03_10_2019_whenwilljesusreturn_donruhlDownload

When Will Jesus Return? 

Who can tell us anything about the future? 

Isaiah 41.21–24 

Don Ruhl • Savage Street, Grants Pass, Oregon • March 10, In the year of our Lord Christ, 2019 

Prelude: 

  1. People keep trying to predict the time of the end of earth. 
    1. They have predicted that it will end in environmental disaster. 
    2. They have predicted that it will end in nuclear war. 
  2. Have you noticed so far 
    1. that they have gotten it wrong? 
    2. Every. Single. Time. 
      1. Do they learn from their mistakes? 
      2. Do they learn from the mistakes of others? 
        1. Nope! 
        2. Will they ever learn? 
          1. Apparently not! 
          2. They are false scientists, false politicians, false whoever. 
  3. Only the one true and living God can reveal the future. 
    1. He challenges others to declare the future 
    2. so that we can see if they speak the truth:

      21 “Present your case,” says the LORD.
      “Bring forth your strong reasons,” says the King of Jacob.
      22 “Let them bring forth and show us what will happen;
      Let them show the former things, what they were,
      That we may consider them,
      And know the latter end of them;
      Or declare to us things to come.
      23 Show the things that are to come hereafter,
      That we may know that you are gods;
      Yes, do good or do evil,
      That we may be dismayed and see it together.
      24 Indeed you are nothing,
      And your work is nothing;
      He who chooses you is an abomination.”
      (Isaiah 41.21–24)
      1. He challenged them to reveal the truth about the past. 
      2. Then to show what will happen. 
        1. If they can reveal the past accurately, 
        2. they can show the future. 
  4. It is not just those in the secular world who try to predict the end, but 
    1. many have tried to use the Scriptures to tell us when the end will be. 
    2. Have you noticed that so far 
      1. they have gotten it wrong? 
      2. Every. Single. Time. 
        1. Do they learn from their mistakes? 
        2. Do they learn from the mistakes of others? 
          1. Nope! 
          2. Will they ever learn? 
            1. Apparent not! 
            2. They are false prophets. 
              1. They do not know the Scriptures nor 
              2. do they understand why God has kept the end a secret. 

Persuasion: 

  1. Predictions Made in the Past 
    1. This has been going on since the first century. 
    2. Christians at Thessalonica misunderstood Paul’s first letter and 
      1. believed that Jesus would return during their lifetimes, or 
      2. within a short enough time that they quit working. 
        1. And why not? 
        2. If someone persuaded me that Jesus will return by April 14th, 2019, 
          1. I’m not doing my taxes. 
          2. Would you? 
        3. Something I would start doing is living a more holy life. 
      3. The Lord knows that we tend toward that kind of thinking. 
        1. Therefore, He said that His return will be like a thief in the night. 
      4. Paul taught in Second Thessalonians that two things had to happen first. 
        1. The Great Apostasy 
        2. The Revealing Man of Sin 
  2. Predictions Made in Recent Times 
    1. Blood Moons Prophecy 
    2. May 21, 2011 
    3. October 28, 1992 
    4. The “Jehovah’s Witnesses” believe the end will come or the 1,000 year reign of Christ will begin before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away. 
    5. Many people thought the war with Iraq in 1991–1992 was the Battle of Armageddon. 
    6. A NASA scientist listed 88 reasons why he believed the Second Coming would happen between September 11 and September 13, 1988. 
    7. Hal Lindsey who also looked to the time around 1988. 
    8. I got an email last month, again using calculations, that the year is 2026. 
  3. Why They Have Failed 
    1. They believe that it will be earthly. 
    2. They believe that it will have a countdown. 
    3. They keep applying prophecies of His First Coming to His Second Coming. 
    4. Interpreting the Bible politically in places where it should be the church. 
    5. Misunderstanding the Land Promise to Abraham, Genesis 12.1, 7. 
    6. Failing to understand the significance of the church. 
    7. Failing to understand purposes of the first and second comings of Christ. 
    8. Failing to understand how Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in the church and in the first coming of Christ. 
  4. Do We Have Any Idea at All?

    36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only” (Matthew 24.36).

    1 But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. 2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5.1–2).
    1. Do you know the day or the hour that a thief will break into your homes? 
    2. Do you even know the times or the seasons? 
      1. So it is with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. 
      2. We do not know the specific time and we do not know the general time. 
  5. Only God Knows the End and Will Bring about the End 
    1. Isaiah 46.8–10
      8 “Remember this, and show yourselves men;
      Recall to mind, O you transgressors.
      9 Remember the former things of old,
      For I am God, and there is no other;
      I am God, and there is none like Me,
      10 Declaring the end from the beginning,
      And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
      Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
      And I will do all My pleasure,’
      11 Calling a bird of prey from the east,
      The man who executes My counsel, from a far country.
      Indeed I have spoken it;
      I will also bring it to pass.
      I have purposed it;
      I will also do it.”
      (Isaiah 46.8–10)
      1. Judah learned that the Lord God does declare the end from the beginning. 
      2. He revealed through Moses that they would sin and 
        1. bring on their captivity. 
        2. Before it happened, He sent many prophets who gave the details, but 
          1. Judah would not listen. 
          2. Then He did exactly as He said that He would do. 
    2. Here is what Jesus revealed about the time of the end. 
  6. When the End Will Happen 
    1. Although Paul did not tell the Thessalonians 
      1. that Jesus would come in the first century, 
      2. that is what they believed. 
        1. Remember First Thessalonians 5 said 
        2. that we cannot know the times or the seasons, but 
          1. that the return of our Lord will be like a thief in the night. 
          2. He had to write Second Thessalonians 
            1. to show that two major events had not happened yet, but 
              1. that have now happened, and 
            2. he wrote to tell them to get back to work. 
    2. Peter wrote Second Peter 3 to explain to us 
      1. that the earth continues to exist for only one reason. 
      2. [Read] 
    3. That fits in with what Luke recorded Jesus as saying:

      6 “when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18.6–8).
      1. There will be Christians living on the earth when Jesus returns. 
      2. That is why Paul could say 
        1. that dead Christians shall rise first, 
        2. then those alive shall join them in the sky, and 
          1. the whole group shall then ascend further into the sky, 
          2. meeting Jesus in the air and then He will take them to heaven. 
      3. However, Jesus asked that question because 
        1. He indicates that while faith will be on the earth, 
        2. it will be rare, and 
          1. from what Peter said, 
          2. there will come a time when everyone who is going to be saved, 
            1. shall have been saved, and then 
            2. the Lord has no reason for the earth to continue. 

Exhortation: 

  1. Deuteronomy 18.20–22

    21 “And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?’—  22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him” (Deuteronomy 18.21–22).