Robert Jeffress - Why Your Future Matters Today?
Perhaps you are familiar with the novel "Futility" by author, Morgan Robertson. The book tells the story of a magnificent ocean liner named "The Titan" that strikes an iceberg in the middle of the Atlantic and sinks. Now you may think, "Well that certainly sounds like the real story of the Titanic". But the novel "Futility" and the fictional ship Titan is different from the Titanic in several ways. The Titan, the fictional book, boat is 1.800 feet long while the real Titanic was 1.882 feet long. The Titan was able to displace 66.000 tons of water while the real Titanic was able to display 70.000 tons of water. And yet, both the Titan, the fictional ship, and the Titanic were triple screw ocean liners, they both traveled 25 knots per hour, and they both carried 3.000 passengers.
Now you may wonder, why did Morgan Robertson bother to write a novel that so closely approximated the real account of the Titanic and why would he go to the trouble of just changing minor details, including the name of the ship from Titanic to Titan? Why do that? The answer is very clear. The real ship, the Titanic, sunk on April 14, 1912. The novel "Futility", about the fictional ship the Titan, was published in 1898, 14 years before the real event of the Titanic. It's amazing to think that a book could so closely approximate a real life event. That a book written more than a decade earlier could tell with laser-like accuracy, what would happen in the future.
And yet the truth is, the Bible is filled with hundreds if not thousands of prophecies about future events. Some of those events have already come to pass, hundreds of them. But there are many more that are yet to come. You know the Bible is a book of prophecy and yet even though there are all kinds of prophecies in the Bible about the future event of Christ's second coming, it's always amazing to me how few Christians are really interested in the topic of Bible prophecy. You may be one of those Christians. You may be one of those Christians who yawns when you hear about Bible prophecy. You may be a Christian who reaches for the bottle of Tylenol whenever your "Read through the Bible in a year" program lands you in the book of Daniel. You may be one of those Christians who considers changing churches when your pastor announces a year long study in the Book of Revelation.
You may be one of those Christians who, quite frankly, would be a lot more excited if I were introducing a series today on "Seven secrets of a scintillating marriage" instead of a series on the second coming of Christ. Why is that? Why is it many Christians have such a disdain for the study of prophecy? Billy Graham said one time, "The second coming of Jesus Christ is the most neglected teaching in the church today". And yet Paul wrote in Titus 2:13 that the truth of Christ's coming is the blessed hope for the church. Yet in spite of that, many Christians aren't interested in Bible prophecy. As I've talked to laymen and pastors alike, I've discovered that there are four reasons that people object to the study of Bible prophecy.
I'd like us to look at that today as we begin the series and see what the Bible says about each of those objections. First of all, some people are apathetic about Bible prophecy because they say, "Well the subject is too confusing to understand". You may be one of those Christians as well. A lot of Christians think that you have to have a seminary degree or at least possess some expertise in reading tea leaves in order to understand the truth of Bible prophecy. I have a friend who pastors one of our largest churches in the southern baptist convention. You know the church very well. A few years ago he said to me, "Robert, I wish you would write a simple book on Bible prophecy so that people like me could understand it".
Now here is a smart guy. He has a PhD from a respective seminary and yet he doesn't feel equipped to understand Bible prophecy himself, much less teach it to his thousands and thousands of members. A lot of Christians feel that way. I have a friend who isn't particularly interested in prophecy and he always says to me, "Robert, if God meant for us to understand Bible prophecy, he would have made it more clear in the Bible". Well the fact is God has made the end time events very clear in the Bible. Let me give you an illustration of that. Take your Bibles and turn to Matthew 24. Matthew 24. This passage Matthew 24 and 25 is what we call the Olivet discourse. The reason we call it that is it's Jesus' teaching that occurred on the Mount of Olives.
You remember the significance of the Mount of Olives. It was from that mountain that shortly after Jesus spoke these words, 40 days after his resurrection, he would ascend into heaven. It's also on this spot, the Mount of Olives, that Lord Jesus Christ will return at his second coming, visible for all to see. Many of you are going with us this spring to Israel and we are going to stand on the Mount of Olives, that very place that Christ is going to return and if you've had the privilege of standing there before, it is a magnificent view. You can stand there and you look across the Kidron Valley and you see the great Temple Mount and the temple complex.
