Who will be Left Behind?

From the sermon series, "First Truths about the Second Coming"
A sermon preached by Dr. Peter James Flamming, Pastor
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
February 28, 1999

Texts: Matthew 24:36-41; Matthew 25

We are now five weeks into a series of sermons on the Second Coming. The passing into a new millennium has left some people feeling that some earth shattering event is going to happen at the year 2000. Some are leaving the city to seek refuge in the hills. Another part of this phenomenon is the best selling Left Behind novels. Written by Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins they are an interesting read even for non-Christian people. They are largely based upon an interpretation of two verses in Matthew 24:40,41: "Two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come."

In the Left Behind novels, the plots and subplots, are based upon those who are alive after what many call, the rapture. The central conviction is that before the great tribulation, Christians will be raptured, will be taken away. Those who are not Christian will be left behind. Although the word rapture is not a Biblical word, it has become part of the vocabulary of the second coming.

You may remember my telling of an early childhood experience when, hearing the story about the rapture from the pulpit week after week, I came home from school, probably 7 or 8 years old, and thought I had been left. My parents found me sobbing uncontrollably. This remains a powerful force of fear within me. This is powerful stuff. Not much amazing grace here.

My basic Christian instincts tell me to listen to Jesus when he said, "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority." (Acts 1:7) But if you insist on what I think based on my Biblical study, I think the end time is all one event. It is like winning the game at the buzzer with a three point shot. Pretend it is the Final Four and Duke and U. Conn. are playing for the national championship. Duke is behind two points with three seconds left. Your point guard lets it fly from three point land. He hits it. The buzzer goes off. Four things happen all at once. (1) The point guard made the basket. (2) The team gets three points. (3) Duke wins the game. (4) Duke wins the national championship. Even four things have happened, it is all one event. I think that is the way it happens at the end of time. At the great end-time buzzer, after the tugs and pulls of history, four things happen at once: our Lord returns, the Christians are taken, the judgment happens, and the new creation begins. In my view, it is all part of one end time event.

Why do I think it is all one event and why do I think that Christians are not raptured before the great tribulation? Now, I know many of you have no interest in this. But some of you do. Will those of you who don't give those who do a little grace space. I will simply list these reasons quickly:
1. In Jesus' parables of the nets and the parable of the tares, he says good and evil exist side by side until the end of time.
2. I find no evidence in the Bible that Christians avoid the hardships of life just because they Christians. Read the New Testament and you may come to the opposite conclusion.
3. There is no place in Scripture that explicitly teaches there will be two events at the end of time. Look in Matthew 24:29-31 as it portrays Jesus gathering his people together from the four winds and from one end of heaven to another. All of this happens after the "great distress of those days." (Matt. 24:29)
4. In eternity there is no tense. Past, present, and future are one. To understand things, we have to divide them into pieces. Like understanding the human personality. We are part body, part intellect, part emotions, part spiritual, etc. Yet we are one. Part of the human way is to rate things, classify things, and break a whole into its parts. Eternal vision is not so limited.

But all of that is simply cerebral. It is doctrinal. Important, but it never saved anybody nor fed a hungry soul. This is what bothers me about this left behind business. The image is that prophecy grinds on to its final events. You can't do anything about what is happening in the world since it is all a fulfillment of prophecy anyway. The best you can do is to save yourself by accepting Jesus as your personal savior and not getting left behind. Friends, if you leave it there you can wind up with a real sloppy Christianity that is even selfish and disobedient.

To correct the possibility of this misunderstanding of Christianity, we need the three parables of Matthew 25. At least for me, they serve as a balance, as a tonic, for a cheap Christianity, what Bonhoeffer called, cheap grace. They are for me like a memorandum from the Boss about what everything is really about. All three of these parables are judgment parables, that is, they are about the final judgment.

The Parable of the Bridesmaids (Matthew 25:1-13)
The first parable about the final judgment is about a wedding. Some in the wedding party, it turns out, are not prepared. No electricity, the oil lamp was the chosen source of light after dark. Five in the wedding party thought ahead and prepared and brought extra oil. Five didn't and were shut out of the celebration with the abrupt announcement in verse 12, "I don't know you." No matter how much they pointed to their names on the guest list, insisting "we are part of the wedding party," the word came down, "I don't know you."

