A Wake-Up Call!

Scripture is clear that none of us can return. So how should we be preparing ourselves for this unknown second coming? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg offers four observations about how to maintain perspective until Jesus comes back in a message titled, A Wake-Up Call. We begin in Mark chapter 13.

We might justifiably refer to as a wake-up call. For a wake-up call is certainly what is given here, from the lips of Jesus to the four who are immediately listening to him, the ones who have been involved in this discourse from the very beginning of the chapter. And as we'll see in verse 37, through them to all of us. Now, what we realize is, as we said last time, that in Jesus the kingdom has come, in the preaching of the gospel the kingdom is coming, and in the return of Jesus Christ the kingdom will come in all of its fullness. There is going to be an end, and now as we've come to these concluding verses, let me make these four observations. Number one, let us be absolutely clear that we are ignorant about the time of Christ's return.

That's what Jesus says in verse 32. We ought not to feel bad about that, because we're in good company. Actually, we're in a large company, to begin with, because he says that no one knows. So I don't know that anybody is left out of that group, do you?

No? So that's quite a crowd. We're in a big company, and we're in good company. We're in the company of the angels.

In the company of the angels. Calvin has a pithy statement. He has so many of them, doesn't he?

Listen to this. It would be proof of excessive pride and wicked covetousness to desire that we who creep on the earth should know more than is permitted to the angels in heaven. Pride and wicked covetousness. And we who creep upon the earth print books explaining that we know what the angels don't know. Print books and produce CDs and DVDs and dramatic videos to heighten the tension of everybody, to create major agitation with the speculative fancies of mind's fertile imaginations, despite the fact that Christ himself says, And by the way, I don't know.

Now, that pretty well puts the axe at the root, doesn't it? Some people might try and do an end run round the angels, may try and exempt themselves from the large company—I know it says everyone, but I'm not really everyone. Yeah, we know you're not. Please be seated. But what are you going to do when Jesus says, And I don't know?

That's the first thing, and it's straightforward, isn't it? We are ignorant as to the time of Christ's return. You will notice it actually says, Nobody knows that day or that hour.

It's very interesting. There's going to be actually a moment. There's not going to be any kind of vagueness about it. You'll be like, Well, did you think Jesus just came back there?

I'm not sure. Let's just wait and see for a moment or two. No, it's not going to be like that.

It will not be like that. That's why he specifies later on the watches of the night—in the evening or midnight or when the rooster crows or in the morning. The Jewish mind understood that. That was when the clock went off, as it were.

Those were the times. Second thing, our ignorance as to timing provides no excuse for our being unprepared. Rather, it is our very ignorance of the timing of the event upon which the stress is actually laid by Jesus as he concludes this discourse.

No one knows. He says in verse 32, and then in verse 33, You do not know when the time will come. And then in verse 35, again, Stay awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come. And in this little section here, you have almost foreshadowings or echoes, depending on how you want to look at it, echoes of the parables that surround this in Matthew and in Luke.

Will you turn to one with me just for a moment? If your Bible is open, I hope it is. You can turn just a few pages back to Matthew chapter 25. And there you have the story of the ten virgins. The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. This, again, is a very Jewish picture. It's not a picture of a Western wedding.

It's a picture of a Middle Eastern wedding. And then at midnight there was a cry. Here is the bridegroom. That was the responsibility of an individual, often carrying a lamp. He would come out of the darkness, bearing the lamp into the darkness of the night, and declare the fact that he was the forerunner to the bridegroom.

Remember John the Baptist? I am not the one who is to come. I'm just the one who comes before the one who comes. I am not the bridegroom. I'm the best man. I'm just swinging a lamp here. I'm just pointing the finger.

I'm just making the cry. And they all rose up and trimmed their lamps, and the foolish said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. But the wise said, Since there won't be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves. And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with them to the marriage feast, and the door was shut."

Finality. And afterwards the other virgins came, also saying, Lord, O Lord, open to us. But he answered, Truly I say to you, I do not know you. The fact that it took you unawares is no excuse.