Now here is the setting for Matthew 24, Jesus and his disciples were at the temple. They were walking out of the temple when Jesus said in a matter of fact way, "By the way, one day this massive temple is going to be leveled and no stone will stand". Just imagine you walked out to church today, somebody said to you, "You know this beautiful new First Baptist Church of Dallas? Did you know one day, every brick in this place is going to be leveled and it will be no more"? Wouldn't that kind of arouse your curiosity? Then did the disciples, they left the temple with Jesus, they cross the Kidron Valley, and they went up to the Mount of Olives. When they had Jesus alone privately.
Look at what they said to him. Chapter 24:3, "And as Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, 'tell us, when will these things be'"? That is the destruction of the temple. "'and what will be the sign of your coming, and the end of the age'"? Now we know from history that about 30 years, 40 years, after this happened, 70 a.D., Titus, the Roman conqueror, came and he leveled Jerusalem and destroyed the temple. So is that what they were talking about? Is that what Jesus was talking about? No, because they link their question to the return of Jesus Christ and the end of the age.
Notice they said in verse three, "Lord tell us when these things will be, the destruction of the temple and the sign of your coming, and the end of the age"? They wanted to know the details about the return of Jesus Christ. How did Jesus respond to their question? Notice what he didn't say to them in response to their question. He didn't say to them, "Now boys, this subject of prophecy is too complicated for you to understand. Especially you Peter, you'll never get it". Or he didn't say to them, "Well you know what, don't worry about the end time events, everything will pan out in the end". He didn't say to them, "You don't need to study eschatology. That's unimportant. What you need to do is concentrate on building your relationship with God and sharing the Gospel with as many people as possible. Don't worry about the end time events".
He could have said that very clearly, couldn't he when he was asked about the second coming? But Jesus didn't respond in any of those ways. Instead, he gave a very clear outline of the events that would precede and follow his return. Look at Matthew 24:4, "And Jesus answered and said to them, 'see to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ', and will mislead many. You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars'". That sound familiar? "'you'll be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See to it that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end'".
Verse 15. "Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken up through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, let the reader understand, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains". Verse 29, "But immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the son of man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the son of man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory".
In a couple of weeks, we'll see, that this gives us a great outline of what's gonna happen at the end, the details about the tribulation, followed by the second coming, the millennial kingdom, and the judgments that follow afterwards. It's not that hard to understand the events that will lead to the second coming of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself made it very clear to us. Secondly, some people object to the study of Bible prophecy because they say no one can know when Christ will return. Nobody can know that. Let's be honest are many so-called Bible prophecy experts who have turned people off to the study of the end times by making false, inaccurate predictions about when the end will come. You know many of those people.
Sometimes they admit it themselves. They say, "Now I know the Bible says we're not supposed to set a time, however", and then they proceed to do that. No, the Bible is very clear. No one knows the when of the second coming of Christ. For example, consider the Old Testament prophet Daniel. No one received a greater revelation of end time events than the prophet Daniel. Yet in Daniel 12:9, we read these words, "And he", the angel of the Lord said to Daniel, "Go your way, Daniel, for these words are concealed and sealed up until the end time". Or the apostle Paul. The apostle Paul understood many of the end time events. Although he doesn't say so specifically, I think as you read between the lines of Paul's words, he expected the Lord to return in his lifetime. And yet, Paul also knew that the time of Christ's return was unknown. It was a secret.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:1 and 2, Paul writes, "Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night". Consider Jesus Christ himself. Even though he was the Son of God, equal to God, he confessed he didn't know the time of his return. In Matthew 24:36, the Lord said, "But of that day, hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the son, but the father alone". You may be wondering, "How is it Jesus equal to God didn't know when he was going to return"?
That's another sermon somewhere along the line. But what I want you to see here is simply this. If Daniel, if Paul, if even Jesus himself refused to set the date of the Lord's return, who are we to think that we would know when the Lord is going to return? And yet even though we're told over and over again not to set dates, not to try to calculate when the Lord is gonna to return, people do it all the time. People in every age have believed that they would know when the end would come.
