David:         These are words from my childhood Karen. I’ll see if they resonate with you. All right. “Here I come ready or not.”

Karen:         You know, that’s an international game, hide and seek. I’ve actually asked. Who of you have never played hide and seek?

David:         You’ve asked her on the world?

Karen:         Well, I’ve asked groups and there’s not one group I found that has ever not played hide and seek. So yes, I know those words.

Intro:            Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David:         Here I come ready or not always reminds me of Jesus.

Karen:         Oh, that’s lovely.

David:         It’ll be second coming. I want you to be ready. I want you to be anticipating what is going on. I want you to look forward to that time. I want you to watch what’s happening. So here I come. You be ready if others aren’t.

Karen:         Looking for God in the everyday world is the way that I would use that to teach the concept of what we call the God hunt. But to the second coming in Christ, it never quite got to that point. You know, it’s an interesting saying or phrase or little verbal catch word because I think it is a good test of how ready we are and how prepared we are and how eagerly we anticipate the coming again of Jesus Christ.

David:         It’s very easy to just kind of forget about it for, what do you think, days, but then you realize it’s weeks and longer than that.

Karen:         It’s weeks. Yeah, sometimes. In my spiritual devotional life this summer, I’ve been trying to go back into the teachings on the Mount of Jesus because that’s all of his words and capture again another fresh love for Christ. And I am very deeply moved by his teachings and the kind of humanity and divinity, of course, that it represents with his coming to earth. But I hadn’t applied it to his coming again.

David:         You know, Karen, in the New Testament, I didn’t do the counting, I’m only saying what others have said.

Karen:         Okay.

David:         Had there over 300 New Testament references to the return of Christ.

Karen:         Is that right?

David:         Yeah, that’s a lot. Let me just go to one of them.

Karen:         Okay.

David:         This is at the beginning of the book of Acts. There on the mountain Christ has ascended to heaven.

“They were looking intently into the sky as he was going when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. ‘Men of Galilee’, they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’”

So, that’s just one of the times the probably biggest number of references, at least in the length of them, would be all of the times that Jesus himself said, “I want you to watch.”

When I hear that word watch or someone says watch, I immediately say, okay, show me what you want.

Karen:         Yeah, what do you want?

David:         Yeah. And if they don’t show me, then I stop watching that after a while. So,  there’s always that tension. You know, Jesus saying, be ready. It’s going to happen. And for us to be on the lookout for that to happen.

Karen:         Yeah. There’s this verse from Luke 12:40 and it’s Jesus saying. It says, “Be you therefore ready also for the Son of Man comes at an hour when you think not.”

So, it’s an imminent kind of disposition that we’re supposed to develop an imminent kind of spiritual disposition of this watchfulness. So, how do we do that? Because I certainly am not at that point of eminence. I mean, its fat flashes from your mind every now and then, but it’s not a discipline, not a spiritual discipline in my life. What would you suggest?

David:         Well, it’s in my prayer time. I don’t always pray extended times, two times a day, but I would say the majority of days I do that. And I’m able to because of my age. I’m just two days away from being 85, which is an old. I hope you’re ready, now. Not too many times you have a husband gets to 85. Now that that’s taken care of, let me go back to the other businesses.

I do my prayer time usually at the desk and I do it with a pencil and paper in hand so that I write. I don’t write out sentences, but I write out topics. Without question, I’ll say, I want to remind myself that today may be the best day in the history of the world and I get excited about it. And I say, “Lord, some time you’re going to come. Whether I’m alive or not, doesn’t really matter. But I want you to know that I anticipate that day and I want to live in a proper relationship to you so that my response is, “Oh, wonderful.” Instead of, “Oh, could you just wait and give me a chance to kind of clear up a few things here?”

