The End Times Church

We all know about the Olivet Prophecy, right? All good. This is a sermon about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Because we're going to go through a part of the Olivet Prophecy. All good. This is about, you know, the world facing the wars and rumors of wars and pestilences and natural catastrophes and a tribulation. A tribulation will be so great that if Christ doesn't come back, all the earth will be destroyed. Well, that's part of the Olivet Prophecy. The Olivet Prophecy is two chapters long. And all the world events, all the catastrophes and the terrible things that Christ comes back right before humanity is totally destroyed. Right? So it's an important prophecy. But that's less than half of the Olivet Prophecy.

That's less than half of the prophecy He gave, Jesus gave, that time. So what we're going to do is look at the other half. The other half of the Olivet Prophecy. And if we go to Matthew 24, it starts in verse 9. So let's go to Matthew 24.

And of course, they come to Jesus and they ask Him, what are the signs of the times before, you know, He comes down, before the Kingdom is set up on earth. And He said on the Mount of Olives, and He told them all these things. And that's what verse 3 and 4 and 5, wars and rumors of wars, nation against nation. He says, this is the beginning of sorrows. And now He's going to take a little break here, all these world events. And He's going to talk to a very specific group of people. He says, then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake. Now He says, you hear, the people He was talking to went through this in part. This is a double prophecy, a dual prophecy. That is a first fulfillment and a greater fulfillment. They asked Him, when will we know that you're coming back? And He gives what could happen to the world scene, and He gives what it's going to be like to be a Christian.

And He actually gives a whole lot of parables for Christians. All this is all part of the same prophecy. For His followers. So yes, you, those people, were going to face terrible tribulation. And including, Rome would come in in 70 AD and destroy Jerusalem. But this is in the greater context of not that first fulfillment, but the much greater fulfillment that has to do with Him coming back to earth, which is all part of this chapter 24. He says, and then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Oh, listen to just talk about the world. He sort of shifted here. He said, this is what's going to happen inside my people. Betrayal, hatred, and they were going to turn on each other.

Many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. That's not many pagan prophets. That's not what it's talking about. It's many of those who claim to be Christian will rise up and deceive many.

And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. He hasn't shifted back to talking about to the world yet. He said it's going to be such a lawless time, such an evil time, that the love people have for God and for each other, his followers, for many of them, they will grow cold. Verse 13, he's not talking to the world yet, but he who endures to the end shall be saved.

He who endures to the end shall be saved. Now, by the way, the good news is when you get into Revelation, there's a big part of the church that is saved before and during the tribulation. Okay, so this isn't like, oh no, we're all doomed. That's not the message. The message from Jesus is, let me tell you how bad the world's going to be. Okay, well, we all know that. Now, let me tell you the dangers the church is going to face and how you must be prepared for that. He actually tells them, this is what you must do to be prepared for what's going to happen. Verse 14, and the gospel of the kingdom will be preached to all the world as a witness to all nations. Then the end will come. Now, we do know the preaching of that gospel has been going on ever since the time of Jesus, but the preaching of the gospel will be fulfilled completely by the two witnesses. They're the ones who are going the whole world. He gets their attention. So that's going to happen as, yeah, the church always preaching the gospel, always telling people about Christ, telling people about the Bible, telling people about God, but it only reaches the world when you have two men that have the power to call down fire from heaven. That tends to get people's attention. It doesn't matter how many screens you're on at that moment. When you see that, you stop. So he says, then the end comes. But notice this is all in the context of these terrible things happening, which we know if you take these things and lay them on top of the seven seals, this is actually a description of the first four seals. That's why I say the four horsemen apocalypse are tied into this. And we do that all the time. Usually when I go to Matthew 24, I cover verse three through verse nine, and then I run to Revelation and say, look, all these things are laying on top of each other, this same events. Then we go back to Daniel and there's certain things there. Oh, look, they all lay on top of each other. And this proves what's going to happen. Okay. I think most of you know that.

