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  IS CHRIST'S RETURN IMMINENT
  by Tim Conway
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Summary: This sermon delves into the concept of Christ's imminent return
as described in the Bible, emphasizing the signs and events that must
occur before His coming. It explores the idea of the man of lawlessness
and the rebellion that precedes Christ's return, challenging traditional
interpretations and urging believers to be prepared for His sudden
arrival.

Topics: "Imminent Return of Christ", "Preparedness for His Coming"
Scripture References: Revelation 3:11, Revelation 22:7, 2 Thessalonians 2:3, Matthew 24:37, 1 John 2:18, 2 Peter 3:11

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon delves into the concept of Christ's imminent return as
described in the Bible, emphasizing the signs and events that must occur
before His coming. It explores the idea of the man of lawlessness and
the rebellion that precedes Christ's return, challenging traditional
interpretations and urging believers to be prepared for His sudden
arrival.

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CONTENT
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And I want you to biblically try to discern this, try to answer this. Is
Christ's return imminent? So I think we have to ask this question. What
is imminent? There's also the word eminent.

There's a couple words that are very close. What is imminent name?
Something's going to happen very soon. Yes, something is going to happen
very soon.

So does the Bible anywhere say that Jesus is going to return soon? Yeah,
Revelation says, I am coming soon. Right, let's look at it. Revelation.

We'll start in chapter three, because it says it more than once.
Revelation 3. Revelation 3.11. Here he is speaking to the church at
Philadelphia. He says, Revelation 3.11, I am coming soon.

Is that imminent? That's imminent. Imminent is something that's going to
happen soon. He says, I'm coming soon.

And so look, a thousand days with the Lord or a thousand years with the
Lord. And I mean, we know that the Lord's timing is not always our
timing. We know that what can be long for us is short to him.

What can seem short to us can be long to him. Soon has to do with
perspective. And according to God's perspective, according to Christ's
perspective, he's coming soon.

And he doesn't just say it there. Let's go to Revelation 22. We see it
again.

Revelation 22 and verse seven. He says, behold, I am coming soon.
Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.

And then he says it again down a little further, go down to 12. Behold,
I'm coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay. There it is
again, to repay everyone for what he has done.

Then he says it again, verse 20. He says, he who testifies to these
things says, surely I am coming soon. Amen.

So need to make a mark here in my Bible. So there's no question about
it. His return is imminent.

But here's the question that's actually posed. Paul, Peter, James, and
John all seem to indicate in their writings that Christ's second coming
is very soon. Okay, that's right.

And that would be consistent with what we just saw in Revelation,
perhaps during their own lifetime, or at least the lifetime of their
original audience. And he uses the example of we who are alive and
remain. So he's speaking to the Thessalonians as though, you know, it
could very well be them who are alive and remain at Christ's second
coming.

Be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord, etc. That's from
James. This suggests that they expected Christ's return to be imminent,
perhaps today.

At the same time, other places in Scripture suggest that there are
certain signs which must happen before Christ's return. Most notably, 2
Thessalonians 2, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes
first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction.
Unless my interpretation of these verses is inaccurate, how can one both
expect Christ's coming today, yet at the same time believe that there
are certain perceivable signs which would precede it? So what do we do
with that? What, let me ask you this, what are the two signs that
Scripture seems to indicate must happen before Christ can come? What two
events? Man of lawlessness.

Yeah, I mean, everybody turn to 2 Thessalonians, if you're not already
there. Let's look at it. 2 Thessalonians chapter two.

So everybody always likes eschatology. And it seems to be interesting.
And I mean, I'm interested, eschatology is a part of theology.

I mean, God has lots to say. And so we don't want to be ignorant to it.
But at the same time, we do recognize that good men have differed in a
lot of these prophecies concerning the end.

You know, you probably all heard the name Conrad Merle before, if some
of you are out there who have never heard that name. Well, my, you know,
my friends, Mack Tomlinson, and Charles Leiter, and Bob Jennings. These
guys really looked up to Conrad Merle, he's going to be with the Lord.

But they really looked up to him. He was a mentor to them, really had
insights. I've read some of his things, listened to some of his
preaching, he really had tremendous insights into Scripture.

You know, one of the observations he makes, he made the observation that
when it came to the Old Testament prophecies concerning Christ and the
church, almost nobody had it right. He points out that John the Baptist
even got to the place where he was questioning Jesus about whether he
was really the one. His own disciples were repeatedly asking, is it now
Lord? Is it now? Is the kingdom coming now? In other words, what Conrad
was pointing out is it shouldn't surprise us if almost nobody has it
figured out.

