Michael Koulianos emphasizes the significance of the second coming of Jesus, urging the congregation to recognize it as a vital aspect of their faith. He highlights that this event is personal, glorious, and visible, and serves as the blessed hope for believers. Koulianos challenges the audience to be aware of the times and to live in anticipation of Christ's return, which is foundational to the Christian faith. He stresses that the second coming is not just a theological concept but a reality that should influence how Christians live their lives today. The preacher calls for a deeper understanding and readiness for the return of Jesus, encouraging believers to embrace their identity as His bride.

We're going to take a quick hard right this morning. I'm going to continue on the person of the Holy Spirit probably within the next two weeks, but I felt prophetically that there was a prophetic edge to this season, and I want to begin talking to you about the second coming of Jesus. Hallelujah is right. I'm waiting for that anointing to get on the rest of you. I'm going to talk to you about the second coming of Jesus. There you go, hallelujah. Okay, put your seat belts on. It's interesting to me that you rarely hear this teaching in the church, and this isn't an accusation, but it is an observation. So here's a question. When is the last time you sat under, in a church setting, a biblically-based teaching on the second coming of Jesus? I'm sure there's some, but if I did a show of hands, if I just said, when's the last time you heard it? Let's just say within the last year. Raise your hand if you have not heard a teaching on the second coming from a church pulpit while you were in the room in the last year. Raise your hand. Okay, how about in the last five years? Yeah, it's too many. The second coming of the Lord, and I don't mean it being mentioned, but I mean actually going through the scriptures and seeing what the Bible has to say about the So let me say this. The second coming is as true and real as His first coming. It is absolutely vital to your faith. So as Christians, listen carefully, we believe in the personal, I want you to write this down, in the personal, that means Jesus the person, glorious, that means it will be amazingly glorious, charged with His presence. By the way, if you talk about cumulative glory, Jesus said He would come in His own glory and in the glory of the Father and the glory of the angels would be there, which is all the glory of God, by the way. They don't have a separate glory. But we're talking about a lot of glory breaking through the sky. I haven't even gotten started. So we believe in the personal and glorious, visible, this is important, blessed hope that we call the second coming of Jesus. If you're not hoping for the second coming, two things are happening, I'll name two, not only two. Distraction or you're just blind. Just take a look around you and ask yourself a question, do we need a king? It's always amazed me, come summer of election year, and I do believe in voting righteousness, don't misunderstand me, but let's make no bones about it, you're elected official is not the blessed hope. But I'm always shocked by the rhetoric prior, that if this one comes, everything will be wonderful. Well, there's only one who is coming who will make everything wonderful, including the issue in the Middle East, only Jesus will solve it. So when we talk about the second coming, just take world events out of, just eliminate those from the conversation. As Christians who are in love, we want the bridegroom. If you're about to get married and you're standing at the altar, and you don't want your spouse, don't go through with the wedding. And that's why first love, which is really only love, if you look at it correctly, it's such a major issue in this hour. How many of you, I've said this before to our students, how many of you, if on your wedding day, your spouse looked you in the eye and said, I love you, 73%. That's a pretty high percentage, but any spouse with their right mind would go, where's the other 27 going? Instantly, right? Before you exchange vows, you go, we need to have a little talk here. I need an account and an itemization on that other 27. Right, Amy? Okay. They're getting married. Amy's like, amen. Yes, amen. One of my favorite things to do in a wedding, which is really beautiful, and it's hard for me to hold back the tears, is to watch the groom weep when the bride comes in. And you know, all you girls do the same thing. The poor groom feels like he has to weep. I told you all last week, we were waiting on destiny to come down the aisle two weeks ago. Everyone stood up, the bride's song started playing, the doors flew open, and in walked John Wilds. Cut her right off. I need to talk to him about that. I mean, who does that? We were like, that's not a bride, that's John. It's such a beautiful scene to see the anticipation between the bride and the bridegroom. As the coming of the Lord continues to near, that will increase. So the cry, the cry of the bride that is actually