We are to remember that evil is around us, and near us, and in us.
We must battle daily with an ensnaring world, a busy devil, and our own treacherous hearts. So don't coast. Don't rest on past victories. Don't polish the trophies of some former acts of faith.
Keep pressing on. Keep looking ahead until the battle is over. Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. Today, Stephen concludes a series entitled, Here Comes the King. We'll be in Luke 21, where Jesus teaches us the importance of prophecy. He describes the coming tribulation. He warns believers to stay vigilant. He also warns against the pitfalls of wasted living. Jesus encourages us to look ahead to His return and live for others. By staying alert and depending on Christ, you can navigate the challenges of your faith journey. Prophecy isn't meant to frighten you, but to comfort and prepare you for His return. 600 years or so before the birth of Christ, a fable was crafted that over time became a favorite bedtime story parents would tell their children, and to this day, a story about barnyard animals and about one of them by the name of Chicken Little, who was eating lunch one afternoon when an acorn dropped on her head, and she panicked and assumed the world was ending, and she ran around the barnyard and got everybody onto the panic, chirping, the sky is what?
Falling. Yeah, you've heard that too, I suppose. Well, she got all her friends upset with the news. Friends with names you might remember, like Henny Penny and Turkey Lurkey.
We're going really deep this morning here with this introduction. Well, eventually Foxy Loxy. You remember him? Well, he was a little crafty. Foxy told them all he'd keep them safe, and he gathered them all in a little corner, but he tricked them, and he ate them all up. Good night, kids.
Well, Chicken Little escaped at least, as far as we can tell. Well, you know, when I study the passage that we've been studying together, as far as the world is concerned, we do realize, don't we, that the mention to our world out there that Jesus is one day going to descend from the sky. He's going to come and reign upon the earth. We just sang about it.
He's going to rule the nations, judge the world. I mean, to them, that sounds like Chicken Little and a legend, but that's exactly what the Lord preached in his final sermon before his crucifixion on the Mount of Olives, the Mount Olivet Discourse. Now, over the last several weeks, plus, we've been listening in as Jesus delivered this final message.
It's recorded in Luke chapter 21. Let's turn back there one final time. I don't know about you, when I fly on an airplane, the last time I flew on an airplane with Marsha, together, you sit there, and the flight attendant comes out, and bless her heart, she goes through that speech, and she has you pull out that laminated card, which I don't do. I'm looking out the window.
I'm checking on my phone. Well, the last time we flew together, I leaned over to talk to Marsha during that pre-flight speech, and to talk to her, and she nudged me and said, shh, I'm listening. And she said, you should be listening too. The woman thou gavest me.
I'm going to need somewhere to eat lunch after church today. Better stick with my notes here. Anyhow, she's got the laminated card out. She's reading it. She's always been a good student. A wonderful wife. Wonderful woman. I love her very much.
How am I doing? She's not in here this hour. She's watching the children's production, fortunately. But let me tell you this. If all of a sudden I look out the window, and one of those engines bursts into flame, you know what I'm going to do? The first thing I'm going to do after Marsha puts on my oxygen mask, because I don't know how, I'm going to get that laminated card out, and I'm going to read every word what I'm supposed to do. Well, let me tell you, Luke chapter 21 is a laminated card for those who are going to go through it.
Jesus is going to tell them, and us even now, how it affects our lives here and now, and how we're to live as a result of even future prophecy. Now what I want to do, and I've saved these last few verses for this hour, because I want to boil these verses down to the simplest outline possible, because what Jesus does is simply apply his discourse on the Mount of Olives. And I'm going to boil it down to three reminders.
Here they are. Keep on living right, keep on looking ahead, and keep on living for others. It doesn't get any simpler than that. Now, let's go to verse 34. Here's the first point, keep on living right. But watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap, for it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Now, again, in this context, Jesus is talking about believers living during the tribulation period.
But this kind of living, Jesus says, applies to us now. He's speaking to his disciples. Watch out, he says.
Watch, be careful, your translation might read. By the way, the same exhortation is in other passages of Scripture. Paul writes to the Corinthians, be watchful and stand firm in the faith. First Corinthians 16, 13.