Karen:         Well, I have two thoughts. One is that it would be good for me and my prayer journal. I keep a prayer journal actually through the day. I go back to it several times. A card that marks my place and it says watch and pray. That would be one thing. And the other thing is I think that anticipation is a good measurement for a lot of our own spiritual journey, our spiritual development, our spiritual growth. There are a lot of promises in scripture, as you’ve mentioned, that talk about Christ coming again, but there are also dire warnings that accompany a lot of those scriptures.

So, we’re supposed to watch for things that actually are happening in our time. The rising of disease is one sign that Jesus himself gave. The oceans rising, well, now that’s happening all over the world. And then cataclysmic sort of events.

David:         Pandemics.

Karen:         Pandemics. Does it use the word pandemic in scripture?

David:         I will try to pull back the word it uses. What I’m fishing for is plague or pestilence, that’s what Jesus uses. I think that my parents’ generation thought about the Second Coming, heard about the Second Coming much more than my generation and certainly more than the generation that’s followed us.

Karen:         When you think of your parents and my parents, that generation, they’d lived through the Great Depression. My dad talked about that a lot.

David:         Yeah, so did my dad.

Karen:         So, it had imprinted them.

David:         Obviously lived through the Second World War, which was something much bigger than anything we have gone through in our generation.

Karen:         With hundreds of thousands of deaths. So, you know, there were, I think, blue flags that went in the windows of parents who had lost a son.

David:         It was not an easy world.

Karen:         It was not an easy world.

David:         There was a long, long time where you didn’t know which side was going to win in terms of the war.

Karen:         Right. So those things that obviously influenced your parents’ thinking. And in the midst of it, I am sure a whole generation of eager watchers longing for him to come at any moment.

David:         Yes. And who the talk of the Antichrist. I remember as a boy, someone saying that in Hitler, obviously, these were things that were worldwide in nature and the focus people’s attention on. You know, does the world go on forever or what really happens?

Karen:         So, how do we develop that same kind of longing in our own hearts without these cataclysmic events? I mean, there have been plenty. The COVID-19 pandemic is one, but you’ve had an enormous amount of deaths. But because of the vaccine, many of us haven’t been touched by it personally. And I think that it’s a longing we need to discipline ourselves to remember that we need to seek to want, seek to want that longing.

David:         I believe that this is true of our generation. These are words of Jesus. “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so, it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. Up to the day Noah entered the ark.”

So, in other words, it was life as usual. They were a wicked generation, but they were also a generation that ignored God. And they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. “Two men will be in the field, one will be taken, the other left, two women grinding at the hand mill, one taking the other left” and so on. “Therefore, keep watch.” There that word is again, watch “…because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”

So, it’s just you have to be careful to not just get consumed with what is going on in your life. You have to keep the focus.

Karen:         I think one of the things that I understand spiritually is that sometimes I have to ask God to give me the disposition or the attitude or the longing for that disposition or the attitude that I’m supposed to hold. So, in this case, I would say that first of all, we have a signifier when the doctor examines you, he gives you a diagnosis. And this is a diagnosis that we can apply to our spiritual life. Are you longing to see Jesus again? Are you anticipating him coming again? Do you pray for that? Is there something that wakes you in each day that says it could be today? You know, it could be today.

And if those things are not there in our lives, and I will admit that they’re not there in my life as much as it needs to be, then you have to actually pray and ask for God to give you that longing and that anticipation and that almost childlike watchfulness such as would be in the game. Hide and seek.

David:         Here I come. Ready.

Karen:         Here I come, ready or not. Yeah.

David:        One measure of our spiritual state is how eagerly we anticipate the return of the Lord.

Karen:         So that’s our sentence, right?

David:         Yeah, I’ll say it again. It seems so simplistic, but it’s a very powerful sentence. One measure of our spiritual state is how eagerly we anticipate the return of the Lord.

Karen:         And I think that the simple thing that we can do is use it as a diagnostic. We need to ask ourselves and our listeners who are listening to this podcast needs to ask themselves how eagerly am I waiting for the Lord to come again? What is my status as far as a watchfulness and what is the longing? Do I really want to see him? And if there is a hesitancy there, why?

