Jesus Is Coming Again

John

Jesus Is Coming Again

June 11th, 1972 @ 7:30 PM

John 14:2

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
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JESUS IS COMING AGAIN

Dr. W. A. Criswell

John 14:2

6-11-72    7:30 p.m.

 

All of you who are listening on the radio of the city of Dallas, you do not believe it, but actually, this is the First Baptist Church, and this is the pastor bringing the message tonight, The King Is Coming, Jesus is Coming Again.  And with us in this great auditorium, would you turn to the first Thessalonian letter, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, beginning at verse 13 and reading to the end of the chapter, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 13 through 18.  All of us sharing our Bibles, and if on the radio you do not have a Bible, go to the room where it is kept in a drawer and you have not seen it for a year, get it out, and read it out loud with us; all of us sharing it together, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, beginning at verse 13.  Now together, all of us:

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

[1 Thessalonians 4:13-18]

“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God,” we do, “believe also in Me,” we shall.  “In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place, a topos, a place.”  A body must have a place, and heaven is a place.  “I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” [John 14:1-3].  Jesus is coming again, “I will come again, and receive you unto Myself,” the coming King.

In the first Corinthian letter, chapter 10 and verse 32, Paul divides all mankind into three categories: the Jew, the Gentile, and the church [1 Corinthians 10:32].  We shall therefore speak of the coming of our Lord as it pertains to the Jew, then to the Gentile, and finally, to the church.

First the Jew: God’s clock is the Jew.  If you would like to see what time it is on God’s clock, look at the Jew.  Had Russia not banned the Bible she would not have spent billions arming the Arab world against Israel.  God has several things to say about the Jew.  One: he will be here when Jesus comes again.  Matthew 24:34, our Lord says, “Verily, truly, I say unto you, This genea,” this genus, this kind, this species, this race, “shall not pass away, until all these things be fulfilled.”

Nobody ever sees anymore or ever hears anymore or ever heard of anybody anymore who ever saw the ancient tribes and families of this ancient world; the Hittites, the Amorites, the Jebusites, the Moabites, they have passed from the scene generations and centuries ago.  But the Lord said that the Jew will be here until Jesus comes again [Matthew 24:34].  And down every city street in this America and around the world will you see the Jew.  He’ll be here, the Lord said, until He comes again.

Second: the Lord says the land of Palestine belongs to him.  I do not speak of the many passages in Genesis, in Exodus, in the Deuteronomy legislation, but I refer to Psalm 105, verses 8 through 11.  There the psalmist avows that, in an unconditional covenant that God will honor forever, He gave the land of Palestine to the seed of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.  In an unconditional promise, God gave the land of Palestine, the Promised Land of Canaan, to the seed of Israel [Psalm 105:8-11].  And there’s not a Jew anywhere in this earth, if he’s a true Jew, but whose heart is in love with and beats for the future and the destiny of Israel.

Upon a day, I came back from across the sea and landed at the Kennedy Airport in New York City, and a taxi driver took me to my hotel.  I never saw such a tough guy in my life.  He looked it and he talked it.  And some of those other taxi drivers around him, oh he cussed them a blue streak.  Hmm, he was something.  I happened to see his name up there, and I said, “Are you Jewish?”  He said, “Yeah.”

“Well,” I said, “I have just come back from Israel.”

“Oh?” he said.

“Yes, I’ve just come back from Israel.”

He said, “How is it?”

And I began to describe to him how the desert was blossoming like a rose and what God was doing in that little nation, in the Israeli, little state.  And as I continued to describe the blessings and the favor of the Lord upon Israel, tears welled up in his eyes, that big, tough taxi driver who’d been fetched up in Brooklyn, New York.  He’d lived there all his life.

When we got to the hotel I was never so royally treated in my life; he got out, he got my baggage, he took me up to the counter, he saw that I was registered.  He wouldn’t take a tip and he doffed his hat so cordially when he left.  That’s the Jew in Palestine.  Wherever he lives in the world his heart is there.  God made the land for him, and God made him for the land.  In an unconditional covenant, God gave the land of Palestine to the Jew forever.

