SPEAKER_00: The devil had three apprentices.
SPEAKER_00: And they were trying to come up with ways by which to keep people away from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And the first apprentice said to the devil, I'm going to tell people that there is no God.
SPEAKER_00: The devil said, That's not going to fool too many.
SPEAKER_00: Because deep down people know that there is a God.
SPEAKER_00: The second apprentice said, I'm going to tell people that there is no judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Said, you know, I don't think that's going to fool very many people either, because they all face consequences, and at the end of the day, they understand that there's consequences to action.
SPEAKER_00: The third said, I will tell people that you have plenty of time.
SPEAKER_00: I will tell people that you have plenty of time to get ready.
SPEAKER_00: And Satan said, Go, that will ruin millions.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about being ready today.
SPEAKER_00: And y'all, the devil really wants us to not be ready to meet Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And he wants this because he knows that the deepest desire of the Lord's heart is to be with you.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us that the Lord is not willing that any should perish.
SPEAKER_00: The evidence of this being the desire of Jesus' heart is clear in the chapters of Matthew, chapter 24 and 25.
SPEAKER_00: James Montgomery Boyce, who was a pastor at the 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia for 32 years.
SPEAKER_00: I've been here 12 years, so that's 20 more than I have been here.
SPEAKER_00: Are you guys ready to keep me for another 20 years?
SPEAKER_00: Is that okay?
SPEAKER_00: Only a few amens on this side.
SPEAKER_00: This side obviously is wanting to begin the search process already.
SPEAKER_00: But James Montgomery Boyce, he points out that about half of Matthew 24 deals with signs that are not actually the signs of the end.
SPEAKER_00: You remember Jesus said, all these signs, and he says, But what?
SPEAKER_00: But the end is not yet.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's a very small section that describes the return of Christ, verses 27 through 31.
SPEAKER_00: But the vast majority, Boyce points out, a third of chapter 24, verses 36 through 51, and all of chapter uh 25, a total of 62 verses warn us to get ready, since we do not know when that day of final reckoning will be.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus stresses this single point, the single point for all of these verses, 62 verses, the application is clear.
SPEAKER_00: Boy says, are you watching?
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready for Jesus' return?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus emphasizes this in Matthew chapter 24 and 25 through seven stories.
SPEAKER_00: Seven stories to emphasize this.
SPEAKER_00: Four at the end of Matthew chapter 24 and three in Matthew chapter 25.
SPEAKER_00: In today's talk, I'm only going to focus on the first two of those stories.
SPEAKER_00: And my reason for choosing to focus on these two stories is because they focus on aspects that I don't think we often consider when we think about what distracts us from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I'm going to look at these two stories today.
SPEAKER_00: Most sermons and most of the time in life when we talk about being distracted from something related to Jesus, although I appreciated uh Scott's prayer and how he prayed that, the everyday busyness of life can distract us.
SPEAKER_00: But most sermons are about the bad.
SPEAKER_00: Even when we do evangelistic series, many of you have been to what we call evangelistic series, and you'll hear people talk about the need to get ready or don't be distracted by all the bad things in the world, all the wrongs in the world, all the untruth in the world, but but be ready for Jesus come by not paying attention to the bad.
SPEAKER_00: I actually want to talk to you about the good things that can distract us from being ready for Jesus' return.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I'm going to start here is because this is where Jesus starts in these verses.
SPEAKER_00: Open your Bibles to the book of Matthew, chapter 24, Matthew chapter 24, verses 36 through 42.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 24, verses 36 through 42.
SPEAKER_00: And I am reading in the English Standard Version.
SPEAKER_00: These are Jesus' words.
SPEAKER_00: He says, But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
SPEAKER_00: For as were in the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_00: For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark.
SPEAKER_00: And they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away.
SPEAKER_00: So will be the coming of the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_00: Then two men will be in the field, and one will be taken and one left.
SPEAKER_00: Two women will be grinding at the mill, and one will be taken and one left.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
SPEAKER_00: Two illustrations from Jesus' sermon, two good distractions that keep us from being ready for his second coming.
SPEAKER_00: There is a multitude of lessons we could take from these stories, and there's a multitude of lessons we could take from these chapters, but I have decided to focus on two things that are good in life that distract us from being ready for Jesus' return.
SPEAKER_00: Everything begins on this.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: David L.
SPEAKER_00: Turner said, ignorance of the time of Jesus' coming should result in constant alertness.
