THE PROMISED COMING                                 II Peter 3:1-4

                                                                                 6/43, 10/60, 6/74

 

 

"REDEMPTION DRAWETH NIGH"   Luke 21:28

 

My soul crieth out for a jubilee song !

There is joy in my heart, let me praise with my tongue;

For I know, though the darkness of Egypt still lowers,

That the time ere release is not ages, but hours.

 

As sailors, not yet within sight of the strand,

Know well their approach by the "loom of the land;"

So they, who will bend but a listening ear,

Can now catch the whisper that tells He is near.

 

He is near- the stars in their courses prepare

To utter the sign He hath bid them declare!

The world in its guilt waxeth haggard and grim,

And its cup of iniquity fills to the brim!

 

The curse so long camped upon Bosphorus' side-

And she that sits queen upon Liber's foul tide-

And famine and pestilence stalk in the band

Of witness, attesting the Lord is at hand.

 

And thither to gather the tribes have begun

From the East and the West, from the chimes of the sun,

In the land, still despised, but preparing e'm now

For the feet that shall stand upon Olivet's brow.

 

The world as of yore, naught of all doth divine-

Saith again that believers are filled with new wine-

Suffers warning to pass all unseen, and unheard,

And, like Herod, fulfills while opposing this word.

 

Then welcome, thrice welcome, ye tokens of God !

What else but His coming can comfort afford?

What presence but His set this prisoned earth free?

O Star of the Morning, our hope is in Thee ?

                                                Jesus is Coming   p. 216

 

II Peter 3:1-4

                        THE PROMISED COMING

 

            Never "the second coming"

            Always, "the coming" (parousia), (presence), Event by itself, so great

significance that it stood by itself in meaning and in glory.

 

            I. The Place The Coming held in New Testament Christianity.

                        1. Teaching of Jesus

                                    a. apocalyptic discourses.  Matt. 24, 25. Mark 13.

                                         2 Thess. 2:1

                        The great parables.

                                    The wicked servant.  Matt. 24:45-51

                                    The wise and foolish virgins.  Matt. 25:1-13

                                    The talents.   Matt. 25:14-30

                                    The pounds.  Luke 119:11-27

                                    The sheep and the goats.  Matt. 25:31-46

 

                                    The comfort of John 14; Acts 1:10,11

                                    The challenge of John 21:22

                                    The Lord's supper.  "Till He comes."

                                    The Lord's prayer.  "Thy kingdom come."

 

            2. The vigorous faith of the first disciples.

 

                        Luke writing Acts 1:10-11

                        Peter in sermons and epistles. (as II Peter 3)

                        Paul.  First letter he wrote to the Thessalonians.

                        About the return of our Lord.

                        His great resurrection chapter.  I Cor. 15, I Thess 4.

                        John.  The Apocalypse.  the prayer the answer to which

                        shall and history and the ages: "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

 

            3. Background of every New Testament Sermon, doctrine, exhortations, men of New Testament were men whose backs to the world and faces toward heavens and the coming of the Lord.

            Because He is coming, not to forsake assembly together.

            Because He is coming, to endure persecutions afflictions.

            Because He is coming, live godly, sober lives.

            Because He is coming, not to sorrow as others without hope.

One has counted as many as 318 passages in the New Testament which declare or reflect the hope of the Coming of the Lord.

--Cut out of your New Testament the passages telling of the coming of the Lord… a strange unintelligible book.

--Take the promises and the hope out of the lives of the apostles, their flaming love, mighty preaching, vigorous faith.

 

II. The Modern explanation of this doctrine.

            1. The position

                        The picture of a great and good end to the long process of history has ever been in the mind and thinking of man.  It fits comfortably in the hopes and aspirations of the race.  Tomorrow will be better than today.

So, Plato's "Republic," so Sir Thomas More's "Utopia" and a thousand others.  This philosophy of life was vastly furthered by the academic acceptance of the principle of evolution expounded by Darwin in the last century and by the astounding achievements of science during the same period.  Not only the professors and the scientists accepted the dogma that through a process of natural evolution the world will eventually come to perfection, but the editors, the writers, the teachers, the statesmen, the man on the street, and finally the preachers have come to assume the same position.  By and by, the ape and the tiger will die out of man's nature.  All evils will disappear, the lion will lie down with the lamb, and righteousness shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.  All that through social evolution, personal betterment without the presence of the coming of the Lord.  We are not to repeat great convulsions and cataclysms, and instead of a great falling away or recession in the tide of progress, the Kingdom of God will come gradually until at length the world reaches that "one far-off event towards which the whole creation moves."

