Well, good morning.
Sorry I’m a little bit late. You know, we built larger bathrooms for the ladies—more of them—and that worked fine for years. Men did okay, but today I just couldn’t get in there. We’re just getting too old, I guess. Anyway, Lord bless.
Lord, we just come to You this morning. Thank You—but what can we say about love, that God Himself would sacrifice His only Son? I mean, Lord, it’s astounding. It is beyond human reasoning.
But Lord, You have done it, and not only that, but given us faith to believe. Lord, we just worship You this morning as we come. We ask, Lord, as we look into Your Word now, as we consider the conference that lies ahead, Lord, we just look to You. Lord, we really do.
We thank You this morning that when we look, we see that You’re on the throne. Lord, that means so much to us, and that You’re over all things. We commit ourselves in this conference time unto Thee, and ask, Lord, this morning, that You would bless us with Your Word.
Lord, give us truly open ears this morning, that we might go into this time encouraged and strengthened. In the name of the Lord, amen.
Well, obviously, the conference is pretty soon, I think. When is it?
One week. I knew that. It took me a little bit, but I did. And I’m looking forward to seeing everybody help load the truck. Really looking forward to that, so come on.
Anyway, let’s begin this morning. It’s on my heart that we really come into this conference encouraged and really looking for the Lord to do amazing things.
So let’s begin with Romans 13:11.
Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep:
for now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed.
The night is far spent, the day is at hand.
Well, we know this Scripture in Romans 13 is speaking of the Lord’s return, and He is trying to awaken us. He said, “Knowing the time”—it’s short, it’s close, the dawn is upon us.
And we come to that Scripture: He says, “Knowing the time, it’s high time that we awake.” Now, I thought that was interesting. I don’t know if Paul ever visited North Carolina, or if the interpreter of what Paul said ever came to North Carolina, but that seems to be the only place, frankly, I’ve ever heard that phrase used: high time.
It was quite well used by my mother: “It’s high time. It’s high time you get off the couch and move.” And that meant there was no more time when she used the words “high time.”
Most of us have experienced it when our mother or father would ask us to do something, and we would continue—in my day—to play with something. In your day, you continue to look at your phone and play with your phone. “Hey, Jerry, it’s time to go.” “Mm-hmm. Yeah, Ma.”
And then Mom said, “It’s high time, Jerry. It’s time to go.” Or the other phrase she would often use to get my attention was, she wouldn’t say, “Jerry.” She would say, “Gerald Carlton Amon.”
So when your full name was used, you knew you were in trouble if you didn’t move pretty quickly. And that’s what is being said here in the Scripture. “Gerald Carlton Amon, you need to get out of bed. You need to awake. It’s high time.”
She did that too in the mornings. I was terrible at getting up in the morning, but she took care of that pretty well. “Jerry, it’s high time.” When she would say that, I knew I had better move.
So, awake out of sleep, knowing the time. Well, what time is it? As we’ve already said, it is the last hour. The Lord is coming soon.
But I couldn’t help but think that, to help us get the impact of what’s going on, we should consider, just for a brief moment, the nation of Israel. Israel is a sign to the nations. Israel is a sign to us.
What is happening in Israel is a sign to us, because all the things that happened in Israel were prophesied eight hundred years before Christ. All the old prophets prophesied about Israel. They prophesied that Jerusalem would be destroyed, and Israel would fall and be scattered among the nations.
And yet, the Lord would restore them, bring them back to the land, and the land would no longer be an empty desert, but it would flourish. The people would return.
Well, you know, that did happen in A.D. 70, seventy years after Christ had died. Jerusalem was destroyed, and at that time the nation of Israel was scattered throughout all the nations. They disappeared, basically, as a nation. They just disappeared, literally. That was all prophesied in the Book—that it would happen.
Well, as you know, there was a great movement to begin to try to restore Israel, and in 1948 something happened. The United Nations, after World War II, took a little bit of sympathy toward the Jews. At least six million of them had been slaughtered in gas chambers and shot—almost wiped Israel out.
