When Will Christ Return?

I accepted Jesus many years ago, but I still sin and I don't always perfectly obey.

Will I make it to heaven when I die? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. This is Bill Meyer along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can email us with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. And you can email us with your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, we have a sweet story to share with you about a little boy and his dog. Kyle Hansen has cancer, and when he was undergoing chemotherapy at Children's Hospital in Wisconsin, therapy dogs were what made him feel better. When he was diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma last year, Kyle was told he was eligible for a wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Well, Kyle's wish was for his family's two-year-old poodle Cooper to become a therapy dog. The team got Cooper into therapy dog classes, they had a trainer visit his home, and now Cooper is just waiting to get certified.

Make-A-Wish is also granting Kyle a private shopping spree for Cooper at a Bark and Scratch outpost in Milwaukee. What a sweet story, Bill, and maybe right now would be a good time to pray for Kyle and for his healing. Father, we want to lift this young man up to you, Kyle, and pray for him, Lord, that you would bring healing in his body. Lord, we know cancer is such a devastating thing, Lord, and our hearts break to hear that he's been suffering from this, and so we ask, Lord, as we lift him up to you, that you would heal him, that you would strengthen his body, that you would cause him to recover. Thank you for that sweet story that we were able to hear. We pray for your presence to be with him. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thanks for that, Adriel. Well, let's get to our first question of the day. Everett posted this on our Twitter account. Everett says, Why does Paul say that those who have faith are children of Abraham when Hebrews says that Jesus mediates a better covenant than the old one? These seem to me like two opposing attitudes toward the Old Testament.

How can I make sense of this? Yeah. Hey, Everett, thank you for that question. One thing that we have to keep in mind when we're thinking about the contrast that we often see in the New Testament in places like Romans or Hebrews or Galatians between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is that when the Old Covenant is being talked about, it's not really primarily referring to Abraham. Actually, the focus is on Moses and on the Mosaic Covenant, so I want to read the section that you quoted from in Hebrews 8. I'm going to do it in context, beginning in verse 6.

It says, But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old, as the covenant he mediates is better since it is enacted on better promises. For if the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. You think there, well, wait a minute, was God's first covenant with fault? Well, listen to what the author of the Hebrews says in verse 8.

For he finds fault with them. That is, the problem is not the covenant, it's the people who failed to keep the covenant. He finds fault with them when he says, and then here you have a quote from the prophet Jeremiah, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people, and they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more. Then the author of the Hebrews adds this, in speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first, that is the covenant that was made with Moses, obsolete, and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

And so you don't have a contradiction here. The focus is on how the new covenant is better than that covenant that the people of Israel broke, the Mosaic covenant, because they didn't keep God's law, and that's what led to the exile and all sorts of other judgments that God poured out on the nation of Israel because of their unfaithfulness to the covenant. They broke that covenant, and God said, Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make a new covenant. Instead of writing my law on tablets of stone, get this, I'm going to write it on the tablet of your heart.

I'm going to write my word, my law, on your heart. And when Jesus, if you remember when he's in the upper room with his disciples administering the Lord's Supper for the first time, instituting the Lord's Supper, he says, Take E, this is my body given for you. This cup is the blood of the new covenant, shed for the forgiveness of many. In other words, this new covenant where the law of God is written on our hearts, Everett, is instituted by Jesus. We are, as followers of Jesus Christ, members, participants in the new covenant that God has made with his people, with you and with me, by faith. Every time you take the Lord's Supper, it's the sort of covenant meal where we're reminded of the fact that God's law is written on our hearts.

So there's no contrast. We're the children of Abraham by faith, because ultimately those covenant promises were rooted in the promises that were made to Abraham. You really get this in places like Galatians chapter three, even in Romans chapter four, where Paul talks about the faith of Abraham. We follow in his footsteps by believing in God and in his promise, and in the promise that he gave to Abraham that one day his seed would bless the whole earth. And Paul says in Galatians that that seed, that offspring is Jesus. Well, Everett, by faith in Jesus, we are adopted into the family of God, and we are the children of Abraham. And that's why there's no contradiction again. Everett, thanks so much for your question.