Because you know, you've got all these different perspectives, you've
got amill, and postmill, and premill, and you've got people that are
taking up all sorts of different positions. You've got people that
basically believe that the vast majority of things were fulfilled in 70
AD, you know, you have full preterists, you have partial preterists,
you've got all sorts of different takes. You've got the pre-
tribulational rapture people in the post-tribulation and mid-trib, and
you've got all sorts of things going on.

People are all over the place in these things. And good men, we know
good men who are post-mill, good men who are amill, good men who are
preterists, good men who are premill. I mean, the reality is why are
people all over the place? One of the reasons can be that we simply have
really difficult passages.

There is no question about it. I've waded through it, I've preached a
series on it, and I've read fairly largely on different views and takes
on different passages. And listen, what we know is this.

We know that Christ is coming soon. And we know that two things do have
to happen before Christ comes. 2 Thessalonians 2 tells us that the man
of lawlessness must be revealed.

That's the second thing in verse 3 of 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 3. But
that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of
lawlessness is revealed. Now, let's just think for a moment. That day,
what does that mean? For that day will not come unless the rebellion
comes first.

Well, if you back up here, I think you can see, go back one verse. Go
back to verse 2. We see what that day is. What is that day? Verse 2
says, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by a spirit or
a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the
day of the Lord has come.

So what is the day of the Lord? Well, back up one more verse to verse 1.
Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is very
interesting. The word coming right there is that very famous and well-
known word parousia.

You often hear that term parousia. What I want to point out is this.
Just a very basic and casual look at our Bibles ought to tell you this.

The coming of the Lord Jesus, the parousia, listen, concerning the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together with
Him, we ask you brothers not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed
either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to
the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Now you see what He's
doing. He is calling the parousia.

He is calling the coming of Christ the day of the Lord. There's no
getting around that. They're one in the same.

And so you get these guys that want to define all these things as being
different things and you got different comings and Christ secretly comes
and raptures the church and then He comes another time. And it's just,
you know, it starts getting crazy. One of the things we want to do is we
want to be able to look at texts like this and recognize, okay, this is
speaking about the coming of the Lord.

When we will be Christians, we'll be gathered together with Christ. And
He doesn't want us to be shaken or alarmed to the effect that that day
has already come. See, somebody was teaching that.

When He says a spirit, a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us,
somebody was impersonating Paul and basically sending false teaching to
this church at Thessalonica, indicating that the day had already come.
Kind of like it's come and you missed it. And in fact, if Paul's able to
write to them, he must have missed it too.

I mean, somebody was teaching that kind of teaching. And He says, look,
don't let anybody deceive you in this way. He says, I was there with
you.

I taught you this. He said, don't be deceived. That day cannot come
unless two things happen first.

One, the rebellion must come. Two, the man of lawlessness is revealed,
the son of destruction who opposes, exalts himself against every so-
called God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple
of God, proclaiming himself to be God. So, okay, we can recognize those
two events must happen first.

That's got to happen before Christ comes. There's got to be some kind of
future global apostasy, a falling away, a rebellion, and the man of sin.
But, okay, as soon as we say that, let me ask you something.

Does the Bible tell us anywhere else what it's going to be like when
Christ returns? It's going to be like a lightning strike. When He
returns, yes, every eye is going to see it's going to be like lightning
going from the east to the west. But what are the days going to be like
that lead up to that? Worse.

And people's hearts are going to grow cold. There's going to be an
increase of sin. Well, I don't know if this is the thing because it
talks about last days, but the last days being evil.

Is that what you're referring to? What I'm referring to is this. We get
specifically told it's going to be just like the days of Noah. What was
happening in the days of Noah? People were drinking and people are
marrying and giving in marriage and they're building and they're just
basically going on with life until the day Noah went in.

Did Jesus say, I'm going to come like a thief? He did. Now, here's the
thing. We are so programmed to think that the man of sin, the man of
lawlessness, we're so programmed to think of a guy that we call beast,
like his middle name is beast.

And he's got 666 stamped on his forehead. We are so programmed by the
left behind and the dispensational crowd. This has been propagated for,
oh brethren.

And you know, this doesn't have a long history. This thinking has only
been propagated for like the last 200 years. Before that, you cannot
find this craziness of all this.

Yes, there was a historic pre-mill position, but this dispensationalism
is new. It does not have historical roots. You can trace it out.

