|
              
|
|
Finally some facts about our Lord’s Return
to Planet Earth from a Reliable Source |
An alternative to a rather dogmatic statement.
|
Our teacher asked the class the question, “What is the last thing that must happen before our Lord’s Return?” The response of the class to that question was quite revealing. One person said, “The temple must be rebuilt in Jerusalem.” Another replied, “A future Antichrist must first appear on the scene.” It would seem rather evident that the “LEFT BEHIND” delusion, has been making inroads into our Church!
But back to the question; it has been almost fifty years ago now since I was being examined for membership in the Christian Reformed Church, when the pastor asked that precise question. I provided him with precisely the same answer as our teacher gave the other week, - “When that last individual, making up the final number of God’s ELECT, is redeemed, THEN CHRIST WILL RETURN!” With a smile, the preacher nodded his head in approval and I felt pretty proud of myself. Being a lot older and a wee bit wiser, I now look back on that answer as false! It is an error based on a presupposition that I find no support for, in the scriptures. Of even greater concern is the fact that the Bible teaches the opposite which must be ignored in order to maintain this future pet presupposition. I will not roll out a long list of verses to substantiate this claim but am willing to call attention to just one verse connected to the 7th verse of the first chapter of Revelation which has been chosen as this mornings subject for discussion. They are like Siamese twins and cannot be separated.
Jesus has just been arrested and brought, in the dead of night, into the hall where the Sanhedrin is unlawfully assembled for a kangaroo court. Getting the false witnesses to collaborate is a fiasco. In a rage of frustration, Caiaphas, the high priest, says to that One standing bound before him, - “I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of The Blessed or no. Jesus saith unto him. Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you. Hereafter shall ye (Caiaphas) see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”It will require a rather strong and elastic imagination to stretch and connect the fulfillment of Jesus’ words to some event, yet future, which finds the ancient high priest still in possession of a pair of fully functional eyeballs. On the other hand, it takes no imagination at all to see the practical reality of Caiaphas, only thirty seven years later as a stoop-shouldered old man, along with many of his wicked companions, still walking the streets of the doomed city. Is not the prediction of Jesus and the glorious justice of God displayed when this arrogant imposter, who judged, rejected and condemned to death the Lord of Glory, sees this same Jesus returning upon the clouds of Glory to judge him and the rest of that apostate nation? The chalice of God’s indignation and covenantal wrath had been filled to overflowing and was being poured out upon a stiff-necked, rebellious, disobedient people that had committed the most heinous sin in the history of mankind. History records the earth shaking events that brought an “END” to their world and established the “BEGINNING” of ours (the Church) in A.D. 70.
This catastrophic event is about to take place as the book of Revelation opens, hence, - “...things which must shortly come to pass; ...for the time is at hand.” It does not appear that Hal Lindsey nor Jack Van Impe have Bibles that contain these verses. It’s as if they have effectively expunged them as a formidable obstacle that God has placed in their path, hindering their most sensational Future Fantasies. But let’s return to the real world and look at verse seven, which most commentators point to as the “Theme” of the book of Revelation. The apostle John shares the exciting message his Lord is revealing to him, of what He is about to do. “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so. Amen.” The striking similarity between the words of Jesus to John and His words to Caiaphas about thirty-five years earlier should make us pause and ponder. God's voice boomed from heaven saying, - This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, HEAR YE HIM. A humble submission to that command will make most of our fuzzy future fantasies, fade into oblivion.
Our teacher is to be commended for standing his ground against the notion of future fulfillment by stating, “When Jesus returned in judgement in A.D. 70 every eye did see Him.” Thank you, and please take note, - the earth didn't open up and swallow him! A bit of confusion on the next phrase however, “...and they also which pierced Him:” My apologies to our illustrious teacher if I misunderstood him but he seemed to imply that this refers to the whole human race. At least his warning was, not to accuse the Jews as this is the real cause of “Anti-Semitism” in today’s world. Well, if some madman decides to slaughter millions of Jews on the pretense of them committing a crime as “Christ Killers,” we need to repudiate the act and the perverted ideas that led to it, but remember, THEY are, and THEY will be, held responsible. We have not been given the liberty of watering down the Word of God to make it more palatable to sinful creatures. The Church is not expected to stand, hat in hand, apologizing for the facts provided in God’s divine revelation. If those facts brand Christ’s Church Anti-Semitic, than so be it. Can we say that the Jews are not to be considered “they which pierced Him” ? If so, that flies in the face of the Anti-Semite, Peter. He knew who committed the dastardly deed and pointed an accusing finger in their face on the day of Pentecost, - Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth... being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, YE HAVE TAKEN, AND BY WICKED HANDS HAVE CRUCIFIED AND SLAIN: This does not provide me with a license to tell my Jewish neighbor, “You killed Christ.” Of course not. It does, however, provide opportunity to show him the gaping hole in his history that only the events of A.D. 70, by divine design, can remedy. Sad to say, most Christian Futurists are equally dense when it comes to the important place this piece of our history has played in God's plan of redemption.
