CHAPTER 10

WAKE UP

Let us be alert to the season in which we are living. It is the season of the Blessed Hope. . . . It is imperative that we stay fully alert to the times in which we live. . . . All signs today point to this being the season of the Blessed Hope. . . . All around us, we have the evidence of Jesus’ soon return. Each day our focus should be on the Coming One. Our focus on the Blessed Hope is the most important discipline of our Christian life.

A. W. TOZER

POLLING REVEALS THAT MOST AMERICAN EVANGELICALS have a sense that the end times are upon us. The Religion News Service reported that according to a 2013 poll, “41% of all U.S. adults, 54% of Protestants and 77% of Evangelicals believe the world is now living in the biblical end times.”[136]

Polls have also found that

Further, “research conducted by the Brookings Institute’s Center for Middle East Policy on Americans’ attitudes toward the Middle East and Israel found that 79 percent of Evangelicals say they believe ‘that the unfolding violence across the Middle East is a sign that the end times are nearer.’”[138] These statistics reveal that people everywhere, and especially evangelicals, believe history is winding down —that the world is getting near closing time.

As a result, some Christians are overly focused on Christ’s return. It’s all they think about. They’re preoccupied with prophecy. This leads to all kinds of unhealthy speculation such as recklessly setting dates for Christ’s return, spending countless hours “prepping” for the apocalypse, trying to figure out the identity of the Antichrist and the meaning of 666, and seeing every flood, earthquake, eclipse, or hurricane as a significant sign of the times.

The majority of believers, however, seem to lean toward the other extreme with at best a tepid interest in Jesus’ coming. These sluggish, slumbering saints are hitting the snooze button rather than waking up and watching for Jesus’ coming.

In his teaching about the end of days, Jesus presents a balance between these two extremes we see today —between the alarmists and the apathetic. Jesus calls on his followers to be awake and alert.

LAST-DAYS LIVING

Jesus talked often about the future. He may have talked about the future more than any person who ever lived. In the New Testament, “Jesus refers to His second coming 21 times, and over 50 times we are told to be ready for His return.”[139] Jesus wasn’t preoccupied with the end times in an unbalanced way. He always talked about the future to change the way people live in the present.

The call to readiness dominated the teaching of Jesus, especially in the final days of his life on earth. Time and again, he emphasized that his followers must keep watching and stay alert. In his great prophetic sermon in Mark 13, delivered just days before he died on the cross, Jesus gives the basic blueprint or outline of the events that will immediately precede his coming. This sermon, often called the Olivet Discourse since it was given by Jesus on the Mount of Olives just to the east of Jerusalem, is also recorded in Matthew 24–25 and Luke 21.

In this sermon, Jesus provides a litany of signs that will portend his return to earth. Jesus clearly teaches about signs of the times. He says that the generation that sees these signs will witness his second coming to earth (see Mark 13:30). However, this sermon is much more than a list of signs of the times. Jesus highlights how his followers are to live in light of his coming.

He says, “You, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into. You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected” (Matthew 24:42-44, emphasis added).

The parable of the ten bridesmaids should reverberate in our hearts with a call to readiness:

The Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. The five who were foolish didn’t take enough olive oil for their lamps, but the other five were wise enough to take along extra oil. When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

At midnight they were roused by the shout, “Look, the bridegroom is coming! Come out and meet him!”

All the bridesmaids got up and prepared their lamps. Then the five foolish ones asked the others, “Please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.”

But the others replied, “We don’t have enough for all of us. Go to a shop and buy some for yourselves.”

But while they were gone to buy oil, the bridegroom came. Then those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was locked. Later, when the other five bridesmaids returned, they stood outside, calling, “Lord! Lord! Open the door for us!”

But he called back, “Believe me, I don’t know you!”

So you, too, must keep watch! For you do not know the day or hour of my return.

MATTHEW 25:1-13

Notice all the bridesmaids fall asleep, but five are ready and five are not. Jesus’ point is simple: only those who are ready and prepared will enter his Kingdom.

