The Coming of the Lord

I'd like to begin by reading from Psalm 96 at verse 9 and following. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, fear before him all the earth. Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth.

The world also shall be established that it shall not be moved. He shall judge the people righteously. Let the heavens rejoice.

Let the earth be glad. Let the sea roar in the fullness thereof. Let the field be joyful and all that is therein.

Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord, for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness and the people with his truth. He cometh to judge the earth.

Speaking of a time when every drop of innocent blood that's been shed from the day of Abel down to this moment that has not been atoned for by the blood of the Lamb will be answered for. Every injustice will end. Every wrong will be righted.

Everything will be accounted for. Our Lord taught us to pray the Lord's Prayer. Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Notice he didn't tell us to just say, well, I'm going to go to heaven. Let the world go to hell.

Nor did he tell us that we're to take things into our own hands and think that we can establish justice by joining forces with other revolutionaries. He's talking about a time. Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When war will end, bloodshed will end. Every kind of violence, every oppressor, every victim, every wrong, every lie, all greed, everything will be brought under the dominion of God and made to answer clearly.

Nothing will be hidden anymore. Now, this hope, which was already present in Israel before Jesus ever came on the scene and which burned like a shining light in the apostolic days of the church, is what we so badly lack. Does any prayer we need to learn to pray is the prayer to come Lord Jesus and to know what we're praying when we say that.

Of course, everybody says, well, when will it be? You keep saying it's going to be soon, but it's been a long time already. And it's true. You can't read the writings of Paul or Peter or John without being impressed by the fact that these men expected the return of Jesus to be very, very soon for them in their own lifetime.

Example, first Corinthians chapter one, verse seven, Paul is writing so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus. And then over in chapter seven, as he's discussing the whole issue of marriage, he says in verse twenty six of seven. I think that in the view of the impending distress, it is well for a person to remain as he is.

Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek marriage. But if you marry, you do not sin.

And if a girl married, she does not sin. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles. And I would spare you that.

I mean, brethren, the appointed time has grown very short from now on. Let those who have wives live as though they had none and those who mourn as though they were not mourning and those who rejoiced as though they were not rejoicing and those who buy as though they had no goods and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it for the form of this world is passing away. Or listen to Peter, first Peter, chapter four, verse seven.

The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, keep sane and sober for your prayers. Or John, first John, chapter two, verse 18.

Children, it is the last hour. As you have heard that antichrist is coming. So now many antichrists have come.

Therefore, we know that it is the last hour. Skipping over to chapter three, verse two. Beloved, we are God's children now.

It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. You can say that the apostles had a three point gospel.

Point one, Jesus died for your sins. Point two, he rose for your justification. And point three, he's coming to judge the earth.

And as far as they were concerned, points one and two were meaningless apart from point three, the death of Jesus on that cross doesn't make any sense. If the evil he conquered when he died on that cross isn't one day totally wiped off this earth and the resurrection of Jesus doesn't make any sense. If the kingdom that he then manifested as he stepped forth into the morning air, the firstborn of the new creation, if that kingdom is not one day in total control of this planet, the day of the Lord, the return of Jesus that he himself taught us to expect and pray for again and again and again.

He talked about it all the time. That day, as far as the apostles were concerned, was not something they expected to take place several thousand years down the road. So they were looking for it to happen very soon.

Doubtless, they were looking for it in their own lifetime. So were they the same? After all, 2000 years have passed. He still hasn't come.

Was this point of their gospel off the mark? Point three, if it was in a very real way, we can say the points one and two fall down Or is it that when anybody enters the kingdom of God for real, they are instantly given eyes that see, penetrate, get through the cracking crust of this dying age. Eyes that go beyond what we call history. Eyes that are now able to see the coming glory as if it's only one step away.

Because when we see the glory of the Lord and the awesome judgment that will come with it, when we see that we're already living in the new age, the form of this world, as far as we're concerned, is already passing away. We have begun to experience what it means to be living at the end. And for us to then, it doesn't make much difference whether it's a matter of days or months or years or centuries before it culminates in his visible return.

We're already living in that period. We're already breathing that atmosphere, seeing it with the eye of the spirit. And our prayer now comes to dominate our lives.

The prayer is may this be fulfilled soon. Come Lord Jesus becomes our prayer. Reading from Revelation chapter 22, the last chapter of the Bible and almost to the end of the whole book, verse 12 and following.

Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have the right to the tree of life that Benny keeps talking about all the time.

And that they may enter the city by the gates outside of the dogs, the sorcerers, the fornicators and murderers and idolaters and everyone who loves and practices the lie. I, Jesus have sent my angel with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and offspring of David, the bright morning star, the spirit and the bride say come and let him who hears say come and let him who is thirsty come.

Let him who desires take the water of life without price. The spirit and the bride say come. What does this mean? It means that wherever the spirit of the living God is moving on this earth, the prayer of the spirit among those people is come Lord Jesus.

