The Return of Christ | Dalton Chalus

All right, let's bow. Our heavenly Father, we love you.

I pray to God that our love for you would grow. I pray that your glory would shine forth from our fellowship tonight.

I pray that the words that are spoken will be true and edifying.

And I pray, God, that we would be humbled at such a great topic, the return of your Son. And let us, with great eagerness and soberness of mind, await for his return.

We praise you in Jesus' name, amen. If you have your

Bibles with you tonight, I want to encourage you to turn them to John chapter 14.

John chapter 14. And as you're turning there,

I want to remind all of us of something. And that is the simple truths of Scripture should never become lesser due to a knowledge of deeper truths.

The simple truths of Scripture should never become lesser due to a knowledge of deeper truths.

And in this is an encouragement and a warning. The encouragement here is, seek out the deep truths of Scripture.

Do not neglect Bible study. Do not neglect going to the Word of God and trying to learn what it's trying to teach.

Do not do that. And there are so many Christians that neglect Bible study, that neglect the passage of 2

Timothy 2 .15, which says, to study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, but that can rightly divide the word of truth.

And so that is the encouragement, to go to the Scripture, be a good Berean. But there's also a great warning here.

And that is, as you do so, do not abandon the simplicity of Christ.

Do not abandon the simplicity of the Gospel. And this was the words of Paul to the

Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 11. He says, I'm afraid that you're leaving and abandoning the simplicity that is within Christ.

And so as we discuss the return of Christ, let us keep this in mind.

John 14, the first three verses. John says, let not your hearts be troubled.

Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms.

If it were not so, would I have told you that I go and prepare a place for you? I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

In this text, Jesus is encouraging his followers and he's telling them that he's going away.

But he doesn't leave them with bad news. He says, I'm going away, but I'm coming again. And brethren, this is a simple truth that we must hold on to, is that he's going to return.

That he hasn't left us without hope. And so as we discuss the return of Christ, in the

Greek, the parousia of Christ, the second advent of Jesus, let us continue to remind ourselves that when we're discussing such a topic as this one, the great temptation is to lose sight of the forest because of the trees.

And there's not a lack of resources on this topic. There's not a lack of things that have been said on this topic.

And so with that, we will proclaim certain truths about the Christian faith.

We will proclaim certain truths about the return of Jesus. But God forbid that we proclaim these truths void of humility.

God forbid we become arrogant in mind so as to bring

Christ and his return down. And so I have three goals for us tonight.

The first goal is to demonstrate through the Scripture, to prove through the

Scripture, that the return of Jesus is future. That the return of Christ has not already happened.

And many of you are aware there is a heretical group that call themselves full preterists that have become quite loud recently.

And they promote a heretical doctrine which is that Jesus returned in AD 70 at the fall of Jerusalem at the destruction of the temple and that Jesus returned there and instituted at that point the new heavens and the new earth.

And that simply is not true. And so I want to demonstrate through Scripture that the return of Christ is futuristic.

The second goal is to give practical application to this great truth.

Sometimes, especially in reformed circles, we can have great doctrinal truths that just remain great doctrinal truths and they never become implemented into everyday life.

Evangelism sometimes doesn't take place. Well, because there's an elect and God will save them anyways. There are certain things that if you just let rest by themselves, doesn't do any good.

And so with the return of Christ, I want us to be encouraged on an everyday basis.

I was speaking to a brother a moment ago and I said, in this study, it has provided me with great hope more so than any other doctrine recently as I've been studying this great truth.

And then the third goal is I want us to either see for the first time or be reminded of the gospel.

I want us to either see for the first time or be reminded of the gospel.

And by God's grace, we will achieve these things. In Dr.

Sproul's book that we are going through on Wednesday nights, he declares on page 316 that there is no element of prophecy that is more important to the people of God than the return of Jesus.

In other words, when we look into the Bible and when we read of the New Testament's words in relation to prophecies, there aren't any that should take precedence over the return of our

Lord Jesus. And brethren, I believe that we ought to agree with these words. I believe that we ought to submit to the truth of these words.

