If you haven't been here before, I see a few new people. We do a little drawing. So, at the end of the program tonight, actually I forgot to get those. There's some response cards right there on that center desk out there, Cindy, if you could grab those.
And I will pass those out and that is where you can turn in a question, or at the end of the night, if you have any prayer requests, write those on the back. And tomorrow night, we're going to have a drawing and tomorrow night we've been talking about it.
If you have any questions, please write down a question that you may have. We did have a question last night. If you remember last night, we talked about a conflict, a controversy between God on one side and Satan on the other.
And the question was asked of me, how come Satan didn't die? Like Adam and Eve, they ate the fruit, then they grew old, and eventually they died. And so the question was, why didn't Satan just die of natural causes?
And I'll admit, I hadn't heard that question before and had to think about it. And I believe it is because, you know, Lucifer, Satan, was created as an angelic being. Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden.
They had access to the Tree of Life. And then in Genesis 3, they were pushed out of the Garden of Eden. And so they no longer had access to the Tree of Life.
But Lucifer was created as an angelic being. And as we looked last night, God couldn't just delete him, couldn't just wipe him out. You remember the two reasons? They both started with F.
Fear was one, because he didn't want people to be afraid of him. And the other was fair. He was fair because he had to allow the universe to see what would happen if Satan's way of running things, ruling things, played out.
And so he couldn't just wipe him out. And he allowed Satan to continue to this day to be in existence. And in fact, there's a verse in a couple of verses like this, but in the book of Job, if you look in Job, chapter two and Job, chapter one, you actually see Satan, Lucifer coming and continuing to have conversations with God.
And, you know, Job was one who Satan picked on in a serious way because Satan didn't think Job would be faithful to God. But Job did remain faithful to God through all of those things, through those health issues, tragedies that he faced.
And then eventually he was restored, if you read through the entire book of Job. But we see that Satan continued to have this conversation and this connection with God.
But as we saw last night, and we'll study it on a future night, that life of Satan is coming to an end. It's guaranteed. The Bible says that Lucifer is going to come to an end because of the glory of God, because of the grace of God.
So, as I said, if you guys have any questions or prayer requests, please write those on the back of that card and we'll investigate that tomorrow. And at the end, please turn those in and we'll have another drawing tomorrow night.
But let's bow our heads and we'll have a prayer and we'll get started on our topic tonight of Revelations, Glorious Rapture. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Dear God, we thank you so much for a safe day. We thank you for bringing us here. A beautiful day it was. But Lord, we still recognize that in this sinful world, that there are people in different places who do not have it as well as we do right now, who are suffering different tragedies from hurricanes and different things.
And Lord, we probably all have someone that we can be praying for. I heard news of a tragedy up towards Chattanooga of a young child and we just lift that family up in prayer and others as well.
And God, be with us as we study your word tonight. Because Lord, we can't wait for you to come again. And we've already seen in our sessions here that it seems like it's getting close. And God, just be with us as we study that tonight. In your name we pray. Amen.
So let me ask a question as we get started here. How many of you enjoy traveling? Anybody enjoy traveling here? There's some people that do not like to travel. They like to stay home as much as possible. But then other people like to go different places.
And what is incredible, if you think about it, you do not have to go across the planet. There's a lot of beautiful places on this world, but you don't have to go across the planet to see incredible things. You can go right here in the United States.
And you don't even have to go all the way across the United States because right here in this state of Georgia are so many beautiful things. You've got mountains and beaches and everything in between. So let me ask, if you like to travel, maybe some of you prefer just to relax, you know, sit on the beach, just sit back, not really do anything, just totally, you know, unpleasant.
Maybe, you know, unplug from everything or maybe more of a, you know, hang up the hammock by the lake or on a mountaintop and just take a nap and relax in the middle of the afternoon.
Maybe some like to be a little more adventurous. And, you know, right here in North Georgia and Chattanooga, this is a place where people travel to rock climbing and caving and all kinds of adventuresome things. What about this one? Has anybody gone skydiving in here?
Anybody? I've not done this. So nobody in here. Oh, I see a hand or two. A couple of people have done it. What about bungee jumping? Anybody jumped off of something high with a rubber band attached to your leg?
