Life Ministries

THE RETURNS

1^st. Corinthians 15:51-53 -  1^st Thessalonians 4:13- 5:3 -  2^nd Thessalonians 2:1-12

    The return of Jesus never fails to create mixed emotions. For some it creates fear and wonder and trepidation…for others it is a sense of comfort and peace and anticipation; however, none of us likes to dwell on it.  There is a wide spectrum of extreme believers concerning the comings (plural) of Christ…ranging from those who see everything that happens in the world, especially in the Middle East, as a sign of His coming. And, in fact they spend a lot of their time and lives with this concern upon their minds. Some Christians drop right off the deep end when prophetic subjects come up…they just go nuts and are fanatical about the subject. They see the “end times” and read prophecy into newspaper articles, current events, and even major disasters. The ultimate extremists live rather sheltered and irresponsible lives, with a lack of interest in the here and now.

    There was a bumper sticker that read; “Warning, in the event of Christ’s return this driver will disappear, and this car will self-destruct ” …and in Bold red letters - “You better git ready!”
    “There was a lady who wanted to marry four different men in her lifetime. A banker, a movie star, a pastor, and a funeral director…One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and four to go!”
    The other end of this extreme are those who either are theologically ignorant, or have no concern whatsoever about the end times and the coming of Christ. They are totally indifferent to the subject. They are not interested in evangelism because this indifference leaves them with no sense of urgency. (I’m not just speaking of non-Christians.) 
"THE LORD HIMSELF WILL COME DOWN FROM HEAVEN."
    The word Paul uses for "coming" was that used for a visit of a person of high rank, especially of kings and emperors, visiting a province. The Second Coming will be of the Lord Himself, not one of His angels or representatives. It will be a personal, dramatic, public and unmistakable coming, a visit in person, of "the Lord". .. "One word of command, one shout from the archangel, one blast from the trumpet of God and the Lord himself will come down from Heaven." What we’re meant to understand is that this authorative, divine proclamation announces the end of the age. What age? (The church age)
    God, in His mercy, has allowed the world to run in time to date for over 2,000 years following the ascension of Jesus. Mankind has made tremendous progress in terms of knowledge and tech-nology, but because of our flawed nature, all the advances made seem to be one step forward and two backwards, in things like morality, selfishness and exploitation. It’s been put like this: “All the noble efforts of law-abiding citizens to slam the brakes on a sick society and the feverish activity of politicians, sociologists and ’do-gooders’ the only "progress" that’s been made is that terrorists, in the name of their god, hijack airliners and crash them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, with the loss of thousands of lives! We are constantly building more prisons to hold the lawbreakers of our society! Our love for God and our love for one another doesn’t seem to have helped to changed much in our world. Why is that? I for one don’t understand why you can’t talk about God or the Bible in our schools, but it’s just fine to talk and even teach and study it in prison!????
    God’s timetable of events, hidden to us, means that the Return of Jesus will come as a surprise to an unbelieving and skeptical world. Paul refers to the analogy that Jesus used of His coming "like a thief in the night" (Matthew 24:43). "While people are saying, ’Peace and safety’" (imagining they’re entirely secure behind their nuclear shields and prosperity),.."destruction will come on them suddenly … and they will not escape" (5:3). Our present task is to work for the kingdom of God as if the Return of Jesus will be delayed until the next century …and at the same time be ready if He should return today!
More to come…