The Glorious End of the World

And if you would also, as we
have done for the last several weeks, take also your bulletin
and be prepared there as well. In Peter’s second epistle, there
is a very direct, very solemn, extremely sober passage of Scripture. that very briefly will introduce
the thoughts of the morning passage, where Peter, in addressing these
first century saints, said this. Know this, first of all, that
in the last days, mockers will come with their mocking. And
Peter, speaking, spoke of the last days, perhaps even thinking
that they were just a few dozen or perhaps a few hundred years
off. And in a very real sense, there
has always been a spirit of mocking by the world towards Christ and
toward the things of God. You could very well say that
if this singular issue was the issue than we have always been,
in a sense, in the last days. But we are certainly experiencing
that the spirit of those days, even in our own day and age.
Mockers coming with their mocking. In the last days, mockers will
come with their mocking, following after their own lusts. That’s
what fuels the fire. That’s why they can’t look at
and embrace Christ, is because they have sinned to contend with. And they have to live fast enough
to stay ahead of it. In the last days, mockers will
come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, saying,
where is the promise of His coming? You Christians are always telling
me about Jesus and His return. That Jesus is coming back. That
He came once and He’s coming again. That somehow, miraculously,
He was raised from the dead and He’s going to come back for you.
Where is He? You can hear it. I’ve heard it.
Where is the promise of His coming? And in a sense, we’ve talked
about this in months past, In a sense, Christians kind of fall
into this as well. We begin to despair and get discouraged,
thinking ourselves, where is the promise of his coming? Where
are you, Lord? For even their argument goes
like this, for ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues
just as it was from the beginning of creation. I get up, I see
the sunrise, I go to work. I come home. I eat dinner. I
go to bed. Everything continues just like
it’s always been this way. It always will be this way. And
Peter says, what foolishness. For when they maintain this,
it escapes their notice. There isn’t a lot of sarcasm
in Scripture, but that’s exactly what I read this to be. It escapes
their notice. They just forgot to look. Perhaps
they didn’t realize that by the Word of God, the heavens existed
long ago. That is an act of faith to take
that. Hebrews 11 says that if you believe that God created
the world in six days, you are in the hall of faith. For even when they maintain this,
it escapes their notice that by the Word of God, the heavens
existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by
water. Were you there? That’s exactly
what Peter’s saying. You weren’t there, were you?
You don’t know what has always been. But the present heavens and earth
by His Word are being reserved for fire kept for the day of
judgment and destruction of ungodly men. God will prove Himself in
time. God will prove Himself in time.
We don’t need to echo the mocking Where is the promise of His coming?
It’s coming. The Lord is coming. And we don’t
need to speculate. There’s all kinds of speculation
and what one called useless argument about the Lord’s second coming,
when it’s going to happen, what it will be like. Some of those
things aren’t ours to know, even as we’ve seen weeks past. But
there are central truths to this whole discussion that are noble. And the great truth is that God’s
history will see itself through, that God has a plan, that history
is going from point A to point B. God will take us there. It’s not just meandering through
space. God has a goal and the goal is the Exaltation of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He will be Lord of all. That’s
exactly the passage that we come to in Luke chapter 21. If you
would, I want to begin in verse 25. I’ve told you the plan of
synthesizing this passage and how crucial it is to synthesize
these things and to look at Mark and Matthew as well. And I’ve
done that in your bulletin and we’ll look at some additional
verses, but I want to take you to the Gospel of Luke just to
take the Lord’s words as Luke recorded them beginning in verse
25. There will be signs in sun and moon and stars and on the
earth dismay among nations in perplexity at the roaring of
the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation
of the things which are coming upon the world. for the powers
of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of
Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these
things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads because
your redemption is drawing near. So you also, when you see these
things happening, recognize that the kingdom of God is near. Truly,
I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all
these things take place. Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but my words will not pass away. Be on guard so that your hearts
will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and
the worries of life and that day will not come upon you suddenly
like a trap. For it will come upon all those
who dwell on the face of the earth. But keep alert at all
times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these
things that are about to take place and to stand before the
Son of Man. Now, during the day, He was teaching
in the temple. But at evening, He would go out
and spend the night on the mount that is called Olivet. And all
the people would get up early in the morning to come to Him
in the temple and listen to Him. As we’ve indicated, there is
much speculation about these passages. We don’t seek to speculate. We seek to understand what is
knowable. And we have begun on this course
of recording or reading and studying the recorded words of Jesus called
Mount Olive or from there on Mount Olive’s called the Olivet
Discourse. We began by considering the false
signs that Jesus pointed to false messiahs, false labor, false
incrimination. All of those things that said
Jesus that Jesus pointed to are not the direct harbingers of. His immediate return, we looked
at the details of the persecution of Christ Church, we looked at
the closing testimony, the opportunity that Christians have in the midst
of that persecution to have and to be a witness. We looked at the end in view,
the panorama of the end of the age, the indications of the end
of the age, the trigger of the end of the age, the preaching
of the gospel. We looked at the features and the desperation
and all of that pointing to one great thing. And even in the
midst of all the difficulty, we could almost become myopic
and begin to focus more on the difficulties than the one great
end. And today is the one great end.
