802. How Are We to Relate to the Ten Commandments

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville South Carolina today on The Daily Platform beginning a study series entitled return of the King which is a study of the second coming of Christ. Our message today will be preached by Dr. Sam Horn, who recently became president of the Masters University and seminary in Santa Clarita, California beach EU Pres. Steve Pettit will introduce him.

God has a plan that he established in eternity past that is going to be fulfilled in the future. Jesus came the first time and when he came the first time in fulfillment of God's promises.

He also said and promised, he's gonna come the second time, and so the hope of the believer is the return of the King and I'm so glad that we can have Dr. Horn begin our series this semester as he lays the foundation for the coming of the Lord and so let's open our hearts to the word of God as he comes to speak this morning, we ask you to take your Bible this morning to the book of Hebrews chapter 9 and while you're turning to the book of Hebrews chapter 9.

I have a question I would like to ask you how many of you have seen the movie series, the trilogy, the Lord of the rings can experience right.

How many of you have actually taken a night and you have watched all three movies at once and you actually stayed awake a day RI today. Very good. Alright well I want to begin that way because I want to make a point in just a minute. The Lord of the rings trilogy, the final installment of that came out in 2003.

It is based on a story as you well know that was written by J.R.R. Tolkien. He actually published the stories between 1954 1955. The scenery and the cinematography in the movies. The trilogy is actually stunning the movies that make up the trilogy are familiar to you. The Fellowship of the rating.

The two towers, the return of the King. These three movies were shot over a period of time eight years in one of those beautiful countries in all the world, New Zealand, and I can say that because my dad is from New Zealand and I was actually born in the capital city of New Zealand city of Auckland and so I have a real affinity. That's one of the reasons I enjoy the movies the making of the movies involved an immense cast and this may be something or you're not aware of one out of every 160 New Zealanders was cast in these movies. There was an immense and out of money that was spent making these movies that the estimated budget for the movies was between 280 and $330 million. And as you can imagine it was a runaway box office success.

It grossed over $3 billion by the time it was all said and done, the final installment, the return of the King grossed over $1 billion in and continues to be one of the most popular movies of all time and in it actually in box office rankings globally. It's number 21, and what makes this movie so compelling is more than just the cinematography in the scene it it's it's the compelling storyline you know the storyline. It's the story of a plucky hobbit named Frodo who is the unlikely owner of the ring and not just any rain array of immense power. It's a story of the kingdom middle earth held in darkness ruled by a dark Lord who hold sway over all of the other rulers by means of a ring and it's the story of an empty throne the throne of gone door waiting to be filled by a rightful heir ended in a not so accidental way this amazing work of literary fiction reminds us of another story story about another kingdom that's held in darkness, not a kingdom, that is, exists in the mind of a literary author, but a real kingdom.

The kingdom on earth that you and I inhabit.

And it's it's held over by a dark Lord with cruel power. Who's the enemy of our soul and and there is an empty throne the throne of David. There are unexpected humans on a mission that seems impossible, that are related to that throne and there's a coming king who will defeat the dark Lord rescue the people of the earth and restore order, justice and joy when he comes.

There are striking similarities between the two stories that there is one major difference.

You are probably much more familiar with J.R.R. Tolkien story, then you are with the story about the real return of the King and the series this semester is one in which we would like to change that we would like to bring you into the place where you actually know and understand and explore all of the details and the major storyline of the record, the return of the real king � so I want to do so this semester we're going to do the very best we can add those of us who are delivering these messages to give you a clear picture of the compelling storyline in Scripture that Dr. Pettit mentioned to you a few moments ago and really do that in 10 sermons. This is the first. There are nine more to come. In order to talk about things like what I really need to know about the second coming and then what are the signs of the times. Will there be signs of the end times will talk about the rapture. That's a very big topic. I personally believe in a pre-tribulation rapture and were actually can have a sermon where we lay out the argumentation from Scripture in a very clear way about that.

So the question will be answered.

Will I be left behind. There will be a sermon on the tribulation. The title saved from his wrath.

And then we'll talk about the future. God's promise to the nation Israel in a message called a promise is a promise God has made certain promises to the nation of Israel. And just like he has been fulfilling his promises physically and literally.

