How can I be ready to be caught up in the rapture?

First, we must be "ready" in title; and, secondly, we must be "ready" in our moral state — ready in conscience, and ready in heart. The one is founded upon the work of Christ for us; the other is connected with the work of the Spirit in us. If we are simply resting by faith on the finished work of Christ, if we are leaning exclusively on what He has done and what He is, then are we in very truth ready in title, and we may rest assured of being with Him when He comes.

"They that were ready went in," those that were not ready were left outside. There is nothing more simple, dear friend, but there is nothing more solemn. "They that were ready went in," and oh, if the Lord came just now, what it would be to our hearts who know Him! The voice of the archangel and the trump of God would be heard, and His own voice, the voice of the Saviour, would bid us rise up to meet Him. We should be caught up to scenes of joy and rest with Jesus. But, my friend, are you ready? ready to meet Jesus, ready for that trumpet's call, ready to go in? "No," you say, "I am not." Then do not lose a moment, I entreat you, "be ye also ready," be ready now.

Then the Lord says this: "And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through" (v. 39); and then He adds, "Be ye therefore ready also" (that is, on the watch): "for the Son of Man cometh at an hour when ye think not" (v. 40). I don't go tonight into the distinction between the public coming of Christ and His coming to receive His people. I speak tonight in a general way; next week I shall hope to take up the distinction. Here it is the Son of Man coming, and that always applies to the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the prospect of which we live day by day, as the apostle says, "those who love His appearing." The point of this additional figure which the Lord uses is this, that we are always to be ready, "Be ye therefore ready also." Now you will say, "How can we be ready?" It is not state of soul only; it is mainly that, but there are many things to be settled. I was dining one day with a lady in London, and I said to her at the table, "Would you like the Lord Jesus to return today?" "No," she said, "I would not." "And why not?" "Well," she said, "I have many things to settle up first, there are many things I would not like Him to see; I would rather He did not come today." Well, the Lord says, "Be ye ready," that is, everything settled up, and we as real pilgrims and strangers passing through this world with nothing to detain us. And why? Because our hearts are upon Him where He is now. It all resolves itself into that.

But, then, what is the basis of the Christian hope? The basis of that hope is the wonderful truth unfolded in the scripture, which I first read this evening, and I ask you therefore to go back to 1 Corinthians 15, because it is absolutely impossible that either you, or I, can quietly, or simply wait for the Lord Jesus, or think of His coming peacefully, and joyfully, if our souls are not clear before God, as to the value, and effect of the work which He has wrought. It is perfectly impossible for any person to think of the return of the holy, blessed Saviour, unless the conscience is purged, and the heart at rest, in the sense that all sins are forgiven. Now this chapter unfolds the Gospel most simply, and develops the truth of the resurrection, and what was connected with the resurrection. You will see, therefore, what is the basis of our hope, as Christians. By our, I mean the whole family of God; I mean every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. The hope of the Christian is what Scripture presents as the blessed desire of every heart that knows the Lord Jesus Christ. It rests on the fact of His death and resurrection; and therefore I invite your attention to this scripture, to note the way in which the Spirit of God couples the death of Christ, and His resurrection, and the rising of the saints, at the second coming of the Lord, all together. The latter are all connected with Him who died, on whom death had no claim.

We were having before us this morning, beloved brethren, the coming of the Lord, and I could not help feeling how necessary it is not only that our hearts should be stirred up to the fact that He is coming, but there is another thing that would weigh upon the heart of every servant of the Lord, certainly on the spirit of all those who have known a little bit of what it is to traverse this scene; that is, a sense of what it is to be ready. I am not speaking at all now of what it is to be saved; we are ready for the coming of the Lord in that sense, but there is a preparedness here. I know that in virtue of that cross of our Lord Jesus Christ the dying thief could go straight to paradise. There is one fitness, and, thank God, every believer now in His presence has it; there is only one way to go to heaven, and that is by Christ, as the dying thief upon the cross dropped there and then the thief, and went to heaven in nothing but Christ. That is just how we all go there. But there is another thing, and that is, that while we are made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, there should be conduct befitting. Looked at as in Christ, we have the wedding garment.

I apprehend this illustration will have its application to us here tonight. Is the Lord returning? If He is, I want to get rid of everything that will not please Him, and that is the meaning, I apprehend, of the passage in 1 John 3: "Every one that hath this hope in Him" (that is, in Christ) "purifies himself, even as He is pure." Now purifying oneself is this — getting rid of all that is unsuited to Christ, and the acquisition of everything that is suited to Him, and that is the only possible way of being ready to meet Him when He does return. Let us not pass by a scripture like this, but let it lay hold of our hearts in living power, when the Lord says, "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately."

