"In the Twinkling of an Eye"

BH Clendennen

There are over two hundred and seventy-two references in the New Testament as to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament references to the coming of Christ are mentioned three hundred times. I am going to be dealing with the coming of the Son of Man and some of the aspects of that coming. I feel that if there ever was a time that people should be aware of the fact that Christ is coming, it certainly ought to be this generation. Everything declares that He is coming. In John 14:1, he said, "If I go away, I will come again:' That was the stipulation. He said, "I will go." The question arises. "Did He go away?" Of course He did. We know that He went away, therefore we know that He will fulfill His promise to us to come again. In Hebrews 2:3, we read, "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" This I feel has a direct thought to the rapture. The word "escape" has reference to or literally means to vanish away. Then it would read, "How shall we vanish away, if we neglect so great salvation:' Then the Bible says that we are to pray that we may be worthy to escape. This carries with it the thought that Christians must be forever about this business of tending to their salvation. Salvation is a free gift of God. Every person that has received this gift must certainly watch after it. Neglect is the most frightful sin of all Christians. In the 25th book of Matthew we find the story of the ten virgins. Five were wise and five were foolish. The five foolish were left simply because they neglected to refuel their lamp with oil. "Oil" in the Bible is a type of the Holy Spirit. They had once been filled with the Holy Spirit. A "lamp" is a vessel. They were vessels of the Lord. We are vessels of the Lord. Why are we here? We are here to be a habitation of God through the Spirit. They had allowed the Spirit of God to leak out of their lives and as a result, the coming of the Lord found them unprepared. They had neglected to do what they knew they ought to do, therefore; they were caught outside of safety when the trumpet sounded and Jesus came. I know that there are millions of Christians in this world today in the same fix. You have once known God and the power of the Holy Spirit. But today if you were honest with yourself, you are not where you once were with God. I was asked by a great Christian once to define the term "backsliding." I said to this person, "If there ever was a time when you were closer to God than you are right now, then you are backslidden." I want to say that to you, reading this right now, if there ever was a time when you were walking closer to God than you are now, then you are backslidden and you are going to have to do something about it. What a frightening thing to realize that we can get so caught up in the things of this world that that day will overtake us unaware. Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke 21:34: "Take heed unto yourselves lest you be overcharged with surfeiting (eating) and the cares of this life that that day overtake you unawares." Pray that you may be worthy to escape. How shall you escape if you neglect this great salvation? The Bible throughout teaches us of the coming of the Lord. Today everything declares that the coming of the Lord is surely upon us. If you could but see that the antichrist system is about to be imposed upon a poor, lost world that wasn't ready for the rapture of the church of Jesus Christ. Everything testifies that Jesus is coming again. I am telling you something, Christian friend, you should be about the business of keeping that heart prepared for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many areas that teach of the soon return of our Lord. (1) The pollution problem of the world today is getting critical. I don't know whether it is as bad as the alarmists say it is or not, but I know that it must be bad from the extreme measures that are being taken today over pollution. You don't have to be an ecologist to know this. You can look at the air. Some of our trees are dying. We are seeing all manner of diseases like lung cancer being attributed to

the terrible amount of pollution that the human being is breathing today. We know that the day is coming, if the pollution problem continues on the present scale, man is going to have to live in some kind of glass house. If you see a tree, you are going to see it in a museum. Jesus is going to come before this happens. Surely that time is upon us. (2) We are in the time of exploding population. It took eighteen hundred years to gain the first billion people on this earth. The second billion took a short eighty years. The third billion came in just thirty years. We are going to have the fourth billion in less than twenty years. In the next fifty years, if the world remains, there will be standing room only on this earth. The Bible doesn't teach us that the world is going to be swallowed up in population. We know it is going to happen and Jesus is going to come before that happens. This is saying to you and me that His return is so very, very near. (3) Then inflation is certainly prophesied in the Bible. The Bible doesn't say this age is going to end in a time of depression, but a time of selling. Great times of marrying, divorcing, eating, and drinking, all of this the Bible prophesies will be taking place in the time of the coming of the Lord Jesus. That is happening today. Every bit of it is telling us that Christ is coming. All of the prophesies of the Bible are screaming to be fulfilled at the time that you are reading this message. Everything is testifying that Jesus is coming. How we need to heed the message, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" As we look about us and see the prophecies being fulfilled, there is a falling away on one hand and the reviving of the Church on the other. We see a people that have known God, walked with God, stood with God suddenly turning away from what they know. All of this is testifying that He is coming soon. Jesus is coming. We cannot, we must not allow ourselves to be caught up in the things of this world, lest they over take us unaware. There are some things very peculiar about the coming of the Lord that I believe need to be heard by you and me. They need to be rolled over in our mind and spirits. A few weeks ago in a prayer meeting very early in the morning as I sought God, I began to see some of the carelessness of some of the people of God. They have begun to be caught up in their business. They were not immoral. They were not caught up in the immoral features of our time, but they are becoming careless. They are more interested in their business than in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. God began to deal with me about this and I began to see some things in the Bible as God showed me that morning that greatly moved my spirit. I just want to pass them on to you. I feel like your heart has to be stirred. Simon Peter said, "That I may stir up your mind." First, the Holy Spirit brought me to I Corinthians 15:52 telling how all of this is going to take place. "In the Twinkling of an eye." Did you know that is the twentieth part of a second? Suddenly it is going to happen. Suddenly it is going to be over with. Oh, if I could just impress this upon your mind how suddenly all of this is going to happen. You are reading this message right now. If that trumpet would sound you would either leave or be left in the twentieth part of a second. That says something to you and me. It says that I must never do anything I wouldn't want to be caught doing when He comes. I must never be anywhere that I wouldn't want to be when He came for His own. In a moment, the twinkling of an eye, how suddenly it is all going to take place. Yet, so many of you are wrapped up in the cares of this world. You are caught up in your job, your family, your home, and social life that He could come and you would be left outside this thing. How suddenly it could happen. I have seen businessmen as they laid their worship aside to promote their business on Sunday. I realize what a dangerous thing this is. We cannot afford to be careless one moment. I read a great article once about an eagle that escaped from a zoo in St. Louis. It had been in captivity for a long while and he flew about thirty-five miles before falling on a farm. The farmer captured the eagle and tied him in his yard. He saw an ad in the paper trying to locate the missing eagle. The man from the Zoo immediately identified the bird as the one that had escaped. He was ready to take him back to the zoo but the farmer said, "You will have to tell me something about him before I let you

