Jesus’s Second Coming

This free Bible lesson, Jesus is Coming, will teach preschool and elementary students about the promise that Jesus is coming back someday soon.

FOCUS BIBLE PASSAGE: Matthew 24:36-44; John 14:2-3; Revelation 22:12-13

This lesson comes from the Seeds of Truth Elementary Bible Curriculum that is free to anyone looking for ideas to "plant seeds" into the hearts of children as they are learning about Jesus. Find more details HERE.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Seeds of Truth podcast, where seeds of biblical truth are planted into the hearts and minds of listeners so they can grow into a relationship with Jesus. I'm your host, Miss Dana. Thank you for joining me today. Let's get started. Hello, friends, and welcome back. I want to know if you know what a prophecy is. A prophecy is a prediction of the future given to humans by God. Did you know that there are prophecies about Jesus that were made over 800 years before Jesus was born? We can find these prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament of the Bible. God is the author of the whole Bible. Everything written in the Bible was written by human authors, but God told the human authors what to write. Many of the prophecies that are written in the Bible have already been fulfilled. And that means that they came true or they happened. So the prophecies, many of them in the Bible, were fulfilled exactly as the writers of the Bible said they would happen. So that gets us thinking about how amazing it is that God told prophets about promises that would happen so many years before they happened, and then they happened exactly like He said they would. Since we know that there are so many promises that God made that have already happened, we know that we can trust that the Bible is truth that comes directly from God. God always keeps his promises. Have you ever been made a promise by someone and then that person broke their promise? Well, everything that you read in the Bible that God promises us, you can be 100% certain will happen just as He said it will. In this passage, God is speaking to Moses during a time when the Israelites were in slavery in Egypt. God sent Moses to lead the people out of Egypt so that they could live in the land he had promised to Abraham. At this point, they had already been given the land, but then they had moved to Egypt and had been entered into slavery. So in Exodus chapter 14, verse 30, we can see the fulfilled promise here that God gave to Moses. The Bible says, That day the Lord saved Israel from the power of Egypt. The Israelites saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. So in this passage, we can read about how God brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. This is the fulfillment of the promise that he made to Moses. God sent many plagues to Egypt until finally Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, let the Israelites go. Even after Pharaoh set the people free, he changed his mind and sent his armies after them. And that is when God parted the Red Sea so that they could pass through the waters fell back down on the Egyptian armies. So that is what that verse is telling us. The next promise that God made is found in the book of Micah, chapter 5, verses 2 through 4. And it says, The Lord says, Bethlehem, out of you will come from me a ruler over Israel. That promised son will stand firm. The Lord will give him the strength to do it. The Lord his God will give him the authority to rule. So in this passage, we're reading the words of the prophet Micah. God spoke to Micah and made a promise to the Israelites of a coming ruler who would be born in Bethlehem. And that ruler that the prophet was talking about was Jesus. So in the book of Luke, chapter 2, verses 6 through 7, we can read about how this prophecy was fulfilled. This promise was fulfilled. The Bible says, while Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem, the time came for the child to be born. She gave birth to her first baby. It was a boy. She wrapped him in large strips of cloth, then she placed him in a manger. So this passage tells us that shortly before Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem, which was Joseph's hometown, because they were following a law to return to the hometown of the male of the family, so all the people could be counted. And this is called a sentence. While Mary and Joseph were visiting Bethlehem, Jesus was born. So this is a fulfillment of the promised ruler that would come from Bethlehem that we read about in the book of Micah. The next promise that we're going to look at is in the book of Isaiah. And this is Isaiah chapter 40, verse 3. The Bible says, A messenger is calling out in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord, make a straight road through it for our God. So many years before Jesus was born, the people of God were in a time of trouble. They had been taken from their homes and their land and sent into exile in Babylon. They were forced to work for a foreign king far from home, and they missed their home in Israel. They felt lost and they felt separated from God, but God had not forgotten them. God sent prophets to comfort them. In this passage, the prophet Isaiah is comforting the people of Israel and telling them that someday in the future an important person will come to prepare the hearts of the people for the