He Is Coming Soon – Lead Up to Christmas — A Christian Growth Message

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And his mind went completely blank. But he decided that he would call it out once again in a loud voice, which he did. And then his mind went completely blank. So he decided he would give it everything he had. And he called out in the loudest possible voice. “Behold, I am coming soon” and fell over the front of the pulpit and landed in the lap of a little old lady in the front row and looking up at her, he said, “I’m terribly sorry” and she said, “Well, don’t apologise. You told me three times you were coming.”

Now, normally at Christmas, we look backwards to the coming of the Lord Jesus as a child, and that’s a good thing to do this Christmas, we’re going to look ahead to what is called the second coming of Jesus. One of the hymns that we sometimes sing at Christmas is the hymn O Come O Come Emmanuel, which is looking forward to the second coming.

And if you think this is a strange topic, let me tell you that there are at least 300 references in the New Testament to the end or the return of Christ. Now, why would we do this? Seeing as we are sensible people

in the early half of the 21st century and it’s been over 2000 years since Jesus promised to come, I mean, nobody is really expecting this. Nobody is getting up in the morning, hardly anybody and saying, Well, maybe Jesus will return today. The churches are extremely quiet about it.

There are, of course, some crazy people who’ve got their graphs and their charts who are telling you exactly when it will be, but they don’t know. But we should consider this subject of the second coming because time 2000 years is not an issue for God. The Bible says in the New Testament that 1000 years for him is like a day and a day like 1000 years. Time is a non-issue for God, and it’s also true that Jesus is watertight in his integrity. He doesn’t say things carelessly. He certainly doesn’t lie.

And also Jesus kept every other promise. Remember, he said to Peter, his disciple, you’re going to deny me. And Peter said that won’t happen. But it did, and he said to Judas, You’re going to betray me and Judas did. And he said to the disciples on one occasion, if you go around to the next village, you’ll see a donkey attached to a fence. Untie it, bring it to me. I’m in a riding into Jerusalem. And exactly as he said there it was. He also said to them on one occasion, If you go around the corner, you’ll see a man carrying a water jar, follow him up to a room and upper room, and that’s where we’ll have the last Supper, exactly as he said came true.

And the one thing Jesus said often in his life was that he would be arrested, crucified and rise on the third day, all of which took place well in our reading Luke, Chapter 21. There is an amazing example of Jesus ability to predict the future. He predicts the fall of Jerusalem, and that took place. And he also predicts his own second coming, which is yet to take place. So it’s as if he puts a telescope out a little way to predict the future. But he also puts the telescope out a long way to predict the future. Well, you can see in Luke Chapter 21 Verse five that the disciples had been hanging around the Big Temple and they were praising the temple, which was a massive building.

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Scholars tell us that some of the stones of the temple were 20 metres long, and therefore it was a very spectacular building. And in the very next verse, Jesus says it’s going to be completely taken apart. It’s going to be destroyed. And 40 years later it was destroyed by the Romans, and it was never rebuilt. So, as I say, Jesus put the telescope about 40 years to predict the coming of Rome, and then he puts the telescope out 2000 plus years to the coming the return of himself and because he got the end of Jerusalem, right? It’s pretty likely he’ll get the end of the world right, and he is certainly worth listening to. So I thought this Christmas time I would give you three things about the return of Christ, which are pretty sensible, sane and clear from the New Testament in order to help you to be clear and especially for you to be ready.

First of all, the second coming is going to be personal and global, personal and global. We read in Chapter 21 Verse 27. He says the son of man will come. It’s personal. This is how Jesus described himself repeatedly. The son of man. It was a loaded phrase. It sounded very humble on just the son of man, but it was also a heavenly phrase, which are the Old Testament said described somebody who was going to basically moved to heaven and take the throne.

So it’s a little bit like me saying a Clark Kent. The name doesn’t sound special to a person who is not in the know, but it sounds very significant for the person who is in the know well, this Jesus, the son of man who lived in this world and walked along dusty roads and taught all sorts of people and ate and slept and welcome Children and welcomed the outcast and healed the sick, and then died on the cross and rose on the third day and showed himself to many people.

