The Imminent Coming of Jesus Christ

But, let's, turn to 1 Timothy chapter 6. And I want to start us, In verse 12. where Paul says to Timothy, fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I urge you, in the sight of God who gives life to all things before Christ Jesus, who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep this commandment without spots, blameless, until our Lord Jesus Christ appearing.

which he will manifest in his own time. So here, Paul is commanding Timothy to keep the commandment until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we can discern partially from this passage, is that Paul is commanding Timothy to do something until the Lord returns, which implies that in Paul's mind, it was theoretically possible for Christ to return in Timothy's own lifetime. And it was theoretically possible for Christ to return in Paul's own lifetime.

As the staff was reflecting back upon our treatment of this chapter, one of the things that we felt was necessary is to go back and spend some time talking about this concept of Christ appearing, Christ's coming, Christ's return. And so the title of this morning's message is the imminent Coming of Jesus Christ. And we're going to spend some time really looking at this concept more topically, theologically, as we talk about the topic of the return of Christ, we're delving into an area of theology that theologians call eschatology or the study of last things.

And if we were to do a full sweep of this doctrine, we could start by talking about the Old Testament covenants and whether they'll be fulfilled literally with Israel.

We could talk about what should be our approach of interpreting prophetic passages. Should we take them. Of, of literally or normally, or should we take them in a more spiritual, or type approach? We could talk about passages that deal with the kingdom or the millennium.

We could talk about the great tribulation. We could talk about the rapture issue of pre, mid and post. But we're really going to narrow our focus and just talk about Really one aspect of this doctrine, and that is the imminency of Christ's return, or the imminent coming of Jesus Christ. And so in order to do that we're going to do a couple of things.

We're going to define our terms out the gate, then we're going to turn to some passage of scripture that we believe support the doctrine of the imminency of Christ's return, and then we're going to give some arguments against Christ's imminent return and then talk about the distinction between His return in an imminent sense and the second coming, and then we'll talk about the uses of this doctrine. Let me just say out the gate here that when you look at the passage of scripture, and you think about the fact that Christ is coming back for the believer, that should be a pretty exciting thing, don't you think?

just imagine if in the middle of this message, Jesus returns. And part of the proposition this morning is that biblically, there's nothing that prevents Christ from coming right now, in the middle of this message.

And if the Lord Jesus Christ, that should be a great comfort. It should be something that motivates us in many different ways. And because it is Jesus whom we love, it should be very exciting. if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, it can be a terrifying thought, the fact that Christ would return and that you are not his.

And so let's let the Spirit speak to us through his word this morning. And let's first of all, just start with the meaning of this term, imminence or imminent coming. of Christ. Now, it's gonna be somewhat confusing, unfortunately, in the English language, because there are 3 words, imminent, imminent, and imminent, that all have 3 different spellings and 3 totally different meanings.

And so those of you that are attending a care group, we're going to start things off this afternoon with a little activity for the kids to try to define imminent, imminent, and imminent. And whoever gets the three correct definitions will get some prize or something. We talk about imminent starting with an E, E M I N E N T. That's like eminent domain or someone who is renowned and distinguished.

That's not the term we're talking about this morning. Then there's immanent with an A after the fourth letter, and that's the idea of God's eminence or His transcendence, that He is very near us. That's not the term we're talking about this morning. We're talking about imminent in the sense of something that is leaning over.

And could fall at any minute. Something that could occur at any moment in time. I want you to imagine a tree that is leaning over. And there's nothing that really prevents it from falling.

The wind could come, it could fall. Some termites could get down at it. It could fall over. There's evidence that a boy or somebody has been axing at the base of the tree, and there it is just hanging.

You even hear it creaking. But it hasn't fallen, but it's fall is imminent. that it's going to fall. It could fall at any moment, but then again, it might not fall for years.

That's the concept of imminence. anybody ever seen. What's that movie with the boy with the little two dogs and he chops down the tree? Oh, where, where the Red Fern Grows.

Anybody ever seen that Where the Red Fern Grows? It's really fun, fun movie. The boy has dogs. His dogs chase the raccoon up into the tree, and of course, the family is very ecologically sensitive.

The boy gets his ax out, starts chopping the tree down, and I get the raccoons out of there because he's got to be faithful to his dogs who treated the raccoon. And his dad shows up and says, What are you doing? I got to knock this tree down. Come on, son.

I won't be faithful to my dogs if I don't knock the tree down. So he's like, OK, knock it down. I'll see you in the morning. And my kids, they're, they're really troubled about the green, anti-green aspect of that movie.

it's a joke. But the, but the idea here is it, it gets, he chops the tree down or actually does this thing all night long and it's leaning. And it just won't go over and he's out of strength and so he sits down and he says, God, he cries out to God and, and God sends some wind and then the thing falls over. That's the concept of eminence.