Third: he will return in unbelief.  In the thirty-sixth chapter of the prophecy of Ezekiel you have the description of the return of the Jew to Palestine in unbelief [Ezekiel 36:24-28].  My impression of the typical Israeli is—he’s either an agnostic or he’s an atheist.  There is a small sect, a small part of the Israeli state that is Orthodox Jew, but the great mass of them, the great mass of them have an indifference toward God that is astonishing!

That is according to the prophecy.  When they go back, they will go back largely in unbelief [Ezekiel 36:24-28].  And it is only in the land that the Lord visits them and that they return in tremendous faith and glory to the Messiah Christ in the day of His coming and manifestation [Matthew 23:39].  For centuries there were but a handful of Jews in Palestine.  But the Bible says, the prophecy avows that the Jew will go back.  And in our day and in our generation, we have seen him turn homeward, his face toward the Promised Land.  And in May 1948, the Israeli state was born—in our generation and before our very eyes, according to the prophecy of God.

Again the Bible says, the prophecy avows that He will rebuild His temple.  In the chapters Ezekiel 40 through 48 [Ezekiel 40:1-48:35], in the ninth chapter of Daniel [Daniel 9:26], in the second chapter of the second Thessalonian letter [2 Thessalonians 2:4], in the eleventh chapter of the Apocalypse [Revelation 11:19], the temple is rebuilt.  And when you visit Palestine today, and Jerusalem, you’ll see there on the rock where Abraham offered up Isaac [Genesis 22:1-12], and where Solomon built his temple [2 Chronicles 3:1], you’ll see there the Mosque of Omar, the Mosque of the Dome of the Rock.

It’s an impressive thing.  The United States government gave the Arabs three million dollars just to gild the dome.  But the day is coming when every stone in that Mosque of Omar will be torn down or blasted out or struck with a bomb and carried to an unclean place.  And in that very place, according to the Word of God, the temple of the Jewish people will be rebuilt [Ezekiel 43:1-12].

Again the prophecy says that the enemy of the Jew is Russia.  In the thirty-eighth chapter of the Book of Ezekiel, Russia is called by name and some of its cities, semantically, are also described and named [Ezekiel 38:1-6].  God says the great enemy of the Israeli state and of the Jew is Russia, and it is on the mountains of Judea and it is in Palestine that Russia will finally meet her ultimate doom [Ezekiel 38:18-23].  This is in the thirty-eighth chapter of the Book of Ezekiel.

And last about the Jew: when Jesus comes, He will deal with the Jew visibly and personally.  And at that time, a nation will be born in a day, and the Jew will accept Christ the Messiah as their King and Leader and Savior! [Isaiah 66:8].  Is that an unusual thing?  It is described meticulously, and beautifully, and effectively, and movingly, and dramatically in the prophecy of Zechariah, chapters 12, 13, and 14.

It is also described in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Romans [Romans 11:25-31].  This is not an unusual thing for the Lord to do.  Before He went back to heaven, He visited personally, having been raised from the dead; He visited with His brethren and won them to Himself [Acts 1:14; 1 Corinthians 15:7].  Aren’t you glad, when the Lord went back to glory His brethren believed in Him?  But until the appearance of the Lord personally to them, they did not believe [John 7:5].  Aren’t you glad? [Zechariah 12:1-14:21].

In the fifteenth chapter of the first Corinthian letter, the apostle Paul says, “And last of all, He appeared unto me, ektrōma, in an abortion,” translated in the King James Version of the Bible, “before the time, as one born out of due time” [1 Corinthians 15:8].  What does he mean, “before the time”?  The apostle there is referring to the great consummation of the age when the Messiah will appear personally to His people, and His people will be saved [Romans 11:26].   But before that time, the apostle avows, the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him personally, and he was won to the Lord by a personal confrontation with Jesus Christ, ektrōma, before the time [1 Corinthians 15:8; Acts 9:4, 17].

In the eleventh chapter of the Book of Romans, the apostle vows, “So all Israel shall be saved at the coming of the Lord” [Romans 11:26].  That, to me, is the hardest and most inexplicable passage in Scripture; but God says it, I believe it, and in His glorious mercy for His chosen people, that verse avows, “So all Israel shall be saved.”  And at the great consummation of the age, at the coming of the Lord, the Lord Jesus will appear personally and deal personally with His people, and they will turn in repentance and in faith to Christ [Romans 11:26].  This is the coming of our Lord as it pertains to the Jew.

