Doctrine, or reproof, or correction, or instruction in
righteousness, that the man of God may be
perfect, truly furnished unto all good works.
I charge thee, therefore, before God and the
Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick
and the dead it is appearing in his
kingdom, preach the word.
Be instant in season, out of season.
Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering in
doctrine.
For the time will come when they will
not endure sound doctrine, but after their own
lusts shall by each of themselves teachers having
itching ears.
They shall turn away their ears from the
truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions,
do the work of an evangelist, make full
proof of thy ministry.
For I am now ready to be offered
in the time of my departure as at
hand.
I have fought a good fight, I have
finished my course, I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me a
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
judge, shall give me at that day, not
to me only, but unto all them also
that love his appearance.
May God add his blessing to the reading
of this portion of his word.
If you have followed through the subjects as
they have been announced, you will notice that
it is our purpose to try to take
you in progressive steps from the present day
through to the consummation of God's great prophetic
program.
It is our desire to consider with you,
for instance, the rapture of the church.
Lord willing, next Sunday evening we will be
speaking on the next event in the prophetic
program, that is, the translation or rapture of
the church.
Who will be raptured?
Do we know when it will take place,
and what will the rapture mean for the
child of God?
We will follow that with messages in the
tribulations period.
We will be dealing with such subjects as
the Federated States of Europe, the revived Roman
Empire, the rise of the beast, the great
false religious system.
Many of those kindred subjects will occupy our
attention.
We want to give some attention to the
doctrine of the millennium and our Lord's return.
How will Christ reign?
What will the government of the millennium be
like?
Wherein will the millennial earth differ from the
conditions today?
Will all men really drive Cadillacs or Imperials
at that time?
We will continue through the events of the
tribulation and the millennial reign of Christ till
we see the consummation of all things in
glory.
I realize as I go through these subjects
that I am going to leave many questions
unanswered.
There will be many things that you will
want to know that you will be a
little hesitant, I hope, to raise your hands
and interrupt me in the course of the
message to ask.
And that is why you will find on
the bulletin a detachable corner that just says
questions, and it was with this series in
mind that we decided to provide that.
And during the course of these messages, and
later on as well, we will take some
time in the evening service to try to
answer the questions which you may ask.
There will be a question and answer period.
Now, the only way I can know what
questions you have, and on what point I
have most thoroughly confused you, is for you
to ask for clarification.
It's not necessary to find them if you
don't want to.
If you're afraid of revealing your ignorance or
my stupidity, then just don't find it, but
let us have the questions as we go
along.
It is our purpose this evening to speak
in a very general and in an introductory
way on the question, why should we study
prophecy?
You will recognize that there are many people
today that have relegated the prophetic scriptures for
the thematic.
They feel that a man has to be
either mentally unbalanced, or else some religious fanatic
to manifest any interest in the prophetic scriptures
at all.
This is particularly true among men who profess
to love the word of God, but who
have no respect for the authority and the
integrity of scriptures at all.
Those who we would call liberals or modernists
in their theology say that what we have
here and now is far more important than
anything that's going to happen in the future,
and since they do not really believe that
God gave us the word, they do not
believe that God can reveal future events, they
feel that any study of prophecy is just
a mysticism or a fanaticism that is unworthy
of one who has gotten beyond about the
sixth grade in school.
And yet, we find that the prophetic scriptures
occupy a great portion of the word of
God.
If we are to look at the major
divisions of the word of God, for instance,
we are acquainted with the fact that we
have, first of all, the books of Moses
or the books of law in the Old
Testament.
This is followed by the books of history
where we have the record of God's dealing
with the nation Israel, and the events under
the judges and the kings are given to
us.
Then we have a section in the Old
Testament known as the political books, in which
the worship and praise of Israel is recorded.
Then we find a large number of books
in the Old Testament that we call the
prophetic books, sometimes dividing them into the major
and minor prophets, and if we are to
take the Old Testament just by the number
of books, we realize that a large section
of the word of God was prophetic at
the time it was written.
When we come into the New Testament, we
have the gospels which are history, and we
have the epistles which are doctrinal, and the
New Testament concludes with the book of the
revelation which is again a book of prophecy.