You can do the research. You can see where it came from. And I'm sure
George knows about this.

I mean, basically it's got roots back to the brethren movement and to
guys like Darby and Schofield propagated this. And it is short lived.
Now listen to me.

It's going to be like the days of Noah. What were the days of Noah like?
Were they wicked? They were very wicked. They were so wicked that God
sent a flood to wipe everybody out.

Every imagination of their hearts was only evil continuously. There was
violence. There was bloodshed, but listen, in the midst of it, they were
living like normal as were the days of Noah.

And what were the days like? Look at Matthew 24. Matthew 24, verse 37.
Matthew 24, 37.

See, but concerning that, this is verse 36, concerning that day, and
he's talking about the second coming here, concerning that day, that
hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the son, but the
father only. And we talked about this on this last Lord's day. For as
were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the son of man.

So we see what we're talking about, the parousia. For as in those days
before the flood, they were eating, drinking, marrying, giving in
marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, they were unaware
until the flood came and swept them all away. So will be the coming of
the son of man.

Like I said, it's going to be like a thief. He comes like a thief. So
here's my point.

Is the world going to be to the point where atomic bombs blew up and
we're basically living on a planet that's been totally ruined and
there's just desert and everything's fallout and radiation and the
antichrist is sitting on a throne somewhere in a newly built temple over
in Jerusalem? Is that really the picture that we have? What sort of
picture do we have? I don't know how you've imagined it. I don't know
what you even think about when you think of an antichrist or the man of
perdition or the man of sin or the man of lawlessness, but there's that
squirrel again. That thing keeps coming back.

But I mean, here's the thing, brethren. It's going to be like people are
going to be married. I mean, life is not going to be where they're not
eating and drinking and in the pubs and planning a wedding for this
weekend.

So here's the thing. Here's the thing I really want you to think about.
What we're told is it's an hour when we don't expect he's going to come
like a thief.

It's going to be sudden. Scripture talks about it being destruction of
unbelievers. But let me ask you this question.

What does rebellion look like? I mean, a great falling away has to
happen first. In other words, what is falling away? Away from what? A
rebellion to what? What does rebellion look like? Well, firstly, is this
something that takes place amongst professing Christians? Is this the
context that it's falling away? This rebellion is going to take place
amongst those who profess Christ? Or is this totally? I mean, even if
you take it that way. So basically, what we're talking about is when the
church is in rebellion.

When the outward church, when it appears that basically the churches
have abandoned the truth. What about 2 Timothy 3? That's growing worse
and worse? Well, yeah, just gives a whole list of like... But let me ask
you this. Would that list describe everything right now? Yeah.

See, that's the issue. Now, let me just... Okay, I would just say this.
If we just simply look at the rebellion part, can we see the church
apostatizing even back with the Catholic church? I mean, even if you go
back a thousand years or 1500 years, can you see seasons when this
world... They called it the dark ages for a reason.

I mean, could somebody have thought with the coming of the Pope and the
whole Catholic system that the whole church had gone just apostatizing
and the end must be here? They've always thought that. Because the thing
is, things are growing worse and worse all the time. I mean, you have
the rare interruptions where revival, reformation, some kind of great
awakening has happened.

But the basic flow of the history of mankind is that we become worse and
worse. The thing is, if you look around at what's happening right now, I
mean, homosexuality, the whole gender thing, children can basically use
whatever pronoun they want. I mean, the attack on marriage, the attack
on sexual identity, people not marrying and just living together, the
drunkenness, the drugs, the pleasure seeking, the riches people go
after, money hungriness.

I mean, if you just basically look at men, they're liars. And you talked
about on this last Lord's Day, if we look at mankind, your country is
hard. Your country is moving quickly away from the days of Spurgeon,
from the days when Hudson Taylor was able to raise support in this land
the way he was, from the days of Martin Lloyd Jones, when you could pack
several thousand people there in Westminster.

There was a day here in this city when you had Alexander McLaren. I
mean, we're constantly on this path of rebellion. But okay, let's talk
about the man of sin for a second, the man of lawlessness.

Who's to say that's a specific individual? In fact, go back to Second
Thessalonians chapter two, I want to show you something. There's
something that people tend to overlook when dealing with Second
Thessalonians that I think is worth pointing out. Now look, different
people have all sorts of theories on this man of lawlessness.

But let me just tell you this. This man of lawlessness is often called
the antichrist and the beast. Now let me just think, let me go through
those terms with you.