David:         There have been times in my life when I’ve prayed and thought, “You know what, Jesus, give me another day.”

Karen:         Another day.

David:         Well, another day…

Karen:         To make things right.

David:         To make things right.

Karen:         Right. It’s a good check and a good test. How do I feel about the Lord coming back again? And if I’m reluctant about it in any way, then we need to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us and brother, will he?

David:         …maybe he already has.

Karen:         Or maybe he already has. What it is that’s causing that hesitancy. And generally, we’ll go back to some sort of error in our life or sin that we are harboring or attitude that we hadn’t changed and act of forgiveness that we need to do in our own hearts and then extend to those who have sinned against us. I mean, it is a great tool for looking into ourselves and thinking what needs to be improved here.

David:         Couple related hints; I think memorizing scripture is important. Not that long ago, I memorized when I was talking on Revelation. We’re like, watch..

Karen:         … yeah, look…

David:         “… look, he’s coming with the clouds. Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. And all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be. Amen.” That’s from the first chapter of Revelation.

Karen:         Beautiful.

David:         Yeah, it is. I think that another area where we can keep this in the forefront of our mind more is through music. I’m reminding them the Billy Graham Crusades. They always sang with the big choir, ”How Great Thou Art,” which was a reminder “…when Christ shall come with a shout of acclamation and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart? And I shall bow in humble adoration and there proclaim my God, How Great Thou Art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How Great Thou Art, How Great Thou Art.”

You can almost hear the big choir singing.

Karen:         Yeah, beautiful.

David:         Cliff Barrows leading, “Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How Great Thou Art, How Great Thou Art.”

Just thoughts. Another thought that comes to my mind, Karen, is that in the New Testament time, the greeting of people. Do you remember what it was?

Karen:         It was Maranatha, I believe.

David:         Yeah, Maranatha is just an expression in Aramaic. It’s an encouragement as well as a triumphant faith. Our Lord comes regardless of man’s enmity. That’s basically what the meaning would be. Paul puts this word over against anathema.

Karen:         Maranatha and anathema.

David:         Yeah, anathema is the curse which befalls idol worshipers. So, he’s saying it’s not anathema, it’s Maranatha, our Lord comes, which is kind of neat. And you can almost hear it. In fact, I think probably in big parts of Africa, they still say Maranatha. So, we have our own expressions. When we leave, we say, “The Lord be with you.”

Karen:         Yes, the Lord be with you.

David:         Whether they are fellow believers or not. But Maranatha is kind of nice because it reminds us again that Jesus is going to come back again.

So, where are we in all of this? We’re basically saying this is a reminder. It’s a huge aspect of the Christian faith that it didn’t end with the death and resurrection. There is going to be that marvelous day of triumph. People differ as to whether or not Christ will come in power and glory and victory.

Karen:         There are theological differences.

David:         Yes, or whether he will come and there will be a rapture of the believers or somehow those elements are combined. But one way or another, there’s going to be a great getting up morning.

Karen:         Yeah, I was trying to remember the words of that hymn. It’s a great getting up morning. Yeah, it’s a beautiful piece, isn’t it? Yeah. Well, I think we’ve done well in examining this concept. And the role then of the listener, if the Holy Spirit is nudging their heart and their soul to say, Okay, what do I do with this now?  What do I do with this now? And is it a word that is coming to me that needs to persuade me to self-examine, listen to the Holy Spirit, ask Him to prod the places that need to be changed in me, and then to give me this feeling of anticipation and looking forward and watchfulness and eagerness to see Christ again.

David:         Which goes back to how we started. Here I come, ready or not. It’s the response of the follower of Jesus. It says, “Yeah, come on, come on, I can hardly wait. Let’s get on with it.”

Karen:         It’s lovely.

Outro:         You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all-lower-case letters, hosts@beforewego.show.

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