IS THE LORD
STILL COMING BACK?
One of the questions most atheists, Christians, Muslims and Jews are
asking is this “is Jesus still coming back?” The Jews are expecting a messiah to come, the Christians
are expecting the return of that messiah{Jesus}, the Muslims are expecting the
return of a saviour by name Mahdi while the atheists do not believe that there
is a messiah and so have no expectations.
The atheists are saying things like “so Jesus promised to come back,
did he? Where is he? He’ll never come.” Some Christians are in doubt if Jesus will
still come back as he promised. Others are thinking that he is taking too long
to come while yet another faction are expecting him to come any moment from
now.
Amidst all these different views about the messiah’s return is one
truth which should be considered, that is “the Lord’s promise”. What did the
bible say about the messiah’s promised return?
1 1. Did Jesus ever
promise a return?
Jesus himself promised that he was going to come
back to reap the harvest and all eyes shall see him when he returns. This
promised return is not any man’s ideology. It is the very word of Jesus Himself.
For all who are wondering if Jesus is ever going to come. Here are some verses
for you to hear from Jesus himself.
And Jesus said, I am:
and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming
in the clouds of heaven.{Mark 14:62}
"At that time the sign of the Son
of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn.
They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and
great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they
will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the
other. (Matthew 24:30-31)
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his
angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.
((Matthew 16:27)
2. Why has he not
come yet?
3 First, I want to remind you that in the last days there will
come scoffers who will do every wrong they can think of and laugh at the truth. 4 This will be their line of argument: “So Jesus promised to
come back, did he? Then where is he? He’ll never come! Why, as far back as
anyone can remember, everything has remained exactly as it was since the first
day of creation.”{2Peter 1:3 TLB}
Many have said that
Jesus is not coming again. They think that if he was going to come he would
have come since. They don’t know that the reason he hasn’t come yet is because
he is merciful and wants all of them to repent first, to accept Jesus as their
saviour first. He doesn’t want them to perish at his return. He is therefore
giving more time for sinners to repent. What a merciful saviour we’ve got. But
he will surely come!!!
9 He isn’t really being slow about his promised return, even
though it sometimes seems that way. But he is waiting, for the good reason that
he is not willing that any should perish, and he is giving more time for
sinners to repent. 10 The day of the Lord is surely coming, as
unexpectedly as a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a terrible
noise, and the heavenly bodies will disappear in fire, and the earth and
everything on it will be burned up.{2Peter
3:9-10}
3. What should
I do? Keep waiting for him
And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he
raised from the dead, [even] Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. {1Thessalonians
1:10}
The bible encourages us to keep waiting
for him and not to give up. He is coming, the one who delivered us from the wrath
to come. Yes! There is a coming wrath and it shall be terrible for all who have
not accepted the Lord. Thanks to God for having delivered us already from that
wrath. Yes, Jesus Life blood delivers us from the coming wrath.
9 Much more then, being
now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
10 For if, when we
were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more,
being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. {Romans 5:9-10}
4. What will happen to our bodies
One of the most
exciting thing about the return of the lord is that we are going to have new
bodies. This dying bodies of ours will be transformed into immortal bodies, a celestial
nature. Oh! How I long to put on that new body, that incorruptible body. What a
joy to know that we shall have heavenly bodies that can never die.
50 I tell you this,
my brothers: an earthly body made of flesh and blood cannot get into God’s
Kingdom. These perishable bodies of ours are not the right kind to live
forever.
51 But
I am telling you this strange and wonderful secret: we shall not all
die, but we shall all be given new bodies! 52 It
will all happen in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, when the last trumpet
is blown. For there will be a trumpet blast from the sky,[f] and all the Christians who have
died will suddenly become alive, with new bodies that will never, never
die; and then we who are still alive shall suddenly have new bodies too. 53 For
our earthly bodies, the ones we have now that can die, must be transformed into
heavenly bodies that cannot perish but will live forever.{1 Corinthians 15:50-52
TLB}
Dear friends I long to be clothed with this new
body. Diseases can’t contaminate this body. There shall be no cancer, AIDS,
hepatitis etc. neither would we need to take drugs. For our new bodies shall have divine immunity.
For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken
down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house
in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. 2 We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on
our heavenly bodies like new clothing. 3 For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits
without bodies.[a] 4 While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but
it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us.
Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be
swallowed up by life. {2Corinthians 5:1-4 NLT}
OH WOW, I LONG FOR THIS NEW BODY!!
5. When is all this
going to happen?
When is all this going to happen? I really don’t need to say anything about that, dear brothers, 2 for you know perfectly well that no one knows. That day of the Lord will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night. 3 When people are saying, “All is well; everything is quiet and peaceful”—then, all of a sudden, disaster will fall upon them as suddenly as a woman’s birth pains begin when her child is born. And these people will not be able to get away anywhere—there will be no place to hide. {1Thessalonians 5:1-3 TLB}
The truth is that no
one knows the time nor the hour when the Lord will return but most of the things
that Jesus said will happen before his return are already happening. He will
come as a thief in the night, that is to say unexpectedly, to the world but not
to us who are born again. His coming will not take us by surprise because we
are children of light. We are not in the dark about his coming. It won’t be a
shocker for us when he comes because we are expecting him already. As a bride
waits for her groom so we wait for the Lords return.