Then John says, - and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
The proper term which the translators call “earth” should be “Land” which was properly noted, thank you! The importance of this can be seen in removing it out of the universal realm of the Futurist and confining it to its proper 1st century setting. An important element in the A.D. 70 event, often overlooked, is the status of the (promised) land. The first generation couldn't enter into it because of “unbelief.” The next generation entered and God drove out the inhabitants who were dispossessed of the land. In A.D. 70, like it or not, the current inhabitants were dispossessed of the land along with their Covenant relationship to the owner of the land. (This overlooked fact has far reaching implications in our day and another place where we part company with the Dispensationalist). Here then, we find another verse anchoring Revelation’s fulfillment to a contemporary scene in A.D. 70. It would be those Jews that were scattered, some still in, but many outside the land, that would escape death in that holocaust. Is it any wonder they would “WAIL”? Yes, they still had their lives but everything else was gone. Everything they had treasured and held dear was now gone FOREVER! Their holy city had been reduced to a pile of smoldering rubble. Their magnificent Temple, which had been the heart and pride of the nation was now level with the ground. Their priesthood was no more. The satisfaction which they derived from offering animal sacrifices was gone, in fact it was now IMPOSSIBLE for them to worship God according to His Law! They were even cut off from their past as the archives containing their genealogies, which were stored in the Temple, went up in the flames along with “THEIR HOUSE” which had now been “left unto them DESOLATE!” Can any of the sensational speculations of the Futurist, compare with the real grief and anguish experienced by the apostate Jews in the wake of The Son of Man’s Coming in judgement on those who “knew not the day of their visitation”?
When the natural man looks back on the events of A.D. 70, he sees an invading Roman army destroying the city of Jerusalem. - (Ho Hum.) Shame on that Christian whose vision is so impaired. In this one event, all the Old Testament prophecies about the Kingdom and Jesus’ Return had been FULFILLED. That destruction became an eye-opener for the rest of the world to finally recognize that the faithful followers of Christ have become, THE TRUE ISRAEL OF GOD!!! Even so, Amen, says John.
Back to the questionable answer of the opening question. “What is the last thing that must happen before our Lord’s Return??? Forget the rebuilt temple and some diabolic Antichrist. What about the last saint saved in order to enable Jesus’ Return? Look at the facts given to us in Holy Writ. Jesus returned precisely WHEN He said He would. That was the disciples’ question, WHEN shall these things be? Christ’s answer comes back in one of the clearest statements in our Bible, - Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.We need not assume, we can KNOW that “ALL THESE THINGS” would include the temple’s destruction but also Christ’s PAROUSIA as that was a part of His concerned follower’s question, - and what shall be the sign of thy coming, (Parousia). Peter knew the “WHEN” and the “WHY” of his Lord’s Coming. Not only does he point an accusing finger of indicunent at the culprits, but ends his sermon, on Pentecost, with the most compelling altar-call ever given, Save yourselves from this untoward (crooked, perverse) generation. His ears had heard his Master’s warning to His enemies. Seven woes had been pronounced upon them, - Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Ending with this shocking pronouncement, - Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify: and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood sited upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. The guilt of all the righteous blood shed from Abel to that day would be visited upon their heads? WHEN??? Peter was wide awake when Jesus said, - Verily I say unto you. All these things shall come upon this generation. It was this wicked generation that would feel the covenant wrath of a Holy God, Just as He had warned them before He shut up the heavens for 400 years, - For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
The entire book of Revelation is a commentary on this A.D. 70 event, “Which must shortly come to pass; ...FOR THE TIME IS AT HAND.” The entire three and one half years of chaos would witness Joel’s “... blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:”The apostle John would preview all the events of the war, along with its final results in one brief scene, - And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. Could this possibly be the same “angel,” in His human form, which is seen weeping over the once Holy City, now become a HARLOT?