And yet, in 1948, the United Nations had a resolution to restore Israel as a nation. And praise the Lord, our president, President Truman at the time—and you can correct me if I’m wrong, Jim—I think it was President Truman. He signed the proclamation. We were the first nation, the first nation, to recognize Israel as a nation.
Thank the Lord. I’m thankful to the Lord for that. That was 1948.
Then, in 1967, the nations surrounding Israel—I think it was five—decided to attack them with overwhelming force. And Israel prevailed. I still remember that, 1967. I was born in ’43, so I was old enough to remember what happened. It was amazing.
They did a preemptive strike, and in six days they won the war. Not only that, but Jerusalem at that time was still divided. They only controlled half of Jerusalem, but in 1967 they controlled all of Jerusalem.
Now, is that meaningful? Of course it’s meaningful, because when our Lord Jesus, just a few days before He was going to Calvary’s cross, was at the temple, He had spoken and looked around. On the way back, He stopped at the Mount of Olives.
As He had looked at the temple, the disciples were saying, “Look how great it is. It’s marvelous.” And the Lord, on the Mount of Olives, said, “Look, every stone is going to be torn down.” That shocked them.
And so they asked Him, “When is this going to happen? When is the end of days? When are You going to return?”
He also said that the Gentiles would be over Jerusalem until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. Well, in 1967, it certainly appears that the time of the Gentiles was coming to an end, because Israel was now in control of Jerusalem totally.
Now, the Lord went on, after talking to them about what lay ahead. He said there are going to be wars and rumors of wars, nation against nation, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, and signs in the sky. He said, “These are the beginning of birth pains.”
And He went on to describe all the persecution that would be going on in the world. Then He said, “Look, at the end of that, be aware of this. Remember the fig tree.”
Remember, the fig tree represents the nation of Israel in the Bible and the Word of God. “Every man will have his fig tree to sit under,” it says in the Word of God.
Well, He said, “Remember the fig tree.” He says, “When the fig tree, and all the trees, begin to put forth leaves, you know summer is nigh.” He said, “Look, when you see these things, be aware that it’s time. It’s high time.”
And I thought it was so interesting. He said, “Behold the fig tree and all the trees.” Well, there is some general prophecy there that when you see trees begin to shoot forth leaves, you know summer is near. But then He says, “Behold the fig tree and all the trees.”
So it seems to me like the fig tree—there’s something special about it. And I did a little research on fig trees, and they’re one of the last trees to shoot forth leaves. Late spring, the rest of the trees have mostly budded. So when you see the fig tree bud, you know it is really close. That’s the whole point of that story.
And brothers and sisters, some of the Old Testament prophets said that the Jews would be regathered to Israel. Well, since 1948, I think it’s very interesting: the Jews began to return, didn’t they? Even Russia allowed the Jews to come out, which was amazing. It might be amazing these days, but it was in our day.
Today, six and a half million Jews live in Israel. In the whole world, there are only about fifteen million Jews. Another six and a half million are here in the United States.
But it is amazing. These prophecies have been fulfilled, and the time is coming to an end. Almost forty-three percent of the Jews in the world are now in Israel. That’s amazing.
And what was totally and literally a desert before the Jews started returning now is a fruitful garden. In fact, they ship out many fruits and products from Israel. Indeed, the land has blossomed.
Brothers and sisters, I say all of this just to say: What time is it? The time is at hand. It is high time.
It is high time. We can no longer say it’s the last day. We’re compelled to say it’s the last hour—and maybe even the last minutes. Concerning the way the Lord looks at time, a thousand years as a day, it might only be a few ticks of the clock left.
And I remember last year our brother shared his heart with us, and what he shared many times was, “Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready?” That was last year’s conference.
Now, I don’t know how much we really heard, how much we really received. I had to examine myself: “Lord, did that really awaken me?” I know in this last year there have been many cares of life that I’ve been involved with. It seems to take away the essence of what I heard last year: “Are you ready?”
I have to say, did I really wake up? Did I really become aware that it’s so soon?
I remember, as a child—how many people remember the Burma-Shave signs? Ah, there’s a few, just a few.
