(see Notes at the end of the Sermon)
I've read recently about an inscription on the Dome of the Capitol building
in Washington. It's placed where few can see it. It's a line from the poet
Tennyson:
One far-off divine event to which all history moves.
That 'one far-off divine event' is the one we pray for every time we say
'Thy Kingdom come', as we pray for the coming of the day, not when the Church
will conquer the world, but when all worldly empires give place to the Kingdom
of God. And that will be ushered in by the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. That
return, that second coming is a subject we think very little about, but it's a
core Christian belief; it's the 'blessed hope' (as Scripture puts it) of every
believer; it's part of the 'Mystery of Faith' we proclaim week-by-week in the
Communion Prayer:
Christ HAS died
Christ IS risen
Christ
WILL come again.
Many of us, I trust, thank God daily that Christ has died,
has died for their sins, that Christ is risen. Yet how often do we thank God
that Christ will come back again.
I want say emphatically this
morning that JESUS IS COMING BACK- literally and physically. When Jesus told his
disciples as recorded in John 14 that he would return, many spiritualise that
away, or maybe regard it as a promise of his resurrection, or even the sending
of the Holy Spirit.
Of the truth of his return, the Scriptures leave
us in no doubt. Every New Testament book except Galatians and the very short 2nd
and 3rd letters of John mention it; as does one in 27 New Testament
verses, and often in a way that leaves us in little doubt that his return will
be physical, visible and unmistakable. Take Jesus' own words in Matthew 24:30-31
At that time the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all
the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the
clouds of the sky with power and great glory.
I want us to
look into this subject this morning, seeing how we would react to it and would
make three particular points:
But, the Scriptures do give us these signs of when the End Times are upon us.
Jesus mentions some of them in the early part of Matthew 24, as he replies to
his disciples' question in v4 Tell us when all this will
happen (that was the Fall of Jerusalem) and what will
be the sign of your coming at the end of the age?
One could
speak (from Matthew 24) of many falling away from faith. One could speak of
false prophets (and these abound today), of increasing wickedness (and things
are worse than when most of us were children). One could speak about the
world-wide preaching of the Gospel- and radio and TV have taken the
Gospels to the far corners of the world. I would rather focus on the words of
Jesus in verses 32 and 34:
Now learn the lesson
of the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come
out, you know that summer is near...I tell you
the truth, this generation will not pass away
until all these things have happened.
Now in the
Bible, the fig tree was one of the symbols of the Jewish nation. Days earlier,
Jesus had cursed a fig tree- symbolic of the judgment to fall on the nation in
AD 70. Now he is saying there would be a time of restoration. I won't bother you
with all the Bible verses now, but that restoration began in 1948 when the state
of Israel was founded
I'm reminded at this point of the preacher who,
when asked by King Frederick of Prussia to prove in one word that the Bible is
true, answered
"The Jew, your Majesty, the Jew"
Great empires
have risen and fallen, and no longer exist. The Jews have been a nation for
nearly 4,000 years; a nation exiled world-wide in AD 135 still exists and 1850
years later returned to its historical homeland. What other nation has any
comparable historical survival?
In a parallel passage in Luke's
Gospel, Jesus said that after its overthrow Jerusalem will
be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be
fulfilled. That, I suggest, happened in 1967: the fig tree flowered and
the generation which saw that is the last. Jesus is coming back in this
generation.
2. Jesus is coming back soon, and HIS COMING WILL CAUSE A SEPARATION.
Jesus himself speaks of two men in a field; one taken, one left; of two
women grinding corn. This surely refers to the time when:
The Lord will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the
voice of the
archangel and with the
trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
After that, we who still alive and are left will be caught
up together with them in
the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air. (1 Thess 4:16-17)
A separation. What does
this mean? The meaning is made clear in Hebrews 9:28 where we read:
Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins
of many people; and he will appear the
second time to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
To
those who are waiting for him; those who are His. For such his coming will be a
day of great rejoicing. As Paul put it in Romans 13 our
salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The great struggle will
be over as we welcome the One who died to take away our sin.
When Christ shall come, with shouts
of acclamation, to take me home,
what joy shall
fill my heart.
Then
shall I bow in humble adoration and there proclaim
"My God, how great Thou
art!"
