Well now, in the first talk, I gave you four
signals or signs that Jesus gave us for his return to planet earth. Now of those four I
would say that we see one and a half already, but with the speed of world events who can
say how long it’ll take for the other two and a half to catch up? Indeed, the world is
changing so fast that we can’t be dogmatic about it. But a far more important question than
“When will he come,” is “Why will he come?” And this is a very real question. There must be
some very big reason why he has to return. On e of the surprises in the New
Testament is a verse in Hebrews, which says, “t hat he will appear a second time
to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” Now there’s a puzzle; didn’t he bring
us salvation the first time? And you notice that he’s coming the second time not to bring
salvation to the world or to the unbeliever, but to us who are waiting for him. The answer
is of course that we’re not saved yet. We are being saved. Salvation is a process and there’s
one part of me that isn’t saved yet - a part that you can see. My body’s not saved yet,
it’s still under the law of sin and death, my body. It will die and rot, provided
he doesn’t come back in the meantime. So why should he have to come back to complete
our salvation? Now make no mistake about it he has done all he needs to do to obtain forgiveness
and holiness for us. He’s not got to die on a cross again - that’s all finished with, that’s
complete. But there are some things that are not yet complete and he’s coming back to bring total
salvation to those of us who are waiting for him. Now here are five reasons why he is coming back
and any of them by themselves would not be I think an adequate reason for coming. The first
is very simple: to collect us, to meet with us, and to take us to be with him. He said, “If
it were not so I would have told you. I’m going to prepare a place for you,” which means
that Jesus has gone back to being a carpenter, getting the place ready for us. Do you realize
that? He is very good at making things and he’s getting your room ready in his Father’s house.
Then he says, “I will come again and take you to be with me that where I am you may be too.”
We once took an elderly lady in a group of church members to Israel, and she was wandering around
the Arab souk, that underground maze of little shops that constitute the old Bazaar and she was
trying to find the post office to buy a stamp to send a postcard to her daughter. She said to
an Arab shopkeeper, “Where is the post office here?” The Arab shopkeeper said, “Well go down
this alleyway, look for an opening on the left, go up some steps, go up until you come to
a fork, turn right, look out for the second turning on the right up that alleyway.” And the
more he spoke the more bewildered she looked. He realized that she would never be able to find
it. So he turned around, and he closed his little shop, padlocked the shutters, and he took her by
the elbow, and he said, “I am the way.” He took her to the post office. She was so excited when
she came back to the rest of the group she said, “Guess what I’ve learnt this morning?” She
said, “I’ve always wondered what Jesus meant when he said, ‘I am the way.’” But she said, “Now
I know. It means he’ll take me there, don’t need to know the route, he’ll take me there.”
That’s what Jesus is coming to do, he’s coming to collect the Christians, which
means that if he’s coming back to planet earth, so am I. If you belong to Christ, so are you.
Has that thought ever struck you before? That if Jesus is coming back here, so are you. Have
you ever told your friends that - that long after you’re dead you’re coming back to planet
earth? Not as a reincarnation, because when you believe in reincarnation you don’t know who you’re
going to come back as - might come back as a duck, you just don’t know. But Christians are
coming back to planet earth themselves. They will know who they are—we’ll be back here.
Do you realize it’s here that we’re going to get our new bodies? Not up in heaven, but back
here. We’ll be raised from the dead and given new bodies here. I can’t wait to get my new
body. Do you know how old I’ll be then? Well, I’m in my sixties now and some days I feel it.
My children think I have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana skin, but anyway,
here I am. But when I get my new body I’ll be thirty-three. Because my bible says I will get
a glorious body just like his, and how old is his? So I can’t wait to be thirty-three again.
I was speaking at a funeral down in the West Country and a lovely Christian brother had died.