SPEAKER_00: Ignorance of the time of Jesus' coming should result in constant alertness.
SPEAKER_00: This goes against everything that we kind of practice as a society.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, most of the time, we societally use ignorance as a reason to not be ready for something.
SPEAKER_00: We just had our teachers up front and we have a bunch of young people in the congregation.
SPEAKER_00: How many teachers have ever heard a student say, I'm not ready, I didn't know this was coming?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard that before?
SPEAKER_00: How many students have used that statement?
SPEAKER_00: No one told me.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't ready.
SPEAKER_00: We use ready, we use our lack of knowledge as an excuse to not be ready.
SPEAKER_00: It's like when Jason is about to ride in my car.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Jason is about to ride in my car.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Jason is very fastidious about his care of his car.
SPEAKER_00: Me, not so much.
SPEAKER_00: And so as he's getting in the car, I'm like moving water bottles from around his feet and trying to, and I say, I didn't know I was gonna have anybody in my car today.
SPEAKER_00: My excuse, I didn't know anyone was going to be in my car.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I'm not ready.
SPEAKER_00: We use this in simple ways, but we also use it in big ways as well.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is removing that excuse from us when it comes to his return.
SPEAKER_00: His buzzwords, some of his buzzwords in chapters 24 and 25 of Matthew, are these stay awake, be ready, watch.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know, stay awake, be ready, watch.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, ignorance of when he's going to come is not an excuse for not being ready.
SPEAKER_00: That is what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: Because to live without watchfulness invites disaster.
SPEAKER_00: And you they walk in the door and you're like, oh, hi.
SPEAKER_00: And then you pull a spouse aside, you should have told me they were coming, I would have been ready.
SPEAKER_00: NT Wright said this.
SPEAKER_00: Like people who know there are going to be surprise visitors coming sooner or later, but who don't know exactly when.
SPEAKER_00: If you believe that Jesus is coming, Jesus calls us to be ready.
SPEAKER_00: But as I said, I'm not just trying to encourage you to be ready.
SPEAKER_00: I want us to understand what it is that distracts us from being ready.
SPEAKER_00: And two of those distractions are from the first two stories that Jesus shares with us.
SPEAKER_00: And both of them are good things.
SPEAKER_00: And they are talking about actually things that are just part of the generalities of life, just the practice of living.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' first story is a historical story from the book of Genesis, and it gives us the distraction of everyday blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says in Matthew chapter 20, or Matthew chapter 24 and verse 38, for as in those days before the flood, they were talking about the people living before Noah's flood.
SPEAKER_00: In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to say something.
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, Matthew chapter 24 and verse 38 has been misused by many preachers over history.
SPEAKER_00: It's misused in meetings that we've had over the course of history.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes we use this verse to somehow frame this as what God is condemning is that these people were all just partying and being wild and crazy.
SPEAKER_00: They should be much more somber, much more sober and holy and mindful of these things.
SPEAKER_00: Preachers have discouraged joy using this text.
SPEAKER_00: Make sure in the last days you're not having any fun.
SPEAKER_00: And don't get married.
SPEAKER_00: Ellen White wrote this.
SPEAKER_00: God did not condemn the antediluvians for eating and drinking.
SPEAKER_00: God wants you to enjoy the abundance of life and the abundance of the blessings that are in this life.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to have a good life and to enjoy those blessings.
SPEAKER_00: The problem was that in the days of Noah and in our days is when the blessings from God get put in the wrong perspective.
SPEAKER_00: And these blessings from God become little gods in and of themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And we start to appreciate and value and have excess in those blessings and lose sight of the one who gave those blessings.
SPEAKER_00: Are any of us at risk of that in our world?
SPEAKER_00: We've misused it and turned it into something of excess that is now a little god in our life that we think, oh, I can't live without this.
SPEAKER_00: I can't, I can't survive without this.
SPEAKER_00: There was a rapper in my childhood days that had the song Mo Money Mo Problems.
SPEAKER_00: I guess no fans of that rapper.
SPEAKER_00: First service knew that song right away.
SPEAKER_00: They were enjoying that.
SPEAKER_00: You guys are a little more, I guess, proper and cultured.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know the song either.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just pretending to know it.
SPEAKER_00: But no.
SPEAKER_00: Anyways, that song, Mo Money, Mo Problems, is a song where the the the author of the song says, the more that I have, the more that I get, the more people want from me.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, the more things that we get, the more we have blessings, sometimes the more we want those as well.