Second: the coming of Christ as it pertains to the Gentiles.  Without exception, from one side of the beginning of this prophecy to the ending of the prophecy, the Bible presents the Gentile nations as furiously and rapidly moving toward the great battle of the day of the Lord, the battle of Armageddon [Revelation 16:12-16].  It is not without reason that the nations, the Gentile nations, in the visions that Daniel saw, are beasts, ferocious, non-descript, carnivorous beasts [Daniel 7:3-7].  And the Bible presents the Gentile nation as such!

Without exception, the whole flow of prophecy is this: that the nations of the world, the Gentile nations of the world, are moving toward the great battle, the final war of Armageddon.  In the nineteenth chapter of the Book of the Revelation, in the midst of that battle, Christ comes and intervenes in human history [Revelation 19:11-21].  That battle is described in the Revelation chapter 9 [Revelation 9:16], in the Revelation chapter 14 [Revelation 14:14-20], in the Revelation chapter 16 [Revelation 16:13-16], and in the Revelation chapter 19, at which time the Lord comes visibly, openly intervening in human history [Revelation 19:11-21].

Now there’s several things about that that astonish me as I think of the days past.  I have lived through two World Wars.  I remember World War I, I remember World War II, and most of us are conversant with the war in Korea and the Vietnam War now.  How is it that the nations of the earth are drawn there to Armageddon, to the valley of Esdraelon, to the har megiddo, the Hill of Megiddo? [Revelation 16:16]. How is it that they’re drawn there?

Somehow, in a way that mankind cannot explain, the focus of human history is in the Middle East.  It always has been.  It is today.  However America seeks to withdraw itself from a confrontation with the great powers of Russia and of China, we are facing them day and night in the Middle East.  When I went to Washington and was briefed on the foreign policy of the United States, I asked Henry Kissinger, I said, “Where is it that the United States will find its confrontation with Russia?  Is it in Vietnam?”

He said, “No, there is no possibility of a confrontation between the United States and the great powers of the earth in Indochina.”  Well, I said, “Then where?”  He said, “It lies in the Middle East.  The sixth fleet of America is in the Mediterranean, and Russia is building up her forces in the Mediterranean and in the Indian Ocean.  And the whole Arab world is seething under the probing hand of Russia!”

And it is there that the Scriptures say that the great, final confrontation and last battle of the world will be fought.  Now how are they drawn there?  In the sixteenth chapter of the Book of the Revelation, it says that “Evil spirits went out from these, from the abyss, and deceiving the nations brought them there” [Revelation 16:13-14].  This is the great judgment day of Almighty God, and it will find its ultimate in the Middle East in the battle of Armageddon [Revelation 16:16].

Second: I could not understand, having seen and read through these wars, I could not understand the enormous carnage of the battle of Armageddon.  Look at that a minute.  By comparison, first, in the First World War, for years and years, for four years they fought that battle over the Hindenburg line, in trenches, and men were killed.  But after the war was over, no dent was made in the population of the earth.  In the Second World War, even though it closed with an atomic bomb that exploded over Hiroshima, yet the populations of the world and of the conflicting nations were hardly lessened.

But in the battle of Armageddon, in the fourteenth chapter of the Book of the Revelation, it says that the blood from that carnage is for one thousand six hundred furlongs up to the bridles of the horses [Revelation 14:20].  Now a furlong is an eighth of a mile.  So a thousand six hundred furlongs would be two hundred miles.  So vast is that carnage that the bloodletting is as though you saw a flood, a river of crimson up to the bridles of the horses for two hundred miles!

As Isaiah says, “From Bozrah, up to Armageddon” [Isaiah 63:1-6], which is exactly two hundred miles.  Now how could such a thing be?  Why, in the ninth chapter of the Book of Revelation, the Scriptures say that the king of the east, and I presume that’s China, has an army there of two hundred million men [Revelation 9:16].  The nations of the earth will converge in that great, final day of God in the Middle East, and there the last great battle will be fought––and why the carnage? [Revelation 14:20].

