The Second Coming
Is Christ Coming Soon?
James 5:7-9
A young lady had been invited out on a nice dinner date. She spent all afternoon getting ready, picking out the right dress and making sure her hair and make up were done just right. After all this was going to be her first date with this handsome man and she wanted to make a good first impression. The time came and went for her date to arrive so she assuming that she had been stood up took her hair down washed the make up off and changed out of the dress and heels to her favorite pajamas. While sitting on the couch in her pj's the door bell rang. When she answered the door on the other side was her date who was shocked at her appearance and the first thing out of his mouth was “I gave you an extra two hours to get ready and your still not ready to go.”
Isn't this the attitude of many in the church today. Its been two thousand years since he ascended into heaven and many people in the church have let their hair down, changed into their pj's and are no longer expecting him to come. Remember the survey we looked at last week 90% of pastors at a conference weren't even expecting the return of Christ
Last week we looked at why Christ Must Return. Not just return but must return bodily just like the disciples seen him go into heaven
-He must return to fulfill prophecy, to complete the plan of the church (the marriage supper of the lamb), and he must return to judge sin and Satan (if he didn't come back to judge sin he would be an unjust God)
This passage we read this morning.
-The book of James is one of the earliest books written in the New Testament. Written about 10 years after the resurrection. James was Jesus' brother and the message he gives to the church is one of the soon return of Christ. He writes in verse 8, “for the coming of the Lord is at hand.”
The Apostles and the early church believed in the soon return of Christ.
1Jo 2:18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.
The writer of Hebrews wrote to the believers and said
Hbr 10:25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Hbr 10:37 For, "Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay;
The Apostle Paul writing about the coming of the Lord in the book of 1 Thessalonians said, “
1Th 4:16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
1Th 4:17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
You have probably heard this verse before maybe even read over it several times but look closely at it this morning in verse 17
Paul says, “we” who are alive and so will “we” always be with the Lord
It is clear from this verse that Paul believed that Christ could come back in his time by saying we who are alive shall be caught up with them in the clouds
All throughout the writings of the Apostles we find consistency of the message. They all believed, taught and preached the doctrine of the “soon return of Christ”
Even in the hymns of the church that we still sting today that are 100 years old still cry out the same message.
-”Just a few more weary days and then, I'll fly away To a land where joy shall never end”
-”Jesus is coming to earth again- What if it were today? Coming in power and love to reign- What if it were today.”
-”Jesus may come today Glad Day Glad Day and I would see my Friend; Dangers and trouble would end it Jesus should come today. Glad Day Glad Day Is it crowing Day.
These are just lyrics I found three songs in our church hymnal . There are hundreds more that teach that say the same thing. The church has always believed throughout history that they lived in a day and age when Christ could return at any moment..
Because of this the church today should also be looking for the soon return of Christ. It is a doctrine that we should believe, preach, share with the world and live like we expect our Lord to return just any day now.
The problem is that there are many Christians today who spend more time looking the Antichrist to come than they do the Lord
Theodore Epp the founder and speaker of the radio Broadcast Back to the Bible in the 1930's use to say
Live as though Christ died yesterday, rose from the grave today, and is coming back tomorrow.
Theodore Epp
-The soon return of Christ is one of the doctrines that the skeptics of Christianity use in an attempt to disprove the Bible.
They say since its been 2,000 years and Christ hasn't come than the Apostles must have been mistaken
Dennis McKinsey, a 1964 graduate of Indiana University and leading atheist in the United States until his death in 1964 argued that since Christ hasn't come in 2000 years that Christians are all just victims of a cruel hoax.
Here is the thing we must remember
2Pe 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
God does not see time as we see it. His mind sees the beginning the end. God is eternal without beginning or end meaning that he is outside the confines of time. Time was built into creation., Time did not exist as we know it until the earth and the universe was created.
We use the rotation of the earth today to determine time.
All of this means that it does not matter how much time passes before Christ returns because it is irrelevant to God's point of view.
The time since the resurrection until now has always been referred to in the Bible as the “last days”
It could be another 1000 years it could be today. One thing we do know today we are one day closer than we were yesterday. This year we are one year closer than last year and we are 2000 years closer than the Apostle were when they wrote these words
yet they still believed that it could happen in their lifetime. And we should definitely believe that Christ could come back in our lifetime
Knowing all of this we have to ask ourselves this morning: Why is it so important for us as Christians to believe in the soon return of Christ? Why is it important for us to preach and teach and live?
The answer is in Gods Word
look at 1 John 3:2
1Jo 3:2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
1Jo 3:3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
The knowledge that we are quickly approaching the day when the Lord Jesus Christ will return should motivate us to be prepared for his coming.
Once in a church I pastored every time I would ask for testimonies there was one guy who would stand up and he would always say “I just want to testify that I am prayed up, packed up and ready to go”
The Apostle Paul continues this same argument made by John when he wrote to the book of Romans in Romans 13:11-14
Every moment that passes brings the return of Christ that much closer and Paul calls us to do a couple of things.
