-Transcript-
00:30 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the Cafe.
00:34 Welcome to the program. Pastor Clark Covington of Heartland Community Baptist Church, here today at the Cafe. Hopefully you’re doing great, got your Bible somewhere.
00:42 If you’re listening from home or if you’re on the road, keep your hands on the wheel, but you know, I wouldn’t want you to do anything to endanger your safety, but I do thank you for joining me today.
00:52 Thank you so much for listening to the program. If you haven’t already, check us out at kjvcafe.com or facebook.com forward slash kjvcafe.
01:03 We have a daily newsletter now called the Daily Latte. Get it? KJV Cafe, Daily Latte. That’s a milk-based coffee drink.
01:14 Okay. My wife likes to have a daily latte, so I kind of was thinking it would go together, but it’s a daily short, like just a few paragraphs short study of the scriptures each day. Just something encouraging each day that you can get in your inbox.
01:29 So visit us at kjvcafe.com or facebook.com forward slash kjvcafe. Click a button that says sign up and just enter your email and it’s free and you get an email once a day with a Bible verse and some commentary from me and that’s it. Amen.
01:43 And we love the Lord. It’s been a blessing to start that. And so if you can go ahead and join our newsletter and if not get too many emails or don’t use email.
01:53 I totally understand, but I just figured I’d mention it. Just another way I hope and pray the Lord will use me to be an encouragement and to bring his word in front of people.
02:02 So today we have a simple message, simple in terms of the topic, but very deep in terms of the meaning.
02:10 If Jesus were to call his church home today, what would you regret not having done for the Lord? That’s the question I want to ask. It’s the only question I want to look at here today.
02:19 What would you regret not having done for the Lord? If Jesus were to call you home today or to call his church home today, we know the rapture could happen at any moment.
02:34 We know that everything that needs to be fulfilled for the rapture to happen has been fulfilled as best as I can understand it. And so what would you do if you were called home today?
02:42 If you knew you’re going to be called home today, what would you do right before the Lord came? Let’s read from 1 Corinthians 15:52 in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last Trump for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last Trump for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed.All right.
03:06 What does that mean means that the twinkling, not even a blink of an eye, the twinkling of an eye. I’ve heard this preached as like the shortest possible time that the one could write about. Everything changes for an eternity.
03:20 We are called to anticipate his coming. Paul is giving us a warning here. I believe Paul thought Christ was going to come and return in his time.
03:30 He’s giving us a warning saying, look, by the time this happens, it’ll be too late to do anything else. So we are called to anticipate his coming.
03:39 I remember, I think it was, so we just finished, I think, the Feast of the Trumpets last September, or like last month or something, which is a Jewish holiday.
03:48 And some people posit that could be when the rapture would come and they have some explanation for it, which seems somewhat convincing, even though no one knows the day or time, I’m like, oh, that’s convincing.
03:55 I think it was last year at the Feast of the Trumpets, if I remember correctly, there was a crazy lightning storm. And I’m looking at this lightning, it was all this lightning and no thunder for, I don’t know, a long time, many minutes, and probably even an hour.
04:10 And I’m watching this lightning storm and I’m like, that’s it, this is it, this is the rapture. And so I had this moment of thinking about what would I do?
04:19 And I ran up to my kids, they were about to go to bed, and I started trying to explain salvation to them. At the time, I think they were four and five, so you got a young for that one.
04:29 Thank God the teenager is saved, amen, our teenager. But the young ones, I’m trying to explain salvation to them.
04:37 And then I’m praying, amen, and I’m praying, and guess what, I woke up the next day and the Lord hadn’t come.
04:43 But you know, and you may say, oh, what a silly individual that is, but I’m just being honest with you, this is what the Bible tells us to do, to be ready, to anticipate.
04:50 Luke 12:40, be ye therefore ready also for the Son of Man cometh at an hour when ye think not. Okay, so I had the first part right, I was ready.
04:59 The second part, I thought I knew, and I didn’t. But Luke 12:40‘s telling us to be ready. What does it mean to be ready? Number one, we have to be saved.
05:10 How can we know? We have to be saved, amen. We can know because we have the Holy Spirit living within us, that’s when we’re saved. If you don’t have any problem living in sin, I’d question your salvation.