We appreciate it. There are some confusing things sometimes when we're looking at the old covenant, and it's great to have Adriel clear those up for us. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

And Adriel, here's an email that came in from Peter. He says, I'm a believer and I'm wondering whether I should have a traditional burial or if I can get cremated when I die. Cremation is much cheaper than a traditional burial, but I know someday I will be resurrected. Will God be angry at me for taking the cheaper option financially?

I don't get an answer when I pray. Yeah, Peter, I think that this is a matter of personal conscience. The way we are buried does not determine whether or not we're going to be resurrected.

I love going and taking my kids to the Museum of Man over here in San Diego, this Egypt exhibit where they have all these old mummified, what are they called, sarcophaguses or whatnot, and they're painted and they have all these really colorful images on them. And as you know, probably just through some of the history courses you might have taken growing up, the Egyptians were really serious about how they buried someone because they had this belief in their religion that the way in which someone was buried and the things they took with them to the grave in one sense would contribute to their existence in the afterlife. Well, that's not what we believe as Christians. It isn't how you're buried that gets you into heaven. The question is, do you belong to the one who was buried and rose again?

That's the ultimate thing. Do you belong to Jesus? That's what gives us the hope of the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. And so I think that this question here in particular, and this is one that we also have received a few times on this program, I think it's a matter of personal conscience. I don't think that there's anything in the Bible that would forbid you from being cremated or from having a more traditional burial. I think it's a decision that you have to make and that you want to be able to make with a clear conscience. And there are some people who, for one reason or another, they don't have a clear conscience about being cremated and they feel like it would be a form of desecration of their body or something like that. And if that's the case for you, well, then don't do it if you can't do it in faith. But if you're confident that you belong to Jesus and you know, look, it isn't whether I'm buried or cremated that's going to get me into heaven. We're going to be raised again by the power of God. And God can raise us up whether we're cremated or buried. And I don't think, you know, you asked, will God be angry at me for taking the cheaper option financially?

No, I don't think so, because I don't think there's anything in God's word that clearly states that you have to be buried in this way. So I don't think you're breaking any of the commandments of Scripture here. Hopefully that frees up your conscience to make this decision.

And obviously you want to make this decision together with your family as well and with them in mind. It sounds like you're doing that. So God bless you, brother. You know, I was thinking, Adriel, there's also an historic precedent here, if you think about the martyrs that were burned at the stake. I mean, they didn't have a choice in that matter, or what happened with Nero in Rome. Those believers were burned. And yet we know we can have complete confidence that they are going to be with the Lord.

They are with the Lord right now. Yeah. One of the earliest stories of a Christian martyrdom that we have, it's the martyrdom of Polycarp.

It's recorded for us. I mean, you could read it, you could find it online, I'm sure. And it describes kind of his journey to martyrdom. It's sort of interesting because it seems like he's eager to die for his Lord. And he was burned. He was burned alive as a follower of Jesus.

And you're totally right. We know that he's in the presence of the Lord. He had faith in Jesus.

And so you're right, Bill. I mean, there are plenty of examples of different ways that believers have died and gone to be with the Lord and their bodies being treated in different ways. But the hope that we have is in Jesus, not in how our bodies were buried. Amen. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you've got a question for us, you can submit it through our website at corechristianity.com slash radio. Justin went to the website and he says, approximately when will Christ be returning? In how many years? I think it's between four and five, Justin, is the answer that I would give you.

It's so funny. We'd love to know, wouldn't we? But no one knows. And that's precisely what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 24 in verse 36.

Listen to what he said. Concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away. So will be the coming of the Son of Man. I heard recently from someone in my church that a well-known pastor had declared that we are now living in the end times. I mean, just think about everything going on with coronavirus and government and whatnot. I guess this pastor came out and said, we've reached the end times.

I don't know what day it was that he determined this. But there are issues with this. There are theological problems. One is you read the New Testament and you read the words of the apostles, and they very clearly believed that they were living in the end times, that the end of all things had come. Now we're waiting for the imminent return of Jesus Christ. It wasn't like they thought to themselves, well, the end times are going to be some time long ahead of us, 2,000 years from now, or that kind of a thing. No, they believed they were living in the end times. We've been living in the end times since the book of Acts. There's also a historical problem with this idea.

