that Mr. Baker was speaking about in the
Sunday School lesson, and Wayne read about it in Colossians 3. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear. And that's what I want to look
at this morning, the coming of Christ. Paul mentions this here
in my text this morning. But let's begin reading in 1
Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 12. Now, if Christ be preached, and
that's who we preach, isn't it? We preach Christ. We preach His
person, His work. If Christ be preached that He
arose from the dead, I'll say some among you that there is
no resurrection of the dead. But if there is no resurrection
of the dead, then is Christ not risen? And if Christ be not risen,
then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses
of God, because we have testified of God, that he raised up Christ,
of whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead raise not.
For if the dead raise not, then is not Christ raised. And if
Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, and you are yet in your
sins. Then they also which are asleep
in Christ, they've died, they're also perished. If in this life
only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most miserable. But now is Christ risen from
the dead and became the firstfruits of them that slept. For since
thy man came dead, thy man came also the resurrection of the
dead. For as in Adam all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive, but every man in his own
order. Christ the firstfruits, afterward
they that are Christ at His coming." Christ at His coming. Then comes the end when he shall
have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when
he shall have put down all rule and all authority and all power,
for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be
destroyed is death." Now that's the thought I want to give you
this morning in verse 23, the coming of Christ. And this whole chapter sets forth
the person of Jesus Christ and the work of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, in His humanity. This is all about what Jesus
Christ did in the days of His flesh. We find that here in verses
3 through verse 6 where Paul told us what the gospel was that
He preached to us. And the gospel is this. that
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was
buried, that He rose again according to the Scriptures. And all of
this is what He did in His body. He said, this is who we preach,
Christ, the physical Christ, that He came, He lived, He suffered,
He died, He rose again from the dead. He did all of this in His
humanity. in His body. If we preach Christ,
then we must preach what He did in the days of His flesh. Of course we preach Him in His
death day, that He's very God of very gods. He's the eternal
Son of God, but to preach the gospel, we must preach what He
did while He was here upon this earth, in His body, in the days
of His flesh. Everywhere we find in the Scriptures
that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. We prove that, don't
we? We read Scriptures concerning
that. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. What a mystery that is. The Word
was with God, so therefore He's alongside of God, distinct from
God, and yet He is God. Who could that be but the Son
of God, Jesus Christ? And the Word was made flesh. And that's what the fifteenth
chapter of 1 Corinthians is about. The Word made flesh. What has Jesus Christ did in
the days of His flesh? Well, two thousand years ago
He came. He was born of a virgin. A real
man. He had a real soul. A real body. And in that body He suffered
for sins. In that body, He atoned for sin. In that body, He was buried. In the body, He arose again.
Even in that body, He ascended to heaven. And in that body,
He sits there today ruling and reigning over all of this universe. And in that body, He is coming
again. Without the body of Jesus Christ,
the humanity of Jesus Christ, you know there is no redemption.
What He accomplished, He accomplished in His body, in His humanity. I want you to turn now to a couple
of places with me. You might put a marker in 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. And I want you to turn to Hebrews
chapter 2. Look over to Hebrews chapter
2. And if you're using the Bible that I have, you'll find that
on page 1304. Hebrews chapter 2. This year is speaking of what
the Lord Jesus did in His body. I want you to remember what Paul
was talking about in chapter 1 of Hebrews, or this writer.
He was talking about Christ being so much better than the angels. That's the theme of the book
of Hebrews. Christ is better. Christ is better. And He's better
than the angels. Well, there had been an objection,
I imagine, raised because they said, well, if he's better than
the angels, how come he was made a lord than the angels? If he's
better than they, how can that be if he was made a man? We know that men are lower than
the angels. So the writer answers that. There was a purpose behind
Christ being made a man. Look what he says in Hebrews
2, and look in verse 9. But we see Jesus, who was made
a little lower than the angels. How can He be lower and yet be
better? Well, there's a purpose, and here's what that purpose
is. For the suffering of death. crowned with glory and honor,
that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." He
had to suffer. Christ in heaven cannot suffer. He is the Son of God. He is beyond
tempted. He is beyond suffering. He is
beyond death. To taste death, he must be made
like unto us. And that's why he was born of
a woman. That's why he was born under
the law, that he might suffer and taste death. Now look what
he goes on to say here in verse 14. For as much then as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself likewise took
part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that
had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them
who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to
bondage. For verily he took not on him
the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham,
wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his
brethren, that he might be a faithful and merciful high priest in things
pertaining to God," look at this, "...to make reconciliation for
the sins of the people." Now, how did sin get into this world?
