GodsView : Why Christ Must Return!

GodsView : Why Christ Must Return!: Scripture is neither vague nor equivocal on the promise of Christ's return. A large portion (by some accounts, as much as one-fifth...

Why Christ Must Return!

Scripture is neither vague nor equivocal on the promise of Christ's return. A large portion (by some accounts, as much as one-fifth) of Scripture is prophetic, and perhaps a third or more of the prophetic passages refer to the Second Coming of Christ or events related to it. It is undeniably a major theme in the prophecy of both Old and New Testaments.
And regardless of what the scoffers say, Jesus is coming (2 Peter 3:3-10). World history is barreling toward the conclusion that God ordained. It isn't an end that will come as a result of nuclear war, environmental irresponsibility, or alien invasion; it is the one that comes by the purpose and plan of God, foretold in Scripture. Make no mistake — Christ will return!
Here are nine reasons from Scripture by which you can know that Christ is coming again.

The Promise of God Demands It
The Old Testament is full of Messianic promise — that promised is its main focus. From beginning (Genesis 3:15) to end (Malachi 4:2), the entire Old Testament is filled with prophecies of the coming Deliverer — at least 333 distinct promises, by one count.
Of the more than 100 prophecies dealing with the first advent of Christ, all of them were fulfilled precisely, literally. His riding on a donkey, the parting of his garments, the piercing of His hands and feet, and the vivid prophecies of His rejection by men in Isaiah 53 — all these might have been interpreted symbolically by Old Testament scholars before Christ. But the New Testament record repeatedly reports that such things were fulfilled in the most literal sense, so "that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled" (Matthew 26:56; cf. 2:15; 4:14-16; 8:17; 12:17-21; 13:35; 21:4-5; 27:35; John 12:38; 15:25).
Scripture says God "cannot lie" and that He will not change His mind (Numbers 23:19; Titus 1:2). What He has promised, He will do. The truthfulness of the Bible is at stake in the Second Coming.

The Teaching of Christ Demands It
Christ's earthly teaching was filled with references to His Second Coming (Matthew 24–25; Luke 21). When He was on trial for His life, Jesus defended His own deity with a bold declaration of the Second Coming in the most triumphant terms. He told the High Priest, "You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven" (Mark 14:62).
On the night of His betrayal, Christ told the disciples, "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself" (John 14:2-3). Not only is the credibility of God at stake in the Second Coming, but so is the credibility of His Son. If Jesus doesn't return, He's a liar.

The Testimony of the Holy Spirit Demands It
Since "God...cannot lie" (Titus 1:2), His promise guarantees Christ's return. Jesus is truth incarnate (John 14:6); so His teaching also infallibly confirms the fact of the Second Coming. And the Holy Spirit, who is called "the Spirit of truth" (John 14:17; 15:26), also testifies of the Second Coming of Christ through the New Testament writers.
Whether the apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 1:4-7; Philippians 3:20; Colossians 3:4; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; etc.), the apostle Peter (1 Peter 1:13; 5:4; 2 Peter 3), or the apostle John (1 John 3:2), again and again, through the inerrant Scriptures, the Holy Spirit adds His witness to that of the Father and the Son — Jesus is coming.

The Program for the Church Demands It
God is currently "taking from among the Gentiles a people for His name" (Acts 15:14) and gathering His elect into one great body, the church. The church's role is to be like a pure bride for God's own Son, ready to be presented to Him at His Second Coming.
Paul uses that wedding imagery in 2 Corinthians 11:2: "I am jealous for you with godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin." Marriage is a beautiful metaphor that pictures Christ's love and care for His church (Matthew 25:1-13; Ephesians 5:25-27; Revelation 19:6-9). And that's why we can be certain He will return to claim her, just as He promised (John 14:2-3). He will come back to get His bride.

The Corruption in the World Demands It
The world is a very wicked place, and when the "Son of Man [comes] in the glory of His Father with His angels...[He] will recompense every man according to his deeds" (Matthew 16:27). "An hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment" (John 5:28-29).
That blessed hope of every believer (Titus 2:13) is the terror of the world. For unbelievers, His coming means immediate, impartial judgment (1 Thessalonians 1:7-10; Jude 14-15; Revelation 19:11-16); for believers — unmitigated joy! Jesus must return in order to execute just retribution on sinners and carry out the judgment He has promised.

