End Time Dread Appearing of Christ — E.A. Johnston

Christ's Return as Judge

This message, friends, is on the end times and the false conception that many have in regard to Jesus Christ and His return. Few really understand the true character of Christ and His second coming at the end of the world.

Christ's Enemies Made His Footstool

Jesus today is full of compassion and mercy in regard to saving lost sinners, but when He returns, the day of grace is ended, and He comes not as a Savior, but as a Judge. Now He sits at the right hand of the Father, and Psalm 110 informs us what the Father tells the Son, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

But a day fast approaches when the awful moment occurs that Christ will rise up from that throne and head to earth in fulfillment of the Father's decree. Listen, friends, Christ is coming to make His enemies His footstool.

If you are under the blood and born from above, then you are a friend of Christ Jesus. But if you are not truly born again, then you are an enemy of the Lord Jesus. And when He comes in power and glory, it will be to stick His foot on your neck and crush you like you would crush an ant with your foot.

The Dread Appearing of Christ

The dread appearing of Christ at the end time should put a holy fear in each of us, but few think of Jesus along those lines today. He is only a God of love and not wrath. But listen to me, dear friend, Christ's dread appearing will make strong men quake in crap and terror.

And that's the title of my message this evening, End Time, Dread Appearing of Christ. For our fear friends, we think of Jesus along the wrong lines today. We put Him on our level and we speak about Him like He is a man like us.

But He is not a man, but a sovereign king over all mankind. He now sits at the right hand of the Father, and He earned that right by way of a bloody cross. But a day is fast approaching when He will rise from that throne and come again to judge the quick and the dead in a terrible day of judgment.

And He will make then His enemies His footstool. He will put His foot on the neck of those Christless souls on that day. It will be a day of dread and terror. Let me ask you a question, friend. Do you think we are living in the last days before His return?

Examining the Reality of Salvation

Do you? You'd almost have to be a hermit in a cave not to know and recognize the signs all around us which speak of the end times in which we live. He's coming back for His blood-purchased bride. Let me ask you, friend.

Are you truly saved? Are your sins washed in His blood? And are you born from above through the new birth? Has God ever performed a work of grace upon your heart through regeneration? Have you truly repented of your sins?

Do you live for God's glory? And do you pursue a life of holiness unto the Lord whereby every day you're continually turning from this world and sin to God and repentance and exercising your faith in Christ Jesus?

Or is it all about you? Is your salvation something that you did 20 years ago and you put it away in a tin can and call yourself a Christian? Are you living above the world or are you saturated with the world?

Perhaps you may be resting on a false hope of carnal security and a good opinion of yourself. If you are outside of Christ, friend, at His return, His arm of judgment will sweep you away and you will be an object of His wrath.

The Wrath of the Lamb and the Guilt of Sin

Your crowd is so spoken of in Revelation chapter 6 and verses 16 through 17. Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him that sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of His wrath has come and who shall be able to stand?

I'm afraid we live in a day, friends, when the church does not speak of Christ in these terms of His dread appearing at the end of the world. We have softened Him up to where the Jesus we preach wouldn't hurt a fly.

But this sin-loving society and inferheld church membership needs to be warned of the coming day of terror of the Lord and those who are unwashed in His blood will be damned for all eternity. There'll be no mercy to be found on that day, friends.

No mercy, only judgment. For the sentence under the law must be carried out and all men are guilty lawbreakers who have sinned and transgressed the strict and severe law of God. They just didn't break that law once but have continually broken it time and time again throughout their lives and their sins are stacked up.

They rise up like a great mountain, indicting them. And when Christ returns as the dreadful judge, He will carry out the sentencing for all who have broken that strict law. Perfection's the only way to get into heaven because God requires perfection to get into His heaven.

And no man is perfect. All are guilty rebels who deserve hell's punishment for sin. Unless your sins have been pardoned by the only sin substitute, Jesus Christ, His blood washes all sins away. You must get under the blood to escape the fury of His dread appearing at that coming day of final judgment.

Matthew 24 and the Signs of the End

Turn in your will and your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew. We'll be in chapter 24, friends, for in this chapter are given the conditions of the world and the last age, the age in which we live. Let me read this striking passage of Scripture to us now at this time.

And it's my prayer that the Spirit of the Lord will be pleased to attend the reading of His holy word. Here are Christ's words beginning in verse 5. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many, and ye shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars.

See that ye be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines, and pestilence, and earthquakes in divers places.

All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then they shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold, but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. I will stop there. Let me ask you, friend, is iniquity abounding in your day and mine?

It seems as if a filthy sewer has been poured out over entire nations. Let me ask you this. Has the love of many gone cold? Why are there so many murders today? Why are so many parents killing their own children?

Why has the world gone crazy in the last twenty years? We live in a day when evil is called good and good evil. In many of our churches we have the blind leading the blind. Many live in a drunken stupor of sin and self-indulgence.

