The Return of Christ

[00:00:02] Speaker A: All right, so I have a question. What is a scene from a movie or a book that has given you chills? It can be really intense or corny, whatever might give you chills. I saw your hand first. You didn't even have any. [00:00:23] Speaker B: It's hard to decide because they're very similar. [00:00:26] Speaker A: Okay. Classic Rear Window. Have you ever seen that? I haven't. [00:00:29] Speaker B: Well, there's one scene, it's essentially like, oh, this guy who's like, like stuck in his wheelchair. Leg's broken, obviously. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Okay. [00:00:38] Speaker B: That's why it's in the wheelchair. That's why stuck. [00:00:41] Speaker A: Okay. [00:00:42] Speaker B: And like, like you just know that the bad guy's coming and like it's dark in his room and it's like you can see through the crack under [00:00:49] Speaker A: the door that the lights are on [00:00:50] Speaker B: and you can, can hear footsteps and you see like footsteps go past the lights turn off and it's like dead silent. And you're just like, oh my gosh. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Okay. Wow. Oh man. Hadley. Okay, take your pick. [00:01:13] Speaker C: Which is the book I'm reading right now. And so let's just say they all have like powers. And Prince Chai, he has like the power to like take other people's powers and like use them. Not like take them forever, but like. [00:01:27] Speaker A: Okay, okay. [00:01:29] Speaker C: And he's a wielder and a silencer, like takes his power. Like they drain him of his power and make him an ordinary instead of Elite. [00:01:37] Speaker A: Okay, so what gave you chills? [00:01:40] Speaker C: So he is leading up these people because they're trying to take his money. And then the silencer comes and then Hayden comes and beats the bad guy up and she about gets shot. She's a Sedarian. It's pretty cool. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Okay, great. All right, Asher. [00:01:57] Speaker D: Okay, so in the Dark Knight, the Batman movie. [00:02:00] Speaker A: Here we go. Here's one. Here's one that might be. Yeah, less niche. [00:02:04] Speaker D: I like it where the guys like could take in Joker and like they make the one guy think that's like his dead body cuz he's in a bag. Then he pops out and like, like capture him. He has like the knife and he's like. It's like kind of scary because he's like going up. He puts it in his mouth and that's like kind of scary. I didn't like that. [00:02:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. [00:02:24] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. [00:02:25] Speaker A: Okay, what do you have? [00:02:26] Speaker E: I have two, but I'm going to be fast. [00:02:27] Speaker A: Yeah, be fast. [00:02:29] Speaker E: Yoda lifting the X wing out of [00:02:32] Speaker A: the swamp on Dagobah. Okay. Swells. [00:02:35] Speaker E: And it's just cinema. [00:02:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:36] Speaker E: And Then. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Okay. I like that. [00:02:38] Speaker E: There's that one scene in Avatar, the Last Airbender, where what's her name, Guitara, freezes the water on Aula and then chains her up. And then it's this height moment in the history of humankind. [00:02:53] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. All right. Yes, Liza, those are good. [00:02:58] Speaker C: I was going to go, like, the last five minutes of the Bridge, Christy. [00:03:01] Speaker A: Okay. [00:03:03] Speaker C: So much happens. [00:03:04] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's a good movie. I like that. Kinsler in general. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Lincoln, I would say the most movie. Okay. [00:03:25] Speaker C: The Panthers. [00:03:27] Speaker A: Oh, my Crazy joke. Oh, that scared me. So. So there are a lot of, like, scares you guys are bringing up Nathan [00:03:37] Speaker B: where he, like, watches his daughter die. [00:03:39] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Wait, don't spoil it. Oh, my goodness. Dude, it's been a. It's been out a while. I think that's fine. Whatever. No spoiler alert. What? Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. I can't get to everybody. We don't have time. But those are some. Those are some good options. I like those. There are a lot of answers I could give because I can just really get into it, put myself in, especially if the movie's made. Well, I can really get into pretty much anything. Probably one of my. I don't know. This feels like an embarrassing answer. It's not the most that I've ever been given chills in a movie, by any means. But if it's the illustration I'm trying to make the final battle in Endgame, which I'm not. I'm not really one for superhero movies, so maybe that's why I'm like, feel like it's not a cool answer. But having seen at least all the important Marvel movies to that point, there are a few I missed, but I watched almost all of them, and it's just like such a climactic end, you know, exclamation point. And you get to see all these characters just come out of the woodwork, and it's really cool. So it's awesome to see that. And so those