Review; Observations; Applications

Introduction and Rationale for Review

0:00 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, October 28th, 2001, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. It was exactly seven weeks ago, September the 9th to be precise, that I stood in this pulpit and preached what was the 18th sermon on the theme, The Return of Christ in New Testament Faith and Experience. The events on and subsequent to September 11th, two days after the last sermon in this series,

0:41 have in many ways made the past seven weeks seem more like seven months. However, we're returning this morning to that series of studies concerning the return of our Lord Jesus Christ in power and in glory at the end of the age. What remains to be done, in completing the series, is to show how this doctrine of the return of Christ is meant to exert a present and a powerful influence upon the whole spectrum of the privileges, the difficulties, the responsibilities, and the future prospects of the people of God.

1:23 One of the things that has gripped me afresh in reading over the many passages that address the subject of the Lord's response, the return in glory and in power, is how there is no major category of Christian privilege, no difficulty in the Christian life, no responsibility in the Christian life, and no future prospect that is not directly to be influenced in our thinking by this blessed truth that the Lord Jesus will return in glory and power at the end of the age. However, before moving on to this final category of our consideration of this truth,

2:06 what I propose to do this morning is to set before you an extensive review of what we have discovered thus far, and as time permits, to make some necessary observations and applications so that our minds and hearts are turned in the direction of the remaining messages which will deal primarily primarily with how this, this doctrine of the Lord's return, is to influence the entirety of our Christian living. Now, I'm giving this extensive review this morning for several reasons, and I judged it would be helpful to let you inside my head as to why I've chosen this approach.

2:51 I must confess that, first of all, even thinking about returning to and completing the series was a bit discouraging to me. I felt we'd been out of it, for so long, it would be difficult to get back in the flow of it. But my mother's words rang in my ears. A job worth doing is worth doing well.

3:12 A job worth starting is worth completing. And so my 88-year-old mother was in her son's ear, prodding him in the direction of bringing to completion this series of studies. But at a more, what shall I say, general level, and outside of my own, personal sense of maintaining integrity, I want to do this for the benefit of those who are here among us this morning, and hopefully will be among us in days to come, who were not here for the 18 messages in which I sought to expound many, many passages addressing this subject of the Lord's return.

3:54 Everything that follows in the remaining sermons as to how the truth of the Lord's return is to motivate and shape our lives, all of that is to feel the pressure of the preceding 18 sermons in which we opened up many passages that address the how and the what of the Lord's return, and it is the pressure of that biblical witness that we must feel in our hearts and minds as we take up the subject, how should this truth influence us. And in trying to do that, in trying to conceptualize what I mean by saying I want to bring you all on board,

The Train Ride Analogy: Catching Up New Listeners

4:36 my mind went back to an incident many years ago when with my family, we were privileged to spend some weeks in the United Kingdom during the summer in a pulpit exchange. And part of that time we spent in Wales, and I can remember, and we still have some lovely slides to capture those memories of the experience of going to a certain place in Wales where I was born, where they had a steam engine that pulled some cars through a very beautiful and scenic part of that section of Wales. Now I want you to imagine with me that some of us got on the train at the beginning point and we saw all the various scenes, let's say for the sake of the illustration

5:21 it was a 20 mile train ride, and at mile 15 the train stopped, and this did happen, and they put in some water, to fill up the storage area so that we'd have enough steam generated to complete the journey. And if you were one who happened to jump on the train at mile 15, and you were only going to see the last five miles, if someone had had a Polaroid camera and had taken a picture of mile 1 and whatever vistas opened up to the eyes of those on the cars, and then at mile 2, you could at least have a sense of what the previous part of the journey was like. And then if what you see whets your appetite,

6:07 then you can always go back to the place where the next train starts and you can get the whole journey yourself. Well, the point of that illustration is some of you have come in at mile 15, and though we can't go back and retrace the previous 15 miles before we get on the last five miles, I can at least this morning hold up some Polaroid images of where we were and what the main, uh, vista of Biblical truth was as we made our way through those 18 sermons. And hopefully, if the journey is pleasant enough and what you see in those Polaroid snapshots is whets your appetite, you can always go to the Trinity pulpit and tell them you'd like the tapes and take the whole journey. And we have them in our library

6:51 as well as in the bookstore for your purchase. So, I'm letting you inside my head because coming to the decision to give an extensive review, is not something I often do, but I was constrained to do it, and that is my first reason outside of getting my mother out of my ear, is that it might be to the benefit of those who've come on board well along in the journey. But then secondly, I want to do this that we might experience what Peter was concerned that his readers might experience. When he wrote his second epistle, he was very conscious that he was not bringing them in to breathtakingly new things, bringing them in to breathtakingly new things, bringing them to a new scenery of biblical truth.