By man, didn't it? By man, by a human being. He
wretched forth his hand, and took of that forbidden fruit,
and sin entered through that man. How is sin going to be put
away? By a man. What does the scripture
teach us about Christ burying our sins? He bury our sins in
his own body on the tree. Now can you imagine that? Here
he is born of a virgin, and he's holy. He lives holy. He obeys God perfectly, and then
upon the cross of Calvary, God, in some miraculous way, takes
the sins of all His elect people, and He puts them in the body
of Jesus Christ on that tree. Did that literally happen? The
Bible says it did. that all we like sheep have gone
astray, and God hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."
Can you imagine in his body the clump, the mass of sin that he
bore? Old Luther used to say it this
way. He imagined a conversation between the father and the son.
And the father says, son, go, become a man. And as a man, you
must take the sins of Peter, that murderer, and Peter, that
adulterer, into your own body. You must take the sins of Peter,
that denier, into your body. Take the sins of blasphemous
Saul of Tarsus into your own body. Take all the sins of all
your elect people of all time and put them in your body. Burn them there. Brothers and
sisters, can you imagine that? But how else can sin be atoned
for? Sin entered through a man, a
real man. And sin must be suffered for
and put away through a real man. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
And upon the cross of Calvary, to make reconciliation for sin,
to reconcile us poor sinners to a holy God, He takes those
sins in His own physical body and He pays the price. He is
responsible for those sins. They now become His. Only God
can do this. I can't take your sins and you
can't take mine. I can suffer some consequences
of your sin. If you've committed a crime,
I may step up and pay the debt for you. But I tell you, I can't
take the sin. I cannot bear the guilt. And
I cannot suffer before God to atone for your sins. But this
man did. He did that. So there's no redemption
apart from the human body of the Lord Jesus Christ. You and
I were flesh and blood. He took part of the same. What
part did he take? He took everything but the sin,
the sin nature. He didn't have that. But on the
cross, he took the sins. Look in Hebrews chapter 10. Look
what he says here about it. I don't know what you're writing,
Hebrews chapter 10. All of this is speaking of Jesus
Christ the man, what he accomplished in his body. And I'm making a
point of this because I have a reason for doing this. Look
here in Hebrews chapter 10 and look here in verse 5. Look in
chapter 10 and verse 5. Wherefore, when he cometh unto
the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offerings thou wouldest not,
but a body hast thou prepared made." Through the womb of a
virgin, God prepared a body. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sins, you have had no pleasure. Then said I, lo, I come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me to do thy will, O God. Above, when he said sacrifice
and offerings and burnt offerings and offerings for sin, thou hast
had no pleasure. You would not. Neither take pleasure
therein which are offered by the law. Then he said, Christ
said, Lo, I come to do your will, O God, He takes away the first,
that He may establish the second." Now look in verse 10, "...by
the which will we are sanctified, we are set apart, we are made
holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all. And every priest stands daily
ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can
never take away sin. But this man, in his body, after
he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, he sat down
on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his
enemies be made his footstool, for by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified." Now, you can imagine merit, you
can imagine the worth in the humanity of the Son of God. That
by the offering of that one body upon Calvary's tree, He has perfected
all who believe in Him. Now, ain't that amazing? In His
body. That's what He accomplished in
His body. We preach the deity of Jesus
Christ. He is the eternal Son of God.
Without that, we have no gospel. But the gospel is what He accomplished
in His humanity on our behalf. He was tempted on our behalf.