I have not done this, but my son did do this when he was younger. He begged and begged and we were down. I think it was Panama City and he went up the tower and jumped off. What about this? If you're like me, I really enjoy like NASA and space things like that.
How many of you would want to, you know, get into the space capsule and go up to space? Who would like to do something like that? This was the Polaris, I believe was the name of the mission Polaris Dawn just a couple of weeks ago where this capsule went higher than any rocket any person has since the days of the moon landings in the Apollo missions.
And they went up high and then they they did something which hadn't been done. They were testing out new space suits and this particular capsule the way they did that. They they like depressurize the entire capsule.
So all four people had this new space suit on and then they opened up the hatch so that all four of the astronauts were exposed to outer space and then two of them actually climbed the ladder as this gentleman did and hung out of the spaceship.
You know, like they're on the bow of the ship or whatever it is to to test and see if this next gen space suit would work. That seems like a pretty cool thing that I would like to try this one.
Have you heard of something that you don't necessarily have to be a trained astronaut to do? It's a it's a space line, not an airline, but a space line called Virgin Galactic and how this works is that you or I could could sign up to buy a ticket on Virgin Galactic.
And we could go to the spaceport that they're building in New Mexico and we could be launched in their spacecraft at the speed of about 2500 miles an hour, about three times the speed of sound.
Take us up. I think it's about 50 miles to the the line that is the edge of space that if you go past that line, you can call yourself an astronaut. You can get astronaut wings and it's at that point that you would begin to feel some zero G's, you know, no gravity.
Maybe you could do a somersault across the cabin or throw a grape across to the person over there, whatever it might be, and just see what it's like to be in zero gravity.
And then after a short time, not a not a huge long amount of time, you would come back down and they would take you to that spaceport right back in in the desert of New Mexico and you would land and you could call yourself an astronaut.
Now you can do this. You can sign up to do it. You can go to the Virgin Galactic website and it's only going to cost you about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to do that.
Two hundred and fifty thousand. All you have to do is today just lay down one thousand dollar deposit.
And when this spaceship is completed, when the line opens up, you can have your ticket on the Virgin Galactic spaceship. Any any takers there? It's just two hundred and fifty thousand.
Come on. I thought you were adventurous people here. Yeah, not many of us are ready to drop that amount of cash on that.
But tonight we're going to talk about another journey that we can take the Bible prophecy talks about.
And it's it's one day soon that Jesus is going to burst through the atmosphere and Jesus is going to return to to take us to be with him.
And it's not going to cost two hundred and fifty thousand.
It's not going to require a one thousand dollar deposit. But if if you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then it's it's prepaid.
It's a it's a free event. And it is the most important.
It is the greatest prophecy in the book of Revelation.
Now you might say, hold on a second, because I know there's some things in Revelation about, you know,
Antichrist and and timelines and different things like that. Aren't those more important?
Well, those are important. And we're going to study those on a future night.
But if if this prophecy of Jesus coming again does not take place, then all those other things don't matter.
If Jesus doesn't return as he said that he did, then studying Antichrist or anything else, it's not even important.
So we're going to take some time today and study and see what the Bible says,
what Revelation says about this return of Jesus, because it is a foundation of the Christian faith.
The Bible actually refers to it as the great hope, the great hope of the second coming.
So as we study tonight, we're going to look at a couple of things.
We're going to see that the Bible gives some warnings about some warnings that Jesus gave about his coming.
And we're going to see how the Bible describes this event.
If it's such an important thing, what does the Bible say?
And then as we've done a night by night, we're going to see how can I be ready for Jesus to come?
So let's let's get started here. Let's dive in and start looking at some warnings.
And so we're going to go to Matthew, chapter 24, Matthew, chapter 24.
And as we've said night by night, I hope that you will follow along in scripture.
The verses will be on the screen, but it's always better for you to check on me
and to to read it either on your phone or in a Bible or wherever you might see it.
And for me, it's helpful to use a Bible because sometimes it's like I know that verse was there somewhere.
I know it was in Matthew. I think it was on the upper right column somewhere.
And I can kind of thumb through and I can find where I underlined it or whatever.
But we're going to start in Matthew 24 and verse three.
We were in Matthew 24 on the first night as well.
