Luke 12:40

“Be Prepared”

Be ye also ready. Luke 12:40.

When the army is in the field, the commanding officer may come at any time to any part of it, and he expects when he does so to find everyone at his post. The sentinels must be on duty, watchful and alert for the coming of the enemy. The soldiers must be drilled and disciplined, and their guns must be clean and in working order. When the commanding officer comes he must find them ready.

At the time of the Boer War in South Africa, it was necessary to send Lord Roberts out to take command. It is said that, when he was asked if his health were good enough to bear the strain, since he was an elderly man, he replied, “Yes, I thought I might be wanted, and I have kept myself fit.” So he was ready when the need arose. But he would not have been able to go if he had allowed himself to get slack and indolent and unfit.

You know the motto of the boy scouts. It is “Be prepared” If a boy scout sees an accident, and gives “first aid,” or saves someone from drowning and restores him by artificial respiration, it is because he has been trained in ambulance work and swimming, and is ready for the emergency.

When Christ comes He will not come like a general on the day of a public review, when the day has long been fixed, and every man knows he must be at his best. He will come as the general comes when he pays a surprise visit to his men, to see how things go on when he is not expected. Or He will come as a friend comes, without an invitation, to a house where he is familiar. He is not expected, and no special preparation has been made for him, but he “takes his friends as he finds them.”

That is a great test of readiness. If the sentry is not always on the alert, he may be caught napping when the commander comes. If the mistress of the house is an untidy person, and her house is fit to be seen only when she expects company, the visitor may come when she is not ready for him.

What would Christ wish to find us doing if He came? Just the work He has given us to do, whatever it is. We all have something which has been given us to do, and He would like to find us doing it, and doing it well. It may be very humble work, and very uninteresting as monotonous as that of the sentry pacing his rounds but it is ours, and it is just what we should be found doing.

There was once a wise judge who, when sudden darkness came on, and people thought the end of the world was at hand, said, “Bring lights, and let us go on with the case. We cannot be better employed, if the end has come, than in doing our duty.”

Then, too, we should be getting ready for Heaven. If you knew that you were to be sent alone to live in France, would you not try to learn all you could about the country to which you were going? You would try to learn the language and to find out about the customs, that you might not feel a stranger when you went there. If you are to feel happy in Heaven you must be learning to live the heavenly life now.

A gentleman in the South, before the American Civil War, had a Christian slave; and when the master died they told the slave that the master had gone to Heaven. The old slave shook his head. “I'm afraid he didn't go there.” he said. “But why, Ben?” he was asked. “Because when he would go north, or go to the Springs, he talked about it a long time, and get ready. But he never talked about going to Heaven; never saw him get ready to go there!”

A little girl one day said to her mother, “Mamma, my Sunday-school teacher tells me that this world is only a place in which God lets us live a while, that we may prepare for a better world. But, mother, I do not see anybody preparing. I see you preparing to go into the country, and Auntie is preparing to come here; but I do not see anyone preparing to go there; why don't they try to get ready?”

If Heaven be the land we hope to reach,

Is it not time to learn the heavenly speech?

It were so sad, amid the shining band

To roam, lost children, none could understand:

While blessed eyes should learn a sweet despair,

Knowing we never could be happy there.

(F. Langbridge, Little Tapers, 28.)