The Future of Israel Demands It
In Paul's day Gentiles were coming into the church in greater numbers than Jewish converts, and in Romans 11, Paul reminded them, "You, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them and became a partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree" (v. 17). But the time is coming when the natural branches will be grafted back into the olive tree (vv. 23-24), a phenomenon that Paul expressly connected with the return of Christ (v. 26). That is the day when Israel will mourn over the One whom they pierced (Zechariah 12:10), and God will save them all (Romans 11:26).

The Vindication of Christ Demands It
It is inconceivable that the last public view the world would have of Jesus Christ would be that of a bleeding, dying, crucified criminal, covered with blood, spit, and flies, hanging naked in the Jerusalem twilight. Did you realize that after His resurrection, He never appeared in a public venue before unbelievers? Plenty of believers saw Him, touched Him, spoke to Him, and gave unanimous testimony that He was risen from the dead. But there is no record that unbelievers ever saw Him.
But the unbelieving world will see His glory displayed to everyone. Scripture says, "Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him" (Hebrews 9:28; cf. Matthew 24:27). The Savior who was humiliated, taunted, and put to death in a public display of humanity's hatred of God will return as conquering Lord in view of the entire world (Luke 21:25-27). And every eye will see Him (Revelation 1:7).

The Destruction of Satan Demands It
Satan, though an already-defeated foe as far as Christians are concerned, still exercises a kind of dominion over this world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2; 6:12; 1 John 5:19). But Christ is the only rightful ruler of this world, and when He returns, He will overthrow and destroy Satan completely.
In Revelation 5, when Christ receives the seven-sealed scroll, the title deed of the earth, He unleashes judgment with the crack of each seal (Revelation 6-7). The seal judgments give way to the judgment of the seven trumpets (Revelation 8-9); the trumpet judgments lead to the judgment of the seven bowls (Revelation 16). Finally, after one last-ditch effort by Satan to retain his unlawful dominion over the earth, Christ Himself returns to vanquish the foe — He chains him, casts him into a bottomless pit, and finally confines him to an eternal lake of fire (Revelation 19). With that, Christ's victory over Satan the usurper is complete.

The Hope of the Saints Demands It
Only Christ's glorious, triumphant return can fulfill the hope of the saints — every true believer longs for that day. Paul characterizes Christians as those who "love his appearing" (2 Timothy 4:8). The apostle John says, "Now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2). The return of Christ will instantly usher in the fullness of our glorification.
John then adds these words: "And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure" (v. 3). This is the test of a healthy eschatology: Is your hope a sanctifying influence on your soul? Are you looking beyond the commotion of this world with the realization that you could soon meet Christ face to face, and are you preparing your heart and soul for that? Are you eager and watchful? Are you filled with joyful hope and expectation? That is the attitude to which Scripture calls us.
The Second Coming is not supposed to make you stop what you're doing to wait for the Lord's return. And neither should it motivate you to focus all your attention on the events and political developments of this world. Instead, it should prompt you to holiness as you direct your heart toward Christ, whose coming every believer anticipates with joy

GodsView : No, Theodore Shoebat, Jesus Would Not Have Killed ...

GodsView : No, Theodore Shoebat, Jesus Would Not Have Killed ...: In a very troubling video, Theodore Shoebat, son of former Muslim Walid Shoebat, has claimed that if "sodomites" had walked in...

No, Theodore Shoebat, Jesus Would Not Have Killed Gays!

In a very troubling video, Theodore Shoebat, son of former Muslim Walid Shoebat, has claimed that if "sodomites" had walked into the temple of Jerusalem, Jesus would have killed them.

This is absolutely outrageous, totally unscriptural and downright dangerous.

Mr. Shoebat, I urge you to repent.

To be perfectly clear, I agree with Theodore that homosexual practice is detestable in God's sight (as stated plainly in the Scriptures); I totally oppose same-sex "marriage"; and I firmly believe that homosexual activism is the principle threat to our freedoms of religion, speech, and conscience.

I also share Theodore's abhorrence of the abusive acts of homosexual predators, just as I abhor the abusive acts of heterosexual predators.

At the same time, I categorically reject his encouragement of violent acts against homosexual men and women, and I renounce his statement that Jesus would have killed homosexuals who walked into the temple.

That is utter rubbish.