Why? Let's look at 1 Peter chapter one. In 1

Peter chapter one, in this section, Peter is encouraging

Christians. And we'll read this together. Beginning in verse number 10.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the

Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.

It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news, the gospel to you by the

Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

Now, I want you to pay attention. Verse 13. Therefore, because of these great truths, because God has been through his sovereign grace preparing a people for himself through the prophets and preparing a day in which

Christ would be born of a virgin, Galatians 4 .4. Therefore, because all of this has come to pass, prepare your minds for action.

This is not something that we are passive in. And be sober -minded. Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Brethren, there is great grace in studying this topic. And so let me ask us the question, why is there hope in the return of Christ?

Why is there hope in the return? And there are a number of reasons we can hope in the return of Jesus, but I want to highlight three simply.

The first is there in the return of Jesus, you have the resurrection of the dead.

There you have all the saints who have died in faith, whether in the Old Testament or in the New Testament be raised to everlasting life.

Those on earth who remain will be caught up. They will be glorified. They will receive the inheritance that awaits them.

Right now in the new covenant, we have received our guarantee. We have received our down payment, which is the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit. But that is just a taste of what awaits in the new heavens and the new earth and in the consummation of God's kingdom.

So you have the resurrection of the dead. You also have the just judgment of God that is revealed.

And for those inside of Christ's body, the just judgment of God was at the cross.

Romans chapter three, the wrath of the father went upon the son so that all who would come to believe in him would be shielded from that wrath and enter into an everlasting abode full of rest.

That is what we hope in. But if you are outside of Christ, repent and believe the gospel.

We will see in just a moment that we are now living in a time of unmerited grace.

We are living in a time that every day you see the sun comes up, it simply means that God is long suffering.

It simply means that he is patient towards you, not willing that any of his people should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Why else would God prolong this existence? Every day you see the sun come up, understand that there is a sheep out there that is yet to be brought into the fold and to hear the gospel of their salvation.

Second Timothy 2 .10, this is why evangelism is always successful. 100 % of the time, the word of God sets out and accomplishes what it wants to do.

And so the just judgment of God is revealed when he returns. But the third point is that we will be with the

Lord. We will be with the Lord. And this is a concept that is not only true when he returns, but is true now.

It is the idea or the concept of the already, not yet. We are with God. We have the

Holy Spirit. Christ is within us, but it doesn't stop with what we have and possess right now.

It becomes much more glorious. It becomes much more great. I believe it was

Scripture that says, "'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, "'nor has the heart of man imagined the glories "'that

God has prepared for those who love him.'" Christ will come so that we are where he is.

This was what we read a moment ago in John 14, that when Christ returns, he's returning so that we are with him, that we are not left to ourselves.

And so with all of these thoughts in mind, I want us to go over to Acts chapter one.

Acts chapter one is the text I'd like for us to look at. This is the text that Dr.

Sproul highlights in his book. And in this text of Scripture, we are confronted with the simplicity of Christ's return.

But before we dive into verses nine to 11, I want to give some context as to what's going on right here.

I want us to get caught up to speed with what we're about to read. After the resurrection of Jesus, he spends 40 days walking upon the earth and he's discipling those who are following him and he's explaining the

Scriptures to his disciples who will then be the apostles that are sent out into the world. And he's talking with them and he begins with the law of Moses.

And then he goes to the Psalms and then he goes to the prophets. And he says that everything you're reading in your

Hebrew Bible, everything you're reading in the Scriptures are about me. They pertain to me. And I want to take this a step further and say, when you read of Noah's Ark, when you read of Abraham, when you read of Moses, we sang

Sunday, Christ, the true and better Adam, when we're reading of David or when we're looking at the temple, all of these things that we find in our

Old Testament, that is simply Christ. That is what we're reading. It's all about him from beginning to end.

And so Jesus says, it's all about me. And then at the end of these 40 days, he will ascend to be with the

Father. He will ascend to take his rightful place on the throne of David. In Acts chapter two, we see this come to fruition, but before he ascends, or not before he ascends, in the process of his ascension, we're going to read what takes place.