4 But, dear
brothers, you are not in the dark about these things, and you won’t be
surprised as by a thief when that day of the Lord comes. 5 For
you are all children of the light and of the day, and do not belong to darkness
and night. 6 So be on your
guard, not asleep like the others. Watch for his return and stay sober. 7 Night
is the time for sleep and the time when people get drunk {1Thessalonians 5:4-7
TLB}
6.
Get protected
Most times when preachers talk about
the coming of the Lord, they tell us to get ready for his return without
telling us exactly how to do so. The few who try to tell us how are found
telling us about Ten Commandments and Jewish rituals. If he must not take us
unawares as a thief in the night, then there are three things we need to have
that will protect us. They are an armor of faith, an armor of love and a helmet
of hope of salvation. If believers can have these triad, then his coming will
not take us by surprise. God has chosen to save us through our Lord Jesus
Christ. He didn’t choose to pour his wrath on us but to live with him forever
when he returns.
. 8 But
let us who live in the light keep sober, protected by the armor of faith and
love, and wearing as our helmet the happy hope of salvation.
9 For God has not
chosen to pour out his anger upon us but to save us through our Lord Jesus
Christ; 10 he died for us so
that we can live with him forever, whether we are dead or alive at the time of
his return. 11 So encourage each
other to build each other up, just as you are already doing. {1Thessalonians
5:8-9 TLB}
7. Forever with Him
There are all kinds of doctrines
being taught in different churches and religious groups about what will happen
after the rapture. People have said all manner of stuffs about how long we will
be with Christ, and how that we will come back again to earth to reign here on
earth and be separated from Christ again and so on and so forth. Well, all I
want to say is that the bible says that we shall be caught up to meet the Lord
in the air and so shall we be with him forever. We are getting married to him,
never to be separated again. We shall spend eternity with him. It really doesn’t
matter much to me how beautiful heaven is as much as it matters to me that I
will be spending eternity with the one who loves me and gave his life to die on
the cross for me. I long to see him and worship him forever.
Then we which are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. {1Thessalonians 4:17}
8. Will he come from the east or west?
Many false christs and
prophets have already emerged in different parts of the world claiming to be
Jesus. They have deceived so many people and you will be amazed at the number
of followers they have. I will mention a few of them in this article.
# Seygey Anatolyevitch
Torop{Vissaron}, a former traffic cop in former USSR
# Oscar Ramiro
Ortega-Hernandez, a man who tried to kill Obama saying Obama is antichrist and
he is the Christ.
# Wayne bent {Micheal
Travesser}, a former pastor in 7th day adventist in new mexico
#Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda,
who claimed to be Jesus and antichrist at the same time with the 666 tattoo on
his arm. He is in Miami Florida
#Apollo Quiboloy,
based in the phillipines.
# Ahn Sahng-Hong,
based in south Korea. He believes in God the mother.
# Allan John Miller,
who also claims to remember his death on the cross. He has a partner who claims
to be Mary Magdalene. They are both in Australia.
# Inri Cristo, based
in Brasilia.
I have only mentioned
a few names here but trust me many more false christs will arise and deceive many.
Now these people are all coming from different countries and most of the people
in the world do not know them.
The true messiah, Jesus
Christ the son of God will not come from the east or the west, neither will he
appear to only a group of people. All eyes shall see him when he comes. His
coming will not be a secret one.
7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him,
and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail
because of him. Even so, Amen. {Revelations 1:7}
Jesus
answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my
name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. And many false
prophets will appear and deceive many people. At that time if anyone says to
you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. For
false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and
miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible. See, I have told you
ahead of time. "So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,'
do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. For as
lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the
coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:4-5; 11; 23-27)
9. Do you have faith that he is coming
37 For yet a little
while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
38 Now the just
shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure
in him.
39 But we are not of
them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of
the soul. {Hebrews 10:37-39}
Do not draw back in unbelief, his
coming is nearer than before. Keep your faith alive. If you don’t know Jesus
yet, it’s time for you to accept him as Lord over your life. Only those who
trust him to save them shall be saved. Only those who have faith shall live.
Everything Jesus said will happen
before his return shall definitely be accomplished. To know about the signs of
his return, you may want to read my article on “the coming desolations” posted December
28, 2015. The good news is that our redemption draws near.
so Christ, having been offered once and once for all to bear [as a burden]
the sins of many, will appear a second time [when he returns to earth], not to
deal with sin, but to bring salvation to those who are eagerly and confidently waiting for Him{Hebrews
9:28 AMP}
No comments:
Post a Comment