FROM THE SERVANT GENERAL
OUR THEME FOR 2024
(Part 4)
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT
November 17, 2023
Today’s gospel: Luke 17:26-37
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. The judgment of God upon His people will also always be the same. “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man.” (v.26). People will always be the same, generally unmindful of the final judgment. “They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all.” (v.27-29).
Yesterday it was the time of Noah and Lot. Today, the peoples of the world are still eating, drinking, partying, investing, and doing all the things that people do. These are not necessarily wrong. However, they are unmindful of the end that is to come. And they are unprepared. Here is the reality: “So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed.” (v.30).
The end and final judgment will be sudden. It will be unexpected. People will be on the housetop, or in the field, or in bed, or grinding meal. And they will be taken. Not knowing when the end will be, we must always be prepared. We go about the normal events of the day, but we also have to be aware that judgment day is coming. We live not only for the present, but look to what is forever.
The end and final judgment will be terrible. Due to the wickedness of people in the world, the final judgment will be terrible. In Noah’s time flood destroyed everyone. In Lot’s time, fire and brimstone destroyed everyone. But there are those who will be saved. Noah and his family were saved. Lot and some of his family were saved. We can be saved, as we indeed have already been saved by the blood of Jesus. We need to cling on to that salvation and live our lives accordingly.
The end and final judgment will be glorious. We know God’s actions yesterday against iniquity. We experience God’s saving action in our lives today. We look forward to our eternal reward in heaven forever, even as the elements will be destroyed by fire. We have been purified by the fire of God’s love.
Let us not just look to life as we live it today, managing our lives and trying to strive for the best results, but let us let go of our life, as we place our lives in the hands of our Lord Jesus. “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.” (v.33).
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