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June 05, 2005
The Second Coming of Jesus
II Samuel 7: 10-14
I Thessalonians 4: 13-18.
June 5th, 2005
The Gospel story announced to us in the New Testament begins with the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary and ends, not with Jesus Christ’s ascension, which was our theme last Sunday morning, but with the Second Coming of Christ. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ is a subject filled with mystery. The Bible teaches us very explicitly that Christ will return. Jesus told His disciples He didn’t know when it would be.
The teaching of the New Testament on this theme comes from three sources: from Jesus, from the Apostle Paul, and from the Book of Revelation. Since these sources do not describe something that has already happened, all we can know is that the Second Coming looms before us mysteriously as the final moment in history. It is a subject we should think about with great reverence, seriously, aware that it is an important ingredient regulating the outlook and behavior of a Christian.
Before looking at what the Jesus and the Apostle Paul tell us, let me say that I know there are various views of the Second Coming of Jesus in Christendom. There are many people who have rationalized away any literal expectation of Jesus’ Second Coming. It is a metaphor about the seriousness of life, nothing more. Already in the times when the New Testament was being written there were Christians who were cynical. “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation.”
There are others at an opposite extreme who so focus on the Second Coming that they are preoccupied with speculating when it will take place. They are apt to buy a lot of literature about the Second Coming and put bumper stickers on their cars about it. There have some been some amusing moments in history when Christians who were certain they’d interpreted the signs of Jesus’ return acted on their interpretation. And they were embarrassingly wrong.
Others, among whom I count myself, take literally and very seriously the Bible’s teaching on Jesus’ Second Coming and realize that they have no idea when it will happen or even how it will look. A variety of opinions have attracted followings among those who try to understand the order of things at the end. But all who take seriously and literally that Jesus will come again realize that it means we should be doing as Jesus said, watching—which means living faithfully and gratefully so that whenever and however Jesus returns, we will be found faithful.
The benediction with which I end every service accentuates this outlook. “May the God of peace . . . make you faithful in every good work to do His will, working what is well pleasing in His sight.”
It was not a scare tactic on Jesus’ part to tell His disciples frightening things about the end times. Indeed, the Apostle Paul reminded early Christians of Jesus’ return as a source of comfort. At the end of I Thessalonians 4, where Paul explains the order of our resurrection when Christ returns, he writes, “Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
Similarly, towards the end of the great resurrection chapter, I Corinthians 15, after explaining the resurrection for those who can’t understand Paul writes cheerfully “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting? . . . Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
Though Paul writes of our resurrection when Christ returns as a happy event, he concludes by reminding us of the seriousness of life. “Be steadfast, unmovable--always abounding in the work of the Lord”…But now let us look closely at what Jesus taught us. I cannot this morning mention every passage bearing on this topic. I will look primarily at Matthew 24 and 25.
As Jesus neared the end of His time with His disciples He gathered them on the Mt. of Olives outside Jerusalem and told them some things of God’s plan that made them afraid. He told them the glorious Temple that stood at the heart of the city on the place where Abraham was believed to have offered up Isaac would be demolished, not one stone left on another. Those stones were huge. If you look at the part of the Western Wall that endures to this day you see how large those stones were. Those disciples who were in Jerusalem when this happened were getting old. In AD 70 the Roman General Titus so thoroughly destroyed the Temple that not one stone was left on top of another not only of the Temple but of most of the wall. Josephus watched this happen with despair. But the end was not yet.
Jesus told them of false Christ’s who would deceive and confuse people so that while thinking they followed the Son of God they were actually following a false Christ. He told of wars and rumors of wars, of earthquakes in various places—and that this would be only the beginning of birth pangs. The “birth” Jesus referred to was the new heaven and new earth. You and I have seen wars and rumors of wars; earthquakes too.
Worse yet would come. Jesus said, “Then your enemies will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. Not only that, they would betray each other. Wickedness would multiply. Most peoples’ love would grow cold. He didn’t say “love of God,” but “love,” which suggests a climate of hostility, of vengeance. The terrorism that has become the new scourge of the world makes us wonder if this is a sign of the end. The number of personal lawsuits filed in our land points suspiciously at the freeze of love.
Jesus told of other fearful happenings in nature: the sun will become dark; the moon will not give its light. Eclipses of an extraordinary kind will happen.
Jesus said, “The one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come.” This teaching is one of the reasons why missionaries go to every part of the globe to tell of Jesus.