This thing's hanging. It could come at any moment. There's nothing necessarily else that has to be done. You're just waiting for it to fall.

When we speak of this in a theological sense, we would say this, that eminence is something that is about to happen or could happen at any moment. Other things may happen before an imminent event, but nothing else must happen. There are things that may happen before it occurs, but nothing else must happen. And so when we apply this to the return of Christ, the imminent coming of Christ means that there are no signs or events that must take place prior to his return.

There's nothing that's required. To occur before Christ could come back. Today, that's the concept of the imminent coming or imminent return of Christ. If we believe in imminency, then Christ could come in the middle of this sentence.

Christ could come in the middle of the sermon, but he may not come for another many years. And nobody knows exactly when he will come, but that's, that's the concept, and we're going to try to demonstrate that we believe this morning that that is a biblical concept. Now let me just get a couple of things straight here. When we talk about The return of Christ, the return of Christ is connected to the gospel.

And so we would connect the return of Christ. We've called the return of Christ a major doctrine. Christ came in the flesh. He lived a perfect life.

He's God, he's man. He died. He was raised, he went to heaven, and he will return. That's all part of the gospel story, right?

And so the fact that Christ will return is a major doctrine. The timing of his return and part of what we're talking about this morning, immanency is not a major doctrine. This is a minor doctrine, but it is in our doctrinal statement, and it is something that we believe that the Bible teaches. And so we're going to cover it this morning from that perspective.

I just want to let out the gate that what we're talking about, the imminency of of his return, not everybody on the body of Christ believes the imminency of his return. But everybody believes that he will return. Now, there is this conflict, this, this understanding in the Bible that's been somewhat confusing for almost 2000 years, and that is, that you've got a number of passages that seem to speak about Christ's return, as if he could come back at any minute. That he could just show up right now.

He's, he's at the door. It's almost as if Christ has his hand on the doorknob, and the door could just pop open right now in the twinkling of an eye, as a thief in the night. There's all these passages that speak that we need to be ready. No one knows when he's going to come back and come back any moment.

So be ready, right? We're going to look at some of those in a moment. But then there's a whole other set of passages that speak of all these signs that must occur before Christ's second coming to the earth. And so there's these passes that speak of this great tribulation that's going to come upon the earth greater than anything that's ever happened that ever will be.

And the sun is going to show signs on the moon and the sign of the Son of Man is going to show up in the heavens, and then Christ will return. Or Christ says that this word of the gospel will go out and be preached to all nation, and then the end will come. So you have eminency passages and then you have signed passages. I just look at this chart here we lay them out for you.

You have these passages where it doesn't seem like there's any signs that are needed. Christ saints meet Christ in the clouds. There's no judgment mentioned. It seems nothing is said about a kingdom.

It occurs before wrath, and it seems to be imminent. Christ seems to return to heaven with his church saints, and it seems like believers are removed, and unbelievers are left on the earth, if we understand these passes correctly. But then there's this whole other set of sign passages where Christ actually descends down to the Mount of Olives. Judgment is very important.

In fact, it seems like judgment comes first and then Christ returns, like in Revelation chapter 19. Certain parts of the Oliphant discourse in Matthew 24. It occurs after the wrath of the day of the Lord preceded by signs. Christ descends to the earth and unbelievers are removed and only believers are left on the earth.

And so it's left theologians for many, many years with this struggle of how do we harmonize these no sign imminency passages and these passages that seem to require signs before Christ comes back and there's been various ways people have tried. To harmonize this, you see the conflict. Some pastors say Christ will come back at any minute. Other pastors say, no, wait, you've got to see the antichrist, the abomination, desolation, and in 3.5 years, then he comes back.

If we read, if we understand the Great Tribulation properly, and if we harmonize Daniel and Revelation and the seven year thing properly, we've got the Antichrist coming in the very middle of this tribulation period and in 3.5 years you can tick off the days. And Christ returns. You see that? Abomination, desolation, anti-Christ, Christ returns 3.5 years later.

What's so imminent about that? If you're only 6 months into this baby, you can say, hey, Christ, he ain't coming back for 3 more years. We know. But then you have all these other pastors that are saying, wait a second, Christ can come back at any minute.

He's at the door. You can open the door right now. So what do we do? How do we, how do we harmonize it?

Let me just show you part of the conflict. Look to Matthew chapter 24. In Matthew 24 in the all of it discourse you have Jesus explaining, the end of all things. They've asked him.

Jesus has just talked about the destruction of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and the disciples say, can you tell us about these things? What will be the sign of your coming? and so on. And so Jesus begins to discuss these end times, types of phenomena.