We believe that he will do the same for Israel and so we'll talk about that in one of the messages that is coming. Many of you are familiar with the term dispensationalism were to spend some time talking about that in a message called God's plan for the ages. An overview of dispensationalism and then Morgan spent some time talking about this wonderful period of time mentioned in Scripture call the millennium.

In a message called peace on earth and then will end our series or will come to the end of our series by looking at an inescapable day that every son or daughter of Adam is going to face, and we read about this at the very end of our our Bible.

It is called Judgment Day wouldn't talk about the great white throne judgment and then were going to end with the reminder and hopefully the joyful reminder that the second coming is not something we should fear or about which we should have confusion. It's something that we should long for. Because actually, as believers, the return of the King is our awesome hope so. We have an awesome series to look forward to this semester it and I would encourage you to do a couple things as you get ready for the series.

And as I've been thinking about the series and repairing my own part in it. These are things that have been helpful to me.

So let me just give you a couple of very quick things that I think you should think about and then what will jump into why the second coming matters what you think about the fact that the topics that we're addressing are of great significant significance. The doctrine of the second coming is is a foundational doctrine to the faith that you believe because it is the culmination. It is the completion of God's plan that he began in the Garden of Eden is the climax of the work of Jesus Christ, that he began at the cross and it actually is the transformation of everything in you and everything about you so we could hardly be talking about a more interesting and more critical topic since the semester than the one we are talking about. So let me urge you to consider the importance of the topics that were going to be addressing the semester and then secondly let me encourage you to determine to listen intentionally and engage personally with these topics for some of you this will be the first time you will hear the screws articulated in a passionate, thoughtful, clear and sequential way. There's actually a reason why the topics were chosen and why they are arranged in the series. So let me encourage you to listen intentionally and engage personally with these topics. You can have questions, please ask them.

And thirdly, let me encourage you to resolve the listen charitably and graciously obviously on a topic like this, there are going to be places where good Christians disagree I've learned two things as I prepared and been reminded as I prepare the series 1.

It is incredibly important as observed and to some of the interpretations that come with these topics are sometimes difficult and complicated and those who are speaking in the series have committed that we we are going to do our very best to be clear, we're going to be accurate. We want to be simple in the way that we present these ideas and while you personally at times may disagree with a particular detail of information were to do our very best to present the truth as we see it and understand it and we want to do it.

Clearly, respectfully and graciously but we want to present the truth as we understand it, so as as you hear truth presented graciously and clearly can I encourage you to respond that way in kind and others like Lindsay.

This way if our series on the return of the King ends up creating contention instead of celebration in our midst.

We have really missed the goal of the series are one of the goals of the series and then finally listen joyfully and reflectively, and we just put it to you this way. This series is about the coming the arrival of the most awesome individual in human history. And he's your best friend.

He is closer to you than anybody else on this planet.

He's closer to you than your parents is closer to you than your your own family, your brothers, your sisters, he's closer to you. Even that a husband or a wife.

He is your Mary best friend and you have never seen. We've read about. You have descriptions that are given to you in the text of Scripture. You have the historical record that's in the Gospels you you you sort of can frame up ideas about what he might've look like based on what you know about first century Judaism and and and what that part of the world was like see you have some little idea in the back of your head but but you have never seen this person that has had such an incredible part of your life and you are going to see for the very first time openly as real as you are seeing me or you or the person sitting next to you.

You are going to see Jesus when he comes now.

We have ideas about when that Cummings we have ideas about the events that surround all of that way to make good arguments for that. We hope that as you hear those arguments you will be convinced but at the end of the day. It isn't about the arguments it's about the person so you going to see Jesus when he comes in. That should ignite in you a deep joy and anticipation. And that's really what we hope to do so as we get started in our series this morning. Can I give you four simple ways to look at the series and the think about the second coming here is the first I think as we think about the series we need to start here.

We need to start by embracing the reality of the second coming. He actually is coming.

I don't assume that everybody embraces that reality. So we need to make the case for the second coming of Jesus Christ, especially because it is the bedrock truth that is a foundational ground of the Christian faith aid is woven through the entirety of Scripture you heard earlier. As Dr. Pettit sorta reviewed and went to the past.

