Oak Cliff Baptist Church

In times like these we need the Bible. We need a personal relationship with God and His word. We need to be grateful for those who've gone before us to leave a heritage of faith for those who come after us.

What does the Bible say about the return of Christ- Three things are certain- We should expect His return at any time. It will be horrific for those unprepared. Believers should live holy lives with joyful anticipation of Him.

Do you know that you are ready for eternity- Are you certain you are ready to face the judgment of God- Not everyone who thinks that he or she is a Christian is actually born again. And so, in these verses, God calls you to be ready for His coming. He calls you to be born again.

As a follower of Chirst, do you know what the infrastructure is that holds up your faith and salvation- We being walking through the infrastructure that forms the strong foundation of the Christian life, and we begin with Scripture, the Word of God. God gives us Scripture as a foundation to grow us from spiritual children to full-grown men and women of God.

How exactly are we to prepare for the return of Christ- How are we to get ready and stay ready for His return- He says to stay awake, to be alert, to be ready. How do we do that- That's what Jesus is telling us in these verses. God shows us how to be ready for the return of Christ.

God makes a promise to us on the basis of His love whereby we are called children of God.

Asa was faithful to the Lord. When he faced an impossible situation, he found that the Lord was faithful to him.

Christ's return is a certainty. What is uncertain is the timing of it. When will it happen- In this passage in Matthew 24- God commands believers to be ready at all times for the return of Christ. No one knows when it will happen, so Jesus says to us that we have to be ready all the time.

In these verses, God declares to you and me the certainty of Christ's return. He wants you to know this so that you will be confident and so that you will be comforted. Our Lord lets us know about His return because He does not want you to be shaken or led astray by all the scoffers-the unbelievers and false teachers-that we encounter every day. The Lord Jesus doesn't want you to be confused by all of the chaos going on in the world around you today, so He tells you that there is no way you will miss His coming-it won't happen in secret. The Lord Jesus DOES want you to know that those of us who are alive at His coming will see the signs that the time is drawing near and we will be encouraged and our hope will be strengthened.

Knowing that our Lord Jesus Christ is both human and divine is vital to the gospel. It is a truth that you and I must believe. If we fail to understand that Jesus is Lord because He is God- if we fail to understand that was able to keep the whole law on our behalf because He is God in the flesh- if we fail to understand that our Lord was able to live a sinless life in order to meet God the Father's requirement for the only acceptable sacrifice for our sin, and He was able to do so because He is God, then you cannot understand the gospel of salvation. It is because Jesus is both fully human and fully God that you and I can call upon Him for the forgiveness of our sins and for the gift of eternal life.

God prepares us for the overwhelming greatness and glory of Christ's return. He wants you and me to know what is going to happen, that this amazing text, verses 29-31, has not yet been fulfilled in its literal sense, but that it will be. And when it is fulfilled, there will be no question, no debate, no confusion, because Christ will come, the heavens will be shaken, the unrighteous will know that judgment has come upon them, and those of us who are believers will experience rapture or resurrection from the dead. Our Lord is instructing and preparing us for the coming of this event.

In these verses, God gives a clear warning that anyone who rejects Christ will be left with nothing in the end. This warning was given to the Jewish leaders, to the Jews who followed them, to the entire Jewish system which was officially rejecting Christ, and ultimately it is given to us today.

There is a truth in this passage that is for every person no matter who you are or where you live or when you live. With all of the events and descriptions that Jesus gives us of His return, and with all of the questions that we may have about the events leading up to it, one overarching truth stands out in this passage- God declares that when Christ returns, everyone will know it.

In these verses, God tells us how He wants us to face the end of the age. Jesus was giving us an overview or a summary of what would come first leading up to the end of the age, but He wanted His disciples - all of us - to know how to live, how to face all of the things that will happen - that have happened and that are yet to happen.

Believers must not participate in evil, but must also expose evil. We must rightly expose evil in our own lives, in the church, in our nation, and in the world.

We have the very same pride in our hearts the Pharisees did that puts on pretenses in order to cover up our own unbelief, or our belief in the wrong things. God condemns prideful pretense that hides false spirituality.

The message of this text is not complicated- God condemns all who are religious on the outside but who are in rebellion on the inside. He condemns that kind of duplicity that puts on a religious mask, pretending to be spiritually healthy in public, but whose attitudes and actions in private are continuously and egregiously sinful. The word for such duplicity is -hypocrisy.-

Through this amazing record of God's announcement to Mary of the coming virgin birth of the Lord Jesus, God declares the impossible. And God calls you and me to trust Him to do the impossible regarding our salvation.

The message of our Lord in these verses is really very simple- God calls all people to integrity and truthfulness at all times. And if anyone should be truthful and an example of honoring one's word, it should be believers.

God warns us of the great danger of inverting His priorities for our lives. He warns us of majoring on the minor things while neglecting the truly major and most important things in His word.

In these verses, our Lord declares that believers are to follow Him in such a manner that we would not be led astray by false leaders in the church, but rather, that we would be able to discern those who ungodly leaders and those who are true and godly. God shows us the way to do this in this passage. It is not all that difficult to spot those who are false. In these verses, God calls us to devotion to Christ and His word which discerns dangerous leaders.

In this passage, God condemns hypocritical spiritual leaders who lead people away from the gospel. He uses the word -hypocrite- over and over for such leaders. You and I today must understand that condemnation does not apply only to those Scribes and Pharisees to whom Jesus was speaking in the temple that day, but it applies to any spiritual leader today who is guilty of the same kinds of ungodly behavior.

Sometimes we encounter doctrines in God's word that are controversial or difficult to understand. The doctrine of election is such a doctrine. It is found, though, throughout the Scriptures. It is not an obscure doctrine. While many people may object to the doctrine, Jesus Himself makes it very clear that God works through the general call to faith in Christ in order to extend His effectual call to His chosen ones.

As our Lord speaks to the crowds and to these Jewish leaders, He is also speaking to you and me today. In these verses, God warns that everyone who rejects the Lord Jesus Christ will be rejected by Him. The message of God's judgement and wrath is definitely an unpopular one today, but these are the words of the Lord Jesus Himself as He describes in a most picturesque way that any one of us who rejects the Father and His Son will also be rejected by Him forever.

In this passage, God warns that everyone who rejects the Lord Jesus Christ will be destroyed by His judgment. That's a pretty heavy message, but it is indeed what Jesus was saying to the Jews 2,000 years ago, and it is the meaning of the parable and the verses that follow as they concern you and me today.

Jesus told the people a parable. The parable had a very simple point then and it has the same simple point today- God declares that obedience to His word is a fruit of genuine faith and salvation.

The Jewish leaders were challenging the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. They had clearly rejected His authority and were only concerned with their own. Where you and I are concerned, this passage has a very simple message- God calls us to submit to His authority over our lives.

God calls us to true religion that calls on Him by faith through prayer. Our Lord is describing true religion, real religion, authentic religion. And authentic religion is a relationship with the Father through faith in Christ that is characterized by constant, faith-filled prayer.

In these two verse, God condemns empty, fruitless religion. Sometimes, we refer to superficial Christianity as -religiosity.- It is the appearance of spiritual life when there actually is no spiritual life. That was one of the problems with Israel in Jesus' day and it is one of the problems we are facing in the church today.

There is One and only One who has the authority to be our true King. He is the only One who is truly sovereign and in control. In these verses, God declares the sovereign Lordship of our Savior, Jesus Christ.