His Coming Is Sure . . . Are You?, Part 3

Today, on Insight for Living from Chuck Swindoll. There will come a time when the Lord Jesus chooses by the Father's command to come. When He does, the generation of believers alive will be changed in the flash of an eye at the last trauma. The dead will be raised and the living along with them changed into imperishable bodies brought to be forever with the Lord. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, all those who've put their faith in Jesus Christ will be rescued from this earth. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll continues his classic 22-part series called Growing Deep in the Christian Life. In this study, he'll be talking about the glorious day when Christ returns, and in particular, he'll explain how to gauge whether or not we're ready for that encounter. Our study begins in Matthew chapter 24. Chuck titled his message with a question. His coming is sure.

Are you? I want to show you from several verses of Scripture, and I promise not to take you through all 23 of the 27 New Testament books, but I've chosen a few of them. Matthew chapter 24 is a great place to start. Let's go from one passage to another and just see what Jesus has said about his return and what the Apostle John has said. Matthew 24 verse 42. Jesus is speaking. Therefore, be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.

But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason, you be ready too. For the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think he will. Chapter 25 verse 31. But when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. This kind of teaching must have stunned the disciples.

You see, they looked forward to the establishment of his kingdom, and they would see the overthrow of Rome and all the enemies of Israel. But then one dark night, Jesus had his last meal with them, and he unfolded the awful truth that they just must have wanted to stop their ears from hearing, I'm going to leave you. John chapter 14, he develops the thought of what that meant for them.

John 14 verses 1 to 3, he says, Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you.

Now watch this. For I go to prepare a place for you. See, it's very important that you understand heaven is a place, that our eternal destiny is a place. It isn't a dream, it isn't a spirit thought.

Don't let any of the mystical religions confuse you. It is a definite place, a place which he is preparing for his own. Verse 3, And if I go and prepare a place for you, mark it, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. The Lord Jesus says, I will come again and I will receive you unto myself.

That's a promise from his lips. Now 1 Corinthians 15, 50. After a wonderful statement on resurrection, the Apostle Paul causes us to see a transition in verse 50 of this chapter. Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Understand what he means. He is talking to people who are earthlings and people who have been earthbound all their lives. Therefore, we are people in the process of dying. Now in order for these bodies of ours to last throughout eternity in what he calls here the kingdom of God, there must be a change so that our bodies are made ageless.

He says it again in verses 51 and 52. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

Now first understand the mystery of Paul's day meant something that was like a secret. It is this, that there will be a generation alive at the time Christ comes back. And those living believers at the time he splits the clouds and comes into the heavens for us, those believers like the dead ones that will be raised, those believers who are alive will also be changed. And missing death, they will join the dead believers and all of them glorified in bodies, they will be joined to be with the Lord forever. Now many of you who have heard this teaching since you were little children say, why that's well known, but it wasn't then.

No one had ever taught such a thing. It was called a mystery in God's program. There will come a time when the Lord Jesus chooses by the Father's command to come. When he does, the generation of believers alive at that coming will be changed in a moment in the flash of an eye at the last trump. The dead will be raised and the living along with them changed into immortal, imperishable bodies.

They will be brought to be forever with the Lord. Now he says in verse 54, when the perishable will have put on the imperishable and when the mortal will have put on immortality, men will come about the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? Paul didn't get that from Shakespeare.

Shakespeare got that from Paul. That will be the final death knell to death. Up till now, he is king it seems.

He comes into every home. He visits the life of every person who has ever lived, no matter how great or how cruel, how good or how bad, death comes. And as he's often pictured like the grim reaper, he cuts us down to size. But when that occurs in our lives, never again will death have charge of us. We will begin a timeless, ageless existence. Now from 1 Corinthians 15, go to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4.

Remember now you have nothing to worry about regarding the condition of the body when death occurs. We shall be changed. The one who made our bodies from nothing will have no difficulty making us again, if necessary, from little bits and pieces. He'll be able to put us all together. First Thessalonians 4, 13, but we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren.

