The Certainty of the Second Coming, Part 1 A

We live anticipating that Jesus will return, that with Him He will bring His reward to give to those who are faithful. We look to the coming of Jesus Christ because we know that it also relates to the reign and the dominion of Jesus Christ whom we love and serve and to the bringing in of eternal righteousness in an environment in which sin is forever absent. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. If you regularly follow the news, know that, generally speaking, things aren't much different now than they were ten years ago. One politician criticizes another. The stock market goes up and then it goes down. There are natural disasters and wars and threats of wars and it seems that life is largely the same year after year. Which raises the question, is this all there is? Is history just a recurring sequence of events with no ending point? Consider that with John MacArthur as he begins a look at biblical prophecy that he calls, Where in the world is history headed?

Now, you know, John, I imagine that our listeners are primed for this series. It's easy for people, even Christians, to get caught up in the here and now and maybe sense that there's no real end to all of this and that somehow God has backed away from human history. These next several broadcasts are going to be a good reminder that history indeed is headed somewhere. Yeah, and it all seems to be so bad. The news is never good.

It's always bad. And it's always almost hopelessly bleak as we look into the future. The fabric of our society is disintegrating like a rotten garment.

We see that. And sometimes we get caught up in the politics of it and we get caught up in the social and civil causes of all of that. And it's easy to become discouraged and get your focus on those kinds of things. But if it's any help to you, I don't care what the human institution is, it is crumbling. The whole world is crumbling.

Evil men are getting worse and worse. The Bible promises us that. But on the other hand, that being what it is, history will always cycle through the same process of nations developing and dying, developing and dying, developing and dying. The picture you want to have is what is God doing through history, right?

And that's what we're going to be talking about in a series from 2 Peter chapter 3, Where in the World Is History Headed? We're not caught up in some endless cycle. We're not caught up in a bleak, no-hope future. We're not trapped into the religious movements that come and go.

We're not a part of movements like environmentalism and evolution and secular humanism and education, things like that. We belong to the eternal kingdom. We are citizens of a city that is heavenly. We belong to a kingdom that cannot be shaken. We're going to launch a study into that. Make sure you listen every day. That's right, friend.

You don't want to miss a day of this study. So follow along with John now as he considers the question, Where in the World Is History Headed? As we come to 2 Peter chapter 3, we come to a section of Scripture that we could well entitle the certainty of the Second Coming...the certainty of the Second Coming. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ has always lived in anticipation of His return to gather His redeemed people...one, to destroy the wicked...two, and to establish His glorious kingdom...three. We have lived in that hope as have all believers before us and believers after us should the Lord tarry. We live in hope, says the Apostle Paul, and it is indeed the hope of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. That hope, according to the Word of God, is a motivator.

In fact, it may well be the greatest or among the greatest of all motivators for our joy, for our service, for our holiness. We live anticipating that Jesus will return, that with Him He will bring His reward to give to those who are faithful, that with Him will come eternal joy to some degree and in some way based upon the level of commitment and faithfulness we have exhibited in our lives. We look to the coming of Jesus Christ because we know that it also relates to the incarceration, if you will, of Satan, to the reign and the dominion of Jesus Christ whom we love and serve, and to the bringing in of eternal righteousness in an environment in which sin is forever absent.

So the coming of Jesus Christ is the great event, the great anticipation, the great goal, the great purpose, the great culmination of our Christian faith. Because it is true that the Second Coming has such tremendous potential for spiritual motivation in the life of the church, it is also true then that Satan works very hard to deny the Second Coming. If Satan can effectively get the church to look away from the Second Coming or even to deny it as a reality, then he can remove a rather significant spiritual hope, spiritual motivation. We are not then surprised that throughout the history of the church from the time of the New Testament, it has always had...listen carefully...on its inside skeptics who felt it was their role to deny the coming of Christ. The church has always had to endure the denial of the return of Christ. There are those who inevitably spiritualize it away and say the significance of the kingdom of Christ is nothing more than Christ ruling within you and Jesus is never coming back to this earth. It will never be any different than it is really.

We'll just keep on living and we'll die and we'll go to heaven in some sort of unending cycle of human birth and death. That kind of thing that removes this great hope, this great motivating force is a threat to the life, the energy, the impetus, the drive, the zeal, the passion, the effectiveness of the church in the world. Unless you think that I'm talking too much in generalization, let me just give you a little bit of a feeling for where the contemporary church is taking some of its cues. If you were a seminary student, any time over the last 50 years, particularly the last 25 years, and certainly in some seminaries even today, you would recognize some very familiar names that have influenced the theology of today. These names have caused a great impact on seminaries, universities, therefore professors, therefore students, therefore pastors and spiritual leaders, therefore they have impacted the church.