The Lord Jesus uses the same figure in Luke 12:35-36, with special reference to His coming for "His own." "Let your loins be girded about and lamps burning; and ye like men who wait their own lord." This is the normal attitude of every true believer in Christ; the heart cherishing the hope of His coming throughout the long dark night of His absence untramelled, unencumbered by earthly things, so that when He knocks, according to the figure, we may open to Him immediately. The heart, sustained by the power and reality of this hope, undistracted by the objects of this world requires no preparation but responds without hesitation to the summons of the object of its love.

To be waiting indicates readiness . To be watching shows expectation . To be working is a sign of faithfulness to a charge. And the servants of the Lord are to be ready, expectant, and faithful in view of His coming again.

Again, in Luke we come to what more particularly illustrates, on the one side, the grace of God, and, on the other, the heart of man. The coming of Christ, therefore, is there put, just as we might expect, in close contact with the affections and the conscience. The reason is obvious. Luke is the great moralist among the four, and therefore the announcement of Christ's return partakes of a corresponding character. Accordingly, in Luke 12, we have the right attitude of the believer in relation to the Lord's advent. This is the way in which the Lord presents it in verses 35, 36: "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately." The thought is entirely peculiar to St. Luke. To "open to him immediately," as expressive of constant expectation, is a phrase found neither in Matthew, nor in Mark, nor in John; but only here. Why so? Because it supposes a condition of the heart, and therefore falls in with the province of Luke, who traces not only what God is to man in His grace, but also the effect of His grace upon the heart. Let the lesson not be in vain. Observe how the Lord singles out this readiness, inwardly and outwardly, to receive Himself, as the right condition for the saint to cultivate in awaiting His return. It is clear and certain that this supposes the Lord's coming as the proximate hope, and the believer waiting for Him, not knowing when He is coming, but constantly expecting Him to come; certain that He is coming, though uncertain, if you will, when He comes. What is the effect of this on faith and unbelief? The faithless heart goes to sleep; the evil servant says in his heart, "My Lord delayeth His coming," and takes advantage of His absence, eating and drinking with the drunken, and beating his fellow-servants. But what of the faithful heart? What does he who is fresh in the enjoyment of the Christian hope? He waits in readiness of soul that, when the Lord knocks, he may open the door immediately, with nothing to hinder it, with no object to detain the heart, with no plans that have to be accomplished first, without thought of rising in the world, or settling the family, or helping to build up some tower of human pride, in a lesser or a greater degree. He is outside the interests and schemes and hopes of men. Were his heart ever so little there, the return of the Saviour could not be welcome; it would ruin the interests, spoil the plans, and frustrate the hopes. The saint that longs for Him, and desires nothing so much as His coming, has already found in His precious blood redemption, the forgiveness of sins, is alive to God through Him, and has received in the Holy Ghost new power to glorify God through realizing himself one with Christ and the rich and eternal interests of His love. Where Christ is not thus simply and intelligently looked for, there is the danger of making a little world even out of Christian service. The religious life, of which Christ's coming is not the hope, has its energies and its objects where one often detects some such tincture; but surely this is the abuse of that field which the Spirit of God affords to the believer; for He prompts the Bride to say, Come, to her Lord, leads us to wait for God's Son from heaven; yea, not merely so, but, when the Lord knocks, would have us open to Him "immediately."

We are thankful for a free gospel and an open Bible. But we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that there is a fearful amount of laxity, unsubduedness, and self-indulgence going hand in hand with the evangelical profession of the day. We notice with the deepest anxiety many young professors who have, or seem to have, a very clear insight, so far as the intellect goes, into the truth of the sinner's title, who, if we are to judge from their style, deportment, and habits, are not "ready" in their moral condition — in the real state of their hearts. We are at times, we must confess, sadly cast down when we see our young friends decking their persons in the vain fashions of a vain and sinful world; feeding upon the vile literature that issues in such frightful profusion from the press; and actually singing vain songs and engaging in light and frivolous conversation. It is impossible to reconcile such with "Be ye also ready."

We may perhaps be told that these things are externals, and that the grand point is to be occupied with Christ. It may be said — it has been said — "Provided we have Christ in our hearts, it does not matter what we have on our heads or in our hands." We reply, "If we really have Christ in our hearts, it will regulate what we put on our heads and take into our hands; yea, it will exert a manifest influence upon our whole deportment and character."