The Future: Watch and Pray

1. Watch for the Signs—Warnings of Judgment and the End

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Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian, wrote:

“The exterior of the building wanted nothing that could astound either mind or eye. For, being covered on all sides with massive plates of gold, the sun was no sooner up than it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the solar rays. To approaching strangers, it appeared from a distance like a snow-clad mountain; for all that was not overlaid with gold was of purest white.”

2. Watch for the Coming of the Son of Man—The King Will Return

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JC Ryle wrote:

However terrible the signs of Christ’s second coming may be to the impenitent, they need not strike terror into the heart of the true believer. They ought rather to fill him with joy. They ought to remind him that his complete deliverance from sin, the world, and the devil is close at hand, and that he shall soon bid an eternal farewell to sickness, sorrow, death, and temptation. The very day when the unconverted man shall lose everything, shall be the day when the believer shall enter on his eternal reward. J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Luke (1858; reprint Cambridge: James Clarke, 1976), 2:376.

3. Watch Ourselves with Perpetual Preparedness

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