Beast is really a horrible word. Because I think that the way you want
to interpret beast is exactly the way Daniel interprets beast for us.
Beasts in Daniel are kingdoms.

They represent kings. There was a ram and that ram had power over all
the beasts. When you read there, you can read from like Daniel eight
through 10.

And these beasts are kingdoms, they're nations, they're powers, they're
kings. I believe that that's exactly the same way that word is used in
the book of Revelation. And so I think that in itself does not lend us
to believe that this is one specific person.

Where are they getting that term from in this portion of scripture like
beast? Well, it comes from Revelation. It comes from their
interpretation there. They've just come to think that that's the
antichrist.

But then think about the term antichrist. Who is the only author in
scripture that uses that terminology? John. Yeah.

And very quickly, let's look at John. Go to first John. Let's just see
how he uses that terminology.

First John. Chapter four. Yeah, we get we get several references to it.

First John chapter two is the first place you want to go to. First John
chapter two. And anyways, you can see in verse 18, children, it's the
last hour, as you have heard that antichrist is coming.

So now many antichrist have come. Therefore, we know that it is the last
hour. Now, I know you could you can say, well, see, it says antichrist
is coming.

So now many antichrist have come. But you see, but the whole point is
this. I would just want to make the point that even john himself is
giving us an indication there that antichrist is not a singular, even
though he's talking future and saying you've heard, it's almost like
he's the corrective he's wanting to bring in is this, that what you
really need to understand is that there's many antichrist.

Now, he doesn't really refute that an antichrist is coming. But what he
seems to be doing is wanting to give clarification that, look, we're not
just looking for for a certain individual here, this is this is farther
reaching than that. And I think, look at 222.

Who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ, this is the
antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. So, again, you've got
it. Well, who is the antichrist? Well, it's anybody that fits that
description.

Anyway, we could keep going here and john because he Well, I mean, let's
do it. Let's look at all the passages that are relevant for three would
be the next one. In chapter four, verse three, every spirit that does
not confess Jesus is not from God.

This is the spirit of the antichrist. Now, isn't that interesting? See,
antichrist has more to do with a spirit, like a demonic spirit, then it
does a specific human individual. That's key.

That is really key here. Now, the last reference would be over in second
john, verse seven. Second john seven.

Many deceivers have gone out into the world those who do not confess the
coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, such a one is a deceiver, and the
antichrist. Now isn't that interesting? The article is there the
antichrist. So it's like he's saying not just an antichrist, he is the
antichrist.

So what I'm saying is john seems to indicate that this has far more to
do with the spirit of antichrist than just the fact that there is one
historical figure. I hope you can see that. Okay, now we go back to the
man of lawlessness in second Thessalonians chapter two.

And I would just say this. I think antichrist does not point to one
individual. I don't think beast points to one individual.

I think you can prove these things from Scripture. So here's the thing
that I would have you notice about the man of lawlessness. What if the
man of lawlessness is not a specific individual? What if it's describing
basically, mankind that is associated with the rebellion that comes
before the return? What he's saying is the man of lawlessness is
revealed.

In other words, it's a it's a stereotypical title. And it's the
character of this culminating manifestation of evil. It's it's an anti
theistic power, because you see what it does.

He takes his seat in the temple of God. And I don't think you want to
see like the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, like the
dispensationalists say, basically, the temple of God is the dwelling
place of God. This it's mankind putting himself in the place of God.

That's that's the real picture. He usurps the place of God in the world.
And brethren, we are seeing it happen right now, more and more, the
government, putting themselves in the place of God.

Now, here's the thing, I'm still going somewhere with all this. Notice
verse six, you know, what is restraining him now, so that he may be
revealed in his time. That's the way the ESV reads in verse six.

But no matter what translation you have, don't you find this
interesting? If Paul is writing about somebody that wouldn't be born for
at least 2000 years, or 3000 years? Why is he talking about this man
being restrained? He's just a human being. That's going to be born in
the future. What is that? You see, the picture that you get is more like
what you had with the Antichrist.

It's like Satan is chained for 1000 years, from deceiving the nations,
and at the end, he is going to be released for a season. It seems like
this is what it's all about. Satan is released at the end.

And that's when the man of lawlessness is revealed. It's a
characteristic term that has been restrained for millennia. There has
been a restraint.

And undoubtedly, God is the restrainer. He is the one keeping the evil
subdued. And then what's going to happen? Men are going to break out.