So, that in both the Old and New
Testaments we have whole books and whole sections
of the word of God devoted to this
subject.
But when we look at all of Scripture,
we find that Scripture falls under several main
headings as to the nature of the writings.
There is much that we would call history,
where the record is given to us in
the Old Testament and the New of historical
events.
Then there is the division of history that
we would call doctrine, where there is teaching
and instruction.
I think, for instance, of a passage like
Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, "...for by grace
are ye saved through faith, and that not
of yourselves, but as the gifts of God,
not of works, lest any man should boast."
That is a doctrinal passage, whereas you can
turn to the opening chapter of a gospel
of Matthew, and you get the long list
of begat so-and-so, begat so-and
-so, from Abraham and David all the way
down to Christ.
That is just pure history.
Then we have a division that we would
call exhortation, where there is the application of
doctrine to the believer's life.
Paul can write, for instance, to a young
preacher and say, "...stand fast in the Lord,"
or he can say to believers, "...put on
the whole armor of God."
There, the teaching is applied to the daily
life, so we find that there is that
division of scripture that we would call exhortation.
Then there is scripture that we would call
invitation, as our Lord says, "...come unto me
all ye that labor, and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest."
And many passages and sections of scripture would
fall into the area of invitation, but there
is again that great area of prophecy.
And, as we analyze scripture, we find that
one-fourth of the books of scripture are
one-fourth.
Let me put it this way, that one
-fourth of the Word of God was prophetic
at the time that it was written.
One-fourth of scripture prophetic at the time
that it was written.
We have 25 percent of the books of
the Word of God we call prophetic books,
and one verse in four deals with some
future events.
Now, when on the basis of just this
arithmetic analysis, if we are to neglect the
study of prophecy, we see that we would
be ignorant of one-fourth of that which
God has recorded for us in the Word
of God.
And, if God has devoted that much time
to this subject, it certainly behooves us to
give some attention to it.
Now, I recognize that there are some real
dangers in the study of prophecy, and I
want to mention briefly some of these dangers
so that we can be on guard against
them as we continue in our studies from
week to week.
I am reminded of what the Apostle writes
concerning the Athenians in Acts chapter 17 and
verse 21, where when Paul came into that
great metropolis of Athens that controlled so much
of the intellectual and social life of Greece,
the Apostle records in Acts 17 21, all
the Athenians and strangers which were there spent
their time in nothing else but either to
tell or to hear some new things.
And while the Athenian culture and civilization died
out, Athenianism never did, for there are always
those whose major emphasis is in hearing some
new things.
Now, therein lies one of the dangers of
prophecy.
There are many who are lifted up in
pride because they have been taught or studied
something in the prophetic scriptures, because they are
able to distinguish, for instance, between the king
of the north and the king of the
south, or between the first beast and the
second beast, or they are able to interpret
Daniel's image.
They think that they possess a spirituality that
puts them on a superior plane.
I was speaking with a young man recently,
well it was last summer now, who is
a graduate of our seminary here, who'd gone
into a pastorate in a certain part of
the country.
He came to me, and he knew that
I had given some attention to the study
of prophecy, and he said, I wish to
goodness that the men in my church had
never heard of prophecy.
And I said, why do you say that?
And he said, because those men won't listen
to me preach, because they are confident they
know far more about the scriptures than I
do, because of all the prophetic conferences which
they have attended.
And every time they came to a board
meeting, it turned out to be an oral
exam of the preacher in how much he
knew of the details of prophecy, and finally
made that man's life so miserable that after
he had delivered his wife from a nervous
breakdown, he had to change pastors.
It all went back to that sense of
pride, because they knew more about prophecy than
their pastor did.
Well, that was open to question, but they
felt they did, and I believe that that
was a misuse of the study of the
prophetic scriptures.
For, if we study to produce pride, and
the result of our study is pride, then
it has been an instrument in the hands
of Satan rather than an instrument in the
hands of the Spirit of God to reproduce
the Lord Jesus Christ in us.
Then there is another danger in the study
of prophecy, and that is that among some
it has become a false basis of fellowship.
