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Quiz
1) This great doctrine of the Bible is mentioned 329
times… the second most frequently taught doctrine in,
all, of Scripture
a) The virgin birth of
Jesus
b) The diety of Jesus
c) The Second Coming of
Jesus
d) Salvation by grace
through faith in Jesus
Answer: c) The Second
Coming of Jesus! The number one…most mentioned doctrine
in the Bible is d) Salvation by grace through faith
2) This teaching of the Second Coming of Jesus to this
earth is taught:
a) Only in the New Testament (false: 11
times in OT…remember Daniel)
b) Never taught by Jesus.. only by Paul and
Revelation (constantly by Jesus!)
c) Is taught in 23 out of 27 New Testament
books (true!)
(Only Galatians… Philemon 2,3
John… one chapter books)
d) Is taught 318 times in all 216 New
Testament chapters
e) One out of every 30 verses, in the NT, is
on this subject!
So… is this an important subject? Yes! In terms of
biblical prophesy… this is considered to be the Main
Event! The Second Coming of Christ! 2nd
most mentioned doctrine in all of the Bible…
I don’t think it’s the
main event… you say…I think the rapture of the saints
(me) is the main event! … Well…You’re right too…
The Rapture + The
Return + The Reign = The Second Coming
(One event…several
phases…over time, just like the First Coming)
But…for the purposes of this sermon today…. I’m going to
talk about the Second Coming, as that awesome event when
Jesus and the white robed armies of heaven break through
the eastern sky and come charging back to earth to
finally destroy the Antichrist, and evil, and throw
satan himself into the Abyss. Let’s talk about that!...
Jesus first coming to the
earth started in a quiet manger, seen by only a handful
of human eyes… The whole “sky full of angels” thing was
apparently only visible to a few shepherds.
Jesus Second Coming will
not be a quiet event! It will be the most dramatic,
earth shattering, explosive event in the history of the
universe. Jesus coming in power and glory will grab
the attention of the entire world… and I don’t mean that
each person, who happens to have a TV set, and happen to
be watching… at that particular moment, when some
cameraman happens to be pointing his lens at the exact
place in the sky where Jesus returns…. That’s not even
close!... Many artist renditions, of the Second
Coming,while intended to be serious… are comical… like
this one… It’s pretty scene…a stick-like traditional
Jesus figure floating in over a calm lake…
Problem is…that has absolutely no relevance to the
picture painted in Scripture. The only things wrong with
this picture…are what is going on, up, in the sky with
Jesus…and what is happening on the earth under Jesus as
He returns…other than that… this artist got everything
right!
I
really wanted to find a picture that painted
accurately the exact conditions that will be present
when Jesus returns, as clearly stated in Scripture, I
looked through many artist renditions and couldn’t find
any that were anywhere near accurate.
I don’t think anybody on
earth will need to look at a TV or computer screen to
see Jesus’ return. Jesus’ return… with an uncountable
throng of millions of raptured believers and millions,
perhaps billions, of angels, that will return with him,
will be such a massive spectacle coming in from
somewhere out there among the stars… that it will be
visible to the naked eye of every single person on the
earth.
When a comet the size of the civic center heads toward
earth… you can see it approaching… hundreds of thousands
of miles away. Imagine if what is coming toward earth is
brighter, by far, than any comet… and has a combined
mass larger than the continent of Africa… I’m imagining
that Jesus doesn’t leave heaven and arrive here in two
hours… but His… and our… arrival takes several days…
Every- time the earth turns every eye on earth is fixed
toward the east… as this brilliant spectacle that is
Jesus Second Return to earth… moves closer and closer.
Matthew 24:27-30 For as
the lightning flashes in the east and shines to the
west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes…
“Immediately after the anguish of those days, the sun
will be darkened, the moon will give no light, the stars
will fall from the sky, and the powers in the heavens
will be shaken. 30 And then at last, the
sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the
heavens, and there will be deep mourning
(kopto – wailing) among
all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son
of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and
great glory.