And starting in say verse 21. Matthew 21 or 24:21, Jesus says, and then there will be great tribulations such as not been since the beginning of the world until this time, nor shall there ever be. OK, there's been all kinds of persecution throughout the history of the world, but Jesus is talking about a time that'll be so great. You can look at it and say, there's nothing that's ever been like this.

And there will never be anything quite like this ever again. This is the great tribulation. Revelation talks about bowls of wrath, trumpets, and seals, just terrible stuff happening upon the whole earth. Verse 22, and unless those days have been shortened, no flesh would be saved, but for the elect's sake, those shall be shortened.

Then if anyone says, look here, so on and so forth, let's look down to verse 29. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn. born, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and He will send His angels with a, with a great sound of the trumpet, and they will gather together as elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to another.

Now here, clearly, we have signs occurring before the return of Christ, right? We have the great tribulation. And if we understand that concept properly, a 7 year period. And immediately verse 29 says immediately after that, if we take this literally, we have the sun being darkened, we have the moon not giving its light, we have stars being cast out of place, we have the powers being shaken.

This is catastrophic stuff. Nobody misses this. Christ comes down and there are people freaking out and mourning because they know judgment Day has begun. You have Christ coming down with a great sound.

There's clouds in the heavens. There's a trumpet, and then they gather up the elect. This is a sign of it. Clearly, this will not occur until you see these signs.

But then Look down at verse 36, same chapter. Jesus says, But of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only. No one knows when this is going to happen. Wait a second.

No one knows when this is going to happen. I think if we start seeing sun and moon and crazy stuff, abomination and desolation, aren't we going to have some clue of the day or hour of this? Verse 37. But as the days of Noah were, so also will be the coming of the Son of Man.

For as in the days before the flood, they were eating, drinking, marrying, given in marriage until the day Noah entered the ark and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also be the coming of the Son of Man be. You see the problem here. How do you have on one side, bowls of wrath being poured out on the earth, the heavens being shaken, the Antichrist is running amok throughout the world. And yet people are coming and giving in marriage, giving gifts.

Everything's just like Noah's ark before the flood. Seems like a problem. In this very passage we have seemingly contradictory evidence of no sign type of stuff, imminency type of stuff. All of a sudden boom, the doors closed of Noah's Ark, boom, Christ come back.

Everybody's just partying, going to a marriage, giving gifts. We're all having a good time, boom, Christ come back. That's one scenario that Christ pictures. The other scenario is judgment and chaos and sun and moon, and then Christ comes back.

That's why for many, many years theologians have looked at these two seeming contradictory passages and said, what do you do with this? And so we put them into two different categories eminency passages and sign passages. What is the solution? Well, let's, let's look at some of these imminency passages first of all, Scriptural support for the imminency.

View of Christ's return. And I'm going to have you turn to a number of different passes and we're going to do this fairly quickly, but turn to James 5. These are some passages other than the one that we just mentioned in Matthew 24, that demonstrate the imminent characteristic of Christ's return. James chapter 5, James says to his readers, be patient then brothers, until the Lord's coming.

See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop. Look at verse 8. You too be patient, stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. Don't grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged.

The Lord is standing at the door. What do you see from this passage? Well, we see that we're to be patient. James, the half brother of Jesus is fully expecting that Christ's return is near, even at that time.

Well before the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD, and it's as if Christ has his hand on the doorknob, and it could just open at any moment. This is part of what we mean by imminency. Those of you that have children here, have you ever put your kids to bed? You hear some goofing around down the hall, and so you, you go down the hall and all of a sudden you hear everything get real quiet.

You're like, OK, I'm gonna just stand right here and sooner or later, they're gonna pipe up again. And so you stay there at the door and when the kids think that you've snuck off back to bed, they start talking and goofing around again and then you bust it open. Everybody. You guys get to bed.

What are you guys doing? You just feel so powerful as a dad, just, just opening that door and catching the kids, so powerful. That's the concept here. The concept is, Christ is right there.

He's at the door. And brothers and sisters, because Jesus, his return is so imminent, you guys shouldn't be grumbling against each other, verse 8. Stop grumbling. If you turn your eyes to Christ and realize that he could come today, are we going to be grumbling against each other for tiny petty little things?

That's part of James's, argument here. the, the other aspect, imminency, another aspect of it is it means leaning forward, like that tree analogy. I don't know if you've ever been, anybody ever ridden the bus around, you didn't have a car and you had to ride the bus? Yeah, when I went to seminary, I took a MetroLink, took a bus about 3 miles down to the seminary, and one of the things that you see is people, once they start to sense that the time for the arrival of the bus is pretty near, you get these experienced bus riders that get out on the curb and they just start leaning out, and it doesn't matter if there's a car coming by 50 miles an hour in that lane, they're just leaning, looking, waiting for the arrival of that bus.