After referring to gays as "faggots," Theodore said on his video, "When you have the sodomites coming out into the streets [meaning, in a gay pride parade] and the Christians come and beat them up, the people who are beating up the sodomites don't really get punished because the society is so conditioned that way. ... If there's a law written in the hearts of the people, then the people who are fighting this evil, physically, with their hands, fighting them, beating them up, those people are not going to get in trouble."

But, he added, "we don't have that in America."

So Theodore is telling us that it's a good thing when "Christians" physically attack gays and lesbians who are marching down the street in a gay pride event, in particular when these "Christians" do it in a country that will not punish them. And the reason the country will not punish them is because "there's a law written in the hearts of the people," meaning, the law of God that detests homosexual practice.

Not only is this not supported anywhere in the New Testament, which teaches us to overcome evil with good (see, for example, Romans 12:17-21), but it is flatly against the law, since, as much as we may oppose these gay demonstrations, we do not have the right to take the law into our hands and attack homosexual men and women. And if you have God's heart of love and you want to see them saved and transformed, why would you want to beat them up?

The fact that Theodore laments our lack of anti-gay violence is deplorable, and to the extent that he speaks these things as a professing Christian, he hurts the cause of the gospel, brings reproach to the name of Jesus, and blemishes the witness of 99 percent of true Christians who reject his violent rhetoric.

In fact, after listening to Theodore's words, one can only wonder if he would commend Yishai Schlissel, the ultra-Orthodox Jew who stabbed six participants at a gay pride event in Jerusalem last year, shortly after being released from prison for stabbing three participants at a similar event in 2005.

Lest you think I'm exaggerating, consider what Theodore said about Jesus Himself, referring to John 2:14-15: "In the temple, He found the merchants selling oxen, sheep and doves; also the moneychangers sitting there. Then He made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the Temple, both the sheep and oxen. He dumped out the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables" (TLV).

Theodore states, "Jesus Christ took up a whip and beat people up in his Father's temple," adding, "Now imagine if sodomites were in his Father's temple. Jesus would have killed them all. He wouldn't just have hit them; Jesus got violent!"

First, the prophet Isaiah tells us explicitly that Jesus did not get violent: "His grave was assigned with the wicked, yet with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth" (Is. 53:9).

If Jesus had whipped people bloody, that would have been violence. Instead, He overthrew tables and drove out the vendors, using a whip on the cattle.

So, I'll take Isaiah's word for this rather than Theodore's.

But even if you want to claim that Jesus swung a whip at people to drive them out of the Temple, it's more than a massive jump to claim that "if sodomites were in His Father's temple, Jesus would have killed them all."

Actually, there's a good chance that there were "sodomites" in the temple—or, if not "sodomites," then others, like adulterers, who also deserved the death penalty under Old Testament law. (Jeremiah 7:1-11, which underlies the gospel accounts of Jesus' cleansing of the Temple, would suggest that, just as in Jeremiah's day, there were adulterers, murderers and idolaters who hypocritically worshipped at the temple in Jerusalem, and all of them were liable to the death penalty at that time.)

Jesus, who knew what was in man (John 2:24-25), surely knew that there were gross sinners in the temple courts. But He didn't kill them; He died for them.

Not only, then, are Theodore's words terribly dangerous, since some unstable listeners might think they are doing God's service by attacking or even, God forbid, trying to kill homosexual men and women.

But they also bear false witness to the character of Jesus, who "when He was reviled, He did not revile back; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but He entrusted Himself to Him who judges righteously. He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness. 'By His wounds you were healed'" (1 Pet 2:23-24).

It is my privilege to work with godly leaders throughout America and around the world, a good number of whom are frontline, fearless Christians who stand firmly against homosexual activism, and every single one of them would join me in renouncing Theodore Shoebat's words.

His words do not represent Jesus, they do not represent the spirit or letter of the New Testament, and they do not represent His true followers.

GodsView : What Lies Ahead? In a nation determined to get rid...

GodsView : What Lies Ahead? In a nation determined to get rid...: When a Nation Forgets God You may be acquainted with my book Hitler’s Cross, in which I attempt to answer two questions: how could Naz...

What Lies Ahead? In a nation determined to get rid of God…how should we respond?

