Discerning the Signs but Looking for the Lord
I do listen. As I get older, I forget more easily, but I do listen to people’s concerns. In the last several years, a number of devoted Christians have asked me some form of the following question: “Are we close to the return of Jesus Christ?” As with any Biblical teaching, we must be careful with this subject. In Matthew 24:36, Jesus said, “Of that day and hour knoweth no man.” Later, in Acts 1:7, He added, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons.” Paul wrote in I Thesssalonians 5:2 that “the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” Thus, date-setting defies God’s Word and dishonors our Savior. However, in Matthew 16:3, Jesus pointedly asks, “Can ye not discern the signs of the times?” We do not know and cannot know the exact time of Jesus’ Second Coming and the resulting period of the Tribulation, but we are told to seriously study the signs found in Scripture. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
As we “discern the signs of the times,” we are anticipating the appearance of Jesus (Titus 2:13), confident that He will keep His promise to keep us out of the Tribulation (Revelation 3:10) and that the removal of the restraining power of the Holy Spirit necessitates the rapture of Christians (II Thessalonians 2:7). A further Biblical reason to look for the imminent return of Jesus for His own is that He has promised not to pour His wrath upon us, yet the Tribulation is first and foremost a time of God’s righteous and holy judgment. Revelation 6:17 asks, “For the great day of His wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?” In I Thessalonians 1:10, we are commanded “to wait for His Son from heaven, Whom He raised from the dead even Jesus, Which delivered us from the wrath to come.” In I Thessalonians 5:1-11, Paul discusses what follows the Rapture of the Church (I Thessalonians 4:13-18). Of particular importance to today’s discussion is verse 9: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” The specific deliverance of this verse is clarified in verse 10: “That, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him,” separate from the judgment of “the day of the Lord” (verse 2). Taken together, these verses assure us that God would never permit His Church to be punished in the time of His wrath. His salvation is complete, including deliverance “from the wrath to come” during the Tribulation. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).