The fact that it came unexpectedly is no excuse. Well, why wouldn't these people give us some of theirs? Well, the answer is, they couldn't. Then nobody would have any lamps.

Then we would all be in total darkness. This is not my point this morning, but I'll make it and move on. Let me just say something to somebody who's here, and your spouse is a Christian, and you are not. Let me speak to the young person who is in a home and has been raised in a Christian home, and you are kept buoyant, as it were, on the faith of the structure of your family, but you have never trusted in Christ.

Let me tell you something. You can't borrow faith from anyone else. You can't borrow faith from your mom. You can't borrow faith from your husband. You can't borrow faith from your wife. It's gonna have to be your own faith.

It's gonna have to be your lamp filled by God, your life invaded by God. And the point that Jesus is making in the telling of that parable is absolutely unmistakable. Therefore, he says, at the end of the parable, you need to recognize that you must watch, for you don't know either the day or the hour. So we are all ignorant, then, of the date and the timing.

That's number one. Secondly, our ignorance as to the timing provides no excuse for our being unprepared. And thirdly, ignorance, far from being an excuse, is to be an incentive.

You see how that comes out? Particularly in verse 34, you don't know the day or the time, but it's like a man going on a journey when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge. The interest in the second coming of Jesus may become the occasion of all kinds of things. For some, it just turns the individuals into, like, cats on a hot tin roof. It becomes the occasion of agitation. Augustine says, He who loves the coming of the LORD is not he who says it is really near, or he who says it is really far, but he who, whether it's near or far, awaits it with all of his heart. No, preoccupation with these things, you may become agitated, you may become isolated. Isolated from the events of life.

You've met these people as well. Well, there's no point in really caring about the world. There's no point in caring about politics. There's no point in caring about the election.

There's no point in caring about whether we're burning all the forests down. We don't have to worry about that. Jesus is coming back.

Well, where did you get that from? Not the part about him coming back, but the part that you don't have to do anything. Did you see the thirty-fourth verse? He's like a man going on a journey, and when he leaves home, he puts his servants in charge. In charge of what?

In charge of what he left behind. Now, you don't have to be a genius to work out what Jesus is saying. This is a picture of Jesus returning to heaven, leaving his disciples on the earth.

And they have a responsibility to do what he wants them to do. Well, if you look at Luke—Luke chapter 19—you see this, don't you? Luke chapter 19, after the wonderful story of Zacchaeus, today salvation has come to this house, for the Son of Man, that's the Messiah, came to seek and save the lost. And as they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, and then Luke tells us why he proceeded to tell the parable. He proceeded to tell the parable because he was near to Jerusalem and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately.

And so he told them a parable about a nobleman who went into a far country, and he was gone for a long time. They say, Well, wait a minute. I thought it was imminent. I thought it was unexpected. I thought it could happen at any time.

And now it says over here that he went away for a long time. What am I supposed to do with these things? He's supposed to believe them both. You're supposed to live every day as if life may go on forever and to live every day as if today may be your last day. So in other words, if I think that Jesus is coming tonight, I don't have to worry about getting my socks and shoes ready for tomorrow morning. I just sit around. I just be bone idle. I don't ever need to finish my meals or do anything at all.

I just go sit on a hill somewhere. But there are people just like that. All of the prophetic stuff—if you remember the things that have marked the last thirty years of life in America—all of the bizarre stuff has been directly related to somebody with a big mouth and a fat head holding control over people and telling them that this is exactly what is going to happen. And if that doesn't happen, then the other thing that may happen is just stagnation, where people say, Well, I don't really need to do anything at all, that the fact that this is going to happen, it is a call to passivity, and so on. You can work this out for yourselves. But in actual fact, you see from there in verse 34 that the reverse is the case—that it is because Jesus has gone and will return that his servants are to be engaged actively and responsibly and individually. He puts his servants, each with his work.

You see that? There's a work for Jesus, none but you can do. Your work's probably not my work.