coming of King Jesus. And in Matthew chapter 3, verses 1 through 2, that promise is fulfilled. The Bible says, In those days, John the Baptist came and preached in the desert of Judea. He said, Turn away from your sins, the kingdom of heaven has come near. So this passage tells us that John the Baptist was that important person God had promised would come to prepare the hearts of the people for the coming Jesus. The next uh promise that we're going to look at, and this is the last one that we're going to look at that has already been fulfilled, and that is in Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9, and it says, People of Jerusalem shout, see, your king comes to you. He always does what is right. He has won the victory. He is humble and riding on a donkey. He is sitting on a donkey's colt. So in this passage, we can read about the prophecy that God gave to Zechariah about the king riding into the city on a donkey. And that promise was fulfilled in the book of Mark, chapter 11, verses 2 through 7. He said to them, Go to the village ahead of you. Just as you enter it, you will find a donkey's colt tied there. They brought the colt to Jesus, they threw their coats over it, then he sat on it. So in this passage, we read about Jesus riding into Jerusalem as the promised king that the prophet Zechariah spoke about. The book of Zechariah was written about 600 years before the birth of Jesus, but it is still so correct in what it says about how Jesus rode into Jerusalem. So what we notice about each of these promises that were made by God is that each of these promises that God made have been fulfilled. They have happened just as he said they would. Many of the promises that he made were made hundreds of years before they actually happened. So what does this tell you about God's promises? When God makes a promise, he keeps his promise. Since we know that there are so many promises that God made that have already happened, we know that we can trust that the Bible is truth that comes directly from God. And God always keeps his promises. So not all of the prophecies and promises that God made in the Bible have come true yet. But if God made a promise, what do we know about that promise? It is gonna happen just as he said it would. So there are four passages that I'm going to read and we're going to discuss them. So in the book of John, chapter 14, verses two and three, the Bible says, There are many rooms in my father's house. If this were not true, what I have told you that I'm going there, what I have told you that I would prepare a place for you there, if I go and do that, I will come back and I will take you to be with me, then you will also be where I am. So this is Jesus speaking to his disciples. And what do you think it means by many rooms in my father's house? What Jesus is referring to here is he's referring to heaven when he says his father's house. This goes back to a Jewish tradition when the son of the family would bring his bride back to his father's house and start a family there. And this is a lot different than the way that we live. But what promise is Jesus making in this passage? Jesus is saying that he is going away to heaven to prepare a place for all of the people who love him. He promises that he will come back to earth and get the people who love him and take all of those people back to heaven to live with him. So has this promise happened yet? Some people who love Jesus are already in heaven. If we love Jesus and have asked Jesus to save us and we die on this earth, then we go to heaven. But this promise that Jesus is making is about when he is coming back at the very end of days. This is the time when the earth will end as we know it. And everyone who loves Jesus will go to heaven, even if their body hasn't died yet. So how many times has Jesus come to earth? He has come to the earth one time as a baby over 2,000 years ago. Jesus came to earth one time already. And in this passage, he is promising to come again. We call this the second coming. And what do we know about all of the promises that God made? We know that the promises have either happened exactly as he said they would, or they will happen exactly as he said they would. And what do we know about this promise that Jesus made, that he is in heaven preparing a place for people who love him? We know that he is preparing a place for his followers, and he will come back and take his followers to be with him, because God keeps his promises. The next passage is in Matthew chapter 24, verses 36 through 39, and the Bible says, But no one knows about that day or hour. Not even the angels in heaven know. The Son does not know, only the Father knows. Remember how it was in the days of Noah. It will be the same when the Son of Man comes. In the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, they were getting married, they were giving their daughters to be married. They did all those things right up to the day Noah entered the ark. They knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be when the Son of Man comes. So the Son of Man is Jesus. Jesus called himself the Son of Man to show that he is fully human, but that he is above all other humans. So what do you think Jesus meant when he said no one knows the day or the hour? Jesus tells us here that only God the Father knows when he will send Jesus back to earth to get the people that love