Stirring Up Remembrance: Peter's Example

7:31 bring them in to breathtakingly new things, bringing them to a new scenery of biblical truth. But he says in chapter 1, in verse 12, wherefore I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things though you know them and are established in the truth that is with you. in the truth that is with you, I think it right as long as I'm in this Tabernacle to stir you up to stir you up by putting you in remembrance. by putting you in remembrance.

7:48 by putting you in remembrance. So, Peter says what I'm going to write is not new stuff. is not new stuff. So, if you are the kind of person can only get excited with something new, Peter says I'm going to discipline you something new peter said i'm going to disappoint you because i'm going to tell you things you already know and you're already living in the light of them but i want to stir you up by remembrance so i hope this morning will not only be uh some snapshots of where we've been along the way but it will be a stirring up of our own hearts as it has been with mine and i was embarrassed at how much of my own preaching i forgot i had the temerity to sit at my desk and think i could

8:28 put down the headings for an extensive review and not miss anything significant and i tell you i was just plain embarrassed there were whole segments of the truth that weren't lying there on the surface enough to skim them off i had to cheat and look at my notes and make sure that i wasn't leaving any gaping holes so if the preacher who has spent hours pouring over it can can forget simply because i haven't gone back and reminded myself and again maybe some of you are in that posture with me and will find it helpful so this is going to be an extensive review tighten your seat belt the text which formed the launching pad of this

The Launching Pad: Acts 1:9-11 and Luke 24:51

9:12 entire series is acts chapter 1 verses 9 through 11 and luke 24 51 i do hope many of you will remember that that was our starting point the lord jesus has died and risen from the dead he has spent 40 days in the company of his disciples speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of god and now it's time for him to go back to the right hand of his father and here in acts chapter 1 we read in verse 9 and when he had said these things as they were looking he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight we bring in what luke writes

9:54 in luke 24 51 it says while he blessed us them he raised his hands in priestly posture and was pronouncing and conferring blessing upon them as he blessed them he was taken up from them verse 10 and while they were looking steadfastly into heaven as he went behold two men stood by them in white apparel who also said you men of galilee why do you stand looking into heaven this jesus who was received up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as you beheld him going into heaven and here we have the

10:37 announcement of god through these two heavenly messengers these two angels who appeared as men and they speak in unmistakable bluntness this very jesus not another not one like him but this jesus with whom they had spent those years in intimate communion and fellowship the jesus whom they had seen apprehended in the garden taken off to the high priest and to pilot and herod and back to pilot and finally driven out and hung upon the

11:13 cross the jesus who on the third day vacated joseph's tomb the jesus who had appeared to them the doors being shut the jesus who for these 40 post-resurrection days had been instructing them this same jesus shall so come there are two comparatives in the construction of this passage he shall so come in like manner as he went into heaven he went up visibly he went up bodily he went up enveloped in the cloud he will come visibly bodily in clouds

11:55 of glory this passage established for ever in the minds of these 11 apostles the great reality of the return of the lord jesus in glory and in power and then after using that text as the launching pad i went on to assert that when we read the letters penned by the apostles and those who labored closely with the apostles and had apostolic approval for what they wrote and to whom they wrote

The Eager Expectation of Christ's Return in New Testament Faith

12:29 We find in those letters of the New Testament that an eager expectation, a love and a longing for the return of Christ was an essential element in ordinary Christian experience.

12:46 That was my fundamental thesis, that from that starting point of the conviction that this very Jesus will return, the gospel which they preached, the instruction which they gave that formed and fashioned the apostolic churches, produced churches in which an eager expectation, a love and longing for the return of Christ was an essential element in ordinary Christian experience. In ordinary Christian experience. And we looked at six texts which clearly state this.