When we would take a trip, particularly, we’d go down most of the time on 301 for some reason. Anyway, Burma-Shave, which was, I think, somewhere in the early 1930s—the way they advertised, they had signs along the road. They would have these signs with little sayings on them.
It would be six signs, always six in a row. You would go along and read the first one, then the second one, the third one. The last one always was “Burma-Shave.” But I wrote one of them down:
Past schoolhouses, take it slow;
Let the little shavers grow.
Burma-Shave.
That was one of them. They were usually encouraging messages. So, you know, I saw those signs, and Burma-Shave became quite a product because of those little signs.
Well, there was another sign I remember so well that you would pass along the road, and it was fairly common: “Prepare to meet your God.” I think that was correct. Prepare to meet your God. Y’all remember that?
You know what? That stuck in my little brain as a child. I’d see these people, and then you’d see some on the streets with a sign hung around their neck: “Prepare to meet thy God.” It was not unusual in my day.
A sign—just a little thought. In other words, we need to be prepared. That’s what was kind of stuck in my mind.
But this morning, we do need to be prepared. That’s what the conference is this year: be prepared. It’s high time.
What I’m trying to get at is, we can have mental knowledge of the Lord’s soon return. We can have doctrinal knowledge of the Lord’s soon return. But do we know it? Have we yet received revelation from the Lord?
The time is at hand. It’s high time. Has it struck you personally? Just knowledge alone will not get your heart like the Lord wants it to. He wants us to get a revelation that says, “I’m coming, Jerry. I want you to get ready.” That kind of revelation.
You know, a lot of people, I think, struggle with what the word revelation means. I’m going to try to make it as simple as I can: it’s, “Aha, I see it.” The aha moment in your life, when you see something.
I remember one of my real aha moments was when our brother Stephen said, “The church is not an organization; it’s an organism.” That’s what did it for me. The Lord used that to touch my spirit, and it was, “Ah, now, Lord, I see.”
Because I had been questioning and asking the Lord, “What is the church?” for a couple of years prior to that. And that day, it was answered, and my spirit said, “Aha, I see it.”
The aha moment is what I think we need in our hearts—the spiritual aha. It’s no longer just up here, but it is transferred down to here in our hearts. So we need that the Lord might open our eyes to give us vision.
We need to see, brothers and sisters, a vision of the Lamb on the throne, patiently waiting for His bride. We need that. We need that aha moment to say, “Lord, You are waiting for Your bride. That’s what’s on Your heart. It should be on my heart, Lord.”
Well, you know, that’s what John saw. He wrote the whole book of Revelation. He saw the King. He saw the exalted King. He saw Him on the throne, and he saw the church. He saw this King standing in the midst of the church, and we know the church is His bride.
And what does God see? He sees that the bride is not ready. The Lord speaks to all seven of these churches, and the church is not ready. John sees that the bride is not ready. What the Lord has on His heart so passionately—she’s just not ready.
In fact, in the last one, Laodicea—the church which is the age that we’re living in now, which is a passive age, basically, a lukewarm age as described—she’s satisfied. She basically feels okay. She’s satisfied.
In fact, the Lord is pretty clear that she’s blind. But they don’t see any reason to get prepared because they think they have all they need. They think they’re ready.
Brothers and sisters, sometimes we don’t see, but we don’t even know what we don’t see. So I do think as we go into this conference, the Lord would really put on our heart: the bride is not ready. And the Lord would really show it to us.
And John—what did John do? He saw this revelation: the bride’s not ready. And what did he do? He cries out right in the beginning, Revelation 1:3: “The time is at hand.” That’s what he wanted us to know. The time is at hand. The bride is not ready.
I don’t know how we can—only the Holy Spirit can really capture our hearts—but have you ever thought about what the meaning of life is anyway? What is the meaning of your life? What is the meaning of the next child that will be born?
Let me say this much: the meaning of life is Christ. I think we’ve discovered that. God has filled Christ with all the fullness of the Godhead, and that is available to us.
But God Himself desired that His Son have that helpmate, that helper. That’s what’s on God’s heart. He wants that companion for His Son—the companion to share in His life, to share in His work, to share in the future with Him.