Today we come to the verse that is the great purpose of all of
this. It is the return of the Lord
Jesus Christ. One pastor said, the second personal
coming of Christ shall be as different as possible from his
first. He came the first time as a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. He was born in the manger of
Bethlehem in lowliness and humiliation. He took on Him the form of a
servant and was despised and rejected of men. He was betrayed
into the hands of wicked men, condemned by an unjust judgment,
mocked, scourged, crowned with thorns and at last crucified
between two thieves. But He shall come the second
time as the King of all the earth with royal majesty. There will
be no scoffing. There will be no jesting at Christ,
no infidelity at the last day. The princes and great men of
this world shall themselves stand before His throne to receive
an eternal sentence. Before Him, every mouth shall
be stopped and every knee shall bow and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord.” And that’s what it’s all about. It’s
not about earthquakes. It’s not about armies. It’s not
about even chastisement of the nations. It’s about the Lord
Jesus Christ and His return and His Lordship. And so we want
to begin this morning by looking at the glorious end of the world,
the glorious end of the world. And I’m sure that if you’re like
me, even as I conceived that title, I thought, boy, that’s
pushing it. Maybe you even think that there’s
some incongruity there. The glorious end of the world
with all this death and destruction and not to mention judgment. The glorious end of the world,
Pastor. It is the glorious end of the
world. We don’t have to be happy about the death. We don’t have
to be happy about the judgment that is coming. We don’t have
to rejoice in all the difficulty and calamity and the great cataclysms
that are going to come upon the earth. All the woes that are
poured out by God’s wrath, we don’t have to be happy about
any of that. That’s not what I mean by glorious.
But the end will be glorious. It will be glorious indeed, because
it is the return of Christ and it will be ultimately glorious.
It is the glorious end of the world. And we do have that to
look forward to. And we can rejoice in that. If you would, I want to look
at just four glorious signs. Four glorious elements of the
end of the world. First of all, this morning, I
want to look at the sign of the glorious end. The signs, rather,
of the glorious end, what I would call celestial shock. Look at
verse 25. And it is frightening even to
us. And we won’t even be there. There will be signs in sun and
moon and stars and on the earth. Dismay among nations in perplexity
at the roaring of the sea and the waves. Men fainting from
fear and the expectation of things which are coming upon the world
for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. You can’t even
begin to paint a picture of all of that. What does it mean that
the powers of the heavens will be shaken? It has nothing to
do with God’s throne. What does it mean? We can’t even
begin to paint a picture of it. And as I said, if you are in
Christ, you will already have been raptured. You will already
be with Christ in heaven. But even as we read these things,
these are frightening times. difficulties the world has never
known. There will be signs in sun and moon and stars. All three
synoptic writers record Jesus revealing that there will be
these fantastic signs that immediately follow the Great Tribulation.
Only Matthew provides the specific context for these words. Matthew says immediately after
the Tribulation. So exactly how many days, whatever,
immediately as those tribulation days come to an end, Jesus says
there will be these fantastic signs. And the purpose of these
signs is to herald the return of our Lord. Luke doesn’t even
attempt to describe it. He’ll go on to speak of mankind’s
response to these horrific and terrifying images. But Luke doesn’t
even attempt to describe what is taking place in the sky. He
records no detail about them, sun and moon and stars, signs
up there, and that’s it. That’s all you get from Luke.
And if all we had was Luke, we’d say, OK, fine. Signs in the sky,
that’s great. Because an eclipse can be a sign,
not harmful, not even particularly frightening, solar or lunar.
