John MacArthur | A Look Ahead at Christ's Arrival

the Church of Jesus Christ at least as far as I can discern on a public level has become preoccupied with the issues at hand and has allowed itself to be sucked into the vortex of the world's problems and is making an effort to be a friend of the world which as we read in James is a very dangerous thing to do as I assess some of the reasons for this one glaring reason for the church to be preoccupied with the world is the absence of any vibrant expectation for the return of Jesus Christ weak eschatology baits the worldly church when people lose sight of the fact that this is a fallen world Carini ever deeper and deeper into sin disintegrating continuously toward more and more evils and when the church thinks that its role in the world is to stop that it is living with a delusion our hope is not in fixing the world our hope is in the return of Jesus Christ I want to speak to you again this morning on that subject and even for the next few weeks and I want to draw your attention to the nineteenth chapter of Revelation Revelation chapter 19 this is really where we need to place our eyes and our minds and our hearts and find our hope revelation 19 and I'll read the opening verses down through verse 16 after these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying hallelujah salvation and glory and power belong to our God because his judgments are true and righteous for he has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality and he has avenged the blood of his slaves on her and the second time they said hallelujah her smoke rises up forever and ever in the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne saying amen hallelujah and the voice came from the throne saying give praise to our God to all you his slaves you who fear Him the small and the great then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder saying hallelujah so the Lord our God the Almighty reigns let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to him for the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen bright and clean for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints then he said to me write blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb and he said to me these are true words of God then I fell at his feet to worship Him but he said to me do not do that I am a fellow servant of yours and your brother and who hold the testimony of Jesus worship God for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy and I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse and he who sat on it is called faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and wages war his eyes are like a flame of fire and on his head are many diadem's and he has a name written on him which no one knows except himself he is clothed with a robe dipped in blood and his name is called the word of God and the armies which are in heaven clothed in fine linen white and clean were following him on white horses from his mouth comes a sharp sword so that with it he may strike down the nation's and he will rule them with a rod of iron and he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty and on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written king of kings and Lord of lords that is a stunning vision that marks the end of man's day will things in the troubled world ever be better will there ever be an end to war and hostility and inequity and crime and chaos the answer is a resounding yes when Jesus Christ comes to rule when he returns to be king we've been waiting for this event all our lives and all the history of the church has looked forward to this and the brighter this Hope has shined in any generation of the church the greater the church's joy and ability to endure the difficulties in the world Jesus is coming this is the culmination of all human history and as we learn through the book of Revelation this glorious event does not happen without great preliminary judgment great preliminary hostility the Antichrist will by this time have gathered all his forces inspired by Satan and tells demons they will have gathered together to fight against the returning Christ they will engage in a final fury of battle at Armageddon as the darkness tries to stop the king of light from establishing his kingdom at the head of that unified force that world army will be the Antichrist who marches in hostility against God's anointed in the 16th chapter of the book of Revelation the scene is described with these words verse 17 then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne saying it is done and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder and there was a great earthquake such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth so great an earthquake was it and so mighty the great city was split into three parts and the cities of the nation's fell Babel and the great was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of his fierce wrath and every island fled away and the mountains were not found and huge hailstones about a hundred pounds each came down from heaven upon men and men blaspheme God because of the plague of the hail because it's plague was extremely severe where did the horrors of that happen back to verse 16 they gathered together to the place which in Hebrew is called Armageddon in the valley of Megiddo Megiddo the Beast as chapter 19 verse 19 says and the kings of the earth and his armies assembled to make war against him who sat on the horse and against his army this is the final conflict as the Antichrist and his demonic and earthly forces fight against the returning Christ the prior passage as we read verses 7 to 10 describes the wonderful marriage of the Lamb that's an event that takes place in heaven the church is raptured into heaven prior to these events meets with the Lamb the bridegroom establishes the marriage a wonderful time of blessing and joy and reward but before the bridegroom can take his bride to the new earth to dwell as her dwelling place with the saints of all the ages there has to be a great battle the bridegroom becomes the warrior king he can't fulfill his marriage promise until he returns in victory and faces the greatest battlefield ever the daring challenge of the Antichrist is accepted as the heavens opened and Christ in flaming fire comes to take vengeance Babylon by now has been destroyed Babylon is a term that speaks of the final form of the world system described in chapter 17 in his religious character in chapter 18 its economic character Babylon has been destroyed the world's