That’s what He’s after. That is the meaning of life. We were created for this. This is why we were created. This is our purpose in life.
This is why Christ died to redeem you. He didn’t redeem you just to fill heaven up. That was not His concern. His concern was a companion for the Lord Jesus. And He wanted all of us to have an opportunity to be a part of that companion, with a heart’s desire for the King.
We have been purchased with a price; we’re not our own. We’ve heard that many, many times. We are the Lord’s, but we have been purchased for a specific purpose.
Christ has dedicated Himself, and the Holy Spirit, to seeing that we’re transformed into His image, that we might become an acceptable bride. That’s what life is all about. That is what the meaning of life is.
And we need to be prepared. We need to be preparing, yielding ourselves to the Lord, giving ourselves to the Lord, saying, “Lord, this is what I was born for.”
So, Lord, I need You through all the life things that I go through—my job, my marriage, all the things that I have. Lord, these are all secondary things. Lord, use them all to work toward transforming my life into what will be acceptable as a bride, as a companion.
Prepare. We dare not fall short of what we’ve been created for, what we were born for.
You know, I found it interesting. There was a student in California—a girl, female, of course, and you’ll see what I mean by that. She scored perfect scores on the ACT test.
Now, I understand that to be some kind of test you take in high school that prepares you for college, and then you have to take the SATs to actually get into college. She scored perfect on the ACT test and the SATs—perfect score.
Of course, she was Chinese. Johnny, ask—but the reporter that was doing the story on her asked her this question. He says, “You’re such a smart girl. Now tell me, what is the meaning of life?”
And she looked at him and she said, “I don’t know. Can you tell me? I don’t know. Can you tell me?”
At least she asked the question: “Can you tell me?” You know, brothers and sisters, that man, if he happened to know the meaning of life, could have shared that with her.
But even if it was shared with her that God had created her for a purpose, to have a life of meaning, to be prepared for the kingdom to come, and to be a companion to the Lord Jesus as His bride, she could have probably received the teaching and maybe even memorized the answer.
But it’s not here, up here. It would have been in her head. She needed that life touch. She needed that aha moment from the Holy Spirit.
Brothers and sisters, if she doesn’t discover the meaning of life, she will live a life of vanity. That’s true of all of us. If we do not discover the meaning of life, we will live a life of vanity—a vain life.
You know, the Lord is so merciful to us. He gave us the book of Ecclesiastes to convince us what the meaning of life is without Him.
Solomon wrote it, and Solomon, as you remember, was blessed with power, fame, riches, pleasure, and great wisdom. He had all of these. He lived all of these. He didn’t just want them; he actually possessed them and lived in them.
And as he examined what they really meant to him, how much they really mattered in his life, he ended that book by saying, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” You’re born, you live, and you die. That’s what the world has to offer. You’re born, you live, and you die.
Yesterday, I was at the funeral of my brother-in-law. He was only eleven months older than me, but he had contracted Alzheimer’s, and he just eventually shut down. Thank the Lord, he knew the Lord.
But you know, when you go to these funerals—and I’ve been to two recently—it does cause you to think about that and consider that. But what a late time in life to really consider it. I’m now seventy-five.
But the point is, that’s all the world has to offer: you’re born, you live, and you die. And, of course, the other one is you pay taxes along the way. The government wants to be sure it gets its part.
But thank the Lord, it doesn’t end there, because Solomon also wrote the Song of Solomon to show us what the meaning of life is.
And as you look at the entire book, what is it? It’s about the King and His bride, isn’t it? That is the meaning of life. Ecclesiastes is the vanity of vanities, but in the Song of Solomon we find the meaning of life: the King and His companion, the bride.
They are in union, one with another—one heart, one mind, one purpose. What a union that is.
Even in eternity, we don’t know all that’s going to happen in eternity, but it says in Revelation that His servants will serve Him. We know that we just won’t be passively sitting around. We’ll be actively engaged in whatever plans the Lord has for eternity.
And we’re to be His companion in that life. What an amazing thing.
But we do need to be ready. We do need to be prepared. I hope that we somehow will get that aha moment. We can’t be passive about this, brothers and sisters.
