The Return of Christ: So, When's It Going to Happen? - Life of Christ Part 59

Now last week I talked to you about the return of Christ, and if you missed that you ought to get the tape. I think it's a pretty good message and I talked about all that's involved in the second coming. We particularly concentrated on the rapture, which means the coming of the Lord in the air to snatch away. That's what rapturo in Latin means, to catch away or snatch away the believers who are here on earth so that we don't have to go through the great tribulation period. And in the process, the bonus is, as we go up, we get new glorified bodies like the body of Christ on the way up.

And that was all last week. Well I was out in the lobby after each of the services last week and I got some interesting questions. I had one person come up and say, well do you think this is going to happen soon? And another person said, well when do you think this is going to happen? I had one dear person come up and say, do you think I'm going to live long enough to see this?

Well how old are you? Which I didn't really want to ask. But I said to this person, I said, look, I don't know whether you'll live long enough to see it, but I guarantee you that your children will. And they said, Lon, how can you make a statement like that? Doesn't Jesus say in the Bible that nobody knows the day or the time? I mean, come on, that's a pretty arrogant statement, isn't it? How can you get off making a statement like that? You don't know when he's going to come.

Well, that's true. I don't. But I want to talk to you this morning about the fact that I really believe the coming of Christ is very soon and why I believe from a biblical point of view. I can say that with real confidence.

Most of us want to live long enough to see it. I met this man in California a couple of years ago. He was 76 years old at the time and he came up and told me. He said, my wife died a couple of years ago and the reason I never got remarried is because I wanted to live long enough to see the return of Christ. Well, I don't know about that, but it's what he said. I didn't say it. He said it. But everybody wants to live long enough to see the return of Christ. And so are you going to live that long?

Well, I think your children are. Let's look and see what there is in the Bible that gives me some confidence to be able to say that. Here in Luke 17, last week, if you remember, we were talking about the return of Christ. And Jesus said on that day that there will be two people in a bed, one will be taken, one will be left.

There will be two people out in the field, one will be taken, one will be left. And we left out verse 37. Where there's a dead body, there the vultures will gather. And you say, Lon, I've always read that for years. I've read it. I don't have an idea what it means. And I know you don't know what it means either and that's why I thought you left it out. Well, no, that isn't why I left it out. I left it out because I want to do it this week.

Okay? They responded and said, well, where, Lord? And how, Lord? And when, Lord?

Well, how's this all going to take place, Lord? And Jesus said, where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather. Now, what in the world does that mean? Well, this was a proverb, so to speak, in ancient Israel, a little saying that made all the sense in the world to the people who were in this culture and understood it, but doesn't make any sense to us without explanation. It would be kind of like going someplace where they never heard of baseball and saying, you know, it was bases loaded, two out, and bottom of the ninth.

I mean, it's like, excuse me? What does that mean? If you don't know baseball, that is absolutely nonsensical and so we don't see many vultures flying around and so this doesn't make a whole lot of sense to us. But here's what Jesus was saying. He was saying, when you see one vulture circling overhead, it really doesn't mean a whole lot.

But when you see a convention of vultures, when you see a gathering of vultures circling around somewhere, you can be fairly sure there's a dead body close by. Now, in the same way Jesus says to us that he left us a bunch of signs in the Bible about his return, and if we see one sign looking like it's being fulfilled over here, or maybe one sign looking like it's being fulfilled over there, it doesn't mean a whole lot. But when we see all the signs he left us converging at one point in history, kind of like a convention of vultures circling, we ought to be fairly certain at that point that the coming of Christ is really close.

Do you understand what he was saying? So do we see, is the question, the signs that Jesus left us with about his second coming converging at this point in history to the point that I can say with confidence, I think your children will live to see the coming of Christ in the air. Well, let's talk about that and see if I can convince you, because I'm already convinced, see if I can convince you that this is indeed so. There are three major signs in the Word of God that indicate to us the coming of Christ is very soon. And I want to go over them with you. Interestingly enough, all three of them relate to the Jewish people, because the Jewish people are God's timepiece for his return. So all three of them relate to them, and I want to go over them with you to see if you don't agree with me that the coming of Christ is very close.