He writes to the Galatians in chapter 6 and verse 1, keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. The Apostle Peter describes the coming judgment of God in this fiery display of judgment following the great white throne described in Revelation chapter 20. We're told in Revelation chapter 21 that God's going to create a new earth and a new heavens, that is, a new universe. And I personally believe that this is going to be a demonstration of Genesis chapter 1 all over again, but this time we get to watch.
I can't wait. Now, in light of the dissolving, this judgment of fire, which Peter's saying is coming, the first judgment was water, that was the flood. The second judgment is fire, that's yet to come. It takes place after the millennial kingdom. In light of this dissolving, here's what Peter writes in chapter 3, since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be?
That is right now. In the lives of holiness and godliness waiting for the coming of the day of God, when the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn. So, this fiery explosion of the universe, think about it, it didn't happen until the end of the millennial kingdom, that's over a thousand years from today and 2,000 years since Peter wrote this, 3,000 years at least if the rapture occurred today. And then he says it ought to impact how we live today, lives of holiness and godliness. So prophecy matters, even that event that's going to take place in the future ought to change the way we live in the present. Paul writes to Timothy, says similarly in 1 Timothy 4 16, keep a close watch, there it is again, on yourself and on the teaching, persist in this for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. Now Paul isn't talking about Timothy saving his soul, he's talking about Timothy not wasting his life. So prophecy should motivate us to live lives of holiness and godliness and fruitfulness today. Now notice carefully what Jesus says here. He's warning us not really about 3 sins, he's warning us about 3 kinds of lifestyles to avoid. Notice verse 34 again. But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with 1, number 1, dissipation, number 2, drunkenness, number 3, the cares of this life.
Now let's take them one by one. Dissipation is a little bit more of a difficult word to understand, sounds like old English, it's a rare word, in fact only Luke uses it. But in Paul's day it originally referred to the effects someone felt after being drunk. We would say today that dissipation is living with a hangover, that's the idea.
Someone with a hangover is unable to think clearly, they're foggy, they're tired, they basically want to be left alone and the lights turned out. Today we would say that person is wasted and that's really not too far off the mark because dissipation is the wasting of someone's life in a broader application. Jesus is warning someone of living that kind of useless life, it's not profitable for themselves, it's not profitable for anyone else. One New Testament scholar wrote that this word dissipation is a life that is preoccupied with lesser things.
Not that those things are perhaps even bad, it's just they're trivial, they're unimportant. It is a life obsessed with the temporary, with no thought of eternity. I remember my seminary professor Howard Hendricks telling us in class about his neighbor. Hendricks pulled up in the driveway and his neighbor was next door waxing his boat, nothing wrong with that Hendricks said but it was his obsession in life, preoccupation in life. His neighbor looked over at him and yelled, this is the 37th coat of wax I've put on my boat.
Hendricks told us I smiled, waved, admired it, I didn't get on to him, I'm trying to reach him, I didn't lecture him or berate him. Hendricks said this and I wrote it down, he said I knew that waxing his boat was simply the anesthetic he hoped would dull the pain of an empty life. That's a life marked by dissipation, obsession with temporary things. Now the next lifestyle he mentions here to avoid is drunkenness, that's easier to understand. Excessive drinking which leads to ruin is a lifestyle to be avoided. Now let me just state the obvious because sometimes it's so obvious it's missed. The best way to avoid the trap of drunkenness is to stop drinking or never to drink at all.
It's kind of obvious, isn't it? In Paul's day there were very few safe options to drink. Water was contaminated, there was no refrigeration, wine was often nothing more than fermenting water in order to kill the parasites. Today we have a thousand options of things to drink. Most of them won't harm you, won't cause you to harm someone else, won't cause you to harm your own testimony before someone else. I know my pastoral students at Shepherd Seminary did again this semester as we talk about pastoring that after nearly 38 years of ministry I have never once had to apologize to somebody for not drinking. Never.
