The Signs of the Second Coming of Christ

THE SIGNS OF THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST

I believe that Jesus Christ will return to earth as King and bring heaven to earth as it is described in the last book of the Bible in Revelation 21 and 22.  Jesus told us not to worry about times and dates about when that would happen.  

He said that no man knew the day or the hour in which He would come.  “However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.” (Matthew 24:26) 

There have been SO many humans that have tried to guess when He would come back.  Some of them have been serious Biblical scholars and have extrapolated, from world circumstances, their best guesses and timelines.   Others have been quacks and thought they had literally figured it out like the pastor and his people who had signs up everywhere—my family and i were in California for a vacation in 2011 and saw signs everywhere that said Jesus was coming back on May 11, 2011.  

Guess what?  

Jesus didn’t come back.  As soon as someone does what this guy does then you know he is wrong—not to mention arrogant.  Like Hal Lindsay who said his book Apocalypse Code that he had finally cracked the Bible’s code on the return of Christ.  Right. 

The only guarantee is that Jesus will come back when He is good and ready.  He did say that there would be signs that He was coming.  

“His disciples came to him privately and said, “Tell us, when will all this happen? What sign will signal your return and the end of the world? 4 Jesus told them, “Don’t let anyone mislead you, 5 for many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many. 

There have been SO many fake Messiahs—they are out there now.  An interesting show on Netflix is called Messiah is about a dude who comes into the public view with some signs and wonders and some worldwide attention and the question the show leaves you with is—well more questions than answers.

6 And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. 7 Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. 

Okay, we can say that all of that has happened—a lot.  Wars and wars and wars and massive famines and earthquakes ALL the time.  I have written a blog about this: https://loudmouthpastor.blogspot.com/2017/09/labor-pains-foretelling-birth-of-new-wol.html 

8 But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come.   Okay—so all that world wide catastrophe has happened and Jesus is saying that more and more of it has happened. 

9 “Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers.”  So again, that happened to all the disciples and continues to happen to disciples the world over—even to this day.   Last year over 160,000 Christians died for their attachment to Jesus.   

10 And many will turn away from me and betray and hate each other. 11 And many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people.

Well—that is true too—for centuries.  Many, many people have turned away from their faith in Christ and then have betrayed other Christians and there have been a ton of false prophets that get people off track and away from Jesus as THE WAY to be saved. 

12 Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold. 

So that happened.  In my lifetime I have seen the world go from bad to worse as everywhere you look there is sin being celebrated everywhere including on TV and even on the streets.  It is nuts.  North America was founded on many Judea-Christian ethics but that has all but been thrown out the window.  Repressionism is a word I use for how the culture around us is trying to repress Christian teaching now and make us out to be the bad guys—sort of like a new media induced iron curtain. I have written a blog about this: http://loudmouthpastor.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-new-dictator.html 

Jesus said this: 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved.   So, if many people are walking out on Christ—then the ones who endure with Him to the end are the ones who will prove themselves to be His true followers.  Pretty straightforward. 

Again, Jesus says, “32 “Now learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branches bud and its leaves begin to sprout, you know that summer is near. 33 In the same way, when you see all these things, you can know his return is very near, right at the door. 

Ahhh—so He does say that we can assume His return is closer by the signs.  Some signs haven’t happened yet—like this one: “the sun will be darkened, the moon will give no light,

the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”  That sounds pretty intense to me.  Like the movie Deep Impact when a big comet hits the earth.  Maybe the sun will die.  We don’t know. Sun looks pretty good right now.  But it is all guessing by Scientists.  I don’t think those smart people would tell us if the sun was dying because if you think the Covid-19 thing induces panic—lemme tell ya...

Having said all this, lemme tell you what I think—and there is a 99.99999999999999% chance I am wrong on several fronts.  I am thinking in ink and only Scripture can be relied upon—not the mere thinking of a 51 year old pastor.  

I was reading in Luke 12 today and saw these words of Jesus: Jesus turned to the crowd and said, “When you see clouds beginning to form in the west, you say, ‘Here comes a shower.’ And you are right. When the south wind blows, you say, ‘Today will be a scorcher.’ And it is. You fools! You know how to interpret the weather signs of the earth and sky, but you don’t know how to interpret the present times.

I think there are some gathering clouds and certain “fig tree branch” signs that are pointers towards the end of the age we might not typically think of. 

1 - Globalization — the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale.

The way that the economies of the world are inextricably linked tell me that the earth is getting to the place where all the streams flow as one river.  That the nations may have their individual leaders but the world is essentially one economy.  Added to that is the fact of our mobility which is why Covid-19 is everywhere.  But worse than that—the man-centred ideas are everywhere now and trumpeted loud and clear by a global media.   

2 - The Omnipresent Media — The Media is the one world religion that has scattered its man-centred, humanistic and essentially sinful ideas like seed to the four winds and we are reaping a harvest of the death of the human soul.  The media is the bible everyone follows now and what movie and TV directors, writers and actors and musicians say is law. 

