THE LAST DAYS

In these chapters, we see Jesus speak to the people in parables. He would explain the meanings of them to His disciples after. The pharisees and scribes was always trying to lay a trap for Jesus hoping He would say something wrong so they could arrest Him and kill Him. There are those today who are like the pharisees and scribes. They watch Christians wanting to catch them doing wrong so they can justify what they are doing. We must keep our vigil up all the time. We need to keep in His Word, pray, and gather with fellow Christians to remain strong.

A scribe asked Jesus what was the first commandment. Jesus told him:
"And thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all
thy strength: this is the first commandment(12:30) and the
second is like, namely this, Thou shall love thy neighbor as
thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."
(12:31)
I have heard it say that if we kept these two commandments we would keep all of them. Do we love our Lord like that? Do we put Him first above all else? He should be number one in our lives. What about our neighbors? Do we know who are neighbors are? Many do not even know who lives next door to them let alone who lives down the street or in another town or country. Do we have concern or love enough to them to share the Word of the Lord and Savior?

Jesus tells His disciples in Chapter 13 that nobody but God Himself knows the hour when Christ shall return for His own. He tells them to watch and be ready. He tells them what must happen first. These things have happened or are happening now. Are you ready?

"And then shall He send His angels, and shall gather His elect
from the four winds." (13:27)
There are those who believe that because He says, "His elect" that God chooses who will go to heaven and who won't, no matter what we do. That is just not so. He gives us His plan of Salvation in His Word and if He had already decided our fate we would have no need to be saved. We are His elect and we became that when we accepted Him into our hearts.

We must be aware of false prophets. There will be those who will say they are the Christ to follow them. We have seen some of them already. There are those who will tell you they know the day and the hour of Christ return. We have seen them also. One as recently as this year. Sadly enough, there are also false prophets in our churches preaching. We have to be on our guard all the time which is why why we MUST stay strong in His Word. If we do, we will know when we are being told wrong.

With all this being said, I would just like to say how blessed we are for having Chris Holdorf as our pastor. He preaches from God's Word. It may not always be what we want to hear but rather what we need to hear. Thank you God for sending Pastor Chris to us.