I've never had to apologize. But yet over 38 years I can tell you I've seen pastor after pastor, church leader after church leader, Christian after Christian fall into this trap that Jesus says to avoid. Now with that the Lord refers to a third lifestyle, a lifestyle of worry. He mentions here hearts weighed down with the cares of this life. Now it might seem surprising to you, and it was to me, for Jesus to put worry in the same category as drunkenness, dissipation. But it is equally deadly, isn't it, to your spiritual vitality and joy. As I thought about it, it occurred to me that drunkenness is evidence that your life is out of control.
Worry is evidence that you want to be in control but there's something in your life you can't control and you are now consumed by that. And it destroys your joy and your trust. It weighs, Jesus says, it weighs down your heart. Now can these three lifestyles entrap a believer? Well think about the fact, to whom is he delivering this? To his disciples. J.C. Rawl put it well when he said over 100 years ago that if Jesus was warning Peter, James, and John and the other apostles who had already given everything up for Christ, and they'd been following him for three and a half years, that they needed to remain watchful, that they needed to avoid these pitfalls, that it was dangerous for them, J.C. Rawl said, this exhortation and the potential of peril is for the rest of us today. So here's the first point of application from this message from the Lord on prophecy. Here it is, keep on living right.
Now secondly, keep on looking ahead. Jesus says here in verse 36, but stay awake at all times, that's spiritual alertness, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things, that is to move victoriously through them, that's the idea, these things that are going to take place during this tribulation, and then to stand before the Son of Man. Now standing before the Son of Man in this immediate context is the judgment that follows the tribulation when Jesus descends, Matthew 25 describes for us, the believers who've come to faith in Christ, the mortals who are alive are ushered into the kingdom, it's over them by the way whom we reign with Christ, millions of them. Believers are judged. This idea of being brought to stand before the Lord is also a reminder to believers today of a coming appointment with Christ. We will stand before Him in a unique believers only judgment called the Bema Seat that Paul describes in his letter of 2 Corinthians chapter 5, that isn't to have the real tape show us all our sins as they've already been forgiven, there's no condemnation to those in Christ.
However, there will be the evaluation of our lives and that which is profitable and honorable will be rewarded. So he's saying you need to pray because you don't want to lose that full reward, you're not going to lose your salvation, but you want to stand there before Christ having lived for Him. So pray every day like Jesus taught us, pray to be delivered from the evil one, pray to avoid temptation, we need the Lord's strength to escape the schemes, the strategies of the devil.
Satan cannot destroy your soul, but he can destroy your joy, he can destroy your testimony. So this warning kind of keeps our feet on realistic ground. We're to stay alert, to watch out, to keep praying in dependence, again J.C. Ural put it this way, we're to remember that evil is around us and near us and in us. We must battle daily with an ensnaring world, a busy devil and our own treacherous hearts. Ural said, so don't coast, don't rest on past victories, don't polish the trophies of some former acts of faith. Keep pressing on, keep looking ahead until the battle is over. Now while you're waiting, and I'm waiting for that day to arrive, here's the final point of application from the Lord's closing words.
Third, keep on living for others. Now at this point the sermon is over. Jesus has finished preaching. Luke adds these last two verses as his commentary, but they're very insightful. Notice, and every day he was teaching in the temple, but at night he went out and lodged on the mount called Olivet. And early in the morning, note that, all the people came to him in the temple to hear him. That's another way of saying, Jesus ministered to them from morning until evening. Now just put that in the context of what's happening. Within hours, Jesus is going to be arrested, mocked, beaten, rejected, crucified.
Three verses from now, Judas will be bargaining with the religious leaders over the life of Christ, worth only 30 pieces of silver. But in spite of that, what are you going to do? Lord, I'm going to get up early in the morning.
I'm going to go teach them. All those eager faces he knows will soon turn and begin to jeer at him, mock him. In spite of knowing that even though they're drinking it in right now from morning until evening, they're going to soon curse him.
But in spite of that, he teaches them and ministers to them and invests in them. Makes me wonder if you're experiencing growing pressure today. Maybe sorrow, disappointment. Maybe your heart is burdened. Maybe responses from family or friends or people around you aren't what you want or hope.