The separation, then, will be between those who wait for him
and, to say the obvious, those who don't. For them the words of Hebrews 9:27
will so terribly apply: It is appointed to man
die once, and then the judgment.
If you have never admitted Christ as the bearer-away
of your sin and if you thus do not wait for him; if you are not putting your
trust in him, then his return will indeed be a terrible day. Indeed C S Lewis
puts it very clearly in his book Mere Christianity:
When the author walks on the stage, the play is over.
God is going to invade all right
but what is the use of saying
you are on his side when you see the whole natural
universe
melting away like some dream and something else- something else it never
entered your head to conceive- comes crashing in; something so
beautiful to some
of us and so terrible to others, that none of
us will have any choice left. For this time
it will be God
without disguise; something so overwhelming it will strike wither
irresistible love or irresistible terror into every creature.
It will be too late then to
choose your side. There's no use
saying you choose to lie down when it has
become impossible to
stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be
the time when we discover which side we've really chosen, whether we realised
it before or not.
That is what the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ will mean- a separation, or maybe as Lewis so potently put it, a
revelation of which path we've chosen.
3. WE SHOULD WATCH AND PRAY.
Jesus' coming will be like a thief in the
night. He bids us be ready and prepared for his coming. Paul tells us to put
aside the deeds of darkness and in Romans 13:13 he lists them for us: orgies, drunkenness, sexual immorality, debauchery, dissensions,
jealousy. Human nature doesn't change. It's the same in the 20th century
as in the first. Paul tells us to put these things on one side. By the nature of
the society in which we live they will press in on us from every side. These are
the stuff of the world, the things the world delights in; things which are very
seductive. Paul says on the contrary clothe yourselves with
the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the things of the
sinful nature.
Jesus warned us about a falling away in the
days before his return. So long as we live in this world there will be a danger
of falling away, and whilst I don't believe any true believer will not be saved,
does not Jesus warn us that many will claim to have worked in his Name and he
will have to tell them to depart: he never knew them. True faith will never
fail, true faith will wait in trust for the Lord's return.
But- it is
possible to be seduced from a seeming faith by the world. Peter in his 2nd
letter speaks of the dog returning to its own vomit. It's possible to be so
taken up with the activity of the world, and no less so in these days of frantic
activity, that we become like those in the days of Noah- we're so busy, so taken
up with the things of this life, with its activity, its values, its pleasures
that we cease to wait on the Lord. The possibility of his return, the
possibility of judgment become trivial matters when there's so much that's more
immediate, so much more pressing, and, to be honest, so much more pleasing. In
Matthew 25 we find the Parable of the Ten Virgins. Do we keep a ready supply of
oil, of the indwelling Holy Spirit, that we are at any time ready for the Lord's
return? Or are we neglectful? Or maybe we're so full of religious busy-ness
which cloaks a veneer of worldly values and corruption.
2,500 years ago the prophet Zechariah said that Jerusalem
would be a cup that sends surrounding people reeling. He went on to speak
of a siege and a war against Jerusalem, and after that he says in 14:4 on that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives.
It would be a unique day and then (v9) the Lord will be
King over all the earth. As we hear the news of the Middle East, how long
can these events be delayed? Saddam Hussein's main interest is Israel and is
Jerusalem. That, and not Kuwait, was what the Gulf War was about. If conflict
comes to the Middle East, how long until a pan-Arab alliance attacks Jerusalem?
Then everybody else will be joining in.
I didn't quite finish the quote from C S Lewis. He ends thus:
Now, today, this is our chance to choose the right side. God is
holding back to give us that
chance. It will not last for ever.
-If you have chosen, if you are Christ's: What about your friends, family
and neighbours who aren't?
-If you are not, if your faith is falling, now,
today, this is your moment, your chance to choose.
NOTES
After this sermon, I was publicly rebuked by the
then Vicar for my comments about Israel. I will not budge from my convictions
that they are God's covenant people, returned bu God's hand to their land- even
though many of their policies may be wrong. There is sadly a strong anti-Semitic
element in the Church. Such anti-Semitism is under God's curse.
I add this
note after the events of September 11, 2001. The scenes of the Twin Towers
burning were very reminiscent of Revelation 18:17-20.
The subsequent
conflict in Afghanistan has taken our eyes off Jerusalem. But let's be sure of
this, that Osama bin Laden's and al Quaeda's anti-US stance derives from the
support that Israel has received from America.