13:23 1 Thessalonians 1, 9 and 10 in which this longing for Christ's return is identified as a distinct evidence of true conversion. 1 Corinthians 1, 7 in which it is set before us as a distinct accompaniment of a saving union with Christ. Titus 2, 13 where it is put before us. As a distinctive lesson in the tutelage of saving grace.

13:51 Hebrews 9, 28 it is put before us as the pledge of a completed salvation. Philippians 3, 20 and 21 it is set before us as a characteristic of a true citizen of heaven. And 2 Timothy 4, 8 in which we are told that those who love the appearing of Christ is synonymous with being a Christian. The promise of vindication in the last day comes to those who long for his appearing.

Why Believers Long for Christ's Return

14:23 Now having demonstrated that this eager expectation of and this longing for the return of Christ was a vital element of ordinary New Testament Christian experience. We then took up the question, why? Why do true believers in a healthy spiritual state long for the return of Christ? Why?

14:45 And I gave you four reasons. Reason number one, because they long to experience the complete salvation to which they and the creation have been predestined. Romans 8, 29. Secondly, because they long to see the ultimate defeat of all of the enemies of Christ and of his church.

15:09 The ancient conflict announced in Genesis 3, 15. That characterizes the whole...

15:15 The whole history of redemption comes to a glorious climax in the return of the Lord Jesus and the ultimate defeat of all of his and his people's enemies. Thirdly, they long for the return of Christ because they long to see the public and universal acknowledgement of the true identity and the true position of the Lord Jesus Christ. True believers long that they...

15:45 There will be universal recognition that God has highly exalted him, given to him the name that is above every name, that he has put him in the language of Ephesians 1, in the place of power, far above principality and might and power and every name, name not only in this age but in that which is to come. And then fourthly, true believers in a healthy spiritual state long for the return of Christ because...

16:15 They long to see and to be with the object of their faith and their love. A Christian is described in 1 Peter 1, 8 as one whom having not seen, that is Christ, he loves and in whom though we see him not yet believing we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Now having established from those six texts that waiting for, loving the return of Christ...

What We Know for Sure About Christ's Return

16:45 Is normal New Testament experience, having answered the question, why do true believers in a healthy state long for the return of Christ, at least those four lines of biblical evidence as the answer. Then we began to take up the question, what can we know for sure about the return of Christ? Amidst all the bizarre teaching that floats around in our own day...

17:14 And the bizarre teaching that... Has plagued the church throughout its many centuries, what can we know with certainty that is in the realm of indisputable fact, what can we know about the return of Christ?

17:29 And I said in response to that question, four things, as to the event, it is certain, I skipped over some 20 references in establishing that if we rip out of our Bibles... Those texts which explicitly state the truth of Acts 1 in verse 11, that Jesus the glorified Christ will return visibly, bodily, in triumph, in power, we have an emasculated Bible from which we have gutted one of the major strands of its teaching.

18:07 As to the event, it is certain. Secondly, as to its place in the history of redemption, it is central. Central and climactic. Don't embrace any view of the Lord's return that makes it a stepping stone to something greater and grander in the history of redemption.

18:29 As surely as the coming of the suffering servant was central in all the prophecies leading to his first coming, so what the scripture teaches about the second coming, it is central in the history of redemption. And it is...

18:46 Climactic. In conjunction with the second coming, all of God's saving purposes come to their culmination. There's no comma waiting for something more and greater and grander. It is all clustered around the coming of our Lord Jesus.

19:05 Thirdly, as to its time, for us, it is always imminent, indefinite, and unknowable. It is always true that the coming...

19:16 For the Lord draws nigh. It is always true that Jesus speaks in the words of scripture. Behold, I come quickly. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

19:31 For us and for the church in every age, it is always imminent. Why? Because it is the next great event in the history of redemption. And that's why when these disciples are about to receive...

19:46 the Spirit and go forth to conquer in the name of Christ in the gospel conquest of evangelism, they are given to understand that this truth is to be central in their perspective. This Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner. As to its time, then, for us, it is always imminent, it is indefinite, and unknowable. If the incarnate Son, in the period of...