You can pick up
several clues from this passage alone…
This coming “on the
clouds of heaven” is a common phrase used about Jesus’
Second Coming. Is it that he is coming “through the
clouds”… which won’t happen until the last few minutes…
since they are just a few thousand feet above the earth…
or are the billions of white robed figures surrounding
Jesus (us and the angels) like vast clouds stretching
out for thousands of miles in every direction? (a cloud
of witnesses… as Paul says)
Also the Matthew 24
passage brings up another important point about what’s
going on, on earth, when Jesus,(and us), splits the
eastern sky.
…the sun will be
darkened, the moon will give no light, the stars will
fall from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be
shaken
One of the reasons
Jesus Second Coming to this earth will be so vivid… is
because the lights on this earth have been turned out!
The natural lights from the heavens are blotted out…
perhaps by mushroom clouds… or is some supernatural way.
Man-made lights are gone as well… It’s doubtful, at this
point in prophesy, if there will be a single power plant
still functioning… so the earth is very dark…trust me…
they are going to see us coming!
Remember where we are, on
the hand-out, I’ve been giving you the last few
weeks
III. God’s wrath is unleashed on earth /
rebellious
mankind!
a) Heavens / earth come unglued – “DAY
OF THE LORD” begins b) Seven bowls of God’s
wrath poured out
c)
Antichrist/Armies gather for Armageddon
IV. Second Coming of Jesus
a) Return of Jesus with his Church
and angels
b) Battle of Armageddon
c) Antichrist/False prophet to Lake of
Fire
The rapture has
definitely, already, happened… Christians are in heaven
celebrating the “marriage feast of the Lamb”. With all
influence of Christianity gone and the Holy Spirit
literally removing his restraining hand against evil… in
a matter of months, mankind descends into a world of
unchecked evil. hatred, and unheard of sinfulness… Then
comes the final bowls of God’s wrath…called the Day of
the Lord…
Bowl # 1… horrible,
malignant sores break out on everyone who had the mark
of the beast and who worshiped his statue. (Rev. 16:2)
Bowl # 2 …the sea became
like the blood of a corpse. And everything in the sea
died. (Rev. 16:3)
Bowl # 3 … sun scorching
everyone with its fire. 9 Everyone was burned
by this blast of heat, and they cursed the name of God,
who had control over all these plagues. They did not
repent of their sins and turn to God and give him glory.
(Rev 16: 8-9)
Bowl # 4 … the fifth
angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast,
and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. His subjects
ground their teeth in anguish, 11 and they
cursed the God of heaven for their pains and sores. But
they did not repent of their evil deeds and turn to God.
(Rev. 6: 10-11)
The
Antichrist, by this time… as the world leader, has to
have favorability ratings of less than 1%...
Remember…after he was assassinated and resurrected… the
world believed in him. He led “the whole world” to
worship satan… all who followed him took his mark on
their hand or forehead. He controlled literally whether
one would eat or starve… The Believers and the Jews who
do not worship him became the white-robbed martyrs…
But how
much can his groupies take?... In the 7 years since he
had come to power…. promising to right all the wrongs in
the world… the earth has gone from a fairly peaceful
and prosperous place to a seething ball of complete
destruction. Well over half of the world’s population
have died… Instead of economic recovery, the antichrist
has ruled over complete world-wide economic collapse.
There is nothing to buy in the stores, no money to buy
it, no lights to turn on, it’s pitch dark outside day
and night, there is no water that is drinkable… there
is complete anarchy, people are locked inside their
homes completely miserable 24 hours a day. Temperatures,
constantly, stay above 100 degrees and there is no water
to bathe in…
Revelation 6:12 Then the
sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great Euphrates
River, and it dried up so that the kings from the east
could march their armies toward the west without
hindrance. 13 And I saw three evil spirits
that looked like frogs leap from the mouths of the
dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. 14
They are demonic spirits who work miracles and go out to
all the rulers of the world to gather them for battle
against the Lord on that great judgment day of God the
Almighty… 16 And the demonic spirits gathered
all the rulers and their armies to a place with the
Hebrew name Armageddon.
Let me clarify
something here… satan’s demons are gathering the armies
of the world to fight against the returning Jesus. The
armies aren’t coming to fight Jesus…they don’t know or
care anything about a returning Jesus. The armies are
coming to take on the Antichrist. They have had a
“snoot full” of his awful leadership and armies come
from every direction to dethrone him.