feelings, maybe not the scared feelings, but maybe the feelings of kind of intense, like, excitement that you get from a movie or a book. When we think about that, it might be hard to imagine, but it kind of just makes me think of our topic, which is the return of Christ. He's coming. You might think, you know, what will that really be like? But I think it's far more intense than any movie can make us feel. And sometimes they really do grip us and grip our emotions. So that's what we're talking about today? Let's do our quick. Just quick review. What's theology? You just go ahead, you do it. [00:05:30] Speaker D: The study of God and how to be more like him. [00:05:34] Speaker A: That's right. Sorry, your hand was too late. You don't do it that often. I would have called on you. Now, what category are we on now? What doctrine? Yeah. Of last things. What's the other word for that that you hear a lot, Kellen? [00:05:50] Speaker B: Eschatology. [00:05:51] Speaker A: That's right. So eschatology, we're talking about just the last things. Future things for us. What did we go over last week? We've only done one lesson, Lincoln. You know it. Oh, your hand shot up, Asher. [00:06:09] Speaker D: I was on death and all that stuff. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Death and what else? [00:06:12] Speaker D: Death and what happens when we die. [00:06:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. What was the other phrase I used for that? [00:06:18] Speaker D: The intermediate state. [00:06:19] Speaker A: Yeah, intermediate state. So it's kind of intermediate. It's between you die. But it's before Christ returns. This kind of middle place. What does it look like? And those are current realities. Right. People die. We probably all know people that have died. But what will happen next? So those things happen currently, but there's some. We're kind of getting into the stuff that's future. Now, what comes next? Well, it's the return of Christ. That's what comes next. That's why we're talking about this next. So here's the summary definition for today. The return of Jesus christ is his future second coming to earth. So the return of Jesus christ is his future second coming to earth to bring fullness of salvation to his disciples. To bring fullness of salvation to his disciples. I'll say that all together. The return of Jesus christ is his future second coming to earth to bring fullness of salvation to his disciples. So the first point we want to affirm. Number one, Christ will return bodily or. I'm sorry, Christ will return to complete salvation. Almost skipped one. Christ will return to complete salvation. He's going to finish it. Complete it. So go to Hebrews 9. We'll see a little bit about this. Hebrews 9, 26, 28. All right, I'll give you guys a minute to get to Hebrews 9, and then I'll read those verses. And of course, as I read these, think about what this is teaching us about the return of Jesus christ. So Hebrews 9, 26. We're going to start halfway through that verse with the Word. But it's the start of a sentence in the ESV at least. Hebrews 9, 26b. But as it is, he has Appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Okay, so according to this, what did Christ do the first time he came? Yeah. He what? Died on the cross. Yeah. Was that you? Okay, what were you going to say? I just said he died to die. He built. Fulfilled the law. He did fulfill the law. Why did he die? So what was the purpose? Yes, he came and he did things. But why did he do those things? Lincoln? Okay, okay, you're getting close. You're kind of dancing around the language. Asher. [00:09:42] Speaker D: Die for us, or we could be saved from our sins. [00:09:45] Speaker A: Saved from our sins? Yeah. Were you gonna say something else? There's more. You could say more. [00:09:50] Speaker B: He died to bear the sins of many. [00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah. So he came to deal with sin. He. It was. Yes, he came. He lived. He fulfilled the law. He died, he rose again. But the point, the purpose of doing those things wasn't just to do them. It wasn't like his bucket list. He had a purpose. And his purpose was to deal with sin. What will he do when he returns? The Second Coming? Yeah, Sure, in a way. Let's put it in a different way, though. You're not wrong. Yeah. He will judge. But, you know, what does this passage kind of emphasize? I think that's true. The passage emphasizes something else, Lincoln. [00:10:35] Speaker B: That he's going to take up the people that are eagerly waiting. [00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. He's going to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. So now, this doesn't include a judgment. We're just going to talk about that in another lesson. So we're not going to dwell on it a lot. But even through that judgment, His Second Coming, what that judgment does is it does complete this salvation for those who are waiting for him. And so we sometimes forget just to say he comes in judgment. Sometimes we think that means it's a negative thing. But it's really a wonderful thing for those in Christ because through judgment, we are saved. No judgment, no salvation. Okay. So did now, the question is, so