My work's not your work. And he commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. And in the parable in Matthew 24—or not in the parable, but at the end of the Matthew account—he says, Who then is the faithful and wise servant whom his master has set over his household to give them their food at the proper time? He says, Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Who's the servant?

The servant who's found doing when he comes. So it's not a call to passivity, it's a call to activity. So we're ignorant of the date. Ignorance is no excuse for our being unprepared. In fact, ignorance is an incentive, and the stress is laid on that by Jesus here.

And finally, fourthly, although we are ignorant of the proximity of the event, we are not ignorant concerning the certainty of the event. That's why verse 37 is an apt summary, isn't it? And what I say to you, I say to all, stay awake. That's not simply a summary of verses 32 and following.

It's a summary of all that he said in the discourse beginning back in verse 5. So what, then, is the bottom line? Or what is the takeaway? Or what is the to-do?

What is the challenge? What are the implications? Because this is clearly not a call to contemplation. No, there is a moral dimension to it, isn't there?

No. It's a call not to contemplation but a call to action. That's how he began, verse 9.

Be on your guard. Keep awake, verse 33. Stay awake, verse 35. You don't have to be very clever to say, I think he wants us to stay awake. You know, I haven't got all the details here, but I get the big thing.

You're not supposed to fall asleep on the job. You get that part? It's not really that hard to read the Bible. So the exhortation is given, you will notice, not just to the four with whom he's speaking, or to the twelve who are his disciple band, or to the church of Rome, which is the church of Mark's readership, but to the whole church throughout these last days. And what I say to you, I say to all.

And we could say parenthetically, and that includes Parkside Church, 21st century. I say to all of you, stay awake. So in other words, it's a striking and a clear call. There is a warning that is inherent in it, there is an encouragement that is inherent in it. The warning that is contained in staying awake is, first of all, a warning as to the matter of our salvation. That's the significance of the story of the ten virgins, okay? That there is a day coming when it will be too late. It's not possible to excise the dramatic, solemn elements that come at the end of each of these sections.

Let me just point them out to you in case I run out of time. Look at the end of the parable of the ten virgins in verse 11, after the other virgins came, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us! But he answered, Truly I say to you, I do not know you. I don't know you. So let's, on the strength of what Jesus says, as unpalatable as it is in our pluralistic, syncretistic culture, let's be absolutely clear that nobody's gonna be able to show up on that day when the door closes and plead the fact that they were a religious person, that they were a church attender, that they were devoutly involved in a variety of religious preoccupations, that they were very, very spiritual. Frankly, the door will close and Jesus say, I'm sorry, I'm not a clue who you are.

You're not part of my family. In other words, it will be a time when it's too late. That's what scares me when I preach to you Sunday by Sunday, and I know that many of you are still outside of Christ. You walk away Sunday after Sunday with a knowledge of things, a head knowledge of things. Sometimes you're stirred by it, moved by it, changed by it, annoyed by it, but you are still outside of Christ. And I need to say to you again, you're not going in on the well-being of your spouse or your loved one or your friend or your pastor. There is only one who can speak on your behalf, and that is Christ. There is only one mediator between God and man, and that is the man Christ Jesus. And as Calvin says, all that Jesus has done for us is of no value to us so long as we remain outside of Christ. If you're outside of Christ today, you're playing with your eternity. I'll get another chance.

I'll do it next time. Once I get rid of this, once I finish that, once this, that, the next thing. The devil loves that stuff.

His favorite word is tomorrow. The Bible always says, Today is the day of salvation. That is the warning about personal salvation in terms of the five wise, five foolish virgins. Then the warning comes in the parable of the talents about wasting our lives for anything other than the gospel. That doesn't mean becoming pastors or missionaries. It means being concerned with and consumed with the longing and the desire to see unbelieving people become the committed followers of Jesus Christ, so that the quality of our work, the endeavor of our labors—we may not be the most skilled person in the laboratory, we may not be the brightest actuary in the consulting firm, but we in Christ have the most significant of motivations.