Some of those names you may recognize, some you will not. But I say again, if you were a seminary student, you'd recognize them all and you maybe need to know a little bit about their influence. First of all, a man by the name of Adolph von Harnack some years back wrote a book, What is Christianity? In his writings, which have been extremely influential in contemporary theology, you read this. The kingdom of God comes by coming to the individual, by entering into his soul and laying hold of it. True, the kingdom of God is the rule of God, but it is the rule of God in the hearts of individuals.

It is God Himself in His power. From this point of view, everything that was dramatic in the external and historical sense has vanished and gone to are all the hopes for the future, end quote. Adolph von Harnack is saying there is no second coming, there is no future kingdom, it is only a spiritual reality in the present.

He rejected completely all eschatological aspects of the kingdom of God. Another very familiar writer, I remember reading quite a number of his works when I was a seminary student, is a man by the name of C. H. Dodd who wrote one particular book called Parables of the Kingdom. This book has influenced many contemporary theologians. And if you were to try to understand Dodd more fully, you would come to the conviction without equivocation that he denies any literal second coming of Jesus Christ. He states that since the Lord did not in literal truth return on the clouds of heaven during the thirties of the first century, to expect Him thus to return in the twentieth century is to go contrary to primitive Christianity which is true Christianity. As a matter of fact, C. H. Dodd taught that the doctrine of the second coming is a myth and I'm quoting, the least inadequate myth of the goal of history is that which molds itself upon the great divine event of the past known in its concrete actuality and depicts its final issue in a form which brings time to an end and places man in eternity. The least significant myth is the second coming of the Lord and the last judgment, end quote. He taught, in fact, did C. H. Dodd, that the New Testament teaching of the second coming is sub-Christian. Karl Barth, well-known purveyor of what came to be known as neo-orthodoxy, held to what he called a timeless eschatology in which the coming of Christ is no longer understood as a future literal return of Christ, but said Barth, quote, it is a timeless symbol for the endless earnestness of eternity in every existential situation, end quote, whatever in the world that means.

You say, why are you telling us this? Because it is very important for you to understand that what Peter is dealing with in this chapter we are dealing with today. The false teachers who were plaguing the believers to whom Peter writes are also plaguing the church today. Then they were denying Christ's return and judgment.

Today they're denying it again. And, in fact, if you read through 2 Peter, this is a climactic point in the book. This causes Peter to take great care in chapter 3 to handle this potentially damning and destructive denial of the second coming and judgment. You need to remember that Peter is writing this brief epistle in an inspired effort to assist Christians to discern false teachers and to have the theological power and the spiritual resources to overcome their influence.

So Peter was facing false teachers, as we do, as the church does in every generation, and they've always been around who will deny the second coming and deny judgment. So as he opens this last chapter, that is what is on his heart. The first nine verses focuses on the debate regarding the coming of Christ and future judgment. Verse 10 affirms that judgment. Verses 11 to 18 talk about the implications of it on our conduct. So Peter takes direct aim here at a debate and it is an incredible passage. You're going to see things and learn things that perhaps you have never understood before, just as this passage unfolds. Now the debate has two side...side one arguments of the scoffers against the second coming, side two arguments of the saints for the second coming.

And we're going to do our best to see these unfold. Let's look at verses 1 to 9. Let me read them to you so you get a feeling for the flow of thought. This is now, beloved, the second letter I'm writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles. Know this, first of all, that in the last days, mockers will come with their mocking following after their own lusts and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.

For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the Word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water through which the world at that time was destroyed being flooded with water. But the present heavens and earth by His Word are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and the destruction of ungodly men. But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

We can stop at that point. In those nine verses is laid out this marvelous debate. And while in a cursory and first reading such as we just experienced, there may be more questions in your mind than answers, as it unfolds it will become very clear what is happening. The antagonism surrounds the question in verse 4. And the question is, Where is the promise of His coming?

Or we could translate it, What has become of His promise to return? Or to put it in a more scornful tone, Where is Jesus, all of you who said He'd be back? Arrogantly, they deny the day of judgment. They deny the return of Christ. They know what the Scripture says.