he's coming to complete salvation? That's what Hebrews says, right? He's to save those who are waiting for him. Did he not already complete it? What is left to do? Jesus said it is finished. What else needs to happen? Yeah. To come home. That's right. So when he Says it is finished. Does anyone really know what he means? He says that on the cross, right? Do you have it? Do you have an answer? Yeah, I think that's a good answer. Did you have something different? Huh? Yeah. He completed the atonement is another way to say this. So he did fulfill the law. He did the. Completed the purpose he intended to in his first coming. And sometimes we kind of miss this, I think, because we use this language and it's not necessarily wrong to say this. We say, you know, if you have become a Christian, you might say, I was saved when I was 12, or whatever. You might say that phrase, right? But the way the Bible talks about it is that salvation is this whole process from before creation, when God foreknew and predestined people all the way until you are glorified with him in heaven. That is salvation. And so when you repent and believe you've been converted, it's not in one sense completed until he returns and brings you home. Now you can be sure, I believe that he will do that because he has promised to do that. And so you can say, in a sense, salvation is as good as done because Christ will fulfill his promise. But technically it's completed when he returns. And so we are eagerly waiting. He's kind of already done it, but yet he has not fully done it. And he's waiting until the right time to do so. This leads us to Our first application. Application 1. Anticipate. Anticipate the return of Christ in a way that stirs the church toward greater maturity and mission. So we want to anticipate. We want to live our lives knowing and thinking that Christ will return, taking that into account, not living as if we're alone, as if he will never return, but anticipating it and doing so in a way that the church fellow believers are stirred up and encouraged to become more mature in Christ and to work toward the mission of the church to make disciples of all nations. And so there are a number of ways we can do this, but that's kind of the point we want to do. We want to make sure as we think of the return of Christ that it's pushing us to do something, pushing us to obey what he has commanded us, namely, again, make disciples of the nations. Application number two, right after this, take advantage of this time of waiting. So you want to take advantage of this time of waiting by using it to communicate the gospel so that others will be saved. So that goes right along with the first one. Want to take advantage. So not just anticipating and knowing that he's coming. But we have this time, however long it might be. And so we should not only dwell and look for signs that he might come, we should instead obey Christ and use this opportunity to proclaim the gospel to the lost while they still have time. So that's the first point. Christ will return to complete salvation. The second point is that Christ. This is the second main point. Christ will return bodily from the heavens. So in the flesh, Christ will return bodily, or Christ will return in the flesh from the heavens. So we're going to go to a couple passages here. So go first to John 14:3. All right, you guys there. John 14:3 says, I'm one page over. Jesus is speaking. He says, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also. And then. You don't have to flip here. I'll read another passage. Acts 1:9 11 says, and when he had said these things, as they were looking on, this is Jesus. He was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven, as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. So what do these passages teach us about the return of Christ? Yeah, yeah. So he ascended up into the heavens or the skies. We would expect him to come down the same way. Yeah. What else? Okay. Anything else? What's he doing up there? Up there? Yeah. Yeah. So he's going to prepare a place to come back and bring you there, bring you home. Right now, is God the Son? Here's a theology question. Is God the Son still in the flesh? Yes. Right now, I can ask another question while you guys think about that. Does it. Does it matter why? I think it does matter. Why does it matter? I don't want to leave you guessing. I do think it matters, but why do you think I would say that [00:17:32] Speaker E: doesn't matter whether or not he's in the flesh right now? [00:17:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, let me. