“Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour
you do not expect.” Jesus– Luke 12:40
“Do you think Jesus Christ will return today? I mean really… really, do you think He will return on this very day?” The godly Scottish preacher, Robert Murray McCheyne, would very frequently ask people that very question. The response was nearly always, “Well no, not today.” Then McCheyne would say, “Then my friend, you had better be ready; for He is coming at such an hour you think not” (Luke 12:40).
Death is a fact of life. Our only escape from physical death is to be alive when the Lord Jesus Christ returns for us. As I often state, it is my hunch that we who are alive now, just might be that generation which does not “taste death.” The Bible is quite clear that death is not an accident; it is an appointment. Consider what the Bible says from Hebrews 9:27:
“It is appointed for men to die once, but after this is judgment.”
Our attention is drawn to the word “appointed.” It gives great comfort to the believer, that David wrote in Psalm 31:15: “My times are in Your hand.”
Warren Wiersbe writes of a quaint inscription on a gravestone in an old British cemetery not far from Windsor Castle. The marker reads:
Pause my friend, as you walk by;
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, so you will be.
Prepare my friend, to follow me!
A contemplative visitor, lacking not boldness, attached a finely penned card which added to the epitaph the following:
To follow you is not my intent,
Until I know which way you went!
Considering what Paul writes in his first letter to the Thessalonians: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.” Tremendous is this assurance and hope, because of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus and His promised return, that we Christians possess. Do you have that hope and certainty today? Do you know where your eternity lies and why? Are you ready for His return? This could be the day!
Maranatha!