They have been in the church. They have been around certainly long enough to know the familiar sayings of Jesus. And they know, for example, in Matthew 10 23, Jesus said, Whenever they persecute you in this city, flee to the next, for truly I say to you, you shall not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes. They knew that. They knew Jesus claimed that He was coming. They knew the testimony of the angel given in Acts 1 who said, This same Jesus who is taken from you shall so come in like manner as you've seen Him go.

You saw Him go literally physically, that's how He'll come. They knew all of that. This is an outright denial of the teaching of Christ, the teaching of the Apostles. Now their argument takes three forms.

Follow this. First one is argument by ridicule...argument by ridicule. Verse 3, Simply knowing this first, that in the last days, mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? The first statement I want you to notice, mockers will come with their mocking.

That's what He says. Now this is the...this is the common ploy which I will call intimidation by sarcasm, scoffing, mocking, ridiculing. You're not one of those fundamentalists, are you? You're not one of those Bible bangers, are you? You're not one of those anti-intellectual people who just take everything at face value. You're not a non-critical thinker, are you? And you know, this kind of intimidation can work in this particular issue because it's an emotional thing.

This kind...ridicule, mockery, sarcasm, intimidation by ridicule basically works on people who are emotionally unstable, who are emotionally involved. You say, is that relevant? Very. Let me remind you of something. In the early church, they believed that Jesus was coming back very soon. You remember the questions of the disciples, will you at this time bring your kingdom, right? And the question of the disciples, what is the sign of your return? They believed it was immediate. In John 14 when Jesus said, I'm going away and I'm going to come back and receive you to Myself that where I am, there you may be also.

But before I come back, I'm going to go to the Father's house and get your room ready. And they believed it would be very soon. They tended to think it would be in their lifetime.

Their hearts were filled with anticipation. In fact, as you read through the epistles, there's a certain expectancy. You hear the Apostle Paul say, we shall not all sleep, right?

First Corinthians 15, 51, he includes himself. It doesn't say they or them that happen to be alive in the far beyond when it happens. We shall all be changed. The trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed.

We remember, don't we? First Thessalonians chapter 4, we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep that you may not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. If we believe Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. Then he goes on to say, then we when Jesus comes who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air and so forth.

There's no question. There was a high level of expectation that Jesus would come in their lifetime. One other text, James 5, 8 and 9, he says, You too be patient, strengthen your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

That's James 5, 8. They were living in expectancy. They were living in anticipation. The Lord didn't tell them when He was going to come.

They assumed it would be in their lifetime. I don't think there's any church in the New Testament that was more expectant than the Thessalonians. In chapter 1 of 1 Thessalonians, he identifies their steadfastness of hope in the Lord Jesus. In verse 10 he says they were waiting for His Son to come from heaven.

And then in chapter 2 verse 19, he says that you are my joy in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming. And then in chapter 5 of 1 Thessalonians and verses 1 and 2, as to the times and epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you for you yourselves know full well the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. So they were living in anticipation of His return. Now remember, the Thessalonians had a problem.

What happened? Some of their number began to what? Die. And they began to die.

They call it falling asleep because they knew it was temporary. And as they began to die, the Christians became very distressed because they had thought that everybody would sort of be alive and Jesus would be right back. And they began to grieve.

And they began to be worried about those that died. Would they miss the rapture? Would they miss the return of Christ? Would they miss the kingdom?

Would they miss heaven? And it was those kind of questions and queries in their mind that prompted Paul to write as he did in 1 Thessalonians and also in 2 Thessalonians. Why the delay? And so there were many Christians who had expected the Lord to come quickly and when He didn't come, mark it, they got emotionally involved. They became disappointed. They didn't understand it. And their friends were dying.

And when these mockers came and began to ridicule them, it was effective when it hit those that were emotionally upset. Where is Jesus Christ, you guys? Isn't He supposed to be here? I mean, it shouldn't have happened long ago.

I mean, people are dying off over here, capitalizing on their emotional disappointment and their sort of personal trauma. This particular ploy became effective. So Peter says to them, know this, you've got to understand some things. You've got to understand how the scoffers are going to work. You've got to understand how they're going to operate.

I've got to warn you about their plan and their MO. First of all, he says, first of all, by the way, that is not the first in a list of things, that's the pre-eminent, that's the priority thing. It is a priority that you know how they are going to try to steal your hope because if they can steal your hope, they can feed your flesh and they can take away your motivation and your joy. Peter knows how critical a strong confidence in Christ's return is. Boy, when he gets to verse 11 through 18, he really lays out the practical impact of believing in the return of Christ. And so Satan works very hard to take away that hope. You show me a liberal theologian, you show me one who doesn't believe in the truth of the Scripture and I'll show you someone every time who will deny the second coming of Christ. So Christians need to know that Satan is going to make the effort to mock the second coming. Here we are sitting here 2,000 years later and when the mockers come along and say, say folks, where is Jesus?

