<TITLE>02. Par 5-7</TITLE>L-5 Now, for a text, I want to take this for a text this morning, "The Sudden Secret Going Away Of The Church." May I... Let me announce it again, because I haven't had very much time to premeditate on any comments, but just hurrying. We were out late yesterday and never got in last night till real late, and rushing down here this morning... But this just come to my mind. And maybe later I might catch something that would do someone good. I love this subject: "The Sudden Secret Catching Away Of The Church." And now in I Thessalonians the 5th chapter...
 But of the times and of the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you.
 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destructions cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
 Ye are the children of the light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, or of darkness.
 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
Now, I wish you to look just across the page, if it is so geographically arranged in your Bible, to the 16th, 17th, and 18th verses of the 4th chapter of I Thessalonians.
 For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
May the Lord add His blessings to the reading of His Holy Word.
This is an unusual thing to speak of a subject like this on a morning that I come down to--to minister to the sick. But there is a greater sickness than physical sickness. And it's much more essential that we be well for this great event that's just fixing to take place, than it would be to be even asleep in the Lord, that is, dead, as we would know it.

L-6 It's better to be ready. I would rather be a sick man ready with the Lord, than to be a well man not ready to go with the Lord. But however it be, God is so willing that we be both well and ready, soul and body. For He forgives all of our iniquities and heals all our diseases. He died for a compound purpose.
And then, I thinking today on this subject of "The Sudden And Secret..." I like that. God is... People live today as though just before the coming of the Lord Jesus that He was going to send a host of angels down to all the newspapers and for a year or so announce it throughout all the world in the newspaper, that on a such and such a date Jesus will arrive; and to have it broadcast by the radio, and put on the televisions, and everywhere, just the day and just the hour that He was coming. Now, that's the way people live today.

L-7 But God has said in His Word that it would be like a thief in the night coming. If that would be so, people would say, as the world thinks today, "Oh, well, there is just plenty of time, I'll... It'll be well announced and..." But you see, it is announced, but it's a secret announcing. It's just those who are willing to hear it, those who are willing to consider it and to--who loves the Lord.
I think now of what Paul said when he said, "There is a crown of righteousness laid up for me, that the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me at that day." And then he stopped, did you notice, and said, "Not only me, but to all them that love His appearing." If we love His appearing...


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