In days passed, men killed one another with guns or with cannon, but this next war will be fought with atomic bombs.  Do you know why Nobel named his Peace Prize, the Nobel Peace Prize?  He had invented dynamite and TNT, and Nobel said, “So awesome is the destruction of this weapon, that we have outlawed war forever.  Men will never use such weapons to kill one another.  Such inhumanity to humankind is unthinkable!” said Nobel.  So he established a peace prize in honor and in memory of the great discovery that would forever outlaw war.  Did he outlaw it?  No, no!  The first time that TNT and dynamite were really used was to fight with.

Do you think we stockpile these atomic bombs and these hydrogen bombs and these H bombs—these hell bombs, do you think we stockpile them with the thought that we’ll never use them?  No!  Russia stockpiles them, China stockpiles them, the United States stockpiles them, and we’re doing it against that day when the final confrontation will come between us and the enemies of the earth, and you will find lurid death falling out of these very skies.  You think our missions to the moon are just for the purpose to walk around and see what kind of dust there is on the moon?  No!  What we’re doing, we’re probing space.  And you’re going to see in your lifetime great platforms, swirling around this earth.  They’ll be Russian, they’ll be American; and on those platforms there will be mounted bombs that can be dropped on any city in any place in the world!  This next war is going to be beyond what imagination could think of, when lurid death and destruction fall from the sky itself.

And when the whole world is bathed in human blood—it is in the midst of the battle of Armageddon, according to the nineteenth chapter of the Revelation, that Jesus comes, that He stops human history [Revelation 19:11-21].  And as the Lord said, “For the elect’s sake those days should be shortened; for were they not shortened no flesh would be saved” [Matthew 24:22].  This is the second coming of Christ as it pertains to the Gentiles.

Third: the coming of our Lord as it pertains to the church.  In the eleventh chapter of the Book of Romans, Paul wrote:

I would not have you without knowledge, my brethren, concerning this mustērion, this secret kept in the heart of God; lest ye should be wise:

All of us Gentiles, lest we should be conceited, lifted up in our hearts as though we were especially favored of God:

for blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.  And then shall all Israel be saved: as it is written—

[Romans 11:25-26]

 

then he goes on to describe the great turning of the seed of Jacob to the Messiah Christ [Romans 11:26-32].

But look at that word: “Until the fullness, plerōma, of the Gentiles be come in” [Romans 11:25].  What is the word plerōma?  That is a simple, ordinary, plain, household Greek word meaning a full number.  “Until the full number of the Gentiles be come in”; and when that last one comes down that aisle, when the last Gentile has been saved, according to the election and the sovereign purposes of God, when the last Gentile shall avow his faith in the Lord, then shall come the consummation of the age [Romans 11:25].  And our Lord shall come; with His church, He comes as a thief in the night to rapture them away [1 Thessalonians 5:2].  Our Lord is coming under a twofold simile.  He is coming as a thief, and He is coming as the vivid lightning shines across the blackness of the sky [Matthew 24:27].

First: He is coming as a thief in the night [1 Thessalonians 5:2], without announcement, any day, any moment, any hour, now, a moment from now, at midnight, at dawn in the morning.  There is nothing to keep our Lord from coming any day, any time, any hour, any moment. That’s what the old Anglo-Saxon word means, rapture: “to fetch away, to take away.”  Our Lord is coming secretly, clandestinely, furtively.  He is coming softly, with unsandaled feet.  He is coming as a thief to steal away His people [1 Thessalonians 5:2].  He is coming to take away His pearl of price [Matthew 13:45-46].  He is coming to take away His treasure hid in a field [Matthew 13:44].  And all of us shall share in that rapture; these who have fallen asleep in Christ, who are buried in the heart of the earth, and all of us who are alive and remain, unto the coming of Jesus, all of us shall share in that rapture.  Not a one of us shall be left behind [1 Thessalonians 4:13-17].  As Paul wrote in the great Corinthian fifteenth chapter, the resurrection chapter:

This I say, brethren, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption.

But I show you a mustērion, a secret: We may not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we, we shall all be changed.

[1 Corinthians 15:50-52]

 

For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of the archangel . . . and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

And then we shall be raptured up to meet them in the air.  And so shall we ever be with the Lord.