And in Matthew 24 and verse three, the Bible says, Now, as he sat on the Mount of Olives,
as Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying,
Tell us when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?
And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one does what?
That no one deceives you, that no one tricks you.
The disciples were asking what they should be ready for, what they should be looking for when Jesus comes.
And as we said the other night, before Jesus gets into anything specific,
the first thing he said is, Don't be deceived.
And we could ask, Why was Jesus so concerned about this?
Well, think back to when Jesus came as a baby.
You know, we talk about it during the Nativity season, during the Christmas season.
When Jesus came as a baby and was born in Bethlehem, were people deceived about that coming?
Were people ready when Jesus came?
Most of the people were not.
They had the Old Testament prophecies which pointed to the Messiah,
but the religious establishment was not looking for a Messiah who would be meek,
who would be lowly, who would want to heal people, who would want to help those in need.
They were looking for someone who was going to be a mighty warrior,
who was going to be a general to fight against the Roman legions,
someone who could make Jerusalem the greatest capital in the world.
That's the Messiah that they wanted.
That's the Messiah they were expecting.
And so when Jesus came the way that he did, they were confused.
They were deceived and because of that, Jesus was actually rejected.
And so Jesus knows that the closer we get to the second coming,
that the devil is going to work harder and harder and harder in order to deceive people.
So we have to figure out what are some ways that we can be deceived in the world today.
And I think there's at least two different ways.
One way that we can be deceived, and I think the devil is succeeding often in this way,
is that we can be distracted by the world.
There are so many things in this world that can distract us.
We can be distracted by our job, by our family, by our hobbies,
by the sports teams that we love, whatever it is.
And these can be good things. These can be good things.
Because we do need a job. We have to have a job.
We need to support and spend time and love our families.
And hobbies are good. We need hobbies for our mental health, for relaxation.
And even sports can be enjoyable to watch and to have fun with.
But if we become so infatuated with the things of this world,
with the phone in our pocket, that we can spend less and less time
working on our relationship with Jesus.
We can become so obsessed with things.
We can become so obsessed that we know all the teams that won the last five years
of the NBA championship, but we can't find the book of Joseph in the Bible.
There's no book of Joseph.
That was kind of a trick statement. There's no book of Joseph.
That was a trick statement.
But we can be distracted and miss out on the things that are most important.
One thing that I do sometimes enjoy watching on television is a show called Jeopardy.
Have you seen Jeopardy?
It's not quite as good since Alex Trebek's not on it anymore.
I'm just going to say that out there.
But the people on Jeopardy, they know so much.
It doesn't matter what the category is. British literature, opera, sports, pop culture.
Whatever it happens to be, before the host has even read the answer or the question,
before he's even read the question, the answer, they're already buzzing in
because they know what to say.
These people are brilliant.
Now, I have to say that I've actually tried to get on Jeopardy.
My friend Brent, who was here last night,
we've known each other since we were in first grade.
I think it was about the time we were in college that somebody discovered that there's a
probably later than college because the internet wasn't really around too much then.
But there was an online testing that you could do to try to get in line to be on Jeopardy.
Every couple years, a group of friends will send this around.
It's on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Here's this testing.
We'll try to do the little quiz.
It's like a 30-question thing that they're timed answers.
Needless to say, I have never been on Jeopardy, but I've tried the little quiz so many times.
But I do have a former student from a school I worked at who has been on Jeopardy.
That's kind of neat.
But the one part of Jeopardy that stumps people, if you've ever watched the show,
is that whenever they put up a category that says Bible or religion or Old Testament or New Testament
or something like that, that's always the very last category that they select.
And it's almost every time that they don't even try to answer the question
because they don't want to lose the points.
And very few of them are able to answer those questions from the Bible.
And that's just one example of being distracted.
People that know so much and yet simple Bible questions that if you've been to church
more than a few times in your life, you probably would have heard these answers.
Someone gave a challenge to do a little test, to put on your coffee table in your house,
to put your Bible and to put your remote control side by side.
And just pay attention.
Which one are you going to grab the most?
I haven't tried that test because I might be afraid of what that answer might be.
And so one way that we can be deceived is through the distractions of this world.
Another way that we can be deceived is through false teaching.
Because there's a lot of deception in the world today concerning the second coming of Jesus.
