Tag: God’s judgment

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With the Lord

“And so we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

When will that happen? It will happen when Jesus comes for his people and takes them to his Father’s house in heaven. We may take his word for it. He promised, “I will come again.” At the time he departed from the earth an angel said to his disciples, “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back” (Acts 1:11). The Bible is full of references to his second coming.

What will happen? At the time of his appearing there will be two outcomes, one for those whose faith is in him, and one for those who reject and deny him. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, the apostle Paul wrote that those who die as believers in Christ will be resurrected to be caught up to be with the Lord. They are said to be the “dead in Christ.” They will be raised from the dead. Believers who are alive when he returns will be transformed and caught up with those who have been resurrected, and “together” they will be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

Paul says believers will “meet the Lord in the air.” Frankly, that is hard to imagine. But it is a thrilling prospect. At his ascension, Jesus was taken up into the clouds (Acts 1:9-11). The Old Testament patriarch Enoch was “taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away” (Hebrews 11:5). Something like that happened to the prophet Elijah: “Suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind” (2 Kings 2:11). Paul himself had an experience which he found hard to describe. He was caught up to heaven, where he saw and heard things that were amazing (2 Corinthians 12:2-4).

Fanciful? Unbelievable? Wishful thinking? I think not. The Bible is full of supernatural occurrences. If we deny the supernatural, we deny the power of God and the word of God. God’s word says the coming of Jesus to take his people to be with him will be a supernatural event that is as certain as his first coming to earth. If we believe his word, we will expect his coming.

We deny this at our peril. The same scriptures that promise salvation for those who have faith in Jesus also predict another outcome for those who reject him. When the Lord returns it will result in “sudden destruction” for those who are in spiritual darkness (1 Thessalonians 5:3). “The day of the Lord” will be a future time when God will intervene with judgment for those who reject him. This will be as unexpected as “a thief in the night.” There will be no escape.

If your faith is in Jesus, the Bible says you “are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief” (1 Thessalonians 5:4). “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10).

Come, Lord Jesus.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

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Noah’s Warnings

The war in the Middle East has prompted some people to ask questions about the second coming of Jesus Christ. When Jesus was asked about his return at the end of the age, he used Noah and his generation as an example.

“No one knows the day or the hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. This is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:36-39).

In his response to the question about the end times (Matthew 24:3), our Lord cited the flood, the one great historical demonstration by God that there will be a future universal judgment. He reminds us that those who refuse God’s merciful warnings will not escape his wrath. Judgment came once, and it will come again.

Noah’s life  was a warning to his generation. He was preaching by his words and actions that judgment was imminent. The people did not take him seriously even though he was building a boat the size of an ocean liner. It was a visible offer of safety to any who would pay attention. Noah was a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5), challenging the ignorance and immorality of his generation.

Noah’s character was another warning. He stood alone in his generation as a “righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God” (Genesis 6:9). He could be called blameless because of God’s grace. “Noah found favor (grace) in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8). He did not find favor with God because he was righteous. He was righteous because he found favor with God, or because of God’s grace. It is the same for people today. The way to be righteous before God is to be “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). “Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

Noah was motivated by faith in God. “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (Hebrews 11:7). Noah’s preaching and example “condemned,” or rebuked the ungodly lives of the people of his generation (Genesis 6:5). His message was a warning to them of God’s coming judgment.

Jesus said that just before the his return,  the world will be going about its business indifferent toward spiritual things. They will behave as in Noah’s day: “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” without any regard for God. People’s brains were hardwired to be skeptical of Noah’s message. The sad truth is that the majority of people today are willfully ignorant of the Bible’s warnings of God’s judgment and of his gracious offer of salvation.

John MacArthur wrote “The next judgment will be different in two ways. First, it will not be by flood (Genesis 9:15) but by fire (2 Peter 3:10). Second, it will be the last. . . . The only security is refuge in God’s ark, Jesus Christ.”

Pastor Randy Faulkner