Jesus Is Coming
Matthew 24:37-51 1 Peter 3:3-10 12/15/2019
When our daughter Samantha was a little girl, she and I watched hours and hours of Sesame Street. One of the characters that shook fear in the heart of other puppet characters was Bad Bart. The mere mention of his name had them shaking. Bad Bart lived in the days of the Old Western movies where people gathered at the bar and tied up their horses outside. Cowboys carried their guns in their belts. Bad Bart had silver guns on both sides of holster ready to draw them and shoot you with his deadly accuracy.
A group of the puppets were inside the bar laughing and joking, until another puppet came to the double swinging doors and shouted, “Bad Bart is coming in on the noon train and when he gets here, he says he is going to give somebody what they deserve.” Everybody gets scared. At noon, you hear the train whistle and everyone gets nervous.
The music background changes and Bad Bart comes to the saloon. Some people are hiding under tables, others hiding behind the bar. Bad Bart looks at those who are standing, and announces, “I am looking to give somebody what they deserve. and he calls out one fellow, “You, come over here.”
The fellow comes over shaking in his boots. Bad Bart says, “Aren’t you the fellow that was in here two weeks ago, when I tripped, hit your table and spilled your drink, and some of it got on my favorite shirt.” The muppett, shaking in fear, says, “Yesss”.
Bad Bart says, “Partner, I’m going to give you what you deserve.” Bad Bart reaches down toward his gun and into his pocket and pulls out a coin and says. “Here, this ought to be enough to pay for your drink that I spilled. I’m sorry it took me so long to give it to you. I told you I was going to give somebody what they deserved.” With those words he left the saloon.
My friends I want you to know, that there is somebody that’s bigger and badder than Bad Bart. He is coming back to this planet’ and when he gets here, he intends to give everyone what they deserve. What is that you think you will deserve when Jesus returns?
Isn’t it strange that for hundreds of years people looked forward to the birth of Jesus coming into the world, and yet when it happened less than 15 people were there to witness the event. There was Mary, Joseph, some shepherds and a few wise men showed up some time later with some gifts.
But for most of the world, Jesus’ first coming was a non-event, and people went on about their business as though nothing significant had happened. Jesus wasn’t in the newspaper the next day, nobody sought to interview his parents, and even the innkeeper was probably only interested in knowing whether or not they would be checking out or paying for another night.
Sure that night the shepherds went out into the streets and told people what the angels had said about the child being born. But if those people had been like us, they would have wanted to know, what did the angels look like? How many were there? How big were they? Did they wear clothes? Very few of them would have taken off to look for a couple who had a baby born in a barn. You could see a baby any day, but to see some angels, that was worth going to see.
When Jesus grew up and was at the height of his ministry in terms of popularity, preaching and doing miracles, he kept telling his disciples that he would be killed and would be raised from the dead after three days. This happened exactly as Jesus told them it would. The other thing Jesus told his disciples that was going to happen was one day he was going to come back, and the whole world would see him, and he was coming to judge the nations. The first time Jesus came, he came as a babe in a manger to die for our sins. The second time Jesus comes, he comes as a warrior and a judge to deal with us for our sin.
Now when Jesus told the disciples he would be rising in three days, they were totally unprepared for it to happen. They genuinely did not believe it was going to happen. After the resurrection, when the women came and told them, we have seen Jesus for ourselves, they thought the women were out of their minds. It was not until Jesus showed up to them inside a locked room where they were hiding’ that they finally believed. Even then he had to show them his hands and his side.
This tells me, that in all earnestness most of us here do not believe that Jesus could come back at any moment just like he said. Some of us are saying, I remember when I was a kid, they were saying Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming, so where is he? Some people think this was just something the church made up. There is something about bad news that makes us want to write it off as sheer nonsense, especially when we don’t want to listen to it.
When Jesus was asked about what was going to be different or special about the day he returned, he replied “absolutely nothing”. He said, do you remember Noah. God told Noah, “the sin of humankind is so wicked, I am going to wipe them from the face of the earth.”