He died on our behalf. He suffered for sin on our behalf
in His humanity, in His physical being. Now, you see here that I read
to you in chapter 10 and verses 5 through 7, Lo, I come. Lo, I come. And that was His first coming. There's two comings of Christ
in the Scripture that are physical. Only two comings that's physical.
Now this is according to my understanding. Two comings of Christ that's
physical. One, the first time He came.
Lo, I come. And then the second time He's
coming. Those are the only two physical
comings of Christ according to my understanding that we see
in the Scripture. Turn back one page. Look back
one page in chapter 9 of Hebrews and look in verse 24. Page 1309. Look in chapter 9 and look here
what this writer specifically says about the coming of Christ.
Look in verse 24. For Christ is not entered into
the holy place made with hands, which are the figures of the
truth. He's not went into that tabernacle that Moses and those
Jews built, but into heaven itself. Now to appear in the presence
of God for us, nor yet that he should offer himself often as
the high priest entered to the holy place every year with the
blood of others. For then must he often have suffered
since the foundation of the world. But now once in the end of the
world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself." Once in the end of the world He appeared. Verse
27, As it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the
judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many,
and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time
without sin, without a sin offering unto salvation. See, His first
coming, it's written all through the Old Testament, wasn't it?
He's coming. Someone is coming. The seed of
David, the seed of the woman. He's coming to His people. He's
coming to His temple. He's coming to die and redeem.
He's coming. And in the New Testament, He's
coming again. And that coming again is His
physical coming, and the Bible never says anything about a third
coming. or a fourth coming. There's a first coming, and there's
a second coming. And this is physical. It's physical. Consider with me just a minute
this morning, and maybe this will answer some questions. There
are many comings of Christ that are spiritual. We find them all
through the Scripture. And we don't want to confuse
these spiritual comings with His physical comings. In the
Old Testament, the Lord would come down from heaven. Sometimes
the prophets would pray, O Lord, come down. Cause the mountains
to melt. Isaiah was preaching the gospel.
Nobody was believing him. To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? And finally he prays, O Lord, come down. Come down
and reveal Yourself. Come down and melt the hard heart. David prayed that way. When he
was in trouble, and he had all of his enemies, and he felt like
that he was just being overwhelmed, he said, Oh, Lord, come down
and cause the mountains to smoke. Make Yourself known among the
heathens for the health of Your people. And the Lord often came
down. We read where He came down and
appeared to Abraham. Remember that? He sat and ate
with him. He took his temporal body, some
kind of a spiritual body. And he appeared to Abraham and
ate with him and told him what he was going to do to Sodom and
Gomorrah. Remember when he came down and
wrestled all night with Jacob? That's the Lord coming down.
But all of those were spiritual, temporal comings. Sometimes he
would come down. Remember when he came down and
consumed the sacrifices? He would just suddenly, out of
nowhere, without people seeing Him, then offer the sacrifices. And all of a sudden, this great
power may be manifested in a fire, and it would just eat up the
sacrifices and lick up the water and the blood. That was His coming. But it was a spiritual coming,
not a physical coming. The first time He came physically
was 2,000 years ago, when He said, Lo, I come. I have come
to do thy will." And that's when the disciples found Him. And
when they told each other, we found Him. He's here, the one
in whom Moses said would come. He's here physically. Here's the second spiritual coming.
In the New Testament, Christ came at Pentecost. He came at
Pentecost. You say, Bruce, that was the
Holy Spirit, and it was Him. I want you to take your Bibles
and turn over to John's Gospel. John chapter 14, page 1170 in
the Pew Bible. Look at this. We often think about Pentecost
as being separate from Christ. Well, it's not Him and His humanity,
but it's the third person of the blessed Trinity, and it's
Him coming. Look what he says in John chapter
14 and look in verse 28. John 14, 28. Look back over in verse 15. If you love me, keep my commandments,
and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter,
that he may abide with you forever. Who is that Comforter? Why, it
is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because
it seeth him not, neither knows him, but you know him, for he
dwells with you, and shall be in you. Who was dwelling with
Him? Christ, wasn't He? Wasn't that Him? Well, yes, He'd
been with them for 33 years. Look in verse 18, I will not
leave you comfortless, I will come to you. Well, how did He come? Not physically. Read on. A little while, and
the world seeth me no more. But you see me, because I live,
you shall live also. And at that day you shall know
that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." How did
the man Christ Jesus get in them? The man Christ Jesus didn't.