How is Jesus going to come? Is he going to sneak into the world?
Are we going to turn on CNN or Fox one day and see some live cam from across the world
that Jesus is in India or in some other part of the world?
But the Bible has warned us that there's going to be false Christs and there's going to be false prophets.
And so we need to take a couple minutes and see what Jesus says about this.
So let's stay in Matthew 24 and let's go down to verse 23.
Matthew 24 and we're going to look at verse 23 and notice what Jesus says here.
The Bible says in Matthew 24, 33,
Then if anyone says to you, look, here is the Christ or there.
Do not believe it for false Christs and false prophets will arise
and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.
See, I have told you beforehand.
It goes on. It says, Therefore, if they say to you, look, he is in the desert.
Don't go out there or look, he is in the inner room or the King James Version says the secret chamber.
Do not believe it for as lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west.
So also will the coming of the son of man be.
So there's a couple things we can we can note here.
First of all, Jesus warns that there is going to be false Christs and false prophets.
There's going to be some sort of impersonation going on.
The Bible tells us that the devil himself can impersonate an angel of light.
So perhaps some fake impersonation of the coming of Jesus.
But what's shocking here is that it says that these false Christs in verse 24,
these false Christs and false prophets will be able to perform, will be able to do signs and wonders.
How can that be?
Can you imagine how how deceptive that would be if you see someone and they they work some sort of miracle, some sort of thing that takes place?
This is a principle that not many people notice, that not many people pay attention to.
But did you realize the devil can can do different miracles, can do different things?
He's not more powerful than God.
But there is a power that is there.
Let's look at an example here from the Old Testament, a story of Moses.
You remember Moses in the Old Testament, he had been raised in Egypt for about 40 years,
and then he he went into the wilderness for about 40 years.
And then as he saw the burning bush, God called Moses to go back to Pharaoh and to say to tell Pharaoh, let my people go.
Did Moses want to do that?
No, no, Moses did not want to do that.
He's like, what do I say?
How can I talk to to Pharaoh?
He's one of the most powerful people he's going to ask.
Who is who sent you?
Who is this God who sent you?
And what did God tell Moses to do?
Supposed to throw, throw down something, throw down his staff, his his stake.
And it was going to become a a snake.
And so that's exactly what happened when Moses went back.
He stood before Pharaoh and he threw his staff and it became a snake.
I'm not a big fan of snakes, but this became a snake.
And then when he's in the presence of Pharaoh, Pharaoh tells someone to do something.
Do you remember the story?
He tells his his magicians to come in.
And what do they do?
They throw down their staffs.
And what happens to those staffs?
They become snakes as well.
These are these these magicians of Pharaoh and their wooden staffs become slithering, slimy snakes.
So something took place there.
But then what happened?
What's the next step?
Moses, a snake goes over.
And what does it do to the other snake?
It swallows it. It eats it.
The staff of Moses, the snake of Moses, the snake of God is more powerful than that other one.
God is ultimately more powerful than the devil.
And the book of Revelation warns us that there's going to be an unseen battle.
Notice Revelation, Chapter 16.
We're going to come back to Matthew 24 in just a second.
But notice Revelation, Chapter 16 and starting in verse 30.
Bible says, And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon
and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophets.
And then it tells us what they are.
For these they are spirits of demons performing signs which go out to the kings of the earth
and the whole world to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
Revelation tells us that before Jesus comes again, there's going to be spirits of demons
working some kind of signs, working some kind of wonders in the world
in order to deceive people.
And in Matthew 24 it said, If possible, it could deceive the very elect.
You know, we as humans, we're, I'm just going to say it, we're simple people.
And if we see something that can wow us, that can awe us, that can convince us,
we can be mesmerized by something that is supernatural.
And it can lead us astray.
I mean, we can watch something on TV and we see the special effects that they can do.
And we're amazed by that.
And yet this is something even beyond that.
This is something supernatural.
And so we need to realize that just because a miracle is taking place,
that doesn't necessarily mean it's from God.
Even if it's on TV, even if it's in a stadium and a miraculous event is taking place,
that does not mean that it's coming from God.
And God warns that we need to make sure that we're trusting in what the Word of God says.
That we're trusting in what the Bible says.