the cry of the Spirit and the bride, is Maranatha, come Lord Jesus. We're going to get into that. But more than ever, for many reasons, this world needs a king. And so this return, again, I want you to look back down at what you just wrote, is personal, glorious, visible, and is our blessed hope. And I want to get into some of that. The second coming of the Lord Jesus has been central to the church since its beginning. The Nicene Creed, one of the creeds of the church, reads this. We look for the resurrection of the dead, which will happen at the Lord's return, and the life of the world to come. This is basic Christian teaching. This is like, if you're going to make an omelet, this is like the eggs in the omelet. This is not peripheral. The return of the Lord Jesus, as you look at the whole storyline, is vital to His mission. The Apostles Creed reads this. Listen to the Apostles Creed, it's shorter so I can read you the whole thing. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died—listen how clear—crucified, died, buried, descended to hell, because all of this is very important. This is what you get here. This is why I preach this stuff to you. It is foundational to your faith. Descended to hell, the third day He rose again from the dead. Somebody say amen. Ascended to heaven. I know I taught on the Ascension, but I have to be honest, and this has nothing to do with me. Prior to teaching on the Ascension, I can't remember the last time I heard a teaching on the Ascension of Jesus in a church in America. But I have heard a ton on how to fulfill your dreams. I don't want to fulfill any dreams if I'm not going up with Him, just so you know. There are some dreams that are more important than others. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Very important. We call this the session of the Lord. His rest. So when we sing songs like, Arise from your rest or Arise to your rest, we are talking about the seated King. His accomplishment. His victory. When a king took a foreign enemy's nation, what they would do is after celebrating, he would be seated on a throne in that city because it spoke of victory and rest. From there, so from the throne, from the right hand of God, He will come to judge the living and the dead. The second coming. There you go. In the Apostles Creed. Say this out loud. Jesus is returning. Take your Bibles to Matthew 24, 36. Did anyone's, sounds really weird, maybe way off topic. Did anyone grow up hating a certain food when you were young and now you like it? Yeah, raise your hand if that happened to you. Yeah, so mine, one of mine was avocado. I love an avocado now. Maybe because I did keto for a while and it was great and I ate like a hundred avocados. Growing up, my grandmother would always cut up an avocado, put olive oil on it, salt and pepper, and I didn't want anything to do with it. I didn't like peanut butter when I was little. Gosh. What? What? This church is horrible. You can't trust the pastor. I didn't like peanut butter. Now I love peanut butter. I can't be trusted, okay? Can't be trusted. I have not ascended to enjoying liver yet. I've never liked liver. What interesting thing happened to me a few years back though. I took a blood test and the doctor said, you need to go to the organic market and buy a free-range grass-fed liver. And so I did it. And I ate it. I can't say I really enjoyed it, but it was good for me. Spinach is another one. My mom, in our culture we have a soup called faki. It's a lentil soup. I did not like it when I was really little, I remember. And then I started enjoying it when I got to be like my boy's age. Now I could eat a whole tub of it when Jesse makes it. The point is this. You have to give God the liberty to change your taste buds when it comes to what you consume. Because here's the thing. Do you know why, how many of you watched Big Fat Creek Wedding? Okay, everything in that movie made sense to me except the Windex. I never understood, I've never seen that. Now, there are different regions in Greece. So maybe in one of the regions, spraying ammonia on your kid's forehead actually does something. But when it comes to, this is interesting, when it comes to some of those old remedies that my grandmother would ask my doctor and embarrass me, no matter what my doctor said I had, she would go, can he swish with sipical? Sipical is like, it was like a Listerine back in the day. And it didn't matter, I could have a bullet wound in my calf. She'd go, doc, should he be swishing with sipical? I'm not joking. How many of y'all had old school grandparents like that? Oh, I know what'll fix it. We had some old Pentecostals from the Church of God in Christ visiting our church in LA. And one of those old church moms came up and she opened her purse and had, I mean, more candy in there than Willy Wonka. And some was ginger, laced in sugar. And she would hand me the ginger and she said, now baby, every preacher needs ginger when he's done. And she'd give me the ginger, which was sugar, just pure sugar. Do you feel better? I feel a sugar rush, I don't