Now, I believe from my study of the
Word of God that fellowship between believers is
on the basis of the person and work
of Jesus Christ, that we unite together and
have fellowship together because of our Lord and
his work on our behalf.
Yet, there are some who are not willing
to extend the right hand of fellowship to
others who may have different interpretations in the
realm of prophecy, and they have said of
putting the Lord Jesus Christ in the central
place, and giving him preeminence, have elevated some
other doctrine or teaching in the Word of
God as a false basis of fellowship.
And it is my earnest conviction that if
any doctrine is elevated to the place of
centrality, and is made the basis of fellowship,
we are building a false text of fellowship,
and we cannot know the blessing of God.
Then there are some people who have given
such intensive study to the subject of prophecy,
they have completely missed the Lord Jesus Christ
in their study of the Word of God.
The scripture was given to us to reveal
him, and he is a theme.
He is the center about which all of
the scripture revolves, and if we become so
interested in antichrist, that Jesus Christ is removed
from the place of centrality, and if we
study the Word of God to see on
which side the beast parts his hair, and
miss the Lord Jesus Christ, then we have
been sidetracked and derailed from that, because it
is not the spirit's work to teach the
things of antichrist to us, but to reveal
the things of Christ unto us.
And so, I say that by way of
caution as we begin this series of studies,
that we are studying that we might know
the scriptures, that we might have the assurance
in our hearts of the unfolding of God's
program, but we are studying to see the
Lord Jesus Christ in his centrality, in his
preeminence, that we might be drawn to him
in our study.
So, there are some real purposes, I believe,
in the study of prophecy, and it is
principally these purposes that I want to call
to your attention this evening, as we see
something of why God has given prophecy in
the Word of God.
Let me say in a negative way, I
do not believe that prophecy was given to
us just to satisfy our curiosity.
Every one of us seems to have been
born with a desire to know what's going
to happen tomorrow.
Then, if it were revealed what were going
to happen tomorrow, we probably would want somebody
to obliterate from our minds that which we
learned was going to happen, because we find
we didn't want to know after all.
Yet, there is that infeasible curiosity in the
natural man, and that is why you will
find the fortune tellers and the soothsayers and
the astrologers can do such a thriving business
because they pretend to give foretaste of future
events to signify that which is going to
happen.
Prophecy was not given us just to satisfy
our curiosity about future events, but there were
some very real purposes, I believe, which God
had in mind in giving to us the
prophetic scriptures.
And the first one which I would call
to your attention is the fact that the
prophetic scriptures reveal to us, or prove to
us, the authority of the Word of God.
They prove to us the authority of the
Word of God.
The Bible is different from every other religious
book, for there is no other book upon
which a religion has been founded which includes
prophecy within it.
You can take the great oriental religions with
their millions of devotees, and you can search
through the sacred books of the Middle East
and the Near East and the Far East,
but there is no predictive prophecy, for they
made no attempt to reveal that which was
future.
You can take the writers of the false
cults and sects which are rampant in our
country today, and they make no attempt whatsoever
to speak of future or prophetic events.
They seek to interpret or explain the past
or the present, but they are entirely silent
upon the future.
And yet, the Word of God, from the
opening chapters of Genesis right through to the
closing chapters of the book of the Revelation,
has interwoven the revelations of coming events as
an authentication that that revelation was a true
revelation from God Himself, and the test of
prophecy is always its fulfillment.
And if that which was prophesied comes to
pass, we know that that which was prophesied
is true, and there is no greater test
or proof or demonstration of the inspiration and
the validity and authority of the Word of
God than the study of the field of
prophecy.
If I could mention, for instance, just briefly
some of the prophecies concerning the coming of
Christ.
The Old Testament, hundreds and hundreds of years
before Jesus Christ was born, told the actual
time of His birth in Daniel chapter 9.
The circumstances of His birth, that He was
to be born of a virgin, revealed in
Isaiah 7.
The place of His birth, revealed in Micah
5.
You can go on through our Lord's life,
and you can find intimate details of our
Lord's experiences of His suffering, of His death,
the means of His death, the opposition to
Him in His death, the facts of His
burial and of His resurrection, all recorded in
intricate detail in the Old Testament Scriptures.