And so let's just kind of review these warnings that we've looked at.
Don't be distracted by the world.
That means we need to keep our eyes, turn our eyes upon Jesus.
Don't be deceived by false teachings.
That means we need to know what the true teachings are.
We need to know what the Bible teaches.
And then don't follow signs and wonders alone.
Notice that last word, alone.
Because signs and wonders can be incredible things,
but it needs to match up with the truth of the Word of God.
And I apologize for, we seem to have distractions here tonight
with trains and mowers and everything else.
But we're going to continue on here.
So the Bible gives us these warnings about these distractions and these deceptions,
but the Bible also gives us some facts, some crystal clear facts about the second coming.
And so if we can plug these into our brain,
then we can make sure that whatever we see on the news,
whatever we see around the world, whatever we see in some arena,
that we can make sure if that lines up with what God says.
So let's look at a couple facts,
and we're going to back these up from the Bible about what the second coming will be like.
So fact number one, the Bible says that when Jesus comes, it's going to be visible.
It's going to be a visible event.
Let's turn back to Matthew 24, where we just were.
We read this verse a moment ago, looking at it from a different perspective.
But Matthew 24 and verse 27.
Notice what it says.
The Bible says, For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west,
so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
Now, you've seen lightning before.
You've seen a thunderstorm.
Maybe you've stood out on your porch,
and sometimes you can see those storms just coming across the way,
and those lightning storms are coming from the east.
The lightning begins to flash.
The lightning begins to burst.
And it can be just an incredible scene,
as this lightning is making a huge display across the sky.
And you can even close your eyes sometimes, and still the brightness is there.
You can see it in the daytime.
And so it says that is what the coming of the Son of Man is going to be as the lightning.
Let's turn over to Acts chapter 1.
Acts chapter 1, because this is a story,
this is the telling of when Jesus returns from this earth after he was resurrected,
and he returns to heaven.
So Matthew chapter, excuse me, Acts chapter 1,
and we're going to start in verse 9.
Acts chapter 1 and verse 9.
It says, the Bible says, Now when he had spoken these things while they...
Wait, I forgot to mention one thing.
As I'm reading this, try to read along and notice how many visual words are in these verses.
How many words that describe some sort of visual aspect.
Let's do that again. Acts chapter 1 and verse 9.
Now when he had spoken these things while they watched,
he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight.
And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up,
behold two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said,
Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven?
This same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven
will so come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven.
There's at least five different words there, five different visual words,
and those just couple verses of conversation that these angelic beings come down,
and they tell the disciples the same Jesus, same Jesus,
the same Jesus that died on the cross, he's going to heaven,
and he's the same Jesus that's going to come again.
And when he comes, he's going to come in the same way, in the clouds.
You're going to see this same Jesus that left, you're going to see him come again.
It's a visual, a visible event.
Let's turn back to Revelation now, because we've seen this from some other places,
but let's see what Revelation says.
We're going to go to Revelation chapter 1, the very first chapter of the book of Revelation.
Revelation chapter 1 and verse 7.
Revelation 1 and verse 7, the Bible says,
Behold, he is coming with clouds, just like we saw in Acts 1, and every, every eye will see him,
even they who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him, even so, amen.
And so there's this picture that before John even mentions seven seals or seven trumpets or plagues
or the Antichrist or the Mark of the Beast, before he gets into any of that,
he wants us to know that Jesus is coming.
It's the most important prophecy in the book of Revelation, and he says that every eye will see him.
In Lincoln, Nebraska, there's a ministry, and it's called Christian Record, and it's Services for the Blind.
And I've known several people who have worked for this organization over the years.
In fact, one church that I pastored, we actually raised money and we bought a Braille Bible.
Have you ever seen a Braille Bible?
Now, our Bible, you know, is this thick, but you know what Braille is, right?
It's the raised little bumps that blind people can feel and they can read with their fingertips.
And so the pages are very thick.
And so a Braille Bible is not this thick,
but each book of the Bible would be at least this thick, if not thicker.
And a Braille Bible is about as tall as I am.
And so our church raised the money to buy this Braille Bible.
And Christian Record Services distributes Braille materials and audio materials and different things like that.
And in the office building that they used to have, they had a mural hanging on the wall.