What about this other message that's in here? That's actually more of a message or bigger message than about what's happening in the world. So verse 15, he talks about the tribulation. And he goes all through verse to verse 28 about this tribulation. Then after the tribulation, it becomes so bad that if he doesn't return, humanity will die. He comes. And that goes through verse 31. And then he gives a parable and then he talks about how no one knows how this is going to happen. It's going to happen and catch some people by surprise. So all this is about how, here's what's going to happen. Been in the middle, but the church is going to end up in trouble. There's going to be false prophets and the church is going to have to truly hang on to God. Now, what's interesting, he now goes into, after all this, a series of parables that we pull out of Matthew 24 and 25 all the time. You've heard all these parables in sermons. I'm not going to give anything new. I want to look at these parables in the context in which they were given. I'm going to go through each one in total detail because I would be speaking for three hours. But what we're going to do is go through each one of these because the point is the message of Jesus in the Olivet prophecy, over half of it is, my people listen so that you are right with God.

My people listen so that you are right with God. And this message is for any time. I don't care when someone's born. I don't care if the end time is a hundred years from now. This message is for every generation of Christians and is put in the context, especially the closer you get to the end. This would add a lot of importance to actually to the people, especially the Jewish Christians who lived around Jerusalem up to the time of 70 AD, because they saw a first fulfillment of some of these things, not the complete fulfillment. Christ didn't come back. The world wasn't on the edge of total destruction. So we're going to go through some of these parables.

You know, if you are a note taker, or if you have a pad in front of you, use that, or if you have a notebook. Take and put a line in the middle of your page. On one side, put good traits.

Oh, let's put bad traits first. Bad traits and good traits. What we're going to look at, because he goes through these parables, it's like, here's what the Christianity you have to have, and here's what you will do wrong in Christianity that will lead you into a bad place.

This is all in the context of Christ's return, but it's a universal message for all time. So let's go to Matthew 24, 45.

He gives him a parable. Now, you've heard this parable many times. You probably have very seldom thought of this parable as part of the Olivet prophecy. But it is part of the Olivet prophecy. He says, who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household to give them food and do season? Now, he's talking about, specifically, leaders in the church community, but it spreads out here to everybody in the church community.

Blessed is that servant, whom his master, when he comes, he will find so doing. So blessed is the servant. Whether a leader or not a leader doesn't matter. We're all servants of Christ. Blessed is a servant who's doing what they're supposed to do when he returns. See, the emphasis is on his return when he returns.

But if that evil servant says in his heart, my master is delaying his coming. So we have an attitude or a towards life that says, well, Jesus Christ isn't coming back for a hundred years.

And he may not come back for a hundred years, but that gives us this, eh, you know, life is just about being comfortable, making money, you know, having a good time, whatever. And what we do is we begin to do what he accused these servants of doing. I mean, it's not wrong to say, I don't think Christ is coming back for a while. There were people many years ago, there were people 500 years ago that were saying that they were right. There were people in 1000 A.D.

that believed that the millennium was over because the Catholic church had reigned for a thousand years and therefore Christ was coming back then. They had it all wrong. They actually launched the first crusade to go take Jerusalem. They killed all kinds of Muslims, Jews and fellow Christians that take Jerusalem and Jesus was supposed to come back and he never did. So getting this wrong, you know, when is it now? Later. That's not the issue here. It's about being prepared no matter when you live because at the core of our Christianity is an absolute desire for Christ to come back, bring salvation and save the world. It's not just about what I do today. There's nothing wrong.

We're all supposed to do things today. There's happiness, there's good things, there's success, but there's also bad things. You know, we live in this mixture of good and evil. So it's not like, oh, I have to give up any viewpoint of goodness in this life. No. And I shouldn't get married. I shouldn't have children. No, that's not the point. We all, we're supposed to do those things generation after generation. The last generation before Christ comes back is supposed to be living life. That's not the point. The point is, no matter when we live, we have to be spiritually prepared. What if it's tomorrow?

Because I will tell you this. You leave this hall and on the way home, you get in a car wreck and you die, Christ comes for you, right? What's your next moment? If you, you know, we talked about that at the service. For Goldie, what's her next moment? See, we're trapped in time. She's no longer in time. She went to sleep. She wakes up in the resurrection. It's boom. She's waking up. She'll have no concept of time. So if you walk out of here, or you go home tonight, or you have a, uh, gruesome, you have a heart attack in your bed tonight, you wake up in the resurrection.

