Sermon Tone Analysis

RG Lee: “There was a prudent man who brushed his teeth twice a day, wore rubbers in wet weather, did his daily dozen, slept with windows open, was careful with his diet, had a medical examination twice a year, never smoked, drank or indulged in any kind of excess.

He was set to live to be one hundred years old.

Big Idea: Be alert - because you do not know when your Lord comes.

There was a prudent man who brushed his teeth twice a day, wore rubbers in wet weather, did his daily dozen, slept with windows open, was careful with his diet, had a medical examination twice a year, never smoked, drank or indulged in any kind of excess.

He was set to live to be one hundred years old.

The funeral was held last Wednesday.

He is survived by eighteen specialists, four health institutes, six gymnasiums and numerous manufacturers of health food and antiseptics.

He forgot to look out for a train at a crossing.”

Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc., 1996), 454.

What a metaphor of our society!

We are prepared for every minor detail, but the crisis cannot be tamed.

Benefit: Today, I am going to talk to you about being ready when the train comes.

Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc., 1996), 454.”

Big Idea: Be alert - because you do not know when your Lord comes.

We can know the season of history.

Explain: The fig tree is not a calendar, but it is an indicator of the season.

When the flowers start to bloom, you know it is spring.

When these things prophesied earlier in the chapter,

Illustrate: RG Lee train - when I hear the horn, I do not need to know the train schedule to get off the tracks!

Argue: We can see the “birth pangs” increasing.

We can see the evangelization of the world moving along.

We can see sin increasing as love grows cold.

(Fig tree =/= Israel)

Apply: Unique in Salvation History.

Christian, evangelism.

Raising family to be prepared for tribulation.

AMBC - fervor in reaching the lost.

Sharon.

We cannot know the day or hour of Christ’s return.

Explain: Everyone living their normal lives, until suddenly they don’t.

Death is always like this, but the final judgment will complete what that foreshadows.

A sharp division.

You can’t wait to get on the right side, because you do not know how long you have.

They seem the same on the outside, but are not.

One is taken in judgment and the other is left to enter the Kingdom.

Luke says two in one bed: one taken and the other left.

Illustrate: None, the passage illustrates itself.

Argue: Not talking about the rapture, taken is compared to being taken in the flood.

Apply: If you knew someone was going to break into your house tonight, would you stay up?

You know this world is going to be entered and broken up - so stay alert!

Other gospels tell us that even Jesus did not have this knowledge in His earthly ministry.

He humbled himself, not availing himself of the full privileges of deity.

Even as He was not omnipresent because He took a body, He did not access His omniscience.

Christian: Do not let the normal distract you from the extraordinary!

Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

Explain: True servant, or not?

Illustrate: Parents coming home.

Philip Slater: The Pursuit of Loneliness, “toilet assumption.”

Argue: People have been saying this for so long.

But that is part of the point.

That false sense of security separates the true from the false.

This is similar to the wheat and the tares, or Judas.

Apply: Are you ready?

Non-Christian, salvation.

No matter what anyone thinks when people are looking.

Christian, will you be ashamed of where you are and what you are doing?

We are responsible for being ready.