These two things are the essential reason that the Soon return of Christ is an important doctrine in the New Testament Church and why when we no longer believe in his return we fail to do them
First, Wake Up
I am a morning person and it doesn't matter to me if it's Monday or Saturday to me when the sun is coming up there is an urgent need to get up and get going. I usually go immediately and wake up the boys and announce to them that it's time to get up the animals need fed and walked (there are only a few rare occasions where I let them sleep, it's fun being a teenager in our house)_
look at what Paul says, “you know the time. That the hour has come for you to wake from sleep (Why?) Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.”
Paul is saying the need is urgent to wake up because the coming of Christ is an urgent matter. The urgency is not lessened because 2000 years have passed, instead the urgency would be increased.
The city of Rome had a lot of distractions a lot of entrainment that pertained to the flesh. Things that would draw the hearts of men away from the things of God, much like the society that we live in today.
Too many Christians today are spiritually asleep and need to wake up because there is a storm raging all around us
We need to wake up when when we are more concerned about politics than we are Jesus
We need to wake up when we are more concerned about the budget of the church than we are in seeing souls get saved
We need to wake up when we are spending millions to build gymnasiums and coffee shops onto our churches but not spending a dime to support missions or feed the hungry
Paul said
1Th 5:6 So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.
We don't want to be like the foolish virgins who had no oil in their lamp when the bridegroom delayed his coming they were unprepared and asleep
Mat 25:5 As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept.
In the 1700's there was a revival that swept across the land led by men like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. Men who thought the organized church was asleep at the wheel. They preached fiery sermons that called men to biblical action and saving grace.
In the 1800's there was another such revival
historians looking back called the first revival in the 1700's the great awakening, and the revival in the 1800's they called the second great awakening. The revival in the 1700's led up the revolutionary war and the second great awakening led up to the end of slavery in the United States.
I believe the church needs another great awakening leading up to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds with power and great glory
these men and women involved in these great revivals in history weren't worried about meeting in nice plush buildings having their every need met they met in tents and on hillsides throughout this country and came under real conviction followed by biblical repentance.
I heard a story of a pastor from a small church that was annoyed because every Sunday one elderly gentlemen would go to sleep during the sermon. He decided to come up with a plan so he told the mans grandson that he would pay him a dollar a week if he could keep his grandfather awake during the sermon. This worked for about 3 weeks. On the fourth week the man went to sleep again and the pastor was upset. After services he pulled the young boy aside and said, “I thought we had a deal I was going to pay you a dollar a week to keep your grandfather awake.” The young boy replied, “We DID have a deal until grandpa offered me five dollars a week to not disturb him.”
That story explains what has happened to the church in the age we live in. The payoff to stay asleep is so good that we just stay asleep. We keep our Christianity within these four walls on Sunday morning and no one in the world bothers us.
But when we wake up and take this message out into the world people get upset.
In the Old Testament there was a man of great strength named Samson. And one day when he was asleep Delilah cut his hair and he lost his strength.
If the church is asleep we will lose our power. The church will become irrelevant in our society which is why it is imperative for us to wake up. Which is why the doctrine of the soon return of Christ is important in our lives. Its a message that keeps us awake and on our toes at all times.
Listen to the message in the last book of the Bible
Rev 1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,
Rev 22:7 "And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book."
Rev 22:12 "Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done.
Rev 22:20 He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
See the repetition “Surely I am coming soon.”
Lets wake up and be ready for his return.
Second, Change clothes
Back to that passage in Romans 13 again in verse 12, “So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desire
The image here that the Apostle Paul gives is of a solider
when the soldier is off duty he is out enjoying the nightlife and the pleasures of the flesh and when the day comes the solider wakes up and puts on the armor to be on duty and stand guard.
So what Paul is saying to us is that since the coming of Christ is coming soon and we don't know when we need to be on duty at all times. Put off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.,
2Ti 2:3 Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
2Ti 2:4 No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.
Whenever I worked in the restaurant business there were two people that could stop by at any moment and wake up everyone real quick. The owner or the board of Health inspector and you never knew when either one was going to show up. If there was a long amount of time in between their visit you could get sloppy and slack about doing what you were suppose to do. And as soon as one of them showed up it was everyone in a panic to clean everything up.
The best thing to do was to always be ready and there was no need for a panic when they arrived
That's what Paul is saying. Since Christ is coming soon the urgent call for us is to be good soldiers wearing the armor of light so that we will not be ashamed at his coming.
Its embarrassing to not be ready when someone shows up.
When you are on duty and dressed in the right armor you can love his appearing instead of being ashamed of his appearing. Because you can know that there is a crown of Righteousness that is laid up for you
2Ti 4:8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
In closing,
It is important for us today to believe in the soon return of Christ in order to Stay awake as Christians to spiritual reality and to be ready spiritually for his appearing
Where are you today?
Are you awake?
Are you an on duty solider?
