Thank you. Are you ready to meet Jesus face to face, or are you still clinging to this world?

Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg considers the sudden nature of Christ's return and how we can be prepared.

We're continuing our study in Luke chapter 17, picking up where Jesus answers the Pharisees question,

when will the messianic kingdom come?

Jesus says that the kingdom of God is not one that you will be able to determine by careful

observation. It's not going to come by careful observation, and he says to them,

I'll give you two reasons as to why it won't. The first is that the kingdom of God is within you, or better still,

is among you. You see, this they couldn't grasp. He reads the message in, he reads from Isaiah in the

synagogue in Nazareth, Luke 4, which is pivotal in our whole study of Luke's gospel. I don't

think there's been a study when I haven't gone back to Luke 4.

Because this is really the cornerstone of the whole thing. The kingdom of God has come,

he says. Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. And these Pharisees looked at this,

and they said, well, I know that he's raising people and he's healing people and he's doing these things,

but we don't see this as this fulfilling of Scripture. This is not the kind of kingdom we've been

looking for. Jesus says, the reason you're not going to be able to get at it with your observations

is because the kingdom is here and you don't see it. Here in my person, there is the saving and

judging of men and women, saving those who come to me in childlike trust, judging those who remain stubborn in their rejection of me.

And the second reason, and he comes to this in 22 and following, that you're not going to get to the issue by careful observation, is because the final coming of the kingdom of God

will take place so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that it will swallow up all and any attempts

at defining the details with any degree of accuracy. Now, it's the question of the Pharisees

that triggers that response, and then Jesus, as he does so often, moves from the question raised by someone in the crowd or by the religious leaders, and he turns to his disciples, and he says, let me just say a word or two more to you folks about this so that nothing takes you unprepared. And in verses 22 to 37,

what you really have is Jesus providing the disciples with a further explanation concerning the

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