Was Jesus hindered in Returning, until the last one of God’s ELECT was brought in? And now that He has Returned as He promised and when He promised, is there no more salvation available? Dr. Jay Adams in his book, The Time is at Hand, holds a similar view in which he uses a Latin phrase to describe it. He calls it “the terminous ad quem of salvation” - that is to say, the closing point of God’s offer of salvation to man.” Again, I’m sad to say, produced by the same presupposition totally lacking scripture’s support. The facts provided in the Bible paint quite a different picture! Until the Return of Christ, in A.D. 70, God’s ELECT were drawn almost exclusively from one minor nation, Israel. Upon Christ’s Return, that nation was all but removed from the earth. When the dust settled, Israel as a nation, was gone. Did that occurrence shut the door of salvation??? Quite to the contrary; I'm happy to report that the door of salvation is now swung WIDE OPEN. And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.The Son was now receiving the inheritance which His Father had promised in Psalms 2, - “...7 shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” And now by comparison how do the “heathen” subjects react to their KING?After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
I can't speak for anyone else but I for one am personally grateful that our God didn’t close the door of salvation upon His Return to finalize the establishment of His ETERNAL KINGDOM! Here is yet another thing that would be witnessed by His faithful first century saints, - For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. To which I must shout, ALLELUIA!!! To anyone facing this simple and yet sublime truth for the first time, I know the tendency is to look upon it as something new and novel, unworthy of your time or consideration, “I’ve never heard that before, so it can't be true.” Well, let me encourage you to resist the temptation to reject and brush it aside. At least until you have considered a warning Jesus Christ has given us on this matter in a story He told about two contrasting servants. Jesus calls the first, “a faithful and wise servant” while the second a wicked and an “evil servant.” There is only one reason given for that derogatory designation, - But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming: Now, in all honesty I ask you; has this not been the “Official Position” of the “Christian Church,” in the area of eschatology, for 2000 years???
|
“OUR LORD DELAYETH HIS COMING!”
|
Is it not a very sad, yea even disgraceful day when the Glorious Body of Christ must be identified with and represented by such a reprehensible figure as an “EVIL SERVANT”? Doesn’t that send a bit of a shudder down your spine? Do we have a compartment in our brain where we can tuck that away and ignore or blot it out? This is a very serious issue and must be confronted. The time has come for someone to grab the Church by the lapels, shake it and shout “WAKE UP!” The issue is not incidental or irrelevant. It is vital in maintaining the credibility of our Savior and the inspiration of God’s infallible Word. The unrelenting attack of the apostate Jews until the present day, is based upon the promises of Jesus (which they seem to know much better than most Christians) that He would Return to this earth within the life time of His contemporaries of “that generation” of the first century. BUT HE DIDN’T, hence their forefathers were Justified in condemning Him to death as an imposter who was not The Messiah. To them, the idea of a Second Coming is a pure rationalization of Jesus’ failure to function in any way as a Messiah. They say, “In order to get around this failure on the part of Jesus, Christians invented the doctrine of a future “Second Coming.” The Muslims are in the limelight these days. I quote only one, out of a long list of verses with their comments, which showed up on their website the other day – “...Matthew 16:27-28. Are there any of those who were standing who are alive to this day? Is this not further proof of mankind’s tendency to put words in the mouth of Jesus which he never said?” Even C. S. Lewis, who is often quoted in “For Meditation” (inside front cover of our Church’s bulletin) says something I hope we will never see printed there. Quote - Say what you like, ‘we shall be told (by the skeptic), “the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘This generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And He was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.” I could go on but it gets even worse. The bottom line is that postponement theories directly contradict the teachings of Jesus, and “non-occurrence” leaves Christianity vulnerable to all manner of critical scorn and harmful assaults. The fact is, we have not taken this cancerous infiltration seriously enough! The only solution to the problem of “non-occurrence” is “occurrence.”