And that analogy breaks down from some standpoint because imminency would be just like boom, the bus is there. You're not even looking out and seeing. you're waiting, but you don't even see the lights, you don't even see the bus, the big box thing way out there coming. It says boom, crisis here.

What about 1 Thessalonians 1:10? Turn to 1 Thessalonians 1:10. Paul is commending the Thessalonians, he says, and to wait for the Son from heaven, who he raised from the dead, who rescues us from the coming wrath. So the way Paul had taught the Thessalonians, he had taught them to wait for Christ from heaven, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

The wrath to come is another term or it's, it's, it's another term for the day of the Lord, or the great and terrible day of the Lord, or that, that the day that Christ's judgment is coming or God's judgment is coming on the earth. So they're expecting to be rescued from the wrath to come, and they're waiting for Jesus. In fact, they believed in Christ's imminency so much that guess what, over in chapter 4, we see that some people have stopped working. They say, Hey, Christ's coming back.

Let's quit our jobs. it'd be like today as people are saying, Hey, let's quit our jobs, let's go get the credit cards, charge them all up, and just go have a good time because a crisis is coming back and somebody else is going to have to pay those off. That's these guys believed in infancy so much they, they quit working. And Paul has to say, no, no, no, right doctrine, wrong use.

Christ is coming back soon. He may come back today, but you still need to carry out your day in and day out activities. What about Philippians 3:20, where Paul says, our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. We're eagerly waiting for him to come.

First Thessalonians 4:15. According to the Lord's own will, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. As Paul is writing to the Thessalonians, he says, we who are still alive, Paul believed in his mind, it was theoretically possible for him to still be alive. And for the Thessalonians whom he was writing to still be alive, when Christ returned, there was nothing else that needed to happen in order for Christ to come back.

Christ could come back at that moment. That's imminency. Titus 2:13. OK.

We'll, we'll just look at a couple more here. Go ahead and turn to Titus chapter 2 and start, starting at verse 11. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all, teaching us to say no to ungodliness, worldly passion. verse 13, while we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, what are we waiting for?

We're waiting for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Notice Paul says, we're not waiting for the appearance of the anti-Christ. We're not waiting here for the appearance of the abomination of desolation. We're not waiting for the opening of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th, 7th seal, or the bowls or the trumpets.

We're waiting for the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, our blessed hope. That's what we're waiting for. Many other passages, let's turn to 1 Corinthians 15, we'll end with this 11 Corinthians 15:51, it's a very important passage. Not to mention that in 1 Corinthians 16:22, we have the, the, one of the early church mottos was Maranaha, Lord, come quickly.

1 Corinthians 15:51. Paul says, behold, I tell you a mystery. When Paul says mystery, he's not talking about, I'm gonna tell you something that's really hard to understand, because it's mysterious. When he uses the word mystery, he says, I'm going to tell you something that was previously unknown to anyone, but I am now revealing it to you as an apostle filled by the Holy Spirit to give out prophetic information.

Imagine being the apostle Paul, that you are a conduit of brand new information that no other believer has ever known in the history of man. He comes and he reveals, he pulls the curtain back and says, I'm going to reveal something to you. I'm going to give you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.

He's revealing that there are those Paul is saying, it could be me and you, but not all Christians will go into the grave. Not all Christians will come into the resurrected body by death. Some of us will come into our resurrected body or a new body through transformation. We will not die.

This is a brand new thing. This had not been revealed before. But Paul reveals it here and expected that it could have happened in his own lifetime. So these are some of the passages that we believe that demonstrates the imminent, the soon return of Christ, that His return is leaning over us.

Christ is at the door, and that there's nothing that prevents him from coming right now. That's what we, that's what we mean by the imminent return of Christ. Let's talk about some implications of this for the rapture. Here at Cornerstone, we do believe in the doctrine of the rapture.

Not, not everybody believes in the doctrine of the rapture. But if you want to take eschatology class with us sometime, you, you'll see why certain Christians don't, believe in a rapture theory and why we do believe in the rapture, actually the pre-tribulational rapture theory. But let's talk about some implications here from the doctrine of imminency, on the rapture. While no one knows the time of Christ's return, he may come at any moment, right?

We don't know when he's going to come, but if we understand these passages right, rightly, he could come at any time. Another implication is this the rapture will be unannounced and largely unexpected. It will catch people by surprise, like a thief in the night. That's unexpected, right?

If anybody ever had been robbed or Do you ever come home and your house has just been trashed? What's happened to us? We weren't expecting that. No, we didn't have a timeline that said in 3.5 years, the berries will be burglarized.

If we'd have known that, we would have taken certain precautions. I would have had my alarm system that I currently have installed back then, right? Now I have an alarm system. but this is coming as a surprise.