In the meantime, Noah was to build a ship, because the only people and land animals who were going to be saved would be those on the ship. Noah had a double job. He had to spend some of his time preaching telling people you need to stop the sinning you are doing, get ready for a flood that is coming, and know your time is running out because God’s judgment is on the way. This was not a popular message.
The other time he spent building this ship that was one and a half times as long as a football field, seventy five feet wide and three stories high. It took Noah 120 years to build this ship. Can’t you hear the mockery of Noah.” Hey genius shouldn’t you build your ship near a river, a lake or maybe the ocean.” “ Hey idiot, Ships don’t float on dry land.” “Man for 50 years you’ve been preaching the same message, get a life.” “I’d rather party in the rain with my friends, than be couped up in a boat with a bunch of religious nuts.”
It wasn’t long before Noah became irrelevant to the society around him. Fewer and fewer people were attending his services. Nobody could take him seriously. They just went on about their business and their lives. Sure they could see all the sin that was going on around them, but hey, everybody was entitled to follow the desires of their heart. Who was to say Noah’s God was any better than any of their gods.
Noah preached one last sermon and the people ridiculed him as an old school preacher with a message that was way out of date. They had moved beyond that stuff about God judging people for the lives they lived. After all, God gave them the desires in the first place. Noah’s final message probably let them know, you got 7 days left before the flood comes.
And with that he and the animals went into the ark and the Scriptures said the Lord shut them in. It was Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives. Only 8 people were willing to enter the Ark. Nobody wanted to be identified with Noah and his narrow minded religion. Everyone should be free to believe what they wanted.
Can you imagine what it was like when for the first time the sky turned black with dark clouds? Can you imagine rain pouring from the sky in torrents for the first time. It wasn’t just a torrential rain that came steady for 40 days and nights all over the globe, there were also water spouting up from holes in the grounds and the oceans overflowing their banks.
How many people do you think were reconsidering Noah’s message after 3 or 4 days, after a week, a month. The water rose steady lifting the ark, covering the mountains up to 20 feet deep and remained in place for 150 days wiping out all land animals and people. Can you imagine all the people who had a backup plan just in case Noah might be right? None of those backup plans would have saved them. How do you make a backup plan for eternity?
Jesus said when I come back, its going to be the same way. People will make jokes about my return. People will say, God is love and God will never judge people because God accepts everyone just as they are. People will say it does not matter what you believe, so long as you are sincere in your belief.
If you had been there at the time of Noah, you may have had some strong intellectual arguments against the flood and against the concept of rain, but you still would have gotten wet, and you still would have been wiped away. Our beliefs do not hinder nor alter the plans of God. The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of people.
Even if you got everybody in church to believe Jesus is not coming back or to vote that Jesus cannot come back, guess what—Jesus is still coming. The reason Jesus tells us about his second coming is that he wants us to be ready for it. Those who don’t know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior should be terrified of the second coming of Jesus, because he is coming to judge and conquer the nation. You will not have time to change your mind and decide to give your life to Christ. You will go into eternity with the decision you have already made.
For those of us who do know Christ, we should eagerly look forward to his return because it means for us, something good is about to happen. We should be ready to beam with joy. Our little granddaughter has a happy dance she does. If I am holding her, and she hears her grandmother’s voice in a place she did not she was, she starts bucking back and forth as if to say put me down. She then heads to where she heard the voice and the moment she sees her grandmother, she runs very quickly in place with joy and expectation. I call it her happy dance.
We should all have a happy dance when we think of meeting Jesus at this second coming. There’s only one thing that will keep us from doing a happy dance when we see Jesus, and that’s for Jesus to show up while we are being disobedient. Disobedience is far bigger than simply going out and committing some sin. Disobedience is also choosing to ignore what God has clearly revealed to you should be done.
When you were a child, if your parents told you to wash the dishes and clean the house, would they be impressed with the fact that you didn’t make the house any worse than it had been before, or that you intended to clean, but the time got by you while you were doing something else, or that you wrote them a long poem on how they were the greatest parents in the world instead. Then why do we do this with God’s call on our lives and expect to get away with it. Christians love to send their spirits to places that Jesus told them to take their bodies. They send their spirits to Bible Study be with us. I’ll be with you in spirit.
