Love Is A verb (3)

The Love Of Christ In His Return

2 Peter 3:1–4 ESV

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”

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!

During the Second World War the US Army was forced to retreat from the Philippines. Some of their soldiers were left behind, and became prisoners of the Japanese. The men called themselves "ghosts", souls unseen by their nation, and on the infamous Bataan Death March were forced to walk over 70 miles, knowing that those who were slow or weak would be bayoneted by their captors or die from dysentery and lack of water. Those who made it through the march spent the next three years in a hellish prisoner-of-war camp. By early 1945, 513 men were still alive at the Cabanatuan prison camp, but they were giving up hope. The US Army was on its way back, but the POW's had heard the frightening news that prisoners were being executed as the Japanese retreated from the advancing U.S. Army.

Their wavering hope was however met by one of the most magnificent rescues of wartime history. In an astonishing feat 120 US Army soldiers and 200 Filipino guerrillas outflanked 8000 Japanese soldiers to rescue the POW's.

Alvie Robbins was one of the rescuers. He describes how he found a prisoner muttering in a darkened corner of his barracks, tears coursing down his face.

"I thought we'd been forgotten," the prisoner said.

"No, you're not forgotten," Robbins said softly. "You're heroes. We've come for you. "

Often in life we can start to give up hope, to feel that God has forgotten us, abandoned us to dark and hurtful experiences, but the cross of Christ reminds us, "No, you're not forgotten" and the resurrection gives us the assurance that some day we too will see our rescuer face to face and be liberated from the distresses of this life. When he returns we too will hear him say, "I've come for you."

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 excited about it, prepare for it and have great hope in it. As we study the Bible, we find that the return of Christ is...

1. 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 m 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 I 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 into 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.”

Paul and Peter both wrote that the day of the Lord would come as a thief in the night, and Jesus Himself said, "Surely I come quickly."

Folk, I want you to know that through and through the Bible promises the return of Christ. Those promises are the hope of humanity, the joy of the saints and the faithful and true words of God. But listen, not only does the Bible tell us that the return of Christ is a promised return, it's going to be...

2. A Glorious Return

Luke 21:25-27 records a great message for us.

Luke 21:25–27 ESV

“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

The return of Christ is going to be glorious! It's going to be glorious because when He returns, we'll get to shed these old corruptible bodies for glorious ones! Paul told the Philippians that "we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body. 1st Corinthians 15:51-57 says,

1 Corinthians 15:51–57 ESV

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 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. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 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.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Not only will His return be glorious because we'll get our glorified bodies, but it's going to be glorious because the fullness of time has come! Because the whole world's finally going to know the truth! But I tell you the greatest reason Christ's return is going to be a glorious return is because the returning Jesus is the King of glory! I love the words of Psalm 24

Psalm 24 ESV

A Psalm of David. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle! Lift up your heads, O gates! And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory! Selah

I can't wait for the day our Lord Jesus Christ is going to part the sky with power and great glory! I can't wait to see His face shining in the brightness of His glory!

"What a day that will be, when my Jesus I shall see!

When I look upon His face, the One who saved me by His grace,

When He takes me by the hand, and leads me through the Promised Land,

What a day, glorious day, that will be!

It's no wonder that Paul wrote to Titus to be "looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." But listen, no matter how much we might look for His appearing; no matter how much we might rejoice in the thought of seeing Jesus face to face, and no matter that the Bible promises it, the fact is that the return of Jesus Christ is also going to be...

3. A Troubling Return

I read earlier in Peter that many people scoff at the thought of Christ's return.

"Where is the promise of His coming?" Hey, I understand what they're saying. Even the disciples thought that Jesus was coming right back. That's why they just stood there looking up in the sky. And God's people have been preaching about Jesus coming back for 2000 years. Some people deny the return of Christ, others doubt it, dismiss it and even debate it, but that doesn't change the fact of it one bit. In Matthew 24, Jesus was talking about His return when He made a comparison of it with the days of Noah. Start reading with me in verse 36.

"But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. "

I think it must have been a sad day when God flooded the earth. Noah had been warning people for years to no avail. Jesus said they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. In other words, they went on with life as though nothing was wrong. "We don't want to hear that doom and gloom stuff! There's too much life to live." But when the flood came they were singing to a different tune. But it was too late. They'd been given a chance, and when God shut the door, it was shut.

Why is the return of Christ going to be troubling? Because of the multitudes of people like you who have heard the gospel message over and over and over but have refused to get in the ark of Jesus Christ. You see, there's a flood coming one day — but it's not going to be a flood of water. It's going to be the judgment of God. And the only way to escape the coming judgment is to get in Christ through repentance of your sins and by putting your faith in Him to save you.

It's going to be troubling because when Jesus returns there's not going to be another chance for you to be saved. "Today is the day of salvation!" You'll be all out of chances. "Two will be in the field," but only those who have placed their faith in Christ for salvation will be taken.

Now one final passage of Scripture and then we'll close. In 2nd Thessalonians 1:6-9, Paul wrote to a church that was suffering for their faith in Christ, and this is what he wrote,

English Standard Version (Chapter 1)

“since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might”,

When the Lord returns only one thing awaits those who have not obeyed the gospel call, and that is the vengeance, or wrath of God.

I heard about a small country church that was holding a revival in a packed building. It was so crowded that they had to put up chairs everywhere, right up to the pulpit. The evangelist was preaching about the second coming of Christ and had really warmed up to the subject. He was one of those fire and brimstone kind of preachers that marched up and down the pulpit. At one point of his sermon he leaned over toward the audience and shouted out Jesus' promise: "1 am coming soon!"

He marched up and down the stage some more and then leaned out again over the edge of the stage and cried out, "I am coming soon!"

Several minutes went by and again he shouted out, "I am coming soon!" But this time, he got tangled up in the microphone cord and lost his balance. Tumbling off the stage, he landed right on the lap of a couple sitting in the front row of chairs. The husband looked at his wife and said, "Well, I guess we shouldn't be surprised. He warned us three times!"

I know people have been preaching the return of Christ for 2,000 years. But don't you ever let that keep you from believing it to be true. Time means nothing to God. He promised in His Word that He's coming back: personally, visibly, and suddenly, and I want to tell you that when He returns it's going to be one of two things for you. It's either going to be a glorious event or it's going to be a troubling event, and it's up to you to choose which one it will be for you.

Have you placed your faith in Jesus Christ to save your soul? Have you repented of your sin and called on Jesus to save you? Or will you gamble with time and run the risk of getting caught in the flood of His vengeance?