The key to an effective counter-attack is right under our nose - which is, - Jesus was correct! He meant what He said and said what He meant! Is that reallv so unbearable for us to believe? I sure hope not, as HE is the only RELIABLE SOURCE from which we may draw the FACTS concerning our Lord’s promised Return to Planet Earth!!! If your eyes are fixed on a “Future return” I challenge you to “return” to the words of our Lord. Remove the Reebok and don the sandals of a suffering, first century saint. Christ promised that some of His hearers would still be alive to witness His Return in glory with His holy angels, to reward every man according to his works. His promise “but he that endureth to the end shall be saved” can not and must not be embraced by our Reebok generation. The saints of that generation were sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: “...and they will scourge you in their synagogues.”Is that “you” you?
What “end” would you be required to endure to, in order to be saved? Enduring, implies works but if we know anything it’s, “We are saved by GRACE and not by works.” Jesus had a definite “END” in mind but contrary to what many Christians think, it had nothing to do with the END of the WORLD (or cosmos.) In fact, the Bible never teaches, our world will end! Much confusion melts away when we understand “The End” as Jesus and the disciples envisaged it. That AGE was about to come to an abrupt END. His followers, by enduring unto the end of that age, wouldn’t have anything to do with the salvation of their souls. A more Godly group of men never lived, than those receiving their marching orders from their Lord and Master, sending them to face a hostile enemy inflicting pain, suffering and death. IF they endured faithful, they would be “saved” from the divine wrath that was about to sweep across the land, destroying the hostile enemy guilty of inflicting their pain and persecution. Their enemies would perish while they would be preserved. The final preparations for His Return are in place. To the nation of Israel, it would be ‘The End’ with the abrogation of the old order which was to take place within the limits of the existing generation. Then would come the inauguration of the NEW!
In Matthew 24, Jesus answers the disciples threefold question. When shall these things be. What shall be the sign of your coming (Parousia) and The End of the AGE. This becomes the great storehouse from which the apostles derived their prophetic statements! Listen to Jesus, keeping “Audience Relevance” in mind. And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter there-into. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. (Luke 21:20-22) The canon closes with all these prophecies unfulfilled. Many modem day Christians look to the “Prophecy Experts”, (Hal, Jack, et al) to figure it out for them. BAD, BAD choice, with their track record of “Foot in the mouth” blunders! They will tell you of Russian and Chinese troops surrounding Jerusalem, with Jesus coming at the last moment to “SAVE” Israel. Wow! And that with jets roaring overhead and tanks rumbling towards the city. Are you gullible enough to get caught up in that Futuristic, fictional fluff? It was the Roman army, under Titus that laid siege to the city. Jesus’ Return wasn’t designed to “save” the Jews but to show the world that as King of Kings, He had Returned to Judge the “HARLOT CITY” as the persecutor and murderer of His prophets and saints. She would be stoned with stones and burned with fire as directed in Leviticus. Here’s a legitimate use of “terminus ad quem.” The period of time which comes to an end with the PAROUSIA! If any language may claim to be precise, it is that which our Lord employs to mark the limits of the time within which all His words were to be fulfilled!
We started off with a question, the answer to which, I take exception. What followed is, what one who must have been born with “Berean Blood,” believes is a more scripturally supported answer. However, that is what I say, - the question I end with is also important, but of a vastly greater magnitude ——
|
WHAT SAY YE???
About the Author
|
He can be identified with, the common people which heard him (Jesus) gladly. Born on a farm in the midwest during the great depression, hard work and poverty were his twin companions in those formative years. It is from those years, beginning on his Mother’s knee, to the present, he has inherited something beyond the value of rubies. It is a rich Reformed, Calvinistic, Christian Heritage. Upon this solid foundation he has lived and labored in obedience to the Lord's command,
|
“Occupy till I come.”
|
And assuming all the while, of course, this was a command directed to him. One day, however, all alone with God’s word and Spirit, a “New Day” dawned. It was only one verse but it stopped him cold; If what God was announcing, was true, as he knew it was, a major reshuffling of some fond futuristic ideas, preprogramed into his head, would have to go! Which verse-???
“When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” (Matthew 10:23)
He would soon discover a vital principle of Hermeneutics called Audience Relevance! Christ was talking to THEM (his disciples), not to HIM. Even though everything in the Old Testament and the New Testament are written FOR him, he now realized they are not written TO him! This would cause an important, “About Face” in his eschatology, viewing Christ’s return as already fulfilled. He would later learn that this compelling truth is called “PRETERISM” (meaning past in fulfillment) replacing his old, unsupported “FUTURISM”!
|
William R. Yonker
|
Articles
IPA Home
|
|
|