Let's look at Acts chapter one, verses nine to 11. And when he said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.

This is the ascension of Jesus. This is why when someone says, I want the proof of Jesus, you know, we can't give it.

Not entirely because his remains don't exist. His body was left behind. He has ascended to the

Father. And he says that he was taken out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven, two men stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?

This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

There is great truth here that needs to be unpacked. Here, the return of Christ is foreshadowed in the ascension.

The nature of his return is characterized here. The nature of his return is spoken of here by two men in dazzling apparel.

The question is then, what is this nature? What are we to expect with his return?

What are the characteristics of him coming back to us? And I believe as Dr.

Sproul points out in his book, it's threefold. It's number one, going to be bodily. The return of Jesus is a bodily thing.

He will return. You will see his glorified body. The men were standing and they were looking up into heaven as they saw him ascend.

And so that leads into the second point that it will be visible, that you will see him come back.

All men will see him return. And then the third is that it will be glorious.

It will be something that for the Christian is hopeful. It will be something that we can await with great eagerness and expectation, but for the man who is outside of Christ, yes, it will be glorious.

That fact will not be diminished, but it will also be horrific. It will be something that you will not want to see.

It will be something that in a sense will strike you as it struck Saul of Tarsus.

However, Saul of Tarsus had the opportunity to repent and believe. And when

Jesus returns, there is no more of that. Dr. Sproul said, in other words, the mode of Jesus's return will parallel the mode of his departure.

His departure was visible and he ascended on clouds of glory. Therefore his return at the end of the age will be just as visible and just as glorious.

And so let us be reminded of a hermeneutic. And you might say, well, that's a big word. What is a hermeneutic?

A hermeneutic is simply a method of interpreting scripture. It means that you can go to scripture and extract from it the right meaning.

It means that you can understand what it is God is trying to communicate without coming to wrong conclusions.

And so let's remember a hermeneutic as we approach this text. And the hermeneutic simply is this, that when we engage a topic that is difficult, and the return of Christ is one of those topics.

It is a topic that is difficult. It is a topic that as a moment ago was said, there is not a lack of things that have been said.

There is not a lack of resources and falsehoods and heresies in relation to it. Let us remember the hermeneutic, which simply states, we take the clear passages of scripture and bring them over to the unclear, more difficult, more seemingly obscure passages of scripture in order to understand them.

And when you do that, you can approach the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 with maybe not great ease, but better ease.

You can understand that Jesus is answering two specific questions, which is when will the fall of the temple, the destruction of the temple be?

And then when will his return be? And as many groups have done, they have conflated the two to mean and to be one in the same, and they are simply not.

And so if you have questions on the Olivet Discourse, let's please save those to the very end because there's much that I would like to get to that is not about the

Olivet Discourse. I do realize that half of the chapter was dedicated to that. But here we are.

Simply put, Jesus's return must be and will be bodily, visible, and glorious.

And we go back all the way to what we said a moment ago, which is simple truths of scripture should never become lesser or clouded due to a knowledge of deeper truth.

And so in light of the return of Christ, in light of his second coming, what is the message in regards to everyday life?

How does this affect me today on May 22nd, 2024? What does this mean for me when

I go home and I lie down at night to sleep or I rise in the morning and go to work? Some of you do, I don't,

I go in at three o 'clock. But what does this mean? How does this affect me? And again,

I think the answer is not only threefold, it can be answered in a number of different ways, but I wanna highlight three ways to you right now.

That is, number one, in light of the return of Christ being in the future and being this hopeful, glorious event that all

Christians ought and should hope in, we need to condition ourselves to find joy in difficulties.

We need to condition ourselves to find joy in difficulties.

In John 16, Jesus tells his followers that in this world, in this life, you will have difficulty.

You will have tribulation. You will have hardship. But he says, he doesn't leave them with the bad news.

He says, be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. And indeed he has.