The continuous prayer of the Holy Spirit until the end of the age in which we live. The continuous prayer of the Holy Spirit is come Lord Jesus. And where we are open to him and we give scope to the spirit.

This becomes the prayer he teaches us. And as we pray this prayer, we begin to discern the difference between the triviality of the life we so often live and the vanity of this age and the glory of the world, which is coming. And the supreme hope of our life becomes the return of Jesus, the spirit and the bride say come the bride, the church, the body of Christ on earth.

Where it's in fact living as the bride, the body of Christ. This is its prayer. It's waiting.

It's watching. It's alert. It's awake.

And it's crying come Lord Jesus. It's not some expanding institution trying to establish itself in some permanent way on this earth like all the other institutions. But it's traveling light and its eyes are on the heavens and it's looking for its coming king and it's living that way.

How ridiculous when churches keep talking about the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus, but almost never in any serious way about the return of Jesus because his death on the cross, which overcomes sin, Satan and death itself and his resurrection, which manifests what the kingdom of God really is. There are some standing here who will not taste of death till they see the kingdom in its glory. When they saw him alive from the dead, they were looking at the kingdom.

But none of that is complete. The redemptive work of the living God on this earth is not done until Satan is bound and gone and until the glory of God is visibly established on this earth and there's no doubt in anybody's mind what's happening. Now the gospel of the cross keeps going out.

People are continuing to be offered forgiveness. And when the moment comes and God alone knows when that is, when everybody's had their chance and ways that are beyond our comprehension has heard that offer forgiveness, then every card will be laid face up on the table. All the chips will be called in and the Lord will call each one of us to account and there will be nothing hidden.

And we will account for everything we've ever done or ever said. That's not under the blood of the lamb. The apostles weren't wrong looking for the coming of the Lord.

As they did and living for that. It's we who have been blind and distracted and weak and spiritually sick because we got our noses stuck in the trivia of this life and this age to the point where our hope is gone. And the only fact we seem to look forward to that makes any impact on us is the fact of our own approaching death.

And when you look at your coming death apart from the coming of the Lord, it's a fearful death. And to see the return of Jesus as our one hope, it has to be absolutely the one thing we see and live for or it's nothing. And without that hope, there is no hope.

The spirit and the bride say, come let him who hears say come. In other words, the spirit then says to us, if you hear that, if you hear the prayer, come Lord Jesus being uttered in the body. If you hear this coming through the realm of heaven, you begin to pick that up.

Respond, join our chorus and you pray. Come Lord Jesus. And as you pray that prayer, even before you fully understand what it means, you pray that prayer.

You will begin to see. You will see the coming glory. And not only will you see that you will see a river flowing from beneath the gate of the city of God, back through time, down to this moment, a river that flows right through this church today.

And that river contains the life of the coming age. And if you will bend down and drink from that river, your eyes will open and you will see the difference between the sickness and the superficiality and the emptiness of this age as compared with the glory of the one that's coming. The glory is not something that's locked up in some future place, in some faraway location.

That glory is already here in the gift of the Holy Spirit, the river of living water that flows through the body. The gift of the Holy Spirit that was given by our Lord to give us the taste of the coming glory, to enable us to keep our eyes on him and to be sustained by him until he returns. And he invites us to come.

Let everyone who is a thirst come. Anybody come and drink, come and drink and then pray that prayer. Come Lord Jesus.

I mean, brethren, the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none and those who mourn as though they were not mourning and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing and those who buy as though they had no goods and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away.

The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, keep sane and sober for your prayers. Children, it is the last hour.

No, these people weren't wrong. While the Lord did not return in their lifetime, the vision of the coming glory, which they had was accurate and it enabled them to walk and know where they were going and kept their hearts on fire and gave them the wisdom to discern between the things that matter and the things that don't. They could let go of the world much quicker than we do because they kept this vision and they walked in it.

They were able to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with their God because they were drinking of the coming glory. They were breathing it, living it, eating it, sleeping it. It was part of them.

They were soaking it up all the time. They were walking in the power of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit is the coming glory. For them, the death of Jesus was a doorway to glory and the resurrection of Jesus was the beginning of that glory and the gift of the Holy Spirit was the life of that glory.

And until we have a similar vision, as clear as theirs, and until our prayer like theirs is, come Lord Jesus, the death and resurrection of Jesus won't make sense, nor will they have the impact on our lives that will enable us to overcome sin and have victory in our daily trials. We have to do more than look back. We also have to look ahead so that the death and resurrection of the Lord culminates in his coming glory.

In a world that's falling apart, as ours is, in a time of sifting and shaking, as ours is, in a time of revival and judgment, as ours is, we need to get hold of the vision Jesus gave his body on earth long ago. Walk in that vision, live in that vision, and pray that vision, the vision of his imminent return. Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense to repay everyone for what he has done.

The Spirit and the bride say come, let him who hears say come, let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price. He who testifies to these things says surely I am coming soon. Amen.

Come, Lord Jesus, and may his spirit help us to see what that means and live in that vision. Let's just take some time in silence.