And the man of lawlessness, much like Sharif described. Anyways, I'm
suggesting that interpretation to you. Because listen, if I'm right, and
that's how that's supposed to be interpreted, which by the way, numerous
Amil guys are going to view it that way.

I would not be the first to invent that notion of the man of
lawlessness. That it's more figurative. It's more of a motif of man as
he gets worse and worse in this rebellion, sitting in the temple
claiming to be God.

That's used to just express the opposition of this evil that's upon the
earth at that time, their evil towards God. It's a graphic way of saying
that this man of lawlessness, which is a characteristic expression, is
just usurping the authority of God. So if this man is actually an
individual human being, who is not to be born or revealed or released
for thousands of years, what possible reason would there be for Paul to
even talk this way? I mean, why doesn't Paul just say, well, he's not
born yet.

And until he's born, I mean, none of this can come to pass. Instead, he
uses this language. He says, verse 6, you know what is restraining him
now, so that he may be revealed in his time.

So see, he can't be revealed as long as he's being restrained. For the
mystery, here it is. This is like John.

John says the Antichrists are already here. The spirit of Antichrist is
already here. And Paul's talking exactly the same way.

The mystery of lawlessness is already here. It's already at work. Only
he who now restrains.

Well, what's he restraining? Well, he's restraining like this principle
of darkness. This mystery of lawlessness is being checked. And he who
now restrains it will do so until he is taken out of the way, until the
restrainer is taken out of the way.

And then the lawless one will be revealed. Then the Lord will kill with
the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his
coming. My point is simply this.

If that is indeed a proper interpretation of that concept, who's to say,
see, I think this is where Conrad Murrell is right. You know why so much
of that took those men by surprise? You know why Christ took people by
surprise? Because they didn't understand the prophecies. The thing about
the kingdom, why his disciples were always wondering, are you going to
establish it now? It was because they didn't understand.

There's so much that they didn't understand. And I think what happens a
lot today is we get a lot of misunderstanding. And so people say, well,
you know, Jesus can't come until the man of sin is revealed.

And you know, if anybody's going to be able to identify the anti-Christ,
it's going to be us Christians. I mean, if there's any guy with 666
stamped on his forehead and running around in Israel, basically wanting
to unite all the nations of Europe and 10 nation union and one world
government. And you know, I'm telling you all this behind garbage and
all this dispensationalism has the world, even many professing
Christians, so brainwashed into this mindset, that it's almost like
you'd say, oh, well, he can't come today.

He can't come tomorrow. I mean, he can't come. This hasn't happened yet.

Well, I'm just saying this, the way this world is in decline. And if
that is more of just a motif expression for the state of man at the time
when Christ comes the state of man in this, you know, this mystery of
lawlessness is basically released and the spirit of anti-Christ. And
that becomes the prevalent spirit upon the face of this earth.

As men move more and more into putting themselves in the place of God,
usurping his authority. Brethren, I'm telling you, if he came today and
said all that was fulfilled, I think we'd hardly be able to argue the
case that it hadn't been. If that interpretation is proper.

And my point is this, he's coming as a thief in the night. He says, you
don't know the day and you don't know the hour. And he says this, it's
going to happen just like in the days of Noah.

And what were the days of Noah like? Well, yeah, he had this crazy guy
out there building the boat, but basically otherwise than that, people
were marrying, people were giving in marriage, people were planning, you
know, the marriage celebration next weekend. They were, they were
thinking about the wine and what they were going to eat and what they
were going to drink and life was going on. They were building, they
were, they were, you know, they had their lives, they had their jobs,
they had their work, they were going about their business.

And then the flood came. And that's what Scripture tells us it's going
to be like. Listen, brethren, I'll tell you this, Christ caught them by
surprise when He came the first time.

And I guarantee you, He is going to catch most people by surprise, even
a lot of professing Christians when it comes the second time, because
people have so convoluted and confounded and misinterpreted so many of
these expressions in Scripture. They've developed this system and
Schofield basically put it in his Bible and it's become the popular
thing over the last 200 years. But I believe a vast majority of it is
deception.

I know guys like, you know, I know, I know some good men hold to this,
but it's, I think that by and large, it doesn't stack up with Scripture.
And I think we need to be aware. We need to be aware of all this rapture
talk and all this seven year tribulation talk and this thousand year
earthly kingdom talk.

I think, I just think we need to really be aware. Brethren, what you
want to do is you do not want to live your life like Christ could not
come tomorrow. Because I think everywhere in Scripture, the idea is He's
going to come as a thief in the night, and you better be ready for Him
to come.