But the man, the Spirit, the Spirit of this man. The Holy
Spirit, the third person of the blessed Trinity, who is Christ. He got it. Look at verse 21. He that hath my commandments,
and keepeth them, he it is that loves me, and he that loves me
shall be loved to my Father, and I will love him, and will
manifest myself to him. And Judas said unto him, not
his carriage, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself
to us and not unto the world? And Jesus said unto them, If
a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love
him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him."
We'll come to him. So he's coming, wasn't he? He's
coming. When did he come in the manner that he's speaking of?
Well, on the day of Pentecost. on the dead Pentecost. There's
so many things that I don't understand about the dead Pentecost. But
I tell you this much, it changed some things. We can't deny that,
can we? That's the day where the Holy
Spirit was poured out in a miraculous way, and the Lord come and set
up His reign within His people. He lives in their heart. He abides there by faith. You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart. Isn't He there? And that brings
us to this next thing. Not only did He come on the day
of Pentecost, but every time a poor sinner is brought to believe
in Him, He comes then. God has sent forth the Spirit
of His Son into your hearts, crying, Father, Father. Is that
not Christ coming? He's coming. But it's a spiritual
coming, isn't it? There's another spiritual coming
of Christ, and He came in judgment. And that was after the destruction
of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Christ came. You say, Bruce,
how can you say that? He's in heaven. He didn't come.
Well, He didn't come physically. That's what we're saying. These
are spiritual comings. Only two physical comings. You
remember the parable in Luke chapter 20 where the Lord's talking
about the man that owned the vineyard, and he dug out a winepress
and he hedged it about, and he loaned it out to husbandmen.
And when it come time for him to get the fruit of his vineyard,
he sent his servants, and those husbandmen wouldn't give him
his fruits. He was speaking about the Jews. They wouldn't render
to God the glory. They claimed it for themselves.
They tried to usher what belonged to Christ along. And they killed
some of them when he sent them to them. And finally, he said,
what should I do with these husbands? And here's what he said, I will
come and destroy them. And that's what happened in A.D.
70. He came in judgment, even called the Roman soldiers his
soldiers, his army. He shall send his soldiers, his
servants, and destroy them. He came. But it's a spiritual
coming then. And the last spiritual coming,
we often hear this said, when a dear saint of God dies, what
do we say? The Lord came and took him home. We say that, don't we? Some people
think that John 14 is the Lord speaking of the saint dying.
I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for
you, I'll come again, I'll come again and receive you unto myself,
that where I am, there you may be also." I don't know if that's
actual death or He's coming again, but He does come for His people
when they die, and He takes them home. But now, right quickly,
right quickly, Let's look at the physical coming of Christ.
And let's look at it this way. I want you to turn back over
to my text. Look at the physical coming of Christ for just a minute.
Why is it even important? Why is it important that we look
and understand and believe the physical coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ? Well, what if He don't come again? What if what Larry
said those mockers said is true? And he's promised to come, but
he doesn't come. Well, the Scriptures are broken,
aren't they? And that's impossible for that to happen. He has promised
to come, and he'll keep his promise. He'll keep his promise. But beyond
that, and let's stay, I want to stay in my text here in the
context. Here in verses 19 through verse
23, first of all, this is why it's important. Here in verse
19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, if your hope
is confined to this world, if you're hoping that Christ will
give you health, you're hoping that Christ will just give you
some wealth, that Christ will just keep you safe and keep your
family, if your hope pertains to this world and what He can
give you in this world, you're a miserable person because you've
still got to face eternity. Our hope in Christ has to do
with the life that's to come. And it's hope for our bodies,
you see. It's hope for our bodies. This
is the marvelous thing about the coming again of our Lord
Jesus Christ. He is coming physically. And why is that important to
us? What we are physically is critical
to our being. We're made up of soul and we're
made up of body. And these two are vitally linked
together. It was never meant that they
should be separated. In death, they're separated for
a while. But isn't that what scares us
about dying? We're going to be separated. My soul, I'm leaving myself. I'm leaving what I've loved.