I want to point out four things I observe that are, I think, worth noting. First, we are to be informed, verse 13 tells us. Ignorance is not bliss. The Lord doesn't smile on us when we say, as we think about the future, well, nobody can know for sure, we just sort of hope things come out all right.

That's an ignorant response. He wants us informed. We are to know what's in front of us, at least the broad brush strokes of his plan. Second, we are not to grieve as those without hope, see verse 13. I 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.

Now again, let me put your mind at ease. Death brings sorrow. Sorrow brings tears. Tears are part of the grieving process. He never tells us don't cry, don't grieve. He says we are not to grieve as those who have no hope. I am saddened when I see parents, well meaning though they are, chide their children for crying because a loved one dies. Crying is the most natural thing when we lose something important to us. It's grieving as though we have no hope that he speaks against. We have every reason to grieve and to be sad but not as the hopeless. You see, we have an answer beyond the grave.

That's what ultimately brings comfort. Now third, we are to face death without fear. Verse 14 is the way we can do it. If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. Now the reason I emphasized and rose again, what if he had not risen from the grave?

He wouldn't give us much hope beyond the grave. I often think of the followers of the cultist. They die. They look next to them in the grave and they see the cultist. He's still there.

If he didn't get out, how is he going to get them out? But from the time you die, there will never be a witness of the dead Jesus. He has been raised. He has come from the grave.

The tomb is empty. Because he died and rose again, he can give us an answer to sin, death, and the grave. If we believe in him, then we are ready to be taken with him. He will bring us those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and remain, here we are again, the ones who are living at the return of Christ, we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. Fourth, we're to know the order of events.

Here they are. The Lord himself will descend from heaven. I like the way Phillips writes it. One word of command, one shout from the archangel, one blast from the trumpet of God.

Isn't that great? Perhaps simultaneously in one great unison, one great voice, one great sound, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them.

Whom? The dead who have been changed, who have been raised ahead of us will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet our Lord in the air and thus we shall always be with the Lord. It's the conviction of this ministry that our Lord Jesus will come for us in the sky, in the clouds. There will occur on this earth a time of awful judgment, a time of unrestrained pain and tribulation, following which our Savior will return to this earth and establish literally the fulfillment of his promise to Israel, a thousand year reign over this earth as he serves as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. My personal belief is that the return of the Lord Jesus for his own as described in Thessalonians and in Corinthians is prior to that awful time of tribulation on the earth and prior to his establishment of a kingdom over which he will reign as King before what we call heaven begins. Now the most important thing for you to understand is that he is coming again and secondly that it is a comfort to you because you have believed in him. That's the most important thing. Be sure that the thing or the one you believe in has conquered death otherwise he won't get you out.

Hell awaits you. The only way to get beyond the grave is to place your trust in one who has gone before you and has paved the way. I think there are a couple of three ways we reveal our readiness. First, we continue to walk by faith. We don't walk by sight, we walk by faith. Second, we continue to live in peace. We view our future not with panic but with peace. And third, we rely on hope.

The hope that gets me through the tests on this earth is the same hope that will get me through the grave at death because the one in whom I have believed has gone before me and has paved the way. Now I have a confession to make to all of you. It may seem unrelated but when I finish this message you'll know why it's tied in. I love mysteries. If I have a chance to read just extracurricular stuff I'll often pick up a mystery, sometime even a murder mystery. I felt guilty about it until I read in Christianity Today that J.I. Packer devours mysteries. I suddenly felt pretty spiritual after I read that. So if you're going to pick on me for liking mysteries pick on J.I.

Packer too. I wonder if he likes Alfred Hitchcock mysteries because I do. I watched one on the tube not long ago and because it illustrates so perfectly what I'm trying to say I want to close with his story. There was a rather wicked two-faced woman who murdered an individual and though she had done wrong earlier and gotten away with it always it seemed escaped from the ultimate penalty of her crime. This one they determined to be her last. The court found her guilty and though she screamed into the face of the judge she would escape from the next prison they put her into. They put her in prison. She took that infamous bus ride into the walls that would be marked by bars and fences and she noticed something on the way in that later she remembered. She realized the only way to get out of the prison was to know someone who had the key to the door to the gate. It happened to be the man who assisted in the burials of those who died within the walls.