For example, Christopher Columbus thought that the world would end in 1656. I came across this quote from Columbus. "There are but 155 years left, at which time the world will come to an end".
Or martin Luther, the leader of the great protestant reformation. He didn't think the world would last 300 years after his own death.
Or the psychic Edgar Cayce who lived from 1877 to 1945. He predicted that the second coming of Jesus would occur in the year 2000.
In more recent years, we're all familiar with radio preacher Harold Camping who predicted four different times when the rapture would occur all erroneously. He said it would occur on September 6, 1994, September 29, 1994, October 4, 1994, and on March 31, 1995. You would think after four failed predictions, he would hang up his prophet's hat, but he didn't do it. Again he made headlines when he predicted that the rapture would occur on may 21, 2011 and the world would come to an end on October 21, 2011. Remember what he did? Spent millions of dollars putting up billboards around America about Judgment Day coming? It didn't happen. He ended up going bankrupt. After five failed prophecies, Harold Camping said, "I believe my predictions were off a little. I need to go back and recalculate". As my daughters used to say, "Thank you, captain obvious".
The most recent occurrence, of course, was in 2012. Remember the Mayan madness over the end of the Mayan calendar? The Mayan calendar ended abruptly on December 21, 2012. Many people believe that would be the end of the world. In fact, NASA had to produce a video. Did you know that? They had to produce a video to calm the world's population over the hysteria about the end of the world coming. It was during that Mayan madness that I wrote an article for CNN.com about doomsday predictions. I made the point in that article that the problem with all of these false predictions about the the end of the world is they keep people from making the necessary preparations when the real end does come. It's like the boy who cried wolf so many times that the villagers failed to make the necessary preparation when the wolf actually came.
Make no mistake about it, ladies and gentlemen, the end is coming. God hasn't told us when that's going to happen for good reason. Just as every teacher knows how unfocused her students are the last week before school lets out. God knows if we knew when our end was coming, it'd be very difficult for us to focus on the commandments he's given us to fulfill. That's why God doesn't show us his calendar. Instead God tells us to concentrate on the assignment that he's given us. You may say, "Well if I don't know when this is gonna happen, why do I need to know 'the whats' of Bible prophecy"? Well the fact is, sometimes knowing what is going to happen is important even if you don't know when it's going to occur.
A few years ago I landed at Los Angeles international airport. It was late at night and I needed to catch a shuttle to my hotel so I called the shuttle service. They told me that the van would be along in a few minutes. I said, "Do you know when"? They said, "We can't tell you when it's going to come, but here's what to look for. Look for a blue skylark van that has the words 'Wilshire' on it and that's the van you need to get on". So I went out to the loading ramp and I waited and I waited and I waited. I saw red vans. I saw orange vans. I saw white vans. They all passed by. I even saw some blue skylark vans with the words 'Disneyland' on it. Another one with the word 'Hollywood' on it. But if I had gotten on any of those vans, I would've been taken to the wrong destination.
Eventually, I saw the right van come along and I got on and ended up at my hotel. Jesus said that throughout history there would be many false Christs who would predict, "I am the one". And many will follow him and end up in the wrong destination. The Bible says here's what's going to happen, here's how it's going to happen. I'm not gonna tell you when, but here's what to look for and if we understand what to look for, we'll end up in the right destination.
Number three, some people object to Bible prophecy because they say, "Well there're too many different interpretations of prophecy for it to be that important. After all, so many good Christian scholars disagree on Bible prophecy. It just can't be that important". I was on a panel discussion one time and I was with a well known Christian apologist and they had a question and answer time and somebody asked a question about Bible prophecy. The speaker said, "Well, I'm not much on Bible prophecy. We'll let Robert answer that one". I'm not a pre-millennialist, a non-millennialist, or a post-millennialist. I'm a pan-millennialist. I believe it's all going to pan out in the end. Chuckle, Chuckle, Chuckle, just like the audience did.