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, he's not in an imperfect human body. So I. I think here's. Here's what we see. So Christ rises from the dead, right? He's still in the flesh. How do we know this? His disciples are able to touch him and see him. Now, it's not the same, right, as it's a glorified body, but they see him in the flesh, he's recognizable. He is sensible, touchable, feelable. And so he is in flesh. It's a glorified flesh. And that's how he ascends into heaven. So for one. For him to return in the same way, he would have to be in the same way. But there's kind of more to this. So the Son of Man, or the Son became man so that he can save us from our sin, Right? He became man to save us from our sin. So the union between God and flesh, flesh in Jesus is the reason that he can save us. It's not an arbitrary thing. He didn't just want to look like us. For salvation to work, he needed to look like us. As God, he fulfills the requirements and has the power to save. And as man, he is able to stand in our place. If he's not a man, how can he be a substitute for us? But instead he became a man so he can substitute Himself in the place of men and women. And we are still waiting, like I said, for all of salvation to be complete when he returns, right? That is. That's the nail in the coffin. That is what. That's the period on the sentence. We are waiting for him to complete it all when he returns. And even then we can only have salvation as long as he is our substitute. We only have salvation and justification and adoption as sons in Christ because He is our substitute. And so we need him to continue to be like us. And if he again, if he ascended in flesh, he will descend again in flesh. So it might seem like a throwaway point or be a little confusing. I wasn't trying to trick you. It is just kind of a little difficult to know that. But. But we absolutely need the Son to be in the flesh and to return in the flesh. And so. And this has been the historic answer of the Church. So the first error I want us to avoid. And usually this is just an error based on ignorance, you know, something we haven't been taught before. But we must not deny the personal physical return of Christ. Different theories have been made of him sending. It's maybe metaphorical or just sending a force or a spirit, but especially this passage in Acts is clear that he will return in the same way that he went up. So we cannot deny that main point number three. Then Christ will return and gather up the church. So Christ will return and gather up the church. For this, I want us to go to 1 Thessalonians 4. So think. I want you to think about what is Paul talking about in this passage, we did study this, I guess, probably a year ago now in youth group. But first, Thessalonians 4, 14, 18. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord, therefore encourage one another with these words. So what's Paul describing here? Yeah, the dead and the living in Christ. Yeah, but kind of separately. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. It's describing the return of Christ. Now, interestingly, a lot of people answer that differently. And the word they would use for this passage is this word rapture. Have you guys ever heard that word? You probably have, but if you haven't, that's okay. There's nothing wrong with not having heard it. Have you heard it? Okay, I'm seeing some yeses. Okay. So when does this rapture take place? Well, that's kind of the question, that's kind of the debate. When does it take place? It's a big debate, at least for the last couple hundred years. So that's not an insignificant amount of time, but it's not long in the grand scheme of things. Now, I actually don't use that word very often because in America, especially, where we live, this word rapture typically is associated with a very specific view. And here's the view. You probably recognize it. There is a secret rapture sometime before a great tribulation, great time of terror and persecution and judgment. And Christ will return at the end of that tribulation is the belief. But the church is taken out beforehand. I don't think that's what the Bible teaches at all. I don't think that's what Paul is teaching here either, and here's why. So this tribulation, this time of judgment and persecution, sometimes people think this lasts for seven years. But in Revelation 1:9, John, he's the author of Revelation, he calls himself a partner in the tribulation, as if he's enduring it. Then that was 2,000 years ago. So if it was happening, then when do believers get Called up with Christ. Well, this passage, I think, shows us. It's when he returns. When he returns, the dead are raised from the dead, and the living in Christ join them with the Lord. It seems fairly obvious that Paul's describing the return of Christ. And, you know, I know we got that answer. It just typically not viewed that way, at least in my experience. And so it's this return of Christ, and it is then that he calls forth the dead, the living, to gather up with him. So rapture just means the calling together, the calling up, or the calling out. So this rapture of the church, if we want to use that word, will actually occur when Christ returns to earth. It's not that he makes people disappear for seven years and then they all come together later on. That doesn't seem to be what this passage is describing at all. Because he's coming. I mean, does he come, they gather, and then he, like, disappears for seven years? It doesn't seem to describe that. And yet that's what would have to be true. So it won't be a secret. It will be sudden. There will be a trumpet. It is associated with Christ's second coming. So though this. And, you know, I don't know what you guys believe or maybe you've just heard or assumed because of how people talk about it. This secret rapture view