The Old Testament anticipates the coming of an anointed appointed champion who was promised to our first parents, Adam and Eve in the garden in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 and the economy and the arrival of that individual is not just a theoretical promise or just some kind of comfort that that is supposed to just get the Old Testament believer to the next step.

EE even that he even as though we weren't really going to ever happen. The reality of the second coming is woven through the entire Old Testament and its it's pitch this way when this person arrives with this anointed appointed champion arrives. He's gonna deliver us from our sins, he is going to reverse the curse and return us to our rightful place as rulers over God's creation under God, which is exactly what you see, Adam and Eve set up to do in the garden before the fall, and then he is good to defeat and destroy the ancient enemy who who was the source of all of this pain and brokenness, so there is an anointed appointed champion whose give-and-take is from the garden to a city that we meet at the end of the Bible in Revelation 2122 that is remarkably like that garden and the problem is we don't have a way there is not like we lost the map and can't figure out how to get there. There isn't a way back to that garden and that's why there had to be an anointed appointed champion who would himself be that way. He himself would be the entranceway. That's why Jesus referred to himself in his first coming when he said that the statement I am the way, the truth, and the lightning.

He described himself as the door.

The passageway, so this anointed appointed champion became the focal point of the patriarchs and the prophets as they can gardening as they believed and they hope and they looked for the day when this anointed Messiah would appear the entire trajectory and the testimony of the Old Testament is one of anticipation they were leaning forward. They were looking into and eagerly awaiting the arrival of this anointed champion and one day the last of a long line of Old Testament prophets, a man named John was baptizing in a river. The Jordan River and as he's baptizing. He looks on the banks of the river and he sees a man walking and he says about that man to the people around him. Now that one. That man that one is the Lamb of God, he is God's layout and he will take away the sins of the world long years of anticipation were finally over.

God champion had come now, the curse would be broken, sinful, guilty men would be redeemed from the panel C of the law evil would be defeated God's people would be delivered and restored everything would be made right. But as Jesus began to talk, particularly as it comes to the most climatic moment of his ministry. He made an unexpected announcement that unexpected announcement was this when I return on last night. It was life he was looking at his closest friends.

Those who he had promised would be with them in the kingdom. I mean, they spread immense amounts of time together talking about the kingdom and thinking about the kingdom and on the last night of his life. He drops a theological balm on his is this way. Do not let your heart be troubled. I'm doing away but I'm not going away. The way I'm going to prepare a place for you and then he says it this way in John 14. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am you maybe also for the very first time in all of Revelation history. Jesus makes clear that his mission would involve two Cummings that was not anticipated by the Old Testament prophets. It's in their but it wasn't anticipated and all of a sudden it's like the FedEx arrow you don't talk about the FedEx arrow. Once you see it you can't ever unseat if you look at that FedEx look at the orange ski and the facts and where the bottom half of the E in the first half of the acts you can see a white arrow you see that you see that white arrow you will never unseat it from this point forward until the second coming. Every time you see a FedEx truck you're going to look for that arrow and you know what every time you see your Bible.

Now, after Jesus made that statement. You see the second coming everywhere.

It's everywhere and that's really the second thing we we ought to talk about. It's it's it's predicted in the Gospels, it's Jesus and is his last words to the church in Revelation 2220, with a reminder that he is coming soon.

Every New Testament writer affirms and confirms and comes and proclaims a second coming. It's in every gospel, Matthew Mark and Luke, John has an immense amount of material on the second coming in every one of Paul's epistles. There is a reference or allusion to the second coming, the writer of Hebrews.

The verse I had you open to it is all about the second coming, James is a reference in chapter 5 to the second coming. June talks about it in verses 14 and 15 of his one chapter at a pencil and of course John speaks very frankly to us about what the second coming should do as we think about it.

It is all about Scripture you can see it in the book of Hebrews chapter 9 verse 28 so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many under them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

And in that verse you find the reason for the second coming is adverse mean. So Christ was offered to bear the sins of many.

What was once offered to bear the sin of many, using this way in his first coming. The one that you read about in the Gospels. You could say that he was coming as a suffering servant. He came to deliver man from the penalty of said he came as our sin sacrifice so that's what he did in the first coming. What is he actually going to do in the second coming and the writer of Hebrews says it this way, he is not coming to deal with sin.