In Mark’s account of Jesus’ sermon, he closes with a clear call to spiritual alertness. As you read these words, notice the repeated use of “watch” and “stay alert.”

Now learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branches bud and its leaves begin to sprout, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see all these things taking place, you can know that his return is very near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass from the scene before all these things take place. Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear.

However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows. And since you don’t know when that time will come, be on guard! Stay alert!

The coming of the Son of Man can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. When he left home, he gave each of his slaves instructions about the work they were to do, and he told the gatekeeper to watch for his return. You, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know when the master of the household will return —in the evening, at midnight, before dawn, or at daybreak. Don’t let him find you sleeping when he arrives without warning. I say to you what I say to everyone: Watch for him!

MARK 13:28-37, EMPHASIS ADDED

Jesus refers to the four watches of the night according to Roman reckoning: evening, midnight, before dawn (“cockcrow”), and daybreak. He emphasizes that he can come at any time.[140] Vigilance is required.

The apostles followed Jesus’ lead and issued the call to readiness to their generation. Their words are a much-needed wake-up call:

This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here.

ROMANS 13:11-12

They speak of how you are looking forward to the coming of God’s Son from heaven —Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. He is the one who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming judgment.

1 THESSALONIANS 1:10

Be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded.

1 THESSALONIANS 5:6

Look, I will come as unexpectedly as a thief! Blessed are all who are watching for me, who keep their clothing ready so they will not have to walk around naked and ashamed.

REVELATION 16:15

The reference in that final verse to having clothes stripped off and walking around naked may be an allusion to what happened to guards in that day who fell asleep. Their punishment was having their clothes stripped off and burned and being sent home naked and in disgrace.[141]

The message is clear: those waiting for Christ to come must fight spiritual drowsiness.

I like the story of the college professor who would walk into the lecture hall each morning and place a tennis ball on the corner of his podium. The tennis ball didn’t seem to have any purpose —at the end of the lecture, the professor would put it back in his jacket pocket and leave. The students wondered why he did this but were never quite sure —until a student fell asleep in class. The professor walked over to the podium and, without any change in his intonation or notes, picked up the tennis ball and fired it at the sleeping student, scoring a direct hit on his head.

At class the following day, the professor placed a baseball on the podium. The entire class was wide awake from then on.[142]

The words of Jesus should serve as a tennis ball to the head for those of us who are drowsy and dozing in these last days. With all that’s going on in our world today, we have every reason to be awake and alert. In these last days, Jesus should have our rapt attention.

AWAKE AND ALERT

I hope you’re convinced that Jesus is coming, that he could come at any time, and that you need to be watchful and alert. John MacArthur tells a great story that underscores this truth:

Jesus is telling you, “I’m coming, I’m coming.” I remember a preacher was preaching on the second coming. And he was one of those guys who believed that you shouldn’t have any notes, you ought to preach strictly off your head. And he forgot his point. All he could remember was, “Behold, I come quickly; behold, I come quickly.” And it should have jogged his mind, so he said it about five times and nothing happened. The final time he thought, “If I hit the pulpit real hard and say, ‘Behold, I come quickly,’ maybe something will jar loose and I’ll remember.” Instead he knocked the pulpit over and fell in the lap of a lady in the first row. And he apologized. She said, “Why are you apologizing? You warned me eight times you were coming.” She got the point.[143]

I hope we get the point. Jesus places high value on his followers being awake and alert. The Rapture is possible any day, impossible no day. In light of the imminence of Christ’s coming, the key issue that should grab our hearts is being alert and awake. That’s what Jesus repeated over and over.

So, what does it look like for a believer today to be watchful and alert?

What It Doesn’t Mean

One thing we know “watching” doesn’t mean is setting dates for Christ’s coming.

