The Return of Christ #1

[00:00:00] I want to read a verse in revelation and chapter one. [00:00:15] Revelation, chapter one, verse seven. [00:00:25] Behold, he cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they that pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over him. [00:00:45] Even so, amen. [00:00:54] I'm, in one sense at a loss this morning. [00:00:57] Another sense I feel very full, because my loss comes from the fact that the Lord has spoken this word most clearly into my heart. [00:01:12] And the loss is that I'm not wholly sure what he means. [00:01:21] The fullness is that there is so much in my heart about this verse. [00:01:29] I am quite sure that God is trying to say something to us. [00:01:36] I suppose we all know this verse very well. [00:01:40] I doubt very much whether it's ever sunk into us. [00:01:45] Behold, he cometh. [00:01:51] Behold, he cometh with the clouds and every eye shall see him, the dead and the living, and they also that pierced him. Of course, we normally think of the jewish people in connection with this, but it's also true to say that we have all pierced him. [00:02:23] They also that pierced him and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn. Or the authorized version puts it, perhaps more powerfully, shall wail over him. [00:02:45] Even so, amen. [00:02:51] I wonder sometimes whether that finds us out. [00:02:56] It is whether we, like John, can add even so, our men that reveals the condition, our spiritual condition. [00:03:10] Some of us, I think, are afraid of the coming of the Lord. [00:03:17] We would rather like to feel that there is time given to us to reform our ways, to pull up our socks, to get things into order. And of course, we are all wonderful at putting things off. [00:03:31] We think, well, the Lord, we probably got maybe another decade or two and I shall wake up in the end. [00:03:44] I think of all kinds of issues that there are in our lives, all kinds of difficulties and problems that in the light of the Lord's coming, his imminent coming would be solved if we really believed that it was imminent. Now, of course, some will answer straight away, like those scoffers we're told of in one Peter, chapter three. Oh, but people have always said this. They've always said that the Lord is coming. They thought that at the time of Paul, they thought it the time of the great persecutions under Nero, and later they thought of it in Luther's day, and so on and so forth. [00:04:28] And of course, it is very true that whenever people have come near to the Lord, into the presence of the Lord, they've been conscious of his coming, even though his coming may be delayed a thousand years, 2000 years. It is a wonderful thing that whenever people come into the presence of the Lord. They somehow seem to come into the day of the Lord and suddenly become aware, not anymore of past or future, but of the eternal present. [00:05:03] And one of the most wonderful things, of course, is that the law, from the beginning, has purposed in his heart to wind up things. He's not going to let this world just drift on and on and on and on forever. There is a time limit. No, I'm only to the father. [00:05:19] And when that time comes, even if it's thousands and thousands of years, then when that moment has come, God will wind up things as we know it. [00:05:31] In the twinkling of an eye, the single moment of time that for which the saints have waited for millennia will take place. [00:05:42] I think just because people have waited so long for this event, we tend subconsciously to think, think that it will take a very long time to take place, if you know what I mean, that when it starts to happen, it will all be sort of in stages and all the rest of it. This may not be so. [00:06:02] In a moment of time, some tremendous things will take place. The dead in Christ shall rise. We which are alive will be caught up together with them in the twinkling of an eye. Think of that. Our bodies will be changed. Not even a doctor can do that. All the greatest surgeons in the world put together couldn't change your body in the twinkling of an eye. [00:06:28] They might be able to kill you, they might be able to preserve you, but they couldn't change your body in the twinkling of an eye. Yet the word of God says that at that moment, our actual physical bodies will change. [00:06:47] Behold, he cometh. [00:06:52] It is very interesting that this is given to us at the beginning of this book of revelation with all its solemn message. [00:07:09] Now, whatever view we may take of the book of revelation, there is one thing that is absolutely clear, and that is that it is not just a book of theories. [00:07:20] It is a book of very, very practical instruction and encouragement and warning. [00:07:30] I think you all know that this book opens with the Lord, with a vision of the Lord in the midst of seven churches. [00:07:47] Well, we know the word seven stands for completion and fullness. And so we know that here we have a vision of the Lord in the midst of the church. [00:07:58] But not just the church, as we like to think of it, abstract faith somehow or other up in the air, something which the Holy Spirit is doing, but is very nebulous. [00:08:14] But the church as it is physically expressed in seven actual places, and we have them in chapter two and chapter three. [00:08:31] God is