[Propertalk] Quotes for Luke 21:25-36 for 1 Advent - Part 7

[Joe Parrish]

 Who is this passage of Scripture addressed to today? It must be the old people, everyone who is sixty and over, receiving ARP advertisements, on social security or getting ready to die. Those people think more about mortality and death; these Bible verses are for them. 
I don't think so. Life changes so quickly. The totality of life moves by so quickly. .  I look at an infant, and the infant today is a two year old tomorrow.  And you blink and the child is thirteen.  And you blink, where did time go, and the kid is now a young adult. I blink my eyes again and you are now married.  I blink my eyes again and you have children.  I blink my eyes again and those children are gone and you have an empty nest. I blink my eyes again and you are grandparents. I blink my eyes again and you are a widow or widower. I blink my eyes again and you are ready to die. That's the way life is. 

http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_b_suddenly.htm

Edward Markquart
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Our enemy was easy to identify when our enemy was communism or the nazis. The enemy was easy to identify when it was pornography or sexual violence. It is much harden to identify the enemy around us and within us when the enemy is comfort, materialism, pleasure seeking hedonism. So we say to ourselves in America, "We can relax. There are no big problems around us and the church. There are no thieves out there trying to destroy the lives of our people. We can relax, slump back and fall asleep." The number one sin of a watchman has always been to fall asleep and not be alert to the enemy around us; that was a problem two thousand years ago and it is a problem today. 
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This is not a time for apathy when 89% of the children in the Highline School District do not have their original mother and father living in their home. This is not the time for apathy when an average person watches 10,000 murders a year on television. This is not the time for apathy when 90% of all sexual relationships for young people is outside the marriage covenant. This is not the time for apathy when recent studies tell us that in a survey of three hundred men, these men spend only an average of seven and a half minutes per weeks with their sons. This is not the time for apathy when the population of the state of Washington is increasing by double digit increases and meanwhile, the population of church membership is decreasing in the same area. These are time when all kinds of enemies are around us; there are thieves out there.  There are thieves out there who are trying to rob couples of good marriages. I mean, 89% of the children in a neighboring school district do not the have their original mother and father living with them. There are thieves out there, trying to rob people of good marriages. 

http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_b_wake_up.htm

Edward Markquart
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I love the quotation from Peter Pan: "Death is going to be an awfully big adventure." 
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Do you what the last prayer in the Bible is?  It is the second to the last line of the book of Revelation.  Revelation, chapter 22: verse 20.  "Amen. Come Lord Jesus.  Amen. So be it.  Let it happen.  Amen.  Come Lord Jesus."  That is our insistent, our persistent, our consistent prayer.  "Amen.  Come Lord Jesus.  Please come.  Come with your love.  Come with your compassion.  Come with your wisdom and strength.  Lord Jesus. It is time. I need you to come." 
The word, "come," occurs 1462 times in the Bible. It refers to God's coming to us; but it also refers to us coming to God. 

http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_a_coming.htm

Edward Markquart
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For me, one of the most interesting films about the future was T.B.X. 1138, 4.E.B. by George Lucas when he was a student at Stanford University. In that film, you don't see any blood, gore and guts like you would in movies today. The film is not a "scare-you" thriller. In the film, what you see are thousands upon thousands of miles of tunnel. The human beings are now living like ants, living in tunnels underneath the earth. One person comes up from the tunnel, out from the ground, peeking through a metal lid. He peeks his head out into the air, and the Geiger counter on his helmet goes "tick, tick, tick, tick, tick." The crust of the earth has been incinerated by nuclear fire and is radioactive. With the crust of the earth being radioactive, the human race has gone underground and is now living in tunnels, like ants. 

http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_c_futurologists_and_their_vision_for_the_future.htm

Edward Markquart
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No matter what "take" we have on the eschatological texts of the gospels, the injunction to be watchful and prayerful is perpetually relevant.  When crisis and turmoil are rocking the world - when war and injustice is destroying persons - the faithful have their sight firmly fixed on the One who is to come with justice and peace.
The roaring sea and the warring nations point to natural and political powers that govern our lives - the teaching of Christ is that no power is greater than the power of God.  When the Son of Man comes with "power and great glory" - all other powers will be vacated. 

http://www.lectionarysermons.com/decem_0300.htm

John Jewell, 2000
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