know if I feel better. But the reason a lot of that stuff carries on is because it is consistent and true. Now you go read your favorite organic book from Whole Foods or watch a doctor online and they're discovering that bone broth and chicken soup actually does help you when you're sick. My gut tells me you would like a cookie more than chicken broth, but a cookie doesn't do what chicken broth can do. What we're talking about right now actually feeds the soul, makes you who you really want to be, even if you don't know that it is. It is a slow drip. It's like getting an IV. It's a slow process. And when you talk about the second coming, it may not sound super exciting, but trust me when it happens, it's going to be really exciting. Benny and I were in the car yesterday, we were at a stoplight and we were looking up in the most beautiful clouds. We were just staring in my pickup truck, just looking up in the sky. And I said, one day that sky will rip wide open. And Jesus, the man, fully God and fully man, he'll return in the clouds of glory and the whole world will see him. And everyone, the living and the dead, will hear the trumpet sound and the graves will open. And Benny, I looked over at him, he was going, he was in, he was locked in. He's like, wait, he goes, hold on. That's really going to happen? I said, yeah. He goes, how, what? He goes, that's going to be amazing. But something I want us to awaken to is the reality of it happening. I mean, throw your spirituality out the window. Let's just talk about Jesus for a moment, which is impossible to do outside the spirit, I understand. Let me just talk to you practically. We are talking about the one who is so majestic and powerful, who's so shifted the world in three and a half years, that the date pays homage to him. The date. Now, some of you may be really influential. Maybe we think we are, but none of us have the date bowing down to us. His teachings have framed and crafted civilization. I served my father-in-law for almost 10 years. Sometimes I thought, this is like a millennia. I can't, how long? And if he were in the room, I'd still be serving him right now. It's not like you progress beyond that. Jesus prepared for 30 years to preach for three and change the whole cosmos. How often do we bail out and abort the mission early in our preparation process? So the question is, I mean, his words have inspired people to build hospitals, to take care of orphans, to form government that gives freedom. And you see the Sinai Covenant as being central in much formation of government, the Beatitudes. There are corporations who have taken the Beatitudes and tried to live by them and found that even though they're not committed Christians, that the Beatitudes make their environment at work a much better place. There's nobody like Jesus. If you were to compare what Jesus established and his disciples have built through the generations, if you compare that to a thought process that denies the existence of God when it comes to helping humanity, it's not even worthy of the discussion. So this amazing Jesus who changed the entire course of history, died, was buried, and raised again. My question is, if you're going to find anyone's dead body, it's got to be his. If he's not raised from the dead, just my very basic question is this, well then where is his body? You know where every president's body is. Do we not? Kings, we know where their bodies are. That's what Peter said on the Pentecost Address. David's body is buried. Speaking of David's prophecies in the Psalms, that his body would not see corruption, well where is Jesus' body? Certainly we have enough scientists on earth who would acknowledge that he did exist, but here's the question, with all your ability to excavate and all of the archaeological potential in the world, all the billions of dollars that would love to disprove this man's existence because this man makes the sinner a little uncomfortable. It would be very convenient to just find the body and prove that he is not God. Two thousand years have gone by. No body to be found. We know where George Washington's body is. What about Jesus? Well, I'll tell you, his body is not there, as the angel said, and that same body that's been raised and glorified will pierce the eastern sky. You can't believe in the manger and not believe this. Hold on. You cannot believe in Christmas and not believe this. Say this out loud, Jesus is coming. Say it again, Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming. Matthew 24, 36, I want to give you words in red first. Matthew 24, 36, I'm going to read through verse 44. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven. Okay, time out. Well, let me keep going. But my Father only, now let me say something. If somebody gives you the date and time of Jesus' return, don't believe it. I don't care what show they're on. They are wrong. Even if they're trying to sell you a solar powered, I don't know, anointing oil machine so that you survive the tribulation. They do not know when He's coming. Only the Father knows. If Gabriel doesn't know, they don't know. But as the days of Noah were, so also will be the coming of the Son of Man. What does this mean? In the days of Noah, great wickedness had flooded the earth. People were living without any expectation of a flood coming and an ark being built. When the ark was built, none of the people outside knew when the door would be shut. God had to communicate that to Noah who was a type of Jesus. A type of the Lord Jesus who called people to the ark. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark and did not know until the flood came and took them all away. Listen to this language. So will be the coming of the Son of Man. This was really interesting to me. We are in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. Worldwide pandemic. Quick question. From the outside looking in, do the nations seem more humble? More united? Less argumentative? Less people fighting on social media? Now if you read the scriptures and you read the book of Revelation, that one day men would curse God because of plagues on the earth. Think about that. Plagues, rather than bowing low, men and women would have the audacity to curse him. Therefore, suffering without Jesus does not make you more humble. How many of you have family members who've had a rough life and you've wondered why? Why won't they just go low and repent? Have you ever wondered that? Have you ever met people like that? You see their life, you're like, what's the deal with that? Because I'll tell you, it's the Holy Spirit who makes us like Jesus. Not suffering outside of him. As in the days of Noah. What's that look like? Well, I remember seeing this group of guys outside our neighborhood driving down on a golf cart, hammered at like 2 p.m. Hammered. Going bonkers during lockdown last year. In my head I thought, oh my God, it's like they're completely unaware of the hour we're living in. They're living like they're 18 in a frat party. Nothing's worse, by the way, than seeing a 55 year old guy who's all juiced up, wearing an affliction t-shirt, who thinks he's 22, getting hammered like he did when he was 22. It's just a bad look. It's like that midlife thing. Just go gracefully. Just chill out, you know. We're still tailgating. It's like, oh my God. That's usually when the red Corvette comes. Or the Harley, something emerges. Or the fly rod. Or a new driver. But Jesus said that the last days prior to his return will be like the days of Noah. In other words, they're eating, drinking. In other words, there's no awareness in the world of the coming of the Lord. Let me keep reading. Two men will be in the field. One will be taken, and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken, the other left. Now listen to these words. Watch! Say watch. Therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. That word watch doesn't just mean stare into the sky until you burn your retina. It means pray. Be aware. It is the Garden of Gethsemane language. Watch and pray. This is what Jesus is saying here now. If you are bound with monotony, and you know it, and you don't want it. If you want to be more aware of the coming of Jesus. If you want to be more aware of the hour you're living in. Jesus is saying there's a way out. Watch in a holy way. Trouble your comfort. Do you know what I mean by that? Set your alarm. Like actually do it. Like set the alarm. Buy a coffee machine. Whatever you gotta do. Let the Holy Ghost trouble your comfort. Up your vision. Begin to think about and burn for the things that actually matter. Do you know what it means when someone says up your game? It means like the hour is requiring a level of something. So bring your game up to that level. It is impossible to look at the prophetic scriptures and say Jesus was wrong and he is not coming back. We're going to go through those. I guess what I'm saying is, if you look at what's happening, let's just say in Afghanistan. That should have a purifying effect on our goals and passions. Let me say it another way. If we look to see what's going on there, for instance, it should bring a sobriety that convicts us to not care about the stuff that maybe we were caring about or getting sidetracked by the things that were sidetracking us. Do you understand? So when you look at that and you realize, oh my gosh, people are running for their lives and hiding just to read a scripture verse. Maybe I can forgive my brother and sister. Maybe it doesn't matter if I wasn't included in that. Does that make sense? Let the hour offer a sobriety. Not a depression. A sobriety. For anybody who's hung out with me, realize one thing. I mess around nonstop. Jesse will tell you I annoy her to the core. There is not a day where I am serious the whole day. Praise God. Thank you, Alex. I'm not saying you have to be heavy and downtrodden. In fact, Jesus said, we're going to read in just a moment. Jesus said, when you see these things, look up. Another time he said, rejoice for your redemption draweth near. Sobriety is not depression. Sobriety is not heaviness and darkness. I'm not talking about