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Burglary
I wonder if you’ve ever been
burgled? It happened to us a couple of years ago, while we were on
holiday visiting our daughter in America. They broke the glass in
the patio doors and searched through the bedrooms for the things they
wanted – jewellery mainly. There wasn’t much top take, we don’t
have a lot of those sorts of things and anyway the value isn’t in
the gold and silver, but in the meaning those pieces hold. If I’d
known when they were coming, I’d have booked the holiday for a
different time. But that’s the point, isn’t it, I can’t know
when they’re coming because they wouldn’t come while they knew we
were about.
On that first evening after we had
seen the state of the house I did not sleep very well, I was thinking
about how I could have better protected the house. Here are some of
my ideas:
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CCTV – no, it can be hacked, and then they will definitely know we are not there
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Put the valuable in a safe under the floor – our house is built on a concrete plinth and does not have traditional foundations.
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Put deadlocks on all the internal doors and find somewhere to hide the keys – because they’re too heavy to carry around
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Have a burglary alarm with strobe lights, so it’s hard to see what there is in the house
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Put shutters on the doors that drop into place and lock into the floor, trapping any burglar in the room.
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Electrify door handles.
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Have a vat of boiling oil at the top of the stairs, finely balanced, so that any vibration on the stairs tips it over.
OK, some of those are a bit extreme,
and also quite illegal, but that’s where my mind goes when
something like that happens.
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Be ready
The point is to be ready – to be
prepared. Had I been adequately prepared? I don’t know, maybe
not. We are better prepared now, I can’t divulge which of the
solutions I listed earlier we have adopted.
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Servants
In both the short parables that we
heard this morning Jesus is telling his disciples to be ready.
Servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet
might have had a long wait. Weddings would often last for days with
long journeys to take to get there and back again. So they would
have to be dressed and ready for service, with their lamps burning
for maybe five whole days. Then look how the master responds. He
then takes the role of the servant, and serves His servants.
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Thief
First, Jesus has described himself as
the master – a natural description perhaps, but now he has likened
Himself to a thief. The contrast is there to underline His point.
There are many things you need to be ready for. Especially the
return of the Son of Man.
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The return
The son of man will come at an hour
when you do not expect him. Even Jesus does not know the time of His
return, we read in Mark 13:32:
“But
about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven,
nor the Son, but only the Father.”
So the timing of the return cannot be
known. Therefore, anyone who tells you that Jesus will return at a
particular time is wrong, so is anyone who claims to be Jesus
returned. In Luke 17:22-24, Jesus says to his disciples:
“The days are coming when you will
long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see
it. They will say to you, ‘Look there!’ or ‘Look here!’ Do
not go, do not set off in pursuit. For as the lightning flashes and
lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man
be in his day.”
There are unmistakeable signs that
accompany the second coming, but by then, if you are not ready, it is
too late.
It’s like the four-minute warning –
do you remember that? It was a warning system based on WWII sirens
and radio and TV broadcasts, and was supposed to tell you that a
nuclear war had started. A booklet called “Protect and Survive”
was distributed that gave tips on how to survive. Most people thought
the booklet was pointless as they expected to die anyway, if it ever
happened. My point is that four minutes is not enough to achieve
anything useful, if you hadn’t read the book and taken some action,
there was no time now. That’s how it will be when Jesus returns.
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Our Booklet
We, too, have a booklet (more a set
of books really) that tells us how to survive either the second
coming, or the coming judgement. The requirements are the same.
Here are some of the things it says. This is what it means to be
watchful:
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Spiritual
In spiritual terms we need to check
that our prayer life is regular and focussed. Throughout Luke’s
gospel there are reports of Jesus withdrawing to pray. Any big
decisions that we make should be covered with even more prayer.
Jesus spent a whole night in prayer before he chose His disciples.
Do we withdraw from the world to a place of solitude and spend time
listening to our father in Heaven? Do we do it regularly and
frequently?
We need to know the scriptures and to
understand them as best we can. Do we spend time looking at the
Bible and studying what it means? Do we spend time understanding how
to use that information today?
We need to spend regular time
worshipping God. Do we attend worship regularly? Is worship
something we choose above other activities that occur at the same
time? Is it our priority?
Do we spend time with our brothers
and sisters in Christ, offering our support in their times of need?
Do we spend time developing our friendships? Do we spend time with
those we live among, offering them our support and the consolation and
hope of the gospel?
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Physical
From a physical point of view what
obstacles exist to our life in Christ. Is there any laziness, or any procrastination, that prevents us from being fully engaged? Are there
any lustful desires, or physical sins that divert us from the Father
and drag us back into the world. Have we identified people that we
can talk to and be accountable to, who will help us overcome these
deficiencies?
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Christianity is a fight
Paul advised Timothy to “Fight the
good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you
were called and for which you made the good confession in the
presence of many witnesses.”
The Christian life is a fight against
the onslaught of hell.
Paul ended his letter to the
Ephesians with the following:
“10 Finally, be strong in the Lord
and in the strength of his power. 11 Put on the whole armour of God,
so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12
For our struggle is not against the enemies of blood and flesh, but
against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic
powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil
in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armour of God,
so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having
done everything, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, and fasten the
belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of
righteousness. 15 As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make
you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. 16 With all of these, take
the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the
flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation, and
the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18 Pray in the Spirit at all times in
every prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert and always
persevere in supplication for all the saints. 19 Pray also for me, so
that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with
boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador
in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.
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To be watchful
To be watchful is to see the evils of
the day – the evils within ourselves and the evils in the surrounding society. To be good servants is to understand what we can do and
when we can do it within the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We must
always be prepared and ready to act, continually listening to the
guidance of the Holy Spirit within us.
The
Christian life is a fight. If you conquer, you will be clothed
like them in white robes, and I will not blot your name out of the
book of life; I will confess your name before my Father and before
his angels.
Amen.
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