He's come. So I want you to understand, that's why this applies anytime, anyplace. Because for any of us, his coming, in realities in the future, but in experience, is that quick. So this is very important. He says, but if that evil servant says to his heart, in his heart, my master's delaying his coming, oh well, Christ isn't coming back for a hundred years. So, I'm not going to be worried about that. He's missing the point. And begins to and begins to, here's what happens. He begins to beat his fellow servants, and he eat and drink with the drunkards. He does two things.

Mistreats other Christians. They become a conflict-oriented person. They just judge everybody. They put them down. They argue with everybody. That's a very bad sign. And two, they just begin to compromise with sin.

Sin isn't that important.

And so he uses here to eat and drink with the drunkards. In other words, their lifestyles become partly like the lifestyles of the world.

I gave that sermon on, well, Christianity. There was something I didn't mention. That is very important in that, in our understanding of sin.

God only judges us if what we do hurts somebody else. That's not true.

Jesus said, you know what's wrong to kill somebody. I'm telling you what's wrong to hate somebody. You may never talk to them. You may never be mean to them. You may never take an action against them. But it's a sin, because the evil is inside of you, and you're hurt by it.

Your relation with God is hurt by it. He used the same thing with adultery. It's not just wrong to commit adultery. His teaching went way beyond that. He said, if you have fantasies about somebody that's not your mate in marriage, it is a sin against God.

Suddenly, all sexuality becomes subject to sin, except in the right situation, ordained by God, because it hurts the person involved.

See, we don't think about, well, yes, I covet, but I have never stole anything. Okay, you haven't committed that sin, but coveting is a sin, too. And where does that happen? Does anybody know, if you're really guilty of greed and covetousness, but you haven't committed a sin, who knows? Nobody. Right?

And according to the Scripture, it doesn't matter if you're the only one who knows. You've sinned. It's hurt you. That's how important God looks at us in our relationship. When we hurt ourselves, and we have the ability and the power with His help to stop that, He tells us, stop it. So our whole viewpoint of this eating and drinking with the drunkards has to be really important here. We have to expand this out into the understanding that when He talks about this, He's not just talking about actions. He's talking about social constraints, social what we do, what we do in our minds, and who we party with. He says, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and in an hour that he's not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint his portion with the hypocrites, there shall be weeping and ashing of teeth. Jesus doesn't go here very often, but when He does, it's frightening. This is an eternal judgment.

An eternal judgment. Weeping and ashing of teeth has to do with the lake fire. That term is used in lake fire. Understand the gravity of this. Servants who decide and believe, ah, Christ may be coming in the future, who knows, my life is today. My life is just today, not being prepared for the kingdom of God, because it doesn't matter how long it is before it comes.

What happens is they become conflict oriented. That mainly is driven by self-righteousness, and then they compromise with sin.

So, on your piece of paper, let's break this down. We're just doing something very simple today. I'm not going to get all the details. There's a lot of details in these parables. On the bad traits. That's what's the bad trace here of these bad servants. Lack of vision of Christ's return. They know it's going to happen, but they don't see it as a driving force in life.

Lack of dedication to the work of God. Ah, you know, I'm just going to have a good time. I'm going to just be successful. There's nothing wrong with having a good time. There's nothing wrong with being successful. It's a viewpoint, though, that puts those things above God. They are conflict oriented. They're always in some kind of battle with somebody.

And they have a compromising sin or attitude towards sin. That's the negative trait.

Oh, that's not that bad.

Right? All sin is hated by God, not because he's some cruel taskmaster that just wants to force us to do what he wants. It's because he knows all sin destroys not only other people, it destroys you. And that is unbearable to him. You read what he says about sin.

To watch us destroy ourselves is just unbelievable. That's why he keeps saying, Christ said, I came to save you. If you're being saved, you're in peril, right?

You're in trouble to be saved. It's not like, oh, everybody's okay. Everybody's basically good. No, I've come to save you because you're not good and you won't live forever in the condition you're in. And we have to always remember that. We have been called for salvation.

We have been called for salvation. Okay. The second of the parables here in the All of It prophecy.

