No Baby's Cry (Part 1 of 3 parts)

It is hard to imagine a world without a baby's cry, but when Jesus Christ returns for His church, all babies and children within the age of innocency will be caught out with the believers.

Christians of the year 2009 live in the twilight of the church age, and in the barely perceptible dawning of the raptured church. We are threshold saints, and the very mention of the term should send a shiver through our nervous systems. We have one foot in the church era, and the other nearly with the Savior.

At any time our heart rhythms could change from earthly to heavenly, and our breathing from temporal to ethereal. At any time our eyes could be viewing angels instead of coworkers and family members, and streets of gold in place of concrete and asphalt, and the joyous countenances of the relaxed and redeemed rather than the strained and stressed-out crush of super market shoppers.

In these very days our ears could begin hearing the opening crecendo of the Lamb's song as the redeemed pick up the unrehearsed notes and lyrics of the refrain written before the foundation of the earth. Momentarily we could be standing before Him, looking upon Him in wonder, warmth, and peace.

Are you ready for it? Are you ready, men and women, children and young men and young women? Not only should we be ready now to stand before Him...but are we ready to hand in our homework? That is, ready to stand inspection and judgment?

The entire context and environment of Jesus' words "Therefore be ye also ready" in Matthew 24:44 bristles and expands as He quietly, but fearfully, warns His disciples. No person who ever lived...no preacher who ever poured out his soul...was more poignantly specific about the possibility of being left behind at the moment of Jesus' second coming than He was by this statement.

Christians who would not dream of being unprepared for a house fire, or a hospitalization, or a collision, or a windstorm, or a layoff, or a disability or retirement, will daily, and weekly and monthly fail to maintain their readiness for Jesus' soon return.

(Continued next week)