The Return Of Christ

2 Peter 3:1-4

The Return of Christ

Woodlawn Baptist Church

August 13, 2006

Introduction

Read 2 Peter 3:1-4a.

If there is a subject that has been historically near and dear to the hearts of believers through the centuries it is the return of Jesus Christ. Without a doubt the return of Christ is going to be an exciting event! Through the years there’s been a lot of debate about it. There’ve been false Christs, false prophecies, false teachings, date setters and more, but they’ve all been wrong. Some people spend their entire lives trying to figure out everything they can about the end times and the second coming of Jesus. They’ve got charts and graphs and a storehouse of Scriptures memorized. They can debate the debaters. They can tell you who the two witnesses will be, where the antichrist lives and what the bride’s going to eat for dinner, but I’ll have to fess up right here: I’m not one of them. I don’t mind telling you I don’t have it all figured out and frankly I’ve never felt compelled to try to figure it all out. As far as I’m concerned, when you get today under control then we’ll worry about what happens tomorrow.

However, while I don’t feel compelled to figure it all out, I do enjoy reading about, singing about, and studying what the Scriptures do have to say about the return of Christ. There’s nothing in this world that gives hope to the believer like the return of Christ, and the older we get the more precious His return will get. The older we get the closer we get to heaven. The older we get the more friends we have in heaven. We get more and more family in heaven and I know we want to see them. There’s nothing that stirs the soul like knowing that one day we’ll be with King Jesus! So today I want to give you not so much in the way of information, but I want to stir up your minds with three facts about the return of Christ so you might anticipate His coming, get exciting about it, prepare for it and have great hope in it. As we study the Bible, we find that the return of Christ is…

A Promised Return

The scoffers ask, “Where is the promise of his coming?” I don’t know if we know the first time God promised the return of Christ, but He did it long enough ago that Job wrote about it. That great saint of God said,

“For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”

The prophet Daniel wrote that…

“I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.”

I want to tell you the Bible promises over and over the return of Christ. It promises that the return of Christ will be personal. In John 14:3, Jesus said,

“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 that “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven…” He’s not sending a search party to look for His children. He’s not sending an ambassador to take care of His business. No one else is cut out for the job. Jesus came personally the first time and He’s coming back personally the next time.

Not only does the Bible promise that Jesus’ return will be personal, it promises His return to be visible. When Jesus left the earth the disciples stood there with their mouths dropped open looking up into the sky. The angel asked them,

“Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up in to heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”

John wrote that we don’t know yet what we shall be, “but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Yes, the Bible promises the return of Christ. It promises His return will be personal, visible, and sudden. Matthew 24:44 says that you’d better be ready, “for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”