Chapter 25. This one you hear all the time. The Decadem of heaven shall be like unto ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now, many historians who understand Jewish culture say that this is actually a scene from what would have happened in the first century when a bride went out and all her friends went with her. You know, like today when all the friends walked down the aisle and then the bride walks down the aisle. But all her friends, but they were all her unmarried friends. All her unmarried friends were with her. Okay. So, number 10 is just made up here. That didn't have to be 10.

Now, five of them were wise and five were foolish. Now, those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. Now, let me stop here because it does never mention the bride. So, this parable gets all mixed up. Well, who are these people? We know who the bride is at the Church of God. So, who are all these people? Well, they must be what? Christians that aren't really part of the Church of God, different Churches of God. What are they? That's not the point being made. There's a subtle point being made here. The bride isn't mentioned. What is mentioned is that there's 10 virgins. This is not unusual when you look at other places in the New Testament. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 11.

Because we're trying to make this fit something in here that's not even here.

This isn't what I wanted. Oh, 2 Corinthians 11.

Paul's talking to the Church at Corinth. Now, we know over and over again, Paul calls the Church the Bride of Christ. Ancient Israel was called the Bride of God. So, we know this bride is the people of God. But the parable here doesn't mention the bride, but they're going to meet the bridegroom. So, how do we... what does that mean? Verse 2, Paul says, For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy, for I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. You hear as he's talking to everybody in the Church. He says, All you people are spiritual virgins, and you are now the Bride of Christ. The Bride of Christ, and you'll see this all through the New Testament, isn't, you know, obviously it's not one person, is it? So, this analogy gets mixed back and forth. The Bride is being prepared to meet her husband. But in reality, a whole lot of people are part of this bride, and they're being prepared to meet the one husband. There's not multiple husbands. There's multiple people who are the bride. So, the fact that the bride isn't mentioned here becomes a point of contention that's not really that important in the parable. What's important in the parable is the understanding that when Christ comes, there are these virgins. Those are people who have been called by God, who are actual Christians.

And some of them are prepared, and some of them are not prepared. Okay? Some are prepared, and some are not prepared. So, he says, verse 3 again, For those who were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. We know throughout the Scripture, oil is a symbol of the Spirit of God. So, we're talking about people who were prepared to meet the bridegroom, and people who aren't prepared to meet the bridegroom. That's the point that's being made. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slobbered and slept. In other words, it didn't happen when they thought it would happen. You know, when I was a child, I was actually taught back in the radio church of God that Christ was coming back in 1975.

I was a young teenager when I figured out that wasn't true, because there was a three-and-a-half year tribulation. And once it's 1972, and moving towards 1973, and then 1973, it's not going to happen. And I thought everybody else had figured out, only find out there were still people believing it. It's like, but how do you do that and look at the Scripture? Of course, it wasn't true. Well, He delayed His coming. No, He didn't. People didn't understand it.

I'm always amazed. There was a big thing over the summer this year, and you probably aren't in all the... You know, your news feed doesn't pop up all the things that mine pops up. Mine pops up a lot of religious stuff. And the amount of Protestants claiming that the rapid was on the Feast of Trumpets this year were amazing. This is it. It's coming. It's finally here. I guess the Lord delayed His coming because they weren't raptured.

We do, as human beings, we do this all the time. So there's this feeling that He's delayed His coming. And what's interesting is all the virgins, all these Christians go to sleep. Now, that doesn't mean they're not worshiping God. They're still doing what they're supposed to do. They are keeping the Sabbath. They're working on their marriages. They're being honest. They're still doing these things. They're trying to be good people and kind. They're trying to be zealous. They're trying to have faith. All these things. But spiritually, they're just sort of sleepwalking through this. Outwardly, they seem the same. Outwardly, they seem the same.

And at midnight a cry was heard, Behold, the bridegroom is coming. Go out to meet Him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And it fully said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. In other words, we're not prepared for this. We fell asleep and we're turning on our lamps and we're out of oil.

It's interesting. The little lamps that they use, they would have a little extra vase of oil that they would use to pour into it. We're burning out. We have no oil in our vase.

