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Why I Love Christ’s Appearing
By John Linton
(1888–1965)
"Henceforth there
is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them
also that love his appearing."—II Tim. 4:8.
There should be no need to ask a Christian why he should love Christ’s
appearing.
Why should a child of three, who for many weeks has been thinking
and dreaming of Christmas trees and Christmas gifts, be asked if he loves
the coming Christmas?
Why should a schoolboy be asked if he loves the arrival of summer
vacation?
Why should a bride, standing at the marriage altar waiting for her
delayed bridegroom, be asked if she loves her bridegroom’s appearing?
Why should a faithful wife, awaiting the return of her long-absent
husband, need to be asked if and why she longs for his coming?
Why should the church of Christ, which He calls His bride, not look
for, long for and love the appearing of Christ, her Heavenly Bridegroom?
I am not a crank on prophecy. I preach more often on Christ’s first
coming than on His second coming.
I live in a city where the second coming is seldom preached. I scan
the church page and seldom see Christ’s coming announced as a sermon topic.
My text promises a special crown of reward for those who love Christ’s
appearing. Many Christians will not receive this crown. They don’t know
much about His second coming because they seldom hear a sermon on the subject
and they don’t read the Bible to learn for themselves what it says about
this wonderful event. Obviously, you can’t love an event if you know little
or nothing about it.
I read a sermon recently on Matthew 24:44 where Jesus said, "Therefore
be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh."
This sermon, printed on the front page of a denominational publication,
was a call to salvation for the reasons that death might strike suddenly,
another world war might suddenly break out, or some sickness or disaster
befall us. But concerning the at-any-moment coming of Christ, there was
not one solitary word!
Read my text again for yourself and see that the crown our Lord promised
is for those who love His coming, not for those who deliberately ignore
it.
I will set forth several reasons why I personally love the second
coming of Christ.
I love it because
I. God the Father Loves It
God so loves the coming
again of His Son that He promises a special crown of reward to those who
share this love with Him.
If you hear a man talking,
talking, talking about fishing, then you know that he loves fishing. God
must love the promised appearing of Christ when He has so much to say about
it.
Almost one-fourth of
the Bible is devoted to prophecy and the events connected with our Lord’s
return.
We believe baptism
is important. Paul spoke of it fourteen times, and of the second coming,
fifty times.
We believe the new
birth is important. The Bible speaks of it nine times, and of the second
coming, 315 times. The God who inspired the writing of the New Testament
led the writers to mention the second coming once in every twenty-five
verses.
Some preachers say
little or nothing about it, but God has filled the Bible with this glorious
truth. If you are ever inclined to criticize those who make much of the
second coming, you had better include God Himself in that criticized group!
I want to emphasize
what God emphasizes. I want to love what God loves.
Dr. F. W. Farr, speaking
on this subject, says, "We should be concerned with what God says rather
than with what man thinks; and God must think a great deal of this truth,
else He would not have so much to say about it in His Word."
I love it because
II. The Early Christians Loved
His Appearing
They were "looking
for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and
our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13).
Paul tells us the Thessalonians
were waiting for the Son from Heaven (I Thess. 1:10).
The last prayer in
the Bible is the heart-cry of the apostolic church, "Even so, come, Lord
Jesus." To this prayer I add, Amen!
For three centuries
the hope of Christ’s coming burned brightly in the hearts of believers.
Massillon tells us it was considered almost a heresy in the first three
centuries not to be sighing for His return.
In later centuries
this truth was neglected and almost forgotten, but in these latter days
we have seen a revival of interest in the Lord’s return.
Jesus taught in the
parable of the ten virgins that on the eve of His coming a cry would go
ringing through the churches, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh": it seems
we are living in the time of the midnight cry. Despite the general apathy
on this subject, there is a great and growing multitude of God’s people
who, like the early Christians, are looking for and praying for the coming
of the Lord.
Moreover, I love it
because
III. The Devil Hates It
Satan hates this truth
and the mighty event it proclaims because it means his doom. When Christ
comes, Satan’s head will be bruised.
"And I saw an
angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a
great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent,
which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast
him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him,
that he should deceive the nations no more."—Rev. 20:1–3.
This mighty angel is the
Devil’s jailer, and he gives him the longest prison sentence on record,
and I hope it is with hard labor.
If the Devil had his
way, Jesus would never come. He dreads the hour of his doom as it draws
near.
Some professing Christians
can hardly bear the mention of Christ’s coming. That’s how Satan feels.
I want to love what Satan hates; don’t you?