It's, it's something that if we're not careful because of the delays, we have to be exhorted all over Scripture to keep waiting, be eager, be patient. He's coming. You haven't seen him yet, but he is coming. And so it's, it's, it's something that will take a number of people by surprise.

There are no sign events that must take place prior to his return. We're not saying that there are no sign events that will take place prior to his return to the earth, but we believe if we understand these passes correctly, there's no signs that must take place for him to come get his kids. Via the rapture. And then fourthly, this is where you're going to see our harmonization of these two sets of passages, and that is the rapture is different from Christ coming to the earth after the tribulation.

This is what we call the pre-tribulational rapture theory. As we look at these different sets of passages, eminency passages and sign passages, Various theologians have theorized that perhaps there are two different aspects of Christ's return. That we have rapture passages and second coming proper passages. Christ coming to the earth is not an imminent event since a number of signs and events must take place prior to it, such as the appearance of the anti-Christ and the abomination of desolation.

So you see, this is why the rapture theory has arisen as one possible explanation for these seemingly contradictory sets of passages. There's other ways that people try to explain it. Everybody has to deal with the same raw data. Our explanation is pre-tribulational rapture for his saints, post-tribulational return to the earth to judge.

That's why you have non-sign and sign passages. In the Bible. So those are some of the implications for the rapture. Now, again, as a reminder, the return of Christ is a major doctrine.

You must believe in the return of Christ to believe, to be a Christian, to really embrace what the Bible says, Everybody believes that he's going to come back. You don't necessarily have to embrace the pre-tribulational rapture theory as the only explanation for the seeming contradiction between imminency and sign passages. Does that make sense? That's what, that's what we embrace here at Cornerstone.

We believe it is a good explanation. The implication, let me, give you just to be fair here, some arguments against imminency with responses. And really, there's, there's one main argument against the doctrine of the imminent return of Christ. And it is this, that some events, We're prophesized.

which had to take place, thus making imminency impossible. There are certain things that were prophesized, that had to occur before Christ returned or had to occur at some point. And so if these things had to occur, then obviously Christ could not have returned at any moment because these things had to be fulfilled. What are some examples of that?

like the coming of the Spirit, Jesus promised that he was going to send the Holy Spirit. So obviously, he could not have returned before the coming of the Spirit, right? Christ promised to bring all things to the minds of the apostles so that they could write scripture. When did Christ bring all things, the apostles, all things to their minds?

Jesus says in the all of the discourse that, that this word would go out and that there would be discipleship in all the nations to the uttermost parts of the earth, and then the end will come. Have we discipled all the nations throughout the whole earth yet? And if not, does that mean Christ can't come back yet? Paul's ministry, he was, he was prophesized and told to Paul that he would bear his name before the Gentiles.

Peter's old age, he was told that he would live to be an old man. The fall of Jerusalem is prophesized, and it was fulfilled in AD 70. We're told that we need to expect the apostasy and the anti-Christ. If we have to have the apostle and the anti-Christ before the second coming, then surely his return cannot be imminent.

And then there's the promised persecution of the churches. So this would be the arguments against the doctrine of imminency. Let me give some responses quickly. First of all, some of the events in this list are general in nature, and no one would know when they were completed.

So, there's some things that we agree that these things would need to be fulfilled, but who's to say when they would be fulfilled? Like bringing all the things to the minds of the apostles or Paul's ministry to the Gentiles or persecution of the churches? When would there be sufficient fulfillment for those things for Christ to return? Secondly, there's no doctrine of imminency, we would argue until the church was brought into existence, perhaps as late as Acts 10 when we have Gentile inclusion.

You understand that when we talk about imminency, we're not saying imminency started right when Jesus talked about his return. You have to allow for the fact that these waiting and watching and hoping passages have to be written in the scriptures. or proclaimed by Paul and the people have to understand the doctrines before we have this concept of imminency resounding throughout the church. So obviously, until Paul teaches the Thessalonians, hey, Christ could come back at any moment, then theoretically, he's, that, that doctrine is not out there and available to the community of God's people.

So we do, we do say that there is a delay in the first century for the propagation of that doctrine in order to have true immanency. By the time of the writing of the New Testament, the aforementioned hindrances no longer existed. By the time you have the writing of the New Testament, there's a lot of these criticisms no longer exist. Some of the problem events could have been fulfilled after the rapture, like the fall of Jerusalem.

There's nothing that says that Christ couldn't have come in the first century. And then in the middle of the tribulation is the fall of Jerusalem. There's nothing that says that the gospel is going to be propagated throughout the whole earth to every nation in the middle of the tribulation. That's why I personally don't buy into the concept that we, that all the nations have to be reached with the gospel before Christ can return.