A good age, but he died of a horrible disease, which made him quite ugly to look at in the last
few months. And at the funeral I happened to say, “Next time you see him he’ll be thirty-three.” And
his widow and daughter almost went hysterical with joy. Afterwards I asked them why they had
that reaction. The widow said, “Well I was going through his papers last night and I came
across a photograph of him when he was young and handsome with thick dark hair. I said to the
photograph, “that’s how I’ll remember you darling, not as you were at the end.’” And she said, “That
photograph was taken when he was thirty-three.” The daughter said, “Last night I had a
dream about my daddy. We were playing at the seaside and splashing each other in the
water and I felt so happy and suddenly woke up and it was just a dream.” But she said, “I
realized the dream was actually a memory of a childhood holiday.” And she said, “We were at
the seaside when I was nine years old and when I was nine daddy was thirty-three.” So no wonder
they both reacted so joyfully to my news. You are allowed to whisper hallelujah in this by
the way, but only if you really feel like it. You see, we’re going to get knew bodies. Jesus
isn’t just in the business of saving souls. He’s interested in bodies too. He’s interested in
the whole of creation, that whole creation is groaning and travailing, waiting for me to get my
new body, because when I get my new body that’s the signal for the whole creation to get its new
body. And all that’s going to happen back here. This is where resurrection takes place. This is
where bodies are needed and bodies are recreated. So that’s the first reason he’s coming back, to
meet with us and give us our new bodies—right here on planet earth. We’re going to meet him
back here, even if we’ve died in the meanwhile. Now the second reason why he’s coming back,
not just coming back to collect Christians, he’s coming back to convert Jews. Now they are
still his chosen people. God hates divorce and he hasn’t divorced Israel and one of the most amazing
mysteries that is revealed to us in scripture is that God has a future plan for the Jewish people.
What will they feel when they see Jesus of Nazareth? Well the Bible tells us how they’ll
feel. It says they will mourn as for an only son when they realize the tragedy of all these
centuries when they missed their own messiah. Can you imagine it? All the suffering they’ve
been through, all the needless anguish they’ve had—they will weep. There’s only one thing
a Jew needs to become a believer in Jesus, and that’s to know that he’s alive. That’s
what happened to Paul on the Damascus road. I was once preaching near Eli in Cambridge shire
and there was a Jewess in the congregation, attractive lady of about twenty-five or twenty-six
years of age, she came to me afterwards. She said, “Mr. Pawson, are you trying to tell me that
Jesus of Nazareth is still alive?” I said, “That’s what I’m saying.” And she said, “Then if
he is he must be our Messiah!” You noticed the little personal possessive pronoun “our”. “Yes, he
is Jewish, for salvation is of the Jews,” I said, “That’s right.” She said, “How can I find out
if he’s alive?” I said, “You could try talking to him right now.” And she did, and she did.
You know within ten minutes she was teaching me the Bible— she’d got it all except the one vital
clue. She said, “Then this, and this, and this!” I envy the Jewish people; they’ve got it there,
except for that vital clue. What will happen when the whole nation sees the one whom they pierced?
Jesus still loves his Jewish people - they’re his brethren. And he’s coming back to Jerusalem,
and it must be a Jewish city when he comes back, which has some bearing on current affairs.
Third reason: He’s coming back to conquer his enemies. Now the last time he came to Jerusalem he
came riding on a donkey, but this time he comes on a horse—that’s a big difference. A prince of peace
uses a donkey; a man of war uses a horse. It’s another contrast between his first visit and his
second. He comes to Jerusalem to fight and to deal with his enemies. Now we’re told in the Bible that
history will be in the control of three people, three persons at the end presenting a kind of
unholy trinity, a kind of substitute for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In place of Father the
devil, in place of Christ the Antichrist, in place of the Holy Spirit the false prophet.
Here we have this unholy trinity controlling the situation and Jesus is going to deal with all
three. He’s coming to fight them and to conquer them and to deal with them once and for all.
Yes I want to shout Hallelujah! He’s going to finish them off - that will finish off evil. So
he’s coming back to conquer the devil particularly and he’s coming back as a lion rather than a lamb.
