The Servant’s Second Coming Series

After the year 1000 passed uneventfully, the year 1033 was targeted by several as “the time of the end.” In 1843-44, William Miller and his followers were looking for Jesus’ return. In 1910, many Christians expected that Halley ’s Comet would destroy the world. The year 1914 was proclaimed by the Jehovah’s Witnesses as the time when the Battle of Armageddon would be fought. The February 1967 issue of Plain Truth magazine carried Herbert W. Armstrong’s pronouncement that the “Day of the Eternal” would come between five and ten years from his prediction, that is between 1972 and 1977. A few years later, based on the first edition of Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth, tens of thousands of people sincerely believed “the rapture” would occur by the end of 1981.

In 1988, Edgar Whisenant mailed out a book to millions of preachers that said that “the rapture” would take place somewhere between September 11-13 of that same year. He modified the book for 1989. Of course, we all remember the hype concerning the year 2000 and the end of the world. Now the emphasis is on the year 2012 based on the Mayan calendar. Church historian David Kyle has written a book called The Last Days Are Here Again. Listen to his conclusion on the matter: "Through two thousand years of Western history millions of people have believed that they were living in the last days….Many sincere, devout, and knowledgeable people have seen the end as imminent…But they have all been wrong.”

Jesus tells us that no one knows when the end of time will be. How do we expect to figure it out when God has intentionally made it unknowable? From our very text today, Jesus was warning us not to waste our time trying to figure it out..

The third lesson is that God is in control. Lots of bad things are going to happen. There are going to be persecutions, natural disasters, and personal sufferings. The Bible tells us that God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. He is not a “respecter of persons.”

The simple lesson is that we can rely on God. No matter what we’re going through, no matter what is happening in the world, no matter how bad things seem, God is moving everything toward completion and fulfillment.

When we stand in front of people who demand that we give an account of our faith, God will be there for us. The Holy Spirit will be our comfort and guide. When the going gets tough, God will not make things easy but he will give us the strength and encouragement to keep going.

The fourth lesson is that we should always be prepared for Jesus to come again. Jesus says, in a parallel

passage in Mt.24:42-44, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son

of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

I read a story this week about a family who was discussing their preacher’s sermon over the noon meal one Sunday. The sermon was about Jesus’ Second Coming.