SPEAKER_00: And those become our focus and a distraction rather than God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm guilty of this.
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking as I was writing the sermon, I was thinking about the fact that I sometimes think to myself, man, I would never want to live, or I would never want to live with my five kids in the setting that my parents, five kids, I don't have five kids, sorry, don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: Christina has four, Dayton, Lannon, Levi Chad.
SPEAKER_00: But but I wouldn't want to live in a house of five.
SPEAKER_00: When I was a kid, we I I lived in a, you know, we lived in an apartment that was about 800 square feet.
SPEAKER_00: We lived in a in a in a double wide in a in a in a mobile home that was about a thousand square feet.
SPEAKER_00: And the biggest house that I ever lived in off of Reed Avenue and Grand Terrace was 1,200 square feet.
SPEAKER_00: And I look back on that and I go, I think to myself, how did my parents survive with three kids in in that house?
SPEAKER_00: And I what I've come to the conclusion is that my sisters and I were just way better behaved than my kids are, and that's the reason why they could survive that.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that about me?
SPEAKER_00: That I was a good kid?
SPEAKER_00: I like you more now than first service because they said no, they didn't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: But my point is, is now we live in a much bigger house, and sometimes that that blessing of abundance that we have distracts me.
SPEAKER_00: And I feel pressure to stay and keep my kids in the environment that they're in than the environment that I was in.
SPEAKER_00: That's a pressure.
SPEAKER_00: This good thing has become a distraction at times in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what Ellen White said that which is lawful in and of itself is carried to excess.
SPEAKER_00: Men and women are living for the pleasure, the senses for this world and this life alone.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, these good things that God gave you, these lawful things, these blessed things that He wants you to have that are wants, maybe not even needs, but are wants of yours that God wants you to have, we start to say, Man, I can't live without that.
SPEAKER_00: I start to live for those things rather than for God.
SPEAKER_00: A good thing that has become a distraction.
SPEAKER_00: Are any blessings that you received in your life, have they become bigger in your view than the one who gave them?
SPEAKER_00: Are you living more for those gifts and those blessings than you are for the one who gave you those gifts and those blessings?
SPEAKER_00: Those are then distractions.
SPEAKER_00: The next story Jesus tells us in the context is in the context of one of the most basic things of life, and that is work.
SPEAKER_00: Then two men went into the field, one will be taken and one will be left.
SPEAKER_00: Two women were grinding at the mill, one will be taken and one will be left.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day or hour the Lord is coming.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: France asked, What could be more normal and unthreatening than working on the farm or grinding grain?
SPEAKER_00: Yet in those routine situations, there will be a sudden crisis which will result in one taken while the other is left behind.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, some have misused this verse to teach an idea of a secret rapture, and that's not what this is talking about.
SPEAKER_00: It's just talking about the aspect of people will be living very normal lives, and those very normal lives themselves can be a distraction.
SPEAKER_00: The basic thing, the general practice of your day can be a distraction.
SPEAKER_00: France continues on the time of normal banality is potentially also the time of danger.
SPEAKER_00: The time of just the regular happenings of your life.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, in this most basic functions of your life, make sure that you stay awake, for you do not know when the Lord is coming.
SPEAKER_00: You do not know when the Lord is coming.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew's inspired writings of chapter 24 and 25, this is the call to keep awake.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, we can get so bogged down with life, with the basics of life, the banality of life, as France called it, that the routine of life becomes in and of itself our focus and thus a distraction away from the return of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about this.
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk specifically to the adults right now in this room.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you adults are constantly warning your kids about the distractions of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Watch out for that.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want you to do that because we don't want this to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful with that.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be with these friends because they might lead you this way.
SPEAKER_00: Don't watch that because it might cause you to do this.
SPEAKER_00: We're constantly pointing out the big bad sin stuff in the world and the potential of the big bad sin stuff in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And could it be, adults, that while you're warning your kids about all the bad things that they need to stay away from, right before their eyes, you're modeling a distracted life just by going about the ordinariness of life and forgetting about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Don't do this.
SPEAKER_00: While your life is a distracted life just from your basic day-in and day out routine.
SPEAKER_00: Not by bad things, by basic things, the basic things of living.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of you guys are going back to school soon.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you young people are going back to school soon.