And it looked something like this.
It's a picture of the second coming.
So there's an angel coming and you can see the people that are excited.
They're looking up into the face of Jesus.
And if you notice the close up there, you can see people with a seeing eye dog there.
But they're looking up into the face of Jesus.
And you can see several people with white canes that they had to use to find their way around.
And they're able to toss those to the side or they're taking off their dark glasses
and they're throwing them away because they are able to see for the first time.
They're able to look up and see the face of Jesus.
Imagine the very first thing you see in your entire life is seeing Jesus coming in the clouds of glory.
What a vision that would be. What an incredible thing.
And that will be a glorious day and not just for the blind.
That will be a glorious day for each one of us.
Because when John writes that every eye will see him,
that means that you and I will be able to see him as he comes again.
Not see him on CBS News, not see him on the internet,
but see him because he's coming in the clouds of glory.
Have you ever arrived home for the first time and you've been gone for a while?
Maybe you've gone home to see your parents or you've come home from a trip
and your kids or your spouse are waiting there to see you
and there's just a joy that they have in their face,
especially little kids if they haven't seen you for a long time.
Or if there's a long distance relationship between a boyfriend and a girlfriend
or just close friends, there's something exciting about seeing someone again.
And that's what it's going to be like when we're able to see Jesus, to see him,
to see his face because it says every eye will see him.
But not everybody, the Bible tells us, not everybody is going to be excited about that
because right there we just read the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him.
In fact, if we look at Matthew 24 and verse 30, notice what it says in Matthew 24 and verse 30.
It says, then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven
and all the tribes of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven
with power and great glory.
People will mourn because Jesus is coming.
There's going to be a group that's really excited,
but there's going to be a group that's going to mourn
because they now realize that all this time God has been trying to save them.
God has been doing everything to reach out to them and they rejected him
and they realize that their time is over and they realize that they're now lost
and they mourn in ways that are indescribable.
In fact, notice what it says in Revelation here, Revelation chapter 6.
It says, then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up
and every mountain and island was moved out of its place.
And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men,
every slave and every free man, talking about people of all economic levels, all social levels.
And notice what it says they did, they hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains.
Jesus is coming and they hide themselves in the rocks
and they actually say to the mountains and the rocks,
roll on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb.
The Savior is coming and they want to be hidden.
It says, for the great day of his wrath has come and who is able to stand?
They had every opportunity, every invitation from Jesus and they rejected it
and they don't want to even see his face.
Imagine how Jesus would feel.
People that he died for, people that he's coming to redeem, to take back to heaven
and they don't want to have anything to do with him.
And we talked last night about free will, that we have the freedom to choose to love Jesus.
And that means we have the freedom to choose to not love Jesus.
We have a choice to make.
So we have to ask ourselves what choice are we going to make?
Are we going to call ourselves a disciple of Jesus?
Are we going to allow the Holy Spirit to change our life and to make us more like him each day?
We can't just come to a place like this and sit,
but do we allow Jesus to change who we are inside?
And so there's those two groups of people.
They can look at the same event and one group is rejoicing and the other is mourning.
And so with our free will we get to choose which one of those groups are we going to be in?
What is your reaction going to be when Jesus comes?
Are you going to rejoice?
Are you going to be sorrowful?
It's my prayer that all of us, each one of us will long for that day when Jesus comes again.
So when Jesus comes again, it's going to be something that's visible.
When Jesus comes again, it's going to be something that is audible, something that we will hear.
Let's go back to Matthew 24.
I know we're looking at lots of different verses here because the Bible talks about it in different places.
Matthew 24 and verse 31.
It says, And he, Jesus, will send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet,
and they will gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other.
It's just one sentence there, but it says that when Jesus comes, what's a sound that we're going to be hearing?
A trumpet.
Now, I don't know what a heavenly trumpet sounds, but I do know what an earthly trumpet sounds like.
When I was a younger child, my brother took trumpet lessons.
And so there was a time, you know, when he's learning to play the trumpet.
And sometimes those notes sound good, and sometimes those notes don't sound quite as good.
So when I got a little bit older, my mother was a music teacher.
So we had to learn to play some kind of instrument.
But I didn't want to play the trumpet because my brother played the trumpet.