economic and religious systems devastated the seven seals have been opened and out of the seventh seal seven trumpet judgments have been broken and delineated basically horrific death all across the planet at the seventh trumpet seven bowls of rapid-fire Wrath were poured out the final one I just read you in chapter 16 everything begins to disintegrate everything has come apart under the force of this judgment after all of this divine wrath there is one last effort of the blaspheming world against Christ man's day is about to end by the way this has been the plan from the beginning this has been God's plan all through redemptive history that he would bring back his son the great King King of Kings Lord of lords to take back this earth the Antichrist has established himself in Jerusalem and he endeavors to become the dictator of the world he accomplishes that by making a pact with Israel which he violates and breaks and by allowing himself an alliance with Satan and demons that gives him control over the world that is to say that the state of the world now is bad but it isn't as bad as it will be is that it's worse then the conflict is set by the time you get to this hour all golden eras of human history are long gone long gone the Antichrist has fully established himself it's described back in chapter 13 the dragon stood at the sand of the seashore verse 1 I saw a beast coming up out of the sea this is the Antichrist having ten horns and seven heads and on his horns were ten diadem's on his heads were blasphemous names he is multiplied as a blasphemer and as a king he is a blasphemous king that has had no equal in human history he's described as being like a leopard like a bear and like a lion and the dragon who is Satan gave him his power and throne and authority and I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain and his fatal wound was healed and the whole earth was amazed and followed after the Beast apparently he pulls the false resurrection they worshiped the dragon Satan because he gave his authority to the Beast they worshiped the Beast saying who is like the Beast and who was able to wage war with him so the whole world vows to Satan in his Antichrist that was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies and authority to act for forty-two months that's half the seven-year tribulation three and a half years he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name his tabernacle that is those who do in heaven it was given to him to make war with the saints to overcome them authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him so this Antichrist is the final global world ruler and he is successful because of his demonic power verse 8 all who dwell on the earth will worship Him everyone whose name is not written and from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain your name is not written in that book you're gonna follow him gonna worship him Antichrist will operate in full power openly blaspheming blatantly defying God the whole world will be worshipping Satan worshipping Him all men and all women will have survived unbelievable indescribable carnage for forty-two months three and a half years as the judgments of God blast the earth on top of the horrors of Satan and his demons but in the process of all of that there will be people saved from every tongue tribe people a nation and Israel will be regathered to salvation that all leads up to the final end in some 83 we read this and perhaps is the very some that people in Israel may quote in this future moment of history keep not silent o God do not remain quiet do not be still for behold your enemies make an uproar and those who hate you have exalted themselves they make shrewd plans against your people they conspire together against your treasured ones they have said come and let us wipe them out that the name of Israel be remembered no more for they have conspired together with one mind against you do they make covenant that would be a description of the final covenant that the world makes under Antichrist to blaspheme God and to win a victory over the returning son of God the martyred Saints are pictured in the book of Revelation chapter 6 verse 10 and they're saying this how long O Lord holy and true will you refrain from judging and avenging our blood how long is this gonna go on how long are you going to allow efforts against the king how long are you going to allow blasphemy in the little epistle of Jude verse 14 behold the Lord came with many thousands of His Holy Ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him ungodly ungodly ungodly people will feel the fury of final wrath now all of that leads us to verse 11 where the scene opens and I saw heaven open this is that moment speedily and triumphantly the gates of heaven burst open and the Lord appears a catastrophic collision is about to occur when he arrives on the earth market history market does not quietly gradually merge into some environmental meltdown history does not quietly and gradually merge into the kingdom of Christ as the post tribulation lists the reconstructionists the Theon amidst sand kingdom dialogues like us to believe the kingdom comes with fury and viciousness in a cataclysmic divisive intervention from heaven that happens in split seconds the end of human history will come with violence fiery judgment the whole earth bathed in blood on that great day of God Almighty the prophets called the day of the Lord the last blow to a world already experiencing slaughter murder bloodshed violence satanic presence sin has run rampant and the prophets agree that the main battle will be in Palestine although it surely may extend far beyond that because the Lord will slay his enemies over the whole earth but the final battle the main battle focuses in Palestine Palestine the Land of Israel and particularly from Jerusalem north to Megiddo Megiddo has very significant history their barrack and Deborah fought Sisera there Gideon fought the Midianites there Saul was slain by the Philistines their Pharaon echoes slew Josiah etc blood bathed the valley in history and through the years every battle fought there even since biblical times whether it was fought there by the armies of Napoleon or by the Turks is only a harbinger of the final battle the great day of the Battle of God Almighty this is the end of man's day the glorious return of Christ this is by the way the same Jesus who ascended in x-1 this same Jesus says acts 1:11 whom you you going to glory will so come in like manner as you've seen him go despised rejected spit on mocked and