Things to Do Before the End of the World - I

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That's Harvest.org. Good works, and give glory to your Father in Heaven. We should be shining lights in the dark place, and you have to be shining brightly. And we're glad you're joining us today here on A New Beginning with Pastor Greg Laurie. And Pastor Greg will begin today's message in just a moment.

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Let's learn more. Hey everybody, let's all grab our Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 12, and the title of my message is Things to Do Before the End of the World. By the way, this is part four of a four-part series that I'm doing on the end time. So turn to those verses, if you would, and let's all pray together. Father, we ask your blessing now as we open your Word. We believe we're living in the last days.

We believe you could come back at any moment, and we want to be ready. So speak to us from Scripture, we pray. In Jesus' name we ask it.

Amen. Again, the message title, Things to Do Before the End of the World. Now for the sake of an illustration, let's just say it was revealed to me by God that Jesus Christ was coming back tomorrow at three o'clock in the afternoon. Now we know that could never happen because Jesus said no man knows the day of the hour when the Son of Man comes. But for the sake of this illustration, let's say we knew, you knew, we all knew Christ was coming back tomorrow at three o'clock p.m. I am sure that we would all look like saints at 2.45. We'd have our Sunday smile and that come quickly Jesus attitude.

But here's my point to you. Should we not live every day with that very attitude? We should live every day as though it were the day when Christ will come. Someone once went up to the great evangelist D.L. Moody and said, Moody, if you knew the Lord would return tonight, how would you spend the rest of the day?

Moody without hesitation replied, quote, I wouldn't do anything different than I do every day, end quote. That's how we all ought to be living. And I think as we've talked about the end times together, we've been trying to emphasize the fact that if we really believe this, and I do, and I know many of you do as well, it will impact us in the way that we live. Let me turn that around.

If it's not impacting you in the way that you live, do you really believe it? I think sometimes we can study Bible prophecy and completely miss the point. Mind you of a story of an old man that was walking along and he was down by a little lake and he suddenly heard a voice say, hey you, come over here and kiss me and I'll turn into a beautiful princess. He's like, who said that? He looks around, didn't see anyone, thought he was hearing things. Again, he hears the voice say, hey you, come over here and kiss me and I'll turn into a beautiful princess.

Still he's looking, who said that? Finally the third time, he looks and it was a frog who said, hey you, kiss me and I'll turn into a beautiful princess. The old man reached down and carefully picked that frog up and put it in his shirt pocket and started to walk away. And the frog said, didn't you hear what I said? I said, kiss me and I'll turn into a beautiful princess.

The old dude said, at my age, I'd rather have a talking frog. And that's how it can be. Talk about missing the point. And we can miss the whole point of Bible prophecy. Ok so let's read some scriptures together. Turn in your Bible to Luke chapter 12. Here now Jesus is telling us how we ought to be living and what we ought to be doing as we anticipate the imminent return of Christ.

Luke 12 verse 36. Jesus says, Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning, as though you were waiting for your master to return from the wedding feast. And then you will be ready to open the door and let him in the moment he arrives and knocks. The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded. And I tell you the truth, says Jesus, he himself will seat them and put on an apron and serve them and sit and eat. He may come in the middle of the night or just before dawn but whenever he comes he will reward the servants who are ready. But understand this, Jesus adds this warning now. If the homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming he would not permit his house to be broken into. So you must be ready all the time for the Son of Man will come when least expected.

Now we read these verses and maybe they don't make complete sense to us. We are dealing with first century culture and we are trying to figure it out in the 21st century. This is a description of a classic first century Jewish wedding. And by the way their weddings were a lot different than our weddings. You can spend thousands and thousands of dollars on weddings today. In fact I think a lot of people spend a lot more money and put too much attention on the wedding and they don't think enough about the marriage.

Or they'll spend all this money on a house and they don't think about the home. Now when I got married many years ago it was basically your hippie wedding. I look like, my goodness, someone from Duck Dynasty. My wife looks beautiful.

She still pretty much looks the same. But my wedding cost about $12. But hey we have been married for 46 years and God is blessing us so we are good with all of that of course. But back in the old days, in the really old days in Bible times a wedding could go on for days and even a week.

And here is the kind of fun element of it. You didn't know when the groom was coming. So everyone would be ready.

Everyone would be dressed. And there might be an announcement in the morning, in the afternoon, or even the evening. Which would be behold the bridegroom is coming.

Snooze you lose. If you don't wake up you miss the wedding. So Jesus is taking this familiar picture that the people would know about and applying it to how we should be waiting for the Lord's return. So let's explore some things we should do before the end of the world.