have him. I caught this eagle and tied him in the yard and immediately he began to walk with his head up. He never looked down. My little boy threw clods at him but he never paid any attention. Then my old Walker hound came and began to bark at him. That bird never even so much as looked at that hound. The turkeys and chickens came to examine him, but he never once looked at them. What is the matter with him?" The man from the zoo said, "There isn't anything wrong with him. But he wasn't made for a barnyard; he was made to soar the sky. He knows that one day there will be another eagle flying through those skies. That eagle with a vantage point from 10,000 feet will look down and see this eagle. When he does he will let out a scream. If this eagle on the ground answers back, then that eagle will come down and set him free. He will not allow him to be held in this kind of shameful captivity. But if he doesn't hear the shout of the other eagle, he will go nowhere. If he is engaged with your hound, your boy, your chickens, he will not hear that other eagle. As a result, he will be left behind when the chance of escape comes. The Bible says, "To them that look for Him, will He appear the second time, without sin unto salvation." In the twentieth part of a second He is going to appear. If you are all engaged with the gossip of your church, and the cares and surfeiting of this life, then you are not going to be ready. The Bible says, "He is going to come with a shout, with the voice of the arch angel, the trump of God." If you are engaged in the affairs of this life, you will not hear that trumpet or that shout. If you don't hear it, like the eagle when your opportunity of escape comes, you will be left behind. It is a frightening thing when you think about people that have walked with God and been a part of the great church of God, soul winners, giving their time and money, then in the last days become so careless and indifferent to the things of God. They toss the Word of the Lord over their shoulder with impunity. They will be lost in that moment. If the Bible teaches anything it teaches diligence. As in the case of Elisha, the prophet told him if he wanted a double portion of his spirit, the one requirement was to see him when he went. One great requirement for the coming of the Lord and preparation to meet Him is that we are looking for Him when He comes. That doesn't mean we are to have our heads stuck in the clouds, but spiritually we must be in tune with Him and not caught up in the terrible affairs of this life. What a dreadful thing not to hear that trumpet when it sounds. The second and final thing I want to say to you in regard to the coming of the Lord is not only that He will come suddenly, but that there will be so very few that are ready to meet Him. The reason they are not going to be ready to meet Him is because of their carelessness. In their heart they will have said that Jesus delayed His coming. When that happens to a person the Bible says that they get involved in the things of this world. They begin eating and drinking with the drunken and smiting their fellow servants. There is a sorry state of affairs in the Church across the nation. They have simply said, "Our Lord delays His coming." How few there are going to be out of the millions and millions that profess Christ. Few will escape in that day. I don't know whether it has ever gripped your heart and mind as to this truth or not. If it hasn't, I pray God will cause it to grip your-mind right now as we deal with it. The Bible says, "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man." We have dealt with this thought that it is going to be like the days of Noah. We have talked about the violence and terrible corruption of that day. Certainly we are seeing that repeated in our time. You are not safe on the streets of an American city even in the daytime anymore. Certainly the violence of Noah's day is upon us. The imagination of their heart was evil continually. If you look at the so called "art" of our day, most of it is pure filth. There is one part of Noah's day that is mostly overlooked by the preacher as he ministers the thought of the coming of the Lord. That is how very few escaped in that day. I don't know how the information was gathered but it is said at the time of the flood there were sixteen million people on the earth. Consider sixteen million people on the earth and only eight rode that boat to safety. I am not saying that pattern holds true, it probably doesn't, but it does tell us there

are a mighty few people who are going to get out of here. That was a type of the rapture of the Church. That ark was a type of Jesus Christ. I declare that those that make it are going to be few. Then the Bible says, "As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man." I read where there were over a million people who lived in Sodom and Gomorrah. Only three of them escaped the fires of judgment. The reason why was seen by Lot's wife. She left the city but was turned into a pillar of salt afterward. Do you know why? Her thoughts were on the things of this world. Oh, what a frightening thought that is. Her indifference to spiritual things was evident. She was caught up with her beautiful home in Sodom. No wonder the Bible says, "If you love houses, land, wives, and children more than me, you are not worthy of me." A man that puts his hand to the plough and looks backward is not fit for the Kingdom. Her mind was on the things in that city although she was persuaded to attempt escape; she looked back and lost her life because of her love of things. How many of you reading now are more in love with your home? You spend more time on your house than you do praying! You are more in love with the things of beauty and this world than you are Jesus Christ and His Gospel. You would rather pet your flesh and sleep a while on Sunday morning than get up and go to church. That tells me that you are more carnal than you are spiritual, and you are going to be lost in that day. You will never escape. Only three people out of the million in Sodom and Gomorrah escaped. Only eight of the millions that were a part of the economy of God rode that ark to safety. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? I will tell you this, friend, you shall not escape if you neglect your salvation. May God stir your heart to seek Him now to dedicate yourself absolutely to Him that you may be counted worthy when He comes. I tell you that His coming is closer than you think.
B. H. Clendennen