Where is He? I mean the folks back in the first century were upset that He wasn't around. Here you are 2,000 years later.

Don't you think the whole thing is a hoax? And just maybe there are some folks who have been distressed enough in life and burdened enough in life and disappointed enough in life and longing for the coming of Jesus Christ and it hasn't happened that maybe this is pretty intimidating stuff. And maybe they're going to say, maybe it's just a spiritual thing and then the Kingdom comes to your heart and that's it and we just live our life and die and go to heaven and there isn't ever a coming of Christ and there's never a Kingdom and there's never a time of real reward and there's never a time of judgment.

We'll just kind of pass that all off. So Peter puts it in perspective. He says, back to verse 3, in the last days, I need a comment on that phrase. It's a common New Testament phrase and a common New Testament idea taken out of Isaiah 2. It refers to the era since Christ came the first time. It refers to the New Testament age. This is the last days. It just means the time of the New Covenant, the time after Christ, the entire time from the first coming to the second coming. Had we time, I would take you to passages.

You might want to note them. Acts 2.17, 2 Timothy 3.1, Hebrews 1.2, 1 Peter 1.20, 1 John 2.18 and 19, James 5.3. But repeatedly in the New Testament, the phrase, the last days, refers to that entire period of time from the decisive event of the arrival of Messiah to His return. It is all the last days.

It is all the last days. And I love what J. N. D. Kelly says in his commentary on 2 Peter. He says that this entire age is to be marked, quote, by the emergence of saboteurs of sound religion, end quote. And the saboteurs are out there trying to sabotage the second coming. And they've been doing it since Christ came throughout all the last time. Now would you notice again in verse 3, Peter says, mockers will come.

Future tense. This is prophetic but because he is prophesying very much the same words as in Jude 18 in the last time there shall be mockers, Jude says it that way. Because he is prophesying, he's saying that from now on throughout the last days this is going to be true. Now that doesn't mean that he's saying it's not true then.

We know it was true then. You remember in Matthew 24 that the Lord said this would happen also. The first thing the Lord says in response to their confession, verse 4 is, see to it that no one misleads you about My return, for many are going to come in My name saying I'm Christ and mislead many. Down in verse 11 He says many false prophets will arise and mislead many. Over in verse 23 there are going to be some coming saying here is Christ and there is Christ and false Christs and false prophets arise and show signs and try to mislead, if possible, even the elect.

I'm telling you in advance. A lot of false doctrine, a lot of false prophets. So Peter, echoing as it were, the words of our Lord says it's going to come. But he's not denying that it exists right then.

In fact, it's not even new. You want to go back into the Old Testament and you can find those who mocked God. You can go back into Isaiah 5 and hear that terrible mocking of verse 19, the sinners say to God, let Him make speed. Let Him hasten His work that we may see it. Let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come to pass that we may know it. The prophets said God's going to judge you and the mockers said, well then let Him have at it.

Let Him do it. Hurry up, God. If you're really there and you're going to judge us, let's see you do it. They shake their fist in God's face, mocking the prospect of judgment. No, that isn't anything new. It's always been around. There have always been those who mocked the threat of judgment, mocked the promise of judgment.

Nothing new at all. Shaking their fists at God, a foolish response in light of the direction history is headed. And truth from John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, and his study here on Grace to You is titled, Where in the World is History Headed? A friend, if you want to listen to these lessons at your own pace, you can get Where in the World is History Headed on five MP3 downloads when you get in touch with us today. These are free downloads. To get them, visit our website, gty.org. These lessons and all of John's sermons are free to download in both MP3 and transcript format. There are over 3,600 messages in the sermon archive, so take advantage of all that biblical teaching at gty.org. And while you're at gty.org, I encourage you to download the Grace to You app for your smartphone or your tablet if you haven't done it already. You can access all of John's sermons from the palm of your hand or even on your smart TV, and that includes John's current study, Where in the World is History Headed? There are Q&A sessions, episodes of Grace to You television.

To learn more about the free Grace to You app, go to gty.org forward slash apps. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for joining us today and be back tomorrow as John continues to answer the question, Where in the World is History Headed? with a look at a future catastrophe that will surpass any disaster that mankind has ever seen. How do you prepare for it? Find out when John returns with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You!