But the wise answer is saying, No, lest there should not be enough for us and you, go rather to those who sell them by for yourself. Now there's all this, okay, what does that mean? They can't give their Holy Spirit to somebody else. They have to go to the person where they can buy the Holy Spirit. This is a parable that everybody would have understood. Uh-oh, they're not prepared. They don't have the oil. We can look at it and say, Oh, they haven't been responding to God's Spirit. They're going through the motions, but they haven't responded to God's Spirit. And so now this, this stress and this trouble's happening, and they are not prepared. And it says that while they went out to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding, and the door was shut. After the other virgins came saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Assurely to you, I do not know you. Watch therefore, for you don't either the date or the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.

Boy, we have another one of those frightening statements. I just don't know you.

Every day you and I struggle with what it is to be a Christian. And on a regular basis, we fail. That's not what this is talking about. This isn't talking about, oh, I'm not perfect, because little alert here, none of us are perfect. This isn't like, oh, God hates me because, or God's going to judge me as because. This is an attitude that gets so unaware that you never even realize where you are. You never think about where you are. You never go to God and cry out. You never go to God and say, I need help. I'm not what you want me to be yet. And every one of us could go to God on a regular basis and say, I'm not what you want me to be yet. I see that. And he says, good, we'll just keep working at it. See, God isn't there to condemn us. God is there to save us. The condemnation comes when he won't let him us, we won't let him save us. That's where the condemnation comes.

He knows who we are more than we know who we are. He wants us more than we can imagine. As I've said before, be glad God doesn't need us. You know what? You really need somebody. We need our mates. We need each other, right? We have needs for each other. And we, and we want to be friends, but we have needs. We have emotional needs. And every time you have a conflict with somebody else, what happens? Your emotional needs get all messed up and you get hurt. Aren't you glad God is never hurt the way we get hurt? Because it says he grieves, but he doesn't grieve the way we do.

He says he gets angry and yes, he judges people, but he always does it for a specific reason. And you can always figure out why God does what he does. You can figure out why he destroyed Sodom.

Of course, we understand there's a second resurrection, right?

So we understand why God does things. It's never because he loses his temper and says, oh, I shouldn't have killed those people. That never happens. You and I, on the other hand, we can do all kinds of things because our feelings are hurt. God's never motivated by human emotions. He has emotions, but they're always controlled by his righteousness, always controlled by his... You and I don't have that. We don't have that ability. He does. The point he's making here is they simply refused, refused to live life in preparation for the kingdom of God. It was all... They had everything they needed. They had lamps. They had oil. They had everything they needed, and they refused to live life in the way that they were supposed to. So what do we do with this list? By the way, there's a saying that John Maxwell, famous business guru, but has some very good principles of leadership. He wrote something one time that I thought was interesting. He said, and this ties into this, there's an old saying, champions don't become champions in the ring. They're merely recognized there. That's true. If you want to see where someone develops into a champion, look at his daily routine. We prepare for the kingdom by constantly preparing for the kingdom. It's not a once a week thing we do when we come to Sabbath services. It can't be.

We're preparing for what... God is preparing us for what He wants us to do, and we sell Him short.

We see ourselves and we forget it's not me that does this. He does it. We sell Him short on what He can do. We'll talk about that in a minute too. So what do we know from this? Okay, this has to be developed. We have to be all the time. Even when we sort of spiritually go to sleep, we can't fade off to the point where we're just out there sleepwalking through life. Okay, bad traits. And your bad traits spiritually unprepared. They just... these... the bad versions... the point is they had no spiritual viewpoint anymore. Spiritually unprepared. They were uninvolved in personal growth. Obviously. They were just asleep, and they were inactive in daily interaction with God. Oh, they might have a few sleepytime prayers, little Bible study once in a while, and Friday nights, but that's not part of their daily routines. Meditation in the way of God. Fasting once in a while to be brought close to God. Good traits. Active at being spiritually prepared. Even when they were sort of drifting, they were active. No, I have my lamp. I have my oil. The light's on. The light's on. The light is flickering. It's there. They're acting, growing, and spiritual virtues. They're still active. They're active in personal relationship with God. So they have three things too. Active at being spiritually prepared. Active at growing spiritual virtues. And active in a personal relationship with God. Next paragraph. And there's a lot we could go through here, but I'm just looking at this list of what can we do? And you're going to see, hey, I'm doing some of this. There's good things too. But what are the places where you need to grow? So, verse 14. For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. 20 gave five talents to another one, to each according to his own ability, and immediately he went on a journey.

