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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

Can Christ’s Coming Be Hastened?

We're in a series here on the Second Coming.

And we looked last night at the Second Coming.

We saw that The New Testament really focuses on the Second Coming.

There are major chapters, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke each have 1 chapter, Mark 13, and Luke 21, and Matthew 24.

And John said, look, let's have a whole book, Revelation.

All talking about the second coming that Christ would come again and of course there are more prophecies, there are more mentions of the second coming than there will actually of the first coming.

And how many of you are fairly convinced that there was someone named Christ that came the first time?

So with that confidence, we're just coming out of that season, the New Testament is making you a big point that he's coming again, and as we studied on Friday night, the last verse of every chapter in 1 Thessalonians was dealing with the idea that Christ is coming again, he's coming again, he's coming again.

And that was The first book, or maybe the second book, James may have been a little earlier, that's the first book in the New Testament that was written.

It wasn't Matthew, it wasn't Mark, it's not how it's put in your Bible, but the very first book that was written was Thessalonians, and every single chapter talks about the second coming, and it also talks about how those in Thessalonica were getting ready for the second coming.

So if you want to study how to get ready for the second coming, study 1st Thessalonians and look at what was happening.

They were people of hope, They were people of joy, they had people of faith, they had turned from idols, chapter 1.

And they didn't even have to tell people about the Lord because everybody knew there was such a radical transformation in their lives.

And then in chapter 2 we notice that Paul himself led them to that by being like a nursing mother, or being like a corrective father, creating a family environment so that they actually gave themselves to God because they accepted the words of Paul, not as the words of man, but as the word of God.

And then in chapter 3 we saw that again the focus was on the second coming and how they were going through times of persecution and affliction and also heresy.

When there's heresy, Paul would send a letter, but when there was persecution, he would send a person.

How many think that you need a person during times of persecution?

Although it can also help if there's nothing else.

And then in chapter 4, dealing with, getting rid of sexual immorality in the life, and also dealing with death.

How do you deal with death when people are dying?

And then chapter 5 is kind of like a laundry list of everything else that he kind of throws in to be ready for Christ's coming.

So that's what we looked at Friday night.

Then this morning at 8 o'clock we looked at 2 things.

We looked at 2 things related to the second coming and that was this question if Timothy, if the New Testament repeatedly, in fact it's a major theme, says that Christ is coming back, where is he?

I remember I was on a plane once, sitting next to someone, they were wearing a nice cross, I knew they were a Christian, and so I said, this is a very nice cross.

And I said, so you must be a Christian, yes.

They said, well, where is Christ, what's he doing?

I mean, you have documented that he died.

I said, well, it'd be handy if he came back down here don't you think We've got a lot of pain and suffering and death The person was getting really nervous now, you know.

It's kind of an intrusive conversation, I guess.

And then there was this discussion that started.

So we looked at that this morning and we discovered 2 things.

Number 1, there were 2 mentions in 1 Thessalonians or 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, after 1 Thessalonians, verse 2 and 3, it says that there needed to be a falling away first, that the man of sin might be revealed, that son of perdition.

So in other words, the first answer to the delay was there were things that were supposed to play out.

There was this anti-Christ power that would develop in time and history.

We studied about it in Daniel chapter 7 and Daniel chapter 8 this morning.

And We saw how that had to come to fruition, and that would take us all the way up through pagan Rome and papal Rome, all the way up to 1798, after those prophecies had been fulfilled that you see in Daniel 7 and Daniel 8.

And then we saw in Daniel chapter 8 that there would be a movement that would rise up, that would be preaching about the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary and that the cleansing would be done not only on heaven but also in earth.

That's the church you're sitting in today and this is why we exist to tell people that Christ is about to come again, and he's been cleansing not only heaven, but also earth.

How many want heaven clean when you get up there?

How many of you have gone to a hotel or someplace that's not clean?

No, Hebrews chapter 9 says he's cleansing things on heaven, and also, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We follow him by faith and ask him to cleanse our hearts and minds just as he's cleansing the heavenly sanctuary.

And That's why the Adventist church has a health message.

They started finding that and they discovered, wait a minute, he says that he's cleaning up heaven, maybe we should clean ourselves up.

And so they found a passage about washing 1 another's feet and they started doing that, the communion service.

Then they found passages about clean foods and they started eating clean foods and they found more and more.

And that's why you have the New Start program here and all these different things.

It all comes out of that theology, right?

So that was the Advent movement, but why is it, since the Advent movement arose 1844, 1863, the name was chosen, but 1844 to 63, why is it that this church that's been teaching that Christ is coming again, why has Christ not come again?

How many think we need to be able to answer that question and do what we can to change that.

Now by the way, how many think people like to be involved in eliciting change in the world?

How many think people like to be involved in eliciting change or bringing about change?

There were thousands of people that went to Washington DC this past week to bring about change.

They thought there was uncleanliness and corruption and they wanted to do something about it.

Are people interested in cleaning things up?

How many think they're interested in draining the swamp?

And I want to suggest to you today something, I don't want to get anybody angry here, because there's only 1 of me and there's a lot of you.

That attempting to elicit change and getting on the Biden's bidding or the Trump train is not the way the Christian is called to bring about all.

And to the extent that you've used your influence to do that, it has not helped anybody in your circle.

Now that's radical, but there are statistics.

Southern Baptists, who basically as a whole group voted for the president, saw the largest exodus from their ranks in 2019 of any time in a century, and it was most of their young people.

Do you think that was improved by what happened this last week?

Do you think there'll be more people leaving?

Or do you think there'll be less people leaving?

So I just want to suggest to you that when politics and religion mix, usually politics is overwhelming to religion, religion is seen just as a garnish, maybe as a cross on the front of the pillow guy.

In the same article that I'm referencing, after Bill Clinton had indiscretions with Monica Lewinsky, the Southern Baptist Convention put together a list of things that would have to be in place in terms of the moral standing of a candidate before they would ever vote for them.

They made a big long list, and the moral majority all voted, and the majority said yes, that that's what they would do.

And they all said they never would vote for someone like Bill Clinton again because of what had happened.

Well, only 30% said they might vote for someone like that.

Now, 78, 76% of the Southern Baptists said that morality is not really a big issue for a leader.

Now, and they actually come up with theological reasons.

Or maybe like David, David had a lot of wives.

I read a book, I mentioned it Friday night.

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Can Christ’s Coming Be Hastened?

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