Now here's the first one. The first one is the return of the Jewish people to their land. Flip back with me in Luke to chapter 21, a couple of pages back, verse 24. Luke chapter 21, verse 24.

Here's what Jesus said. At the end of the verse he said, Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until, there's the key word, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Now when did Jerusalem start getting trampled on by the Gentiles? When did it pass out of Jewish control after Jesus said these words? Well, 70 AD is when the Romans under General Titus sacked the city of Jerusalem, tore down the temple, and it's probably at that point that the times of the Gentiles, as this verse refers to them, began, and Jerusalem passed into Gentile hands. It remained in Gentile hands for almost 1900 years, until 1948 when the nation of Israel was created, and they got half the city, or possibly 1967 we might say, when at the end of the Six-Day War they got the entire city of Jerusalem back under Jewish control for the first time in 19 centuries.

Isn't it interesting that just the way God said it in the Bible, it happened. Jerusalem is now back in Jewish hands for the first time in almost 1900 years. I don't know if you realize it or not, but this is a historical miracle. There has never been anything like this in the annals of history like we have seen with the Jewish people. For example, no people has ever lost their homeland and survived as a people for 19 centuries without a homeland. Moreover, no people who ever lost their homeland for that kind of time ever got it back, except the Jewish people.

No spoken language like Hebrew has ever died out as a living spoken language and ever been revived again as a living spoken language except for Hebrew. And yet all of these things have happened to the Jewish people and to their language. Friends, the reason this is happening is because God is not through with the Jewish people yet. Israel is coming back into the center of God's program. God is going to finish up with the church. He's going to finish up with Gentiles who are trusting in Christ as the center of his program and he's going to turn back to the nation of Israel who were put on the back burner because of their rejection of Jesus Christ, but they were never discarded and right here Jesus himself promised he was going to bring them back into the focal point of his plan for history and it's happening right in front of our eyes. And this explains why the Jewish people are still around and the Moabites, the Hittites, the Phoenicians, the Pharaohs, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Philistines, the Canaanites, the Amorites and all the other people we read about in the Bible are not around.

Why? Because God's not through with his people yet. He promised that one day they would be back in control of the city of Jerusalem and they are. Second sign is that the temple will be rebuilt in the city of Jerusalem.

The temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem. Now I want you to turn back to Daniel chapter 9. If you're using our copy of the Bible it's page 634. And let me say that I did a whole series on Daniel a couple of years ago.

The tapes are upstairs. I don't have time to go through it all. I'm just going to give you the executive summary this morning of Daniel 9. So if you want more detail go up there and get the tapes and you can listen to it.

But here's the executive summary. Picking up verse 24. Daniel chapter 9. Seventy sevens are decreed for your people and your holy city. Now this is 70 groups of seven years. Now verse 25.

Know and understand this. From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Until the anointed one, the ruler comes. There will be seven sevens and sixty two sevens.

So a total of sixty nine. And at the end of this time, verse 26, the anointed one will be cut off and will have nothing. Alright now let's get this prophecy straight. There is a beginning point and an end point. The beginning point is, verse 25, from the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. And the end point is the anointed one, the Messiah, will be cut off and have nothing.

Got the two end points? Now in between is sixty nine times seven years. When was the first point? The issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem? Well we know from the Bible and from history it was in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes of Persia that Nehemiah was allowed to come back and rebuild the city. And we can date that with absolute historical accuracy. There's not a doubt in the world the date. It's four hundred and forty five B.C.

You can write that in your Bible right next to verse 25. Four hundred and forty five B.C. Now from that point to the point when the Messiah is cut off and killed and has nothing, is sixty nine times seven years.

So we multiply that out and then we've got to convert. These were lunar years. Remember the Hebrews ran on a lunar calendar. We run on a solar calendar. So there's a few days difference. We have to make that conversion.

And when we do, the difference comes out to four hundred and seventy six solar years. So now let's subtract. Ready? Here we go. Four hundred and seventy six years take away four hundred and forty five B.C.

And what do you get? Thirty one. Is that right?

Okay. Thirty one. So around thirty one A.D. we should have been looking for the Messiah to be cut off and have nothing. This is the most accurate prediction anywhere in the Bible of the coming of the Messiah. Isn't it interesting that these two people in the beginning of Luke's gospel, Simeon and Anna, were in the temple?