So this is what God has done in your life. This is the point. This is part of all of that prophecy. You were alive when he comes back, which, well, we all are going to face that no matter when he comes back, because we're going to meet him in the air. So, talents here. This is in reality, the word that's used in Greek, it means money. They're given resources, life resources to use. And he comes back, and then he would receive, verse 16, the five talents went and traded them and made five talents. He who had two received two gained two more talents, but he would receive one went and dug it in the ground and hid his Lord's money. After a long time, the Lord comes back. Okay. So it seems like a long time goes on, and these three individuals are out there doing what God has given them to do, each within their own abilities, each with their own talents, their own gifts. Everyone here has gifts. Unfortunately, what we do is we look at other people's gifts and say, oh, that's the gift I want. Or that gift isn't important as my gift. Or what gifts do I have? If you want to know what your gifts are, go ask for them. Ask God. Excuse me. Give me opportunity to develop my gifts. Now you may find it's totally different when you think.

Your gift may be totally different what you think it is. And God says, no, no, no, here's the gift I've given you. Here's what I want you to do. But we all have gifts, which is the point of this. So, verse 20, see, he who had received five talents came and brought the five other talents, saying, Lord, you delivered me to five talents. I gave five more besides them. I now have 10. I have done with what you gave me and produced something. What you gave me, remember your talents aren't just because, oh, I'm superior because I have a talent. God gave you that talent. I don't care what the talent is. It comes from God because he can take it away. Right? He can take away a talent. You could be the greatest speaker in the world, and we could all have a new pastor come here. We're just shocked with this guy's so good. And God take his talent away. I didn't want to say me because I only take his little speaking talent. I have away. All right. And I want that to go because I know where it comes from. I just wasn't born to be a pastor. God develops you into doing that. You gotta know where it comes from.

Anyone, if you're a great singer or you're just one of those people who's really good at serving. And so you've been... I'll use Mr. Puckett as an example. Mr. Puckett sets up the sound system for how many years? And one day somebody comes in, and this guy's a genius, and we say, wow, Matt, let this guy run the sound system. And he goes, leaves the church, becomes a Hindu, because... why? They didn't recognize my talent.

Actually, he could use more help back there. He could use some more talents helping him from time to time. So the one comes in that has two, and he says, good, be a ruler over what I have. He says, good, you're going to be now with me in my kingdom.

And so then the one who would receive verse 24, the one who received one, came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. He said, I know you were a hard man, because you didn't give me land. I had to work in your field. See the issue here? You didn't give me what I deserved. I had to work with what you gave me, and I deserved more.

I was afraid, and I hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours. I was afraid. Part of the problem here is he did not believe God could work through him. We have two problems in life, and you'll probably go back and forth between these. One is an arrogance that says, oh God, can't help but use me.

The other is, God can't use me. Both of them are putting the focus on you and setting the focus on God. This is what God does. The other two understood that. Look, you gave me this, and it doubled. I spent my life doing what you wanted me to do, and I bring back double. This man just said, I knew you weren't fair. I knew you didn't give me what I wanted. I knew I would fail, but look what I did. I still have what you gave me.

But the Lord answered and said to him in verse 26, You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered. So you know that I own everything, right? And you were working for me, right? You do know that. You say you did, and it's true. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and am I coming? I would have received back my own with interest. He said, you could have done the minimal amount of work here, which was basically none. Go give it to a bank and produce something with what I gave you. You produce nothing. So he said, take the talent from him and give it to him who has 10 talents. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance. But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. Sometimes we can sell God short by looking at, well, I'm not much. I hope this isn't a big jolt to everybody, but collectively, we're not much. We really are. We're really not much. We are here because God puts us here. So we're all in the same boat here. We need to recognize that. We need to recognize that. And we can't say, I'm too little for God to work through. God can't convert me. I have heard people say that. God can't convert me. My sins are too great.

At that point, you're telling Jesus Christ, you're not powerful enough. Your blood isn't enough for me. Do you realize what you're telling God? You can't convert me. I have too many sins. You can't forgive me because I just feel so guilty for my sins. And God said, well, you should feel guilty for your sins. That's why you need salvation. That's why you need forgiven. Well, you can't forgive me. So what you're telling God is, I'm bigger than you. Let's just be honest. My sins are bigger than you. That's the type of thought this person has.

