Sermon on the Second Coming and the resurrection of the just

In the Jewish religion- yesterday was the day of a one of the big festivals of the year – the feast of trumpets. It is called Rosh Hashanah in Israel. It comes from the Bible- where God commanded through Moses in Leviticus ‘Say to the Israelites on the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do no regular work and present an offering made to the Lord by fire.’ 

The kind of trumpet blown was a shofar (here is one). I got one mail order a couple of weeks ago, but not figured out how to get much of a sound out of it. 

I was speaking to my friend Gabriella on Thursday who was in Jerusalem last year and she said you could hear all the shofars blowing across the city at the beginning of Rosh Hashanah and then great peace descended on the city for the next 24 hours for the day of rest. It was like they cleared the air. 

SOUND OF SHOFAR. EITHER JEFF CAN PLAY A FEW BLASTS OR WE CAN PLAY A FEW SECONDS OF THIS RECORDING OF A SHOFAR https://youtu.be/rBwP5hxCAkI

There is something stirring about it. 

When Gideon blew a trumpet to gather his army together and when his wee army of 300 blew trumpets before attacking the Midianites- it could well have been, probably was the shofar that they blew. 

The sound of the shofar on the feast of trumpets by Jews round the world points forward to something that will happen in the future.

It points to a moment which is talked about 300 times in the New Testament. The shofar points forward to a day that I hope to be part of and which I hope everyone in this room will be part of- that all of us without exception will see. I pray none of us will miss it. It speaks of that day when Christ comes again to planet earth. He will come back physically a human being. Not quietly like his birth in Bethlehem but publically and powerfully. He went up to Heaven and left the Earth by ascending from Earth to Heaven. But the promise is that Jesus will come again physically. 

The Bible confidently predicts Jesus is coming back, although it is a surprise to some Christians to hear this, for it’s not always taught. 1 Thessalonians 5:16 in the Bible says- ‘for the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God.’

The trumpet call of God will be one of the signals that Christ has returned. We pray ‘your kingdom come, you will be done on earth as in heaven.’ Well that prayer will be fully answered on that great day. King Jesus will return and heaven will come to earth. 

Jesus himself predicted before his crucifixion and resurrection that He will come again. He said Matthew 24- ‘At that time, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky and all the nations on the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.’ 

There is the trumpet call again. 

But notice Jesus will come but something else will also happen on the day when Jesus returns. He will send his angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect, which means Christians, from the four winds.

There is a phrase in English ‘scatter to the four winds’- maybe you have heard that phrase used? It means to spread all over the place. And it comes from the Bible. And here is the opposite saying to gather from the four winds, which means to gather or collect from every direction.

And what Jesus is predicting is that on the day that He returns to Earth, on the day the trumpet calls, his people, Christians, the elect will be gathered together. The angels will go out and gather them, us from the four winds.

That fits in with what Paul tells us in the Bible. 1 Thessalonians 4 again-

^‘For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.’ 

And so the trumpet call heralds not just Jesus’ Second Coming but Christians’ resurrection from the dead, our bodily resurrection and our gathering together to meet him in the air. 

What a Day that will be! 

What will happen to Christians who are still living on the Day Jesus returns? If Christians who have died are raised from the dead and meet Jesus when he returns, what about those who have not died. What would happen to us if we are still living when Jesus returns? 

Well Paul writes- ‘After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.’ 

And so both believers who have died and those of us who have not died but are alive when he comes, will meet the Lord in the air. 

Millions and millions of believers will meet the Lord when he returns. There is not a stadium big enough to contain the vast numbers, but we will meet him in the air. Which tells us that our bodies will be different- for us to be able to rise into the air.

Now for some of you who might not have been around church for long and who haven’t heard this being taught you might be a bit confused. It might come as a bit of shock. 

Jesus coming again? 

Physically, publically and visibly? 

And Christians being resurrected to meet him? 

And Christians meeting him in the air? 

That sounds new and maybe strange to some. And it is outside our experience, but God is bigger than our experience and our imagination! We are not worshiping a human shaped God who does only things that we would expect. God can and does do things that totally surprise us!