that. But what I am saying is given the hour we're in, how do we up our game? The other night I shared this on Instagram. Give me five more minutes to preach and I'm going to pray for you. I went through these core elements, these lifestyle behaviors, a weak word, discipleship. I should call it a discipleship lifestyle that creates strong disciples full of joy, by the way. And you're going to need joy right now. If you're looking for external joy, it will be less and less available. Watch the news for one hour and you will need a sozo. You will need counseling. People monetize fear and bad news. It's not to negate the fact that there isn't bad news. There's a lot of bad news. But how about some good news? So if you're looking for external joy, that ain't happening. How can you live in joy? And why do you need joy right now? Because the joy of the Lord is your strength. If you're going to face another day, you will need his joy. And here's the good news. You don't have to create your own. I want to say this unequivocally. You cannot be a Christian and not believe in the words of Jesus. I know that's a crazy statement. But it is unchristian to not believe in his return. So if this part is a fairy tale to you, well the rest of his life is a fairy tale. There is an absolute connection between the virgin birth, the resurrection, and the return. It all must happen. It actually all must happen or the fullness of our salvation is at stake. Because you get a new body. I said you get a new body. Yeah you do, you do. You get a new body. John 6 39. This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all he has given me I should lose nothing, listen carefully, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day. Okay. Remember this. The chief objective of Jesus was not to get you to an altar. It was to get you to him. Does that make sense? Yeah. So to think that this thing ended at the altar regarding your salvation. No, no, no. There's much more coming. Jesus will raise you if you belong to him, should the Lord tarry and your body goes into the earth. You will be raised on that last day at the sound of his voice and he will lose none. Oh I love that. What a faithful shepherd. He will lose none. He is a faithful, faithful shepherd. He will raise them all up, raise us all up with new bodies and bring us to himself and at last we shall forever be with the Lord and death will be eternally defeated. And Jesus will have his bride. His bride, unlike earthly marriage, is not just something you do because you're bored. His bride is his actual reward for his suffering and death. So if this does not happen, in other words if you be not raised from the dead because of his second coming and his resurrection, Jesus is stripped of what he really wants and has been promised by the Father, a people. Remember when we cry out for the nation, help me Joel, when we cry out for the nations to be saved, we're not crying out for political ideology or dirt or soil. What we're actually saying is those people, the nations who are a people, have been promised to you by your Father. Listen carefully. Psalm chapter 2. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance. I know you thought that was your promise. I hear people go, I'm asking. I want the nations. Yes and no. People are like, I claim Thailand. They're like, I could do Dubai, the Bahamas, Monte Carlo. I love the Caribbean. I'm claiming all of those. They're mine now. They're mine. They're mine. I'm the apostle of all those places. They are all mine. Notice they don't mention the 1040 window, but man, St. Lucia sounds amazing. That's not what the psalmist is saying. The only reason we can claim a nation is because we are in Christ. The nations don't belong to us. Are you ready for this? We are the nations that will marry Him. We belong to Him. So the Father actually tells the Son in the Psalms, ask of me. Do it. Why? Because Son, you are worthy of a reward. That reward is this people who have been raised to newness of life, who must dwell eternally in glory with you. Therefore, they need to be like you or they will not survive you because you have too much glory. If you couldn't touch the ark in the old covenant without becoming a fried egg, how on earth are you going to dwell in the age to come with the one who is the actual ark? And so Jesus, the scripture says, He said, I have lost none. When I return, the dead will be raised. And that's why the Bible says death is the last enemy and shall be defeated. It has been defeated through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. But the culminating effect of His victory, listen, will manifest when, oh I love this, when the graves explode open and the saints' bodies break the ground and they receive their glorified bodies and forever marry the Lord. That cannot happen outside the second coming. It is necessary to the gospel. It is necessary to your salvation experience. Now let me say this. One day in Zechariah 14, the Bible says, and we're going to start, we're going to, we're going to read this next week. The Bible