Says he will return now. Nobody would talk like this except Jesus. The Buddha does not talk like this. The Mohammed doesn’t talk like this, But Jesus spoke of himself, existing before creation and being there at the end of creation. Therefore, if it’s true that Jesus may come at any time and therefore it’s not certain that you will die or that you will pay taxes, he may come before you do either of those things. The one thing that is certain is that you will meet Jesus. You’ll either go to him, Let’s say in 10 years or 20 or 30 or 40 or 10 minutes or he will come to you. Let’s say in 10 years 2030 or 10 minutes, but you and I will meet the king of Kings, that is for sure. It’s also going to be global, he says in verse 35. All who live on the earth will see the coming of the son of man, That is, it won’t be a little local visit like him sailing in through the heads of Sydney Harbour. No, The maker of the world that is Jesus Christ, who visited the world as a baby is going to return to the world and confront it so that everybody who’s still alive will see him Now I wonder whether this is too much to ask that we should believe this. I think a different question would be if Jesus, according to the Bible, has made the Galaxies and our planet is a tiny, tiny little grain of sand on the beach of a galaxy.

How does he even take notice of this planet? And why would he come and visit this planet and come as the tiny, tiny embryo in order to come and live and die and rise? Well, he came the first time very humbly changed the history of the world. His second coming, he says, will be in great power and he will complete world history. This is a day to look forward to a day where Christ will return and put everything right. That’s what we are longing for, looking for hoping for, and Christ says he will do it. I love the incident in the New Testament, where Jesus is in the garden, just about to be arrested and it’s dark and a group of people come towards him, led by Judas.

And there are the chief priests, the Jewish chief priests and there are soldiers and they come in the dark and Jesus steps forward and says, Who are you looking for? And they say Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus steps forward and he says This I am. Which is, of course, the exact phrase that means Yahweh or Jehovah. But what is fascinating is that when Jesus in the garden, in great weakness about to be arrested, announces himself to be, I am. The Scripture tells us that at this moment those who had come to arrest him ran behind one another and fell to the ground. If Jesus can do this in his weakness by speaking, what will it be like when he returns in his power?

So it’s going to be personal and global. Secondly, it’s going to be sudden yet predicted sudden verse 24 he says it will come suddenly elsewhere in the New Testament, he says, he’ll come like a thief. Come suddenly. Not that he’s going to be a thief, but thieves. Thieves don’t come in a predicted way, and he also tells us in the New Testament that he’s going to come in an instant.

Well, he reminded people often that he would return. And on one occasion he said that it will be like the flood of Noah’s day. Remember that there was the great flood of the past. There was one place of escape, which was the boat or the ark. And yet so many people ignored God’s warning and they had no answer, no escape when the flood came. And so says Jesus, his return, his second coming, is going to be unexpected.

It’s going to be sudden. It’s not going to be on the news. We’re not going to get a text from heaven. The only text from heaven will get is this text in the New Testament to tell us that it will be sudden in an instant, perhaps before today is out. Jesus will return. But it’s also predicted the whole Bible is full of predictions and promises For example, the Bible says that God will gather a nation which he did, and he will send a messiah, which he did. And he will build a church, which he’s done, and the return of Christ is coming. All of these are predictions, and you’ll see in verse 29 Jesus says on the matter of predictions or promises. Do trees get leaves before the summer comes obvious? Answer. Yes. Some trees get leaves before the summer comes. So says Jesus. There are signs to remind you I am coming and the signs that he gives a very general signs. They’re good for every generation. You don’t have to go looking for weird and wacky signs. Here’s one of them. Verse eight. There’ll be deceptive people. Deceivers, false Christ. So religious leaders who will claim to be the one who will come after Jesus?

Well, hardly a week goes by without me getting some crazy, wacky email from somebody with some crazy, wacky thing to listen to or watch. And the Jesus is exactly right. Deception marks the world, and then he says, Verse nine. There’ll be upheavals, earthquakes, wars, clashes, riots, protests. And then, he says, there will be dangerous. Verse 10 and disease.

And you see that for 2000 years these things have been a reminder to every generation that this world is an uncertain place. But Jesus did give very specific signs in Luke, Chapter 21 when it comes to the fall of Jerusalem. It was not a vague sign, he said. Verse 20. When you see armies surrounding the city get out of the city. And thousands of Christians remembered these words of Jesus. When the armies of Rome came and surrounded the city of Jerusalem, they got out of the city. They fled to the hills and they were spared. But thousands of Jews who did not listen or did not take notice perished in the city.

And Jesus also gives signs of the second coming, which are not small or vague. They’re not local signs like wars or earthquakes. They’re not even international signs, but their cosmic verse. 26 planets falling, the cosmos coming to an end, shaken by God.

And so you see, there are some unmissable signs where Jesus has predicted. These will be a continual reminder, but no dates are given. When Jesus will come. It will be sudden, personal, coming, global, coming sudden any day predicted. You’ve got reminders. I’ve got reminders every day that this world is not paradise.