Now we're living in the end times. I think that we like to think that we are at the center of history, that we have it worse than everyone else, that now is the key moment in history and we're kind of at center stage. The reality is, and I don't want to minimize our current experience, that the fact is if we think we have it worse than the previous generations of believers, then we just don't understand your history.

We were just talking about Polycarp, who was burned alive for following Jesus. Whatever it is that we're suffering here in the United States, we're not suffering that kind of persecution. And so I think we want to be humble about this and realize, look, we live right now between the first and second coming of Jesus. And this time is a time of great trial for the church. There are difficulties, there are blessings that we experience, but there is also suffering and persecution throughout the world. Right now, there are more Christians being martyred every day than was happening, I think, in the days of the ancient church, because there's just so much persecution in places like the Middle East and in North Korea. So these are difficult times. But to say, now we're for sure in the end times and Jesus is going to come and let me give you a date.

Well, we can't do that. We've been in the end time since the book of Acts. Our job as followers of Jesus right now, Justin, is to be prepared, is to fix our eyes on the Lord.

There's this passage of Scripture that I think is really helpful in thinking about this. It's in 1 Peter 4, verse 7. Listen to what Peter says.

I think that this is just so fascinating. Peter said, the end of all things is at hand. Therefore, now note what he doesn't say. He doesn't say the end of all things is at hand, therefore, let's sell everything we have and move to the wilderness and stockpile on guns and food.

He doesn't say that. He says the end of all things is at hand, therefore, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of the varied grace of God.

Think about that for a second. Peter says, look, the end of all things is at hand. We're living in the end times, therefore, let's be hospitable.

Let's have each other over for dinner. Let's extend the grace of God to each other. Let's love and forgive each other. Let's pray. That's what we're called to do right now.

Yeah, these times are difficult for many of us, but I think we want to be careful that we don't begin guessing that the Lord is coming tomorrow or on this day or that day and that we focus on loving each other, praying, and serving the Lord with the time that Jesus has given to us. Justin, thanks so much for your question. This is Core Christianity, where we answer the questions that you have about the Bible and the Christian faith, and we have an amazing team of people behind us producing this show. They write the core articles for the website. They produce our core Bible studies.

These are the resources that are helping you and other believers more fully understand the gospel and have the confidence to share your faith. And as you can imagine, this requires a lot of different people to come alongside us and support this work. We can't do it without your prayers and your financial support. And that's why we're asking you to come alongside us and become a regular supporter of Core Christianity. With a monthly donation of $25 or more, you can join what we call the inner core and be part of the team that makes this show possible. Just head over to corechristianity.com forward slash inner core to learn more or give us a call at 833 the core. That's 833-843-2673.

Adriel, here's an email question that we received from a listener named Allison. She says, I accepted Jesus many years ago, but I still sin. How will I make it to heaven when I still sin?

I do not always perfectly obey. I'm still sinful. What if I'm not close enough to God? What if I don't read my Bible and pray enough?

Or if I don't do enough good works? Yeah, well, Titus chapter three, verse five, he saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. Meditate on that verse, Allison. He saved us. He saved you not because of works that you did in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.

In Ecclesiastes chapter seven, verse 20, we read, Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Your experience is the experience of every single other person who has sought to follow after the Lord. The apostles themselves, I mean, you just think about them. Peter, for example, sticking his foot in his mouth over and over and over again, even in the book of Galatians, needing to be rebuked by the apostle Paul because he wasn't walking in step with the gospel.

Or Paul himself and the various struggles that he had. He talked about the thorn in the flesh that he experienced, or Romans chapter seven, that continual battle. In Galatians, he talks about the battle between the flesh and the spirit, our flesh that wants to do things that are sinful, that are wrong, and the Spirit of God who is leading us to holiness, to the fruit of the Spirit, to righteousness.

There is this battle, and there isn't a righteous person on the earth, Allison, who does good and never sins. In fact, John makes it absolutely clear in his first epistle, in First John chapter one, verse nine, he says, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. In other words, if we say, I don't have any sins, or if you talk to a believer that says, Yeah, I've overcome all sin. It's really this great thing, this victorious Christian life.