And they both say, well we know we're going to live and see the Messiah's coming. Now how did they know that? Did they have an angel appear to them? Maybe. Did they have a vision at night while they were sleeping and God told them?

Maybe. Isn't it also possible they read Daniel nine and subtracted? I mean that'll get you pretty close, won't it? I don't think you have to be a rocket scientist, a Ph.D., or even own a calculator to do this.

You can do it on your fingers and your toes if you want to. And you can come up with the year when Messiah was going to be cut off and killed. What's really interesting is that we know from the Dead Sea Scrolls that in the time of Jesus, the book of Daniel was well known, it was well read, and it was well understood in the Jewish community. Now that raises a question, if we can read Daniel and figure out when the Messiah was coming, why couldn't they? And the answer is, they could.

They could. We sometimes look at the Jewish people in the time of Christ and go, oh isn't it terrible? If they had all the information we had in the New Testament, they all would have believed in Jesus. I feel so sorry for those people.

Don't do that. These people had the book of Daniel. They had this prophecy. There's no reason in the world that those rabbis should not have known when Jesus Christ was coming, when the Messiah was going to be there, and when he was hanging on the cross in 31 A.D., their minds should have connected back to this prophecy and said, this was he. This was he. See, the problem was not a lack of information for the Jewish people.

The problem was a heart problem. I was in Israel in 1983. A friend and his wife took Brendan and me over, it was the first time I'd ever been, and he had meetings a lot, and so he sent his wife and Brendan and me around with a private tour guide, and we would go all day and just toodle around, and it was great. We were riding one day, and I was in the front seat, the two gals were in the back seat, and the tour guide turned to me and said, well by the way, what do you do for a living? And I said to this Israeli guide, you don't want to know. He said, oh yes I do, yes I do. I said, no, I really don't think you want to know. He said, oh yes I do. I said, well I'm Jewish, and I believe in Jesus, and I'm the pastor of a church. He said, I'm sorry you kind of told me that. I said, no, no, no, let's talk about this for a minute. So we got to talking, and he said, look, if we take the New Testament, and we throw out the New Testament, because it's a self-serving document.

It was written by people who already believed. If we throw that out, there's not one piece of evidence, not a shred of evidence, you can give me from the Old Testament to prove that Jesus really was the Messiah. I said, oh really? He had a Hebrew Bible. I said, can I borrow your Bible? He said, sure. I said, I'm going to turn to Daniel chapter 9.

You drive, you look at the road, and I'll read, okay? And so I read, and I walked him through what I just walked you through. And I said, okay, so who can you think of around 31 AD who was killed that might qualify as the Messiah except for Jesus Christ?

There was silence for a minute. He said, look, there's got to be another interpretation of that passage than the one you've come up with. He said, I'm going to ask my rabbi when we get done next week, when I'm through with you, what the other interpretation is. And I said, well, you can go ask him, but friend, we're not interpreting, we're just subtracting. This is not theological, this is mathematical.

We're just subtracting. Finally, he got so irritated with me that I'll never forget it. He pointed his finger at me and he said, now you listen to me. He said, even if my rabbi doesn't have another explanation for this passage, I don't care.

I'm not interested in believing in Jesus, and I will never believe in Jesus. Well, now what does that tell you? Does that tell you we have an information problem or we have a heart problem?

We have a heart problem. And if you're here this morning and you've never trusted Christ in a real and personal way, I've told you enough this morning that if your heart's ready, you can become a Christian. You can give your life to Christ. When I became a Christian, what I knew about Jesus wouldn't have filled up a thimble, friends. You don't need a lot of information to become a Christian.

You just need a heart that's ready to do business with God. And so don't kid yourself by sitting around and thinking, I just need more information. I just need more information. I just need more information. You don't. You need a heart that's ready to surrender to God. So don't kid yourself about what the problem is.

If there's a problem and you're not willing to do it, at least be honest about the problem. Well, we're kind of off track a little bit. Let's go back. We've taken care of 69 of the sevens, right? We haven't finished the 70th one. That comes down in verse 27. And during the 70th seven, it says down here, he, the Antichrist, you say, how do you know that?

