1133. The Pre-Millennial Coming of Jesus Christ

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school was founded in 1927 for the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones Senior's intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything, so he established daily chapel services today. That tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University travel platform today on The Daily Platform were continuing a study series entitled return of the King which is a study of the second coming of Christ.

Today's message will be preached by Dr. Eric Newton of the Bob Jones University seminary Beach EU Pres. Steve Pettit will introduce him. We honor this morning they have speaking in chapel as we are continuing our series are wonderful series on the return of the King, Dr. Eric Newton. Dr. Newton is a professor in our seminary is a wonderful Christian man, very godly man and a wonderful teacher of the word of God, and I think you'll be encourage this morning as he speaks and continues our series on the return of the King Dr. Newton the morning. Hope you're doing well. Would you turn your Bibles with me of the very first verse of the New Testament, Matthew one, verse one, and we will come to that text, and some other verses here shortly.

What traditions your church or local church as you know the kind of things that makes sense to those of us who regularly attend and may need to be explained to those who don't regularly attend and even if you work hard enough being cliquish or ritualistic.

Every assembly has as customs of this nature while the local church that I grew up in as a kid and a teenager had an interesting custom. We sang the very same song at the conclusion of every Sunday morning service song called.

He is coming again and we sang the very same chorus at the end of every Sunday evening service every week.

Name of that is will never say goodbye in glory. Now that practice may strike you as quaint or even imbalance. You may say, why didn't she would be if you had to sing something every week when she sings on what the cross or about the about the glory of God.

Why, why didn't you mix it up some well I had some of his questions as a kid. Actually, I wasn't that mature ides always thought that the twofer will never say goodbye in glory sound like it, need an accordion or something.

No offense to both of you play the accordion out there, but that you know it. IIII wondered why we do that every week to and you can you can argue for different positions. But you know as I look back on that our pastor was emphasizing something really significant. He wanted us to leave our gathering together as the church of God and disseminate with this reality in mind. Jesus Christ is coming again, and that shapes how we live as his people.

Our topic today is the premillennial coming of Jesus Christ. Not necessary.

Taking these topics in it in chronological order as they will unfold as the topic assigned to me. Want to talk about the second coming of Christ, which is really the integrating hobbits.

It's the center of eschatology the Bible speaks of the future and in a way that coheres in the person and work of Jesus Christ is the son of God who became incarnate he came he died for our sins, and he will come again.

He will return in glory, to consummate all that the father has planned. He will come to reign.

I think sometimes we can get the impression that eschatology is one of those doctrines that we've we focused on in the last on 100 years or so, maybe to an unhealthy degree. There's been kind of fascination with it and that we should sorta scale it back in one of the one of the points of this series is that sure eschatology can be easily misunderstood. It can be unhelpfully debated, but it is central to our belief as a Christian in you know that that's true because this is been ascribed to his been believed, from the very beginning, you've undoubtedly heard of the Council of Nicaea, Constantine gathers together these these bishops, 300 or so bishops from all across the Roman Empire to talk about about doctrine specifically the Trinity and how Jesus relates to God the father. Well, the second ecumenical Council in a place called Constantinople in 381 is where we get these words. This is the Nicene Creed slightly expanded. It wasn't overturned.

It wasn't changed. It wasn't disagreed with and ask expanded and I'm gonna read this is the first portion of it. We believe in one God the father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. Notice that knows the heart of the of the Trinitarian doctrine of the screed and we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, begotten of the father for all before all worlds light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the father by him all things were made for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary was made man, he was crucified for us and upon his pilot and suffered and was buried in the third day he rose again. According to the Scriptures and ascended into heaven, and the narrative just just keeps going, without missing a beat and sit on the right hand of the father. From thence he shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.

We believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life and it goes on a little bit past and even before the fourth century, creeds, church leaders penned statements like this one by Irenaeus in the second century this church father sat under the teaching of Polycarp, who sat under the teaching of the apostle John is living in the late 100s the second century.

