Hal Lindsey’s latest guess is in 2007. No, he’s not predicting when the Texans will actually win a game, he’s predicting the day of Christ’s return. This isn’t his first guess, either. 1981 and 2000 both came and went despite the well publicized predictions of Jesus’ return. The Jehovah’s Witnesses hold the record, though. 10 different predictions – 1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, 1984, and 1994 – have all passed by, disappointing many followers. Their latest foray into eschatological prognostication was in 1995 when they said that the end had been delayed. Since 1948 with the foundation of Israel as a nation hardly a year has gone by without a prediction of that year being the year of Jesus’ return. It’s a popular and dangerous idea. Cults and cult leaders, from Jim Jones and Charles Manson to David Koresh and Heaven’s Gate, have destroyed peoples lives and led to the death of many of their followers. But it’s not just cult followers and fringe leading teachers that have jumped into the “last days” fray. Everyone, it seems, wants to know when Jesus will return. Look at your notes and you will see it has become almost a point of humor today. “The world has ended. You’re just in denial.” The popular “Left Behind” series and subsequent film and children’s series remain among the all time best sellers in Christian fiction. But as much study and talk as we have had as a church, we are no closer to understanding and knowing when Jesus will return. The end times continue to be cloaked in secrecy and the unknown and those that seem to speak about it seem to have as much insight as someone reading tea leaves. We continue to hear that the end is near, but we still struggle with the ancient question that has plagued the church from its foundation – how long?
The early days of Christianity were not easy days. If you read through Acts and the letters of the New Testament you quickly discover that there were a great number of challenges to the early church. Great among these challenges was constant opposition. The church was opposed by the Jews, who saw those that follow Christ as heretics. They were opposed by the gentiles, who saw the conversion of gentiles to Christianity as an eroding of culture. While the Roman government had a fairly laisse faire attitude towards Christianity at first, when Christianity began to be associated with riots and disruption of peace it quickly became a group to be eliminated or at the very least controlled. It was in the middle of this turmoil when John, imprisoned on the island of Patmos, wrote down what God revealed to him concerning the end of days. After messages to various churches, John writes about a vision of heaven which is full of obscure scripture references and images and ultimately tells the story of Christ’s triumph over sin and judgment of the world. Early in this scene, John sees a scroll containing a message in God’s hand and a lamb, the symbol of Jesus Christ, takes the scroll and opens it, breaking seven seals and revealing more of God’s vision with each seal. These seals begin to set the stage for the story that is about to enfold. The first four seals bring on images of some of the main actors in the story, Jesus, Satan, and images of sin and death. Finally, the Lamb opens the 5th seal and John writes in Revelation 6:9-11:
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.
So what do we know about when Jesus will come? The first thing that we can be certain of is that Christ is coming. Jesus is coming. God is coming. It is a common theme throughout scripture. The Old Testament is filled with verses like Ezekiel 30:3, “For the day of the Lord is near – a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations.” Now “Day of the Lord” and “that day” are phrases that are used throughout scripture to refer to the end of days. All in all, these two phrases occur 218 times in the prophetic books of the Old Testament alone. It has been a part of Jewish culture since the fall that God would one day return and judge us and restore the world to its rightful state. The entire concept of Messiah is wrapped around God returning to restore Israel and judge the world. Scripture speaks with one voice that God is returning. Beyond the prophets, Jesus himself spoke quite often about the end times. His disciples wanted to know, so they asked him about the coming of the end of the age. Paul and the other writers wrote about what will happen at the end of time. All of these speak one strong message that Christ is coming and Christ is coming soon. Helpful, isn’t it. When is Jesus coming? Soon. How soon? We don’t know. Jesus himself didn’t know. He told His disciples only the Father knew the time. He told them to keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. Paul talks of Christ’s return as being like a thief in the night. Christ is coming, but we don’t know the hour or the day. His coming will be as unexpected as a thief coming in the night.
So the question is, what is God waiting for? First off, He is waiting for the lost. He isn’t just delaying so that the world will continue to go against Him. His delay is so those that are lost will come to repentance. Peter writes, “The Lord is not slow in keeping the promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” God is holding back judgment to allow the lost to turn their lives around and live in faith. It is not his desire that any should perish, but that everyone should turn from sin and turn to righteousness.
Beyond the lost, God is waiting for us. He is waiting for us to spread His love throughout the world. Jesus, speaking of when He will return, said, “and this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” He is waiting for us to share His message of hope and truth with the lost and hurting. He is waiting for us to share the good news of grace with the world that they may hear His word and turn from their sin. God is waiting on us to live out our commission as sons and daughters of God through Christ.
So what should we do? First, we should be ready. Jesus said, “So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” We must live in a life of readiness, knowing that Christ is coming soon.
We must also be urgent. We must realize that Jesus is coming soon, so we must not wait. Jesus tells the parable of servants who are put in charge while the master is out and one assumes the master will be out for a long time and begins to act recklessly with the master’s house. The master returns unexpectedly and punishes the servant for his actions.
The danger today is that we can very easily be lulled into a sense of Jesus’ far off return. We can begin to expect that He is coming, but not really be ready for it. Last year, at the beginning of the hurricane season, the news media did their usual task of publicizing lists and information about hurricane preparedness. There were lists of what supplies to stock and what to be prepared for. They told of trimming dead limbs and ridding your yard of debris that could become a projectile in high winds. The information was available and almost everyone got the message. But the message was quickly ignored. The knowledge that a storm could come was there, but it wasn’t enough to build in us a sense of urgency and call us to readiness. So when Hurricane Rita began to threaten our area a year ago, water disappeared from shelves, batteries became a precious commodity, gas was non-existent, people rushed to clear their yards or escape the area. What happened? All of a sudden, what had been a possibility became a reality. And faced with reality, a new sense of urgency called us all into action.
What we talk about in the coming of Christ isn’t just a possibility, it is a reality. Christ promised that He will return and the reality is that His coming is imminent. Christ is coming soon, and this truth should well in us a sense of readiness and urgency. If we truly believed that Jesus were coming soon, how would we live differently? If we truly believed that God’s return was around the corner, that Jesus would return to judge us all, that those that are lost today may possibly be lost forever tomorrow…if we knew this were all more than just some distant chance, some far off possibility that may not happen for generations, how would we live differently? Friends, Christ is coming soon. And His coming calls us to be ready and be urgent in living our lives out for Him.
Lastly, we should be patient. Christ’s return is not far off in the grand scope of life. We must live in readiness and urgency, but we must also live in a perpetual patience. Patience is our confident trust that God’s word is true and that Christ will come in His perfect time.
I can’t tell you the time or the day that Christ will return, but I can tell you that He is coming soon. He will return, a return that has been anticipated since the fall of humanity. God will come again to restore us to right relationship with Him and to recreate us and the world in His perfect will. Christ will come again. Until then, we must live life ready, urgent, and patient waiting for His return.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Come. Amen.