SPEAKER_00: If you're at Spencerville, you're going to start on Monday.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: You're going to get into this routine.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to get into this routine, and this routine can just cause you to go through the motions of all things.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to hear your parents saying on Monday morning, get up, hurry up.
SPEAKER_00: You got to get ready for school.
SPEAKER_00: And you're going to hear that said Monday through Friday for the next nine and a half months.
SPEAKER_00: And then you're going to hear them saying like this, Hurry up.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have time for you to eat breakfast.
SPEAKER_00: You got to get out the door.
SPEAKER_00: We got to get to work.
SPEAKER_00: Grab a banana.
SPEAKER_00: Does anyone else say that in their home?
SPEAKER_00: You're going to pull up to the school and you're going to see uh Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Martinez.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to see Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Marz out there shaking hands and greeting people and telling you, hi, and this routine's going to go on over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: After the first week, you're going to know your class schedule and you're going to know your function.
SPEAKER_00: And in all this ordinariness of life, all this routine of life, the devil will use that right there to distract you from him.
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis, just masterful, insightful theologian.
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis, of course, of course, wrote The Chronicles of Narnia.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might have seen on my Instagram that I posted a video of my son after he had his wisdom teeth out.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you scolded me for that.
SPEAKER_00: I had his permission, just so you know.
SPEAKER_00: But uh I was showing some of these videos.
SPEAKER_00: One of them that I didn't show you, though, was that Lannon, while he was standing uh sitting there, he suddenly says to me, Dad, do you want to talk about the Chronicles of Narnia?
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Where did this come from?
SPEAKER_00: But he's a C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis fan, uh, which is uh which I appreciate.
SPEAKER_00: But C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis wrote another book.
SPEAKER_00: It's called The Screw Tape Letters.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone read the Screw Tape Letters?
SPEAKER_00: Screw Tape Letters is a genius book.
SPEAKER_00: I encourage you to read it.
SPEAKER_00: And in that book, C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis examines human existence from the perspective of a demon trying to distract a human from seeing or from meeting or from following God.
SPEAKER_00: And C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis writes this.
SPEAKER_00: If I can get it, I'm not going to it.
SPEAKER_00: It just left me.
SPEAKER_00: All right, C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis wrote this.
SPEAKER_00: You don't realize how enslaved they are to the pressure.
SPEAKER_00: He's this is the demon talking about people.
SPEAKER_00: You don't realize how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary.
SPEAKER_00: They find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things.
SPEAKER_00: Think about this, parents.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful of that big bad wolf over there.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful of that.
SPEAKER_00: There, be careful of what you're Watching there, be careful of this, be careful of that, be careful of this, which are all good things.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe right before them, you're teaching them how to be distracted by just the routine of life.
SPEAKER_00: Just keep things as familiar as possible.
SPEAKER_00: Don't lead them into some deep perversion that might drive them back to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Just keep things ordinary, and in the ordinary practice of life, they'll be distracted.
SPEAKER_00: The blessings on this earth, the eating, the drinking, the marrying, all are blessings.
SPEAKER_00: Working is a blessing from God.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus reminds us not to let these good and ordinary things distract us.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to be ready.
SPEAKER_00: We could give a list of all the bad things that could distract us, but today I want to ask you a question.
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything good in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Is your life so routine and so familiar that you've been distracted from that which is unfamiliar, from that which is amazing and beyond comprehension, the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Some of those things might be very good.
SPEAKER_00: There might be very good things in your life that are distracting you, but consider this.
SPEAKER_00: Consider this.
SPEAKER_00: Even those good things, nothing that is good in this earth compares to the goodness that God has for you.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, No eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor can the mind of man comprehend what God has in store for those who love him.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, don't be distracted by the bad, but also don't be distracted by the good.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, I want you to be ready, but more than that, Jesus wants you to be ready.
SPEAKER_00: He's made that very clear, spending so much of this, these verses and these chapters encouraging people to be ready.
SPEAKER_00: And not only does he spend that time in Matthew chapter 24 and 25, but he's he spends that time encouraging the people to be ready throughout the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Pretty much every single book of the Bible has references to the second coming of Jesus, has references to a new life, a better life, a life where Jesus makes all things new.
SPEAKER_00: This is throughout the Bible, and he wants us to be ready for that.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to be with him for all eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Each one of us has someone in this life that we can't imagine being separated from.
SPEAKER_00: A child or a spouse or a parent or a friend.
SPEAKER_00: Christina and I, about a month ago, we were standing in the kitchen.
