The Return of the King

• The current war in Israel has many, including myself, thinking about the imminent return of Christ.
• “Since the church is given the hope of an imminent return of Christ there can be no signs given as to when this event will take place” Dwight Pentecost
• So we must be ready!
• We have a two part lecture on upcoming Wednesday’s

1. Lay aside every weight in anticipation of the coming Messiah.

Hebrews 12:1(NKJV) 1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight,

• every weight or encumbrance or burden.
• Going through life dragging extra weight when we were intended to run light

  and weightless.

• Ela… running is one of the means which I employ to get healthy and loose extra weight. And something always amazing happens as I yet again begin to shed pounds… the runs get increasingly easier. The distance which I can run without stopping increases. and the time in which I accomplish it gets faster. and I alwayss try to finish every run with a bit of final leg motivation… finish this run like you are suppose to finish the race of faith.

2. Waiting and anticipating the rapture of the Church.

Matt.24:37-40 – For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.

• With an element of surprise.
• As a thief in the night.
• No one ever wants to get robbed.
• Ela… the last time I was knowingly robbed was the week after Ida. I had a rifle in the back seat of my truck from some target practice and went to go grab it to bring inside and it simply was not there. Now here is the thing about getting robbed, as a thief, you often second guess yourself. Was it there? Did I place it somewhere else? Even my wife, knowing my memory challenges at times, was like it will pop up right where you put it. SO it has been two years and I’m still waiting for it to pop up. You are always surprised.

3. Establish our hearts for the return of Christ.

James 5:7-8 (ESV) 7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

• Establish: to turn resolutely in a certain direction
• So we live every day as if the Lord was coming today but are prepared for His

  coming to take a life time or more…

4. We see the signs but know not the time.

Matthew 24: 36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

• Ela… now I realize this illustration might be spiritualizing hunting a little to much but stay with me… As a new woodsman I thought you just go into the woods and hope to stumble upon something that could be harvested… but then I slowly slowly began to learn that what you are really suppose to be doing in the woods the majority of time is looking for sign. Eventually after finidng enough sign then you just need to set up and wait. And in the waiting you never know what time your time will be when that megasorus decides to come and walk out on you. Like I said I little TMI.

• Israel, as discussed, is a part of the signs of the time.
• In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.
• Famines, pestilences, earthquakes.
• The love of many growing cold.
• The man of sin.
• The Gospel preached to all the world.

5. We are hastening His return.

2 Peter 3:11-15 (ESV) 11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

• Waiting for Jesus.
• to desire earnestly His soon return.
• Turn your hearts to Jesus.
• We will not be made to forget but rather that which we are beholding will dry up

  all sorrow.

• He shall wipe away every tear.
• Remember Joseph son Manasseh:

  Genesis 41:51 Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: “For God has made me forget all my toil and all my father’s house.”

6. Remember what can happen in a day.

• You do not know.

James 4:13-16 (NKJV) 13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; 14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” 16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

• Jesus told those who would listen whaat was coming.

Luke 21:6 (NKJV) “These things which you see—the days will come in which not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down.”

• In A.D. 70 and again in A.D. 135, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and scattered the Jews among all nations. Remarkably, many of the Jews maintained their identity as a people. The lost tribes, however, remained scattered throughout the world;
• The Lord will bring you back.

Jeremiah 29:14 (NKJV) 14 I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.

• The Lord promised to bring them back.
• ELA… At midnight on May 14, 1948, the Provisional Government of Israel proclaimed a new State of Israel. On that same date, the United States, in the person of President Truman, recognized the provisional Jewish government as de facto authority of the Jewish state (de jure recognition was extended on January 31, 1949). The U.S. delegates to the UN and top-ranking State Department officials were angered that Truman released his recognition statement to the press without notifying them first. On May 15, 1948, the first day of Israeli
• Independence and exactly one year after UNSCOP was established, Arab armies invaded Israel and the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 began.