I don't believe that. I believe that Christ can come at any moment. We should be preaching the gospel to all nations, but he can come at any moment. So what, how's, how's the gospel going to get out to all nations during the seven year tribulation?

We've got 144,000 people running around everywhere preaching the gospel. During the seven year tribulation, you can have the gospel propagated to every single nation within a 7 year period. plus you have all these signs and crazy stuff going on. So while it is important for us to get out and propagate the gospel and try to get the gospel to all nations, I don't believe that somehow we are preventing the return of Christ.

If, if, if one particular generation fails, Christ can come back anytime he is told by his father to come back. And then lastly, this is really the bottom line is whether the early Christians could have believed in imminency or not. The fact is that they did. When we look in the pages of Scripture, the fact is is that brothers and sisters in Christ believed in imminency so strongly that some of them misused the doctrine and quit their jobs.

That's how strongly they believed that Christ could come back at any moment and that there were no other signs that needed to be fulfilled in order for him to come. So, that would be our, our responses to our brothers and sisters that would argue against the doctrine of of imminency. Let's just review here and then, and then talk about the uses of this doctrine. Distinctions between the events of the rapture and the second coming proper.

You need to understand that, Just because you have similar terminology used, doesn't mean you have exactly the same event. Let me use an example. Right now, I'm thinking of a sport where somebody uses a stick to hit a round object to score for their team. What sport am I thinking of?

Stickball, baseball, cricket, hockey. I, I just mentioned three things that all of those sports have in common, and yet you don't know. I was thinking of baseball, right? If me, you would have known it was baseball, right?

But, so you look on the pages of scripture, and in one set of passages, once you see things like a shout, a trumpet, and clouds. You look at another passage and you see a shout, a trumpet and clouds, you say, Oh, they must be the same event. Well, hold on, if you can demonstrate that there's one difference. Then you can demonstrate that they're different events or they don't happen exactly at the same time.

If I can demonstrate that, wait a second, what I was talking about is taking a round bat-like object with a ball with seams and throwing it and trying to hit the ball to score runs, not points, points, runs, right, for your team. OK, now, I'm talking about baseball. OK, I add this extra data. As you look on the pages of scripture, if you see extra data that seems to demonstrate that, wait a second, we've got two different events here, that should lead you to distinguish between the rapture and the second coming.

So, there are similarities. Both deal with the same Christ coming from heaven. Both involve shouts and trumpets and things like that. Similarities between events do not make them the same events.

If you can find one difference, it would show that they are different. And so when we look again at this chart, we look at the imminency passages on the left which we would call rapture passages. You look at the coming to earth passages on the right, we see that while there are similarities, there's enough difference to call for The rapture or pre-tribulational rapture theory or some such explanation to deal with, to harmonize these sets of passages. We see a signless event that can happen at any moment, and we see another event that must have signs and will not happen at any moment.

You can tick off, if you were to miss the rapture, God forbid, and you get into the seven-year tribulation. And you see the antichrist and the abomination of desolation at the middle of the tribulation, you can start ticking off the days. If we understand the Bible right, you can get your calendar and start ticking off the days for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, 3.5 years, right? Knock it off.

You're there. Let's say you get born again, you're with your born again wife, born again children, you're worried about persecution and all that, but you guys are ticking off the days you could get up in the morning and say, Guess what, honey, we've only got 916 days to go. You can tick it off. That doesn't sound like an event where everybody's like, Wait, hope, it could come at any moment.

That's an event that involves a very precise time. Or at least an area in which we would all agree that Christ is going to come back. let's end this with, with the proper use. or uses of this doctrine, the imminent return of Christ, just imagine that he could come right now in the middle of this sermon.

one of the uses that we see on the pages of scripture is for comfort. We see that in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. As we think about our loved ones, Christ will come back, and he will take us, and, and we will be with them. but, a key use of this doctrine on the page of the scripture is exhortation towards godliness and good works.

Wherever this passage, wherever this concept is mentioned, whether it be in Titus chapter 2 or 1 John chapter 2 and 3, there's always this movement towards, good works. So, he who is, if, if we're going after the pure One that we want to make ourselves pure as it says in First John chapter 2, exercising ourselves towards godliness, living in a circumspect way in light of the evil days, and so on. There's a warning against sin. James chapter 5, we said, stop grumbling.

If Christ is at the door, stop grumbling is his application. And it helps us keep ourselves oriented instead of being so caught up or too caught up with the day to day activities. We obviously have to be about our day to day to day activities, but we can get so caught up with our work and the kids aren't minding right now, and boy, I've had to tell that boy how many times to stop doing climbing on the table, can't leave him there for 5 minutes. My son Samuel put glass in his mouth a few weeks ago and like, what in the world are we going to do with this kid.

