Why would anyone who claims to worship God even consider committing murder? Don’t say they haven’t. Men and women—Jews and Christians—have been guilty of murder most foul. The Pharisees did their level best to kill Jesus…and finally succeeded. Other Jewish leaders later tried to kill Stephen…and succeeded. In fact, the most severe persecution of Christians in the very earliest times came, not from Rome, but from Jews.

And while the Jews, in later years, would suffer greatly at the hands of the Romans, the time would come when they were in far greater danger from Christians as Christians murdered Jews in some kind of bizarre, terrible payback in the generations that followed. In Lebanon, Muslims kill Christians and Christians kill Muslims. In Ireland, Protestants killed Catholics and Catholics killed Protestants. In Palestine, Jews kill Muslims and Muslims kill Jews.

What’s wrong with this picture? All these people claimed to worship the same God. They may use different names, but they’re talking about the same God. All these groups claim to worship the God of Abraham (by whatever name), but what we need to understand is that it was that same God who wrote, with his own finger, Thou shalt not kill. Why, then, down through history and to the present day, do we kill each other with such regularity?

Is religion hard or easy? Is it complicated or simple? If you listen to some teachers, you would think that there is nothing to it at all. All you have to do is give your hand to the preacher and your heart to the Lord and it’s a done deal. After that, just go to church from time to time and the rest doesn’t matter very much.

But most of us know intuitively that there is something wrong with that picture—it just doesn’t feel right. Surely there has got to be more to it than that. Surely, after we’re saved, we can’t just go back and live our live just as we’ve always lived it. On the other hand, there are those who make religion nearly impossible. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were a case in point. They had a terribly long list of things you had to do, things you couldn’t do. In fact, they had taken a day—the Sabbath day—that God had intended to be liberating and turned it into a burden. Matthew connects one of Jesus’ great promises to a conflict on just this point. It also helps us with this question of religion being hard or easy.

Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Could Jesus Christ come tonight? Is it possible that you could walk out on your back porch before bedtime and see a great light in the sky as Jesus and all the holy angels are returning to Earth in great power and glory? Well, no. No, Christ won’t come tonight. Now, I don’t mean that he couldn’t come if he decided he would come, but if we’re supposed to believe the Bible then there are some things that are supposed to take place before Christ returns. What’s the point in Jesus giving his disciples all those signs of his impending return if he’s just going to brush them aside and come anyway.

There are times that I’ve suspected that some preachers are afraid that we sinners will not repent unless we think the end is at hand. If we think Christ wouldn’t come back for at least another year, then we’ll plan on getting our act together and repenting in about 11 months. So it is tempting, as a preacher, to say, You might not have that 11 months! And, of course, you may not.

I certainly believe that the return of Christ may be imminent—but not tonight. And the reason I think this is a prophecy in Malachi, chapter 5:

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.