05:20 The Bible tells us to work our salvation out with fear and trembling. Luke 17:34, I tell you, in the night there shall be two men in one bed. The one shall be taken, the other shall be left.
05:30 So we need to realize, hey, Philippians 2:12, wherefore my beloved, as ye have also obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
05:40 If you want to be obedient to God, first thing to do is make sure you’re saved. Make sure that you have applied the blood of Christ to your life, not literally applying blood to yourself, but imagining, understanding, working within your heart to believe on Christ.
05:56 Understanding Romans 3:23, that we’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, amen. Understanding our need for a savior and that Christ died for you on that cross, was buried and risen again.
06:05 And when you believe on Christ, amen, when you trust him as your Lord and savior, then you’re saved.
06:14 That’s the first part of being ready, is being saved. You don’t need to be a member of a church. You don’t need to have a bunch of money.
06:24 You don’t have to have connections. You don’t have to be perfect or obey some kind of law. You simply need to trust Christ as your savior and he’s faithful and just to save you, amen.
06:35 Once you’ve been saved, then you should be serving, waiting on the Lord. Luke 12:37, blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching. Verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself and make them to sit down to meetand will come forth and serve them.
06:48 And so we see those that are serving God when he comes are blessed to the point of Jesus himself serving those people. And so if I’m out here knocking on doors or handing out gospel tracts or preaching on the radio or volunteering with a homeless shelter or to spread the gospel or whatever it is,
07:03 if I’m doing those things, right, then when Jesus comes back, he’s gonna say, Brother Clark, you go ahead and sit down. And he’s gonna gird himself up and Jesus Christ, my savior and Lord, is going to serve me.
07:14 And when he comes over to serve me, I’ll see those nail scars in his hand, amen. I’ll see that he died for me, amen. And my Bible tells me that in heaven at the rapture, he’s going to serve me.
07:24 That is a beautiful picture of why we should be about our father’s business. Oh, but you got a lot of things going on, I get it. And time, there never seems to be enough time, I get it.
07:35 And there’s all these obstacles, I get it. And you don’t feel good enough, I get it. But God isn’t looking for perfection.
07:43 The Bible speaks on this so clearly. It is better to be obedient than to sacrifice. God’s not looking for some great sacrifice, he’s simply looking for obedience.
07:52 And that starts with simply praying to God, asking him to forgive you of your sins, asking him to help you understand what sins are in your life that are keeping a distance between you and him.
08:02 And then just simply being obedient, just spending time with God. You know, people wanna get involved in the ministry, but honestly, a lot of times, if you wanna get involved in the ministry,
08:15 the best thing you can do is just spend time with God because the best ministries, in my estimation, this is just me talking here, but the best ministries, in my estimation, are born out of time spent with God.
08:23 So you’re reading the scripture, you’re praying, you’re going to church faithfully, maybe you’re serving the Lord in the church, your local church, and then you’re doing those things just obediently.
08:34 And God is going to give you fruit. He’s going to create something, a desire in your heart, or he’s gonna open a door.
08:41 And that’s going to be for you because of your obedience. The Bible talks about being faithful over a few things and becoming a ruler over many things. That’s this idea.
08:52 And so we are to think about what would we do if Jesus Christ were to come back today, not tomorrow, but today. You know, and so local time right now, it’s two o’clock when I’m preaching this message. I’m recording it at least.
09:04 And let’s say Christ was coming at three. What would your last hour look like? What would you do? How would you go about handling that last hour of your earthly life before you’re taken to be with the Lord?
09:18 Because the Bible talks about him coming as a thief in the night. The idea is you’re not going to be prepared.
09:24 I gave the example in front of our congregation. You know, if I’m sleeping at two in the morning and a thief comes into my house, I’m not prepared for that. I don’t have like everything locked up and I’m not standing there with a baseball bat.
09:30 I’m asleep, amen. I’m not prepared at all. And so that’s the whole point is like, we are to be on watch.
09:39 We are to be waiting for the Lord. We are to be prepared so that when we do lay down, and if he were to come as a thief in the night, in the middle of the night, right?
09:49 If Christ were to come at say 3 a.m. one night, we would be ready. We’d be excited to see him.
09:57 We’d say, oh, there you are, Lord. Oh, thank you, Lord. Oh, praise God.
