5/2/18 – Job 35, Job 36, Job 37 Matthew 24:1-31 Proverbs 4:1-9

Matt 24:30-31

Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

He’s coming back! He will return! No matter how bad things look or even get, we know there is coming a day where Christ will return. Not as He did first time, humbly and quietly – but with power and great glory! Every eye will see Him, every knee will have to bow. The scoffers will be silenced and the proud will be brought low.

Some days we need to remember – we are on the winning side! He are a kingdom waiting for it’s King. And His rule will be establish throughout the whole earth – everlasting!

If life gets hard – if the world seems bleak… remember…He’s coming back!

Matt 24:36

“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son,b but the Father only.

The church has been expectant for 2000 years. That’s right and good – and as we will see this morning a healthy way to live. What is not healthy – is setting dates. It’s easy to get prophecy fixation – to get obsessed with theories and working out the dates – and there comes a point where we can get so into that stuff we miss the point.

Look, there’s no hidden code in the bible with the date in it.

Jesus said – the angels don’t’ know the date, Jesus himself on earth did not know the date. Satan does not know the date. Only the father does.

And if there was a hidden clue, Satan, who knows scripture very well, would have worked it out by now – Jesus, who knew scripture so well would also have known the date.

It’s not hidden. It’s not been revealed. Only the father knows.

We see through a glass darkly – we cannot see the whole picture.

Just decades after Jesus ascended – people were asking why He was taking so long to come back.

But God is not operating on your schedule – Peter explains one day is as a thousand years with the Lord.

Now initially that sounds like an excuse… but Peter wants us to understand something about The Lord’s character.

Peter says He is not slow like we count slowness. His slowness represents His patience.

He loves us. He doesn’t want us to perish. He wants to give everyone a chance.

God would rather your life was holy than your theories correct.

Live in holy behaviour and godliness.

Wait for His coming – be ready for His coming.

Expect him to come. Be ready.

But the focus on being ready isn’t knowing everything that is to come (because nobody knows in full) – the focus is living a holy life – to be without blemish and to hasten His return by spreading the Gospel.

Prov 4:7

The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,

and whatever you get, get insight.

How do you get wisdom? You just get wisdom. It seems a little obvious, but to seek it is to find it. To desire it is to obtain it. The trouble is, wisdom isn’t often what we are looking for. Sometimes we seek proof that we are correct – that’s not the same as Wisdom, because wisdom admits when you are wrong. Sometimes we seek knowledge, but that’s not the same as wisdom. Some very knowledgable people are huge fools.

The begging of wisdom – get wisdom. Look for the right thing and you’ll find it.