Jesus emphasized how surprising would be the time when this would happen. It would happen as surprisingly as a thief comes in the night to burglarize a house. The family is sound asleep when someone hears a loud noise. A stone breaks the window and the quiet night of rest is changed into a terror-filled night as a thief breaks in to rob and destroy.
Jesus said it would happen in a time no one expects. It will happen as in the days of Noah. Then there must have been a lot of joking as Noah and his family built the ark and climbed aboard with all those animals. They shut the door and the rains started to fall. And suddenly the laughter changed to the sounds of fear. Jesus said His coming would be like what takes place in many workplaces. When the boss is away some people who are not conscientious fool around. But when the boss suddenly appears as they are fooling around, they are embarrassed. They are afraid they will lose their jobs.
Jesus went on to tell that His second coming had a lot to do with a judgment to follow. He told us what will be at issue in this judgment. We often remember part of Jesus’ parable of the Sheep and Goats, the part that stresses it is important for us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned. But we do not often move on to the details of judgment Jesus told, and how severe is the judgment on those who do not feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned. Jesus said that the Son of Man—which referred to Jesus Himself
will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life’.
Any of us who take this seriously realize it has much to say about our personal response to needy people. It also points to how important is the work of our Deacon Board in implementing for us as a congregation what is our task together in behalf of the needy. It is not just a good idea, a benevolent thing to do, but of the highest importance that we be significantly responsive to human need.
The capstone of Jesus prediction was that the “Son of Man would come on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to another.”
Jesus gave an apparent microscopic view of this gathering of God’s elect, illustrating it this way. “Two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left.” Actually, I believe these are parables of judgment more than of the mechanics of the 2nd Coming of Christ.
These two brief statements of Jesus have caught the imagination of many people today through the series of novels written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. The Left Behind series starts with the moment of the rapture, as the Second Coming is often called. I read the first novel in this series this past week. LaHaye and Jenkins describe what it will be like on earth after the Christians have been gathered with Jesus at His Second Coming. All sorts of people disappear and society is in complete disarray. Airplanes crash, automobiles collide, babies disappear from their mothers’ wombs—because all children twelve and under everywhere get caught up in the Rapture. It is a time of utter terror. At the end the Anti-Christ from Eastern Europe begins to gather his forces against God for a seven-year reign of tribulation.
The first of these novels was written ten years ago. The series has sold millions of copies. I marvel that these novels have captured such widespread interest. Nowadays horror stories capture the interest of a lot of people. And this is how a lot of non-Christians apparently are reading this series.
If all of the novels are like the first one, the authors try to make plain how to become a Christian in the course of telling the story. I think it would be of interest for some of us who have read these novels to talk about them together. The plots are derived from the Bible, of course with a particular interpretation of what it means. The details are entirely fiction, but there is certain plausibility to the story. I recommend the benefit of reading Left Behind. I started out thinking it was pretty much pulp, but came to see that there is benefit in reading it. The novel reminded me that the Second Coming and what follows were important parts of Jesus teaching.
There are many details of Biblical prophecy about the Second Coming that I haven’t the time to describe here. But perhaps I will at a later time. What is important to emphasize today, as we prepare to take the Lord’s Supper, is that Jesus taught us that He is coming again. And it matters how we live as we wait for His return. My father had a sign above his desk in his study at home that said, “Perhaps Today.”
Ask yourself as you live from day to day, “Would I be pleased if Jesus returned as I do this?” There is warning in this question, but not only warning. If you and I live with our hearts filled with gratitude, with the attitude of “what may I do to build up my brothers and sisters in Christ, of how I can winsomely communicate to others our experience of one love of Christ” then the time of His appearing will be a happy one. Only those who have let themselves slip into unfortunate traps of dreary-living will be embarrassed. Don’t continue to do wrong. Don’t linger with grudges. Jesus far more looks forward to saying to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Lord.”
The question only you and I can answer for ourselves is, “Would I be pleased if what I am now doing were what I am doing at the time of Jesus’ return.” There is very good guidance in that question. I wonder how you will answer it? I wonder if it is evident how I am answering it.
Let us pray: O Lord God, we bless you for the promise of the return of Jesus Christ when there will be an end to all suffering, sin, and death. Grant us grace to so live so as to be happy at His appearing. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson, Pastor
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at June 5, 2005 09:30 AM