Solar flares can be a sign, right? Dear brother gave me a paper
this past week about sunspots and how sunspots, you know, they
have a cycle and that cycle can even lower the Earth’s temperature
and that we are on that trajectory to have, you know, kind of combating
the whole global warming myth. This is much more than that,
much more than a sunspot. But solar flares can be a sign,
sunspots can be a sign, a full moon can be a sign, right? Or
a sliver moon or whatever, a shooting star can be a sign. But Luke
doesn’t tell us anything more than. What he writes, sun, moon,
stars, there’s going to be signs, that’s it. And as I said, if
that’s all we have, we move on from there without even a pause.
But there’s more, much more. Matthew and Mark both provide
even greater detail about these signs. I’ve inserted it there
in your bulletin just beneath the beginning there of verse
25. There will be signs and sun and
moon and stars. What kind of signs? Matthew details
it for us. The sun will be darkened, Matthew
says. Now, I know that even at first
reading, you’re reading that and you’re saying, well, darkened,
dimmed. I could do it dimmed. You know,
I don’t have to use the SPF 50 anymore. I could deal with dimmed. I’m alright with dimmed for a
while. The sun will be darkened. How? Will it burn out? Will the earth
suffer some kind of eclipse that obscures the sun? Will some earthly
phenomenon, some calamity that produces some epic cloud cover the sun? Here’s my thought. Maybe the ozone layer, right?
Maybe the ozone goes bananas and goes the other way and thickens
to the point where the sun’s rays can’t penetrate through.
Maybe that happens, right? What is it? Is it any of that? We don’t know. Jesus doesn’t
tell us specifically. There’s an interesting hint in
the next phenomenon. Because Jesus says the moon will
not give its light, and we know well. Science has proven the
moon has no light of its own to give. The moon merely reflects
the light that the sun provides. The sun isn’t just dimmed. The sun is darkened. The sun
is out. The sun is blackened. And if
the sun is blackened, to use Jesus’ words, darkened, it is
perfectly logical now that the moon is also darkened. But there’s
a third phenomena that’s interesting as well. Jesus says not only
the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light
and the stars will fall from the sky. Literally fall? I don’t know. What would that
look like? Depending on your perspective
on earth, if the stars were falling on one point of the earth, it
might look on another point of the earth like they’re gathering
together or just flying around in the sky. When we see a comet
in the sky, we call it a shooting star or a falling star. As one
pastor said, there’s a degree of symbolism here. Almost no
one expects the stars to fall to earth literally. while there are, as we’ve even
seen in the past couple of months, apocalyptic, end-of-the-world
type movies centered around this theme of some meteor crashing
to earth and wiping us all out. If even one planet-sized star
literally fell to the earth, it’s over, right? It’s over. That would be a cataclysmic death
blow. And so the word falling here We use our relative perspective
as we look out on the night sky, even though a star rarely makes
it through Earth’s atmosphere and literally falls all the way
to Earth. We often use metaphorical language
to describe that phenomena. And it seems clear enough to
understand that the stars are moving and being removed. That’s
enough for us to know the stars are literally being removed.
And I take that to mean all of them. But to where God’s moving
them isn’t any of our concern. All told, when you think of the
sun and the moon and the stars, what he’s referring to, darkened
sun, darkened moon, no stars, you’re talking about utter blackness. Overwhelming dark. Little light, if there’s electricity
at all. Whatever little light fires could
provide. Other than that, utter blackness.
And with that, no doubt, cold. Dreadful, dreadful scene. One
described it in these terms. He said such signs will have
a sensational worldwide effect. Every person in every nation
of the world will take note. The whole world’s attention will
be immediately drawn heavenward. The sense of dread and worldwide
panic is scarcely imaginable. Christ is predicting cosmic signs
of some kind, signs so spectacular that everyone on Earth could
not possibly miss them. And of course, the disciples,
knowing their Bible, would have immediately recognized this language
as an echo, really, of just so many prophecies. Listen to just
a few. Isaiah 13, 10. The stars of heaven
and their constellations will not flash forth their light.
The sun will be dark when it rises and the moon will not shed
its light. Joel 2, 10. Joel 2.10, before
them the earthquakes, the heavens tremble, the sun, the moon grow
dark and the stars lose their brightness. Later on in that
same prophecy, Joel 2.30, I will display wonders in the sky and
on the earth, blood, fire, columns of smoke. The sun will be turned
into darkness and the moon into blood. Isaiah 13, verse 9, Behold,
the day of the Lord is coming, cruel with fury and burning anger,
to make the land a desolation, and He will exterminate sinners
from it. For the stars of heaven and their
constellations will not flash forth their light. The sun will
be dark when it rises, and the moon will not shed its light.”
