It’s been a long, hot and very busy summer. The world remains in turmoil at both a national and international level. Tragedy and death are constantly at the forefront of the news headlines. Wars, earthquakes and then the Nepalese floods, have claimed the lives of many thousands. Here in the UK, so-called ‘joy-riders’, deliberately driving the wrong way on our roads, both died themselves and killed others in horrific crashes. Watching the news can be a traumatizing experience, sometimes too gruesome to watch and hear. The words ‘Warning – Distressing Content’ regularly appear on our TV screens.
While on holiday in Scotland, the times we are living in were brought sharply into focus as we listened to the Pastor unpack the end-times prophecies of Jesus from Matthew 24, in which many of the things Jesus talked about have now become all too frequent events. And then, the following week he made the warnings of Matthew 25 very real and relevant to today’s generations. His messages culminated with the urgent question to the congregation, “Are you ready for His return?”
A Vital Question
Since then, I have meditated on this vital and very valid question, but an even more important question has now come into focus in my thinking – not just whether or not you are ready (with your spiritual bags packed!) for the day on which Jesus returns at some time in the future, but “Are you living with and for Him today?” For, in reality, the only way we can be sure of being ready for his return is by living our lives on a daily basis in relational trust, dependence and obedience to Him.
None of the three parables Jesus told in Matthew 25 focus on whether or not you will be ready for His return at sometime in the future. But on whether or not you are following and serving Him NOW.
The five foolish virgins had no oil in their lamps – their lamps were dry. The man who buried his talent wasn’t serving his master by using what he had been given. And the ‘goats’, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, were those who were not using their lives to be a blessing to others, showing the compassionate love of Jesus by ministering to those in need. The readiness of each of these for Jesus’s return was not determined by what they had tucked away in some mythical spiritual suitcase, but on how they were living their lives TODAY.
A New Season
I came back from holiday, very much aware that the whole Body of Christ, the church, has entered a new season. It feels as though we have, almost unknowingly, crossed a line, in much the same way as when time passes from December 31st to January 1st. Those two days may look and feel just like each other, but when you look at the calendar you realise that the old year is past and the new year has come. In a similar way it feels as though, almost un-noticed, something significant has happened spiritually as we have moved into a new season.
All of which has prompted me to take another look at the parable of the sower, in which Jesus identified four different types of ground onto which the seed was sown. But, instead of four types of ground, I found myself thinking about four different types of church into which seed had been sown, but with very different results.
We’ve entered a new season – a season in which the state of the church can be exemplified by the state of the some of the churches described by Jesus in Revelation 2 and 3.
1. The Hardened Church (the hard ground) – a church that has lost contact with the Holy Spirit, is consumed with its own management and organization, has nothing to offer the suffering in a hurting and broken world, and for whom proclaiming the Gospel of salvation with convicting effect has become a historic anachronism.
2. The Shallow Church (the stony ground) – a church which is recognisable as a congregation, but in which the teaching is so restricted and limited that the sheep are starving for lack of real food. Prayer, understanding God’s Word and living out the consequences of what it contains no longer feature on the weekly programme of events. As in the case of the Church at Ephesus (Revelation 2:4), they “have forsaken their first love.”
3. The Distracted Church (the thorny ground) – a church which may look good from the outside and which appears to have remained faithful to what it believes, but is distracted by so many other activities, non-scriptural beliefs and practices, and is so self-satisfied that they now bear all the hallmarks of a Laodicean Church (Rev 3:14-22). The Laodiceans thought they were rich and far-sighted, but under Jesus’s discerning eye they were declared to be poor and blind! Jesus had been locked out and He was now outside, knocking on the door, trying to find a way into the life of the fellowship (Revelation 3:20).
4. The Living Church (the good ground) – a body of believers for whom following Jesus is everything. They have understood the urgency of the scriptural injunctions which begin with words such as “If my people listen . . . “ (for example: Exodus 15:26 and Psalm 81:13) . They know that listening to God is the first step towards walking with Him, and becoming an alert, attentive and obedient Church – a church where God’s presence and the work of the Holy Spirit are a daily living reality, which is bearing fruit in abundance and in which the Body of Christ is being built up as an end-times witness in an increasingly alien world.
Today’s World
We are no longer in a season where, anywhere in the world, the pervading spiritual atmosphere is godly. Even in those nations which have a long Christian heritage, in which the saints of God have laid down their lives for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the tsunami of secularism has engulfed the political capitals of the world, removed God and His Word from the laws which govern the nations and blunted the witness of the church.
It’s easy to look at this present reality and be tempted to give up. But God has not capitulated to the enemy. Satan may have been very successful in eliminating godly order from the practices of the world’s political empires, but while he may have blinded man’s eyes on a global scale to spiritual truths and reality (2 Corinthians 4:4), I believe God has blinded Satan’s eyes to something else which He is doing and which is, even now, beginning to happen.
Instead of large organized churches, I believe that in this new season we will be seeing a rapid multiplication of small purposeful groups where the spiritual needs of the sheep become a priority and healing the hurting and the broken becomes the norm. I believe we will see a resurgence of small Jesus-centred fellowships, discipling new believers in much the same way as happened in the early centuries of the church.
Bishop Ambrose of Milan taught that our first priority in evangelism is to heal the hurting and care for the destitute. Among many other things, Ambrose taught that “if you have a wound to be healed Jesus is the Doctor”. The people growing up in today’s broken societies have many wounds. Their inner needs are so deep that caring for them will be beyond the capacity of the medical services. And medicating symptoms is not a remedy for a broken-hearted and frequently traumatised world.
I believe that we are about to see a rise in first century type Christian fellowships, doing the work of the Kingdom in a twenty-first century setting. Jesus is still fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 61:1-3 by “healing the broken-hearted and setting the captives free”. The ones who have been healed will become “the oaks of righteousness” – people with a story to tell of what Jesus has done for them. And such testimonies are contagious.
Pin-Pricks of Life
Beneath the darkness of a world, and sometimes a church, that has rejected the real Jesus, I see many pin-pricks of light shining across the nations. Each pin-prick being a person, or a small group of people who are passionate about following Jesus and being a ‘Living Church’ – good soil, a place where people can discover the reality of knowing Jesus, experience His healing and be restored as dynamic members of the Body of Christ.
Many of the wildfires which have swept the world in this summer’s heatwaves and consequential droughts were started by a small spark. But because the ground was so dry, the spark became a flame and the flame became a fire. The spiritual ground is also hard and dry – conditions under which the sparks of Holy Spirit empowering the transformation of broken lives, will become a flame, with the fire of God burning in the lives of those who turn to Him.
The Most Important Question
The most important question is not whether or not you will be ready when Jesus returns, vital though that is, but whether or not you are now fufilling the conditions for Holy Spirit sparks to set alight fires of life transforming truth. A radically godless world needs a radical body of believers to pray with determination “Your Kingdom come – on Earth”, as Jesus taught those first disciples to pray.
The seasons have changed, a new season is upon us. Are you ready?
Copyright © Peter Horrobin 2026.