It says in the Scripture that since the time of John the Baptist, the kingdom of heaven is taken by violence, and only the violent take it. He didn’t say you could just be passive and take the kingdom of heaven. He said you have to be violent, and only the violent can take it.
Well, basically, that means violent with yourself, not with your brothers and sisters, or your husband or your wife. It is to be violent with ourselves—not be passive. Say, “I can’t be passive about this matter. I need my eyes opened. I need vision.”
I need more than a doctrinal apprehension of Your soon return, Lord. I need to see You and Your great desire.
So what do we do? What are we to do with this dilemma, that maybe we feel like we haven’t fully been gripped by the Lord’s soon return?
Well, in Matthew 20:29-34, I’ll just tell you the story. The Lord was leaving Jericho, and on the way the crowd started getting around Him like they usually did. But there were two blind men in the crowd that heard that Jesus was coming, and they began to cry out, “Thou Son of David, have mercy on us. Son of David, have mercy on us.”
And they were so loud that the crowd tried to hush them up. They said, “Hey, you need to be quiet.” But they persisted. They wouldn’t be quiet, and even louder they cried out, “Son of David, have mercy on us.”
And the Lord heard them above the crowd, and the Lord stopped. He looked at them and said, “What would you have Me to do?”
And the two men said, “That our eyes might be opened.” I think that’s what we cry out. I think the Lord wants you to be desperate enough to cry out and cry out, “Lord, I need that aha. I need that revelation. I need that vision that captures my heart and takes me on.”
We need to be persistent. You know, the blind men realized they were blind, and they needed their eyes opened. But I have to say, a lot of times, just like in Laodicea, they didn’t realize they were blind.
So we have to cry out, “Lord, I don’t know what I see fully, but I need to see You. I need to see that You’re coming soon, and I need to prepare. The time is short.”
Revelation 22:10-11. Let’s look at that a second. Revelation 22:10-11 is right at the very end of the book of Revelation—the Lord’s last messages to us.
The real message is in Revelation 22:12, where He says, “I come quickly.” He wants us to know that. But in verses 10 and 11, let me read those.
And He saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book:
for the time is at hand.
He that is unjust, let him be unjust still:
and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still:
and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still:
and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
In other words, it’s high time. It’s when the Lord calls your full name out. It’s time. Don’t seal the words of this prophecy. Don’t delay in getting this message out. The time is at hand.
And then He says to me a most serious, sobering word to His people: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still. He that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still.”
Why? That’s a pretty sobering word, isn’t it? You know what it’s saying? It’s saying there’s no more time. There’s no time for you to change. You just have to be what you are.
You’re either filthy and dirty, unjust, or you’re just at this point. But there’s no more time to change, no more time to take action. The time of getting prepared is over. “I’m at hand.”
That’s a very sobering word as you think about it. But you know what? I didn’t want to leave you with that. I think we always look to the Lord’s encouragement.
There are a couple of things that really encouraged me as I was preparing. One is, He says that He can restore the years that the cankerworm has eaten. He can do that in a moment’s time.
We can all say and bemoan the fact that maybe we wasted a lot of time, hadn’t been diligent in preparing for His return. But we can plead, “Lord, You can restore the years that the cankerworm has eaten.” I think that’s amazing.
Very sobering. And the other word is the word that really came out last Wednesday night in prayer: He is able. He is able.
And it was really living in life: He is able to do exceedingly above all that we can ask or imagine. You know, getting beyond our imagination is pretty tough. We can imagine a lot of amazing things. But He says He is able to do exceedingly far above all that you can even imagine.
So simply cry out to the Lord: “Lord, I need You. I need my eyes opened. I don’t even know what I don’t see, but You do, and I need to be open.”
I’d like to end with this personal testimony. I’ve shared some of it before, but I think it really illustrates what I’m trying to say today.
As a young man, I had the fortune that I could go to college, and I did. I started out in civil engineering and bumped into a teacher that didn’t particularly care for Jerry Amon. And I had him the next semester—well, you have semesters now; I had quarters—and, of course, it was pretty critical.