The one mathematician had figured out that there
is only one chance in 87, with 93
zeros after it, that the Bible could be
written on the basis of guess alone.
Just considering the prophecies concerning Christ.
Now, somebody may be able to tell me
what that figure is.
I don't have the least idea, but one
over 87 with 93 zeros written after it.
One chance in that number that the Old
Testament could have been written and be written
by guess alone when just the prophecies concerning
the birth and death of Christ are considered.
Now, God has revealed prophecy to prove that
that Scripture which is given to us is
of divine origin, is trustworthy, and we may
study it with confidence.
After all, that we know of God is
recorded for us in this word.
If it is not trustworthy, we have no
revelation at all.
But prophecy proves to us that a God
who can tell that which is yet in
the future is a God who is to
be trusted.
Then there is a second purpose in prophecy,
and I believe that prophecy was given to
us to reveal the power and wisdom of
God.
I would take, for instance, a passage like
Isaiah chapter 7, where more than 700 years
before Christ was born, the fact of Christ's
virgin birth was predicted by God through the
prophet Isaiah.
If you will remember the historical background, you
will recall that this man Ahaz, who was
king, was a man known in Israel and
Judah for his godlessness.
As wicked a king as Israel had ever
seen, he descended to new depths of degradation
and iniquity in leading the children of Israel
into idolatry.
He had set up, within the borders of
the land of Palestine, not only images and
idols and groves to Baal and to Asherah,
but he had set up as well those
inhuman instruments of worship to Molech.
Those images made of metal that were hollow,
in which a fire would be built until
the image was quite hot, and then infants
would be placed on the lap of that
quite hot image to sacrifice them to this
god Molech.
Now, Ahaz had brought all that idolatry and
iniquity into the nation Israel, and God said
he was going to punish the nation for
their iniquity, and yet Ahaz said, I will
forbid God to bring any punishment on this
nation, and Ahaz thought that he could could
prevent the purpose of God, and so God
sent Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah chapter 7
to Ahaz with the announcement that this judgment
was coming, and that God was going to
deal with his people.
God said, I'll give you a sign, Ahaz,
that I'm going to bring an invader into
this land, and Ahaz said, I won't ask
of God a sign, I won't let him
give me a sign, I refuse the sign
that God is going to deal with the
nation Israel.
And so, in verse 11, we read the
prophet says, Ask thee a sign of the
Lord thy God, ask it either in the
depth that is in Hades, or in Sheol,
or in the heights above.
Ahaz, you can ask God to bring somebody
back from the dead, or you can ask
God to do what he did in the
days of your forebears and turn the sun
backward in its course.
Ask any sign that God is going to
deal in judgment with this nation.
Ahaz says, I will not tempt the Lord.
This was not mock humility, or this was
not humility, but this was rather the fact
that he was forbidding God to intervene in
the affairs of the nation Israel.
So God says in verse 14, The Lord
himself shall give you a sign.
Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a
son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.
And I believe that there are two sons
here in Isaiah 7.
One was the son of the prophet Isaiah
that is referred to in verse 3.
Go now and meet Ahaz, thou and sheer
Jeshub thy son.
And here is this small child, perhaps an
infant in arms, that Isaiah carries with him
out to meet Ahaz and to announce that
judgment is coming.
And God says, Before this son in Isaiah's
arms can grow up enough to know the
difference between good and evil, that the land
shall be scattered of her kings.
And God is revealing the near future of
what is going to happen in the surrounding
nations, and God is revealing the future 750
years away to show that he is a
God of wisdom and a God of power,
and no wicked godless king can prevent him
from doing that which is his purpose to
do.
So prophecy was given through Isaiah to reveal
the power and the wisdom of God.
Would you turn back into Genesis chapter 18?
We have given to us, I believe, another
purpose of prophecy, and that is that prophecy
will reveal the purpose of God.
We find in this chapter, in Genesis chapter
18, that God appears to Abraham and tells
Abraham that the wicked cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah are going to be destroyed.
That was a revelation which was being made
from God to Abraham, which was a predicted
prophecy.
