Ready or Not...Here He Comes (Luke 21)

In Luke 21, Jesus goes into a lengthy discourse about the End Times. We have seen that this discourse is paralleled in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Many study these passages trying to figure out an End Times timetable. They want to know the dates and seasons and hours when things will happen. Certainly, part of Jesus' intention is to give a very general outline of when the last things will happen. But it has to be admitted that this outline is nowhere near as precise as some commentators make it out to be. We certainly have no date setting here. And even narrowing the timetable down to a year or a decade is next to impossible.

That is why we have to take to heart the close of the chapter. At the close of the chapter, Jesus gives us a simple instruction. He says: "Watch yourselves." In essence, Jesus is telling us: "Make sure you're ready." If we are prepared for His coming, it makes no difference when Jesus comes. We don't need to know the exact dates if we have made careful preparation.

Jesus gives us a warning about 3 things that will keep us from being ready:

1. The first is dissipation. That is not a word we use every day. Dissipation refers to living for pleasure or living in extravagance. It is exactly the type of life that most in the United States are living today. Dissipation dulls our devotion to the Lord and steals our sense of urgency. We need to be preparing for heaven not indulging in the excesses of this life.

2. The second is drunkenness. The Bible does not condemn drinking as a sin. But, it most certainly does condemn drunkenness. Drunkenness robs us of our moral and rational faculties. It prepares us to make poor moral choices and decisions. Someone living to drink is not going to be preparing for Jesus' return.

3. The third is the worries of life. Jesus talked about this in Matthew 6:25-33. He said there: "25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you" (ESV translation). Jesus says that the worries of this life have the potential to distract us from the Kingdom of God.

Reading this passage, I know that I need to be careful not to let things like dissipation and the concerns of life rob my kingdom focus. In verse 36, Jesus tells us to stay awake and pray. Through prayer, we need to ask God to help us that we might stand and that we might be ready for Jesus' return.