ridiculed from that treatment he ascended but he returns to reign no I want you to look at this passage before us verses 11 to 16 the whole picture seems like it was based on Isaiah 11 particularly verses 3 to 5 in Isaiah 63 that I read to you earlier this isn't the first mention however of the second coming in the book of Revelation or in the New Testament in the Olivet discourse our Lord said much about his second coming Matthew 24 and 25 but in the book of Revelation I want you to notice the text that anticipate chapter 19 go back to chapter 11 the seventh angel sounds the seventh trumpet and there were loud voices in heaven saying and here is the hallelujahs anticipated that we see realized in chapter 19 the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his christ and he will reign for ever and ever in the 24 elders who sit on their thrones before god fell on their faces and worshipped God saying we give you thanks O Lord God the Almighty who are who were because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign and the nations were enraged and your wrath came and the time came for the dead to be judged and the time to reward your slaves the prophets and saints and those who fear your name the small and the great and destroy those who destroy the earth and the temple of God which is in heaven was opened in the Ark of the Covenant appeared in his temple and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder and an earthquake and a great hailstorm the the return of Christ is being anticipated the war machine in heaven is cranking up right there in chapter 11 if you go to chapter 14 you see in verse 14 I looked and behold a white cloud and sitting on the cloud was one like a son of man having a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand he's ready to reap go down to verse 18 another angel one who has power over fire came out from the altar called with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle saying put in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth because her grapes are ripe so the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth and threw them into the great winepress of the wrath of God and then over in chapter 16 verse 13 I saw coming out of the Beast the rather saw coming out of the mouth of the Dragon and the mouth of the Beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet three unclean spirits like frogs there's spirits of demons performing signs which go out to the kings of the whole world to gather them together for the war of the great day of God the Almighty in verse 16 they gathered them to her Megiddo so even in the book of Revelation this is being anticipated and finally in chapter 19 we arrive at John's vision of this future event I just want to point out three things here number one the return of the Conqueror the return of the conqueror verse 11 I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse and he who sat on it is called faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and wages war so the doors of heaven swing open it is the last time for the full glorious revelation of Jesus Christ on this earth the very point of the book of Revelation has been reached the judgment has reached its final act and the Lord will judge and then he will establish his everlasting sovereign rule and his earthly Kingdom listen to what our Lord said about this back in Matthew chapter 24 verse 27 just as lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west so will the coming of the Son of Man be when heavens opened this is how fast he comes like lightning verse 29 immediately after the tribulation of those days the Sun will be darkened the moon will not give its light stars will fall from the sky the powers of the heavens will be shaken so this is the picture everything is gone black with the final seventh Bowl darkness covers the earth and then there's a flash of lightening and then that flash of lightening verse 30 says the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky and all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory and he will send forth his angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together his elect from the four winds to gather into the kingdom from one end of the sky to the other he comes he comes first to gather his own down to verse 42 our Lord said be on the alert you don't know which day your Lord is coming be ready if you're not ready you have a description of that the master of the slave will come in a day when he doesn't expect him in an hour which he doesn't know verse 50 verse 51 and cut him in pieces assign him a place with the hypocrites in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth just a brief note there is an event promise to believers called the rapture of the church we read about in first Corinthians first thessalonians john 14 it's different than this event it's why we believe that the church will already be removed by this time why because that the rapture christ meets his own in the air here he brings them with him to the earth at the rapture there is no judgment here it is all judgment the rapture is a time of blessing this is a time of cursing the rapture takes his own to heaven this event brings his own to earth the rapture has no preliminary signs this event is preceded by a carefully revealed signs from chapter 6 to 19 so we believe that the church will have been taken out and this is what will be left for the world many will be saved during that period as well who will then enter into his kingdom from Israel and the nation's the coming king is identified as faithful and true because he keeps his word and he always speaks the truth his name by the way is in vivid contrast to Satan the liar the deceiver and to demons and to those who follow them Jesus tells the truth he is God who can not lie he is faithful and true the dragon is a deceiver the Beast is a false Christ the second beast is a false prophet the earth is filled with false worshippers but Jesus is faithful and true and he comes in righteousness the righteous against sin that is to say he reacts rightly to sin and sin has taken over the world in a way that is beyond anything in human history before this and so his righteousness leads to this final judgment and John writes he judges wants a Savior now a judge when he was here wicked people judged him then he will judge them the people were the judge and executioner but when he can returns he will be the judge and executioner the Apostles warned about this in their preaching an illustration of that is found in the seventeenth chapter of the book