This is very early and he makes this statement about Christ coming and raining in the millennium. Then the Lord will come from heaven in the clouds and the glory of the father sending this man and those who follow him into the lake of fire bringing in for the righteous. The times the kingdom that is the rest of the hollow seventh day, and restoring Abraham, the promised inheritance is the link to the Old Testament promises there in which the kingdom in which kingdom the Lord declared that many coming from the East and the West should sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the doctrine of Christ's second coming is as ancient as as the church. It's not a new thing. It's not an insignificant thing, but this doctrine is important not just because it's old and not necessarily is something good because it's old right it's it's important because of everything that has to do with why the early church believed second coming of Jesus Christ.

The doctor the second coming became clear in the teaching of Jesus Christ himself, but that's really important. The second coming, that the preliminary coming of Christ is is is Christ's teaching.

Dr. Moore mentioned last week that the second coming is foretold in the Old Testament, just as Christ's first coming was but the prophecies are are often intertwined in such a way that that it would have been difficult for even the most astute Jewish scholar to understand the distinctions. For example, readme is a 61 one into the spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord is anointed me to preach good tidings and sin unto the meek disrupts the words of the coming Messiah. He had sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord in the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn Messiah is coming to set up a kingdom and it seems like all of this is probably going to happen at the same time Christ did come he preached the gospel he proclaimed liberty in the day of salvation. He set people free. He set us free from our sins, but the day of vengeance awaits. Some of you are going through very difficult times. Not all who mourn are yet comforted to change to an frequently cited analogy it's it's like looking at a mountain range.

I can exactly find a picture that that perfectly represented. This is like looking at a mountain range where the peaks pretty much look like they're the same mountain bike you're looking at it from such an angle that that these these peaks are miles and miles and miles apart, but they almost look like the same thing.

That's what eschatology is like, particularly in the Old Testament, but this started to change.

When Jesus came and taught his disciples. Even early in his ministry. Luke records Jesus open the scroll in his hometown, Nazareth, synagogue, and he read those very to verses Isaiah 61, one in the beginning of verse two and then he stopped and he said that this portion that he had just read was being fulfilled in their hearing that very day.

But there was and is more to come. Mark 1462 Jesus says to the high priest in one of his religious trials. I am pronouncing it that he's God I am. And you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Regular people don't don't come in the clouds of heaven get up.

That's what deity does. That's what God the son incarnate son is going to do the second coming is not a fanciful speculation.

It's not a manipulative way to get control of people. This is not a mere human profit. Take for instance the Baja who would the 19th century founder of the Baha'i, who announced the world and's religious leaders that he was the manifestation of the spirit of God spirit arrived in him not know this is Christ's own teaching, but in addition to being the clear teaching of God the son. It is about God the son, so we want to take a few minutes and consider from Matthew from another book in the New Testament. This idea of Christ as King. The kingdom of God and of his Messiah, his Christ.

We can see Old Testament prophets speaking of this, but I want student not notice specifically in Matthew, this doctrine of the kingdom.

Matthew was the canonical link between the old New Testament and we know that from the very first verse of Matthew 11 the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham that you could make an argument for the importance of Moses alongside Moses by far and away the two most important people in the Old Testament other than God himself.

Are Abraham and David.

Those are crucial covenants. Abraham a covenant, the Davidic covenant and Matthew says this, one of whom this book is about is Jesus the Messiah. And he's the son of David.

He's a keen ghost of the genealogy and this was troubling. He noticed chapter 2 see how how quickly you can thumb through your version of the Scripture today. Chapter 2 verses one through three Magi show and I say where's the king of the Jews and Harrods really troubled because he thought he was the king, though he was not a Jew and he said you don't go find him and then come report to me so that so that I can acknowledge him as well that the king in some sense had arrived in chapter 3 verse two John the Baptist starts preaching in the wilderness. He says repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, the kingdom has drawn near it has approached and Jesus comes himself in chapter 4 and he preaches the same kingdom, and the kingdom that that that Satan offered him, but but he did not take Satan up on that offer. He resisted him in the wilderness. In chapter 4 and he preaches the gospel of the kingdom and any speaks of kingdom citizens.