I'm leaving what I care for, my flesh, my members, my body. And I'll be honest with you,
sometimes, folks, I don't like that. That scares me. But here is our hope. Here is
our assurance that everything Jesus Christ did to redeem us,
He did in His physical body. And He's coming again in His
physical body. And when He comes again in His
physical body, that is an assurance for us that our bodies will be
saved in that day. Why has He got a physical body?
Because you and I are going to have a physical body. This is the hope that the Apostle
Paul is talking about. Now is Christ risen, in verse
20, and became the firstfruits of them that slept. My goodness,
our gardens have been in full swing now for a while, and we
know something about firstfruits, don't we? What is the firstfruit? It's that first tomato that gets
ripe. That you keep your eye on, keeping
from one of the kids or neighbors stealing it. And boy, you watch
it until it's ripe. And you get it out and you're
anxious to eat it. It's the first ripe. The first
fruits. But what does that tell you if
it's the first fruits? You've got a whole bunch more
that's coming. A whole bunch more that's coming. And Jesus Christ, in His humanity,
was the first man that ever raised from the dead to die no more. You have different people that
raised from the dead, but they had to die again, didn't they?
Poor Lazarus, he raised him from the dead, but he died again.
Oh man, here we go again, he said. Can't you imagine? I went through this once, and
here we go again. But when Jesus Christ raised
from the dead, he never died again. And that is an assurance
for us, just as he was raised physically. and is alive never
to die again, so will you and I be raised in our bodies." Now,
that's the glorious hope of the gospel. And, brothers and sisters,
only the gospel gives you that hope. Christ, the firstfruits,
and they that are Christ at His coming. What's going to happen
when He comes again? A resurrection. We shall live. In Adam, we all die physically. In Christ, we shall all be made
alive. And what a life that will be.
Oh, indescribable life. The Scripture says we're predestinated
to be conformed to the image of God's Son. Not just within. That's already started. But His
body, His physical likeness, my soul, what does He look like?
He's glorious, is He not? And when He comes again, Philippians
3 says, our conversations in heaven from which we look for
the Savior, He's coming again. He promised He'd come. And when
He comes, what's He going to do? He's going to change our
vile bodies and fashion them In a moment of time, likened
to his glorious body, with a working whereby he's able to subdue all
things unto himself. I look at you this morning, and
bless your heart, through the years I've watched your age.
Barb, I thought as you come in this morning, you're going to
get mad at me for saying this, my how old Barb is looking. I thought
of that, how old Barb is looking. And she says worse about me.
But you know something, brothers and sisters, she's not always
going to look like that. I ain't always going to look
like this. I'm not. This is my hope. And if you're in Christ, this
is your hope. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, you
shall appear with Him and you shall be like Him. His coming
is physical. Brother Larry told us this morning.
And that's why it's important to us, because we value our bodies. And to save our bodies, He had
to die in His body. But since He died in His body
and He ascended, never to die again, that assures us that we'll
be just like Him when He comes. Isn't that wonderful? You won't
find another religion in the world that presents a hope like
that. You won't find another book in the world but this Bible
that gives us a hope like that. Oh, what a hope. What a hope. And it has to do with the body.
Hope has to do with the body. Faith brings Christ down right
now. The instant we believe, we're
saved. The instant we believe, we're
forgiven of all of our sins. We're justified from everything. We're new creatures in Christ.
That has to do with faith. Life is ours now. But hope has
to do with the future. Hope has to do with the salvation
of the body. We're saved by hope. But hope
that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why does
he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see
not. And we don't see it yet because
it hasn't happened. He hasn't come. But He's coming. Oh, thank God He's coming. That's
His promise, and that's our hope. That's the first thing. Second
thing, look in verse 24. The first thing is this. Christ, the firstfruits. Afterwards,
they that is Christ that is coming. There's going to be a resurrection.
