Escaping All These Things

Second Sunday of Advent

December 6, 2015

Luke 21:36

Escaping All These Things

Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen,

and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

A lot of people died this week. Most were strangers. Some of those who died didn't even have names.

There was also another Islamic terrorist attack—people having a Christmas party were gunned down without warning.

But I did know someone who died this week; he was a classmate from high school and a roommate in college. His name was Tim. He died suddenly in Tampa this week, when a fight at a neighborhood nightspot got out of hand.

Whether we die alone or with others, with warning or without, in the daytime or at night, each of us will stand before Christ at the end of our time on earth to be judged, each according to our own faith in Him. Those who trust in Jesus will escape with their lives into eternity.

Today the day of escape is one day closer for each of us. And escape is the right word. We are now victorious and triumphant in Christ, but we often don't feel victorious or look triumphant. Christ makes good our escape, but it will be a close one because of us.

Jesus used the example of a tree sprouting leaves as the obvious sign that summer is coming. There are some signs that tell us things.

Kids, if your house feels hot and you smell smoke, what does this tell you? The house is on fire! Jesus talks about escaping, and so we might think of escaping a burning building. Any wise person knows that escaping is the top priority.

In a way our lives here on earth are burning buildings. Christ makes good our escape from ourselves, but we want to stay behind and hang onto to all these things, often when we know that we're going get burnt.

As Jesus said, we burn ourselves by getting trapped into dissipation, drunkenness, and the anxieties of life.

Dissipation isn't a word we use, but it is the opposite of anticipation. People who live in anticipation are focused on God's kingdom and that His Son is coming back; those who live in dissipation are scattered and their focus is not on what really matters. People who live dissipated lives drift from little thing to little thing. Peter wrote about this drift in his first letter.

Therefore, since Christ suffered in His body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead … The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. (1 Peter 4:1-5, 7)

Peter perhaps had Jesus' warning on his mind when he was inspired to write these words, linking dissipation to drunkenness.

For those who drift through this life and have no focus on what is to come, getting drunk is a natural path to take. If this is it, it is fairly logical to spend the flickering moments of life squeezing pleasure out of every second. A dissipated heathen might say: “Achieve better dissipated living drifting through daiquiris and Dewar's.

But you don't get drunk on wine or booze. Good. But why do you intoxicate yourself by living confidently that today will end like every other day? Intoxicate is a good word to describe drunkenness, both the wet kind and the dry kind, because the belief that time won't end is toxic. The belief that this life is all that there is is toxic.

A recent example of this toxic view is how some condemned those who sent out message saying that they were praying for those suffering in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in California. These messages of support were mocked venomously because these mockers believe that time won't end. They believe that this life is all there is. They trust in the god, whose name is humanity. So consistently these critics, really their high priests, damn anyone who prays to Christ and pleads for His mercy on behalf of those who suffer. These mockers are zealous for their god. But their god is a lie.

Be like the wise Virgin and carefully ponder these things in your heart. It is right to understand and point out the toxic words of unbelievers, but we must watch ourselves.

If we become more fired up over the threat of Islamic terrorism, which can kill the body, than the danger of unbelief in our own homes, then we need to take a close look at ourselves, repent, and trust the Gospel. If we pat ourselves on the back because we say Merry Christmas before it's even Christmas and don't consider the possibility that there might not even be a Christmas, then we should probably take a look in the mirror, repent, and trust the Gospel.

When you or someone you know becomes intoxicated by the worries of this world, speak, Christian. When the world shakes with tumult and destruction and they ask, “Why doesn't God fix this? This world? This violence? This death?” we tell them, “He did. God did fix this with the death of His own Son.” Christ willingly suffered in His body to take away the punishment for violence, anger, indifference, all our sin. Likewise we suffer and will only escape all these things only though His forgiving blood.

A lot of people died this week. Most were strangers, a few weren't. But for those who died in the Lord, they escaped all these things into everlasting life because:

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21