20:16 humiliation, did not know the time, I say, as I said some months ago, any human being who claims to know more than Jesus is arrogant and is unworthy of a serious hearing. And then, fourthly, as to its accompaniments or its concomitants...

Accompaniments of Christ's Return: Clearly Revealed and Manifold

20:39 That's a good word. We don't use it often. It's a synonym for accompaniments. As to its concomitants.

20:45 What are the things that... will accompany His return?

20:48 I've asserted that they are clearly revealed and they are manifold. Clearly revealed and manifold. And then I have said again and again that in approaching what is clearly revealed, we can only run into problems if we look for a passage or a combination of passages that will give us this airtight, neat little numerically aligned structure, one, two, three, four, five...

21:17 These are the events in this order, this way, everything precise. But we must think rather in terms of a circle. I've used the illustration of a pie with some major slices. You see, the great purpose of prophecy is not to give us pre-written history in all of its details.

21:35 It is to point to the certainty of certain events in God's work of redemption. And the cycle and the pattern is prophecy, fulfillment, and then...

21:46 And then... Clear perception of the details.

21:49 It is after Christ comes that the gospel writers can say, this happened that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying. This happened that it might be fulfilled which is spoken by the prophet saying. Looking this way, we see the great issues. Messiah will come.

22:07 Messiah will suffer. Messiah will triumph. Messiah will have an inheritance among the nations. But much of it is packed together in a way that we can't see.

22:16 In a way that we can't sort out the details from this perspective. But after the fulfillment, we look back and say, Oh, this fit here. This fit here. This fit here.

22:26 This fit there. And this is true with the second coming. And when people try to get it all lined up in meticulous orderly ways, they are violating the fundamental principle of the very purpose of prophecy. Prophecy is not pre-written history.

22:42 And if we only get on the right glasses, we can figure it all out and impress people how clever we are. With typology from this and numbers from this and all the rest. No, my friends. With respect to the coming again of our Lord Jesus, as to its accompaniments, they are clearly revealed and manifold.

23:02 But they are not set before us in this kind of a sequence that all of us would like to have, but which would not be to our profit. And in doing a lot of collateral reading, in recent days, I was very comforted when I found myself in good company with one of the outstanding New Testament scholars of the past generation, a man by the name of Ritterbos. And writing on this very thing, listen to what Ritterbos says. How much we have to do here with realities, the presentation of which in a great many respects bears a fragmentary and inadequate character, is evident surely from the impossibility of coming from the various elements and moments

23:47 of this teaching on the Lord's return to an all rounded off and systematic conception. Paul's pronouncements here bear the character of flashing prophetic warnings which illuminate for an instant the awesome seriousness of the great future. Not of a doctrine that in fixed order, piece by piece, indicates the component parts of the picture of the future and combines them with each other into a neat little package. He says integral unity.

24:22 I give it my translation into a neat little package. You see what he's saying? We must not come to the word of God seeing if we get every little niggling detail. No, no.

24:32 But what really matters is clearly revealed and is manifold and it is not being presumptuous to seek to see them in their various broad categories. And then, bless God, the time will come when in the presence of our Lord we too will look back and say, Aha! Now I see how that fit here and this fit here and that fit there. And fulfillment will put us in the posture of infallible understanding of how all the pieces fit together.

Slice 1: What Christ Will Do for His Own

25:02 But for now, God's told us enough that we can be certain of those crucial issues that will be the concomitants, the accompaniments, the accompaniments of the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. So I've suggested four slices. When I began, I said three. But the more I studied, I came to the conviction there were four.

25:24 So if someone listens to the tapes, they'll say he's contradicting himself. In message number four, he said there are three slices. By the time he got to message eight, he said there are four. Well, I've stuck with four.

25:36 And so let me now briefly review for you those four. Slice number one. I tried to organize things under this question and the biblical answer. What will Christ do to those who are savingly united to him, both dead and alive, when he comes again?