When a Nation Forgets God
You may be acquainted with my book Hitler’s Cross, in which I attempt to answer two questions: how could Nazism have arisen in Germany, a country that prided itself in its freedoms? And, why was Hitler not condemned by the pastors of Germany with a unified and consistent voice? Of course, I also paid tribute to those who did courageously stand against Hitler’s agenda.
I have taken this study a step further in my new book, When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn from Nazi Germany. Parallels between Nazi Germany and the United States can easily be overdrawn, but this danger should not stop us from learning some hard lessons from that dark period when the church struggled to find its identity and had to suffer for what it believed. We need to realize that the gas ovens of the Holocaust were the end result of certain cultural, political, and religious trends that made the horrors possible.
I don’t expect that America will ever gas millions of people because they belong to the “wrong” race, but the same values that destroyed Germany are being taught in our centers of learning today. Our freedoms are being eroded and, as I demonstrate in the book, we are being betrayed by the elite. Those who should be guarding our liberties are bowing to cultural currents that will—barring a miracle—eventually destroy us.
Whether Nazism, Marxism, or Secularism, the state is always in conflict with religious freedom. And the more power the state has, the more laws it will pass to diminish the role of the church. What makes this so difficult is that these changes are made under the rubric of freedom and “what is best for everyone.” As in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, slavery is defined as “freedom” and suppression is defined as “the quest for peace and fairness.”
There are ominous signs that the freedoms we once assumed were ours, are disappearing. Forces of secularism lead inevitably to a totalitarian state to which everyone is expected to submit.
What are we to do? Wring our hands and wait for the return of Christ? The return of Christ is a cherished dream of every Christian, but meanwhile we have a job to do. And rather than fearing what is to come, we need to see the unfolding future as an opportunity to bring glory to God through our steadfast commitment to what will never pass away.
With the Bible in one hand and history books in the other, let us discuss what we can learn from Nazism so that we will not repeat the same mistakes. And, let us commit ourselves to obedience to Christ, no matter the cost. For more on facing the future with realism and hope, see the center of this newsletter.
Facing the Future of Our Nation
Can we win the “culture war?” What are our responsibilities as Christians when our nation increasingly seeks to get rid of God? Is there any hope? Pastor Lutzer offers insight and hope on these vital questions.
Q: In writing When a Nation Forgets God, are you not contributing to the polarization we see in America today? Are you not afraid that political activists from one political party or another will use your analysis and call one another “Nazis?”
A: That is a danger I considered. Here in America I think it is disingenuous for one politician to call another by such names; the atrocities in Nazi Germany were of such a magnitude that they belong to a class by themselves. But I wrote this book to show the cultural trends that allowed the Holocaust to happen. Unfortunately, we see some of those same trends in America today.
Q: In your book, you list seven lessons ranging from issues in the economy, to our courts, to propaganda. The average Christian is overwhelmed by these issues. What can we actually do in light of this information?
A: An excellent question. At the end of every chapter of the book I briefly encourage the reader to learn from our brothers and sisters who have gone before us. It is not necessary to win our cultural battles in order to be faithful to what God has called us to do as a church and as individuals.
Q: Do you think we can reverse the trends we see in our society? Can we really win this “cultural war?”
A: No, I don’t think we can reverse these destructive trends in America; in that sense, the culutral war is lost. That’s not why I wrote the book. I wrote it to outline what we need to be willing to endure if we are faithful to what God has called us to do. We must simply face the future realistically and commit ourselves to represent Christ even at great personal cost.
Q: What is the one lesson you want readers to take away from this book?
A: I want the reader to realize that our battle is essentially spiritual, not political, and that only the Gospel can change the heart, and rescue individuals from themselves and from eternal death. Politics is important, but it cannot do what the Cross of Christ can do. We have forgotten that the Gospel, lived out in the lives of ordinary Christians, is a potent force that can have a positive and permanent impact in America and the world.
Q: After being the pastor of The Moody Church for 30 years, what changes have you seen in society and in the church?
A: To answer that, I’d have to write another book! When I became the pastor back in 1980, there was a general agreement as to what a church should be, the styles of worship it should adopt and even the kind of preaching one could expect. Now all of this has changed, and everything seems to be up for grabs. Not all of this is bad; God knows that many changes have been positive, but I’m also very concerned about the next generation.
Also, back then, the Moral Majority and our “culture wars” were just beginning. Now we’ve learned that we cannot win the culture war politically; we must return to living out the Gospel and win the confidence of a skeptical world.
Of course technology has changed everything. Once again, many of the changes have been good, others have been detrimental. But I’m greatly encouraged by a verse that is prominently displayed above the choir loft at The Moody Church: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).