So I chose a different instrument to play, a different horn.
I chose to play the trombone.
You guys know what a trombone is?
It's the one you kind of go like this and it goes.
So I played the trombone, not quite as loud as a trumpet, but it can be pretty loud.
And there was a time when I was doing some Bible studies with some young people at the church I was pastoring.
And we were studying this.
And I said, hey, guys, look up these verses.
I'm going to step into my office for just a minute.
So I stepped behind them into my office where I had my trombone all set up.
And they were looking that direction.
And I stepped out right behind them.
And I blew that trombone as loud as I could.
And they jumped out of their seats.
And I was like, OK, that's an example.
It's not a trumpet, but it's pretty loud.
They got the point.
So if that's what an earthly horn sounds like, what about a heavenly horn?
These angels are going to be blowing these trumpets to announce the coming of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
And the Bible tells us that these trumpets are going to be so loud that they're actually going to wake up the dead.
Well, let's turn over to 1 Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 4.
It gives us another picture of these trumpets.
1 Thessalonians, Chapter 4.
It tells us in verse 16, the Bible says, For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a with a shout,
with the voice of an archangel and with the the trumpet of God.
And then it says, The dead in Christ will rise first.
And then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
And it goes on and says, And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
And I love verse 18 to read at a funeral or wherever it might be.
It says, Comfort one another with these words.
It says the Lord himself is going to come.
It's not just the angels.
God could have just could just send the angels.
But the Lord himself is coming.
The same Jesus who went to heaven is coming again.
And it says there's going to be a shout, a voice of the archangel is going to resonate.
And then the trumpet of God is going to pierce the walls of the grave and the dead in Christ are going to rise up.
And it says we're going to meet together.
We're going to meet the Lord in the air.
And we shall be we shall be with the Lord.
What a comforting verse this is.
Imagine how many loved ones who have been separated from from someone they care about through death will be will be reunited.
There's going to be a reunion that's going to take place.
You see, Bible prophecy gives us something to hope in because it's really easy to look at this world and we can look at the darkness and we can look at the challenges and we can look at at the heartache.
But this tells us that something better is coming.
A blessed hope that one day will be given the gift of immortality and brothers and sisters will be united and grandparents and grandchildren will be reunited.
And I bet that each one of us here has someone that we're looking forward to seeing again.
I can tell you I do.
I told you about my mother, the music teacher.
She passed away about 20 over 20 years ago.
And like I said, she she loved music.
She loved to sing, direct choirs and different things like that.
She loved birds.
She loved bird watching and she had a clock that every time it got to the next hour, there was some sort of chirping going on.
A different kind of bird would would make a noise.
Maybe it'd be a cardinal or a robin.
And there was one time that I went down to our garage.
We had a freezer in the garage, probably to get a tub of ice cream or something.
And I opened up the freezer and I let out a little scream because in the freezer next to the ice cream was a frozen bird.
She had been driving down the road and seen a palliated woodpecker that got hit by a car.
And so she pulled over and got this palliated woodpecker and put it in our freezer because she thought the nature center might want to do something with this body of a palliated woodpecker.
I'm looking forward to seeing my mom again when Jesus comes again.
Jolie's mother passed away in May.
We're looking forward to a glorious reunion that's going to take place.
Like it says in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes, Oh, death, where is your sting?
Oh, grave, where is your victory?
And then he ends that powerful chapter and says, But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We're looking forward to something better because Jesus is coming again.
And we can kind of just do a summary of what we've seen.
The sky is going to roll back like a scroll.
The mountains and islands are going to be shaken and Jesus is going to come in the clouds.
There's going to be trumpets blowing.
There's going to be some that are burning, but there's going to be others that are rejoicing as the Lord descends, as the trumpets blow, as the dead are resurrected.
What a glorious day that will be.
You think that will be something that will be missed?
It's going to be something that's visible.
It's going to be something that we're going to hear.
And even though there's many different doctrines and ideas floating around about the coming of Jesus Christ, we have to compare that with what we've seen in these Bible verses.
We have to let the Bible be our guide and decide that I'm going to go by what the Bible says.
Don't go by what I say.
Don't go by what anybody else says, but look and see what the Bible says and surrender your heart and let the Scriptures speak for themselves.