very faithful. We all have escape rooms, fire escapes, ways that we can get out of things. We like to be able to talk of it all being up there. [00:08:44] The only person who's not fooled is God. [00:08:48] We may all be fooled when it's all up there, but God isn't fooled. [00:08:56] God knows the connection with what is up there, with what is down here and without getting through down here, our jobs, in our homes, in our fellowship together as the people of God. [00:09:18] All that is happening up there is being produced down here. [00:09:28] And this book opens with the Lord, the risen, triumphant, glorious Lord, alpha and omega, beginning and ending, first and last, in the midst of the church, as it is expressed in seven places. [00:09:52] Furthermore, just so that none of us can escape, the conditions in these places are frankly disgusting, we all like to think of the church as something which is perfect, pure and absolutely spiritual. [00:10:16] But we find this risen, glorious, triumphant Lord in the midst of at least four outright messes. [00:10:30] One place that is, I think, well and above the average of normal. [00:10:40] And one other place which we would say is just above the average. [00:10:48] And I suppose, one other place, which we would call about average, there you are, seven places. [00:10:56] So we cannot get away from it. It's so lovely to be able to say, oh, that rotten lot, the clap trap there, the hot air there, the breakdown there, the failure there. But no, not our Lord. [00:11:13] He is the one who doesn't depart. [00:11:18] He is the one who stays in the midst, who warn lovingly, again and again and again, because he has no vested interest in kicking people out or removing the lampstand. But he has a vested interest in making people into his own image, and he'll persevere with the most hopeless material. So we get a woman like Jezebel, evidently been having a whale of a time in one of the churches, and the Lord says to her, I have given you time to repent. [00:12:11] That shows how gracious the Lord is in his dealings with the church as it is physically expressed. [00:12:19] He doesn't just jump on it like a hammer and break it just like that, but he waits and waits and waits and warns. Even a person like Jezebel in the midst of a local company of christians, they had the Lord's table, they had prayer meetings, they had Bible studies. [00:12:34] Yet right in the midst of it all, there was this ghastly situation with this woman, carnal, fleshly, wicked. [00:12:45] Or you've got this teaching of balaam, an erroneous teaching. People who are out for their own ambition, but they can get out of the. And all this, the Nicolaitan. The Nicolaitanism. If we understand it correctly, it was the beginning of the clergy, kind of organized priesthood and all the rest of it. [00:13:17] Well, well, the Lord's in the midst of this kind of situation. [00:13:23] What a glorious picture it is of the Lord. [00:13:31] Now, the Lord's a realist, not an idealist. [00:13:35] And the very fact that he's in the midst is because he accepts things as they are. Here is the the sort of clearing house, if you like. Here is the builder's yard. Here is the tailor's shop. [00:13:50] All the mess is here. [00:13:53] It's the kitchen, not the dining room. [00:13:57] All the mess is here. [00:14:01] From chapter four to chapter 21, from the first verse of chapter four to the last verse of chapter 21, you will never hear once again mentioned the word church or churches. Just as if the book has never heard of such a thing until you come to revelation 20 216, which is almost the end of this glorious prophecy, which we are told above all the other books of the Bible we are to take note of, and anyone who adds to it or anyone who takes away, there is a solemn curse upon them. Furthermore, we are told about this book that everyone who reads it will receive a blessing and a special blessing. [00:14:56] I can't honestly say that all the commentaries I've read on this book seem to contain that blessing. But still, never mind. [00:15:04] There are as many different views upon this book as there are book on this book as there are books written on it. [00:15:12] But when we come to revelation 20 216, what do we find? I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify of these things. Over the churches or for the churches. The word comes back at the very end of the book. [00:15:36] Well, I don't think I need to say the connection between these first chapters and last chapters of revelation, the connection between overcoming in these companies of God's people and the final city of God. It's all here. If you will look at it, and if you will compare it with the last chapters, you will find that it is inescapable. There is a connection between these first chapters and the last chapters, and then in between whether we look upon it as everything in the future, or whether we look upon it as the whole of church history given to us, or whether we look upon it as a book of principles. Whichever way we look upon this thing, we have a series of horrifying visions in which evil seems almost always to triumph till the last word is spoken by God and then it's slain. [00:16:39] It is a tremendous conflict, backwards and forwards. It rages. [00:16:45] It takes in all the nations, it takes in the whole world. [00:16:57] I think it is quite