25:53 When we pick up our Bibles and ask the question, Oh God, what have you revealed about that which Jesus will do for those united to him, both dead and alive, when he returns? Well, I've answered with this proposition and my method for you who are new upon us was to state a proposition that in my judgment collates the major biblical teaching and then to break it down phrase by phrase and show the specific scriptures, exegete the passages in context to demonstrate that the proposition was not spun out of my own brain, but hopefully was a reasonably accurate summary of the teaching of the word of God. Slice number one

26:38 in the pie then of those accompaniments of the return of Christ, what will he do with those who are savingly united to him? And add four categories of what Christ will do with his own. All who are truly in Christ, whether dead or alive, shall at the coming of Christ be fully conformed to the image of Christ, forever to be with Christ. It is this that is called glorification, that which Dr. J. I. Packer

27:09 calls a work of transformation, a work of transforming power whereby God finally turns us into sinless creatures with deathless bodies. That's what Jesus is going to do for me when he comes again. Whether part of me is lying in a grave or all of me yet breathes, and with all of his saints, he will transform us by a redemptive power that will turn us into sinless individuals, sinless creatures in deathless bodies. The key passages were 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 to 17, Philippians 3, 20 to 21,

27:52 select passages out of 1 Corinthians 15, and the well-known words of 1 John 3, 1 and 2, Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall be manifested we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Proposition B, all in slice one now. What's the Lord going to do with his own? At the return of Christ, all who are truly in Christ will be brought to the judgment seat of Christ in order to be openly identified, vindicated, and confessed by Christ, and to receive their individual rewards of grace from Christ.

28:34 Then we looked at the key passages, 2 Corinthians 5, 10, 1 Corinthians 4, 5, Romans 14, 10 to 12, Proposition number 3, all in slice number one. What's he going to do with his own? Here's the third thing. At the return of Christ, all who are truly in Christ, having been glorified, will share in the final judgment executed by Christ upon unbelieving and evil men, upon the devil and the devil.

29:07 And his angels. The key passage there is 1 Corinthians 6, verses 2 and 3, in which the apostle questions the Corinthians. Don't you know? We shall judge angels.

29:21 We shall join in judgment with Christ. And then Proposition 4, all under slice number one, at the return of Christ, all who are truly in Christ shall be presented to Christ as the perfected bride of Christ. Ephesians 5, verses 25 to 27. Jesus will have his wedding day.

29:44 The bride he purchased with his blood that he has so patiently borne with, over which he has brooded and yearned and that he has nourished and cherished. He's going to have his wedding day. And he's going to have a bride without spot, without wrinkle or any such thing. His eyes will behold the climactic fruition of all that he died to have in his people.

Slice 2: What Christ Will Do for Those Not in Christ

30:14 So that's slice number one. What's he going to do with his own? Slice number two is the question, what will happen to those who are not in Christ? What will Christ do to them?

30:30 And here in response to that question, two propositions. At the return of Christ, the bodies of those who are not in Christ will be raised by the voice and power of Christ to be rejoined to their departed spirits in order to appear in judgment before Christ with all the unbelievers who are alive at the coming of Christ. Key text, John 5, 28 and 29 and a host of other texts that at the return of the Lord Jesus, Matthew 25, 31, there shall be gathered before him all the nations. He shall separate them as a shepherd separates

31:14 the sheep from the goats. Passage after passage, 2 Thessalonians 1, 7 to 9, 2 Thessalonians 2, 8 and following, all pointing to the fact that when he returns those who are not in him will be summoned to stand before him in a bodily existence to be judged by him. And then the second proposition under this second slice, at the return of Christ all who are not in Christ shall at the judgment throne of Christ be openly identified, tried, condemned and banished by Christ

31:57 into a place most horrifically described in the very words of Christ, outer darkness, eternal fire, weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth. My friend, if you're not in Christ, that's what awaits you. And Calvary, Golgotha, the cross, is the validation of heaven. What marked our Lord's experience on the cross?

32:31 Darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour. Thirst! He cried, I thirst!

32:41 Abandonment! My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? My friend, Calvary validates the biblical doctrine of hell. What Jesus experienced when bearing the sins of others you will experience in bearing your own sin if you go to judgment not united to Christ.