And then we read in verse 17, the
Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that
thing which I do, seeing that Abraham shall
surely become a great and mighty nation, and
all the nations of the earth shall be
blessed in him.
God reveals there that he wanted to take
Abraham into an intimate fellowship with himself, and
to reveal what he purposed to do.
Now, Abraham was going to live to witness
the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham
might have witnessed that destruction, and asked himself
the question, why did God do that?
What was the purpose of destroying all that
human life?
But God says to Abraham, before it happens,
Abraham, I want you to know what I'm
going to do, so that when it takes
place, you might understand that I am a
holy and righteous God, and cannot continue to
deal with this outbreak of sin any longer.
And prophecy was revealed to Abraham so that
he might understand the purpose of God.
As we go through in our series, and
we see the development of some of these
great events in prophecy, when we shall study,
for instance, and see the rise of a
coming world dictator who will bring all of
Europe under his authoritarian power, when we shall
see the rise of Russia and of God's
great judgment that destroys Russian Communism, when we
see the return of the Jews to Palestine,
and then all of the events that take
place during the tribulation period against Israel and
the greatest tide of antisemitism the world has
ever seen.
We will be studying these things to see
that God has revealed to us something of
his plans and purposes, so that as we
see these things looming on the horizon, our
hearts shall not give way to fear as
though God somehow has been deposed from his
throne, that this world has gotten out of
his control, and that its lawlessness is in
absolute authority.
There is nothing that will assure us as
much that God is still on the throne,
and that God is working all things according
to the counsel of his own will, and
the fact and the truth that God is
ruling all things, and is causing all things
to move according to his predetermined, and pre
-arranged, and pre-revealed plans.
The prophecy will bring us into an intimate
knowledge of the purpose of God.
This message is continued on the other side,
but I believe again there is revealed in
John chapter 14 and verse 1 yet another
purpose in prophecy.
Our Lord says in those familiar words, Let
not your heart be troubled, ye believe in
God, believe also in me.
Now, the background of this passage is found
in the fact that Jesus Christ has told
the disciples that he is going to leave
them.
He's going away.
He has predicted to them of his death
and his resurrection.
These disciples have been under his tutelage.
They have been provided for by his power.
They have been guided, they have been commissioned
by his word.
Their whole life has centered and revolved around
him, and now he tells them he is
going away.
What are they going to do?
Who is going to provide for them?
Who is going to empower them?
Who is going to protect them from the
enemy?
Who is going to tell them where to
go and what message to proclaim?
They were at a loss.
So, our Lord meets their heart's need by
revealing a prophetic event, so that the Lord
meets the problem of their heart trouble by
the words in my Father's house, on many
mansions, if it were not so, would I
have told you I go to prepare a
place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive
you unto myself, that where I am there
ye may be also.
The answer to their heart trouble was faith.
Faith in the person of God, ye believe
in God, believe also in me, and faith
in the program of God.
In my Father's house, on many mansions, I
am going to come and receive you unto
myself.
So, that prophecy was that which was designed
to bring peace to the believers, and that
is one of the great purposes of prophecy
in the word of God, to bring peace
and assurance.
We can hardly pick up a news magazine
or listen to newscasters today as they talk
about the threat and the horror of the
next atomic war, the nuclear war.
They talk about wiping man off the face
of the earth and the absolute destruction of
human civilization and all the rest of it.
Why don't we sit in the edge of
our chairs and chew our fingernails and worry
whether a bomb is going to be tucked
off that's going to blow everybody's kingdom come?
Why do prophetic scriptures tell us that those
things just can't take place?
Why?
Because God has a purpose, and God's purpose
involves these nations and this earth, and God
is working all things according to his own
purpose, and that God has told us of
the prophetic events so that we know that
such a thing could never transcribe.
In the threat of all this world conflict,
the believer in Jesus Christ who has been
taught in the prophetic scriptures can trace the
hand of God as these events will unfold,
and I believe we shall see that in
the progress of our study, that it gives
us confidence and assurance that our night is
not as a night with no star, and
our day is not a day in which
the light of the sun is obliterated, but
we have the sun of righteousness, the bright
and morning star to guide us through the
doubts and darkness and uncertainty of this life
as we come to understand the scriptures.