Jesus clearly says, “No one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows. And since you don’t know when that time will come, be on guard! Stay alert!” (Mark 13:32-33). The two parables Jesus employs, the fig tree and the gatekeeper, further demonstrate that no one can know the exact time of the Master’s return (see Mark 13:28-29, 34).

Speculating about the precise moment of Jesus’ return is not part of faithful preparation. For any person to claim to know what even Jesus did not know during his sojourn on earth is the height of arrogance and folly. The litany of signs in Mark 13 demonstrates that followers of Jesus can know the general season of Christ’s return —otherwise they wouldn’t be signs. Nevertheless, Jesus says no one on earth can know the time of his coming. The issue for faithful disciples is not calendars and clocks but commitment. Never listen to anyone who claims to know the time of Jesus’ coming. Whenever someone sets a date for Christ’s coming, you can be sure that’s not the date.

Second, waiting for Christ is not passive, like waiting at a bus stop for the bus to show up. Waiting and watching for Jesus is active. Mark 13 contains nineteen specific imperatives or commands from Jesus. This should let us know that being awake and alert for his coming requires action.

Moreover, the parable Jesus gives in Mark 13:34 depicts a man going away on a journey and assigning various tasks for his servants while he’s away. This parable instructs us that watching for Jesus is not just sitting around passively waiting; rather, it involves keeping the house ready for his arrival. The beds must be made, the floors must be swept, and the garden must be tended. Watching is more than just waiting, looking up into the heavens every day.

There’s a story I’ve told before about a bunch of sailors returning from a long voyage at sea. As the boat approached shore the men were all looking for their wives and girlfriends on the shore, eager to see them. As the men searched the crowd of women lined up, the air of excitement and expectancy grew. One sailor, however, was left all alone as all the other men found their wives and girlfriends. His wife wasn’t there.

Worried, he rushed home and found a light on. He was relieved to see his wife when he went inside. She said, “Honey, I’m so glad to see you. I’ve been waiting for you!” His response displayed his disappointment. “The other men’s wives and girlfriends were watching for them!”

Likewise, Jesus doesn’t call us to be passive waiters but to be active, engaged watchers.

What It Does Mean

Jesus emphasizes at least three main actions that fill in for us what it looks like to be alert and awake in the last days. The first is protection. We must stand strong in the truth and guard our lives from spiritual deception. The sermon in Mark 13 begins with these words from Jesus: “See to it that no one misleads you” (NASB). He later adds the warnings “Be on your guard” and “Take heed” (verses 9, 23, NASB). The repeated warnings are clear that we must be on guard against false teaching that will proliferate as Christ’s coming draws near.

Referring to the parable of the gatekeeper in Mark 13:34, Ray Stedman says:

Now, what is he to watch for? Is he to watch for the master’s return? That is the way this is usually interpreted. But that is not it, for he is to start watching as soon as the master leaves. They know he will not be back right away. What then is he to watch for? He is to watch lest somebody deceive them and gain entrance into the house, and wreck and ruin and rob all they have. . . . Don’t let anything derail you from being what God wants you to be in this day and age. This is the way you watch. We are not to be looking up into the sky all the time, waiting for his coming. That will happen when he is ready. We are to watch that we are not deceived.[144]

Alertness involves protection. And what is the best defense against the false teaching and deception that will proliferate in the end times? Knowing the truth of God contained in the Bible. Staying awake and alert means we must read, study, and apply the Bible for ourselves and also regularly listen to gospel-centered, biblical preaching at a local church. Charles Swindoll says, “In this age of darkness, we can’t afford to doze off spiritually. We need to stay awake. We need to keep our eyes open and our Bibles open, avoiding dangerous deception.”[145]

Second, spiritual alertness includes preparation. We can’t be ready and alert if we’re unprepared. Mark’s Gospel gives us an important clue about what it means to be prepared for Christ’s coming. Mark uses a literary device known as an inclusio to make his point. An inclusio consists of similar material placed before and after a specific text that serves to bracket, bookend, or frame the text, emphasizing what is most important in the section in between the bookends.