of Acts and verse 31 God has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead who is the judge the one whom God raised from the dead and back in verse two of this chapter his judgments are true and righteous true and righteous too late for rejecters who have already given final blasphemy secondly it says he comes to make war wage war Paulo may present active to go to war once he came to feed the hungry ministered to the needy heal the sick cast demons from the oppressed give peace to troubled hearts not this time at the Red Sea you remember when Jehovah destroyed Pharaoh and his hosts Israel sang in Moses song in Exodus 15:3 and what they said is this the Lord is a man of war the Lord is a warrior I love with Alexander white road the Lord is a man of war in righteousness he judges and makes war the judging has been going on throughout the breaking of the seals the blowing of the trumpets and the pouring out of the Bulls now he makes war he who for long centuries has endured patiently is scoffing the insults the bad manners of men who for ages have contemplated Calvary and all that it displayed a human hatred and contempt and who through the millennia has made peace through the blood of that crust now makes war over that blood for human sin has reached high-water mark and must be put down by force of arms but there will not be much fighting when the battle is joined it will all be over in a flash heaven cannot be a peace with sin iniquity cannot be tolerated you think because God hasn't acted acted by now he's tolerant no he's just patient not willing that any of his own should perish but that all whom he has chosen should come to repentance as Peter put it he is waiting until he has gathered his redeemed together when sin reaches the final incorrigible and curable moment it and all who participate in it will be destroyed mercy abused brings the executioner here comes the sword of insulted majesty the wrath of rejected grace and this Conqueror comes not like other conquerors that covetousness pride ambition power but in righteousness and strict accord with every holy interest to do what is right his eyes are a flame of fire as they were way back in Chapter 1 in chapter 2 we saw his eyes as a flame of fire as he looks at his church and discerns the reality of the condition of his church it speaks of his omniscience when he comes he will see things the way they really are his eyes now flash with fire penetrating burning eyes to judge rightly he must see all nothing can escape him he also comes with many crowns many diadem's royal rank and regal authority this is the symbol of his sovereignty he is a warrior he is a judge he is an executioner and he is the sovereign king earlier we saw crowns on the head of the Antichrist crowns on the head of the Dragon now they are vanquished by David when he conquered the ammonites back in 2nd Samuel but the crown of the vanquished King on his head in addition to his own crown or when Ptolemy conquered Antioch he set two crowns on his head the one of Asia and the one of Egypt to show that he had conquered both the dragon had seven crowns in Revelation the Beast had ten when Jesus comes he has all the crowns all the prize a fair exchange for a crown of thorns this is something that the prophet Ezekiel saw back in Ezekiel and I'm only giving you samples of what the prophets say about this event the back in Ezekiel chapter 21 a couple of verses verses 26 and 27 thus says the Lord God removed the turban and take off the crown this will no longer be the same exalt that which is low and a base that which is high a ruin a ruin a ruin I will make it this also will be no more until he comes whose right it is and I will give it to him take off your crowns they all belong to Christ Ezekiel even anticipates that day listen to Psalm 45 verses 3 and 4 gird your sword on your thigh o mighty one in your splendor and your majesty and then your majesty ride on victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness let your right hand teach you awesome things your arrows are sharp your peoples fall under you your arrows are in the heart of the king's enemies your throne O God is for ever and ever a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom unassailable sovereignty no more Kings now it says he has a name written on him which no one knows except himself can't tell you how many times people have asked me what is that name it is the name that no man knew well what is that saying to us we think we know everything there is to know about Christ we think that because we know what is told to us about him in the Old Testament what is told to us so completely in the New Testament that we fully understand him that is far from the reality to say he has a name that no man knew is to say that there is about him and in comprehensibility about which we know absolutely nothing which is to say that he is far beyond what we imagined him to be there are unknowable reality he's in his nature we could never fathom the full mystery verse 13 he was clothed with a robe dipped in blood the blood of his enemies the blood of his enemies the blood we saw in Isaiah 63 these are battle clothes and they are blood-stained this is not his first battle who but he cut Rahab and wounded the dragon who fought for Israel in the days of Joshua who fought the kings of Canaan in Tanakh by the waters of Megiddo who vanquished all the world powers of the past and all the nations that have fallen it is the same almighty Conqueror who battled sin at the cross who shed his blood on that cross who will again be blood-stained only it won't be his blood it'll be the blood of his enemies on his battle clothes back in chapter 14 verse 20 when he treads the winepress the blood came out from the winepress to the horses bridles for a distance of 200 miles when Jesus comes back the slaughter will run for 200 miles north and south east and west a bloodbath of eternal judgment

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Keywords: christ, jesus, jesus christ, God, bible, scripture, worship, hymns, prayers, bible study, bible devotionals, christian, christian growth, heart of worship channel, heart of worship, heart of worship YT channel, john macarthur, john macarthur sermon, grace community church, evangelicals, new testament, old testament, preaching, worshipping, worship hymns, expository preaching, revelation, rapture, christ coming, christs return, john macarthur sermon 2020, christianity, premillennialism

Id: 3eAnVxirQmI

Length: 40min 4sec (2404 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 05 2020