But, of climaxing it all, I believe that
God's great purpose in revealing prophecy to his
children is to produce a holy life, to
produce a holy life.
Some short time ago now, I took the
occasion to go through the New Testament to
mark each reference to the coming of our
Lord, and then to observe the use made
of that teaching about Christ's coming, and I
was struck anew with the fact that, almost
without exception, when the coming of Christ is
mentioned in the New Testament, it is followed
by an exhortation to godliness, an exhortation to
holy living.
To the exclusion of almost every other exhortation
and application, the second coming of Christ was
designed to produce a holy life, and while,
as we go through the prophetic scriptures in
these next weeks, I believe that the study
of prophecy will give us proof of the
authority of the word of God, and will
reveal the purpose of God and the power
of God, and give us the peace and
assurance of God.
I will feel that we have missed the
whole purpose of the study of prophecy if
our study does not conform us to the
Lord Jesus Christ in our daily living.
I want to mention just several of the
many, many New Testament prophecies of the coming
of Christ which we might study, to point
this out to you as we draw our
consideration to a close this evening.
I would suggest sometime you take the New
Testament epistles and you read them.
Read them through specifically to mark references to
the second coming of Christ.
You will have a hard time finding a
New Testament epistle that does not refer to
Christ's coming.
It's there through them all.
We are not dealing with some isolated teaching,
some of pure doctrine, but we are dealing
with that which is preeminent in the word
of God.
But I'll just select several in order that
we might emphasize this particular truth with you.
Will you turn with me, first of all,
to the epistles of Philippians?
Philippians chapter 3.
And there, first of all, beginning at verse
10, Paul expresses the great desire of his
heart, the desire that I might know him,
that I might be made conformable unto his
death.
Verse 12, he says, not as though I
had already attained, either were already perfect, but
I pursue after, if I may lay hold
of that for which also I have been
laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself to have laid
hold, but this one thing I do for
getting those things which are behind, and reaching
forth unto those things which are before, I
press toward the mark for the prize of
the high calling, or the upward calling of
God in Christ Jesus.
Or, if I can paraphrase that, I am
all my life pressing on in view of
the prize that there is at the upward
calling of God in Christ Jesus.
And then he concludes the fact in verse
20 as he says, our conversation is in
heaven.
And if you will allow me to change
the reading of that to get the force
of this across, Paul says, verse 20, the
state of which we are citizens is in
heaven.
From whence also we look for the Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our
vile body that it may be fashioned like
unto his glorious body, according to the working
whereby he is able even to subdue all
things unto himself.
There in verse 20 and 21, the apostle
has said, I am an absentee citizen.
I am living here, and at the time
he was writing, he was confined in a
cell in Rome.
He says, I'm down here now, but I'm
an absentee citizen.
The state of which I am a citizen
is up there, and from the place where
my citizenship is, I'm looking for the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ who shall translate
this body of humiliation and suffering and death,
and he will make it like unto his
glorious body.
Now, chapter 4 verse 1, what's the first
word?
Therefore.
Therefore, and the word therefore draws the conclusion
to the fact he has been looking for
the coming of Christ in verse 20 and
21.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, dearly beloved and longed
for, my joy my craft, stand fast in
the Lord.
What was the exhortation on the basis of
the coming of Christ?
To stand fast in the Lord.
Will you look at it again?
Turn over to Colossians in chapter 3.
The apostle has given us the assurance of
our identification with Christ.
He says, if ye then be risen with
Christ, and you certainly are, seek those things
which are above, where Christ sits on the
right hand of God.
And he has pictured the Lord Jesus Christ
ascended and throned in glory today.
And then he says in verse 4, when
Christ who is our life shall appear, then
shall ye also appear with him in glory.
And he has referred in verse 4 to
the precious promise that the Lord Jesus Christ
is coming, and when he comes he's going
to translate us in glory.
Now, the phrase in glory is not a
geographical term like we would say in heaven,
and he doesn't say, then shall ye also
appear with him in heaven.
But the phrase in glory shows to us
the condition into which we will be made
when we see him.