Mark 13 is strategically bracketed by two accounts of “unnamed women who are the epitomes of faithfulness, demonstrating incredible loyalty and devotion to God.”[146] The preceding bookend is the poor widow in Mark 12:42-44, who gives everything she has to the Lord. She’s the gold-medal giver in the Bible. The following bookend is an unnamed woman who anoints Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume (see Mark 14:1-9). Her sacrifice is “profuse, pure, and precious.”[147] By bookending chapter 13 with these two stories, Mark gives clear examples of the lavish sacrifice and devotion that characterize preparedness. Being prepared for the Lord’s return includes liberally sacrificing our time, money, talents, and energy to serve the Lord’s interests and to help others.

How prepared is your life for the coming of Christ? Are you awake, alert, active, and attentive, using what you’ve been given in the Lord’s service? Or are you dull and drowsy?

Steven Cole relates this personal story about always being prepared:

I once worked at the swanky Drake Hotel in Chicago. Years before I was there, in July of 1959, Queen Elizabeth was scheduled to visit Chicago. Elaborate preparations were made for her visit. The waterfront was readied for docking her ship. Litter baskets were painted and a red carpet was ready to be rolled out for her to walk on. Many hotels were alerted to be ready. But when they contacted the Drake, the manager said, “We are making no plans for the Queen. Our rooms are always ready for royalty.”[148]

Make sure your life is always ready for royalty. Live each day alert and prepared by laboring and living sacrificially for our coming King as we await his arrival.

I like a story I’ve heard about preacher Warren Wiersbe. As the story goes, when he was a young preacher, his account of end-times prophecy was meticulously crafted and left little margin for guesswork. After one service where he laid out his account, a member of the congregation approached him and said, “I used to have the Lord’s return planned out to the last detail, but years ago I moved from the planning committee to the welcoming committee.”[149]

Wiersbe explains, “This does not mean that we should stop studying prophecy, or that every opposing viewpoint is correct, which is an impossibility. But it does mean that, whatever views we hold, they ought to make a difference in our lives.”[150] The focus of end-times prophecy is not to build a calendar but to change our lives in preparation for our Lord’s coming.

The third aspect of our alertness for last-days living is proclamation. In Mark 13:10, Jesus says, “The Good News must first be preached to all nations.” Jesus is saying that before he comes again, all the world must hear the gospel. This doesn’t have to be fulfilled before Jesus comes for his bride at the Rapture, but it must happen before Jesus can return to earth at the end of the future time of tribulation.

Part of our marching orders for last-days living is faithfully proclaiming the gospel (see Matthew 28:18-20). How can we legitimately claim to be awake and alert and at the same time be oblivious to the perishing world around us? Watching and witnessing go together. We can’t get so caught up in our own ambitions and pursuits that we turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to those around us who don’t know Jesus. Neither can we get so caught up in the details of the end times that we lose sight of the spiritual needs that surround us. As my friend Randall Price says,

What good is it to be able to understand the seven heads described in Revelation 13:1 if we don’t use our own head? Or what profit is it to discern the ten toes of Daniel 2 . . . if we don’t move our own two feet? And what value is it to know about the great mouth that speaks lies (Daniel 7:8; Revelation 13:5), unless we open our own mouth and speak the truth? In every generation where prophecy has been properly proclaimed, the results have been a harvest of souls to the glory of God.[151]

We need to ask the Lord every day to give us opportunities to be witnesses for him. He wants to use us more than we want to be used.