I turned around and he's climbing on the table. I, I, I don't know how many times I've had to deal with him about touching the electrical sockets. he knows how to get into all the little safety doors. how you put those little safety things so that they can't get into the various cupboards you don't want them in.

He's figured all that out. But what? those are important things. I want to disciple this kid.

I want to get this kid to behave, right? But the thing is, is Christ is coming back. There's, there's things bigger. We're preparing this little soul for Christ and his return and And, and we want to keep our eyes gazed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, cars breaking down, this and that, those problems.

Jesus Christ is coming back. This doctrine is meant to keep our eyes up, right? Off of just the mundane problems of this world. Amen.

There are some misuses of this doctrine or ways that we can improperly use it. We can be like the Thessalonians and say, hey, Christ has come back any minute, so I'm not going to worry about any day to day activities. I'm not going to worry about getting a job. I'm not going to have a savings account.

I'm not going to worry about retirement because what, the Lord's coming back. So why, why have retirement? you can debate one way or the other about, some of the fruit, the frugality of having a retirement account, but if you're basing it on the doctrine of the imminent return of Christ, guess what, wrong use of the doctrine. When I was a brand new Christian, 14 years old, I remember being taught this doctrine for the first time and I'm walking home from school with my non-Christian buddy and I said, boy, you better get ready.

Jesus is coming back. So really, yeah, I I give it 6 months, man, maybe 3. There's just, he's coming back, the signs are there. Well, you ever heard of Magog and Gog or something like that?

And he's coming, man. And what? It could be that Jimmy Carter is the antichrist. We just don't know.

Maybe Ronald Wilson Reagan, 666. And I, I guaranteed this guy that, that Christ was coming back and he prayed a prayer to receive Christ, and it was a false prayer and he fell away from the Lord. That's not the way to use this doctrine. But we look out, we have hope.

we could neglect deeds of mercy. We could say, what, Christ is coming back. We know that this whole world's gonna be destroyed. It's all going to hell in a handbasket anyway.

So why worry about poverty? Why worry about the hungry? Why worry about the Gulf spill? Maybe that's part of fulfillment of prophecy.

So who cares if oil's all over the Gulf, right? I think the CEO of BP cares if there's oil all over the Gulf, and if he happens to be a Christian, he's got to do something about it, whether he's a Christian or not, right? But we can have this attitude. I think it's less frequent than some people try to make it out to be, but there can be the idea of, hey, the world's going to hell in a handbasket, so don't even really worry about it.

It's all going to work out in the end. It's all going to burn, right? So no, we need to be about the business of preaching the gospel, deeds of mercy. We should be concerned with the social ills of society, doing what we can to deal with poverty and hunger and so on and so forth, because we don't know exactly when the Lord is going to return.

We could neglect our dominion and care of the earth. When Adam and Eve were created in the garden, they were given. Dominion over the earth, part of which meant they were to subdue it, part of which meant they were to take care of it. And if we have an improper use of this doctrine, we can say I don't really care if all the trees get cut down and I don't care if we don't have any oxygen anymore and who cares if my grandchildren have oxygen because they're never going to exist because Jesus is coming back.

And it can be the wrong use of the doctrine, right? it's my contention that, Christians, because of our, the the theology of dominion that we have in Genesis chapter one, ought to be very concerned about taking care of, of our planet and Earth as long as that's kept in proper perspective with the overall salvation of souls and whatnot. So anyway, these are some improper uses. We have uses good uses and proper uses, but the bottom line here is Jesus is coming back, folks, and you might agree or disagree on some of the details of this.

We all agree he's coming back. We all have the same passage of scripture. We need to study the scriptures to show ourselves approved. We don't want to be guilty of eschatological agnosticism.

Which means I don't really care. It's all going to work out in the end. Let's just get along. Wait a second.

The Bible says something about eschatology. The Bible says something about the return of Christ. Let's study it. This has been revealed to us and our children.

The secret things belong to the Lord. Let's not worry about the secret things. The things revealed belong to us and our children. Deuteronomy 29:29 says, let's talk about those things.

And let's try to wrestle around with it. Let's speak the truth and love. Let's figure out what the Bible really says. Not just be agnostics as if God hasn't communicated communicated anything to us.

All right, with that, we are gonna do something a little unusual this morning to round things up. We're gonna, I'm gonna open up myself to be, have some Q&A and then we're gonna have the guys come on down for the offering and we can go ahead and have the worship team coming up for the closer, but Any Any questions anybody might have about this doctrine? Yeah, Larry. How, how do you Yeah, that right after the tribulation, there will be signs that will, that will lead up to the second coming of Christ to the earth.

this, this is the sign aspect of the doctrine and so we have this great tribulation that everybody will know about. It's so terrible. Nobody will have any mistakes about the fact that we're in the great tribulation, and then you have these great signs, and then Christ will come back. That's second coming proper.