Mind you that word lamb is misleading. I don’t like to talk about the lamb of God because that
makes me think of a little white cuddly woolly thing a few weeks old, but a lamb in scripture is
always one year old with horns. It’s a male ram in its prime. I prefer to talk of Jesus as the Ram
of God. He’s the Lion of Judah, the Ram of God, both very strong pictures. And he’s coming back to
conquer. ‘Sing we the king who is coming to reign, glory to Jesus the lamb that was slain.’
Evil will end, good will triumph, which means that we are living in a moral
universe. Now that’s a very important insight. Most people say this universe is not moral; the
wicked get away with things, good people suffer, there’s no morality in our universe. They see evil
triumph and they see good wiped out. People say, “This is not a moral universe.” Well we can
say this, “It is going to be, because Jesus is coming back to deal with all evil.”
Question arises, why didn’t he deal with evil on his first trip? Why didn’t he defeat
Satan once and for all on his first trip? Why didn’t he banish all antichrists and false
prophets on his first visit? The answer is very simple. If Jesus had wiped out all
evil on his first visit, who would be left? We always assume we would be. Isn’t that strange?
“Why doesn’t he come and deal with them?” - That’s our cry. We don’t cry, “Why doesn’t he come and
deal with us? Why doesn’t he come and stop me spoiling his world?” We never talk like that -
always think of others, isn’t that interesting? Listen if Jesus had wiped out all evil people and
things when he came the first time you would not have a speaker right now. I’ll tell you something
else there wouldn’t be an audience here either, because if the Lord dealt with us as we deserve
we wouldn’t be alive today. It is in his mercy that he came the first time to give us a chance
to be put right, before he comes to deal with all things that are wrong. That’s why, though
the Jews expected the messiah to come once, the great secret of the New Testament is that the
Messiah is coming twice; the first time to get us forgiveness and holiness, and the second time to
get rid of all evil. Thank the Lord he didn’t do it the other way round or none of us would have
a chance. That’s the great secret of the kingdom, that the kingdom is coming in two stages.
Now the next reason that he is coming: He is coming back to judge the world. Now here is
an eye opener. God is not going to judge the human race. He has delegated that responsibility to
his Son. It’s not before God that we shall stand, but before his Son Jesus. Now I can think of
a very good reason why God has decided this; if mankind stood before God on his throne
we could say, God you’re not the one who’s able to Judge us, because you don’t know what
it’s like being a human being. You don’t know what the pressures are like of life on earth. You
don’t know what it’s like to be tempted by Satan. You don’t understand what it’s like to be hated.
You don’t understand what it’s like to be accused of a crime that you never committed; you don’t
understand. But nobody will be able to talk to the judge like that, because he does understand.
He knows what it’s like to be falsely accused of crime. He knows what it’s like to be born
illegitimate. He knows what it’s like to be tempted in all points. He’s the one who’s going to
judge. Therefore we must say that Pontius Pilate will one day be judged by Jesus, and Mohammed will
one day be judged by Jesus, and Buddha will one day be judged by Jesus, and Confucius will one day
be judged by Jesus, and Gorbachev will be judged by Jesus, Saddam Hussein will be judged by Jesus,
and David Pawson will be judged by Jesus, for we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ
to receive according to the things done in the body. That’s the subject for the next talk—The day
of Judgment. But it is Jesus who judges. It’s a very important point. Paul preaching on Mars Hill
in Athens said, “God has appointed a day whereby he will judge the world by a man, by a man.
It’s a human being who will judge the ungodly. I still don’t think we’ve hit the biggest reason
why he has to come back here to do this. Why couldn’t all this happen elsewhere? Why couldn’t
it happen in the world of disembodied spirits in Hades? Why does it have to happen here? Why
does he have to come back to planet earth? There is a fifth reason, though I am going to
be frank and say that not all Christians would agree with me on this fifth reason. And I haven’t
time to give you all my reasons for believing it. Nevertheless I will just state that I believe he
is coming back to rule the world - to reign here for a limited time. This is the most incredible
part of the story. Neither human reason nor imagination would have guessed it, but there at
the end of the Bible we’re told that when he’s come back, conquered his enemies, cleaned this
world up, he is then going to reign right here, and show this world what it can
be like when Jesus is in charge. Listen, the world has seen what it’s like
when Satan’s controlling it. The prince of this world has had his day and I believe
that God in his amazing wisdom is going to let this world see just what it can be like when
Jesus is running it. It’s called the millennium, that’s a Latin word meaning a thousand years, and
that is the figure given for this reign on earth. Now I have looked every way I can at this, there
are so many different views. There are people who say they are premillennial, postmillennial,
amillennial. Have you heard all this? A friend of mine said, “That is a pre-post-erous question.”