Maybe you have that growing sense of anxiousness over things that seem beyond your control. It certainly could be no more than Jesus experienced. But look at him. From early morning until night, he served others.
How did he do it? I think Hebrews chapter 12 gives us a clue. Who for the joy set before him endured the cross. He was looking ahead.
He was looking ahead. Prophecy promotes purity in our lives. It also creates comfort in our hearts as we go through the difficulties of life. In fact, as you anticipate the next event on the prophetic calendar of the rapture of the church, it's interesting to me that's to provide comfort. When Paul reached the end of that paragraph in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 talking about the rapture of the church, he said this, therefore, comfort one another with these words.
He didn't say, therefore, terrify one another with these words. Don't run around like Chicken Little. The sky is falling. I hear a lot of that today. Comfort one another. We have this incredibly blessed anticipation. The soon appearing, the imminent return of Christ for us in the clouds and then later the return with Christ to planet earth. Prophecy is not intended to produce fear, but it will in the heart of an unbeliever. Our world today would rather believe in the possibility and think about the possibility of an alien invasion wreaking havoc on the planet and yet not want to hear you talk for one minute about the coming of Jesus.
They'd rather face anything or anyone but Him. If you're here today, my friend, without faith in Christ as your Savior, while I'm preaching on this passage, it is not comforting. You don't feel comforted, do you? Let me tell you, I know what that feels like.
I know what that feels like. In fact, as I was studying this text, I remembered when I was around 16 years of age, an unbeliever, our school decided to show a brand new movie produced by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. If I remember correctly, it was entitled A Thief in the Night. Any of you old enough to remember that? That terrifying movie? It's about the rapture and this girl and some of her friends were left behind and how they went through it after Jesus raptured the church.
I couldn't sleep for a month after watching that movie. Nothing comforting in it at all. But there is comfort when our confidence is in the Word of God and what it says and in Christ who authored it and there's peace when we place our faith in Him, admit our sin, come to Him in trust and believe.
And then prophecy takes on a new dimension. It now matters. It's an incentive to the way we live. It's an encouragement. It's a conviction, isn't it? It's convicting in light of His soon appearing.
But it also does something else. It exalts the Lord, His supremacy, His victory. If you forget everything we've studied over these last several weeks, if you forget the details, if you still can't defend whether you're a pre-tribulationalist or a mid-tribulationalist or a post-tribulationalist, you don't know if you're pre-millennial or post-millennial or amillennial, you just know you don't like millennials or whatever. Let me tell you, here's all you need to know, that you've come to faith in Christ.
He's saved you. And this is, let me again, I want to be as simple as I can, as clear as I can. This is the simplest summation of prophetic Scripture. Here it is. Might be too simple for you, tough.
Here it is. Jesus wins. That's it. Jesus wins. Jesus will reign upon the earth. Jesus will regather Israel in the land. Jesus will rule over the nations. Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
All of that to say, He wins. So in the meantime, remember this too, we are not looking for signs for the rapture. There are no signs for the rapture.
The rapture could have happened 500 years ago, it could have happened five minutes from now. These signs take place during the tribulation. So we're not looking for signs.
They're going to take place later. So don't buy any more books. Don't listen to any more podcasts on blood moons or solar eclipses or the ashes of a red heifer or whatever. As the old evangelist Vance Havner said it so well, he used to say, we are not looking for signs. We are listening for a sound.
That's true. We're listening for the sound of a trumpet. And with that sound, away we go. That was Stephen Davey, the president of Wisdom International. Today's message was entitled, Prophecy Matters.
With this lesson, Stephen concluded a series entitled, Here Comes the King. If you missed any of the previous messages from this series, you can go back and listen free and on demand at wisdomonline.org. I also want you to know that we've taken this series and put it together as a set of CDs. We'd be happy to make a set for you. Give us a call today at 866-48-BIBLE. That's 866-48-BIBLE or 866-482-4253. Thanks for joining us today. Be sure and come back next time for more Wisdom for the Heart. We'll see you next time.