God isn't big enough to work with me.

That's a common belief, an emotional belief, at one point or another.

It's here in the Olivet prophecy.

What's even scarier, verse 30, cast the unprofitable servant to outer darkness, or there'll be weeping and ashing of teeth. Then you think, well, why is this so cruel? Ah. Because what he's saying is, look at the world.

That I wasn't even working with a lot of those people, and they could do good.

They even served me in little ways. You, on the other hand, I give you my spirit. I give you talents. I give you leadership in terms of what you're supposed to lead yourself to do the work of God. I give you all this, and you say, yeah, but God's not big enough to do that in me.

Besides, I wanted my own field, not the field He gave me.

I wanted my own land. I wanted my own job, not the job He gave me. I wanted to do this, not this. And He says, but you lost it all. She just said, thank you, Lord. Help me to be the best I could be with what you've given me. Because I do believe there's a lot of people in the church I've met over the years who are so converted that when you look at them, you know, they're no great leader in the church. They're not a speaker. They're not a song leader. They don't do a lot of service. I've known a lot of widows who just come to church. I've been doing so for 30 and 40 years, obeying God, being a good example that I believe will get a greater reward than I will.

Because their attitude is right. There's someone that God worked with their mind and their heart and they changed and they're remarkably converted people. That's what this is all about. This guy didn't get that. It's all about how many talents I have and how, you know, and I didn't get any. I didn't get any talent. So, hey, forget it. And what does the man say? But the talents were mine. I gave it to you. And that's the point. God gives it to you. So what do we have here? Another set.

In the bad trades, motivated by fear of failure, motivated by a wrong perspective of God, I knew you wanted me to plant your field. I wanted to plant my own field. No sense of personal responsibility. I'm not responsible for this. And they were lazy. The good trades, okay, the ones who did have God fulfill something in their lives, had a proper perspective of how God wants us to develop our abilities to serve Him and others. That life is just an exercise in serving God, serving Christ, and serving others. That's what this is. It doesn't matter if you're a billionaire. If you don't serve God and you don't serve others, your life is a failure. Motivated by a proper perception of God. Wow! Look what God has given me. Notice the what it received, a whole lot less talents. They weren't motivated. Well, God's going to really crush me when He comes back. Now, look what God gave me. And I'm good. God, please tell me I'm going to do this. They were just motivated to have God fulfill in them what God had given them. They saw their Christianity as positive that God was with them. They possessed a strong sense of personal responsibility. And because of that, they became a good steward of resources, whatever resources they had. Okay. The last then. And you know this one. You have this verse 31. And this really almost isn't a parable. I mean, it's said to be like a parable, but it's an actual statement of an event. When the Son of Man comes in His glory, okay, we're not talking about the, someone gives these individuals talents and all that, you know, this is exactly what we know when Christ comes back. Because what is the whole message? What is this part of? It's the all of that prophecy. So He brings it right into focus here. When Christ comes back, because if He does it, the world's going to destroy itself. Here's the people prepared. This is all about the people being prepared, who would be prepared and who wouldn't be prepared. When the Son of Man comes in His glory, all the holy angels with Him, He will sit on the throne of His glory. And the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. Now you know this parable. You separate them on the right hand and the left hand.

And what He says in verse 35, because He tells some of them, come into my kingdom. And He says, here's why. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. I was 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? When did we see you as a stranger and take you in or naked and clothe you? When were you, where were you sick or in prison or and came to you? And the King will answer and say to them, Surely I say to you, inasmuch as you have did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me. It's interesting that the other parables here are about a relationship with God and our relationship with how we treat each other in the church in terms of being in conflict and sin. We're just compromising with sin. This one centers in on the second of the great commandments. The second of the great commandments. He said, You spent your lives helping whoever was in front of you. Remember, and I mentioned this so many times, I've given sermons on it. The parable of the Good Samaritan wasn't how to be when he asked who is my neighbor, right? Who is my neighbor? He gave the parable and then said, So who was a good neighbor? Well, the Samaritan. So I'm not asked. So you're asking the wrong question. It's not about who is my neighbor. It's about how can I be a good neighbor? He actually flips the question on its head. In other words, he was in front of it. He helped him. As I've said before, we can't save the world. We can't fix every problem in the world. I can't fix every problem in Murfreesboro or Nashville. I can't fix every problem in my neighborhood.