him. That means we can't guess when Jesus will come back. That means we can't listen to someone else who says they know when Jesus will come back. Jesus says that at the time in the future that he will come back to earth, things on earth will be like they were in the days of Noah. What do you think that means? Remember, in the days that Noah lived, everyone was doing wicked things, and God sent judgment to the earth in the form of a flood. Everyone was going about their lives as if nothing was different, nothing was wrong. And that's what Jesus means when he says that people were eating, drinking, and getting married. Jesus says that the people didn't know what was about to happen right before the flood came, and that is how it will be when he comes back to earth for the second time. The third passage we're going to look at is from Matthew chapter 24, verses 42 through 44. And this is just an extension of the previous one. It says, So keep watch. You do not know on what day your Lord will come. You must understand something. Suppose the owner of the house knew what time of night the robber was coming, then he would have kept watch. He would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready. The Son of Man will come at an hour when you don't expect him. So Jesus says again that we do not know what day or hour he will come back to earth. Here he gives a command. What does he tell us to do? He tells us to keep watch for him to come. Jesus also gives an illustration of an owner of a house and a robber. If the owner knew when his house was going to be robbed, he would have watched for the robber. Jesus is teaching us to be ready for him to come back at any time and to watch for him. So what do we know about all of the promises that God made? Remember, the promises that God made have either happened exactly as He said they would, or they will happen exactly as He said they would. And since we know this, we know that Jesus will come back to earth and that we need to be ready for Him because that is what He promised. The last passage that we're going to look at is from the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible. And this is chapter 22, verses 12 through 13. And this is Jesus speaking. I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the first and the last. I am the beginning and the end. So Jesus tells us to look for him because he is coming soon. He says that he will be giving rewards to the people who love him. Did you know that if you love Jesus and you have asked him to save you, that you will go to heaven to live with him forever? And did you know that in heaven Jesus will give rewards to the people who live there with him? We don't know exactly what type of rewards he will give, but we know that they will be amazing because he is Jesus. Does this mean that you can earn your way to heaven? No, you cannot earn your way into heaven based on what you do. Salvation from our sins and eternal life or life forever with Jesus is a gift. All we have to do is accept the gift. We cannot earn salvation. It is a gift that is given to us by Jesus because of what he did for us when he died on the cross and rose back to life. So at the end of this passage in Revelation, Jesus mentions three of the special names that he has for himself: Alpha and Omega, first and last, and beginning and end. Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. At the time that Jesus lived on the earth, the people spoke Greek. So this would be like saying that he is A and Z in our English alphabet. So what do you think that means? Jesus calls himself the first and the last in the beginning and the end because he is eternal. That means he was alive before the world was created, and he always will be alive. Revelation is the very last book of the Bible, and it is filled with promises that Jesus made about the future, including the future time that he will come back to earth to get the people who love him. Jesus made promises that he is coming back to earth. And what do we know about the promises that God makes? God's promises have either happened exactly as he said they would, or they will happen exactly as he said they would. So since Jesus made promises telling us that he is coming back someday, what do we know? Jesus will return. One day. And that is amazing news for people who love him, trust him, and know him as their savior. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you for the promises that you made and for the Bible, so we can read about those promises. Thank you that every promise that you made has either already happened or will happen someday in the future. Please help us to understand and remember that you are coming back to earth someday to get the people who love you so that those people can live with you forever. If there is anyone who hasn't asked you to save them, please help us to show them the way to you. We love you and we pray all of these things in Jesus' sweet name. Amen. I know that this was a long episode, but it was a very important episode, and I hope that it has gotten you thinking about how Jesus made a promise that he will come back someday to get the people who love him and follow him and who have trusted him to be their savior. Until next time, God bless. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Seeds of Truth podcast. For more free Bible resources, visit Seeds of Truth Ministries.