He was an old man who actually built the caskets and placed the remains from those dead prisoners in the casket and then had the job of rolling the old cart out to the grave site outside the wall and then placing them in the grave. She said to him through a chain of events too complicated and unnecessary to mention that it would be worth his while if he would help her escape. No ma'am I can't do that.

Oh yes you can. As a matter of fact I have all the money you need outside these walls for your cataract surgery and if you hope to see again you better help me out of this place. He reluctantly agreed and the plan was as follows. When she would hear the toll of the bell which signaled the death of someone in the prison she would slip down to the place where the caskets had been made and she would find the casket where there would be the corpse and she would if you can imagine slip into the casket.

I love stories like this. She would slip into the casket and pull the top down tightly. He would roll her along with the corpse in the casket out to the place of burial, drop it in the hole, pour the dirt on it and the next day come back, uncover it, pry the top loose and set her free.

Perfect plan. Late one night she heard the bell toll. She slipped off her cot, made her way down an eerie hallway and looking into the room she saw the casket.

Without hesitation she lifted the lid and slid into the box and pulled the lid down tightly. Within a matter of hours she could feel the wheels rolling as they were making the way to the grave site. The casket was placed in the hole. She began to hear the clumps of dirt as they would hit the top of the casket and before long she was sealed beneath the earth, smiling. The next day came and he didn't show up and the next night by now she's broken into a cold sweat. In a moment of panic she lights the match and looks at the corpse next to her and it is the old man who builds the casket. Isn't that a great story?

Man, I love stories. And I thought, I thought there is a way that seems right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death. The camera lifts from the grave site and all you can hear is the wailing cry of the woman who will never get out of the grave. Let's bow together. If you have believed in vain you are of all people most to be pitied. You have placed your trust in a hoax, just a man or maybe just a woman or just a teaching and it's all going to die with you and hell will await you. I refuse to play on your emotions. This story speaks for itself.

It may be the fantasy from some mystery writer but the truth of it is incredible. You're going to be in a casket someday. How are you going to get out of it? How do you think you're going to see God? What's going to be your reason for being taken from earth to heaven?

The answer is Jesus Christ. There is no more important issue for you to settle than that one now, right now. If I've ever felt the urgency to demand of you a response, today's the day. I urgently plead with you if you have never met the Savior to meet with our counselors today following this service, those people are there to talk with you about your relationship with Christ and how you can go beyond the grave into the Lord's presence.

If you simply cannot meet with them, deal with it right now, right where you're sitting. Lord Jesus, I believe you died and rose again. I take you now. Become the Lord of my life. I turn from my relationship with the past and my former convictions concerning you and I turn directly to you by faith. I believe you died for me.

I believe you're alive. Take me as your child and he will. Lord God, thank you for talking to us straight and intelligently about something as deep and profound as this subject. May there never be simply an emotional uneasiness that's taking the place of a volitional decision. So may we see the need intelligently and quietly and may we respond to your son who died and rose for us. I pray in his strong name and for his sake.

Amen. Like the fictitious woman who slipped into the casket with a clever plan all her own, perhaps you've come to realize you've placed all your hopes and dreams into an empty box. Maybe today's the day you step forward and allow God to fill the void. Please stop by our website so we can tell you how to begin a personal relationship with God. This is Insight for Living featuring the Bible teaching of pastor and author Chuck Swindoll. You can find us online at insightworld.org.

Again, that's insightworld.org. Several years ago, Chuck said something in one of his messages that has become widely quoted. He was preaching about the virtue of developing a godly perspective. In his message about attitudes, Chuck said, I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react. Chuck went on to say that all of us are on a journey, but when it comes right down to it, we're the only ones who can choose how we'll react to what life throws at us. Chuck's book will help you determine your choice and you can be among the first to own a copy by getting in touch with us today.

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The tour to Alaska is paid for and made possible by only those who choose to attend. I'm Bill Meyer. More about growing deep in the Christian life from Chuck Swindoll next time on Insight for Living. The preceding message, His Coming is Sure, Are You?, was copyrighted in 1985, 1987, 2005 and 2011 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2011 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.