Go get the tapes. This is the executive summary. He, the Antichrist, will confirm a covenant with many for one seven. There's your last one. The seven years of the tribulation period. And in the middle of the seven, the middle of those seven years, he'll put an end, here it comes, to sacrifice and offering. And in a wing of the temple, he will set up an abomination that causes desolation until the end that is decreed is poured out on him. Now, all of a sudden, we've got sacrifices. All of a sudden, we've got offerings.

All of a sudden, we've got a wing of a temple where this guy sets some things up. Jesus said the same thing. Matthew 24. He said, when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, set up in the temple, then pack your bags and run to the hills because it's just around the corner. You say, but Lon, what temple are we talking about? I mean, there is no temple. I know, but there's going to be, there's going to be, there's going to be a third Jewish temple rebuilt in Jerusalem where sacrifices and offerings are going to be once again given to God and where the Antichrist is going to set up the abomination of desolation.

You say, Lon, what is that? I don't have the slightest idea, but for our discussion this morning, it doesn't matter what it is, it matters where it is, and where it is is in the temple. Do you know today there's a movement afoot going on in Israel to rebuild the temple? You say, nah, I've read about that, but that's like, you know, that's that stuff from the National Enquirer, isn't it?

No, no, no. Look, I got a book right here. I know it may be hard for you to see, but it's called The Odyssey of the Third Temple. And you see the picture on the front? That's a picture of the Ark of the Covenant. You say, oh, isn't that a nice drawing? That's not a drawing.

This thing exists. It is built and sitting on display in Jerusalem along with about 40 other, which you can come up, I'll leave it after the service right down here and you can look at it, about 40 other utensils and 40 other pieces that they use in the temple worship that are being rebuilt right now in Jerusalem. And they're on display.

For example, I'll show you a picture. These are the 12 stones that go in the breastplate of the high priest, already built in the high priest's clothing on display in Jerusalem. Next page is a wash basin that was used by the priest, already built on display in Jerusalem. You say, who's building these things? Well, a group called the Temple Institute is building them.

And I'd like to read you a little bit from their material. The Temple Institute was founded to fulfill the biblical command to build me a temple. The Institute for years has been researching the materials, measurements and forms of the 93 sacred temple vessels. And we have begun constructing these gold, silver and copper treasures as well as the priestly clothes.

These vessels on display are 100 percent authentic and ready to use. But until the temple is built, we simply have them on display as an educational tool to help people perceive some of the beauty and the glory of the temple. They go on to finish and say, our prayer is that with God's help, we will soon be able to rebuild the temple on its holy mountain in Jerusalem, ushering in an era of peace and understanding when God will be king over all the earth. In that day, God will be one and his name will be one, quoting Zechariah 14. Folks, when I go to Israel in two weeks with my tour, we're going to see this stuff.

This stuff is real, on display and happening. And they've already identified that the temple was up on the northern end of the Temple Mount, where it's not near either one of the two mosques on the Temple Mount. And I believe the day is coming when we're going to see construction beginning up on the Temple Mount of the third Jewish temple.

Neither mosque is going to have to be torn down. It's going to happen. And when it does, I want you to remember, you heard it here first, okay?

I want you to remember that. Say, how long will it be? Five years? Eight years? Ten years? I don't know, but it's not going to be long. Didn't Jesus say when his coming was close, we would see that happening?

Yes, he did. Third and finally. The third thing that we will see as the return of Christ draws near is we will see revival beginning to come to the Jewish people. We will see Jewish people coming to Christ in personal faith to Christ in ways and in numbers that have never happened since the first century. Romans chapter 11, page 803 is our last passage for this morning. Romans chapter 11, page 803 in our copy of the Bible. And here's what Paul says.

Romans 11, verse 25. I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, he's writing to Gentiles, so that you may not be conceited. It would have been very easy about this time for the Gentiles to begin thinking that God had taken the Jewish people, pushed the Jewish people out, he was done with the Jewish people and now God was only going to work with Gentiles and we were going to be the center of the world. And Paul said, I don't want you being conceited and I don't want you to think that Israel is not coming back. In fact, you know why God made Gentiles, don't you?

