Basic/Fundamental Issues, Part 2

Driving home: the length of this age is unknown. Not even Jesus knew how long the last days would last, Mark 13.32. What this means is that the return of Christ as the next event in the salvation historical timetable is from the time …

Martin quotes Douglas Moo to explain that the 'nearness' of Christ's return is understood within the framework of salvation history, where the last days were inaugurated by Christ's death, resurrection, and the Spirit's outpouring, and will climax in his return, but the length of this age is unknown.

acts in both mercy and in judgment, thereby ushering in the eternal state. And as we leave that and come to the third heading, I want to quote the words of a very perceptive. And commentator, a man by the name of Douglas Moo, commenting on the passage in James that we considered, which speaks of the Lord being at hand these words. But what is crucial is to understand that this nearness in the appropriate temporal framework is that of salvation history with the death and resurrection of Jesus and the pouring out of the spirit.

8:21 - 9:04 Read in full sermon

The point: Live in the expectancy of Christ's return, for only in that expectancy does the servant live properly and serve well in the intervening time.

Martin quotes Dr. Robert Raymond to explain that the necessity of certain preceding events (like the apostasy and man of lawlessness) does not eliminate the expectancy of Christ's coming, as these events can transpire quickly, and preparing for Christ's return should not be delayed.

Listen to the very helpful words of Dr. Robert Raymond in his systematic theology in his section on the Lord's return. He says, the awareness of the necessity of these events keeps Christians from believing that the day of the Lord has already come, referring to the second Thessalonians passage. But since these aspects of the end time events, that's my rendering of his words, eschatological complex.

22:10 - 22:41 Read in full sermon

The point: Live in the expectancy of Christ's return, for only in that expectancy does the servant live properly and serve well in the intervening time.

The analogy of a complex jigsaw puzzle is used to criticize the 'glut of end time books' that attempt to precisely map out end-time events, calling such efforts 'nonsense' and 'unbiblical' because the timing is unknowable.

For it to delay until the time of the apostasy and the appearing of the man of lawlessness to prepare for Christ's return may well be too late. God was not using Paul or the other apostles to give a timetable or a schedule for the believers of the last generation of earth history, but rather a perspective upon earth history. Now failure to grasp that is what is behind the glut of end time books in which people find Russia and the coalition of the European nations and like a complex jigsaw puzzle say, we put it all together.

23:22 - 24:05 Read in full sermon

The point: Take the shortest route to becoming a Christian, to get into Christ, to go to him in the way of repentance and the way of faith.

Martin quotes Philip Hughes, who comments on Paul's perspective of either dying or being alive at Christ's return, to illustrate that this 'double possibility' has always been a powerful incentive to holy living for Christ's followers in every age.

And then I say to all in the language of our Lord in Matthew 24, 27, you have one responsibility if you're not a Christian. That's to take the shortest route to becoming one, to get into Christ, to go to him in the way of repentance and the way of faith. Listen to the comments of another perceptive servant of God whose commentary on 2 Thessalonians has been feeding my soul in my own devotions for days. Philip Hughes, speaking of Paul's language in 2 Corinthians 5, where Paul is talking about the dismantling of the

38:05 - 38:42 Read in full sermon

Driving home: one can never take this biblical data on the return of Christ and try to put all of the pieces in a kind of sequential checklist. This, this, this, this, this, this, this. Rather, we should think of the major categories.…

The analogy of a pie with three major slices is used to explain that the events connected with Christ's return should be viewed as categories clustering around his coming, rather than a rigid, sequential checklist, to avoid atomistic interpretation.

This, this, this, this, this, this, this. Rather, we should think of the major categories. Of what will what events will be connected with the Lord's return and view them, not in a checklist, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, but in a circle like a pie. And in that pie, there are three major pieces.

42:11 - 42:32 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Using 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Martin illustrates that biblical passages on the Second Coming often arise from specific pastoral concerns, highlighting certain aspects while…

The hypothetical example of 'Uncle Harry' being a 'second class citizen' at Christ's return is used to illustrate the specific pastoral concern Paul addressed in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, reassuring believers about their deceased loved ones.

a full systematic theological dissertation on the second coming. The second coming is introduced to address this question. My uncle Harry died. People have been telling me that only those of us who are alive when Jesus comes go as first class.

46:25 - 46:43 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section elaborates on the nature of the glorified body, drawing from Philippians 3 and 1 Corinthians 15. Martin emphasizes the continuity between the body of humiliation and…

The analogy of a seed (acorn to oak, grain of corn to stalk) is used to explain the continuity and transformation of the resurrected body, answering the skeptic's question, 'How are the dead raised? And with what manner of body do they come?'

And integrated and interred in the earth and has given life to flowers and to vegetables and some have eaten it? Paul, don't you know the realities of what happens to a decomposed body? You know how Paul answers that? He says, you fool, that which you sow is not quickened except it die.

61:21 - 61:40 Read in full sermon