If you are taking notes here is point number one. We should be shining lights in a dark place. We should be shining lights in a dark place. Look at verse 35 he says, Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning. The New King James Version translates it as follows, Let your waste be girded and your lamps be burning.

What does that even mean? Well they have your waste girded. Well they wore these lung flowing robes. So when they wanted to move they would pull the robe up above their knee and cinch in the belt to give them freedom of movement. So when we read the phrase that you should have your waste girded it would mainly be saying tighten your belt.

Be ready to go. To have your lamps burning would mean you would have sufficient oil in them. Basically this is a first century flashlight.

Here is my phone. I have got my flashlight on so I light my way in the dark with my flashlight. And in the same way I light my way in the dark with this lamp. So when we read about having oil in your lamps the wick would float around. So if the oil was gone the lamp would not give light. So you had to keep oil in the lamp.

So you had to be ready. That is a real idea that is being communicated here. And you have to be shining brightly. This world is a very dark place.

And it seems to be getting darker. And Jesus said let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. You know when I let my light shine I effectively earn the way to share the gospel. In other words when I do a good deed in the name of Christ I get an opportunity then to talk about Jesus.

And I think it is a big mistake when we do a good deed and we don't follow up. I was out having lunch with a couple of friends the other day and my friend who treated us gave a very generous tip to the waitress. And she thanked him and I said, Why don't you tell her why you gave her that tip?

You gave it to her because of your love for Jesus Christ. And he said, That's right. And that opened up an evangelistic conversation. So go do good things in the name of the Lord and let your light shine in this dark place. Be ready Jesus is saying.

Number two. We should be watching for him. We should be watching for him. Verse 37.

Blessed are those servants whom the master when he comes will find watching. All around us right now are signs of the times. I believe the coronavirus pandemic is a sign of the times. I believe the violence in the streets of our nation and world are a sign of the times. We are going to see continued unrest in the Middle East. It is only a matter of time before a conflict breaks out there again. You are going to see another terrorist attack.

It is only a matter of time until something like that will happen. These are all signs of the times. And so we ought to be reading the newspaper in one hand and holding the Bible in the other. Again what does Jesus say?

When you see these things begin to happen look up for your redemption is drawing near. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. We send these daily studies out via radio, satellite, and online. And we don't always know how these messages are touching lives. But when we hear the stories of our listeners it's really encouraging to us. Hello Pastor Greg. I just want to let you know that a former work colleague turned me on to you in Harvest Christian Fellowship. And while I was driving in my car listening to your A New Beginning radio, I repeated your prayer word for word towards the end of the broadcast and accepted Christ as my Lord, Savior, and Friend right there in my car. After I finished the prayer the moment was so emotional and powerful I actually had to stop driving and pull into a parking lot. Now for the first time in my life I'm a member of a church, have joined two groups with my church family, and I start every day with the Lord to pray, think, and worship Him, and complete each day before going to bed with His word and scripture.

My life is done in an amazing 360 and is full of God's blessings in so many ways. I never miss a day listening to A New Beginning Radio and your daily devotional. I just want to thank you and bless you Pastor Greg for your life of evangelism and for your hardworking, committed team at Harvest. Thank you. We're so thrilled that these daily studies are touching and changing lives.

And if your life has been touched, would you tell us your story? Call us at 866-871-1144. That's 866-871-1144. Well Pastor Greg is offering some important insights for last day's believers today in a study called Things to Do Before the End of the World. Let's continue. Point number three, we need to be ready to go.

Ready to go. Ready to go be with the Lord. You know when I go on a trip I always pack the night before and I tend to overpack, I'll admit that.

But I have everything on wheels now so I figure I can just drag it behind me. But it's always good to have what you need for a trip. So when we're told in Scripture to gird our loins and have our lamps burn bright, that's just a King James way of saying have your bags packed and your comfortable shoes on. I remember we went to the White House at Christmas, my wife and I, and of course she picked out a beautiful dress to wear and some very uncomfortable high heels that she had never worn before. And as we walked in she's like, it was so slow.

And she said, Greg, my feet hurt but hey, she looked good and that's what matters, right girls? But on this trip, in our readiness for the return of the Lord, let's have our running shoes on. Let's be ready to go at a moment's notice.

So let me ask you this question. Are you ready to go meet the Lord? Let's say Jesus was going to come back today or as I said earlier, 3 o'clock in the evening tomorrow. Would you be ready? Do you have your walking shoes on? Let me put it another way.