 

Then Dr. Shailer Matthews says: "To bring Jesus into the control of human affairs is the real coming of the Kingdom of God upon earth.  This is what the pictures and the apocalyptic symbols used by the early Christians really meant.  This is the real coming of Christ."

 

In like manner, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick: "........when they say Christ is coming, and that slow it may be, but surely, his will and principles will be worked out by God's grace in human life and institutions, until He shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied."

 

            2. Some things to say about it.

 

                        1. The present darkness of the world has made men who reprove it, waver in the doctrine.

            This belief in the inevitable progress of human society towards perfection is not nearly so strong as it once was, and that rosy confidence has, in many quarters, given way to cynical despair.  Even from the standpoint of the scientist, men are not so sure that we move even toward a goal of perfection. 

 

Some of the great accomplishments of the race:

                        Driven pirates from the sea--the sub

Abolished slavery--the race problem, Hitler's super race, Hirohito's Children of heaven.

                        Accepted woman suffrage.--the lowering of standards.

                        Made the world a neighborhood.--the bomb

Evil ever strong; forces of destruction ever withstanding forces  of construction.

           

                        2. But granting perfection, that is a process of evolution, the moral nature of human nature should in some way be transformed.

            What about this imperfect world for the perfect creature would be left?

            Natural enemies of man cry over which moral forces have no control: the earthquake, the tempest, the lightning, the cruelties of a nature indifferent to the lot of man.

            Evolve them away?

 

            3. What about sorrow, suffering, our death, separation, tears, death?

Prolong life as we will, can progress, evolution, conquer death, it's terror for the dying, it's award for the living?  Does the evolutionist suppose that death will be evolved out of existence?

 

            4. What of our beloved dead?  Those already dead? The question of the Thessalonians.

            Leave them there- where the embalmer leaves them, the scientist, the evolutionist, the philosopher, the cemetery keeper.  We ourselves soon to join the hapless, hopeless, pitiable lot.  Does the progressivist suppose that evolution will bring us a resurrection?

 

            5. What of the promises of God?

            Who cannot be " I will come again!"

                                           "I come quickly"  "watch"  "this same Jesus..."

            Is this to be the millennial kingdom toward which God and man are moving!  You dead--I dead, our children, our parents.  Tears, sorrows, torments, temptation, broken promises!  No Christ, no resurrection, no Lord Jesus, a kingdom without a king.  It is impossible, preposterous, unthinkable, unscriptural-----

We need some one- a Savior, who can abolish death itself,  resurrect those who have fallen into its foul clutches---overcome sin--triumph over Satan--give a new heaven and a new earth wherein just man made perfect may abide.

 

III.  THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE--THE GLORIOUS APPEARING OF OUR LORD

 

            Instead of this process of natural evolution which can lead humanity to no goal of happiness, but only through the endless and senseless cycles of the past, the imminent revelation of the coming of the Lord fulfills every dream, every hope, every longing of our hearts, and fulfills every promise of God.

            1. "Behold, I make all things new"  a new heaven and a new earth, the first heaven and the first earth are passed away.

            2. Abolition of death.  "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, for the former things are passed away."

"For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet.  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

            3.The resurrection of the dead.

                        I Thess. 4:14-17

                        I Cor. 15

            4. The binding of Satan.

                        With a great chain, in the bottomless pit where the beast and the false prophet are, there cast to deceive the nations no more.

 

All of this through natural inevitable growth, progress, evolution?  Never, But by the mighty intervention of Christ, the suppression of the present order.

In preparation for this change, Christian teaching, preaching, exhortation, preparing a people for His name.  The good wheat, by the evil tares, growing until the harvest.  But the harvest is coming, the great and terrible and mighty day of the Lord.  O my soul, be prepared! and rejoice!

 

 

                                                End