A lot of people believe, "Well there's so many different interpretations. It can't be that important". But the fact that there are a lot of different interpretations... And by the way, what theological subject do you know of that there aren't a lot of different interpretations for? Just because there are a lot of different opinions about Bible prophecy, doesn't mean there's not one, correct interpretation. Some of you cringe when I say that. One, correct interpretation? "Pastor are you saying there's only one correct interpretation of scripture"? Absolutely. You see we live in an age that has a disdain for absolute truth. We live in an age that says, "Well everybody's opinion is equally valid. Everybody is free to interpret the Bible however he wants". Well, yes and no. We certainly are free to interpret the Bible however we want. We're also free to be wrong.
You see, the Bible says there really is only one correct interpretation correct of God's word in 2 Peter 1:20-21, look what Peter said, "But know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation". Pretty interesting isn't it? "No matter the prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever made by an act of the human will, but men, moved", literally carried along, "By the Holy Spirit spoke from God". It's true, many of the details, secondary details of Bible prophecy are up for debate. But God has clearly stated an outline at the end time events that we need to understand.
Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, a lot of people object to the idea of studying Bible prophecy because they say Bible prophecy has nothing to do with my everyday life. Bible prophecy has nothing to do with my everyday life. Admittedly, most Christians are not merely concerned about the future beast in revelation 13, as they are with the beast they work for Monday through Friday. Most people don't sit around and try to figure out the 70 weeks of Daniel 9 when they're just trying to make it through one week of work and church and soccer practices and everything else. Most people don't feel like they need to understand all the details about some coming future tribulation, when they have enough problems in their life today. So many people make the idea, "Well I just don't need to understand Bible prophecy because the future has nothing to do with my everyday life". Nothing could be further from the truth. What happens in the future does have a profound impact on how we live today.
Part 2
During the time, the 15 years we were living in Wichita Falls. During that time, the Texas highway department made an announcement that they were gonna build a double deck expressway right through the center of downtown Wichita Falls. They didn't tell when that project would begin, they just said it was coming. As soon as that announcement was made, businesses along the path of the proposed expressway, they started selling their property. They started moving their restaurants and small businesses out toward the suburbs, even though they didn't know when this was gonna happen. Why? They knew that whenever this construction project began, the value of their property would go down dramatically and it would ensure the demise of their business. They didn't know when this was gonna happen, but knowing what was going to happen, impacted their present day life.
And the same is true for us ladies and gentlemen. Did you know the Bible says, one day there is a major reconstruction project coming for this entire earth? One day as we read just a few moments ago, this entire earth is gonna be burned up and destroyed and there is gonna be a new heaven and a new earth. And the Bible says knowing that this great cataclysmic event is going to occur sometime in the future, that everything we build our life around is gonna be burned up and destroyed. It ought to impact how we live our everyday life. Abraham Lincoln said one time, "If you can tell me where we are and where we're headed, I can better tell you what to do and how to do it".
Let me give you three positive reasons, but you ought to invest your time in this series, perfect ending, why your eternal future matters today, why you and I need to understand the end time events.
Number one, Bible prophecy is a major theme in the Bible. Bible prophecy is a major theme in the Bible. In Bible study, we have what we call the law of proportion. And the law of proportion simply says, you can know how important the topic is to God by how much space he devotes to it in the Bible. Every topic is important, God spends a lot of ink on it in the Bible. If it's not important, he doesn't talk that much about it. The law of proportion. How does that apply to Bible prophecy? The Bible is filled with productive prophecy. In fact, one fourth of the Bible deals with prophecy. Jot this down. In the Old Testament, there are over 1.800 references for the return of Jesus Christ, that's in the Old Testament. In the 260 chapters of the New Testament, there are more than 300 references to the return of Christ. That's about one out of every 30 verses. Of the 27 books of the New Testament, 23 had the return of Christ as a prominent theme. Now this is what I find interesting, for every prophecy in the Bible about the first coming of Jesus Christ, there are eight about the second coming up Jesus Christ. Clearly the prominence and the proportion of the prophetic theme and Bible shows why it's important.
Number two, why study Bible prophecy? An understanding of prophecy helps us both interpret and apply the Bible correctly. Understanding Bible prophecy helps us interpret and apply the Bible correctly. Let me put this real simply for all of you. You can never understand the Bible if you don't understand prophecy. The Bible makes no sense, you will not be able to interpret it correctly, you won't be able to apply it correctly unless you understand the details of Christ's return. Just think about it. How would you ever understand the Old Testament, Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, all of these major prophetic books in the Old Testament, not just about the first coming, but about the return of Christ. How do you make sense of that? When you turn to the New Testament, how do you understand the words of Jesus?