Because the Christian is no longer motivated now by self-aggrandizement or even by remuneration or even by academic status. All of these things are not without significance, but they don't make it for the Christian. And that's what he's saying in the parable of the talents. And then, finally, in the warning of the judgment that is to come, he says the same thing. You're going to understand that you minister to me, the Lord Jesus, when you encounter me in the least of your brothers and your sisters. Far from these affairs not mattering. He says these apparently inconsequential affairs matter a great deal when you see someone hungry and feed them, when you see someone thirsty and you give them a drink, when you see someone sick or in prison and you visit them.

And people say, What is that about? And he said, Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me. So all of our days and all of our deeds in Christ, good for someone, good for something. If we're going to pay attention to this, if we're going to step back from the big picture and look at it and say to ourselves, Okay, we've got it clear now that the next thing in the calendar is the return of Jesus Christ.

Whether it is long delayed or whether it is tomorrow, I'm going to live in the expectation of his return. When Christ returns, to quote Townend in the song, there will be first a cry of anguish. Why will there be a cry of anguish? For the same reason that the five foolish virgins cried out.

They were unprepared. Why will there be a cry of anguish? For the person who thought that he was investing his life, she was investing her life in the cause that was significant, but it had nothing to do with the gospel. Why will there be a cry of anguish?

Because we failed to see in the least of our brethren that we were involved in a ministry to Christ himself. But the same event that brought anguish to the foolish brought joy to the wise. The foolish man built his house upon the sand, And the rain came tumbling down, And his house fell flat.

And the wise man built his house upon the rock, And the rain came tumbling down, And the house on the rock stood firm. Let me ask you, if Christ were to return before we conclude this song, what will your cry be? Anguish? At suddenly realizing that every pleading, every urging to be reconciled to God, you've met, perhaps kindly but firmly, with a no.

Or will it be a cry of delight? That here is the one who paid my debt. Here is the one who stayed awake in the ignominy of Calvary. He's the one who's asking me to stay awake.

And that's another whole sermon, if you think about it. If Christ had not stayed awake, if he had not refused the potion of wine mingled with gall, if he had succumbed to the anesthesia on the cross, he would then never have been able to turn to the thief who said, Lord, will you remember me when you come into your kingdom? He stayed awake in order that he might answer, Today you will be with me in paradise. He bore all of the suffering in all of his unmitigated painfulness.

Stayed, if you like, awake to the very end. And all he's asking for us—stay awake! So that when the bridegroom comes, it won't be the drums, it won't be the cymbals, it won't be all of that. It will be his voice. It will be his face. It will be the fact that he is no longer the carpenter in Nazareth. He's no longer the baby in Bethlehem.

He is the returning King in all of his power. Staying awake for Jesus, our returning King—an inspiring conclusion to our series in the Gospel According to Mark on Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. If you've enjoyed listening to this study in Mark's Gospel, you should know you can own Alistair's teaching through this entire book of the Bible on a single USB drive. The Gospel According to Mark is a comprehensive study—87 messages.

You'll experience a close-up encounter with Jesus as you track verse by verse through Mark's account of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. Order your copy of the USB drive at truthforlife.org or by tapping on the image you see in the mobile app. It's available at our cost of just $5 and the shipping is free.

There's another resource we'd like to recommend today. It's a book that will walk you through the first two chapters of Luke's Gospel during the Advent season. This is a devotional by author and pastor Christopher Asch. It's titled Repeat the Sounding Joy. This is a book filled with brief daily readings that take us into the Christmas story where we discover new details and we recall some familiar truths. You'll also experience the joy of Christmas through the eyes of first-hand witnesses like Mary, Elizabeth, the shepherds, and Simeon.

If you're looking for a way to refresh your soul in anticipation of Christmas, Repeat the Sounding Joy is the perfect devotional resource for you. We invite you to request your copy. It comes to you with our thanks and it's available when you make a generous one-time gift today. Simply tap the image on the mobile app or visit truthforlife.org. If you'd prefer, you can call us at 888-588-7884. I'm Bob Lapeen. Hope you can join us again tomorrow as we begin a new series titled My Times Are in Your Hands. We'll examine why God allows suffering. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.