inescapable to come to the conclusion that it is to do with this bride of the lamb. [00:17:13] Or put it another way, for those who are always fearful whenever you speak of that, that you're taking away from the Lord, let's put it this way. It is to do with the glory of the lamb. [00:17:30] The glory of the lamb. And the glory of the lamb is in the city. [00:17:39] It's where it's found. [00:17:42] Well, now then, when you look at it like that, someone says, ah, now, here is the great danger. [00:17:51] There's all this talk of fellowship, togetherness, this church talk. [00:17:58] And the whole danger is that we don't live real christian lives as individuals. Now, that's why seven times the Lord says to those that overcome, know to him that overcometh. [00:18:16] To him that overcometh. [00:18:19] That is within the context of the church as physically expressed in these places. Each one has got to overcome. You can't hide in all and say, oh, brother, so and so is getting through, or the brethren are getting through. So I'll just sort of edge in behind them. No, no, you won't fool God. [00:18:41] You may have christian parents, but you won't fool God. You won't get in that way. [00:18:47] You may have a christian children, but you wont fool God. [00:18:51] Its to him that overcometh. You may be living with saints, you wont fool God. Its to him that overcometh. You wont get in that way. Your husband may be a saint, your wife may be a saint, but you wont get in that way. Its through him that overcometh. [00:19:12] In other words, within the context of this building work of God, within the context of this preparation work of God concerning the wife of the lamb, we are individually originally to come to our own experience of the lamb and to buy of him gold refined in the fire. [00:19:37] If we run out, we forfeit our place. [00:19:42] We have not overcome. We have been defeated. And we can talk and talk and talk and talk, but we are defeated, just like seceding from the United nations. [00:20:01] That is not overcoming, that is defeat. [00:20:09] Behold, he cometh, and with the clouds, and every eye shall see him. [00:20:22] Well, of course, that day is going to be a day of glory. [00:20:26] It's going to be a day when the knowledge of the glory of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. [00:20:33] The wolf will lie down with the lamb, the child will play with an adder. [00:20:40] It's going to be a day when we're told the mountains will sing for joy, and the fields of the forest will clap their hands. [00:20:49] It's going to be a day of incredible joy, when the whole natural creation is released from its bondage and finally finds its place within the will and life of God. [00:21:08] That day when he comes will be a glorious day for us, for we shall be like him. [00:21:16] When he is manifested, it says, we shall be like him. [00:21:22] What there is of Christ in us, him. What a day. [00:21:29] Then again, I think it will be a glorious day, because all the conundrums and riddles of life will be explained. [00:21:39] Just to see him, just to hear him. [00:21:43] I think it will explain all these strange riddles in our lives and in our life together. [00:21:51] I think again, we can say that it'll be a great day, because all the problems and difficulties within our lives or in our life together will be solved. [00:22:01] In one moment of time, the things will be solved. Behold, he cometh. [00:22:11] Of course, I suppose for all of us there must be some joy, especially if we're getting older, to reflect that in that twinkling of an eye, we shall receive a redemption body, not only inwardly, like him, in moral character, spiritual character, and our bodies will be changed. [00:22:41] Well, that's all on the credit side. [00:22:45] What about the debit side? I believe there are going to be many shocks, many, many a shock. [00:22:55] Do you know that if the Lord came in the next hour, every one of us must give a count? [00:23:09] Now, it's no good saying to the Lord, and don't think that you're not going to be nervous if you can't worship the Lord here, you're going to be tongue tied when you face him. [00:23:19] But the Lord will ask you a few questions and help you to give your account. [00:23:25] But the Lord will not give the account himself. [00:23:28] He will get you. Just because you're a personality, don't think that you're just going to be absolutely. [00:23:36] I can't explain it, but I know just what will happen in that day. Many people will omit things, but every one of us will give account. The Lord will say, now, come on, I want to hear an account from you. [00:23:55] What about that home of yours? Oh, you might say, well, that wasn't so important, was it, lord? Not important? [00:24:03] Why, my testimony was involved with that. How did you get on? [00:24:08] What about that job? Oh, now, Lord, that was just a secular job amongst those dreadful unsaved people. [00:24:17] But just wait, who is your employer in that job? I was your employer. [00:24:27] Give account. [00:24:29] I noticed that when you've given a rather glowing account of speaking about the law to different ones, he may well say to you, I notice you always took an hour for your coffee. Break. [00:24:45] How did you do on punctuality? [00:24:48] Oh, now, Lord, we're in eternity. [00:24:53] That was time, Lord. I mean, that wasn't too good