says that the Son of Man, that He will come, the Lord, it actually says, the Lord will come, His feet will touch down on the Mount of Olives, breaking the mountain in two. And during that time, the nations will surround Israel, thinking they will destroy her, but God is setting them all up for defeat, the scripture teaches. And the Son will return. And the Mount of Olives, the same mountain that He ascended from, He will return to. That's why the angel said He will return in like manner. Why are you staring up into heaven? One of the reasons. He went up in a body, He will return in a body. He went up visible, He will return visibly. I should say went up visibly, He will return visibly. He went up from the Mount of Olives, He will return to the Mount of Olives. Now here's the deal. You want to be ready. You want to be ready. I could go through one chapter in Matthew's Gospel. I could go through the Gospels with you and systematically point out what Jesus declared and prophesied and predicted and what is happening and has been happening and is accelerating now. This is not the time to gamble with your soul. The Christian life actually looks like something. It looks like a life that is free. It looks like a life that has been liberated. It does not look like a fake life that moseys on into church, that plays a role, but is truly not redeemed and changed. The Christian life, listen, is the life of Jesus being lived through us. It is visible. The Christian life is tangible. In many ways the Christian life is measurable. What do I mean by that? The drugs that had me don't have me anymore. The anger that had me does not have me anymore. It has been replaced with love. My resentment has been replaced with His mercy. My hatred has been replaced with His unconditional passion for people. Are you ready? Do you understand that? My gossip died and now I bring life through my words to other people. I used to expose people. Now I cover a multitude of sins with the love of God. The Christian life is measurable. I look at the suffering. I don't walk by anymore. I actually go into my pocket. Rather than judging the sinner, I preach the gospel to the sinner. This is the Christian life. To a husband who is unfaithful, he is now faithful to his wife. To a wife who is unfaithful, she is now faithful to her husband. The Christian life is absolutely measurable. Not in its totality, but certainly through our lifestyle. And so friend, listen to me. You're sitting in this room for a reason. Some of you might be 70, 80 years old. You've gone to church your whole life, but your life at home doesn't look like Jesus. I have news for you. He sees that. That can all end today. To the young person who comes because your parents want you to come here, I understand that. My mom did that to me. That's not necessarily bad. But you being here, it doesn't secure your soul forever. You have to give your life to Jesus. And all I can say is this, is that Jesus is returning. And when he returns, he will return as judge to judge the quick and the dead, the Bible says. Now, how do you receive this innocent verdict when the judge comes? You ready? Not through your own effort and righteousness. Listen to me. You cannot try hard enough outside of Jesus to be found innocent that day. If you have one sin on your account, you will be found guilty. The only way to pass this judge's heavenly exam is to score a hundred perfection. Nobody here has done that. It's impossible. The Bible says, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You say, what is sin? I'm not talking about stuff you've done. I'm talking about thoughts. Anybody here had a bad thought? I have. Anybody ever done something wrong here? I have. Anybody ever done something right for the wrong reason? That's sin too. That's called religion. I have. Jesus said, if you lust in your heart after a woman, and women that applies to you too, if you lust for a man, you have committed adultery in your own heart. So Jesus takes it deeper. He looks at the heart. The heart doesn't so much speak audibly, but that tells me he can hear what people cannot. Now the Bible says, your eyes, O Lord, are too pure to even look upon iniquity. He can't even see it. He's too holy for it. So we're all in a mess when you look biblically at salvation. A mess on our own. And by the way, if you have your own view of salvation, you're just making yourself God, which is the greatest sin of all. It's the epitome of pride. So on our own, in our own purity, maybe you've lived your life trying to be free from porn, but you have never yielded your life to Jesus and allowed him to free you. Maybe you haven't even forgiven yourself. Maybe you have a Rolodex of sin. You think, I'll never be free. I'll never be free. That's been me from the beginning. That's a lie. Jesus said, when the sun sets free, it's free indeed. I can stand here not as a perfect person. There is one perfect, but I can stand here and tell you that I am a free man who has been liberated by the power of the Holy Spirit, not in my own strength, but by coming to Jesus.