The Time for Repentance is Now

“22 And he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23 And they will say to you, ‘Look, there!’ or ‘Look, here!’ Do not go out or follow them. 24 For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. 26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, 29 but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all— 30 so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. 32 Remember Lot's wife. 33 Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. 34 I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left. 35 There will be two women grinding together. One will be taken and the other left.” 37 And they said to him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” (Luke 17:22- 37)
Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all.
So will it be in when Christ returns. I never get it. Why people are always looking for signs. If you knew the world was going to end tomorrow, would you do anything differently today? If so, then why aren’t you doing that today then? Would you prepare for the second coming? How? Go do it then. Would you tell your neighbor about Christ? Then go do it. You don’t know when he is coming, there are no signs. We must always be prepared. It’s kind of scary. As a kid and I suppose even now the question always was, what if Christ came back today and caught me doing this? What if he comes back when I had a couple too many? What if he comes back and I’m being short with my wife? Ill tempered with my son? Telling a dirty joke to a friend? Being a lazy oaf, and blogging when I might be working on my sermon or something? Of course the rub is, Christ doesn’t need to come back to catch you doing any of that. He already has. He knows your sin. He knows it even now. He caught you. Deal with it.
Deal with it, there is only one way. Repent and be forgiven. See being prepared does not mean being without sin when Christ comes back. Being prepared means being in the faith, knowing in whom you believe, being baptized, not putting off church and the Lord’s Supper when you can trade in the sins of your youth for a more mature variety brought on by the fact that you are no longer able to chase skirts and carouse like you could as a young man. Trade in your sins for new ones, that is about the best we can hope to do as sinners. Maybe our new sins are more respectable, a little bit more acceptable to the middle class. They are still sins in God’s eyes. We won’t be rid of sin or sins, which is why we need a savior, which is why Jesus Christ died for us, which is why He rose from the dead that we might have new life. No, but the time for repentance is now, the time for faith is now, it is never tomorrow. For today brings enough anxiety. And no one knows what tomorrow will bring, if it even comes at all.