The famed evangelist D. L. Moody had many positive practices in his life, but one is especially worth attempting to emulate. Moody committed to share the gospel with someone every day. He didn’t want a day to go by without telling someone about Jesus. R. A. Torrey, a close friend of Moody, tells this story:

Mr. Moody got home and had gone to bed before it occurred to him that he had not spoken to a soul that day about accepting Christ. “Well,” he said to himself, “it is no good getting up now; there will be nobody on the street at this hour of the night.” But he got up, dressed and went to the front door. It was pouring rain. “Oh,” he said, “there will be no one out in this pouring rain.” Just then he heard the patter of a man’s feet as he came down the street, holding an umbrella over his head. Then Mr. Moody darted out and rushed up to the man and said: “May I share the shelter of your umbrella?” “Certainly,” the man replied. Then Mr. Moody said: “Have you any shelter in the time of storm?” and preached Jesus to him.[152]

May God help us to have at least something of Moody’s heart for the lost as this age draws to a close. Alertness includes being on the lookout every day for those around us who haven’t found spiritual refuge in Jesus from the coming storm.

Let’s not fall asleep on the job.

I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW

I had to get glasses in sixth grade to correct my bad nearsightedness. A couple of years later I was able to get contact lenses and lose the obnoxious glasses (this was back before glasses were fashionable). Hard contact lenses have been an integral part of my life since then.

Everything was fine until my early forties, when my close-up vision started to get fuzzy. Reading almost anything became a chore. I refused to surrender to the problem because I thought my only option was to get reading glasses or bifocals. But the frustration finally drove me to get help. To my surprise, my optometrist told me about another option called monovision. With monovision the dominant eye is corrected to 20/20 for distance while the other eye is corrected for near vision. It took about a week for my brain to adjust to the new situation, but since then it has been fantastic. I can see 20/20 far away and clearly up close —with no glasses.

Watching for the coming of Jesus is like spiritual monovision. We’re to always be watching the horizon for his coming with one eye, anticipating his return, yet at the same time seeing plainly what’s up close that needs our attention as we live our daily lives. Jesus knows we need both lenses to live a balanced life.

Spiritually, if all we have is distance vision we miss the up-close obligations and opportunities of everyday life, but if all we have is near vision, we lose perspective and life gets fuzzy and out of focus. We need both. Jesus wants us watching and working —awake and active.

ULTIMATE SURVIVOR

The bestselling book Unbroken captured the world’s attention as it chronicled the survival of Louis Zamperini for forty-seven days stranded in a rubber raft after his B-24 malfunctioned and was ditched in the Pacific during World War II. One man didn’t survive the ordeal, but Zamperini and the pilot were finally retrieved by Japanese sailors and endured more than two harrowing years in a Japanese POW camp, where he was the object of vicious brutality by a guard nicknamed “The Bird.”

After the war ended in 1945, Zamperini returned home but found no peace. Rage, shame, violent flashbacks, and constant nightmares consumed him. Zamperini had survived physically but was dead spiritually.

With his drinking out of control, both Zamperini and his new marriage were falling apart. In October 1949, Zamperini was desperate, so he went to hear Billy Graham preach in Los Angeles and received Christ as his Savior. He found peace for the first time in his life. In his book Devil at My Heels, he tells about the beginning of his spiritual survival:

[I] asked Jesus to come into my life. I waited. And then, true to His promise, He came into my heart and my life. The moment was more than remarkable; it was the most realistic experience I’d ever had. I’m not sure what I expected; perhaps my life or my sins or a great white light would flash before my eyes; perhaps I’d feel a shock like being hit by a bolt of lightning. Instead, I felt no tremendous sensation, just a weightlessness and an enveloping calm that let me know that Christ had come into my heart.[153]

What a description —“a weightlessness,” “an enveloping calm.” That’s what Jesus gives to all who turn to him in simple faith and trust. The Bible describes it like this: “We praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins” (Ephesians 1:6-7).

As you finish this book, make sure you’re alive and awake spiritually. Make sure you’ve found the ultimate secret to spiritual survival. Do what Louis Zamperini did: trust Jesus. Receive him and his forgiveness. Let him lift your burden. Experience the wonderful weightlessness of grace.

Remember, Jesus is coming for those who have come to him.

Come to him now.

Be an ultimate survivor.