Then too I love it
because
IV. It Will Vindicate God’s Word
God’s ways are not
man’s ways. Despite the many plain promises of what God will do and how
He will do it, and because Bible prophecies do not coincide with what some
men think God should do and how He should do it, these promises are either
denied or explained away.
There are glorious
promises of a literal, visible, bodily coming of Christ down to this earth.
In our day this is being flatly denied by some who call themselves Christians.
Said one attending a conference:
We chose "Christ, the
hope of the world" as our theme…. When it comes to such things as the second
coming, I am from Missouri. This coming again stuff is plain foolishness.
How can a man with any intellectual honesty stoop to such nonsense?
At the same conference
another liberal had this to say:
There is no warrant
in the Scriptures for this doctrine which has plagued the church for nineteen
centuries. When Paul in Thessalonians said that the Lord will descend from
Heaven and the dead in Christ will rise first and shall be caught up with
those who are left to meet the Lord in the air, he was just plain mistaken.
As far as I am concerned, the writings of Paul do not belong in the Scriptures.
Such infidel vaporings
are an exact fulfillment of the Scriptures predicting that "There shall
come in the last days scoffers,…saying, Where is the promise of his coming?"
My friends, I am waiting
for God’s promises to be fulfilled and fulfilled exactly as He said. The
coming of Christ to resurrect and translate the believers, the Great Tribulation
that will follow, the descent of Christ to this earth, the regathering
and national conversion of Israel—every single prophecy will be fulfilled
and God’s holy Word vindicated.
It will be so because
God says so.
"I am God, and
there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient
times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand,
and I will do all my pleasure…yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring
it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it."—Isa. 46:9–11.
Of course He will do it,
and exactly as He promised to do it. I believe that, and I can hardly wait
to see this blessed Book vindicated in the presence of men who scorned
it. The Bible will come into its own when Christ our Saviour appears.
But further, I love
it because
V. It Is a Purifying Hope
John says, "And every
man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure"
(I John 3:3). That
is a natural result of belief in Christ’s at-any-moment coming. If to love
the Lord’s appearing led to careless living, to coldness of heart toward
God and the saving of men, one could understand why some Christians would
not love it. But when this truth helps us live a separated life, gives
earnestness to our prayers, urgency to our preaching, and keeps our passion
for souls warm and alive, then I love this truth for its salutary effect
and marvel that any other Christian would not as fervently love it.
Said Dr. R. A. Torrey,
one of the world’s greatest evangelists:
The imminent return
of our Lord is the great Bible argument for a pure, unselfish, devoted,
unworldly, active life of service.
In much of our modern
preaching we urge people to live holily and work diligently because death
is swiftly coming. But that is never the Bible argument. The Bible argument
always is, Christ is coming! Be ready when He comes!
This leads inevitably
to the question, "What constitutes readiness for the coming of the Lord?"
Answer: Separation from the world’s indulgence of the flesh, from the world’s
immersion in the affairs of this life, and intense, daily earnestness in
prayer—is the first part of preparation for the Lord’s return.
When I note that practically
every great soul winner has been a lover of Christ’s at-any-moment coming,
then I too, with them, want to love that event.
Dr. Munhall, an American
evangelist who was used of God to add fifty thousand members to the Methodist
church, and who all during his great ministry has preached Christ’s coming,
said:
I have known personally
every prominent evangelist in America, Great Britain and Ireland for the
last fifty years, and every man of them, with possibly one single exception,
was an ardent premillennialist.
D. L. Moody said:
I never preach
a sermon without thinking that possibly the Lord might use that sermon
to call out the last saint who should go to make up the full number of
God’s elect, and so bring about the Lord’s coming.
Dr. Campbell Morgan said:
I never lay my
head upon the pillow without thinking that maybe before the morning breaks,
the final morning may have dawned. I never begin my work in the morning
without thinking that perhaps He may interrupt my work and begin His own.
We are not looking for death. We are looking for Him.
When someone put a tract
into the hand of Dr. Torrey, he said:
As I read that
tract, it brought the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ home to me in a way
that was very real and personal, and it transformed the whole character
of my life. It is transforming the lives of more men and women than almost
any other doctrine I know of.
What is the secret back
of the prodigious labors of Dr. Lee Roberson of Chattanooga? He himself
has testified that a realization of the truth that Christ might return
at any moment revolutionized his life and ministry.
I could multiply instances
of the practical and purifying influence of this momentous truth. Dr. John
Roach Straton, valiant defender of the Faith, once said:
I wish to give
my own personal testimony that I did not overcome the habit of smoking
until the truth of the return of our Lord came home clearly to my mind
and heart. When I did thus believe that Jesus Christ is surely coming back
to this world again, as He plainly promised, and that His coming for His
church may be at any moment, I found grace to throw pipes and cigars away
completely, never to take them up again. I did not want Jesus to come back
and find me with a breath that was offensive, or presenting the sorry spectacle
of a preacher with a pipe or cigar in the corner of his mouth.