It says in chapter 6, verse 10 familiar words from the Lord's prayer that were supposed to pray that God's kingdom would come, and that his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 633 says seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. As we see that we want.

Take time to look at all these verses.

But as we see this this truth progress through Matthew, we come to a point in Matthew 21. If you look at Matthew 21 verse five start in verse four. Actually, all this was done that it might be fulfilled which is spoken by the prophet, saying, tell ye the daughter of Zion, behold, thy King cometh unto the meek, and sitting upon an ass and a colt the full of an ass that that the king is coming in and so these please please people were were that they were exhilarated. They thought that this was the moment in Jesus. Jesus kept calling out the religious leaders in any and he kept speaking of these people sins and and by the by the end of that week he was in a tomb. They had crucified one now what you do. II thought in some sense that the kingdom had, and the king had arrived.

So Jesus is raised from the dead and commissions. These disciples to go and to preach the gospel we see throughout the New Testament we see these books picking up this theme that in one sense the king has come in his ruling in the hearts of men but in another sense, were still looking for this kingdom were still looking for the fulfillment of the keep the kingdom prophecies of the Old Testament in many regards.

So we come to the last book of our New Testament. Would you turn to Revelation 1 verse one we could depict other passages of just picking the bookends.

Revelation 11 the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Verse five and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness in the first begotten of the dead, the prince of the kings of the earth. Verse six. He's made us kings and priests, and the God his father. If you look chapter 11 verse 15 it says there were great voices in heaven, saying, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever and after the events of the tribulation and in chapter 18 entered into chapter 19 in verse 11 we have the heavens open the end of the tribulation and this white horse appears as a rider on the horse is called faithful and true when John gets a closer look emblazoned on his thigh. Is this title. He's the King of Kings is the Lord of lords, and he's coming to reign. We take all this time. Did talk about the kingdom to talk about this.

The second Adam, who's coming to reign on earth will sometimes we get we can get sort of enveloped in the details of eschatology and forget who the main person is we can shy away from why he's coming again so we should have a couple questions we can answer them all.

When the take two of them in the few minutes we have remaining. What is this coming like and how should I respond. What is this coming like and how should I respond. Three sets of characteristics number one the coming of Christ and starting at the premillennial coming after the tribulation of the Spiegel school will talk with the rapture and tribulation. Before that, it's number one personal and visible acts 111. Jesus ascends into angels, to say to the disciples, he men of Galilee, why stingy gazing up into heaven. This same Jesus, which is taken up from heaven from you and haven't shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go to heaven. He was on the ground. He he ascended up into heaven, into the clouds gonna come back in the clouds is only God does with the retinue of angels and he's going to come to the earth is generating. This is not the kind of coming taught by a sex such as the Jehovah's Witnesses. Charles days Russell, the founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses said Jesus had returned invisibly in 1874 in the certain reigning in heaven and in in a new way. In 1914. This is a visible personal return number two it's glorious and divine.

It's glorious it's it's unlike anything that you could imagine even scenes from movies like Lord of the rings it it's it's beyond our comprehension. All we know is what God is revealed to us. Matthew 2430.

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened. The moon shall not give her light, the stars shall fall from heaven. The powers of the heavens shall be shaken and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. One of the keywords for this coming of Jesus Christ is the Greek word that we get our English term Epiphany from and in the root of this word. It is the idea of a bright light that that that brings something make something visible and was interesting about that. The idea of Epiphany is that there were Greco-Roman rulers around the time of Christ that would attach it to their name to show that they believed they were in some sense a divine ruler, the most infamous of these people is the guy who goes it was known to us, as Antiochus epiphanies, Antiochus the four he came to Jerusalem and the second century BC. He desecrated the temple the altar with it, probably an image of Zeus, you will be able see it very well but on the right side okay but the back of the coin on the very left it in letters going down from top to bottom.