Nevertheless I have to tell you that I believe it is plainly taught in scripture that Jesus will
reign here before the end of the world and that he will take over the thrones of the nations. Then
you will see come true that nations will learn multilateral disarmament and “beat their swords
into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” And of course he will need a government
to help him and that is where the Bible I believe promises that we shall reign with him. It gives
a very good reason for us coming back here too, and getting new bodies at the same time.
Now the whole thing almost defies imagination. The early church for the first three hundred years
universally believed this and then I’m afraid came a new idea that the church would build this
millennium before Jesus got back – a man called Augustine set that one off. Of course in those
days it looked as if the Church was going to win: the emperor himself had been converted,
persecution stopped, it looked as if the Church was going to take the world over.
Well I’m afraid it no longer looks like that. Jesus never taught us to believe that it would. He
said the wheat and the tares would grow together. The kingdom of God’s going to get stronger,
the kingdom of Satan’s going to get stronger, until Christ comes to deal with it, and
clears the place up. But I do believe that before the final events, Jesus will reign
over the nations. And they will see that he is already king of England, but they’ll see it
then. Australia will see it, America, Russia. Can you imagine the peace and prosperity that
will come when Jesus is running this world? After all God made this world as a present for his Son
Jesus. I can’t believe that the God who vindicates righteousness would not vindicate his own Son
in the eyes of the world. Well I throw that out, to me that’s the biggest reason and the one that
justifies his whole return. Without that I find it difficult to be able to understand why it
should all have to happen back here, but if that is the main reason for his coming, that
he is coming to restore the kingdom to Israel, and to take over the nations of the world, and
fulfill all the promises that God has made for this world, then it makes sense totally to
me. But I ask you to study the scripture, you’ll hear lots of ideas there, but that’s mine.
And I ask you to come to your own convictions. It was Hitler’s dream to have a kingdom for a
thousand years; the Third Reich was to last a thousand years, it lasted twelve. I believe the
reich of Jesus will last a thousand years; that’s my hope, I look forward to that. Don’t you? Isn’t
it wonderful that he will take over the nations? No more elections - a king. See we’re made not
for democracy, we are made for a king, but of course we can’t find the right king, that’s our
problem. And our gospel is we found the king, the right king, the perfect king to rule the nations.
Let me come then finally to the practical side. What difference does all this make to the way we
live - from Monday to Friday or right through the week? What difference does it actually make? Hope
is a vital dimension of human living. We can’t live without it. Hope springs eternally in the
human breast. We have to have something in the future to look forward to. All through the ages
men have looked forward to a golden age coming, a utopian age, a new age coming, and it has
taken many different forms. Christians believe in the new age, the new age of Jesus,
not the one of a syncretistic religion. It is hope that helps you to cope with
the present. It’s your hope for what may be ahead that enables you to live with the
pressures and the disappointments for today. And a person who is without hope wants to
end life. Hope is absolutely essential, and faith and love need hope to keep going, and
it’s our hope in the future that provides us with this incentive. You see sinners tend to live in
the past, they live in their past habits - they can’t break them. Sinners are notorious for
nostalgia, but nostalgia isn’t what it used to be and we’re looking forward to something - much
better to look forward than to look back. You get tired of people talking about the good old days
don’t you? “When I was a child…” I’ve got to that age myself, but I’m looking forward you see.
