The Pulitzer-winning novel GONE WITH THE WIND opens with the Tarleton twins courting Scarlett O’Hara. It is April of 1861, and the 19-year-old brothers have been expelled from the University of Georgia.
“It don’t matter much. We’d have had to come home before the term was out anyway.”
“Why?”
“The war! The war’s going to start any day….”
“You know there isn’t going to be any war,” said Scarlett, bored. “It’s all just talk … There won’t be any war, and I’m tired of hearing about it.”
“Not going to be any war!” cried the twins indignantly, as though they had been defrauded. “Why honey, of course there’s going to be a war. The Yankees may be scared of us, but after the way General Beauregard shelled them out of Fort Sumter day before yesterday, they’ll have to fight or stand branded as cowards before the whole world….”
Not only would there be a Civil War, but historians agree the war had already begun—with the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.
Sometimes you can anticipate a war. There may be saber-rattling and talking heads on TV and hysteria in the press. One crowd is trying to organize a militia. Another is buying up canned goods and building underground bunkers. Some wars are as predictable as bad weather.
But other wars are not predictable at all, stealing in like a thief in the night.
Jesus employs both metaphors when teaching on His return—His coming will be as unexpected as a thief in the night, but His people will see generalized signs that allow them to prepare their hearts—if not their estates.
“If the owner of the house had known when the thief was coming, he would have kept watch…” Matthew 24:43. But “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” 1 Thessalonians 5:2.
The unexpected arrival of God’s judgment is not unprecedented, but ‘precedented.’ It follows a pattern we have seen before:
“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man: people went on eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage until the day Noah boarded the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It will be the same as it was in the days of Lot: people went on eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building. But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be like that the day the Son of Man is revealed … two will be in one bed. One will be taken, the other will be left. Two will be grinding grain. One will be taken, the other left” Luke 17:26-36.
The “Great and Terrible Day of the Lord” will come by surprise—while everyone is going on with life, engaged in jobs, weddings, buying, and selling, and suddenly they will stand before the Throne. But Jesus says there will be some signs.
“Learn the lesson from the fig tree: when its twigs grow tender and leaves come out, you know summer is near” Matthew 24:32.
Knowing a season is near is a pretty vague statement of timing. Imagine if I wrote a letter home from a trip overseas saying I would come home when the pecan trees leaf out. Given the eight pecan trees at our house—each on its own schedule—I could arrive anytime between February and April.
The second coming of Christ is the same way. He emphasizes that His arrival will catch people by surprise, like a thief in the night. But there are some generalized signs to watch. Two of the most important are probably the fact that Israel gained statehood in 1948 and that the gospel is reaching more and more of the world’s unreached people groups. His return is closer than ever, yet the specific timing remains as unpredictable as a thief in the night.
What are we to do? Pray and look forward to His return with joyful anticipation:
“Look up and be watchful, for your redemption draweth nigh” Luke 21:28.
“There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord will award me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have loved His appearing” 2 Timothy 4:8-9.
Pray: God, may our hearts love You and Your kingdom so deeply that we long for you to come and take us home. Maranatha! Even so, COME LORD JESUS! Revelation 22:20.
Read Luke 17.
ΑΩ
Dad's Daily Devotional 