We're going to be changed. Live. And look in verse 24. At His coming, this is something
else. This is what's going to take
place at His coming. Verse 24. Then, the end. Our translator supplied the word
cometh, and that's all right. It makes it easier to read. But
if you leave it out, maybe it gets quicker to the point. Christ
at His coming, what's going to happen at His coming? The end. The end. Now, some people want
to put a lapse of time between verses 23 and verse 24, Christ's
coming and the end, but we really shouldn't do that. When He comes,
that's the end. And we shouldn't do that because
other scriptures parallel with this scripture. Listen to Matthew
chapter 24 and verse 3. The disciples came to the Lord
and said, Lord, what shall be the sign of Thy coming and of
the end of the world? You're coming and the end, they're
the same. Listen to John chapter 6 verse
38 through 40. Very familiar scripture to us.
I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will
of Him that sent me. And this is the will of Him that
sent me, that of all which He hath given me, I should lose
nothing, but raise it up again. When? At the last day. It is the will of my Father that
every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have
everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
He's coming. And when's He coming? At the
last day. You read the Scriptures, and
in the Old and New Testament, you often find the last day,
the great day, A day, the day of the Lord, the day of God. It's a specific time, and it's
the time of the end. God has appointed a day, a day,
in which He'll judge the world in righteousness. In the day
when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. The day of the Lord. The great
day of the Lord is sometimes spoken of in the scriptures.
Listen to Zephaniah 1.14. The great day of the Lord is
near. It is near, and it hasteth greatly. Even the voice of the day of
the Lord, the mighty men shall cry there bitterly. Listen to
Jude 1.6. The angels which kept not their
first estate but left their own habitation he hath reserved in
everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of thee last
day." Revelation 6, 17, "...the great day of his wrath is come,
and who shall be able to stand?" The great day of the Lord is
coming. It's a great day, the day. Take
your Bibles and turn one more. I told you I was going to give
you some exercises this morning. Look in 1 Thessalonians, chapter
5. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5. It's on page 1288. The context here of chapter four,
you that read this realize that he's speaking there of the coming
of the Lord. The Lord descended from heaven
and us being caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the
air. And we shall forever be with the Lord. Conquer one another,
he said with these words. We're not just, brothers and
sisters, we're not just looking at these passages to try to prove
something to somebody. Or so we can win an argument
with somebody that don't agree with us. But first and foremost,
we're looking at this because this is the only hope of anybody. And we're looking at this to
get assurance in our hearts that this is what I've got to look
forward to. This is what's coming for me.
And I want to know these. I want to get these passages
in my heart. And that's what he's talking about in chapter
4. And look what he goes on to say here in chapter 5. Look in verse 1. But of the times
and seasons of his coming, you have no need that I write unto
you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes
as a thief in the night. But when they shall say, Peace
and safety, look at this, then seven destruction cometh upon
them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not
escape. But ye, brethren, are not in
darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. You
are all the children of light, the children of the day. We are
not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as
do others, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep,
sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in
the night." When Jesus Christ comes to raise His saints and
to change those that are alive and remain, what's going to happen? Those mockers that Brother Larry
was telling us about this morning that said, where's the promise
of His coming? What's going to happen? Sudden destruction. Christ is coming. Sudden destruction
upon the wicked. One coming. One physical coming. And that ends it all. I tell you, that makes it...
You know, we've got people that believe... I have a pastor friend
of mine, several years ago he was a friend of mine. I was talking
to him about this very thing, about the resurrection, and he
says, I believe in several resurrections. I said, you believe in several
physical resurrections? He said, I believe in several
physical resurrections. What does that do to what you and
I are talking about this morning? It takes away from this great
event, this great day, this one day, this single coming of Jesus
Christ. It's a glorious thing. And what's
going to happen when He comes for His people? Everybody's going
to see Him. I can't find the secret rapture,
Brother Lurie, in the Scripture. I was going out at 36, and where
Bob's nephew pastors, and he had a sign, and he says, there's
no such thing as a secret rapture. You know what the Scripture said.