I said, “Man, I’ll never get through this guy.” Well, actually, I deserved part of his wrath, no doubt about that. But I changed. I changed to electrical engineering.
I got up to Tech and took a course called microwaves and something. All I can remember is those microwaves. I had no idea what they were talking about. It didn’t make sense to me. They talked about farads and all of that stuff. So I failed. I failed the course.
I said, “Well, I know what I’ll do. I’ll switch majors, switch to aerospace.” And I could at least grasp what they were saying.
But in the end, near my last year, I ran into a course—microwave, no, not microwave—that was boundary layer theory. And it’s all about this little bit of air that moves right where the wing is. That’s where most of the drag is created from.
And the guy that was teaching us—it was thirteen of us aerospace students at Tech, and only one was passing the course. Honestly, I had a struggle even with his language, but not only that, I just didn’t get it.
So I had gone back home for a holiday and told my mom and dad, “You know, I don’t think I’m going to make it. I don’t think I’m going to be able to graduate.” That was 1965, I guess.
And you know what’s interesting? Both my parents, of course, admonished me and talked to me. My mother did, of course, but you know, I don’t remember what Mom said. I really don’t.
She said something to me, and I guess it entered my ears, but it didn’t get here. And I can tell you what I think she probably said, though. She said, “Jerry—Gerald Carlton Amon, probably—it’s high time. It’s high time you buckle down and study and get out of there and graduate. Your whole future depends on it.”
I tell you, that’s going to be pretty close to what she said to me. It’s high time. No more time to waste. You’re almost at the end, and you’re not going to be able to graduate and waste your whole future.
Well, you know, that should have wakened me up. That really should have, but it didn’t. It didn’t.
And then my dear dad—we were alone probably the next day—and he kind of patted me on the shoulder and looked at me.
Well, let me give you a little background. We lived in Mount Olive, North Carolina. You know where all those pickles that say Mount Olive Pickles on them—that’s where they come from. Little farming country there, and they bring in those cucumbers and pickle them there. That’s all that’s there.
There’s a railroad track running down the middle of the city, kind of like Ashland, but it was much smaller than Ashland. It was only about six or seven stores. One of them had the best barbecue in the world: Myrtle’s Barbecue, a little hole in the wall.
But the point is, Mount Olive was a very poor town, not much there. Daddy owned a body shop there, and frankly, he just scraped by. It’s just a small town. There wasn’t a whole lot of body work to do in that town.
Actually, it wasn’t one of these modern body shops by any means. It was a garage that had been converted into a shop, with a compressor and a paint sprayer and Dad’s tools to take the cars apart. That was about all that was there.
But Dad patted me on the shoulder, and he was very sincere. He said, “Son, if you fail, you can always come and work with me.”
Now, I had an aha moment. I really did. There was no doubt about it. Ah, my eyes got wide awake, and I said, “Lord, is this going to be my future?”
Needless to say, I went back to school and I graduated.
But it just illustrates that sometimes you can hear things, and they just don’t register down here. They just register up here. And I could say, “The Lord is coming soon. It’s high time. He’s almost here. No time to delay.”
And all of you would probably agree with me, I think. But is it here? I pray that the Lord will give you an aha moment—that you really have—and me too. I really want to be in the Lord’s will, the Lord’s plan.
But as we go into this conference, I think we just need to cry out to the Lord: “Lord, open my eyes.” I really think that maybe He’ll do that for us.
So, Lord, we just come to You this morning. We are so thankful and grateful to You. Lord, I’m so glad You’re dedicated to us. You’re committed, Lord, to us.
You and the Holy Spirit are committed to open our eyes, committed to transform us into a place that we can be a companion for our Lord Jesus for eternity, and to share in all the work and life and pleasures that will go on there, Lord.
Lord, You have such a grand future for us. Lord, we need to graduate, so to speak.
Lord, we just come to You this morning. I do ask, Lord, Your blessings upon all the brothers and sisters here, all that will be coming to that conference. Lord, that You will open our eyes, that You will finally be able to get through to us as You would like to.
And that, Lord, You can have Your companions crying out, “Lord, come soon.” Pray in Jesus’ name, amen.