He dealt with that in his first coming. He is coming now to deliver those who have been forgiven from all the affliction that is going on around them.

You could say this way when Jesus returns, he will he will consummate the salvation of his people.

Listen to John Johnson's this or am sorry pauses us in Philippians chapter 3 for our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's what happened when he comes, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like him to his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things in himself that can happen when King Jesus returns he will be glorified and advise people pauses to the Thessalonians in second Thessalonians 110, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe when Jesus comes, you are good to be incredibly loud it will be a jaw-dropping moment and then he coming to exact and require just vengeance on those who defied him, who have rejected the gracious offer of the gospel who have persecuted people like you for your belief in the gospel. Some of your good endure persecution in the years to come. As you go out and and you live redemptive lay in the world around you. You're going to suffer for that.

Some of you are to suffer and are to be denied promotions because of your beliefs in the gospel. Some of you may may lose an opportunity economically because of your faith and your passion and your faithfulness to Jesus Christ. And when people actually find out that you literally believe it is second coming there actually gotta wonder about your own intelligence and Jesus is not when I come back I'm to set all of that right.

Listen to how he says it, seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you and to you who are troubled rest with us. When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. Second Thessalonians 1629. He is coming to defeat the ancient enemy of his people, and of God. Romans 1620, Paul said in the very God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly and then notice that he will come to receive and rule over the kingdom promised to him by his father. And that's precisely what he talks about in Matthew 25. One of the greatest chapters on the second coming, when the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and then listen to the final part of that person then shall the King saying to them on his right hand, ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundations of the world. It's not just the coming of our Kenyan glory. It's also our glorification so that we inherit the kingdom that her older brother is preparing for us and has been from before the foundations of the world.

So how should we react to the second coming with her some who deny it.

You can read about that in second Peter three. They scoff in the mock about the length of time if he hadn't come in 35 years in the time of Peter that how the world do you think he's gonna come why are you still holding on to that belief and and way more than 35 years have passed. We are 2000+ years. From his first coming in so there are people who deny and and defiantly scoff at the second coming and then there are those that sensationalize a second coming. For example, in Matthew 24 we have a statement about only God knowing only the father knowing the time of the coming and there have been immense efforts to figure out when that time is in 1989, 88, there was a guy named Edgar Whisenant and he wrote a book called 88 reasons why Jesus is coming in 1988, he issued a revision in 1989 call 89 reasons why Jesus is coming in 1989 so there have always been sensationalized approaches to this. And then, frankly, there are people who marginalize it in and it may be that some of us actually do that because we know about it we have in our head is a theological thing we we we study the doctrines you don't we sit in our Bible doctors class and there's a whole section on eschatology part of that is a second coming in so we writer notes and we pass her quiz and then we just go the rest of her life and we kinda know it's out there, but we never think about it. So how should we respond. And that's what this series is intended to do. By the time you get to the end of the semester. Here's what I'm hoping will happen in my heart and years of Muggle happening years. One.

You will think about the second coming of Jesus a lot better. Always be on your mind that when you actually think about it. You long for it that that it's actually something you anticipate.

It's something that you're waiting for.

As you go to the busyness of life and you complete the assignment that God is giving you in whatever stage of life you're in that that the second coming is never far away in the back of your mind. It's always on your mind, and it's always in your heart you long for it and then finally because you think about it and you long for it.

You talk to God about you, pray faithfully and fervently that that the king would return that Jesus would, this is exactly how John felt when he attended the most amazing revelation in the Bible about the second coming. The whole book of Revelation and at the end of that book he he he says this is he as he reminds us that the one who testified about these things at Shirley, I come quickly and use what John says. Even so, Lord Jesus, and I hope that by the end of semester we will be thinking and longing and praying that the Lord would come father, thank you for your word made impact us Maidenform us but most of all, Lord, may this truth satisfies may create deep joy and abiding satisfaction in us as we pray today for your coming, and we pray that in Jesus name, amen. You been listening to a sermon preached at Bob Jones University by Dr. Sam Horn.

The sermon was part of the study series were beginning about the second coming of Christ.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue the series here on The Daily Platform