In 2 Timothy 3, we have an exhaustive list of what we are to expect in the latter days.

And brethren, I need us to understand something, that we have been in the latter days for 2 ,000 years.

The latter days is not something that, well, right before Jesus returns, this is going to happen, or this is what's going to take place.

The latter days in 2 Timothy 3 is a description of man post -resurrection all the way up till now.

And it's a list that if you go and you read, these men and these women are God -haters. They hate

God. And so Jesus says, if they hate you, what? Know that they hated me first.

And oftentimes that can strip us of our joy when we encounter these kinds of people, when we encounter these situations.

And what we'll do is if we don't have joy, if we're not resting in what Christ has accomplished, and we're hoping in the return of him, we will be miserable.

We will be tempted to faint. And Jesus says, let not your hearts be troubled. He also says, be steadfast in prayer, that you may not faint, that you may not lose heart.

Luke 18, one, and so find joy in prayer. Find joy in communion, not only with God and prayer, but with saints and like -minded believers.

And if you don't have joy, you'll be tempted to give up. You'll be tempted to be that man of apostate.

You'll be tempted to turn your back on the faith, but rest assured that as Christ is the good shepherd, he will not let any of his people go.

He will hold them tightly within his palm, and he will not let you venture too far out into the pasture without bringing you back into the fold.

So condition yourself to find joy in difficulties. Number two, pursue holiness.

Pursue holiness, without which no one can see God, without which the kingdom of God will not be opened unto you.

In 2 Peter 1, there is this list of things that we are to add to our faith in order to experience the growth that in 3, verse 18 says we're growing up into Christ.

And in this list, about verses 10 and 11, he says that we're doing that in order to make way a clear entrance into the kingdom.

And I want you to see that the admonition is not to lose your salvation, it's to further confirm that you are saved.

That's what the admonition is. He says, make your calling and your election sure. So many people want to ask the question, and I've been asked this before by professors at school, and they say, well, how do you know that you're one of the elect?

How do you know that you're one of God's chosen people? Well, make your calling and election sure.

Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to all of these things, love and brotherly kindness, and all of the...

Jesus says, you'll know them by their love, John 13. He says, you'll know them by their fruit,

John 15. So you want to pursue holiness in light of the great truth that Christ is going to return.

Put sin to death in your life by the power of the Holy Spirit. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not deny the

Spirit. Do not suppress the Spirit. When the unregenerate man puts sin to death apart from the

Holy Spirit, he's no more putting sin to death than playing a big game of whack -a -mole. You say, well, what do you mean by that?

Well, what he's doing is he's suppressing pornography, he's suppressing alcoholism, he's suppressing hatred of someone, or whatever the sin might be.

He's suppressing all of these things, but what he finds in return is that there's another sin that crops up.

So he whacks this one down, and this one comes up, and it's just an endless, endless cycle.

But the Bible promises that the Christian, and he says in Romans chapter 8, we can put sin to death ultimately because we have the abiding

Spirit of God who has no fellowship with darkness. And so let that encourage you to pursue holiness without which, again, none can see

God. And then third, which might be a synopsis of the first two, prepare yourself for the

Master's arrival. Prepare yourself for the Master's arrival. And this includes being sober -minded.

Have your mind filled with heavenly things. Mind of the things of God, as Jesus said to Peter, mind of the things of God rather than the things of man.

And for this, I want to turn our attention to Luke chapter 12. In Luke chapter 12, we have a parable that is given by Jesus, but this parable was even asked by Peter, is this parable for all of us?

Or is this parable just for some of us? And Jesus answers that question not directly.

He very rarely does that. And so I want you to extract the principle here. Verse 35, stay dressed for action.

Some of you are not dressed for action. Sometimes I myself am not dressed for action. We're not suited up in the armor of God.

And so let us in this time of unmerited grace do so. Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home for the wedding feast so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks.

Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.

Truly I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.

If he comes in the second watch or in the third and finds them awake, blessed are those servants. But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into.