Because somebody has to pay retail. You know that. That's why God made Gentiles.

We don't want you to be conceited. Israel has experienced a hardening in part. Here comes the key word again. Until, meaning it's not going to last forever, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and then all Israel will be saved. Now what that verse means is that at the end of the tribulation period, all Israel that's left will be saved.

Get my tapes, I'll explain it more. But I want you to notice verse 25. Israel has experienced a hardening in part. Now what's he mean by that? Well, you know, every person comes into the world blind to God and dead in their trespasses and sins, Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1. But what God is saying here is that in addition to that normal blindness that everybody comes into the world with, Jewish people have a second blindness, a double whammy, an extra blindness laid on them.

The Greek word here literally means a callous, like you get on your hand. A callous thing is laid upon them as a judgment from God for having rejected their Messiah. So they have a double blindness. Now notice it's a double blindness in part, meaning if it was in full, no Jewish person in the last 1900 years would have ever come to Christ. It's not in full, but it is in part. And so if you look through the last 1900 years of church history, you will find the number of Jewish people who came to know Christ in any century were minuscule, almost nonexistent. Why? Because they're not just having to deal with natural blindness, but with also judicial blindness that God lays on them. But there's a key word here.

Look at the word, until, meaning it's not going to last forever, until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in and when God gets through working with the Gentiles and the church age is drawing to an end, the Bible tells us here we should be looking for that partial blindness, that double whammy to be lifted and we should see Jewish people beginning to come to Christ in numbers that we have not seen since the first century AD. Now is that happening? I was at a little league game yesterday, I was sitting right behind the home plate, with about six or eight parents and we were bemoaning the calls of the umpire. This is the worst umpire I've ever seen in my life.

He was terrible. His strike zone was about as big as this room. It was just positively horrible and I was just having a real hard time, you know, controlling myself and staying nice and preserving my testimony and I didn't cuss him out or anything, but I let him know that a couple of those things I didn't think were strikes. And so with a couple of the parents, we were all sitting there just kind of bantering the ump and so one of them turns to me at some point and says, hey, I hear you're going to Israel soon, you know.

That wasn't a strike. Tell me about that. So I said, well, yeah, I am. I'm taking my son. My son's on the plate and we're going to Israel for a while and they said, well, what do you do for a living anyway? You don't want to know.

You don't want to know. Yes, we do. Okay, so I told them. They said, you're Jewish and you're the pastor of a church? No, something's not right here. Jewish people don't believe in Jesus.

I thought the biggest difference between Jewish people and Christians is they don't believe in Jesus. I said, you're right. She said, but you do. I said, you're right.

She said, no, wait a minute, something's not right here. I said, well, listen, there's a lot of us who believe in Jesus around. I said, when I became a Christian at the age of 21 at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I believed I was the only Jewish person in the world that believed in Jesus. That was outside.

That was strike. I said, I did. I believed I was the only one in the world that believed in Jesus. But now I find out that there's really a whole lot more and in the last 25 years the number of Jewish people who believe in Jesus has gone through the roof. We estimate today there's over 60,000 Jewish people worldwide that believe in Jesus. 2,500 of them or more are in Israel itself, Israeli believers. Friends, we haven't seen numbers like this since the first century. In fact, in the first century we never saw that kind of number of Jewish people that believed in Jesus.

Now, how do you explain that? When for 1,900 years Jewish people have been an absolutely impossible mission field. I remember hearing Daniel Fuchs, the past president of American Board of Missions to the Jews speak just before he died several years ago, and he said this, and I quote, he said, in 1930 when I began with the American Board of Missions to the Jews, I knew every Jewish Christian in the United States and Canada personally.

Now, is that an incredible statement? I believe he's telling the truth. How many could there have been if he knew every single one in the United States and Canada personally? We have two or three dozen Jewish believers who come to this church on a regular basis. In 1971, I don't think there were two or three dozen Jewish believers when I came to Washington in the whole city. And when Daniel Fuchs started with the American Board of Missions to the Jews, there probably weren't two or three dozen Jewish believers in the entire United States.

