<TITLE>10. Par 30-33</TITLE>L-30 You see, God does work through the pastor to get His church ready. He works through the songs to get His church ready. And He works through you to get His church ready. If your pastor would fail and continually to fail, you'd hunt you another pastor. Quickly you would do that. If your choir didn't sing right, or your solos wasn't right, you'd say to the director, the one who has the music, "Don't let them sing no more. They just make me nervous to sing."
But what about you as an individual? How do you fail in your daily living? How do you tally up with God--what God says for you to be a shining light that sets on a hill. No one can pass that way, when around your way without knowing about Jesus. What type of life do you live? One of those types that's mean, and insulting, and aggravating, indifferent? Or can you speak of the peace and the love that you have found in Christ? She has made herself ready.

L-31 I was showing you the wickedness, and the time would not--would fail me to go through the ages and show, that each time like in Babylon on the night of the rioting, and dancing, and drinking, and so forth, and what happened. And down through the age it's been that way. In every age God's had thunderbolt prophets, and signs and wonders to condemn the thing in the midst of all popularity and stand alone for God.
Not only that, but what if I would speak of the time of little Stephen: not a prophet, not a pastor, just a member of the Body of Christ, how that this little fellow stood before the Sanhedrin Council that morning and spoke out to those who were condemning him, and said, "You stiffnecks, uncircumcised in the heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do you."
He wasn't a pastor. You can't expect your pastor to do it all. You can't expect your Trustee Board to do it all, or your Deacon Board. You've got to make yourself ready. It's an individual affair. And remember, His coming is so sudden that the Church will go in a twinkling of an eye. And if we see sin on every hand and judgment pending in the battleships of God's wrath coming, how we escape this?

L-32 Signs are appearing. Jesus is coming. And great wonders are being done. Every milepost is pointing towards His soon appearing. And it'll happen in a moment. How are we standing this morning as we take inventory? If we should be spoke to this morning, and the Lord Jesus should descend from the heavens this morning with a shout and the trump of God, would we be found ready as a church body? Would we be found ready as an individual to join with those who are raised from the dead, who have proven themselves ready?
No matter whether we are ready or not, the Lord Jesus will come just the same at the appointed time. We must be ready. And we must do it now. It is no time to wait. We must redeem the time and be ready.

L-33 Sometime ago, a story, just before closing, that struck me as I heard it many, many years ago... This secret coming of the Lord, sudden secret going of the church... "Watch, it'll be two in the field; I'll take one and leave one. There'll be two in the bed; I'll take one and leave one," showing that the coming of the Lord will not be just at any certain corner, but it'll be universal. One will be in the field working: daytime, the other one in the bed sleeping on the other side of the world. It'll be a universal rapture. And it'll come with the shout, with the voice of the Archangel. And the trump of God shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall rise. And she will be caught away secretly. Oh, I love that. The great Bridegroom coming, and the bride that got Herself ready, waiting for that secret moment that she doesn't even know herself, but she's ready and dressed, and waiting for it.


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