Following Jesus Into The Future
FOLLOWING JESUS INTO THE FUTURE
1/8/2000 & 1/9/2000
-Last week I talked about what I see in the future of the church in the remaining time of this age. How long that age is, who knows.
-The main thing I see, I said is: JESUS CHRIST CALLING US TO FOLLOW HIM INTO ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING TIMES IN HISTORY.
-Let’s fast forward into the time of the end of this age…whether we or another generation sees it.
-There will be one generation that experiences the coming of Jesus Christ. Paul thought he would see it. I think I will see it.
-Regardless of when it comes. Let’s look into the sequence of events that we know for sure Jesus will be leading us and all other believers from all of the ages will be involved in.
-Let’s look at following Jesus into the future.
John 14
1 ¶ "Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
3 And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
4 ¶ And you know the way where I am going."
5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?"
6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.
Acts 1
8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth."
9 And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes,
11 and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
-Jesus is coming back!
-How is it all coming down?
1-THE NEXT EVENT ON JESUS’ PROPHETIC CLOCK IS THE CATCHING AWAY OF THE CHURCH
RSV 1 Corinthians 15
51 ¶ Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
53 For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.
54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."
55 "O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?"
-The word in the original for moment is atomos-an atomic second. It is a period of time that can’t be divided any smaller.
-Two things are going to happen at this moment-the dead shall be raised in an immortal state and we shall be changed.
1 Thessalonians 4
13 ¶ But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.
14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
15 For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first;
17 then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.
18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
-The word for “caught up” in the original language is harpazo-to seize by force.
-We have heard it called rapture but that is a Latin word that isn’t in the Bible.
-The Bible is very clear that the believers who are alive shall be caught up after the dead in Christ are raised.
-There is a lot of discussion about when this happens to the church.
-I believe the Bible teaches that we shall go at the beginning of the time of judgment that the Bible calls:
The day of the Lord
The time of Jacob’s trouble
The tribulation period
-One Biblical example another example is Noah and the Ark. The people were in the ark before judgment came.
-Another example is Lot in Sodom. He and the righteous were protected before the judgment came.
Genesis 18
16 ¶ Then the men set out from there, and they looked toward Sodom; and Abraham went with them to set them on their way.
17 The LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do,
18 seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by him?
19 No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice; so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him."
20 Then the LORD said, "Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave,
21 I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry which has come to me; and if not, I will know."
22 So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom; but Abraham still stood before the LORD.
23 ¶ Then Abraham drew near, and said, "Wilt thou indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked?
24 Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt thou then destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?
25 Far be it from thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
-That is the Biblical pattern because that is the character of God.
-Jesus Christ will receive us unto Himself.
2-THE NEXT EVENT AFTER THAT IS THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST THEN A WEDDING RECEPTION
Hebrews 9
27 And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment,
28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
2 Corinthians 5
1 ¶ For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling,
3 so that by putting it on we may not be found naked.
4 For while we are still in this tent, we sigh with anxiety; not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
6 So we are always of good courage; we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord,
7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.
8 We are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.
1 Corinthians 3
11 ¶ For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw--
13 each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
14 If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.
15 If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
-That tells us that we must appear before Jesus to give an account. The result isn’t to determine whether or not you receive salvation but you are rewarded according to your motives.
-We will give an account for what we did with what He gave us…gifts, abilities, and mostly. WHY we did it…OUR MOTIVES.
-During this time there is a period of judgment going on on planet earth.
3-JESUS WILL THEN LEAD HIS ARMY TO JERUSALEM TO FIGHT THE NATIONS
Jude
14….."Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads,
15 ¶ to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness which they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
Zechariah 14
4-THE NEXT EVENT FOR JESUS IS TO SET UP HIS GOVERNMENT ON PLANET EARTH
Zechariah 14
1 ¶ Behold, a day of the LORD is coming, when the spoil taken from you will be divided in the midst of you.
2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women ravished; half of the city shall go into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle.
4 On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives which lies before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley; so that one half of the Mount shall withdraw northward, and the other half southward.
5 And the valley of my mountains shall be stopped up, for the valley of the mountains shall touch the side of it; and you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD your God will come, and all the holy ones with him.
-That is very specific!
Revelation 20
1 ¶ Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain.
2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,
3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years were ended. After that he must be loosed for a little while.
4 Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom judgment was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life, and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and they shall reign with him a thousand years.
-Jesus literally becomes the King of the earth.
-The government shall be upon His shoulders.
-This is what the Jewish leaders were looking for originally.
-Like Joseph, Jesus will be reconciled to His brothers, the Jewish nation.
Zechariah 12
10 "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a first-born.
5-THE NEXT GREAT EVENT FOR JESUS IS TO DESTROY THE OPPOSITION ONCE AND FOR ALL
-At the end of this 1000-year period where Jesus rules on the earth, the devil is released to offer a choice to those who have been born and never had a chance to rebel if they wanted to.
Revelation 20
7 And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison
8 and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth, that is, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea.
9 And they marched up over the broad earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city; but fire came down from heaven and consumed them,
10 and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
-The deceiver will be dealt with when he is sent to the place prepared for him, not humans.
6-THEN JESUS WILL JUDGE THOSE WHO FOLLOWED SATAN IN REBELLION AGAINST GOD
Revelation 20
11 ¶ Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it; from his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.
12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done.
13 And the sea gave up the dead in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead in them, and all were judged by what they had done.
14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire;
15 and if any one's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
-This is one place you don’t want to show up at.
-Standing before Jesus will be Hitler, Mussolini, Jim Jones and all of those who have rebelled against Him.
-They are judged and sent forever to a place of torment known as the second death.
7-JESUS LEADS US INTO THE FUTURE
-Off into the sunset.
Revelation 21
1 ¶ Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband;
3 and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them;
4 he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away."
5 And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."
6 And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the fountain of the water of life without payment.
7 He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son.
-You can read in this passage and in other passages about eternity.
-We don’t know as much as I would like to know.
-The bottom line is that we will always be with the Lord.