You also must be ready for the son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

And Peter said, which might be a question some of us have had, Lord, are you telling this parable for us all or only to some?

And the Lord said, who then is the faithful and wise manager whom his master will set over his household to give them their portion of food at the proper time?

Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you, he will set him over all of his possessions.

But if that servant says to him himself, my master is delayed in coming and begins to beat the male and the female servants and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of the servant will come on a day when he does not expect him, and in an hour he does not know and will cut him into pieces and put him with the unfaithful.

Now, I don't want to be, I don't want to take part in that. I don't want you to take part in that.

And so he furthers this point and says, the servant who knew his master's will, but did not get ready or act according to his will will receive a severe beating.

But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating.

Everyone to whom much was given of him, much will be required. And from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

And I know it's a lot there, but simply Jesus is saying, be ready for the return.

Be ready for the Son of Man's coming in the clouds of glory. Be ready for that bodily visible return.

And so if we're going to prepare ourselves for the master's arrival, we have to know and we have to implement the master's will.

What is the master's will? Oftentimes the question is presented, how do we know the will of God? Well, most of the time these people are not in their

Bibles. They're not in the Word of God because the Bible tells us what the will of God is explicitly.

It is our sanctification. In 1 Thessalonians 4, he says, this is the will of God, your sanctification.

And so in light of the return of Jesus, in light of the meaning that is ours for everyday life,

I want to direct our attention to the gospel. I want our attention to be directed at the most important, the most significant thing that you can ever hear about and believe in.

And here's the question. What does the return of Christ have to do with the gospel?

And I think it's summed up best like this. We are living in a time of unmerited grace.

We are living between the first advent of Christ and the second advent of Jesus, a time of grace.

Whereas a moment ago, we see that God is long -suffering towards his people. He has made a promise, and that promise extends all the way back to Abraham, that all of his descendants will be a partaker in the blessing that is found in his seed, namely

Christ. And so when we look at John 3, verse 17, we see this great truth, not

John 3, 16, which everybody knows, but John 3, 17, which is that the

Son of Man was not sent into the world to condemn the world. You see, we get this wrong sometimes.

Sometimes as Calvinists, we can misunderstand that or misapply it, but the

Bible says that the Son of Man was sent into the world the first time that the world through him might be saved, might be saved.

And so understand that we're living in this time of grace and that the opportunity for the gospel to be adhered to is now.

It wasn't yesterday, and it might not be tomorrow. It is now. Because in John 12, just a few chapters later, he says that on that last day, there will be one who judges you, and it will be the word that he has spoken.

Now, where do you find the word that he's spoken? You find it in the Scriptures. You find it in the

Scriptures alone. This is the sole infallible rule of faith of the church. And so let us adhere to the words of Christ.

In 2 Thessalonians 1, verses six to eight, this was a text that I misapplied for so long and tried to manipulate men into being baptized with, and the word doesn't come up in the text.

But nonetheless, Jesus says that his return will be in fire, and it will be a return of vengeance for those who know not

God and obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus. And so I want to remind ourselves, those of us who are in the body of Christ, to be encouraged in the gospel, to find hope in the return of Jesus, which we don't know the hour nor the day, but it will be soon revelation, and soon is a relative term.

I want us to find hope in that, but if you're not in Christ, and you know if you're in Christ or not, because your spirit is having witness bore with it with the

Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are born again. And so if you're in Christ, you know it.

If you're not in Christ, you know it. You know it, you know you're suppressing the truth.

You know that you are living a life of loved sin. And I want to call you to repentance.

I want to call you to faith in Jesus. What does that mean? What does that mean?

Are these just church words? Are these just words that we throw out? And well, we've heard this before.

What are you calling me to? I'm calling you to a life of sacrifice.

I'm calling you to a life of submission. I'm calling you to lay down your life and lose it so that you might find it.

For the brothers and sisters who are here, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who have died, who have fallen asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

Those who are in the world have no hope. They are striving after the wind. They are never satisfied with seeing.

They are never satisfied with hearing, but we have hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, since we've believed the gospel,

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 a 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. So we will always be with the Lord.