33:08 Remember Pastor Dunn's simple but profound way of setting it before us here two weeks ago. You must reckon with the wrath of God in one of two places, Golgotha or hell. Every one of us must reckon with the wrath of God toward our sin. We either reckon with it in the death grip of faith that lays hold of Christ as our substitute or we shall hear the horrible words, depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire.

Slice 3: What Christ Will Do with the Devil and His Angels

33:43 Then we come to slice number three. We've seen what Christ will do with his own, what he will do with those who are not in him. What will he do then with the devil and his angels? That spirit being who has aligned with him a large number of invisible spirit beings that scripture describes them as the angels that sinned.

34:06 They are described as demons. They are described in other places as principalities and powers what will happen to them at the return of Christ? I answer in terms of the teaching of scripture at the return of Christ the arch enemy of Christ that is the devil along with his angels shall be judged and banished by Christ to the same place of torment assigned to those who are not in Christ. There you have the vivid description in the book of the Revelation of the devil and the beast and the false prophet all being cast into the lake that burns with fire and with brimstone.

Slice 4: What Christ Will Do to the Created Order

34:51 And then we came to slice number four. What will Christ do to the created order at his return? What will he do with old weary, creaking, groaning earth? What will he do with the created order as we now see it?

35:09 And as I sought to answer that question from the word of God I said it was vital that we put that question in that biblical grid of creation, fall and redemption. When God made the world and all that exists in what we call the created order that which we can see and observe and that with which we interact God looked upon it we are told in Genesis God saw everything he made and behold it was very good. Not just good but very good. Everything in all of the systems working in perfect harmony

35:51 and though there was such a profuseness and an exuberance of life that Adam had to be put in the garden to dress it and to keep it there was no unyielding earth. There were no contrary influences of thorns and of nettles. Work was worshiped and pure delight. There was no agonizing sweat upon Adam's brow.

36:15 Here was a perfect man with a perfect wife set in a perfect environment in perfect communion with a perfect God. But when sin entered and man is disrupted from his relationship to his God God comes to the man and to the woman and he deals with them in grace and in mercy and one of the things he says is this cursed is the ground on your account Adam. Cursed is the ground for your sake. Thorns and nettles in the sweat of your brow you'll eat and from dust you are into dust you shall return.

36:56 And this earth is under a curse. It is described in Romans 8 as groaning and travailing in birth pangs waiting to be birthed into that which God in redemptive grace will do for this earth for when he has accomplished his redemptive purposes in man and he has brought that multitude whom no man can number out of every kindred tribe and tongue and nation into the full experience of redemptive grace. Sinless individuals in deathless bodies. God says I'm now going to make an environment perfectly suited to them.

37:37 That's what the Bible calls the new heavens and the new earth. So in answering the question what will Christ do at his return to the created order? I answer at the return of Christ the present physical creation will undergo a radical renovation by the purifying and restorative action of Christ thereby making it a fit dwelling for the glorified saints of Christ. That's what he's going to do.

38:09 And can you remember the analogy I used when I was trying to tell you what scriptures clearly teach this? Can you remember? I do. The two Sundays before September the 11th the two Lord's days before September 11th that I preached I said look over the landscape of scripture there are many imposing beautiful buildings of God's words telling us what Christ will do at his return.

38:40 But I said as when one flies into Newark or into the New York airports many imposing buildings constructed in Manhattan but I said two of them stand out above all others the twin towers. You remember? If I use the term twin towers once I used it a dozen and a half times in those two Lord's days. My analogy is gone.

39:07 I now have to say the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. Did you notice on the newscasts they now bring into focus the old Empire State Building and then the pointed top and the lit up glistening arches of the Chrysler Building. What are the twin towers? No, can't say that anymore.

39:32 What is the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building of biblical revelation when we're wrestling with the question what's going to happen to this earth? What's going to happen to the created world? What's the order as it now exists? 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 7 to 14 tells us that at the return of Christ there will be purifying fire renovating energy that will issue in the new heavens and the new earth not new in terms of created out of nothing but the old redeemed and released from the curse.