a timekeeper. It was my quiet time. Quiet time? [00:25:01] Your five minutes you gave me every morning caused you to be 20 minutes late every day for work. [00:25:09] Oh, there's going to be some shocks. See, we all like to think somehow or other that the Lord is sort of very impractical, that he's only interested in these nebulous things, these kind of spiritual things all up there. That's not true. The whole point is this, that the way we governed our home, the atmosphere and character of our home, the way our jobs, the way we did our jobs, as we say, a straw can tell. A little straw can tell which way the wind is blowing. [00:25:45] There are going to be quite some shocks. And don't think that you are going to get away with anything, because the word of God says this. [00:25:53] Not only are you going to give an account, but listen to this. It says about those who rule over you. For they watch on behalf of your souls as they that shall give account. That they may do this with joy and not with grief. [00:26:07] For this were unprofitable for you. Now, that means whatever you may think of some of your leading brothers, theyre going to be called upon one day to say to the Lord, and what about so and so? [00:26:22] Now, you may think thats a very undemocratic procedure, but not so. Youve given your account first. [00:26:33] Well, I don't know. I shall do my best for all of you. [00:26:40] I will say that. [00:26:43] But the Lord knows jolly well that there are things that you just have to keep your mouth shut on. [00:26:49] He knows all about it, so he'll say, I notice you didn't say anything about so and so when it came to fishing. [00:26:59] What happened there? [00:27:02] Well, Lord, they never showed the slightest bit of interest. [00:27:06] Hmm. [00:27:10] I noticed so and so never came to the prayer meeting. [00:27:15] Well, Lord, they found them rather heavy. [00:27:19] Did they? Hmm. [00:27:24] I noticed that so and so never, ever came cleaning. [00:27:33] Oh, well, Lord, they had a rather spiritual view of it. [00:27:38] It, they felt was quite unnecessary, really, upon the basis of this account. [00:27:51] As it says this were unprofitable for you. [00:27:57] The Lord is going to portion out things. [00:28:05] Now, it says quite expressly that those that were faithful in little will be made, given much. [00:28:17] And what does that mean? [00:28:21] It doesn't, just don't try to divide into secular and spiritual, because it's quite impossible. It means that that little humdrum job in which you have been so utterly faithful, and which seemed to be so absolutely insignificant. The Lord has had his eye on the whole time from beginning to end, and one day he will just simply say to you, I've watched you in that you've been faithful in what seemed to be utterly insignificant. You shall be a ruler over so and so. [00:28:54] Or you may put it another way. The Lord may say, I noticed that you never helped in any way practically in the life of the church. I mean, cleaning and all those other things, all the other humdrum things that had to be done, toilets that had to be cleaned, floors that had to be washed. I noticed you didn't do that. [00:29:17] You don't think that I'm going to put you in my government when you couldn't start as an office boy. [00:29:30] Don't think that any of us will get away with it. It's when we're faithful in the little things. It's our attitude to those very humdrum things. [00:29:41] Well, I think our time has well gone. [00:29:45] But, you know, may I just say this in closing? [00:29:50] I think it is sobering and very solemnizing that in Luke, I think it's chapter 17, where the Lord talks about two being in bed together, one taken and one left. Two grinding, one taken, one left. [00:30:10] He says, I'm sorry. It is in chapter 21. It's parted, as you know, in Luke, the two that are together in Matthew. In Luke 21, he says, verse 34, take heed to yourselves, lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and chaos of this life. Surfeiting too much. Not surfing, surfeiting too much. [00:30:38] We've just got an abundance, which we all have today. We may not think we have when we compared with others, but quite honestly, this generation is a generation of the surfeit as we're told. We've never had it so good. [00:30:53] Serving drunkenness cares of this life that that day come on you suddenly as a snare. But how can that day come come on as suddenly as a snare? Why, it says, there shall be signs in sun, moon and stars upon the earth, distress of nations in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the billows, men fainting for fear, for expectation of the things which are coming upon the earth. How is it possible for that day to come upon us unawares just because of this? Every one of us lived through June 1967, and I don't think it has had very much effect on any of our lives. [00:31:38] Now, how is that possible that we can live through the very fulfillment of this verse 24 of chapter 21 see it fulfilled before our eyes to be the very generation that sees something fulfilled that was predicted at the beginning of this age and not be changed now that means we're drunk. [00:32:02] The cares of this life, the surfeits of this life, have somehow cautioned our taste. [00:32:17] We've become insensitive. There are no people at God's people for being insensitive. You