Therefore, encourage one another with these words. If you haven't read this book,

I would encourage you to read it. It's called The Five Points of Amillennialism. Adam was gracious enough to actually give me his copy, which if you know

Adam is marked up with all kinds of notes. And in this book, it speaks about the day of the

Lord. And the day of the Lord is an Old Testament concept. The day of the Lord is also a

New Testament concept. And the day of the Lord, when we're thinking of it in relation to the

Old Testament, it's oftentimes mentioned in light of a Syrian captivity of Israel or Babylonian captivity of Israel, that there's something coming to Israel that isn't good.

But there's times when the day of the Lord is talked about in relation to God's mercy,

His grace. And this book right here explains it this way.

The day of the Lord is one day in two phases. The first phase, front row people,

I'm spitting everywhere. The first phase is the first coming of Jesus.

The second phase is the second coming of Jesus, but it's headed under one day.

For those right now who will believe in the gospel and who will submit themselves to the truth therein, they will pass, according to John chapter five, from judgment into life.

There remains no more judgment for the child of God. You have been shielded by the cross.

You have been shielded by the first coming of Christ, which is phase one of the day of the

Lord. For those of you who continue to suppress the truth and unrighteousness, phase two is approaching.

And phase two is something that you want to avoid. Phase two is not something you will take pleasure in.

But again, understand that we are living right now in a time of unmerited grace. And so come to me, all you who laban, laban, that's a man in the

Bible, or heavy laden, laden, that one. And Jesus says, he'll give you rest.

Take his yoke upon you and learn of him for he is meek and lowly. And you will find rest for your souls because if you're outside of Christ, you have no rest for your soul.

You can say you do, but you do not. You do not have rest. And so let us dismiss in prayer.

And we're ending a little bit early, so that just means we have more good fellowship. All right,

Danny. I forgot, questions are a part of this. Oh no.

Yes. 317. Yes, sir. No, R .C.

Sproul did not go to his grave believing that. He's asserting that some other man believed

Jesus was delusional because he, again, didn't employ the hermeneutic of understanding that we take clear passages of Scripture and bring them over into the unclear passages so as to extract its meaning.

And you come up with all kinds of wild theories and doctrines and beliefs if you don't know how to study the

Bible. And I think a lot of scholarship has proven themselves to be amongst that group of people.

Are there any other questions? Are there any questions that have not to do with the

Olivet Discourse? Yes, Jaron. Right.

I want to make a prediction. No. The return of Jesus.

The return of Jesus for the Christian and for the non -Christian is designed to be ambiguous.

And for those who know their Bibles and have read what Jesus says concerning His return, it is purposefully ambiguous.

And that is so when we make a prediction, or we have, which we don't, but people who have made predictions, it is to, number one, show that they're a false prophet.

They're a false prophet because the words that they have spoken did not come to pass. And so if they're a false prophet, according to the

Old Testament, they are to be killed. And because we are not theonomists, we don't do that. But it's designed to be ambiguous so that conversion is pure.

And we understand that there will be tears in the wheat, but just think if we knew exactly when the return of Jesus would be, how many, it'd be like when 9 -11 happened, all these unbelievers flooding into the church, and that would contaminate the bride of Christ.

And so I think there's great purpose in us not knowing when that return will be. We've got to be careful though, because there are indications in Scripture as to what the last days entail.

And we are living in the last days. We just don't know how long the last days will be. Yes, Adam? Amen.

I'm thinking to kind of further that thought, a

Jew for the 400 years between Malachi and Matthew, a Jew, or 2

Chronicles and Matthew, a Jew should have been eagerly awaiting for Christ to come into the world.

And there is the temptation, as you are supposed to be eagerly awaiting the advent of Jesus, whether the first or the second, there is the temptation to become discouraged and say, well, he's never coming.

There's also the temptation of being foolish in trying to lick your finger and stick it in the air and figure out which way the wind's blowing and then come to wrong conclusions.

