Watch, pray, stand

Are we alert to what God may be saying to us in these days?

Jesus spoke to His disciples about the end times in Luke 21. I recall as a very young Christian attending a series of evening events where those words of Jesus, and other Scripture references, were examined and a chronology was charted describing what would take place. It was all very interesting at the time, but there was no sense of those events being anywhere near to coming to pass, but as we look at the world events now there is more cause to think that perhaps Jesus’ words are nearer to coming to pass. While pondering over Jesus’ words in

Luke 21, I was struck by His closing comments about the end times in verses 34-36.

His words were directed to His followers. They are also words of warning to us in our day. Firstly, Jesus tells the disciples to, “take heed to yourselves” (v 34), which the ESV translates as, “watch yourselves”. The Greek word translated “take heed”, when used as a nautical term, means to hold a ship in a direction. The implication of this is that Jesus’ followers could be pulled off-course by the knowledge of what will take place in the future. Jesus speaks of three things that can pull us off-course and burden us. The first of these three is “carousing”, where the NKJV footnote has “dissipation”. These are not words that are used much in our day, but they carry the thought of a hangover from a drinking bout. The second warning of Jesus concerns “drunkenness”. But surely, getting drunk and having a hangover is not what Christians do? But Jesus spoke in these terms, so why did He?

Obviously, there are secret drinkers as well as those who do not care what others may think of their drinking habits, but the question that arises concerns why they do this. People drink to drown their sorrows, or they drink because they just cannot face their challenges and responsibilities. It may be, that rather than facing up to the implications of Jesus’ words that we bury our head in the sand, hoping that somehow the problems will pass us by. We may not get drunk and suffer with hangovers in the rich west, but we may do something else to occupy, or distract, us; we may spend our time on gardening; we may take cruises and see beautiful places; we may spend time decorating our homes. This is not quite getting drunk, but it still can be avoiding the challenge of obeying and trusting the LORD in the end-times!

The third warning presented by Jesus was with regard to the “cares of this life”. This echoes Jesus’ words in the parable of the sower where the “cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches” choked the Word of God (Matt 13:22). These cares may be legitimate, but should they take priority over our allegiance to Jesus? Notice that Jesus made no reference to the devil in any of these things. This was to emphasise our responsibility in all these matters. What we seek to avoid has a way of tripping us up!

Jesus tells the disciples to, “take heed to yourselves.” The Greek word translated “take heed,” when used as a nautical term, means to hold a ship in a direction.

Don’t get caught out!

Jesus spoke this way in order that we do not get caught out suddenly by the events that He spoke of. He wants us to be alert and on the ball. We have to take seriously the fact that the day that He spoke of will catch out many people, like an unsuspecting animal gets caught in a trap because it was not careful. Of course, we will not get caught – or will we?

Jesus therefore tells His disciples, and us, to “watch”, like a soldier on guard duty watching for an enemy attack.
And He tells us to “pray always”. The reason for these two commands is that we might be able to, “escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of God.” Notice, these things will come to pass! 

What prompted my thoughts on this passage was the response some Christians have had to the coronavirus situation. There have been calls to pray for the NHS, pray for the government and pray for our nation: I am not saying that we should not pray for these issues, but in the face of possibly devastating events Jesus told us firstly to take heed to ourselves and to pray for ourselves.
This may sound selfish, but this is what Jesus said.

This virus has come from the LORD. We read in Amos 3:6 that, “If there is calamity in a city, will not the LORD have done it?” I have heard people say, ‘Why has the LORD allowed this to happen?’ The LORD did not allow it, He sent it ! The LORD has a purpose in this virus and that purpose, I believe, is primarily for those who claim to believe in Him. We are to examine our ways and our values in the light of the LORD’s Word, for we might well be unprepared for what will eventually come upon this nation. There has been talk for some time now about the possible persecution of Christians here in the UK. What if persecution were to come sooner than we would like? What if this period of lockdown and isolation is part of the LORD’s way of speaking to us and preparing us for what may lie ahead of us in the not too distant in future?

Jesus tells His disciples, and us, to “watch”, like a soldier on guard duty watching for an enemy attack.

Return to normality or … ?

I have been aware that even among Christians that there is a desire just to get through this time and get back to some kind of normality. But, as Christ’s church, do we want to get back to what it was like before the lockdown? For many believers the life of the church has been lacking the presence of the Holy Spirit.

I

…we may do something else to occupy, or distract, us; … we may take cruises and see beautiful places;

We need a fresh work of the Holy Spirit in our day, and perhaps this period of isolation has come in order for the LORD to get our attention away from all the mechanics of church life. One of the hard things for the LORD to do, if I can speak in these terms, is to get our attention. Recall that in the Exodus story that before the last plague in Egypt there was three days of, “darkness which may even be felt” (Exodus 10:21). What would the Egyptians have done in those three days? They would have thought over

the past events, the plagues, the destruction of their land, and the words of Moses. The LORD got their attention, and who knows if some Egyptians left with the Israelites (Exodus 12:38)? Is it too much to suppose that the LORD is trying to get our attention through our isolation?

If we come through this lockdown period and just go back to what we
had before the lockdown, then we have to ask what was the purpose of this whole event? I do not believe that we should pray to just ‘get through’ this period; but, rather, we should pray that the LORD will lead us through this period that we might grow in our knowledge of the LORD and His ways. There is a very telling verse in Psalm 103, where we read that, “[The LORD] made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel” (verse 7). Perhaps, the LORD wants us to be more like Moses!