In the Bible, oil is often a symbol of spiritual power. The parable is about a sensitivity to spiritual urgency. It is about spiritual procrastination, putting things off. Most of us, perhaps all of us, have a tendency is to postpone crucial spiritual items in our lives. We procrastinate. We say, "we'll get up next Sunday and come." We say, "we'll get up tomorrow and pray." We have heard the gospel. We know what the Lord wants us to do. But it is so hard to change, and so hard to make time. It is easier to stay in the old patterns, the old ruts.

But we don't have forever. Only God has forever. There came a time in the parable when the door was shut. It is that way for us also.

But, whatever our age is, it is possible to keep the oil in our lamp burning, as the chorus sings.

Lin Yutang has given powerful confirmation of this in his spiritual autobiography, From Pagan to Christian. Glenn Hinson tells how Lin Yutang was brought up in a Christian home but turned away from it in his teens because he could not accept some traditional doctrines. He became a Buddhist, a Taoist, and a Confucianist, which one may be at the same time. Later on he returned to the Christian fold. It happened, of all places, on an ocean liner. While making the voyage he met a Christian woman who exuded the warmth and kindness which he had looked for all of his life. Her obvious Christian orientation was something Lin Yutang had to deal with. Regardless of his intellectual doubts, here was a woman who had what he wanted. Always the intellectual, Lin Yutang described it this way: "This formula (of Christian love) works as no doctrine works."

My prayer is, "Lord, regardless of how I feel, regardless of whatever doubts or difficulties I might have, let the oil in my lamp keep burning. May I not be like a Christian package with the proper label but nothing on the inside."

The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30)
Parable two says we will be judged by how we manage risk and the allocation of blessing.

Each of the three managers goes to the company mail box. An envelope is in their little compartment. Each opens the envelope and stands there dumbfounded. The first manager says it all with his face. He holds the check for $5,000. Finally he reads the note which says, "Put this to work until I return." The second manager opens an envelope with a check for $2,000. He opens it and says, "Wow!" He has the same note: "Put this to work until I return."

The third is given $1,000. He too has the same message but he ignores it like many of us Christians do. Instead, he says, "Oh,oh, I have a problem. If I squander this I might lose my job." He digs a hole and protects it. He saves it, and loses his life in the process. Here is the scary part. He loses even what he has and winds up in total darkness.

In the envelope of our lives we too have been given some priceless gifts. The note from the Lord Creator says, "Put this to work until I return." And if we keep these gifts to ourselves? We lose them. It will feel like outer darkness.

Using what you have been given becomes a life-style. Dr. Chevis Horne spoke of visiting a member of his congregation who was a faithful believer. She would never leave the hospital and she knew it. She would never be without pain and she knew that. Yet she never complained. She didn't even ask the universal question, "Why me?" Chevis one day asked her how she was able to keep a positive attitude and overcome her pain. She answered, "When I was a girl I offered God my life. Later I gave him my music. Still later, my love for children. Along the way I have given Him a little money. Now I have nothing to give except my pain. It seems a funny gift to give to God. But now my pain defines who I am. It is most me. So I offer God my pain and pray for him to use it in any way he can. My pain has become my gift to God." Even pain can become an investment for God!

The Parable of the Sheep and Goats
The third parable pictures the final judgment when God divides people into those who make it and those who don't. Those who do make it are given this commendation:

"Come, you who are blessed by my Father. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."

Early Christians apparently carried this out. For in the fourth century the Emperor Julian, seeking to restore paganism, wrote to a pagan priest in Galatia with instructions to copy the Christians. He wrote: "Whereas the Jews took care of their own and the Gentiles took care of nobody, the 'Galileans' (Christians) took care of everybody. That is the secret of their success. We must copy it."

You know - in the modern world the way they build highways and suburbs, we can live weeks and never meet a hungry person, or a street person, or a person different than we are. In so doing, we may miss seeing Jesus.

Some day, friend, you and I will go to meet the Lord. What would you like to hear Him say? What I would really love to happen is for the Lord to walk me through the valley of the shadow and when we get to the other side to hear him say, "Welcome home, Jim. I want to say, thank you. You weren't perfect, not by a long shot. In fact, some times I thought we had lost you. Other times it was quite honestly a hoot. But you learned how to trust, to train, and to change. You loved my people. You used your gifts. Well done, good and faithful servant. Now sit down and let me show you how it all fits together."

You can have your golden streets and pearly gates. You can rejoice at the angelic choirs. For me, "Well done," will be worth it all.

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