When Christ who is our life shall appear,
then shall ye also appear with him, glorious
one.
Now look at verse 5.
Put to death therefore, and underline the word
therefore.
He's drawing the conclusion to the teaching that
Christ is coming in verse 4.
Put to death therefore in view of the
fact that Christ is coming to glorify your
members which are upon the earth, and he
gives that long list of the sins of
the flesh which one may commit, and he
says put off all these, verse 5 and
verse 12, put on therefore as the elect
of God the compassions of mercy, kindness, humbleness,
and so on.
Put off therefore, and put on therefore, because
Christ is coming.
We will look at this again in Titus
2, and this is a very familiar passage,
and since we so recently studied, or many
of us did, this epistle, I'll just touch
on it briefly to call this to your
attention.
As in verse 11 of chapter 2, the
apostle writes and says, For the grace of
God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all
men, and verse 13, looking for that blessed
hope and the glorious appearing of the great
God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave
himself for us that he might redeem us
from all iniquity and purify unto himself a
peculiar people, zealous of good works.
Now, go back to verse 12, and you
get the exhortation.
What does this hope, what does this grace
of God that gives us the promise of
the coming of Christ teach us?
Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live
soberly and righteously and godly in this present
world while we are looking for that blessed
hope.
And then just one more, and over in
2 Peter 3.10. The apostle Peter is
outlining the prophetic event, and he says, The
day of the Lord will come as a
thief in the night, the witch of heaven
shall pass away with a great noise, and
the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
Fears also in the works that are therein
shall be burned up.
Now, after giving us that fact of the
prophetic scriptures, in verse 11 he draws the
application, Seeing then that all these things shall
be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye
to be in all holy manner of life
and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the
coming of the day of God.
Verse 14, Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look
for such things, be diligent that ye may
be found of him in peace without spot
and blame.
There the apostle Peter has added his testimony
to that of the apostle Paul, that the
Lord Jesus Christ has given to us the
promise of his return, and that promise of
his return will give us the proof of
the authority of the word, reveal the power
of God, the purpose of God, give the
child of God the peace of God.
Would it ought to be transforming us daily
into a holy life as it produces the
life of Christ in us?
Recently, I was asked to come to make
a call in a certain home, and I
had told the folks that I would be
there at my first convenience.
I had a meeting on Monday evening, and
I said I may get there Tuesday, and
it may be that I'll be interrupted and
I won't get there until Thursday, but I'll
come as soon as I can.
Well, it happened that Tuesday went by, Thursday
went by, and I didn't get there.
The Saturday, I went and made the call,
and midway through the call, some of the
children in the family came in and began
to look at their mother, and then they
looked at me, and then they went out.
Mother began to smile, and she said, my
children are glad that you have finally come.
Or, she said, you had never been here
before, you hadn't met us, and I told
the children that when I got the living
room cleaned up, they couldn't play in it
until after the pastor had come and gone.
Now that the pastor had come after he
had gone, the living room that was kept
clean for his coming could revert to its
more normal usages.
The threat, shall I say, of the pastor's
coming had produced a different kind of life
in that home and in that living room.
The apostle presents to us the blessed truth
that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming.
When?
We don't know.
He has told us to expect him at
any time, for he may at any moment
appear.
And it was the desire of Paul that,
should he come in his day, that Paul
would be found faithful, that he would be
found doing those things that would please him.
The Lord has not yet come in God's
gracious power so that we might come to
know him and enjoy his home forever, but
he has still given us the promise, you
can look for me at any time, and
may the joy of looking for his coming
produce enough that holiness of life that will
not make us ashamed when we see him.
Our Father, we pray that thou will give
to us a hunger to know that which
thou hast revealed in the word of God,
and as we next week, the Lord willing,
shall turn to consider that particular prophecy addressed
to us of the translation of the church
as the Lord appears in the air.
Even anticipating that study, may we live this
week in the light of our Lord's coming.
May our Father pray that our hearts shall
be made steadfast in our faith.
We can know the peace of God even
in the midst of turmoil because thou hast
revealed the purpose of God, and wilt thou,
our Father, give to us the joy of
looking up for our redemption draws nigh, in
Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.