SA Ep94 Articles of Faith #17 The Return of Christ

SA Ep94 Articles of Faith #17 The Return of Christ

In this episode, we examine the doctrine of the return of Christ. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ will return again just as He promised. We will look at the certainty of His coming, the comfort it brings to believers, the warning it gives to the lost, and the way it should shape our daily lives. This episode also highlights the hope, urgency, and holiness connected to the second coming of Christ. The return of Christ is not speculation for the curious. It is a promise for the church.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast. I'm Dr. Chris Smelster from Gilead Baptist Church. You know life moves fast, and faith is not meant to be rushed. I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living. So join me here today on Seeking Approval. The world feels very unstable right now. Nations continue to rise and fall. Wars continue. Darkness seems to be increasing all around us, and people are wondering if history and life in general is just spinning out of control. But the Bible tells us that history is not moving toward utter chaos. It's moving toward a coming king. Jesus Christ is coming again personably, visibly, and victoriously. And that truth should change how we live right now. We've made our way to number 17 in the Articles of Faith, and that is the return of Christ. When we come to this doctrine, we're dealing with one of the greatest hopes of all the Christian faith. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible points to one thing, and that is the coming of Jesus Christ. It is said that the Old Testament was looking forward to his coming. The New Testament looks ahead to his coming. And just as surely as Christ came the first time in humility, the second time he will come again in glory. And this is not just symbolic or poetic language or just feel-good writing to ease the burdens and pains of living in a sin-filled world. It's a real promise of a real Savior. Jesus promised that he would return in John 14, verses 1 to 3. He said, Let not your heart be troubled. I will come again and receive you under myself. Those words were spoken to disciples whose hearts were troubled. And today, for you and I, they should still bring comfort. That Christian hope, our hope is not rooted in politics or culture or human progress, technology, or even a president. It's rooted in the return of Christ. Our future is not uncertain. It's tied to a promise that Jesus is coming again. When Paul was writing to the church of Colossae, a beautiful letter, in which Paul was giving some uh commendation to the church for things that they were doing or things that they had heard of that they were doing. And he says, We give thanks to the Father, to God the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Jesus Christ and the love which you have toward all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel which is coming to you as it has all the world. That hope that he's talking about is the hope in Jesus Christ. He's saying, We've heard of how you love, we heard of how you're uh how you're working, and and and but we've heard how you have your hope laid up in the things of heaven. The angels confirmed in Acts chapter number one when the disciples watched Jesus ascend, the angels said, This the this same Jesus, which is taken up from you in heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go away into heaven. The same Jesus, not a different one, not a proxy, not a uh, you know, well, we're hoping that you might see him again. No, this same Jesus shall so come in like manner. The one who walked the dusty roads of Galilee, the one who said and taught the disciples on on the roadside and hillsides, the one who who stood face to face with the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes and and the priests of his day, the one who uh calmed the storm and raised the dead, that one, that that person, the one who was a literal man walking the face of the earth, will come again literally to take you and I. It will be a very personal and very real event. The Bible presents Christ's return as a certainty and not a possibility. It's a promise, it's prophecy, and scripture leaves no guesswork to it. And so far, God has not yet failed to fulfill his prophecy. Every prophecy concerning Christ and his first coming came to pass exactly as God declared it. And in the same way, every prophecy of his second coming, of his return in the clouds, and then his second coming to earth in Revelation, it will all be fulfilled. God has not given us one reason to doubt his uh uh promises and prophecies of Christ. I was reading, I remember years ago, the case for Christ. Now, I don't I don't feel that I need to read that book to uh be assured that there is a uh a God in heaven, that there is a Jesus Christ. Some people may need to do that. This the gentleman who wrote it, uh, maybe uh you know he needed that. Maybe he just wrote it to get book sales. I I don't know the real reason for it, but I know that he uh did some very interesting interviews. One of them was with a mathematician. And the mathematician was talking about how for Christ to uh fulfill, I think it was just eight of the prophecies that was that surrounded his birth from the Old Testament. For him to fulfill, I think it was eight, uh, or it might have been thirty-two. I can't remember the number, but it I mean it was whatever the number was, it wasn't some astronomical number of, you know, for him to fulfill, you know, 117 prophecies, nothing like that. It was a it was a a small amount of prophecies. But for him to just fulfill those handful of prophecies, you would have had a better chance if you filled the entire state of Texas with quarters three feet deep, marked one of them with a a special red or or some kind of mark on it, and had a random person walk the entire state and choose one quarter, the likelihood of them picking up that one quarter that had been marked would have been better. The probability would have been better than for Jesus to fulfill the prophecies that he fulfilled. Now think about that for a moment. The likelihood of this being by random chance just doesn't happen. So the return of Christ should bring comfort to you and I. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 13 to 18, for the Lord Himself Himself, himself, the Lord Himself, listen to that, shall descend from heaven with a shout in the voice of the archangel, the trump of God. And then at the very end of that, when it talks about the dead in Christ shall rise first, those which are alive remaining shall be called. At the end it says, wherefore comfort one another with these words. That should bring us comfort, that should bring us hope. But it doesn't only bring us hope, it brings us hope and comfort, but it brings us warning. Because the same coming that brings joy to the to you and I brings judgment to the unbeliever. And the Bible is very clear about the coming of accountability. Today men mog, they ignore, they, they, they deny Christ. They say, look, you know, we can do whatever we want. There's no repercussions for it. Solomon wrote about that in Ecclesiastes. Uh Psalm 72. Asaf wrote about it. When he's saying they're just they're sinning and there's like no repercussions for this, like nothing's happening to them. Here I'm trying to do right, and I'm I'm about to fall over, like I ain't got nothing left in me. I'm trying to do right. These guys are running around doing whatever they want, and there's nothing happening to them. What's going on? And uh Solomon was saying, like, they're just laughing, they're mocking God and doing whatever they feel like doing. But there's coming a day. And God's lack of answer does not mean God's lack of interest. He's given time. But there is coming. There's coming a day. But not only is it a warning, not only is it comfort, not only is it hope, but it also should produce holiness in you and I. First John 3 verses uh two and three uh says that when Christ appears, that we shall be like him, and every man that has the hope in Christ's return, there should be a hope in us that that that purification is coming. That with the exception of Christ's return, we have we have no hope in having that purification. But looking and anticipating that return should cause us to want to live better for him. Look at what um uh Paul wrote. I mean, this is so interesting. Uh I I really enjoyed this study in the book of uh Colossian. Uh there's there's there's seminary teachers out there, professors, pastors, I've been told it before by other other preachers and evangelists. They'll say, Don't preach eternal security to your church because if you do, they'll begin to live like heathens because it doesn't matter what they do. But that's not what Paul said. Paul said in uh going back to Colossians chapter number one and verse number nine, he says, For this cause we also says today, we heard it, do not cease to pray for you. And he's going to describe what he prays for, to desire that you might be filled with knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding. That's a that's a personal knowledge, that's not just a knowledge of facts and figures, that's an experiential knowledge. Verse 10, that you might walk worthy of the Lord into all pleasing, being fruitful of every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might, that's all of Jesus' might by heavens. There's a lot in that verse, according to his glorious power, his revealed power, his manifested power, unto all patience and long suffering with joyful joyfulness. Now listen to this, verse number twelve. Giving thanks unto the Father, which has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. He's saying that we should be giving thanks. And why because God has made us meet, has made us uh acceptable. He has made it good for us to be partakers in the inheritance of the saints of the light and light. So Paul is saying, we have been given an inheritance in heaven. We've been made heirs and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. And we should we should know that, we should understand it, and we should give God thanks for it. And if knowing that causes you to say, you know what, I really don't have to do anything. I'm I've already been promised everything. So I'll just kind of you know do what I want to over these uh next few years, and whenever the Lord comes back, then I'll get right. Then I'll then I'll live right because He'll make me right. If that if that is your mindset, you you'll have to deal with that with God. But Paul said that should give that should lead us to giving thanks, to living that word giving, giving thanks. It's a word that means um to uh be joyful, to be uh in an abundance of continual thanksgiving for the grace of God, Eucharisto. Uh that's not that's a Eucharisto. I can't remember the last part of that Greek word. Uh it's escaping me right now. Uh but that uh chorus, that's that's the word grace. And basically it's saying that we are we are continually giving thanks to God for the grace that He has uh He has uh bestowed upon us. What grace? The grace that He has made us uh meet to be partakers that meet means that we have been made uh uh good for, profitable part of. What a what a what a what a thought. So the return of Christ should should do many things for us. But the one thing that it should always do for us is it should always give us hope. No matter how bad this world seems, there's a there's a hope in the return of Christ, and this return, this thought of Christ, it's not tucked away into the back pages. It's not something that we have to search and and maybe look under the rocks and and in the tucked corners of the scripture. No, it is right there, it's woven all throughout scripture, and it's a blessed, blessed promise of God. And it reminds us that Jesus is not only the one who came, died, and rose again for our sins, but he's the one who is coming again. And though the world may seem uncertain, and sometimes we may seem uncertain because of uh of the war that goes on between uh in us, between the flesh and and uh and the spirit, there's a truth that's already been settled that Jesus Christ will return. And when he does, every promise will be fulfilled, every wrong will be made right, and every believer will stand in his presence forever. Comfort ye one another with this article of faith. Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval. You know our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places. I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day. And join me, Dr. Chris Smelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together. Until then, grace and peace to you from Seeking Approval at Gilead Baptist Church.