I can't fix every problem in the church. I spend my life trying to.

But what's right in front of you, you do. That's how you're a good neighbor.

You do what's there. You can actually do something. You actually help somebody.

Because this is very interesting because you go through and he says, and those who he says, you can't come into my kingdom, are because you didn't do any of this. You never cared about anybody. You never helped anybody. So what do we do with these two traits? You know, this one's pretty simple. The bad, not interested, is to do simple service towards anybody in need. Well, maybe your family or your best friends.

Good trait, column. Concerned with the needs of the less fortunate.

You know, it does say in the New Testament, when you help other people begin with the household of God. If we're not taking care of each other, but we reach out to help everybody else, you're supposed to do the one first. Now, you're supposed to help other people, too.

But we're supposed to help each other first. This is where it begins. This is where we learn it. This is where we do it. And then it goes out to others. Because if we're doing it right, you won't be able to just naturally help others if we're doing it right among ourselves.

Well, that's quite a list, isn't it?

Well, you look at that list. I made the list. I hope you made the list, too.

This is all part of the Olivet prophecy. Verse 1 of chapter 26 says, Now it came to pass that Jesus had finished all these sayings that He said to His disciples, The Passover is coming.

He's telling them His time is coming. His time to be sacrificed is coming. This is how He ends what we see as the major sermon to the populace. The next major sermon He gives is a discussion with the disciples at the Passover about washing feet and all the, you know, the bread and the wine, all those things, that teaching. This is the last major sermon we see Him give to a crowd of people. And part of it is about this. He's answering the question about how will we know when you're coming back. Here's all these signs. But let me tell you something. You have to be ready.

Now, I know a sermon like this sometimes can seem a little bit, uh, you know, discouraging. Because guess what? If you made that list, it's like, Ooh, I got some bad traits. Of course you do. I do too. Of course we do. That's the whole point. We're supposed to take this and do self-analysis. I mean, I encourage you all. Let's do this. We can do this this week. Every day, look at this list. Pray over this list. Ask God to show you where you have, you're doing the good things and ask God to show you where you need to do the other things. You will see some good things and you will see some things that you need to work on. If you find one of these bad traits in your life, you say, Oh man, I have six of them. Okay, pick one. Pick one and make immediate plans to make changes. Well, how do I do that? You write it down on your list. What can I do over the next two weeks and you write two or three things and every day you check off whether you did it or not? You put it up on your mirror.

So you got to look at it. Oh, I didn't do that yesterday, but I'm going to do it today. You have to stay focused with prayer. We give up so easy because we have failure. Oh, you know, it's like a kid. Oh, I was supposed to brush my teeth three times yesterday and I only brushed it once. I didn't do it at all today. Oh, I'm giving up on this tooth brushing stuff, you know. I'm having a failure at it anyways. And then they wonder why 30 years later all their teeth fall out. It's those little things over and over and over again and that you keep at it. The point of these parables, all of them are you keep at it. You haven't arrived. None of us have arrived, but we're well on the journey and God has an abandoned one of you. He hasn't abandoned any of you.

He's still with you. He's still leading you. He still cares for you. You're still his child. And he keeps saying, go back and look at what you must be. Go back and look how we take this a step at a time. And today we'll do a little better. Today we'll do a little better.

There is a time when Christ is coming back.

And all those bad things of the all of that prophecy are going to happen. But that wasn't his main focus. It was on us. Here's what you must do to always be prepared for no matter when that time comes. And he gives all. There's actually another parable under we didn't go through. There's five parables in there. Let me tell you these stories. Go through these stories. Remember these stories. Study these stories and look at yourself in the context of these stories. Find out where you need to grow. Because there is a future. I mean, the all of that prophecy is about the future, but predominantly it's about the future God wants for you. It's not predominantly about the tribulation. That's only a handful of verses in this, in those two chapters. It's predominantly about, please my people, please my children, be prepared. It's a good way to be prepared. So Christ comes back, you will be changed, and you will meet Him. And as John says, we will see Him as He is.