There was no doubt in the Apostle’s mind what Jesus was talking about. He’s talking about the end. The
very end. Haggai 2.6, thus says the Lord,
one more in a little while I am going to shake the heavens and
the earth, the sea and also the dry land. Speaking of the other
cataclysms that are coming. There’s no doubt what the apostles
were hearing. They knew that Jesus was calling
forth prophecy and was speaking forth prophecy and it was going
to be utter and complete and profound. The prophecy that Jesus uttered
was not symbolic. Jesus wasn’t talking about some
figurative moon or some figurative sun or kind of attributing them
some strange ideas. I mean, it is absolutely ridiculous.
Some of the stuff that was out there. Here’s what one said. And this
is old and it’s been poked so full of holes now that I don’t
mind sharing it with you, because I think you’ll see it immediately
as you hear it as so ridiculous it can’t even be considered.
He said this, the moon is the church. Which will then receive
no light from Christ, which is the sun, because the earth of
carnal desires intervenes And the stars are saints who will
lose their influence. I mean, it is so ridiculous to
the point of being absurd. Jesus is talking about the sun
and the moon, the literal sun and the literal moon and the
literal stars. And he says, utter blackness.
How about this? The sun is the sun. The moon
is the moon and the stars refer to stars. Isn’t that what second Peter
310 said? The day of the Lord will come like a thief in which
the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will
be destroyed with an intense heat and the earth and its works
will be burned up. Isn’t that literal? The bottom line is these signs
will be a sign of the end of the age. And Jesus goes on from verse
25 and he says, there will be signs in sun and moon and stars
on the earth. Dismay among the nations, you
suppose. Utter blackness, the cold that
comes with it, complete fear of what’s coming next, is this
truly the end or has the sun maybe just dimmed for a season?
On the earth, dismay among the nations. In perplexity at the
roaring of the seas and the waves. We know that the moon affects
the tide. What would happen if the moon
suddenly were taken away completely? What would happen to the oceans? We don’t know, but it indicates
here something. Roaring of seas and the waves.
Men fainting from fear. And I take that to mean not just
passing out temporarily. I mean, men just dropping dead,
men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which
are coming upon the world for the powers of the heavens will
be shaken. These nations are utterly in
a calamitous state. It wouldn’t surprise me in a
situation like that. Why not just start pressing all
the nuclear, you know, at least light up the sky? Let’s let’s
cash it in. The word here used regarding
the heavens shaken is the same word that’s used in Scripture
for an earthquake. Now, I have no idea what it looks
like or how it even all functions, especially when it’s utter blackness.
But somehow it says the heavens are going to be shaken. And I
take that to mean the earth with it. One said it this way before the
end of the age, All creation in the whole human world will
be plunged into dreadful commotions. In the sun, the moon and the
stars there will appear miraculous and alarming signs. The whole
of life and all the nations will be disrupted through the anxiety
and terror that will overcome the people and render them desperate.
It is a singularly awful picture. It may not be easy, perhaps,
to attach a precise meaning to every part of it. One thing is
clear, however. It is abundantly plain the second
coming of Christ will be attended by everything which can make
it alarming to the senses and heart of man.” Not all of us. It’s absolutely important for
the Christian to understand this morning that with all of these
apocalyptic and end-of-the-world signs, They’re not frightening
to the Christian, just as we heard, just as we heard read
from Psalm 46, just as the song spoke about that followed it.