Is this Greek word Epiphany right in and so probably Paul bite and other writers of the New Testament. By using this worm that that that this were there there directly assaulting the cultures worship of emperors of God's of goddesses like Diane Artemis in Ephesus is this is not something that anybody can concoct. This is something only God can to God is coming. He's returning. And thirdly, it's can be sudden and wrathful is the part that we don't always get so excited about process, lines 5 to says free. You yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. Second Peter 310 is very similar language. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night yes yes there are things preceding it. But it will keep it. Catch people off guard. 20 years ago I woke up groggy on a Sunday morning I found my coffee mug.

I filled it. I entered my middle study at the end of our home and I noticed that the drawers of my desk were pulled out, and I really didn't know what to make of that thought press. My wife is looking for a piece of paper or something and so I just moved on with my wife came over to my study and she said if I'd seen her laptop, which is out on a leather ottoman in the family room, and another part of the house and she started asking questions and and I turned to look to see if it is my laptop which was in a bag on the floor was still there and it wasn't know the sudden you drop much coffee was in the coffee adrenaline kicked in and I start to notice things or notice the overturned plant out in the yard, I noticed I noticed this. The screen door was propped open.

We noticed that the the glass door that they had evidently entered was was a jar unlocked the family room burglar should come. We were right there.

We slept through it that, taken all this electronic stuff from our house. You know, we learned many lessons. The most important of those was God's mercy. They didn't touch any of us including her three little children at the time not could've come up become upset and like why didn't these guys call me and let me know they were coming. I thieves don't do that burglars don't intend to announce that their arriving that that's not the point. Like a thief in the night.

It's going to catch people off guard.

People are going to take to be living life as if nothing really is changing people. In second Peter and I don't mention this last week that there like you know what, where wares is coming. Things are just like they've always been its uniformity Arianism to change, all of a sudden Jesus is going to come in and God the father has given him the right to judge the father judges no man.

John 522 says, but have committed all judgment unto the son we hear terms like judgment and vengeance and become a recoil but the reality is that that God is coming to set things right.

He paid for sins, but there are many many people who refused to turn to him and he has to make the world right, he's coming with the holy wrath time is short-circuited. Skip the next slide in and go to our response. How should we respond.

CS Lewis famously said, if you read history you will find the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next it is.

Since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one.

I think this is true. This is insightful so I want to send notice and conclusion very briefly the two necessary responses to this coming of the Lord for us as believers and wants to read these verses and first Peter 113 to 16.

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought to you with the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but is he which is called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation because it is written, be holy, for I am holy you study the passages on the coming of the Lord in the New Testament, and there are two dominant themes. You better be alert and by being allergic and I have hope, and by being alert you're going to pursue holiness. Some of you in this room may wonder why hasn't Christ come back yet you want Peter's answer to that is in second Peter three it's because the Lord is merciful. He's gracious. He doesn't want anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance. You know why he hasn't coming back. He's waiting for you to repent.

Don't store up for yourselves wrath on the day of vengeance when God's righteous judgment will be revealed because you presume on his grace. Jesus the son of the king. God is coming to righteously rule to judge us according to his word, will you turn to him today and those of us who know him will we live in expectation and hope pursuing holiness for his glory. To pray with me are Lord God, we thank you for your truth. We thank you for the certainty, the second coming is just as certain as the first one was and we pray the because of that you would enable us to glorify you through hope, and through holiness. Even today we pray in Jesus name you been listening to a sermon preached at Bob Jones University by Dr. Eric Newton, which is part of the study series about the second coming of Christ. Join us again tomorrow as we continue the series here on The Daily Platform