The sermon on the mount, all of that discourse, the parables, they make no sense unless you understand about the second coming of Christ. The epistles will be a mystery to you just like passages we read today from second Peter, unless you understand the end time events. Or think about the last book of the Bible, the revelation. Did you know revelation is the only book of the Bible for which God promises a special blessing to everyone who reads and understands it? But how can you make sense of the Book of Revelation if you don't understand the truth of Bible prophecy? Now I could give you multiple examples of that. Let me give you two examples of where understanding prophecy helps you both interpret and apply the Bible correctly.
Turn in your Bibles over to Isaiah 65, Isaiah 65. This is one of the best known prophecies in the Old Testament in the book of Isaiah. Let's look at it together, Isaiah 65:20. Isaiah says, "O longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his days. For the youth will die at the age of 100 and the one who does not reach the age of 100 shall be thought accursed". Now he's talking about a time in which there'll be no infant mortality, babies will not die and people will live at least to 100 years of age, they won't die until they're at least 100 years of age. Now the question is, what period of time is Isaiah talking about? Obviously, he wasn't talking about his day or even today. You can't understand this unless you understand Bible prophecy.
When you understand Bible prophecy, you'll understand that what Isaiah is talking about is a special time in history, we call the millennium, the 1.000 reign of Christ on the earth. It's after the tribulation, after the second coming, when Christ will set up his kingdom on earth for 1000 years. The earth won't be recreated at that time, that's later on, but it will be partially restored. Satan will be bound for 1.000 years and much of the curse that infects the earth will be temporarily lifted. What I'm saying is without understanding prophecy, the scripture makes no sense whatsoever.
Let me give you an example of the New Testament where understanding prophecy not only is the key to interpreting the Bible correctly, but applying it correctly. Turn over to Matthew 25, Matthew 25. This is a passage of scripture that so many people are familiar with, even unbelievers and sometimes they even quote it. Matthew 25:35-40. Now these are Jesus words, look at what he said. "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat and I was thirsty and you gave me drink and I was a stranger and you invited me in, naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me". Then the righteous will answer him saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and invite you in? Or when did we see you naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you"? And the king will answer and say to them, "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these my brothers, even the least of them, you did it to me".
Now how many times have you heard people say, this is the purpose of the church. We're supposed to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison. We are never more like Jesus than when we do these things. Haven't you heard that before? There are many churches that build their whole mission around these verses right here. Now listen to me carefully before you fire off the email to me. Yes, we are to show concern for the poor, no doubt about that. But that is not the primary mission of the church. The church is not a sanctified relief agency, okay? When you think about it, every other organization in the world, first and foremost, being government itself is concerned with meeting the physical needs of people. Only the church of Jesus Christ has been charged with the responsibility of meeting the spiritual needs of people.
The body ends, the spirit goes on forever and ever. We are called to care for people spirits, not to be a sanctified relief agency. You say, well, then how do you interpret these words of Jesus? How do we apply them if that's not the correct application? You'll never understand what Jesus was talking about unless you understand Bible prophecy. Instead of ripping these verses out of context to make them say what they don't say, understand the context. Jesus is talking about the end times. He's prophesied about what's gonna happen, the tribulation has just occurred when anybody who follows Christ will have been persecuted, many of them will have been martyred.
The Son of God has come back to earth in a second coming. He's about to inaugurate his millennial kingdom on earth and this comes into the context that he has just judged the righteous and the unrighteous. The unrighteous have been sent to hell, the righteous are invited to come and be a part of God's kingdom on earth. And so always he separates the unrighteous from the righteous. He says to the righteous, come and enter my kingdom. When you ministered to these brothers of mine, who are the brothers of Christ? He's talking about his followers during the tribulation, those who were persecuted by the antichrist, both Jews and gentiles alike. When you saw these brothers of mine being persecuted and ministered to them, it was as if you were doing it to me.