These are not
unified armies… they are going to fight each other too…
until the last group standing becomes the new world
leader. “Anybody can do the job better than the moron
they elected into world leadership”. So here they come
from every direction by the millions, toward Jerusalem…
and they are coming toward Jerusalem because that is
where the Antichrist is ruling from! I don’t even think
these are all military people. Mobs of millions of
sin-wracked people join with the militaries and swarm
toward Jerusalem…
Fortunately the
demons have dried up the vast Euphrates river… so
millions of Asians can participate. But isn’t it odd
that satan is bringing them there to fight against his
man. Doesn’t that seem like a contradiction?
The armies think
they are coming to fight the Antichrist…but that is not
why satan is assembling them. Satan is bringing the
remaining might of the world to take on the returning
Jesus. How does he know that Jesus is going to return at
that point? Because he’s read the same Book we are
reading….and he believes it!
He knows the Bible says
that Jesus is going to return a second time to set up
his righteous rule. But satan is so deceived, in his
thinking, that he continues to believe he can thwart
God’s plan. He knew that Jesus was coming the first time
to suffer and die for the sins of mankind… because
Isaiah had prophesied it 700 years earlier.
But the supremely
arrogant satan tried to murder the Messiah to keep God’s
plan from happening… and in doing so became the tool of
God to accomplish his exact purposes!
Satan knows, at the End,
exactly what God says he is going to do…and yet, like a
moth drawn to a flame…he will walk right into the trap
of setting up the stage for God’s final judgment on
sinful mankind.
So you’ve got a
picture growing in your mind??? From all over the globe
like salmon called upstream… angry people migrate toward
Jerusalem, stumbling in the darkness, burning from the
heat, the stench of diseased, sweating dirty bodies, the
pall of pure hatred filling the air… The monumental
clash of people killing anybody else who doesn’t think
just like them…
This world wide swarm
gets closer and closer to Jerusalem where the Hero
turned enemy rules. The swarm presses tighter and
tighter around the region of Israel. The tighter the
ball…. the more dead bodies… until the ground they are
walking on becomes a layer of the dead. This from Rev.
14:
17
After that, another angel came from the Temple in
heaven, and he also had a sharp sickle…. He shouted to
the angel with the sharp sickle, “Swing your sickle now
to gather the clusters of grapes from the vines of the
earth, for they are ripe for judgment.” 19 So
the angel swung his sickle over the earth and loaded the
grapes into the great winepress of God’s wrath. 20
The grapes were trampled in the winepress outside the
city, and blood flowed from the winepress in a stream
about 180 miles long and as high as a horse’s bridle.
Thank God none of us
will be here when this stinking, seething, wretched
armpit of what is left of humanity turns their unbridled
hatred and rage against each other.
And finally... the
seventh bowl of God’s wrath is poured out:
17
Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air.
And a mighty shout came from the throne in the Temple,
saying, “It is finished!” 18 Then the thunder
crashed and rolled, and lightning flashed. And a great
earthquake struck—the worst since people were placed on
the earth. 19 The great city of Babylon split
into three sections, and the cities of many nations fell
into heaps of rubble…. 20 And every island
disappeared, and all the mountains were leveled. 21
There was a terrible hailstorm, and hailstones weighing
seventy-five pounds fell from the sky onto the people
below. They cursed God because of the terrible plague of
the hailstorm.
And then, in the
middle of that pounding chaos… out of the corner of
their eyes people started to see a light way up among
the stars… Although the sky is pitch black and they
haven’t seen a star in weeks… there is one there now. At
dusk the next day the same light appears in the east but
this time it’s much larger….each night it gets bigger
and brighter until it seems to fill the sky. The
brightness seems to come from the center… and extending
out for thousands of miles in every direction… the
sun-like brilliance is bouncing off what looks like
layers and layers of clouds.
As this brilliant
new threat fills the sky, obviously coming directly
toward the earth….amazingly, the hate filled throngs
lose interest in fighting each other, and position
themselves and their weapons to take on this new enemy.