For the Christian the best is yet to be and that hope has a profound affect. Let me try and
illustrate it. Supposing you moved into a house in Ashford, just outside Ashford here, and you
learned that they’re going to make a new motor way from the channel tunnel right through your
house. Your house is going to be demolished two years time, you’ll be compensated, but you’ve
just bought it. Now are you going to spend days and days rebuilding the kitchen, refitting
the bathroom? Are you going to make that your perfect ideal home when you know it’s going to
be demolished in two years? Of course you don’t. Now in the same way, the New Testament says,
“Seeing all these things are thus to be dissolved, what manner of people ought you to be?” In other
words we don’t belong here, we’re just passing through, and our hope for a new heaven and a
new earth and a mansion up there changes our ideas about life here - you don’t get so locked
up in your house here. Because you’re not here for ever, you only here for a short time.
Abraham at the age of eighty left a two storey brick house with central heating and
running water in the bedrooms. I know this, archeologists have found this was the
standard of living in Ur of the Chaldees, and Abraham left that and lived in a tent for
the rest of his life at the age of eighty. He was quite happy because he was looking for a city
whose builder and maker was God – it made that difference, didn’t matter so much, life here.
On the other hand supposing the British Museum got in touch with you and asked you if you
had any crafts or hobbies and you said, “Yes, I do woodwork, or veneer or tapestry or
needlework.” And the British Museum said, “We want a typical example of British amateur craftsmanship
for the future and we’re going to put it in the Museum forever so that people will always be
able to see the kind of thing we did.” Now, how much care would you take over that? That’d be
the best thing you ever made, wouldn’t it? Knowing that it was going to be on show for as long as the
world was here - you’d really do that carefully. Now, you see how your thinking about the future
has changed you. If your house is going to be demolished that changes your attitude to
the house, you don’t care so much about a leaking drain or something - well after all, why
bother, it’s going to be pulled up? But on the other hand if you know you’re doing something
that’s going to last for a very long time and be seen by a lot of other people you would
take far more care over it. I’m trying to get you to realize that it’s how we think about the
future that affects how we behave in the present. Well now, there are four things that are
profoundly affected in a believer’s life when they realize that Jesus is coming back to planet
earth—four things and here they are. By the way, I was expounding Matthew chapter twenty-four earlier
when I gave you the four signs. I’m now going to talk about Matthew 25 which follows it. Having
given them the signs Jesus then said, “Now this is how you are to be ready.” He told four parables
or stories: one about the ten virgins, one about the talents, one about sheep and goats - to tell
us how to be ready and what a difference it makes to realize that the master is coming back one day.
Here are the four ways; four things will be characteristic of Christians who are constantly
thinking about the return of the Lord. First, faithful service, faithful service, because
you see when he comes back he is not so much interested in what you’re doing when he comes back
as what you have been doing while he was away. Now this is so important because some people panic
and they think, “My, the Lord may be coming next Tuesday I must…” and they change their patterns of
behavior radically because they don’t want to be found doing what they’re doing now when he comes.
But listen, Jesus does not come back and say, “What are you doing at this moment of my
return?” He will come back and say, “What have you been doing all the time I’ve been away?”
And in each of those parables in Matthew 25 there is the phrase “a long time coming,” “the
bridegroom was a long time coming.” The real test of whether you’re ready for his return, is
not what you do if you think he is soon coming, but what you do if you think he’s not coming soon.
Do you follow me in that? Very, very important point, because what he wants to find is faithful
servants. He wants to be able to say, “Well done, even though I was a long time coming back, you
kept at it. You were faithful.” So this panic, “He might come tonight, or he might come this week” -
that panic doesn’t usually last; when he doesn’t come tonight or this week, it tends to die off.
The motivation is not when he comes, but what he will say when he comes. What he wants to be able
to say is, “Well done good and faithful servant.” D.L. Moody, the great evangelist of a bygone era,
he said this, “Ever since I heard that Jesus was coming back to planet earth,” he said, “I have
wanted to work three times as hard.” Faithful service is the first thing that will happen. And
when I say faithful service I am not talking about church work. Please understand me, the idea is
around that it’s only missionaries and pastors that are really in the service of the Lord.