Are you doing anything you would be ashamed to be doing if Christ were to return? I received a letter a while ago from a young lady that was working at a Planned Parenthood clinic in North Carolina. Her name is Crystal. And she was involved in abortions being performed. In fact, her job after the doctor had done the abortion procedure which is the murder of an unborn child, she would reassemble the parts and put them together. Somehow she could do this and not think it was the worst thing ever but she had a moment where she was listening to me on the radio.

They're in North Carolina and she heard me make this statement. If Christ were to come back tonight, are you doing anything you would be ashamed to be doing when he came? And immediately she thought of what she did for a living. Putting together the little body parts after the doctor had aborted the child.

And so she quit her job and now she's involved in pro-life work. So we're thankful for that. But are you doing something you'd be ashamed to be doing if Christ were to come back? If so, you need to change that behavior. You need to be ready to go because we don't know when Jesus will come. Let me take it in another direction. You don't know when death will come. Look, I know I'm going to get to heaven. One way or the other.

Either through death or the rapture. Both are fine with me. It's like am I going to get there by taxi or an Uber?

Who cares? I'm going to get there. But the point is always be ready. Live every day as though it were your last day because one day it will be.

So periodically ask yourself the question. This place I'm about to go. This thing that I'm ready to do. Would I be ashamed or embarrassed if I were doing this or at this place when Christ came back?

If the answer to that question or those questions is yes, stop doing those things. We need to be ready. Over in 2 Peter we're told why Christ has not come back yet. It says in 2 Peter 3, 9, the Lord is not slow in keeping His promise. He is long suffering toward us. Not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Listen, Christ will come back on schedule at the appointed moment. But He is waiting for people to believe. And isn't it amazing to think that there could be someone walking around on this planet that is the last person Christ is waiting for to believe before He calls the church home and the rapture. Can you imagine if you knew who that person was?

You'd be kind of tempted to apply a little pressure on them, right? Like, will you get saved so we can go to heaven? But we don't know who that person is but the Lord does.

He's not late. But then Peter goes on to say this. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief and the heavens will disappear and the elements will be destroyed by fire. So what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives and be looking forward to this, making every effort to be found spotless and blameless and at peace with Him.

Point number four. We should not only be ready but we should be anxiously awaiting His return. Again, don't just be ready. Be anxiously awaiting His return.

Look at verse 36 here in Luke. Be like people who wait for their master who when he returns from the wedding and knocks, they will open to him immediately. I used to have a dog and he leaned against the door of my bedroom and slept there every night. In fact, he was so close to the door that he would sometimes scratch and be like someone's knocking at my door and it was my dog.

And when I would get up and open the door in the morning, because he was leaning against it, he would literally roll into my room and then he would start running around in a circle so excited. Happy days are here again. Because he's going to go on a walk, right? And so that's how we ought to be.

We ought to be anxiously awaiting the Lord's return. We can learn a lot from dogs. I saw a bumper sticker. It had kind of a funny statement. It said, Lord, make me the person my dog thinks I am.

Isn't that true? Dogs are so nonjudgmental. They just love you. Cats, they judge you all the time.

Not dogs though. And so there's things we can learn with that anticipation, that excitement, that love for their master. But that's how we ought to be living wanting the Lord's return. Wanting it. Not dreading it.

Wanting it. Let's say that you had a loved one who you had not seen. Maybe it was a child. And you had not seen them for months. And they were finally coming home and they texted you. We just landed. We're getting our luggage. We're in the car. We're coming home. We're in the neighborhood.

We're three minutes out. You're anxiously awaiting their return. You can't even wait until they knock on the door.

You run out to greet them. That's how we as Christians ought to be as we wait for the return of Jesus Christ looking forward to it. Jesus says, behold, I come quickly. And the answer of the true Christian will always be along with the apostle John, even so come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Anything that would stop you from saying that should be removed from your life. Point number five. We should not only be anxiously waiting. We should also be working. Working. Look at verse 43. Blessed is that servant whom the master will find so doing when he comes.

Doing. We're busy. We're about our Father's business. The Bible says faith without works is dead. Watching for the Lord's return will help us prepare our own lives.

But working will assure we bring others with us. And notice that it says blessed is the person who does this. The word blessed is interchangeable with the word happy. So what it's really saying is if you live this way. If you live in constant anticipation of the imminent return of Christ you will be a happy person.

Listen to this. It's not a miserable repressive confining way to live as we look for Christ's return. It's happy. It's joyful. And it's purposeful.

It is the way to live. Remember we discovered together that there is a special blessing promise to the person who reads, hears, and keeps the words written in the book of Revelation in particular. But I think for sure it applies to all of the Scripture. But there's a special blessing promise to the person who reads, hears, and keeps the words of Revelation which to a large degree deals with end times events. So it's a good thing.