before tribulation is kind of the major view in America these days. Though it was not the view of the church historically by a long shot. It's probably a couple hundred years old now. And in my opinion, it's not biblical. However, there are some errors people make when they take it too far. And I want to focus on the errors people make when they take it too far. Even though I don't think it's biblical or the right view, I want to say that many faithful believers hold this view that I'm calling unbiblical. So I want to make sure I'm being humble. You know, I have the capability of being wrong. And again, many faithful believers hold to the view that I'm disagreeing with. So I don't want to say the error to avoid is to believe that, even though I think you should agree with what I'm teaching. But sometimes this view causes people to go a little far. So here's the second error. Error number two. This is what we want to avoid. And we're going to kind of do number two and three together, because they're very similar. We must. Number two, we must not attempt to declare or prophesy the exact date of Christ's return or the Rapture. We should not try to declare or prophesy the exact date of this rapture or the return, and then error number three goes along with it. We should not speculate as to what will take place at the Rapture. We should not speculate. For one, it's an exercise in futility, AKA it's a waste of time to do this because no one knows the day or the hour of Christ's return. Nobody knows this. And so you literally can't know. You could do all the math in the world. You will never know. It's guaranteed. You just can't know. There's a lot of things we can figure out. You can't figure it out. As soon as you figure it out, you're wrong. Yes. There was one time at my school, [00:27:12] Speaker B: there's these, like, two kids in my grade, and they're just, like, talking in the room. [00:27:16] Speaker A: Punchline. [00:27:17] Speaker B: And they were like, yeah, bro. Like, all this stuff is aligning. And, like, people are saying that, like, Jesus going to return on, like, Tuesday or something like that. And, yeah, like, I literally said to them, I was like, you're not. You. [00:27:29] Speaker A: You wouldn't know that. Like, yeah, you cannot. My. My barber has tried to tell me many times that the rapture was about to happen. My barber. Yes. Yeah, he cuts my hair. [00:27:41] Speaker D: Raptures about half. Yeah, it's kind of random. [00:27:44] Speaker A: He's been wrong a lot. But, yeah, he's a. He's a good barber. I like him. He's a nice guy. I have nothing negative to say about him, but he does enjoy talking about that anyway. See, we can't know, and we don't want to speculate either. Right. So the Bible talks. You know, when you take all the Bible together, it doesn't talk about this a ton. It doesn't give us a lot of details. It tells us that Christ will return bodily from heaven and he will rescue those that are waiting for him, and he will judge. That's what we know. So we want to be careful when we're speculating, like, oh, maybe this leader is an antichrist, or maybe these events are going to lead to this. This is from this chapter of Revelation or whatever. I don't think we want to do that. Now, many people I think, would say, yeah, we don't want to take it too far. I know people personally that say, yeah, we can't predict. That's ridiculous. But at the same time, some of these people I know that would say that listen to podcasts that are called the Signs of the times, mostly because they're interested. The podcast. This specific podcast isn't trying to predict, but just trying to analyze events. But I don't want us to get caught up in this. I think that can actually be negative. If we get caught up trying to analyze everything happening in Israel and the world. Students, there are a lot of lost people to be found. There's good news to be preached. There's a God to be worshiped. So let's take this also as an application to focus on what God has called us to. He hasn't called us to analyze the signs of the times. He's called us to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded. So let's do that. Rather than speculate, let's do what God has called us to do in the time that we have to do it and not get distracted even by things that we might think are biblical or related to the Bible. The Bible spends much more time telling us of other things. Things of salvation, things of missions, things of God, things of the church. And we can dwell on those and discuss them with far more material. Are there any questions that you guys have about anything? Okay, well, if any others come up, please feel free and welcome to ask. I would love to have a conversation. Let's pray and then we can go and worship with the church. Father, thank you for the word. Lord, we pray that your son would return soon to save and complete the salvation of those eagerly waiting for him. But God, please give us the boldness to proclaim the good news while we have opportunity. Lord, rescue more people that they may be saved from their sins and safe in the day of judgment. God, we ask that you would convict their hearts and even call them to faith today. Pray this in Christ's name, Amen.