Every remaining missile is pointed in the direction of
the center of the light.
This picture is the
closest I got to Biblical reality. >>>
You at least have the destruction in the foreground, the
city burning in the background, the black sky, the
massive light with only angels in attendance….this
artist is missing the presence of the redeemed saints…
It’s not secret what is taking place here… If you will
let me read this Revelation 19 passage one more time.
Revelation 19:11 Then I
saw heaven opened, and a white horse was standing there.
Its rider was named Faithful and True, for he judges
fairly and wages a righteous war. 12 His eyes
were like flames of fire, and on his head were many
crowns. A name was written on him that no one understood
except himself. 13 He wore a robe dipped in
blood, and his title was the Word of God. 14
The armies of heaven, dressed in the finest of pure
white linen, followed him on white horses. 15
From his mouth came a sharp sword to strike down the
nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He will
release the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty, like
juice flowing from a winepress. 16 On his
robe at his thigh was written this title: King of all
kings and Lord of all lords.
17
Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, shouting to the
vultures flying high in the sky: “Come! Gather together
for the great banquet God has prepared. 18
Come and eat the flesh of kings, generals, and strong
warriors; of horses and their riders; and of all
humanity, both free and slave, small and great.”
19
Then I saw the beast and the kings of the world and
their armies gathered together to fight against the one
sitting on the horse and his army… Both the beast and
his false prophet were thrown alive into the fiery lake
of burning sulfur. 21 Their entire army was
killed by the sharp sword that came from the mouth of
the one riding the white horse. And the vultures all
gorged themselves on the dead bodies.
When Jesus came to the earth, the first time, he came
not to judge the world.. .but to save it He was the
suffering Savior, the bleeding lamb, the broken bodied
sacrifice. You can clearly see how far Jesus humbled
himself the first time by seeing how he presents the
second time. Jesus Second Coming will not be to bring
salvation…. that’s already done! His Second Coming will
be to judge the world… and rule over it! The Jews in the
New Testament had a hard time breaking the two comings
apart. They wanted him… the first time… to be what he
said he would be the second time.
I
want to say this carefully… but the Second Coming
picture of Jesus is who Jesus really is. His first
coming had him trapped inside the limitations of a human
body and needing to suffer and die to pay the penalty
for our sins. We often get lost in that picture, and
imagine that when we see Jesus, again, he will shuffle
up to us, stoop-shouldered… in a worn out robe, and
show us the barely healed nail-prints in his hand.
When you, finally, meet Jesus face to face you will not
be meeting the suffering savior… you will be face to
face with the King of the Universe! You will mount up
beside him and millions of angels…any one of which could
have brought the ten plaques on Egypt…
15
From his mouth will come a sharp sword to strike down
the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He will
release the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty, like
juice flowing from a winepress. 16 On his
robe, at his thigh, you will see written this title:
King of all kings and Lord of all lords.
Let me give you one more visual image… As Jesus (and us)
descend the last few thousand feet into Jerusalem… the
degraded sinful masses will try to attack. Byt his time
they have breached the Antichrist defenses and and
killing and raping inside the city walls…how do I
know?...
Zechariah 14: 1 Watch,
for the Day of the Lord
is coming when your possessions will be plundered right
in front of you! 2 I will gather all the
nations to fight against Jerusalem. The city will be
taken, the houses looted, and the women raped. Half the
population will be taken into captivity, and the rest
will be left among the ruins of the city.
3
Then the Lord
will go out to fight against those nations… 4
On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives,
east of Jerusalem. And the Mount of Olives will split
apart, making a wide valley running from east to west.
Half the mountain will move toward the north and half
toward the south. 5 You will flee through
this valley… Then the
Lord
my God will come, and all his holy ones with him.
As Jesus unmounts, and plants his feet on the Mount of
Olives…. where he prayed in the garden before his
crucifixion… there are no tears of sorrow this time… No
asking God to take the cup away from him… The mountain
literally splits into a valley, allowing his remaining
chosen people who are still alive to run for safety.
Without any help from us, with the same power he used to
speak the worlds into existence… he speaks all the
hatred and evil out of existence… with a Word from his
mouth
Are you ready to meet him?
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