God’s in control. God is the one that has ordained
all of these things and that all they are is a display of
God’s almighty power. They are a terror indeed to the
faithless, but to those who know Christ, To those who are God’s
people, they are an encouragement, a comfort when we see God display
his power. Secondly, we are considering
the glorious end of the world. The first observation there is
that there will be signs of the glorious end, a celestial shock,
if you will. But secondly, the central figure
of the glorious end. The central figure of the glorious
end is the Son of Man. Look at verse 27. Then they will
see the Son of Man. Can you imagine? Even a dim candle,
if it could fly through the sky against a pitch black sky, would
light up. Would light up perhaps even for
miles. But if you could imagine the
glory of God bursting through that blackness and the utter
contrast with the blackened sky, then they will see the Son of
Man. You bet they will. Then they will see the Son of
Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. It’ll be overwhelming. They will see the Son of Man
coming. The Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, will finally and
suddenly burst through the black skies and every eye will see
Him. How does that work? I don’t know. Matthew records Jesus’ words. Matthew records, rather, Jesus
saying that the sign of the Son of Man will appear. And there
have been all kinds of silly thoughts about that. Some of
the early church fathers believed that this sign of Jesus, this
sign that preceded Him, would be a giant cross emblazoned in
the sky and coursing through the skies from east to west. And it would have to be utterly
massive, a giant cross in the sky. But there’s nothing, nothing
biblical anyway, nothing to support that idea. Calvin was the first
one to begin to correct some of these kooks when he said the
sign that Matthew speaks of will be nothing less than the Savior’s
own coming in the clouds. It’s Jesus that’s coming. That’s
the sign. The very appearance of one of
the Son of Man upon clouds, clouds of glory, is itself the sign,
the one great final sign that he is about to go forth and meet
his people. Then they will see the Son of
Man coming on a cloud. Clouds are the frequent companion
of God’s presence, aren’t they? You remember Exodus 13.21, the
Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day. Exodus
16.10, it came about as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation,
the sons of Israel. They looked toward the wilderness
and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. Exodus
40.35, Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because
the cloud had settled on it. and the glory of the Lord filled
the tabernacle.” It is not unreasonable to expect that Jesus is going
to come in that glory cloud just like God had always manifested
Himself. They will see the Son of Man
coming in a cloud and it will be with great power and glory.
It is no little understatement here. Great power and glory, as one
said it, Jesus Christ’s return is going to be the greatest display
of power the earth has ever witnessed, including creation, because it’s
going to be Jesus Christ Himself. Thirdly, we’re looking at the
glorious end of the world, the signs, the central figure. Thirdly,
the final anticipation of the glorious end. The final anticipation
of the glorious end is the looking up. Verse 28, but when these
things take place, straighten up and lift up your heads because
your redemption is drawing near. And I take this to mean it isn’t
just the saints on earth, those that have come to Christ during
that period of tribulation, most of them Jews, but not only the
Jewish people, I take this to mean everywhere. If you’re in
heaven, look up. If you’re on earth, look up.
If you’re in the grave, look up. Because your redemption is
drawing near. When these things begin to take
place, when the rest of the world is
cowering in fear and crying out, crying that literally mountains
would fall on them to put them out of their misery, When these
things begin to take place, when there is so much despair, and
so much uncertainty, and so much fear, Jesus says, straighten up. Sit
up. Stand up. Look up. Straighten
up and lift your heads. Because your redemption is drawing
near. Once one described the scene
this way, he said the tribulation will be to the believers the
signal that their full redemption is at hand. And so Jesus commands
His followers when they see the beginning of these predicted
things to be inspired with courage and faith in the knowledge that
His second advent and their redemption are at hand. The disciples that
are present, that Jesus is speaking with directly, are representatives
of all believers generally. Will they be there on earth?
No. But He’s speaking to believers,
whoever they might be in the future. And in case you’re wondering,
that word redemption is the same word that we use in so many other
places for redemption. The price paid for our souls
by the Lord Jesus on the cross. Romans 8.23, we ourselves, having
the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, grown within
ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption
of our body. The same word. Ephesians 1.14,
speaking of the Spirit who is given as a pledge of our inheritance
with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession. This
isn’t just something other than. This isn’t something addition
to. He isn’t speaking metaphorically
about anything. And you say, well, but when I
came to Christ, they said that I was redeemed. You are. What he’s talking about here
is the complete and full redemption of every Christian. As J.C. Ryle said, we are redeemed from
the guilt and power of sin already, but from all the humbling consequences
of sin, we will not be completely redeemed until Jesus comes again.
That’s when we embrace it all. That’s when we enjoy it to its
fullness. Another said it this way, it
is that redemption which will already have been merited for
them on the cross. Jesus has already redeemed you
if you are in Christ. He has already paid the price
in which they have already experienced in their souls. Some of you,
I know, own the comfort of knowing in your hearts, knowing deep
down that your sins are paid for. You have been redeemed. There is a time in the future
where the Lord Jesus will take you to Himself and then you will
know your redemption in full. Fourthly, in considering the glorious end
of the world, and it is indeed glorious, even as we see all
of these frightening things to the Christian, this is a glorious
end because it’s Jesus. Not only the signs of the glorious
end and the central figure of the glorious end, the final anticipation
of the glorious end, but fourthly, the purpose of the glorious end.