It's a happy thing. It's a encouraging thing to look at these things together. Pastor Greg Laurie with important encouragement today on having the right perspective on the soon return of the Lord. And there's more to come in this message here on A New Beginning, a study called Things to Do Before the End of the World. Did you hear every word of today's presentation? If not, you can catch up by going online to harvest.org. Just look for the message called Things to Do Before the End of the World. If you'd like to request a copy on CD, call 1-800-821-3300.

That's 1-800-821-3300. And then we want to make available a riveting book about a momentous act of heroism that took place during World War II. The author, John Irwin, writes about his own grandfather. So the morning was April 12, 1945.

My grandfather, a radio operator on board a B-29 Superfortress, disoriented, was trying to understand what had happened because a bomb made of phosphorus that was spewing everywhere on the plane that filled the plane with smoke and sent the plane into a dive was rolling around the plane just in front of him. And he had a choice to make in that moment. The choice that he made would come to be the defining moment of his life and be a moment that would define my life as well as his grandson.

It's a gripping story captured in the book called Beyond Valor. John's grandfather, Henry Red Irwin, would be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, our nation's highest military honor. And we're happy to have John with us today. John's the director of such films as I Can Only Imagine, Woodlawn, I Still Believe, and many others. And John, I know you've been working on this book for some 15 years with all the research you've done.

What surprises turned up? Well, first, that makes me feel old now. I'm approaching 40, but I did start this very early in about 2005, sort of going around and interviewing people as a very young filmmaker at the time and just getting the story documented and then over the years just pursued it. I remember just before my grandfather died and before he had had a stroke and so I would stay up late with him and that's when he began to quote scripture right there at the end. But I remember my grandmother coming in and they just caught each other's eye and I was blown away by how much these two people obviously loved each other.

And for a moment, it was sort of like they were teenagers again or, you know, and it was this beautiful thing. And my grandmother had this stack of love letters. She kept everything. In fact, I remember going over to her house after she had moved out of her home and I told the whole family, just nobody touching me. And I went over and found boxes of stuff and she was a real sort of pack rat. And so in her closet underneath like receipts for the 1960s were all these manila envelopes.

And I opened them up and I was my dad and I instantly was like, Dad, is this what I think it is? And it was my grandfather's original citation for the Medal of Honor signed by Harry Truman. It was his original crew photograph.

It was the original photograph of him receiving the Medal of Honor, which was the cover of the Saturday Post. And it was all these original things. But there was this thing that my grandmother kept that she wouldn't let us read until after she died. And it was the love letters that he wrote her. She had kept them all and they're just beautiful. And after she died, you know, she had given them to us to finally read. And it was just to see the way they loved each other and how much they loved each other. It was just beautiful and just to see daily what he was going through and just how much he loved her and how much character he had. And it was this beautiful thing. And so we put a lot of them in the book and to hold those was truly extraordinary.

And I think those are some of the surprising things that I found along the way. Well, it's a story you'll love to get to know this true American hero, Red Irwin, and to experience that seminal moment in the cockpit of the B-29 when one man's epic heroism is the only thing that kept everyone alive. The book is called Beyond Valor. And we hope you'll request a copy from us right away. Today is our last opportunity to mention it. And thanks so much for your investment in this important work of teaching believers and sharing Christ with those who don't yet know him. So send a generous donation today and be sure to ask for the brand new book, Beyond Valor.

And as I mentioned, today is our last opportunity to mention it. So do get in touch right away. You can write a new beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California, 92514. Or call 1-800-821-3300. 1-800-821-3300.

Or go online to harvest.org. Our life is like a movie. And we're the star.

Evangelist, Greg Lord. Do we have questions about this movie we're in? Is it a love story? Is this movie a tragedy?

What is the meaning of my life? An online event is coming that can change your life. We can all use A Rush of Hope. A Rush of Hope, the world's first online cinematic harvest cuisine.

On your favorite social media platform, Labor Day Weekend, September 4th through September 7th. A friend to tune in for a message of hope from evangelist, Greg Laurie. And exclusive performances by Jeremy Camp. MercyMe.

And for King & Country. When we rise, we will rise together. A Rush of Hope coming to a screen near you, Labor Day Weekend.

Details at harvest.org. Next time, Pastor Greg comes back with the finale to his series called End Times. Living like Jesus will return at any moment. Join us next time on A New Beginning. This is the day, the day when life begins. The preceding message from Greg Laurie was made possible by Harvest Partners. Helping people everywhere know God. Sign up for Pastor Greg's free daily email devotions at harvest.org.