What you have to fit into your theology is the fact that there's a whole other set of data that indicates that there's no signs, nothing that has to happen for Christ to return. And so what do you do with that? You've got to somehow you have to fit that into your theology. That Cool.

Yeah, I, that's a great question. I would say, That in Matthew 24, we have Christ. You got to remember Paul is the one that really blows open the mystery, right? So, when Christ is, is revealing information about his return, he's giving us a certain amount of the data and then waits for the Holy Spirit to give Paul more of the data.

And so what we have here in Matthew 24 is Jesus seemingly giving us contradictory data. Data that requires signs and data that seems to give us this idea of like the days before Noah. Everybody's partying and giving gifts and having marriages, and I can't imagine that going on in the last 3.5 years of the tribulation. And so theologians look at that and say, what's Jesus talking about?

Well, Paul comes in, and I think by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, blows off the mystery and says, here's what Jesus was talking about. But that's good. Matthew 24 is a key passage here. Any other, any other questions?

That was a really good one. No, first service was live, man, with questions. I know it but it's hot in here. Yeah.

OK. Assuredly I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away until all these things take place. There's various ways to look at this. our view is to look at is, is that the generation that sees these particular signs will not pass away.

So once you have a generation that's seeing the abomination of desolation, the generation that's seeing the anti-Christ, that generation will not pass away until all of these things occur, which would make sense if you're talking about a seven year period. The, an alternative view, which would be called the preterist view is that that generation at Christ's time did not pass away. And all of these things were fulfilled before the end of the first century. And so that's, they, they say it's all fulfilled and basically we're living in the millennium today and and, and we're not waiting for any signs either because all those signs were fulfilled back there in the first century.

That's, that's what some Bible believing Christians believe. It's called the preterist view. And, We don't buy into that particular viewpoint. That's a great question, though.

All right, one more. Yeah. They're really not. Yeah.

Yeah, it just seems, you have Jesus talking about, he says, OK, they've asked him, OK, what are going to be the signs of your return? And he lists a bunch of different things. And we all, we all understand that we've been in the last days since the time of the New Testament, right? Peter tells us that we're all in the last days, right?

Last days isn't just some period at the end of 2000 years. It started at the time of the church. So he's talking about he begins to give them things that have happened over the past 2000 years false prophets, false teachers, wars, rumors of wars, and this and that. But then he says there's a great tribulation coming such as never been.

OK, from our perspective that's still a future event. This is something that's never happened before. It's a sign where to look for, right? And by the way, at the end of this tribulation, you're going to see the sun stop shining, the moon stop reflecting, stars are going to, the cosmos is going to go crazy.

And then there's going to be this great sign of the Son of Man, and then he's going to return. There's going to be great mourning. So he lists all of these things that are going to occur, and then you match that with the Book of Revelation. There's catastrophic stuff that happens on the earth, really all 7 years, but particularly the last 3.5 years, right?

Catastrophic. the stuff that we've seen in our lifetimes, nothing. Haiti, nothing. It's going to be going on for 3.5 years, just absolute terror and horror, worst horror movie you've ever seen.

Multiply it by 100, great tribulation, right? That does not sound to a lot of theologians and Bible teachers like the other scenario that Christ paints of people giving and giving, giving and taking in marriage and passing on gifts and having a nice little tea party. OK, there's, so there seems to be the setting of where people are not, not even cognizant of God, they're just going about their business, and then boom, Christ comes back. And then a whole other set of passages where people are in terror and horror, and they're dying, and there's plagues, and there's chaos, and then Christ comes back.

So that leads a lot of Bible teachers and theologians to say, There's two different things going on here, two different events. And so what we call it is, is you can talk about the second coming, Christ coming invisibly or first for his children in the rapture, and then coming, the second aspect of his coming, coming down to the earth in judgment. That's why we come up with the pre-tribulational rapture theory, which again is one explanation of way of harmonizing the seemingly contradictory data.

Does that make more sense, or?

All right, well this is I hope you guys have had fun. I've had fun. So, all right, let's, let's bow in prayer. Lord, we thank you so much for your goodness to us, and thank you for the exhortations and your word about your return.

You, we know that you have gone to heaven to prepare a place for us that you will come and take us to be with you, that we may be with you always. Lord, may we, be encouraged and comforted by this teaching. May it, cause us to be reoriented towards you even today. may it give us pause as we make decisions in our lives, how to live our lives and use our time and spend our money.

And Lord, may we make decisions that are godly and, and may we, Lord, be more diligent about good works and ministering to our fellow brothers and sisters in humankind. Lord, we ask that you receive this offering that we give to you now. And we thank you for your goodness to us this day in Christ's name. Amen.