Jesus makes it clear, that some of us will be ready when he comes and some of us will not. Two men will be in a field, one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be at work grinding meal, one will be taken and one will be left. When Jesus says, “therefore, keep watch, because you do not know what day your Lord will come,” Jesus is not telling us to keep looking up in the sky to see if he’s coming.
He’s telling us to watch our lives and see what kind of lives we are living. Have we told God, “Lord I want to get closer to you”, but refuse to give up the thing or the person who keeps dragging us back down. Do you remember telling the Lord, if you ever made more money, then you would tithe, but now that you have made more, you simply spend more on you?
Do you remember all the one day things you were going to do? One day you’re going to get more involved in ministry. One day you’re going to come to Life-Connect or Bible Study. One day you’re going to reach out to your neighbor next door. One day you’re going to take a stand for Jesus. One day, you’re going to give up cursing people out. One day, you’re going to forgive him or her. One day you’re going to stop going to that place.
Do you remember last week I told you that often times when you get some good news, there’s usually some potentially bad news to go along with it. The good news is that Jesus is coming to take us away. The bad news is that we have a stop to make at the judgment seat of Christ. There are two judgments in the Scriptures. One is found in 2 Corinthians 5:10 and the other is found in Revelations 20:11-15 . The great white throne judgment in Revelations is where nonbelievers go and are judged, and they are cast into the lake of fire to bear the penalty for their own sins.
The judgment seat of Christ in 2 Corinthians is where believers go to determine the quality of their lives so that rewards may be assigned to those who have been faithful in their walk with Jesus. All the works we have done will be tested to see what were our motives for doing what we did. And what was it that we actually did do. Some of us will lose out because we never did much of anything for the kingdom of God once we got saved. We spent most of our lives being secret Christians. We may have devoted our lives to watching the tv.
Some of us will lose out because we did things, but for the wrong reasons. We wanted to brag, we wanted to be praised by others, or we thought it would cause somebody us to get in trouble. God may have used our efforts, but God’s not going to commend us or reward us for these things.
On judgment day, fire is going to test all of our works to see what value they might have. If they have value, you get a reward. Some of our works are going to be shown to be wood, hay or straw. What happens when fire hits these things. Some of our works are going to be gold, silver and jewels. What’s going to happen when the fire hits these things?
The sad thing is that some of us are going to have the exact same works, but for one us that work will be gold and for another it will be nothing but straw. Motive is going to mean all the difference in the world.
We are not going to lose our salvation, but we will carry the mark of the person who was saved but didn’t have anything to show for it. Remember, eternity for believers is not a place where we simply float around on clouds or be in a church service 24 hours. There is going to be a new heavens and a new earth and we will be a part of this new earth.
We will be given assignments on the new earth based on our faithfulness on this old earth. On the new earth there is a city that is half the size of the United States and people will be assigned positions based on what comes out of the judgment seat of Christ.
Now according to Jesus, if we are doing good works, but are living in disobedience to his word and refusing to put our hope in Him, we don’t even have a chance at being in this new city because we will not get past the Great White Throne Judgment. Jesus is pretty blunt when it comes to what it means to love him. He says, if anyone loves me they will keep my commandments. His commandments are found in the word of God.
Jesus knows the good plans he has for us in the life to come. He also knows that most of us are going to be distracted by the things of this world and we will be tempted to go after those things rather than follow Him.
Jesus could have come back a long time ago, but love kept him from doing it. Once he comes back, there is no further hope for humankind between them and the judgment and wrath of God. Peter tells us, that God has been patient with us and our sin, because it is not God’s desire for anyone to perish, but God is not going to force you to get saved against your will.
The same Jesus who told us in advance that he would die on a cross and rise from the dead three days later, is the Jesus who told us he would come back on an ordinary day when most of us will not be expecting him, but its going to change everything forever. There were only a few people who actually saw and followed the star to Bethlehem to see Jesus’ first coming.
It will be quite different the second time around. People everywhere around the globe will see Jesus coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory with a host of angels. There will be no doubt that He is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, The Alpha and Omega, and the Beginning and the end. His one desire for you, is that you be ready when he arrives. If he came within the next 15 minutes, would you be ready to go with him.