Well, you can say to that person, actually, you're still struggling with not telling the truth. Because John says in First John chapter one, that if we say that we don't have any sins, we're lying and we're making God out to be a liar because his law condemns us. And then he says in chapter two, beginning in verse one, My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, who's the righteous one, Allison, it isn't me, and it isn't you. It's Jesus. And he's our advocate. And he is the propitiation for our sins, First John two, two, and not only for our sins, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Now, here's one thing I want you to know. And it's so beautiful. And I think it's so encouraging, Allison, for all of you, for you listening right now, you struggle with a sin, maybe a sin that keeps recurring in your life. And you just feel beat up. And you're wondering, God, are you are you done with me?

I mean, I would be done with me. You must be so fed up with with this continual struggle. And you're broken, you're weighed down by this. And I've talked to believers who they have this weight that they feel. And they're just so discouraged because they don't know what to do with this continual struggle.

They long to be freed from it. Let me tell you something. When you sin, John says here in First John two, you have an advocate with the Father. In other words, Jesus has not abandoned you.

He hasn't said I'm through with you. You failed again. Oh, my not again.

I can't believe it. No, that's not what he says. He stands on your behalf, and he pleads your case before the Father. You think about what Jesus told Peter. Satan has desired to sift you, Peter.

He wants to just eat you alive. But I have prayed for you. I have prayed for you.

You're going to be restored. Brothers and sisters, we have a high priest in heaven, Jesus, who continually makes intercession for us as the people of God. And when we sin, he doesn't say I'm through with you. I'm done.

Get away from me. He prays for us. He prays for you. What a comfort that you can have knowing that even when you fall, Jesus, your high priest, not only has he made propitiation for your sins, forgiving you all your sins through his blood and by faith in his name, but he still prays for you. Right now, he ever lives to make intercession for you so that when you fall, you have an advocate with the Father. And so your hope, Allison, is not in your perfect obedience. It's in the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ.

Look to him. When you're discouraged, when you've fallen, when you feel like I can't get up, raise your eyes to Jesus and cling to him. And rest in the fact that not only has he forgiven your sins, by faith, he's praying for you. And through his prayers, his people persevere. Hmm. Allison, I pray that that gives you a comfort in your situation.

Thank you so much for your email. This is Core Christianity. And we have time for one last question, Adriel. This one was posted by Monique on our Instagram account. She says, Is the kingdom of God something that exists today? Or is it something that we are waiting for in the future? Both.

Monique is what I would say. And I think you see this in the New Testament. Jesus, when he talked about casting out demons, he said, The kingdom of God has come upon you. Jesus came preaching and teaching the kingdom.

He said, Repent and believe the gospel, for the kingdom of God is at hand. There's a real sense right now in which the kingdom of God is here present. How is the kingdom of God here present?

Well, through the ministry of the word. The author of the Hebrews in Hebrews chapter six says that we're tasting experiencing the powers of the age to come. That is God's kingdom right now is breaking in on us. It's as if the rays of heaven are beginning to shine through the dark clouds that cover the earth and illuminate the world. And one day the glory of God is going to cover the face of the whole world. And the kingdom of God is going to be here in its fullness. And the picture there is the new creation at the end of the book of Revelation. That's what we're awaiting, the consummation of God's kingdom.

So there's a future element to it as well. And you see that, as I said, at the end of Revelation, the new creation where there's no more sun or moon. But the light of the Lamb, the glory of God, is what illuminates all things, the whole world. Right now, Monique, that light is already shining and breaking through the darkness, through the proclamation of the gospel, through the work of Jesus and those whom Jesus sends into the world to share the light of the truth, the light of the gospel. So it really is this wonderful thing that the kingdom of God exists today.

Right now it's been inaugurated. It's here presently through the ministry of the church and the life of believers. We are, Paul says, new creations. The new creation is already here. It started with you and all those who have faith in Jesus.

And one day that new creation is going to cover the whole world at the consummation of God's kingdom, which we await with eager anticipation. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at CoreChristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673.

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