[1 Thessalonians 4:16-17]

There will be not a bone left in the region of death, not a relic for the Satan to gloat over.  We shall all share in that great, glorious coming of the Lord, the rapture of His people.

It’ll be as it was in the days of Enoch.  Suddenly he was gone [Genesis 5:24].  It’ll be as it was in the days of Noah, when God shut the door [Genesis 6:16] and the judgment fell [Genesis 7:17-24].  It shall be as it was in the days of Lot, when the angel snatched him out [Genesis 19:16]; for the angel said, “The judgment cannot come until thou be drawn hence” [Genesis 19:22].

As long as the Christian church is here there will be no judgment and no battle of Armageddon.  But in the great rapture of the Lord, when His people are taken out, then judgment shall fall upon the earth.  And that shall be the great separation: “Two shall be in a bed; one shall be taken, and the other left.  Two shall be grinding at a mill; one shall be taken, and the other left.  Two shall be working in a field; one shall be taken, and the other left” [Luke 17:34-36].  This is the rapture of His church, when Jesus comes as a thief [1 Thessalonians 5:2], to steal away His timē, His pearl of great price [Matthew 13:45-46].

Second, He is coming under the sign, under the insignia, under the simile of the vivid lightning that splits the very bosom of the sky [Matthew 24:27].  He is coming with His people, openly, and publicly, and visibly!  The text of the revelation is Revelation 1:7, “Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him.”  And the great text in Jude, just before the Revelation, is, “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints” [Jude 14].

He is coming openly, and visibly, and triumphantly, and victoriously, and gloriously!  He is coming in the glory of the Father, as God the Son, and the Son of God [Matthew 11:27; John 10:31].  He is coming in the glory of the angels, as the Captain of the hosts of heaven [Revelation 1:7].  He is coming in the glory of the church, as the Bridegroom with the bride [Matthew 25:6].  He is coming in His own glory as the Son of God, the Son of Abraham, the Son of David, the Son of Man [Matthew 16:27], the virgin born Man [Matthew 1:23-25], the Crucified Man [Matthew 27:32-50], the risen Man [Matthew 28:5-7], the God Man, Christ Jesus! [John 20:28]. He is coming as the King of Israel, as the King of the Jews [Luke 23:3], as the King of the nations of the earth, as the King of the Gentiles [Revelation 19:15], as the King of all kings and all lords [Revelation 19:16].  And He is coming as the restorer and recreator of this fallen earth; as He says in the Revelation, “Behold, I make all things new” [Revelation 21:5]: the manifest and eternal God [1 Timothy 3:16], Christ Jesus, who is coming in glory, in triumph, and in victory [Revelation 1:7].

And then shall be brought to pass those incomparable and marvelous prophecies we read in the blessed Word.  Listen to some of them.  “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore [Isaiah 2:4].  But every man shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree; and there shall be none to make them afraid” [Micah 4:4].  Think what that means to ravaged countries like Vietnam; peace, the Prince of Peace [Isaiah 9:6], when He comes, when He comes.  The glorious prophecy in Isaiah:

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid . . . and the ravenous, carnivorous lion will eat straw like an ox.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all God’s holy mountain: for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

[Isaiah 11:6-9]

 

And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

[Isaiah 9:6]

When Jesus comes again, when the King is crowned Lord of all God’s universe [Revelation 19:15-16].

It may be at midday, it may be at twilight.

It may be perchance, that the blackness of midnight,

Will burst into light in the blaze of His glory,

When Jesus comes for His own.

O joy, O delight, should we go without dying,

No sickness, no sadness, no dread, and no crying.

Caught up with our Lord and His saints into glory

When Jesus comes for His own.

O Lord Jesus, how long, how long?

Ere we shout the glad song,

Christ returneth, He returneth

Hallelujah, Amen.

[from “Christ Returneth,” H.L. Turner, 1878]

“He which testifieth these things saith, Surely, surely, I come quickly” [Revelation 22:20].  And the answering prayer of the sainted John that closes the Revelation and closes the prophecy and closes the Book, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” [Revelation 22:20].  If I know my heart, I am ready any day, any time, any hour, Lord.  Now, tonight, at the dawn, tomorrow, this year, next year, any year, Lord, if I know my heart, I am ready.  “Even so, come, blessed Jesus” [Revelation 22:20].