That is fostered by the fact that we stick missionaries’ photographs up in the porch and
we make so much of this that people have got this order of priorities: missionaries are
the best servants of God, pastors second best and evangelists, doctors and nurses come a
good third and fourth, maybe teachers fifth, taxi drivers fifty-fifth—you know? Computer operators,
way down. Nothing could be further from the truth. Listen, missionaries and pastors will be made
redundant in heaven. Have you ever thought of that? They’ll have to retrain; they’ll have to
be rehabilitated. Listen, when I say faithful service I’m talking about your daily work, because
there will be jobs for us in the future and those jobs are directly related to how we do our job
here, whatever that job is. The Lord is more interested in how you work than what your job
is. Did you know that? Billy Graham’s wife put above the kitchen sink a notice, Divine service is
held here three times every day. She understood. Listen, whatever your job, faithful service is
doing that job well. There’s a surgeon in Pekin in China, she was the chief surgeon in a hospital
there, and she became a Christian and she was sacked. The result was, she is now given the
job of cleaning out the toilets, but she says, “I’ll clean the toilets as if Jesus is going to
sit on them.” She is in full-time Christian work. Never say, “I’m in a secular job,” nothing
is secular except sin… faithful service. Number two, global evangelism. You see Jesus
left us a job to do and it’s not complete. He said , “The gospel must be preached to all
nations, then shall the end come. Go and make disciples of all ethnic groups, go and preach
the gospel to every creature.” Now we’re a long way off that, we’re getting nearer to
it, and the year two thousand is reminding many Christians that there’s an unfinished task
of evangelizing the world. The more you think about the Lord’s return the more you will want
to be involved in some way in global evangelism. Thirdly: social reform. Now this may come as
a surprise to you, but those who think most about the return of the Lord and the new world
that’s coming are actually those who want to make this world better. Now that may sound
as if it doesn’t work, but in fact it does. If you go to Piccadilly Circus you’ll see an
aluminum statue of an angel in the middle, it’s called “Eros” - that is a terrible name for
it. It should be called “Agape”, because that is a memorial to Anthony Ashley-Cooper the Earl
of Shaftesbury. Lord Shaftesbury worked all his life to get children out of the factories and to
introduce proper working hours and living wages. He fought for that on this ground, every letter
he ever wrote to a politician or anyone else he wrote at the top of the letter “even so come Lord
Jesus”, that was the motivation. He wanted to make this world the best place he could make it because
he believed Jesus was coming. Social reform is one of the fruits of a vivid sense of Jesus’ return.
And finally, personal holiness, because the New Testament says, “Whoever has this hope of him
appearing purifies himself, because we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall
see him as he is.” Or to put it another way I was speaking in a day school to some children and a
little boy asked, “Why wasn’t Jesus married?” I said, “It’s alright; he’s going to be.” And the
headmaster in his office afterwards said to me, “What was that you talked about Jesus getting
married?” He said, “I’ve never heard that before.” “Well”, I said, “the whole Bible is a
courtship and it finishes with a wedding and they get married and live happily ever afterwards.”
We’re the Bride of Christ, but what bride didn’t want her complexion to be perfect? What
Bride didn’t want a white dress – the most beautiful white dress she could get? Now
we’re told at the end of the Bible about this wedding and we’re told the bride has made
herself ready, she’s wearing fine white linen, which are the righteous deeds of the saints.
We’re getting ready for the wedding. The more you realize you’re the Bride of Christ and you’re
heading for that wedding, the more personal holiness will become an ambition in your life.
Well my time is gone, so let me, having criticized Saint Augustine once in this talk, go back to
him and quote him with something that I think is absolutely right. He said this, “He who
loves the coming of the Lord is not he who affirms it is far off nor he who says it is
near, but rather he who whether it be far or near awaits it with sincere faith, steadfast hope
and fervent love.” That’s how to be ready. Amen.
