believe it was in our efforts to wipe out smallpox that we developed the AIDS epidemic, but that’s another story.

Jesus said, in the last days you are going to have pestilences.  Are we having it?  It also says, in verse 11, that there will be instruments of fear or instruments of terror and great fearful sights from heaven.  There is going to be great and fearful, terrifying sights from heaven.  A good preacher could preach a whole sermon on just that part of the verse.

What are the great, terrible, fearful sights from heaven that we are having today?  Are people afraid about what can happen up above?  Yes, they are and rightfully so!  I’m not just talking about flying planes into towers or simple things like that.  There’s a lot worse things that can happen from up above even than that, lots worse.

Jesus says, in verse 16, “You are going to be betrayed by parents, brothers, relatives and friends.  Some of you they will cause to be put to death.  You will be hated by all nations on account of My name.”

Friend, we are living in a time when even that is happening.  I’m not saying that it’s not going to happen more, but it’s happening now.  This was not happening so much when I was a boy.  We thought, when I was a boy, that we were going to get betrayed by the communists or by some apostate Christian church.  We never thought we were going to get betrayed by our friends, but Jesus said we are going to get betrayed by our friends, by the people that are part of our family.  It’s happening today.

 Then we come down to the real interesting part.  Some people think that they know that Jesus is coming before 2007.  Let me show you where they get that idea. 

Look at verses 20 to 24.  It says, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that the desolation of it is near.  Then those that are in Judea let them flee into the mountains, those that are in the midst of it let them go out and go into the villages because those are the days of vengeance when it shall be fulfilled all things that are written.  Woe to those that are pregnant and those that are giving suck in those days, for there shall be great necessity upon the earth and wrath upon this people.  And they shall fall by the mouth [the edge] of the sword, and shall be taken captive into all nations.  And Jerusalem shall be trampled by the nations until the times of the nations are fulfilled.”

People started studying that prophecy, Luke 21:20–24.  The first time some Adventist preachers published something about this that I have seen was about 1948.  They really got into it by 1952, and here’s what they said.  They said, see this prophecy?  It says Jerusalem is going to be destroyed, and it’s going to be trampled by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentile’s are fulfilled.  In 1948, they said, Jerusalem has never been under the control of any of the Jewish people from the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., and now they have got a foothold; they have got a government established there again.  Of course, they still didn’t have control of Jerusalem; they had a capital in a place called Tel Aviv.  Most of you can probably remember when the capital of the Jewish nation of Israel was in Tel Aviv, but in 1967, they had a shoot-out.  People thought that the Jews, which were outnumbered probably 50 to 1, were going to get destroyed, but they won in six days.  Some of you can remember the 1967 Six-day War.  Then, I think it was in 1980, they moved their capital from Tel Aviv down to Jerusalem, and they are in control of the whole city of Jerusalem now.

People took this prophecy and said that Jerusalem is going to be trampled by the nations until the time of the nations is fulfilled and the Jews finally got control of Jerusalem again in 1967, so now the time of the nations is fulfilled.  That means that, as you read on—the prophecy and the lessons of the fig tree and the coming of the Son of man, He is going to come within a generation, and a generation of the Bible is 40 years.  So Jesus is going to come by 2007.  That’s what the time setter said.

Keep away from time setting.  Jesus said not to do it.  Don’t set times for what’s going to happen; don’t get into that.  The Lord has told us not to do it.

Notice how it’s going to happen.  Go to the end of the chapter, verse 34.  “Pay attention to yourselves lest you be weighted down in your hearts with headaches . . . .”  Some people said that even though the literal translation is headaches that that word is actually talking about headaches that result from drinking or overeating, feasting and drinking.  So it’s sometimes translated surfeiting or overeating, but it’s actually headaches.  “. . . and with drunkenness and with the anxieties of every day life and so that that day come upon you suddenly as a trap it shall come upon all those who inhabit the face of the whole earth.” 

Jesus said, you need to be ready, and see to it that you don’t become overburdened, weighted down with the cares of this life.  Is that a danger for us?  Let me tell you, friend, Jesus doesn’t give you and me a warning that you and I don’t need.  I want to appeal to you, friend, if you have been overcharged with the things of this life, saying you have to make a living,  we all have to make a living.  But Jesus said, “Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things are going to be added unto you.”  If you get your priorities mixed up, you could lose eternal life.  In fact, if you don’t get your priorities straightened out, you will lose eternal life.

Jesus said, be careful that you don’t get overburdened, overcharged, weighted down with all the cares of making a living, doing what you have to do to survive, and that day come upon you suddenly, because it’s going to come suddenly.  In fact, in Matthew 24 it says it is going to come in an hour that you don’t think, an hour you don’t expect.  It’s going to come like a trap, He says in Luke 21:35.

Verse 36 says, “But watch in every time.”  The next word can be translated praying, or literally it can be translated begging.  “Begging that you might prevail to escape all these things that are about to happen and to stand before the Son of man.”

Oh, friend, are you doing that day by day?  Are you going to the Lord in prayer and saying, Lord, I’m serious about being ready for Jesus to come.  I know it’s going to happen suddenly.  I know it’s going to happen as a surprise, and whenever it happens, I want to be ready, because it’s going to come as a trap. 

Jesus said that the coming of the Son of man is going to be like a trap, and you can see it, if you look out at the world today.  The mass of the world is not ready for Jesus to come.  Are you not aware of that?  They are not ready, and what’s going to happen?  It is going to come as a trap.  That’s why Jesus said that when He comes the whole world is going to mourn, because the trap is going to fall, and they are not going to be ready. 

That’s why Jesus said, you watch, you pay attention, be ready.  He said, in Matthew 24, “Be ready.  For in such an hour as you think not, the Son of man is going to come.”

Do you want to be ready?  Do you want to make a covenant with the Lord and say, help me to put first things first, to have my priorities right, so I will be ready for Jesus to come?  Jesus said, beg, that you will be prevailed to escape.  Let’s do it.