40:08 It will be something better than Eden restored but in this very sphere in which the devil has carried out his wicked nefarious plans his opposition to Christ and his people God says I'm going to claim it all for myself again. He will do that according to 2 Peter 3 verses 7 to 14 and then Romans chapter 8 verses 19 to 22 those two passages are passages towards or to which we need to turn again and again as we ask the question where is it all heading? In one of those last messages

40:52 I read from this article I want to repeat not all of it but part of it this was in the newspaper over the Labor Day weekend Earth and all our neighborhood the Milky Way galaxy home to a few hundred billion suns are going on a long trip with nothing but trouble at the end nothing but trouble at the end our whole spiral galaxy is being pulled toward the constellation Virgo where a super cluster of more than a thousand galaxies each with billions of stars like our sun are waiting when we get there

41:35 ten billion years from now it won't be pretty this is where worlds will end where worlds will collide the enormous gravity of millions of stars pulling at each other as they whirl around a massive center will rip whole arms off our galaxy arms many light years long and containing millions of stars and this is the future of the universe I got news for this man whoever Tom Spears is the lord of the universe beat him to the punch and he has said in his words the whole creation groans and travels in pain

42:19 together until now waiting for the adoption that is the redemption of our bodies for the created order itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God God's redemptive work in the created order is going to parallel his work in us this is not where the earth is going bless God bless God God will make this man eat his words in this life in repentance or in the last day when he stands aghast and sees the new heavens

43:02 and the new earth and he is banished to the junk heap called hell dear people this is what the lord's told us he's going to do and the mark of the Christian is he like Abraham by faith looks for a city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God we don't look to float by on the cloud plucking the harp half asleep while angels sing different choruses in our ears it says his servants shall serve him

Application: Living in Light of Reality and Preparing for the Future

43:46 there's going to be work to do intellectual work physical work work that will bring out every heightened capacity of glorified image bearers of God what'll be I don't know but I've got a sneaking suspicion those galaxies aren't there just for fools like this to write articles I don't know what we're going to do but with every capacity rid of every last impediment of sin and declension and decay never feeling there going to be some senior moments never feeling that the crow's feet will come into our faces

44:30 never feeling there's going to be a new arthritic joint but with all of the energy of the mind and soul that sees reality accurately with no skewed bending of the light rays because of our remaining sin we will always be dependent finite creatures but creatures with minds from all darkness of sin and twistedness of our evil our remaining evil what will it be to have a glorified mind that can expand through the ages of eternity and ever-growing compasses of knowledge and still be a creature's mind light years distant from the creator

45:15 in terms of its capacity and because God is infinite he can disclose more and more of himself and of his ways and of his work for us there'll be no realness there'll be no dullness there'll be no sameness it's hard for us to think in those categories isn't it you say the most wonderful thing if you do it ten times in a row it becomes all fat but not in heaven there'll be the excitement of the first time every intimation of his will every unfolding of his will his purpose for us all of this God's going to give us when Jesus comes back again now dear people surely if we believe that you see why

46:00 everywhere you turn in the Bible it says this will touch you here touch you here touch you here touch you there having faith's grasp in the language of one of our hymns it says concerning the prize that awaits us they seize it with their eye I love that they seize it with their eye and like the ancient patriarchs we confess that we're strangers and sojourners we have here no abiding place now we'd never sing it here because there are elements in it that make it undesirable but I'm not I'm not averse to quoting it this world is not my home I'm just a passing through my treasures are laid up

46:44 not somewhere beyond the blue they're laid up in Christ in the new heavens in the new earth that's reality do you and I live in the light of that reality can we sit loosely to everything here can we put all of the inconveniences and the grievances and all of the all of the heart wrenching realities of life in this overlapping of the ages can we put it all in the context of the glory that awaits us at the return of the Lord Jesus I want to speak to you young people

47:26 as I bring the message to a conclusion this morning speak especially to you we don't know what the coming days weeks months will hold none of us we know not what a day may bring forth but if God is not pleased to visit this land with a mighty powerful upheaval in what we've commonly called revival that returns patterns patterns of decency in human relationships the kind of a climate we talked about in the previous hour where there is recognition of the dignity of any image bearer of God but there is the deep conviction that there are not equal truth claims everywhere