It’s harvest time. Only Matthew includes this detail. Mark as well, pardon me. Matthew
says it this way. And he that is Jesus Christ will
send forth his angels with a great trumpet. And they will gather
together his elect from the four winds from one end of the sky
to the other. Mark says from the farthest end
of the earth to the farthest end of heaven. Nobody’s going
to get lost. It’s going to be the angels doing
the work, and that’s always what is put forth in Scripture, that
God has these angels to go down into the earth and to call out
of the earth His great harvests. Matthew 25 says it this way,
when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels
with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Paul said
it likewise in 2 Thessalonians 1.7, that his desire was to give relief
to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus
will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming
fire.” Can you imagine that knock at the door? If you’ve come to
Christ, all of a sudden you open the door, it’s been dark, and
all of a sudden here is one of his holy angels standing there
in all of his angel glory to take you to heaven. It is a glorious
end. And Matthew, it’s interesting
here, says before all of it pitch blackness. The first thing that
we’re going to hear or see if you are on the earth is a great
trumpet. What does it look like? I don’t
know. We may not grasp the imagery
here or understand its full importance, but it’s absolutely clear from
the gathered prophecies on the matter that just that this trumpet
blast is just part of the second coming of Christ, just as it
is in the rapture of the church. Remember, in the rapture of the
church, 1 Corinthians 15.52, at the last trumpet, the trumpet
will sound. 1 Thessalonians 4.6, an archangel
with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise. And just as in the rapture, at
the second coming, when the whole thing begins, Blackness will
be on the earth. And before there’s even a spark
of God’s glory, there will be a trumpet blast like none the
earth has ever heard. It’ll be a glorious trumpet blast
because it will be the end. And the elect God’s people. Will be gathered in some Israel,
some outside of Israel, It’s the third time in this little
section that God’s elect have been mentioned. Clearly, these
people, God’s people, are in God’s focus right up until the
last moment. It’s the whole purpose. Mark 13.20, unless those days
had been short, no life would have been saved, but for the
sake of the elect. Mark 13, 22, false Christ, false
prophets will arise. They will show signs and wonders
in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect. And here now, once
again, the elect are completely in focus that it says in those
last moments on earth, God is going to go in, He’s going to
send His angels and they are going to call out of the world
every one of His saints. Every one. Look at the imagery
there. From the four winds from one
end of the sky to the other. God’s not going to miss any.
God’s not going to overlook any. Even with the calamity, even
in the dark, God’s not going to miss any. Some, as one pastor said, would
interpret the scene here to include believers of all ages. including
implying rather the resurrection from the dead. But there is no
reference made to a resurrection here. And the further designation
from the four winds, the four points which the winds blow,
suggest people alive in all parts of the world, believers who have
come through the Great Tribulation, distinctly Jewish believers of
that period, those one to faith in Christ, as Messiah during
the Great Tribulation. Those are the ones. That’s the
portion of the elect that God will be calling to Himself. And it will be the angels doing
it. And so now you step back. And you say, we don’t have to
fear any of this. This end time stuff, it’s not
scary. It would sound scary to somebody who doesn’t know Jesus
Christ as their Savior, but it’s not scary to me. This is a glorious
end to the world. That’s exactly what J.C. Ryle
said. He said, however terrible the signs of Christ’s second
coming may be to the impenitent, they need not strike terror into
the heart of the true believer. They ought rather to fill him
with joy They ought to remind him that his complete deliverance
from sin, the world and the devil is close at hand. That he shall
soon bid an eternal farewell to sickness, sorrow, death and
temptation. It’s a glorious end. Let’s pray. Our merciful God, we thank you
for these encouraging words, even as frightening as they could
be to someone and perhaps even someone in our midst. Lord, our
prayer distinctly would be for any in our midst who are uncertain,
any young person, any person who perhaps has heard of Jesus
Christ, but has never placed their faith in Him and on Him
for salvation. There is salvation in no one
else. There is no other means. There is no other recourse for
a sinner. And all of us have sinned, and
because all of us have sinned, every one of us needs a Savior. And there is only Jesus. Lord
God, it is our prayer that none would walk out of here this morning
uncomfortable about the end of the age, but that every person
would know the great comfort that you are, that you are redemption,
that you have paid the price for sinners. Grant us grace,
Father. Grant that any who do not know
you this morning would seek someone out and would ask concerning
the Savior. Grant us Your grace today, Lord,
as we continue to look up expectantly at the return of our Lord. We
thank You and we praise You. In Jesus’ name, Amen. I beat you out today.