10:02 Oh, Maranatha, you’ve come. Oh, praise Jesus. Now I no longer, I can shed these burdens.
10:08 Oh, Lord, I’ve kept the faith, Lord. I’ve done the work you’ve given me to do, Lord. I’ve served you wholeheartedly, Lord.
10:13 Oh, I’m so happy now this is over, Lord. Oh, thank you, Lord, for this reward. Oh, thank you for everything, Lord.
10:23 Oh, praise your name. Is that gonna be your reaction? Or are you gonna be like, oh, I’ve gotta do some explaining. Oh, okay, so this is why I haven’t been praying very much lately.
10:29 And this is why I stopped going to church. And this is why I stopped serving you. And this is, come on, man.
10:33 God is telling you now to be prepared and you can then go do it. God’s love for us is so great that he gave us his word to guide our lives. He gave us the Holy Spirit.
10:42 So he’s not even asking you to do it. He’s asking you to yield yourself to that spirit. And that spirit is a he, by the way.
10:48 And he will work through you. God is not asking you to do things on your own. He’s asking you to trust him to do things through you.
10:55 And those things will bear fruit. But if you’re living in sin, you can’t bear fruit. The Bible says a bad tree cannot bear good fruit and a good tree cannot bear bad fruit.
11:04 He that is not with me is against me. So if Jesus were to come today, would you be ready? Would you be excited to see him? Or would you have some unfinished business?
11:14 And if the answer to that question is the latter, that you have some unfinished business, then why not here today, while you still have breath in your lungs, handle that business. Tell that person about Jesus that’s been on your heart.
11:31 Witness to that person. Give them that testimony. Make amends and forgive those that have done you wrong, as Christ calls us to forgive them.
11:37 Do that thing you wanted to do that God’s put on your heart. Only you and God know what that is. I don’t know what it is, but maybe the Lord’s put something on your heart.
11:48 Why not do that today? You know, sometimes when there’s something important to do, I’ll drop everything and say, I’m doing this now because I’m afraid I’ll forget.
11:58 Well, how much more so should we do what God’s called us to do for him while we still have breath in our lungs, while we still have a day? Lord knows the time is approaching. Everyone can see the signs of the times.
12:11 Everyone can see how bad things are getting. I believe the Lord is coming. You know, I’ve told this story.
12:16 I believe the Lord was gonna come a year ago, amen, and I’m still believing it day by day that he’s coming soon, and that’s biblical, amen, and I’m not backing off that,
12:25 and I’m encouraging you too to take that stance, to believe that he’s going to be here, and then to model your life after him coming this soon, and to do so in a way that you’re not doing it in your own power,
12:35 but you’re doing it by the power and the working of the Holy Spirit, which God put in you when you believed and trusted on him.
12:45 That’s why he put the Holy Spirit in you, so that you could then do what God would have you to do, and that the Holy Spirit will give you discernment over the sin in this world and over the garbage in this world and temptations of this world,
12:51 and give you victory over these things as you seek him and you live for him. Being obedient for Christ is not easy, but it’s so fruitful.
13:00 Trusting God is not easy, but it bears much fruit. Being ready for God’s arrival at the rapture will make you peculiar, it’ll make you a small remnant or minority among the people, but oh, how great it’ll be when you see Jesus.
13:14 And what’s the alternative? To live for temporal pleasures in this life, to grieve the Holy Spirit, to live a life of disappointment and things that will never satisfy, that will never bring a peace that God could bring? That’s the opposite of this.
13:29 And yet so many people are slogging along, hoping that next thing they buy or the next worldly thing they do will bring them that peace that only God can bring.
13:41 And God’s inviting you to have that peace today. And not only to have that peace today, but to take part in a great ministry opportunity for him by simply trusting him and spending time with him and serving him.
13:47 And as we understand in this temporary life, when it ends, we read that Christ will actually serve us, and that we will sit on the throne with Christ and we will rule and reign with Christ.
14:00 It’s so incredible what will be in heaven that it’s beyond our wildest imagination, but it starts here on earth. It starts today.
14:08 And it starts with the idea of what, if Christ were to return today, what would you do? Go handle your business, friend. Handle it today. Do not wait.
14:18 Handle it today. And you will be rejoicing in Christ very soon. I believe it.
14:26 Thank you for listening. Tune in next time. Take care. God bless and amen.