Second Coming of Christ # 4

Second Coming of Christ # 4

Too many who are now masters in Israel are as much in the dark as Nicodemus was. The truth is no harder to get at than corn on the cob, if we will first strip off the husk, and shell it. We need to depend more upon the Holy Spirit and less upon our libraries if we would preach so that those who hear us will also hear the voice of God in our message. It is not what Doctor This or Professor That has to say about it that settles the question, and settles it right, but who reads the Bible. What does the Bible say about it? And what we need to do is to take the Bible as it reads, not as some big man says it means.

Big men have been mistaken about vital things just as often as little ones. The safest pilot is not the one who wears the biggest hat, but the one who knows the channel the best. We should let the Bible speak to us just as God means it should, without distorting it by the prejudices and vagaries of those who are always trying to put their own camel into it and strain out somebody else's gnat.

It is high time for Christians to interpret unfulfilled prophecies by the light of prophecies already fulfilled.

The curses on the Jews were brought to pass literally - so also will be the blessings.

The scattering were literal; so also will be the gatherings.

The pulling down of Zion was literal; so also must be the building up.

The rejection of Israel was literal; and so also must be the restoration.

The first coming of Christ was literal, visible and personal, and what right has anybody to conclude that His second coming will be all together spiritual? If His first advent was with a real body, why not the same with His second coming?

When Jesus first came the smallest predictions were fulfilled to the very latter; and should this not teach us to expect that the same will be true when He comes again? There are very many more prophecies concerning His second coming than the first, and does not this mean that God wants to give us the most favorable opportunity possible to prepare for it? If the humility and shame of Christ at His first coming were literal and visible, should not His second coming in power and glory be also literal and visible?

While face to face with them, Jesus taught His disciples to be in constant expectation of His early return, and they so understood Him and lived accordingly. They preached the doctrine and taught it in their epistles, every one of them. Certainly, if anybody ever understood the Lord correctly, it was the men whom He personally trained to do that very thing, that they might hand the truth He gave them down to us. If they failed to understand Him, what hope is there that anybody else may do so?

Jesus is going to come and reveal Himself to the members of His body at the very moment when the last soul is saved necessary to complete that body - for the body of Christ must consist of a certain number of souls, or it never could be completed. If it were an infinite number it would be an endless task, and Jesus would never return, for He can no more come with His Heavenly body than He could come the first time without a human body. It is the completion of the body of Christ, therefore, that will bring Him, and this shows how we may help hasten His coming.

"Looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day the God wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat" ( 2 Peter 3:12).

Every time we do personal work or try to get anybody saved, we may be doing something that will bring the coming of the Lord. Instead of being discouraged by looking about us and seeing what a small prospect there is of the whole world being converted, it will set our bones on fire to think that perhaps the last man needed to complete the Lord's body and bring Jesus back to earth may be converted this very day. That gives us something definite and tangible to work for, and hope for, don't you see? Colonel Clark, the founder of the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, put in six nights out of every seven at the mission as long as he lived. One day somebody said to him: "Colonel, why don't you take some rest? You are killing yourself by sticking to that mission so close. Why don't you take a vacation and go away somewhere and rest?" "I can't do it, brother," answered the Colonel. "I could never do that, for every time I start for the mission, I think, maybe the last man may be saved in our little meeting tonight, and the Lord will come, and I wouldn't miss being at my post for anything in the world!. When Jesus comes I want to be right where He expects me to be."

The Bible very clearly makes known the great truth that God's purpose for this dispensation is the completing of the Body of Christ. He is not trying to save the world now; that is to be the work of the next dispensation. Here is the scripture for it:

"God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name. (The body of Christ) And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written: "After this I will return and will build again the tabernacle of David (the Jewish nation) which is fallen down (scattered and no longer being used) - and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set them that the residue of men might seek after the Lord (through their missionary efforts)" (Acts 15:14-17). That is the present dispensation, and that is what God is doing now. There is nothing said here about the conversion of the world, but it is made clear that a people is being chosen, and much Scripture might be quoted to show that the people so referred to will constitute the body of Christ.

~Billy Sunday~

(continued with # 5)