see, the devil's out for us. He's out for us, out to blind us, out to make us insensitive. [00:32:31] Every Christian believes in their heart that they'll know when the coming of the Lord is near and be able to have time to put things in order. You won't. [00:32:40] Now, in Matthew 24 it says, when the Lord comes, verse 47 48. [00:32:49] But if that evil servant shall say in his heart, my Lord tarrieth, and shall begin to beat his fellow servants and eat and drink with the drunken, the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he expecteth not and in an hour when he knoweth not. Now, I find this a most extraordinary statement. [00:33:15] Beating his fellow servants. [00:33:19] A verse before says, the man's drunk. If you read the whole story, what an extraordinary thing. The spirit of this agenda as never before. The spirit of this present generation is the spirit of criticism. [00:33:37] Nothing is sacrosanct. Nothing from the queen and the royal family to the most cherished institutions in national life. Nothing is sacrosanct. Everything is derided, everything is analyzed, torn to pieces. And this spirit is the spirit that's got into the church. [00:34:03] Surely we've never been in a day when there is so much backbiting, so much criticism, so much of a cynical spirit. Where does it come from? [00:34:16] Drunkenness. [00:34:18] And because we're drunk, we start to do things that we wouldn't do in our right mind. We start to beat our fellow servants, and only God knows the amount of beating that's going on. [00:34:33] We have good old spiritual punch ups. [00:34:37] Tear to pieces this one. Tear to pieces that one. Tear to pieces this, tear to pieces that. What's wrong? [00:34:47] Behold, he cometh. [00:34:55] That's not overcoming the apostle Paul gave us the key. He said, I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. [00:35:09] That's to be filled with the spirit in practice, not drunk with the spirit of this age. [00:35:21] May God help us because it is a sobering fact that if the Lord had wanted to give us the exact sequence of events that will lead to his coming, he could have done it and settled forever our theological controversy. But he hasn't. In one passage of the word it suggests that all the Lord's people may be taken. Another, that we'll all go through the tribulation and yet another. No, some will be taken, those that are ready and the rest left. The Lord has put a note of uncertainty into this so that no one is sure how, when the Lord is going to come and who he's going to take. [00:36:01] Now you be clear on this. You parents, you may be taken and your children left, or your children taken and you left, or you husbands and wives. A husband can be taken and your wife left. The Lord is no respecter of persons. In that day, when family ties are dissolved and when marriage is dissolved and so on, then the Lord will take every saint as he is or as she is. Families will be split in two. You will have to go through the tribulation. [00:36:35] If it's so, it's a possibility. [00:36:39] Dont think that these things are things that can be just. Well, of course the Bible says something about that. These are things in which you and I may be involved in, actually involved in. [00:36:54] And as I read my Bible, it could happen anytime. [00:37:01] That means that as we come into the seventies, this decade before us, this coming of the Lord could become a fact. [00:37:14] I was tremendously impressed by the fact that the sixties saw the biggest change in national life that our country has ever known. [00:37:27] In 1960, there was no such thing as the permissive society. [00:37:33] By 1970 it's come to stay. [00:37:38] Whatever do the 1970s hold? [00:37:43] Well, I say this. Here is a word that I pray that every 1 may hear. Behold, he cometh with the clouds and every eye shall see him, and they also that pierced him and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. [00:38:05] Even so, amen. [00:38:10] May God give every one of us grace to live in the light of his coming issues. Settled relationships got into the clear critical spirit destroyed by the work of the kvath and the Holy Spirit. May we be filled with hope and faith and love, of which the greatest is love. [00:38:38] Shall we pray? [00:38:45] Dear Lord, we pray that every single one of us may know a burning into our inner being of that word. Behold, he cometh. [00:38:59] Lord, thou knowest all of us. We've seen things and yet somehow, Lord, the cares of this life have made us insensitive to these very things happening before our eye. [00:39:10] O Lord, wake us up. Thy word says, awake thou that sleepest and Christ shall shine upon thee. [00:39:20] O Lord, we pray that every one of us may stir ourselves up to seek thee. [00:39:28] Lord, there are so many issues in my life and in all our lives in our life together, Lord. There are things that are wrong, things that are not settled. Lord. And if we really knew that thou art coming, we'd get them put right, Lord, by the end of today. [00:39:42] O beloved lamb of God, by thy holy spirit, bring upon us something of the solemnity of the days in which we live. And may all these things be put away from us. And above all, that beating up of one another. And may, Lord, instead, may we be filled with hope and faith and love. [00:40:09] We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.