Because you don't know the day and you don't know the hour. And it's not
like we're going to have all these, you know, basically, that's one of
the things that dispensationalism does. It has so boiled this thing down
to a specific science that they do know when He's coming.

Although they would say they don't. But the fact is, they would say they
don't only for one reason, because that Scripture says that you don't
know the time, you don't know the day, you don't know the hour. So they
would basically say, well, see, we don't know.

But they really say they do know. I mean, they know that, well, when the
rapture takes place, then you got three and a half years until this
happens. And you got three and a half more years until this happens.

And then Christ is going to come, He's going to set up His thousand-year
camp. See, they do have it figured out. They nailed it down.

But Scripture doesn't talk like that. And so I think the reality is we
need to be very careful that we don't just think we've got all this so
perfectly figured out that we rule out the fact that Christ could come
tomorrow. I see a world that is, we live in a world that is greatly in
rebellion against God.

Now, could it get a whole lot worse? Yes, I imagine it could get a whole
lot worse. How bad is the Lord going to allow it to get? I don't know.
Do I think He's coming tomorrow? I don't think so.

But listen, He says in a day when you think not. And so I don't think
so. But see, I've just described the very fact that I'm showing myself
to actually be indicating He might likely come tomorrow.

And then you know what Scripture says? Peter tells us to hasten the day.
How do you hasten the day? What does hasten mean? Quicken. Quicken.

How do I quicken the day of His coming? You can't. But Peter says to
hasten the day of His coming. Yeah.

Is it like pray for it? It's fixed. I would say we could pray for it,
but I'll tell you another thing that has to happen before He comes.
People from every tribe and every tongue and every nation and every
people, all the elect have to be gathered in.

And so you know what? We've got a great commission. We're to make
disciples of all the nations. We're to go.

Brethren, if you want to hasten the day of His coming, you know what you
ought to be doing? Everything you possibly can to get the elect into the
kingdom. Now, I just think, isn't that an interesting statement for
Scripture to make? That you can hasten the day of His... You all want to
see it? Let's look at it. 2 Peter 3. We should end that question with
this text most prominently upon our brains.

2 Peter 3 verse 12. What a statement. Verse 11, since all these things
are thus to be dissolved.

In other words, when Christ comes, the whole thing is going to be burned
up, dissolved. The earth and the works that are done in it will be
exposed. Since all of these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort
of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness? Waiting
for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the
heavens will be set on fire and dissolve and heavenly bodies will melt
as they burn.

So we wait, but we also hasten the coming of the day. Is that like the
attitude though that we have towards it? A bit like when John says, come
Lord Jesus, come quickly. It's like a kind of in our spirit to want Him
to come fast.

Right. Even so, Lord, come. I mean, the spirit and the bride are telling
people to come, but then we also tell the Lord to come.

But hastening the day, it means we want to be about the business.
Certain things do have to happen before He comes and we're integral. His
church is very integral because I'll tell you one thing that has to
happen.

Have you ever read this in Ephesians chapter two, verse 10? Anybody know
what it says? It's right after the two very famous verses for by grace
you have been saved through faith and this is not of yourself. What does
verse 10 say? For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for
good works, which were what? Anybody know? Prepared beforehand. In other
words, before the very foundation of the earth, all the works that we're
going to do have been prepared.

So Christ can't come until every last work that He has prepared for us,
we do. And so one of the ways to hasten the day of His coming is to do
them all. Papa, what do you got to do yet before Christ comes? We can't
hear you.

You're muted, Pop. Seeking to walk in holiness and righteousness and
purity and glorifying the Lord with every step that I take. I think
you're supposed to visit England a couple times and maybe what, Ecuador?
If the Lord leads me there, yes.

But you know, I was thinking during Noah's time, you kept saying that
the destruction and the flood came as a surprise, but Noah had been
preaching for him for a long time, right? Yeah, but they didn't believe
him, Pop. They thought he was crazy. Well, you know what? The same thing
is happening now.

It shouldn't be a surprise to us that we're prepared. No, when things
start looking a whole lot like Noah's day, that ought to make us
actually think, hey, something is familiar here about what Christ said.
But you know, it astonished me that only eight people in Noah's time
were saved.

Isn't that incredible? God is no respecter of persons. When he brought
his judgment, it was swift and it was almost total.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/0ftiPjFHQbM.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/tim-conway/is-christs-return-imminent/
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