Is it that with you?  Is it well with you?  Is everything right between you and God?  If He were to come tonight, would you be raptured with His saints?  Do you belong to Christ?  Are you a child of the King?  Are you?

Our invitation, first of all, at the camp, all of you who rededicated your life to Christ, all of you who rededicated your life to Christ out there at the camp, would you stand up for a special prayer?  Wherever you are—out at the camp, if you rededicated your life to the Lord—wherever you are, would you stand up?  All of you who rededicated your life at the camp, would you stand up?  Now remain standing, just for a moment, and bow your head and your heart before the Lord in prayer.

Our Lord, remember for Thee, for Thy work, and for Thy kingdom these young men and women, who at our camp reconsecrated and rededicated their lives to Christ.  And for all that it shall mean for them, and for us, and for God’s work in the earth, sanctify and hallow that commitment.  And we shall thank Thee for Thy blessing upon them, and Thy use of them in the work of our Lord.  In Thy precious name, amen.

Thank you, you may be seated.

Now, the invitation: to give your heart in faith and in trust to Christ, as this young man stands here, God’s put it in his soul to come, as God shall press the appeal to your heart, would you answer tonight with your life?  “He has called me into special service, I feel it.  He set me aside, He has spoken to my heart.”  I know what that feeling is.  I’ve heard that in my own soul, and I answered with my life.  As God calls you, if He has, would you come and avow it openly, publicly?  Would you give your life in a special service to Christ, would you?  Come, come.  Make it tonight.

Again, to take the Lord as your Savior, to open your heart in faith and in trust to Him, “I want to take Jesus as my Savior, and I’m coming now.”  On the first note of the first stanza, down one of these stairways or into the aisle and to the front, “I’m coming accepting Christ as my Savior and here I am.”  Or to put your life in the fellowship of the church, “I have been saved, I have been baptized and I want to place my life in the circumference and friendship and fellowship of this dear church, and I’m coming.”  Or for any other reason that the Spirit of God shall press the appeal to your heart, make the decision now, make it now.  And in a moment when we stand up to sing, down one of these stairways or into the aisle and here to the front, “Here I come, here I am, pastor.”

What God says, answer with your life, and we’ll kneel and pray and give ourselves all over again to our dear Lord.  Are you ready?  Have you made the decision?  In the balcony round, a family, a couple, or just one somebody you, on the lower floor, you, as God shall say the word, shall press the appeal, answer now, answer with your life.  Come now, do it now, while we stand and while we sing.

JESUS IS
COMING AGAIN

Dr. W.
A. Criswell

John
14:1-3, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 1 Corinthians 10:32

6-11-72

I.          The Jew

A.  He will be here when
Jesus comes (Matthew 24:34)

B.  The land of
Palestine belongs to him (Psalm 105:8-11)

C.  He will return in
unbelief (Ezekiel 36:24-25)

D.
He will rebuild the temple (Ezekiel 40-48,
Daniel 9:27, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, Revelation 11:1-2)

E.
His enemy is Russia (Ezekiel 38)

F.  Jesus
will deal with the Jew visibly and personally (Zechariah
12-14, Romans 11:25-28, 1 Corinthians 15:8)

II.         The Gentiles

A.  Driving toward
Armageddon (Revelation 9, 14, 16, 19:11)

      1.  How is it they
are drawn there? (Revelation 16:13-14)

2.  How
could there be such great carnage? (Revelation
9:16, 14:20, Isaiah 63:1, Matthew 24:22)

III.        The church

A.  The full number of
Gentiles saved (Romans 11:25-26)

B.  A twofold simile

1.  He
is coming as a thief in the night (1 Corinthians
15:50-52, 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, Genesis 19:22, Luke 17:34-36)

2.  He
is coming as vivid lightning that splits the sky (Revelation
1:7, Jude 14)

a. In the glory of the
Father

b. In His own glory as
the Son of God

c. As the King of kings

d. As the Restorer and
Re-creator (Revelation 21:5)

IV.       Then
the marvelous prophecies are brought to pass (Isaiah
2:4, 11:6-9, 9:6, Micah 4:4, Revelation 22:20)