John said, That now we're the sons of God, it don't yet appear
what we shall be. But we know that when He shall
appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him. We shall
see Him, or I shall see Him. Fanny Crosby said, I'm glad I
was born blind. She said, in this body, the first
one I will ever see is the glorious face of my Lord and Savior. We'll
see Him. But you say, Bruce, that's the
saints. You're saying it's the end of the world. What about
the wicked? Well, listen to Revelation 1, verse 7. I'm coming again, he said, and
every eye shall see Him. Listen, even they who pierced
Him. He's not secretly coming, is
He? Somebody said, well, is it not?
Is it a thief in the night? Yes, it's a thief in the night.
But when He comes, everybody's going to be woke up. You see,
He's not coming and leaving in some sleep. He's coming, and
it's going to be sudden, and it's going to be the end of the
world. Now, I want you to turn one more
place with me, before I go on right quickly. Look over at what
Brother Larry was teaching us this morning. In 2 Peter chapter
3, look at this. Look in 2 Peter 3. Brother Larry read this to us this morning.
Verse 4, where is the promise of His coming? The promise of
His coming. The promise of His coming. And
look at verse 9 now. I'm on page 1327. 2 Peter 3.9. The Lord is not slack concerning
His promise, as some men kept slackness. He has a purpose,
doesn't He? He has a purpose. It seems like
sometimes it's going so slowly, but it's His purpose, and He's
fulfilling it. And someday He'll finish this
purpose. He's long-suffering to usward
His people, His elect people, not willing that any of them
should perish, but all should come to repentance. Look in verse
10. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night."
That's what Paul told us, wasn't it? When he comes after his people,
he's coming as a thief in the night. What's going to happen
when he comes? "...in the which the heavens
shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall
melt with fervent heat, and the earth also, and the works thereof
shall be burned up." Seeing then that we that all these things
shall be dissolved, what mannered persons ought ye to be in all
holy conduct and godliness." My lands, if we lived in the
hope of this, in the reality of this, how would it affect
our priorities? How would it affect how we live
day after day? What we thought, who we talked
about, what we talked about. How we would use the things that
God has given us. If we stood every day and lived
every day in the hope that He's coming again and all of these
things that I'm using, it's going to be burned up. The old truck,
Wayne, it's a goner, ain't it? My little Chevy, it's a goner.
My house that I've sunk so much money in, like a sinkhole, it's
going to be burned up. It's going to pass away. Let me set my affections upon
things that's eternal. Things that's going to stand
when this world is shaken and burned up. Look in verse 12,
"...looking for and host-tasting unto the coming of the day of
God." Look at that! I thought it was the coming of
Christ. That's very telling, isn't it? It is the coming of
Christ. It's the coming of the day of
God. "...When the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and
the elements shall melt with firmer heat, Nevertheless, we
according to His promise look for a new heaven and a new earth.
I'm going to hurry. Run back over to my text again.
1 Corinthians chapter 15. Let me cover two more things
right quickly. I want to stay in the text. Look in 1 Corinthians
15. Look in verse 24 again. Then
come at the end. That's what's going to happen
when He comes. The end. That's it. No second chances. None of that stuff. The end. The end. When he shall have delivered
up the kingdom to God, even the Father. He's going to deliver
up the kingdom. In that day, this great day,
when the end comes, Jesus Christ is going to deliver up the kingdom. What in the world does that mean?
It means that God the Father has entrusted Him, His own dear
Son. to fulfill all His purpose in
redemption. He said, I'm going to save a
bunch of people out of Adam's race. You can't even number them,
there's so many. Well, how are you going to save them? I'm going
to give them to my Son. And He's going to be in charge.