But they were to anticipate the first coming just as we are to now anticipate the second coming.

The reason is there's hope in that. There's hope. And the longer

I'm living, which I'm only 20, some of you are three, four score old, right? I said some of you, not all of you.

Some of you, like, you know that as the time draws closer and closer to your own death, that there is no hope in this life.

This is why when you have people who believe that Jesus returned in 80, 70, and that the institution of the new heavens and the new earth was right then and there, well, they just strip us of hope.

Because if we're in the new heavens and the new earth, death still exists, sin remains.

And where's Christ? Where's Jesus? I thought he said in Thessalonians, we will be with the

Lord in relation to the day of the Lord. Well, yes, we're with him spiritually, but we are not with him physically.

Yes, ma 'am. Yes, Laura. Well, you're two or three score old.

I'm just kidding. So I think this might have to do with the hypostatic union.

I think this might have to do with Jesus incarnate,

Jesus being in flesh, speaking here. Now, the temptation with this is to say, okay, can

Jesus be man and then turn that off and be deity, turn that back and forth?

I really don't know. I don't really know that scholarship or anybody else who have looked into that can really give you a concrete answer.

Adam, do you know of anybody who can give a concrete answer as to why Jesus said the son does not know when the return will be, his return?

And that is not to suggest that there's any disunity within the

Trinity. So we have to. Yes, Keith. Correct.

Amen. In fact, Hebrews 11 .1 says that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

So there's assurance and there's evidence. Faith is not acting blindly for ever since the creation,

God has made his divine attributes and power known through the creation. And so faith is not something we adhere to blindly.

But yes, hope and faith are tied very closely. In fact, Piper actually says that hope is another word for faith.

So there is that. Well, we were discussing the son of man not knowing when his return will be.

A lot of people have went through this book and they neglect the fact that Jesus said his words were spirit and life and still are spirit and life.

And they're wanting to pin authors against themselves. They're wanting to say, oh, there's a contradiction here.

There is a contradiction there. They're wanting to put a recent thing like this as to pin

Peter against Paul. Okay, a lot of people have done that recently. But understand that a contradiction is only there, anywhere, no matter what you're reading, when no plausible explanation can be given for it.

So if you can reason your way as to, well, the question Laura asked, which is, well,

Jesus said He didn't know when He was coming back. That is only a contradiction, definitionally, if there's no explanation as to what's being said there, as to a meaning there.

So be very careful when you're engaging with people who are asserting there are contradictions in Scripture based upon things like that, and remind them that a contradiction can only be had if there's no explanation that can be given.

Let me say one more thing before we dismiss. If you want to have your faith strengthened in the inspiration of Scripture, understand that this is a book that has been collected over the course of thousands of years by a number of different authors.

This is not a book that, as Jeffrey Johnson, sat down and wrote. This is a book that many men of different eras, epochs, traditions, cultures, sat down and wrote.

And yet, this book tells one coherent, cohesive story, and it's the story of love.

It's the story of God's relationship to the Son and the relationship that through the

Son, He has with a certain people. And so I want us to just be encouraged that this book here, the more you press into it, it will strengthen your faith.

Faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ. I really don't have anything else to say. Is there any last thought or question that someone might have?

Simple truths of Scripture, such as John 14, should never be overshadowed by a deeper truth which might be found in Revelation or might be found in Thessalonians.

You know, we can't lose sight of that. And that is the great temptation there.

So let's dismiss in prayer. We've got some little ones who are agitated a little bit. Father God, we bow in your presence and we approach your throne boldly, but we approach your throne humbly, knowing that we are sinners saved by grace.

I pray, God, that you would let your Word sink into the hearts of the people here tonight.

Pray that your Word will sink into the hearts of all those who hear, whether they are present with us right now or will listen later.

I ask, God, that we will find great hope in the return of your Son, when the new heavens and the new earth will be installed, when we will be with your

Son forever physically. I pray, God, that in light of this truth, we will wake up in the morning, have it be your will, serving you, serving others, and eagerly awaiting our blessed hope.