Signs Of His Return Series

Signs in the Sky

Return of the King: Week 2

Scripture: Luke 21:24-25; Joel 2:30-31; Matthew 24:29-47 (Back of Bulletin)

Last week we started a new series called Return of the King…

Last week, we learned about seven signs coming from the nation of Israel, signaling that Jesus is preparing to return soon.

Unfortunately, the audio was corrupted from last weeks message here in the church, but you if you missed it you can still see it on the church’s Facebook page.

Anyone who has studied biblical prophecy can see the signs that are coming to pass.

Jesus is coming. In which case we have a lot to learn, and not a lot of time left to learn it.

So, over the next four weeks we are going to do a crash course on biblical prophecy. If you have been attending our mid-week bible study, some of this will be very familiar to you.

I want to walk you through the events of the final decade or so of life as we know it on planet earth. And today, we focus on one more set of signs that we may be coming up on that last decade.

One quick caveat- Jesus Himself said that no one knows the day or the hour of His return, so I’m not setting dates here.

I’m only pointing out what God’s word says about the end times, and why it beginning to look more and more like we are getting close.

I’m not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet. Like you, I’m a Christian who read the bible and is starting to see some things line up in very interesting ways that point to the end times.

So, if you’re ready to do some learning, let’s pray,

Lord Jesus, speak to me. Amen!

Open a Bible to Luke 21:24.

A few verses before Luke 21:24, the Disciples asked, “And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?”

Jesus answers them, and it is important to understand that He is speaking directly to his disciples here- in other words, Jewish people-

They will be killed by the sword and be led captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Luke 21:24

There is a pause in the narrative, and then Jesus says,

“Then there will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars…” Luke 21:25

I believe Jesus was thinking of this Psalm as HE said that.

Psalm 19:1 says,

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the xpanse proclaims the work of his hands.

2 Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge.

Psalm 19:1-2

Psalm 19 is saying that God is constantly communicating from the heavens. We have some nice weather coming up this week.

I challenge you- go out after dark and look up. Put down the electronics, leave the phones in the house, lay down in the grass and just gaze into the heavens.

You get a sense that there is a marvelous creator behind all we see. Let creation speak to you about Him as it’s meant to.

God is communicating in the sky all the time.

The heavens declare the glory of God.

And sometimes His communication is more specific and direct than others.

What Jesus is saying in Luke 21 is, “Towards the time of My return, I’m going to be sending you signals, using the sun, the moon, and the stars as My communication device.”

How might He do this?

Why do I think he could be using the stars above to communicate to us?

Because God operates in patterns, and He used this pattern to announce Jesus’ first coming to this planet when He was born in Bethlehem.

Let’s look at that for a moment- remember the Wise Men said they knew that the Messiah was born because they, “saw His star in the East?”

Follow me for a moment-

Over the century’s, humanity has given names to many of the stars and constellations in the sky. We’ve even named the 8 planets in our solar system.

Most of us don’t give what’s up there a lot of thoughts. We live here on earth, and earth seems to be a pretty big place on it’s own.

But think of this-

Jupiter is called “The King Planet” (>1300 earths)

One of the brightest starts in the sky after the sun is named Regulus is called “The King Star” 3 times the size of our sun, and our sun fits over 1000 Jupiter’s, or 1.3 million earths inside of it.

Regulus exists within the Constellation Leo. Leo is called “The King Constellation.”

Leo contains stars that are hundred of light years away from each other. One light year is 5.879 Quadrillion miles. That’s 12 zeros.