3 - Godless Governments and Institutions — When human governments have heard the Good News about Jesus and know the essential tenets of the Bible and reject it then like the writer of Hebrews says:

“For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven—who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and His power—and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame.” Hebrews 6:4-6 

Therefore I believe that the shedding of Biblical values is going to mean “most” people who have experienced the truth and now reject it will ever come back. 

4 - Human Advancement in Military Might and Technology — Lately, mankind has made amazing advancements in technology.  There are enough nuclear weapons to toast the world.  My theory is that this is how the present world will be destroyed and then God will re-create it.  It is only a matter of time until some megalomaniac uses nuclear weapons and starts off judgment day.  

The Internet and Social Media and its omnipresent, pervasive reach dictate policy and the crowd mentality.  This is why the panic of Covid-19 is much worse in 2020 than H1N1 in 2009 and SARS in 2002.    

Visual Effects in movies and TV that we can hardly tell what is real and what isn’t.  It won’t be long until this is perfected.  The advancements are stunning and I believe that it will be so amazing that we will be fooled by many deceptions of this digital wizardry.

In regard to space exploration Mankind now knows that there is no hope that we will be able to travel to any planets that might be remotely inhabitable now because of the infinite size of the universe.  Let me qualify that I think we will one day but that will be when mankind is one again and sin is no more.  Imagine what technology would be like with men’s minds cleared of the malignancy of sin and the complete unity and cooperation of all mankind.

5 - The Sickening of the Earth Itself — Revelation 11:18 says—“...Your wrath has come. The time has come for destroying those who destroy the earth.”  We were supposed to rule the earth and take care of it.  We didn’t do that obviously.  

6 - Israel got their Land back in 1948 - The biblical promise that Israel would be getting its land back happened in May 1948 and since then the tension in Israel has been unrelenting.  And now due to Donald Trump’s Zionist alliances with Benjamin Netanyahu the US Embassy was moved to Jerusalem—this means that Israel’s capital is Jerusalem now and that means the tension is only going to ramp up.   

7 - The Pervasive Gospel —I personally believe that we are close to finishing the Great Commission that Jesus gave us before He ascended to Heaven to, “...go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28)

Jesus said in Matthew 24 that the end of this age would occur when “the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come.  The world has had missionaries in every country and a Bible in almost every tongue.  

Billy Graham preached to more people than any other preacher and was broadcasted all over the world through radio and TV.  The movie Jesus has had worldwide release and is the most viewed and translated movie of all time.  Not to mention the worldwide release of The Passion of the Christ which made over $611,000,000–which means a lot of people have seen it!  Every Christmas and Easter Jesus pops up on magazine covers all over the world.  

Now the entire world has access to the Good News on the internet like never before.  YouTube is pervasive and through online shows like The Chosen and Preachers everywhere—now, during the Covid 19 crisis people have no excuse that they never had a chance to hear the Good News about Jesus.  Preachers are popping up online like gophers.   

This makes me wonder if we are getting close.  The technology we have has now cast the net of the Good News about Jesus over the whole planet.  Jesus just has to get a few more fish to swim into the net.  We know He is patient and full of grace and wants people to be saved. 

I believe the LORD is using the Covid-19 Crisis to shake us out of the sin-induced slumber we have all been in.  The LORD has taken away all our idols—even Donald Trump who has been working for four years to reshape the American economy has lost all the ground he gained as one little virus took down yet another human lord—and it has taken down all the human lords so that no one—NO ONE—is immune to its pride-shattering effects.  The interesting part of this  is how gently God is waking people up.  He could have allowed Nuclear war to break out or allowed evil men to invade countries with their armies and kill millions and millions.  Instead He is allowing this virus, which we stupid humans created by eating unclean animals, to shake us from our slumber.  Many will die but most who get this virus will live.  He is gently waking our world to our need for Jesus.    

The Bible is still the best selling book every year and interestingly the most stolen book every year.  I do not think there is an excuse now for people not knowing who He is.  At the same time I want more time because there are many people alive today that just haven’t heard the Good News and I am conscious of Peter’s words which tell us that, “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise (to return), as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. (2 Peter 3:9)     

The QUESTION IS—Are We Paying Attention:

Jesus continues in Matthew 24–

37 “When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day. 38 In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat. 39 People didn’t realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away. That is the way it will be when the Son of Man comes.

27 For as the lightning flashes in the east and shines to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes. 

Our refusal to pay attention will result in regret. 

30 And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 

When He returns Jesus will gather those who have trusted Him to save them:

31 And he will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world—from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven.

So the biggest message takeaway that I see from this passage is—

42 “So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. 

44 You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.

Be in prayer that those who are pre-Christians will see that God loves them and that their biggest need in life is Jesus.

Jesus said, “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”  Matthew 7:24-27

May we see this realization come upon our planet before it is too late.  As CS Lewis said, 

“God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else - something it never entered your head to conceive - comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. 

Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.”