See, during the tribulation time, the way people will demonstrate their salvation, not earn their salvation, how they demonstrate their salvation, is by coming to the aid of Christ followers during that time who are under the antichrist persecution. They don't earn their salvation by meeting the physical needs, they prove that they are a Christ follower by ministering to Christ servants, his brothers and that's what he's talking about here. You can never understand that. And do you understand the context of Bible prophecy? Bible prophecy is the key to interpreting the Bible correctly.
Thirdly, and most importantly, an understanding of Bible prophecy motivates us for godly living. An understanding of Bible prophecy motivates us toward godly living. Listen to this, God never divorces Bible prophecy from practical application. Nowhere in the Bible is there that divorce between Bible prophecy and practical application. Turn over to second Peter chapter three for a moment. The passage we read a few minutes ago. Peter is describing the end of the world, the destruction of the present heaven and earth before the creation of the new heaven and earth in revelation 21 and 22.
Look at what Peter describes in second Peter 3:10. "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up". But then notice the application in verses 11 and 12. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, here's the application, what sort of people are you to me in holy conduct and Godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God? The fact that the end is coming, whether it's the end of the world or the end of your life, the fact that the end is coming soon, ought to be in the forefront of your mind day and night.
The fact that you and I are soon going to meet God, do you know it's gonna come very soon when we meet God, either when he comes or we go, but sooner or later we're gonna face him. It's gonna be sooner. The fact that we're all going to face God to give an account of our lives ought to be a powerful incentive for living an obedient and consistent life now. Bible prophecy when properly understood, is a powerful motivation to holy conduct and Godliness.
Billy Graham, in his book "World of Flame" tells a true story from the life of president Dwight d. Eisenhower. President Eisenhower one August was vacationing in Denver, Colorado. That sounds pretty good right now, doesn't it? Vacationing in Denver, he took his presidential vacation one month in August in Denver. And one morning the president opened up the local newspaper, the Denver newspaper and there was an open letter to him that was published from a six year old boy named Paul Haley, who was dying of cancer. And Paul Haley expressed in that letter a desire for president Eisenhower to visit with him while he was in Denver.
So in one of those acts of kindness of a president long remembered after his speeches have been forgotten, president Eisenhower decided he was gonna go visit Paul Haley. He announced it to his staff, they all got into the processional and got in the limousine and off they went to the Haley home. They arrived in front of a home, president Eisenhower bounded out of the motorcade, he went up to the front door, knocked on it. The door opened and there was Paul Haley's father, Donald Haley, standing there. Can you imagine the surprise of opening the front door and seeing the president of the United States? Donald Haley wasn't dressed for the occasion though, he hadn't shaved for a day. He wore some old jeans, a faded t-shirt. Little Paul Haley was standing behind him and kind of peeked around.
The president looked at him and said, "Paul, I'm president Eisenhower. I understand you wanted to visit with me". So he put out his hand and Paul Haley shook his hand and they went outside for a walk up and down the sidewalk. They talked together. When Eisenhower was finished, he said goodbye, got into his limousine and off he went. For years afterwards, the Haley talked about that unique act of kindness of president Eisenhower. They were all thrilled about the day's events. Well, almost all of them. There was one member of the Haley family who wasn't that thrilled about the presidential visit. It was the father, Don Haley. In a newspaper interview, Don Haley lamented about that day's events. He said, "Just think about it, an unshaven face, faded blue jeans, a soiled t-shirt. What a way to meet the president of the United States".
I can tell you something that's gonna be even more embarrassing. One day the Bible says, suddenly, unexpectedly, the trumpet is gonna sound, the clouds are gonna part and we're going to see the King of kings and Lord of lords. And yet many Christians are gonna be embarrassed by their spiritual appearance on that day. Many Christians when the Lord returns, are gonna find that they have clothed themselves in the faded and soiled garments of immorality, materialism, personal ambition, rather than having clothed themselves in the pure linen garments of righteousness described in revelation 19:8. Let me ask you a very, very personal question. If the Lord were to return today or if you were to meet him in death, would you be ashamed of your spiritual appearance, of the appearance of your life right now? If so, I pray these next weeks as we study Bible prophecy, that this series will be a motivation for you to start clothing yourselves in holy conduct and Godliness as we prepare for the soon and certain return of Christ.