There's one more thing we can learn about the second coming.
It's going to be glorious.
It's going to be a glorious event.
Let's go back to Matthew, Matthew chapter 16.
Matthew chapter 16 and verse 27.
Matthew 16 and verse 27.
The Bible says, For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will reward each according to his works.
He's going to come in the glory of his Father.
Now, what does that mean?
Reward according to our works.
Does that mean we can earn our way to heaven?
That if we do enough good things, we get to go to heaven?
No, that's not what that means.
We're saved by the grace of God.
And as that grace flows through us, people will recognize that grace in us by the things that we do, by the way that we treat others.
But it says that when Jesus comes, he's coming in the glory of his Father and with his angels.
Has anybody fully seen the glory of God, any human fully seen the glory of God?
The one that came the closest was was Moses.
We already talked about Moses.
You remember that story in the Old Testament where Moses said, God, show me your glory.
And God said, Well, I can't quite do that, but I'll show you a partial little glimpse of it.
I'm going to pitch you in the cleft of the rock and my glory can pass by you and you can you can just see a little bit of it.
But you can't see my face.
Do you remember that story?
And then Moses came down from the mountain.
And how did the people respond?
They were afraid because Moses was glowing.
He was beaming with this brightness from God.
And they actually made Moses cover up his face because he had seen just a tiny little smidge of God's glory.
But it says it's not just God, but it's also all the angels.
You know, there's a story in the Old Testament where one angel came down to the armies, the Assyrian armies, and one angel.
The glory of that angel ended up slain one hundred and eighty five thousand.
One angel did that.
And yet God is going to come with the the myriads of angels with a thousand times a thousand and ten thousand times ten thousand.
And it's going to be something that we can't even imagine.
It's going to be so glorious.
And the Bible says this is happening very soon.
So it's going to be a visible event.
It's going to be an audible event.
It's going to be a glorious event.
It's incredible.
But the real question is, what does it mean for you?
What does it mean for me?
It's good to know how Jesus will come because that will keep us from being deceived.
It's good to have knowledge up here in the head.
But we need to know Jesus in the heart.
In Matthew 24, verse 44, notice what it says.
It says, Therefore, you also be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour.
You do not expect.
God knows that in the last days we're going to be busy.
We're going to be so busy.
We're going to be distracted that maybe we won't even be paying attention.
And so the question we have to ask ourselves is, am I ready to see Jesus?
Am I paying attention to my relationship with Him?
Because when you accept Jesus as your Savior, that means that His perfect life replaces your sinful life.
And His righteousness covers your your your righteousness.
So that when God looks at you, He doesn't see the mistakes that you made yesterday.
He doesn't see the mistakes that you made today.
He sees the perfect love, the perfect life of Jesus.
And that's what counts for you.
He sees someone who is perfect, not because of who you are, but he sees the perfect life of Jesus, that Jesus died on the cross.
And that's what it means to have Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
So we just saw that it said, be ready.
What does that mean?
How can I be ready?
We need to make sure that we are are nurturing our spiritual life, that we're taking time each day to to read a little bit of of God's word.
Read one chapter, listen to it in the car, whatever you need to do.
Read something each day from God's word and say, God, what do you want to teach me from this?
It is so important to to have a devotional life and to see what Jesus is saying to you through His word and allowing Him to transform your life.
So some questions for you to just consider for yourself.
Am I ready for Jesus to come?
Have I received Jesus into my life?
Am I taking my relationship with Jesus seriously?
Just some questions for you to to think about.
And if there's any of those that you're not sure of the answer, then then find a place tonight and pray through that and say,
God, I want to be ready.
God, I want you to be in my life.
God, I want to take my relationship with you seriously.
I know you've got a card that was passed out earlier tonight.
You can just look through those questions.
And if you have any questions about this or or any prayer requests, please write those on the back and just check any of those boxes.
Dear God, we thank you so much for your promises,
your promise to return, because, Lord, if we were left here alone, it would be hopeless.
There's so much trouble and trauma in this world.
But we recognize that there's something better that is coming.
We can have you now in our heart and we can have you forever in the future.
God, be with us. Be with each one of us as we go from this place tonight.
In your name we pray. Amen.