How do you explain what's happening here? Well, I explain it in light of Romans 11. I think Jesus is getting ready to come, and the blindness that's been on the Jewish people for 1,900 years is starting to lift, and we're seeing Jewish people respond to Christ in a way that we have never, ever seen in the history of the world. I think that's pretty exciting, because I think that tells me Jesus Christ is about to do something.

He's about ready to come. Well, those are the three signs I have for you. Number one, that the Jewish people would be back in the control of their land and of Jerusalem. Number two, that the temple would be being rebuilt. And number three, that Jewish people would be coming to Christ in record numbers. Now, it still leaves us with the real important question.

What is it? That's right. And in two minutes, I'm going to give you the fastest so what in history. And here it is, very simply. Let me say, if you're here and you're not a Christian, my advice to you is that if Jesus is about ready to come any minute, you need to make a decision for him ASAP. But if you're here and you're a Christian, as most of us are, then I believe what this tells us is that God has got total control of the universe and everything is really running right on schedule. Think about it now, friends. A hundred years ago, if I'd have told you that the Jewish people would be in control of Jerusalem, that they would be about ready to rebuild a temple, and we'd have 60,000 people believing in Christ and calling themselves Jewish in a world, a hundred years ago you'd have put me in an institution if I'd have told you that. You'd have said, that's impossible.

This guy's been drinking something or eating something or smoking something. This is never going to happen. It is impossible. But it's happened. And didn't God promise all of this was going to happen? God doesn't care whether it looks impossible. That's no problem to God. If God promised he's going to do it, God's going to do it. And the same is true for his promises to you and me. Everything in this world is working right on schedule. Everything, the timing is perfect.

And that's what God wants us to understand, that we need to trust him. Why did you lose your job? I don't know, but everything's right on schedule. Why did I get transferred? Why am I ill?

Why is someone I love ill? Why am I going through a financial crisis? I don't know, but everything's right on schedule.

How come my business is struggling? I don't know, but everything's right on schedule. How come my children are having problems?

My grandchildren? I don't know, but everything's right on schedule. How come my boyfriend dropped me?

Because he's a jerk, that's why. But it's right on schedule. It's right on schedule. How come I'm single and I can't find anybody to marry me?

I'm hanging a sign around my neck going, please marry me. I don't know, but it's right on schedule. How come that person that I love so much died? Why did God do that?

I don't know. It's right on schedule. Everything, friend, is right on schedule. If God's running Israel and Jerusalem and the temple and evangelism right on schedule, he's running your life right on schedule too. I love the song that says, my Lord knows the way through the wilderness. What? All I have to do is follow.

Is that too old for some of you to know that one? Well, listen to it again. My Lord knows the way through the wilderness. All I have to do is follow.

I don't have to chart the course. All I have to do is hold his hand and follow. And that's what I believe God wants you to get out of all of this. God knows what he's doing with your life. All he wants you to do is trust him. He'll take care of everything else. He'll fulfill his promises to you. He'll get you where you need to go. He knows the way through the wilderness.

All you have to do is hold his hand and trust him. Everything's happening right on schedule, folks. It is in your life. Trust me, it is in my life. It is in Israel.

It is in global politics. It's all happening right on schedule. And thank God for it. Well, if you're here, I hope you'll take some comfort in that. Why are you going through what you're going through?

I don't know. But God knows, and he'll get you through if you'll trust him. Let's pray. Dear Father, thank you so much that Jesus Christ is coming back to get us. Thank you that this world is not our home.

We're just a passing through. And Lord, I want to pray that as we contemplate that this morning, you would give us a real sense of hope and encouragement in our soul. Help us, Lord, to really understand that it's very near. Many of us may live to see it.

And that would be a great day. But whether we live to see it or whether we have to be raised from the dead when it happens doesn't make a bit of difference. Those of us who know you and trust you, Lord, you're going to take care of everything we need, even to getting us to heaven with glorified bodies just the way you promised. So Father, with all of the struggles that each of us have, with the problems we have, with the areas of our life we don't understand that bring pain and heartache to us, help us to grab a hold of your hand and simply say, Lord, you know the way through the wilderness.

I don't. I'm just going to hold your hand, and God help me to follow. Give us that sense of trust in you, Lord, believing that you're on the throne and everything's right on schedule. And bring peace to our heart as we're able to simply lay our lives at your feet and trust you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.