Keeping watch

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.” Matthew 24:42-44
We come across several verses in the Bible about Christ coming in secret, like a thief in the night (1 Thess. 5:2). As we saw earlier in Matthew 24, the second coming will be obvious and preceded by many signs. Not so for the rapture of the church. That could happen at any moment.
I believe the rapture of the church will happen before the Tribulation begins; before the 7 years of ‘Jacob’s trouble’. People may say that’s escapist, but that’s kind of the point! (Luke 21:36). The Tribulation is God’s judgement upon a Christ-rejecting world, and He does not judge the righteous with the wicked. No, rather than being escapist and burying our heads in the sand, the pre-Trib rapture is a purifying doctrine (Tit. 2:12-13, 1 John 3:3). Because the Lord could come at any time, we live righteously. We are not like the servant who slacked off because he thought the master was not coming soon (Matt. 24:48-51).
The implication of the words, ‘the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him’, is that He is coming sooner than we think. When people say, ‘Jesus couldn’t come back today because...’ – then He very well could come back today, because they are not expecting Him! Are you ready for Him to return?