Most church members today want to grab as much of the world as they can and still call themselves Christians. But Christ's sudden appearance will take the sleeping world by surprise. Verse 27 speaks of His sudden appearing.

For as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. This speaks of His sudden dread appearing, a day when the world's pleasures and business will be suspended.

All business enterprise will come to a screeching halt on that day. All the sin-loving devils on that day will scream for mercy, but there'll be no mercy to be found. The day of grace will be ended. It's only judgment time, a time for the dread judge of all the earth to place his foot on the necks of his enemies as he makes them his footstool in fulfilling the Father's decree.

The Days of Noah and the Sudden Coming

The end-time dread appearing of Christ will shock the sin-loving world to its core. Sinners be crying out for the rocks to fall on them to end their misery. It's no longer a day of grace, but one of wrath.

The sinner's doom is sealed. It's fixed and final. All that's left is judgment and punishment for sin. Jesus spoke of this end-time in comparison to the days of Noah. In verse 37 through 39 we read,.

But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away.

So shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. Listen, friends. There was a society back then, as Noah was pounding away on the ark, getting it ready for that terrible wrath-filled flood that swept away an unprepared world that was deaf to the warnings of a holy God, rather than heed the warnings of that preacher of righteousness, which was Noah.

They mocked him, just as they mocked the Lord himself when he was here in his earthly ministry. Jesus went about doing good. He healed the sick. He gave sight to the blind. He made the lame walk, made the deaf hear, and he even raised the dead to life.

And how did the world respond to him then? They said, Away with him, crucify him, we will not have this man to reign over us. And they beat him, and mocked him, and nailed him cruelly to a tree. So the people of Noah's time mocked him as well, as he hammered away on that ark beneath a sun-filled sky, with not a cloud in sight.

But the clouds of God's wrath were gathering on the horizon, ready to burst upon their sin-loving heads. And today, the world mocks God, and shakes her angry fist in his face, and dares him to do anything about it.

We've legislated God out of our land, forsaken his laws, and we mock his holy word by defying it, through calling evil good, and legalizing it, and promoting it throughout the land. The Roman soldiers spit in the face of Christ when they cruelly mocked him.

And the nations of the world spit in the face of God today, as they mock him and defy him still. But the end-time dread appearing of Christ is on the horizon, friends. He is slowly rising from that throne, beside the Father.

And he will rise up, and come again, to fulfill the declaration of the Father. Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Christ is coming, friend. And soon his dread appearing will be in a fast approach and tempest of judgment.

The Delayed Coming and Judgment of the Unfaithful Servant

And because of divine delays in the evil hearts of men, the world presumes upon time as if they had all the time in the world to eat, drink, and be merry. But Jesus declared, If that evil servant shall say in his heart, My Lord delayeth his coming, and shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken, the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Listen, friends. There will be terrible crying and wailing in that day, for no mercy shall be found. The day of grace has passed. All that's left is for a poor sinner to be damned to hell. Oh, the shrieks of terror and anguish on that day will shake the entire earth.

Noah's Generation and the Corruption of the Earth

Jesus compared the end times to the times of Noah. Well, what were they like? Let's take a look. Turn in the book of Genesis, if you will, and let's see for ourselves. Turn in your Bibles to Genesis, and let us read for ourselves about the weakness of the world and Noah's day, which so provoked the wrath of God.

Look at Genesis chapter 6. Let me read us verses 11 through 13. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence, and God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them, and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Let me ask you, friend, do we live in a day when violence fills the earth?

Every headline you read is a story about more bloodshed and violence each and every day all across this violent earth. And man has corrupted his way upon the earth through grievous perversions, which provoke a holy God to wrath.

As Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire, so the wicked in Noah's day were destroyed by flood. A flood and fire, God is a consuming fire, and Malachi states that his anger burns as an oven. The end time, dread appearing to Christ, will come suddenly upon the inhabitants of this violent and corrupted world, who shall stand in that day.

Christ as the Ark of Safety

In Noah's day, the wicked world was heedless of God's warnings and unprepared for the judgment of that flood. They refused to take refuge in the only ark of safety that could save them. So they perished, except Noah and his family.

Listen, friends. Jesus Christ is the ark of safety today. Flee to that refuge now, before it's too late. Get under his blood, repent of your sins, turn from your wicked ways, and seek God in earnest now.

The Fig Tree and the Final Call to Repentance

What's that I hear? I can almost hear the midnight cry. The end time, dread appearing to Christ, fast approaches, Jesus told his disciples. Now learn a parable of the fig tree. When his branch is yet tender, and put her forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh.

So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Let me ask you, are you saved, dear friend? Please do not delay any longer. Look to your only refuge from the coming storm, Jesus Christ.

Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. For I am God, and there is none else. Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found. Call ye upon him, while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

And let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him. And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.