SPEAKER_00: I can see us standing there and we were talking, and one of us, or maybe it was Dayton, said something about going to college.
SPEAKER_00: And I turned to Christina and I said, This is our last year before he goes to college.
SPEAKER_00: And I got teary-eyed thinking about it.
SPEAKER_00: As I get old, I seem to get teary-eyed about everything these days.
SPEAKER_00: One of my great joys of life used to be able to make fun of my mother-in-law for how much she cried on the drop of a hat on everything.
SPEAKER_00: And now my kids will always say to me, they'll be like, Oh, Dad, you're being like Grandma Varve.
SPEAKER_00: It's taking all my joy away.
SPEAKER_00: But we're there tearful, just the thought of Dayton going to college and no longer having him there by our side day in and day out.
SPEAKER_00: That's the heart of Jesus for each one of you.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you there with him day in and day out, not just hit and miss, but every day and throughout all eternity.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he wants for you, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to close with this.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you ready for the right reasons.
SPEAKER_00: And hear what I'm about to say.
SPEAKER_00: Too many of us have thought about readiness in the context of guilt and stress of the urgency.
SPEAKER_00: Do any of you have kids that ever ask you what time you'll be home from something?
SPEAKER_00: But they're not asking you because they actually care about what time you'll be home, but because they want to be ready, whether it's a chore list or something else.
SPEAKER_00: You know, kids call, my my son Dane calls me.
SPEAKER_00: Hey dad, where are you at?
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling him, have you guys done your chores yet?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah, we're we're getting to them.
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, what time will you be home?
SPEAKER_00: The urgency of time makes them want to be ready.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that we, as pastors, that sometimes have said things that have that have created that urgency, created that anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: And I do believe that Jesus is coming soon, as one of my friends says, I believe there's a better than zero percent chance that Jesus is going to come in my lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't know when that is.
SPEAKER_00: No one knows the day or the hour, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't want to be ready simply because I'm in fear or simply because I'm worried about the urgency of it.
SPEAKER_00: That isn't the right motivation.
SPEAKER_00: Ellen White said that the shortness of time is urged as an incentive for us to seek righteousness and to make Christ our friend.
SPEAKER_00: This is not the great motive, she said.
SPEAKER_00: It savors of selfishness.
SPEAKER_00: Is it necessary that the terrors of the day of God be held before us to compel us through fear to ride action?
SPEAKER_00: She says, this ought not to be.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, you should not be compelled to be ready because you're worried about what if he comes tomorrow and I'm not ready, or what happens if I do something when I'm driving home today.
SPEAKER_00: My dad said he used to worry if like he was driving home and he ran into somebody and a bad word slipped out of his mouth that he'd be scared, they'd be lost for all eternity because of that.
SPEAKER_00: These types of things would would make him fearful.
SPEAKER_00: This is not the reason why we should desire to be ready.
SPEAKER_00: This ought not to be, she said.
SPEAKER_00: I just gave away my secret, but I'm gonna tell you why you should be ready.
SPEAKER_00: Because I know that was a question.
SPEAKER_00: Why should we want to be ready then?
SPEAKER_00: Why should we want to be ready?
SPEAKER_00: Ellen White's next line, immediately after where she says, this ought not to be, she wrote one of the beautiful, most beautiful lines for why we should want to be ready.
SPEAKER_00: And she said this because Jesus is attractive.
SPEAKER_00: Three words.
SPEAKER_00: Why should I want to be ready to meet Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Is it because he's gonna come tomorrow?
SPEAKER_00: Is it because because times are looking scary and stressful?
SPEAKER_00: It's because Jesus is attractive.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is good.
SPEAKER_00: No eye has seen, no ear is heard, nor the heart of man can comprehend what God has in store for you.
SPEAKER_00: I have loved you with an everlasting love.
SPEAKER_00: Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow.
SPEAKER_00: Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the reason to be ready.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is attractive.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, nothing bad?
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
SPEAKER_00: And not even anything good in this life is as attractive as Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So I invite you to consider your readiness.
SPEAKER_00: Not because of the urgency of time, but because Jesus, Jesus, Jesus is attractive to you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you for your grace, for your mercy.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you are attractive.
SPEAKER_00: That you are the beauty of all the ages.
SPEAKER_00: And that which we think is most amazing in this world, it tails in comparison to the wonder and the beauty of you.
SPEAKER_00: And your grace and your love.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.