48:11 if God allows the focused hatred to biblical Christianity to intensify in our own country as I see it doing as I've seen it in my brief life experience I've seen it in my life time time is coming when some of you you young men and women you may be called upon to seal your witness with your own blood as I've said Lord why are you giving these children and young people light and privileges that some of us wish we had why Lord why if you're done with our nation why are you raising up out of the rubble of the 60's generation a generation of young men and women

48:55 who have a hunger for God who have reality in their souls who are not content with mediocrity and I have to answer he's either preparing you for martyrdom or for great usefulness in his kingdom and if you're not prepared for martyrdom you're not prepared for usefulness and if that's so and I'm not prophesying I'm saying if that's so then do you see why this truth must become part and parcel of the very texture of your soul what enables teenagers in the Sudan this very day to be willing to be thrown

49:38 into a heap of burning wood rather than deny Christ confidence you may kill my body I shall go into the presence of Christ and in the last day when he returns that body consumed by the flames will be made like unto the body of his glory it's the conviction of what awaits us at his return that nerves us to face whatever we may need to face in loyalty to the Lord Jesus is Christ that real and that precious to you

50:20 I ask myself that question I fantasize what I would do sitting at my desk in my quiet secluded protected study if my study door burst open there a man with a mask stood with a weapon of destruction said I hear you're a professing Christian yes sir you say you believe the Bible yes sir are you prepared to say you believe that Christ is the only way of salvation before you answer sir let me tell you if you say yes my trigger finger squeezes

51:05 I say Lord would I hesitate or would I say yes Lord Jesus receive my spirit you ever ask yourself that question better to ask it in sanctified fantasy and find yourself weakened by a subtle creeping worldliness that makes you so attached to this world that the thoughts of absent from the body present with Christ is not very desirable

51:48 what is the Lord going to do when he returns try to lay out the major teaching of the word of God God willing next Lord's day we'll begin to consider a number of passages which answer the question now how in what ways is this great reality of these four categories of divine activity at the return of Christ how is that to shape to mold the entire spectrum of my Christian life my duties my privileges my perspectives and I trust God will help us that if he spares us

52:32 and delays his coming and I have to think of that even more just two days ago with the light of heaven on her face my wife and I were talking about something in in the growing fomenting and the disruption of things we never never never dreamed we would see in our day and she said with the light of heaven on her face sweetheart honey something along that line I forgot what pet name she used she said I wonder if we're going to live to see the Lord return God help us can we say that with the light of heaven in our face and the joy of heaven in our hearts

53:16 if we can't then we've got some business to do with God and if you're out of Christ what a horrible prospect everything I've preached to you you'll say yes it's that but a thousand times more foreboding the preacher in his most earnest passionate moments never never told me half of the horror outer darkness weeping wailing gnashing of teeth and all the while a gracious savior stands before you in the gospel and says come to me come to me I'll take your sin I'll take the load

54:01 I'll take the purposelessness the confusion and I'll give you my forgiving grace and pardon acceptance place my spirit within you give you a desire to love what you ought to love and to do what you ought to do and then give you the strength to do it then when it's all over I'll take you home and in the day of my return I'll give you a body like unto my glorified body and I'm going to make a new heavens and a new earth and we're going to enjoy it together forever why in the world would you not go to a Christ who offers you that God grant that you'll go to him today

Prayer and Benediction

54:45 let's pray our father we're so thankful that you have not veiled from us your purposes for the future we thank you for the many things that are not revealed for those secret things that belong to you but we thank you for the things that are revealed that belong to us and to our children that we might do them and we earnestly pray that this review of these major pivots of the truth of what will be done when our Lord Jesus returns oh God may they stir us up afresh

55:30 may we have heart dealings with you in the light of your pronouncements in holy scripture we do earnestly pray today oh God for the younger ones coming behind us that they will be so attached and enamored with our Lord Jesus that they will be willing to pay whatever price must be paid to be true to him help those of us who have become altogether too comfortable with the stuff and the things that so quickly blunt the keen passion to seek you to know you to delight in you oh Lord

56:15 have mercy upon us seal your word to every one of our hearts and may we know your blessing benediction resting upon us through the remainder of this year your day we ask in Jesus name Amen