The third and the last mark of the second coming is that it’s going to be wonderful and terrible. It’s going to be wonderful Verse 28 of Luke 21 because and this must be one of my favourite verses, he says. When you see the Christ coming, he says, lift up your heads, he says to his disciples. Lift up your heads because your redemption, your rescue is coming. And I imagine it will be an extraordinary thing to be on the earth for the return of Christ and to suddenly see the greatest person the world the universe has ever seen suddenly arrive in great love and great power. This will be a day, I say, where things are put right. It will be a day of justice. A day of indication. The most loving person who’s ever loved you will arrive, and when Jesus comes, he will make things right. Just as a builder hangs his sign on the fence of an empty block and it looks a complete mess. But the sign says that there is an expert who’s going to fix things. So Jesus has hung his sign on the world and things are going to be completed and his promises will be kept because he’s able to do it. And he’s willing. He made the world with his word. You can be sure that he will remake it with his word.

It will be a wonderful thing for a believer to see Christ come, but it will also be terrible. We re universe 26 that people will be terrified this day for the unbeliever, for the unready will not just be like a horror movie where you can sit and squirm and eat your popcorn. This is a day when those people who have avoided Christ or ignored Christ will realise their terrible mistake and they’ll hear the terrible words to part. I do not know, you know, wonder Jesus wanted to get people ready and there are two ways he wonderfully gets us ready. First, his words he tells us. Chapter 21 Verse 34 Don’t be dead. Don’t be deadened. Don’t be dull. Don’t be sleepy. Don’t be foolish. Don’t be put to sleep by sins and distractions and temptations. Don’t drug yourself.

Remember the 19th century people said that religion was the opiate of the people, meaning it deadened them. But it’s perfectly obvious, isn’t it, that the thing that deadens people to the things of eternity is selfishness and sin, the terrible treadmill of empty lives? A friend of mine said to me during the week that he thought that Christian he must be true because of the emptiness of the people who were against it. And Jesus said in John 10 10 he came that he might give life and life to the full.

Now the second way Jesus gets you ready. This his words. But there’s also his work. The work that he did at his first coming will get you ready for his second coming at his first coming, he came and lived a perfect life. I have not done that. You have not done that.

At his first coming, he came and died in the place of sinful people to pay my debts to pay your debts.

And he has died for the sins of all who trust themselves to him. And so when you look back in your mind and you say, Well, Jesus certainly came and he certainly lived. He certainly died and he certainly rose. I hope you’ll remember that at Christmas he was planning to go to Good Friday and then to Easter Day,

and you can see that his first coming where he came to pay and to remove the barrier of your sins that would keep you from glory is designed to help you to be ready for his second coming. Why is it that I can stand before you today and say, I’m ready to see Jesus and I’ll stand before him without fault and with great joy? I’m a very faulty person, but because Jesus is a great and perfect Saviour, it’s possible to stand before him without fault and with great joy.

Personal, global sudden predicted. Wonderful, Terrible. I want to finish by just quickly telling you of a Christian who was once at the university and was trying to talk to a non Christian friend about Jesus Christ, and the non Christian friend was not interested, and the non Christian friend was basically addicted to diving. He was a high board diver and after this Christian had spoken to the non Christian many times about Jesus and his love for him and his death for him and the non Christian was taking absolutely no notice whatsoever. This non Christian boy, the diver, went out one night in the middle of the night, went round to the pool complex to perform a dive from the top high board, which was illegal to do in the dark. And he climbed up the ladder and he walked to the end of the diving board, and he stood there, and as he stood at the end of the diving board with his arms out like this, he looked across the pool complex and he could see his silhouette on the back wall.

And as he stood looking at his silhouette with his arms outstretched, it reminded him of the crucifixion that his friend had been telling him about. And as he stood there with his arms outstretched, he remembered that he had been told that he could be forgiven and made new, and he sat down on the end of the diving board and he prayed a prayer, asking Christ to forgive him and to give him a brand new life. And as he was sitting there, praying on the end of the diving board. The man in charge of the pool complex pushed open the doors turned on all the floodlights of the pool complex, and the boy, who was on the end of the diving board, looked down to realise that the pool had been emptied sometime that afternoon.

What a terrible moment. What a wonderful moment! And everybody you see is on the edge of meeting Jesus. And therefore it’s an excellent time at Christmas or any time to ask him, the Saviour of the world to forgive and to make new.

Let’s Pray

Let’s bow our heads at this Christmas – “Our gracious God, we thank you for the gift of a Saviour who came in order that we might be ready to meet him when he comes. Please give to all who are gathered and to all who are hearing of Christ. That wisdom, that humility to turn and trust and live, we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.”