I've charged Him to save them and bring them to me and present
them to me someday, holy and without blemish. And here it
is. On that last day, He will present you to His Father. without
any spot on you, without any blemish, without any blame, you'll
be holy and without rebuke in that day. Now is Christ able
to do that? Why, He's never failed you, has
He? And He will not. You can put all your trust in
Him, all your confidence in Him. If God put all His confidence
in Him, I think we should too, don't you? He's going to deliver
up the kingdom unto the Father. but to Him that is able to keep
you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence
of His glory with exceeding joy." I don't know, brothers and sisters,
what all is going to happen on this day. I'll be honest with
you. It's a great day. We've seen that. I mean, if you
take the elements and they're fleeing away and burning up,
that must be a great day. And how somebody like you And
how somebody like me is not only going to stand, but stand in
the presence of God's glory and stand there rejoicing, rejoicing,
not shaking, not trembling, not guilty, but rejoicing. What a
gospel. Look at this. Look at the last
part of verse 24. Not only is He going to in that
day when He comes again, deliver up the kingdom to the Father,
but look at this, when he shall have put down all rule and all
authority and all power. We have some rulers now, don't
we? Even God's ordained them. We have a president. God's ordained
him to. We vote him in. We vote in our
senators and our governors and our sheriffs, our mayors. But
it's God who puts them there. Their powers, their authorities,
their rulers. But you know something? There's
coming a day when Christ comes again, when the end comes, that
all of those guys are going to lose their jobs. Vladimir Putin,
he's going to be put down. His office won't even exist anymore. Every rule, the sun God made
to rule the day, that's going to be put down. He made the moon
to rule the night. The moon's going to be gone.
All rule and authority is gone, and Jesus Christ will put it
all under His feet. See, we have it now. We have
rule now. And it's all under His authority.
But there's coming a day when it's going to be completely done
away with. Old Pilate said, don't you know I've got authority over
you? I've got power to release you or crucify you. He said,
you poor, poor little old man whose breath is in your nostrils.
You could have no power at all over me except it were given
you by my Father. Where's Pilate now? Where's all
of his power now? Christ put him down, didn't He?
And that's what He's going to do to everything and everybody. Aren't you glad that He's conquered
you? That He's put you down already?
That He's made you throw up your hands and say, Lord, I have no
power. I have no authority. I can do
nothing. Lord, save me. Save me. He's going to put all
His enemies under His feet. And He brought you there at His
feet, didn't He? And He took you, His enemy, and made you
His friend. And you that used to hate Him
and didn't know Him and had no desire to know Him, now you worship
Him and say, He's mine and I'm His. And this last thing is a
wonderful thing. Verse 25 and verse 26, He must
reign. He must reign. He must reign. You wonder why we talk about
sovereign grace? You wonder why we talk about
the sovereignty of our Lord? He's reigning. He's reigning. Would you let Jesus? Would you
please untie Jesus' hands? Would you please help Jesus? Jesus is the reigning King. There's some must in the Bible,
and here's one of them. He must reign. He's over everything, is He not?
The man in his physical being at the right hand of the authority
of God, you can't even leave your seat and walk through that
door without He gives you the strength and the power and the
okay to do it. He's reigning. And He must reign
until He's put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy
that shall be destroyed, the last enemy, is death. And you know what the Bible says
He's going to do when He comes again? He said, They that are
in the grave shall hear His voice and come forth. And you know
what He's going to do? The Bible teaches that. He's
going to mock the grave. He's going to make fun of death.
You think the Lord doesn't have a sense of humor? You just wait
for the resurrection. And He looks down in the grave
and He says, Oh death, where's your stain now? Oh, grave, you
bragged and boasted yourself every time they put one of my
saints down in you. Oh, I've got him now. Where's
your victory? Huh? Boy, when you're king, when you've
got all power, you can brag, can't you? You look death right
in the face. I ain't afraid of you. I've done
conquered you. Here's the keys. I've come to get my people. Let
them go. And death raises his ugly head,
and what does he do? He destroys it. He's done yielded
to the womb that he'll never recover from when he raised from
the dead himself. But on the resurrection morning,
death is destroyed. And he'll never touch you again,
dear child of God. You'll never have to fear it
again. He'll never come near you again. Those who are lost,
they'll forever die. They'll forever die. Death will
feed upon them. But those who are in Christ,
those that He raised from the dead in that day, death will
never touch them again. It's destroyed. Oh, no wonder
John said, Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus. Let's pray.