Howard A. Banks tells
of a man of the world who had found Christ. He had been in the daily habit
of dropping into a saloon each noon for a glass of beer. He had thought
no more of it than of drinking a glass of milk.
Entering the saloon
one day and ordering his beer, the thought came to him: Suppose the Lord
should come at this moment! He had lifted the glass, but before it reached
his lips, he set it down again, paid for it, turned on his heel and left
the saloon. For him, as for Dr. Straton, the blessed hope was a purifying
hope.
I repeat: Any truth
that makes men great soul winners and better Christians is a truth to be
loved.
Yet again, I love it
because
VI. It Ushers in the Glorious Kingdom
Age
When Christ comes,
He will establish on earth a kingdom of universal righteousness and will
reign for one thousand years. This will be a different world with Christ
present and the Devil absent.
For centuries men have
prayed, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."
Christ’s coming will be the answer to this prayer.
Universal righteousness
will prevail, for we read, "The earth shall be full of the knowledge of
the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Isa. 11:9).
Poverty and injustice
will come to an end, for we read, "And they shall build houses, and inhabit
them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall
not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat"
(Isa. 65:21,22).
This will be more like
the kind of world God meant it to be. Who would not love the coming of
such a day!
Then too I love it
because
VII. It Will End All Wars
In the glorious Kingdom
Age, wars will be abolished. It is the sin and greed of men that makes
preparation for war necessary today. Nations have to defend themselves
against international gangsters, murderers and aspirants to world domination.
But Christ’s coming
will be the one great war that will end all wars. We read, "He maketh wars
to cease unto the end of the earth" (Ps. 46:9). Isaiah tells us: "They
shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks:
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn
war any more" (Isa. 2:4).
Oh, what a day that
will be! No more war! No more military serv-ice! No more training our boys
to kill! It is necessary now, but not when Jesus comes.
In World War I, according
to Field Marshal Robertson, 37 million died. In World War II, the death
toll was 22,500,000. Who can forget the daily lists through four or five
agonizing years of those "Killed in Action"? Parents bereft of sons, wives
bereft of husbands, children bereft of fathers.
Now it is nuclear war,
ballistic missiles! No wonder men’s hearts are failing them for fear all
over the earth. Thank God, the coming of the Prince of Peace will end all
wars! How could any Chris-tian fail to love His appearing!
Finally, I love it
because
VIII. It Is the Time of Resurrection,
Translation and Reunion
Christ’s coming brings
full redemption for the Christian. These bodies of ours, now mortal, must
be made immortal. The dead bodies of the saints must be raised. This takes
place in that glad moment when Christ comes in the air to take His people
unto Himself.
This redemption of
the body is that event for which the whole inanimate creation groans and
waits (Rom. 8:22). Why would not we also long for it?
Paul describes this
phase of our Lord’s coming in I Thessalonians 4:16,17:
"For the Lord
himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel,
and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then
we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in
the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the
Lord."
Think of it—"together
with them"; and also "with the Lord." What a meeting that will be! Who
would not long for the coming of that sublime hour!
For one thing, we shall
meet our loved ones gone before us into the presence of the King. I am
thrilled with the thought of meeting some of mine.
Then too we shall meet
all the great and godly believers of past ages and have fellowship with
them. To ask me if I love His coming is to ask me if I would like to meet
personally all the great Bible characters of Old and New Testament times,
together with every Spirit-filled man and woman who has adorned Christian
history down through the centuries. What a noble host of martyrs, reformers,
preachers and evangelists with whom we are to have fellowship! And you
ask me why I long for the hour of that meeting!
Sure, I know there
is work to do for God here and now, but love for His coming does not lead
to idleness or careless living. That slander needs to be nailed to the
counter. Look around you at the servants of God who most long for Christ’s
coming; they are numbered among the greatest soul winners to be found anywhere.
But the best is yet
to come, for there is this above all: we shall meet our Lord Jesus Christ
Himself and actually look upon His face.
Here is where words
fail us. For men and women who, during a whole lifetime, have walked and
talked with Christ by faith in His absence, now to stand in His actual
presence, to mark His features, and to have Him address them by name personally—that
will be an experience no words of man can ever describe.
In that ecstatic moment,
when His word of welcome to you is spoken and this special crown of reward
is being given, I trust you will be one of those who receive it, because
you loved His appearing.
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