We think about Christians dying and going to heaven and being with Jesus in Heaven for ever. And yes when we die we who are saved do go to be with the Lord in Heaven. But actually longer term, the Lord is not staying in Heaven, He is coming back to Earth and so are we! What the Bible teaches about the future is very clear. What Jesus said about the future is very clear.

These are some of the basic teachings of the Christian faith and one which if missed out is going to leave a bit of a gap in our foundations, in our world view. 

The writer to the Hebrews mentions a selection six basic teachings which he says are elementary teachings- which he describes as part of the foundations that every Christian should build their live upon. 

He writes ‘Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance form acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgement and God permitting we will do so.’

I’ve talked a lot about the first 4 of these basic teachings. But the last two basic teachings mentioned which every Christian should know are the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. 

Resurrection, bodily resurrection, not of Jesus, but of all the dead- that is a basic Christian teaching. 

And eternal judgement, judgement that fixes our future for eternity- that too is a basic teaching. 

I’ve not given many sermons nor have I heard many sermons preached by others on these two basic topics.

The writer of the Hebrews describes these teachings as ‘milk’. In other words they should be easily digested for Christians. And they are things we should learn about at the beginning of our Christian lives- when we are spiritual babies. But sadly that doesn’t always happen, we don’t get always get fed these truths early on in our Christian journey, so that is why they may come as a surprise. 

Whatever bad news will appear on the TV, the Christian can say ‘I am absolutely certain of one thing- my Jesus is coming back.’ And when he comes He will put this broken world right. That’s good news. Our world is not going to blow up in a nuclear holocaust or melt in global warming, or be taken over by AI robots. No Jesus is coming again to rule and reign and put things right.

Now when Jesus was here the first time, even He didn’t know the day or time of his coming. But he could tell his disciples what to look out for so that they wouldn’t be surprised by his coming. 

And he told his disciples to look out for four signs that would be signals that He on the way.

David Pawson uses the analogy of a train spotter and the arrival of a train into the station when he explains Jesus’ teaching signs of his coming, and I have borrowed the analogy from him. 

Apparently in the old days of steam locomotives when you were waiting for a train to  arrive into the train station, there were four signals to watch for: the distance, the outer home, the inner home and the starter. When the distance signal fell, you knew the train was in the section, it was within the last few miles. When the outer home signal fell you knew the train was much nearer. When the inner home signal went down, you got ready for it, and when the starter (the last signal at the platform) went down, then you knew if you looked up the line, you would see the train in just a minute. 

If I may use that illustration, the teaching of Jesus encourages us to look for four signals. If you are watching for these four, you will know at what stage we are at. You will know how near his coming is. If you keep your eyes open, you will not be thrown off balance.

So when Jesus is asked what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? The reply comes- there will be four signs or signals of my coming.

The signals will go down it seems one after the other, although there may also be overlap. Some people think the first signal has already gone down, although I’m not sure about that myself. The first signal is to be seen in the world. The second signal you will see in the church. The third signal you will see in the Middle East and the fourth signal you will see in the sky. So the four signals are in four different places.

Signal number one is the signal in the world at large. The signal of widespread disaster. The Lord mentioned three such disasters that we will see on a large scale as we watch: wars, famines and earthquakes. There will be an increase of these three things – that is the first signal. Earthquakes are caused by entirely natural causes. Wars are caused by human factors and famines are a mixture of the two. But Jesus was saying that both from nature and human nature, there will be an increase in disasters. We can expect to keep opening our newspapers and see another war, another famine, another earthquake. 

When you see Britain going into war, or the world breaking down into widespread wars or great famines sweeping across the globe or earthquakes shaking our towns, don’t panic, its not the end. Its not the end of the world. Its the beginning of the end, but its also Jesus says the beginning of birth- pains. Birth pains! Giving birth is a bit of a painful process. But at the end of the pain is something wonderful, a new life in this world. 

That is signal one. I’m not sure if we have seen that signal yet. There does not seem like there is more war, famine or earthquakes than in past centuries, although it is bad.

Signal 2 you will see go down in the church. That is where you will have to look for it. What is it? Well three things will happen on a universal scale in the church. First universal persecution, it will be hated by all nations. Jesus says then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death and you will be hated by all nations because of me. That has never been true in church history. For 2000 years there have been some countries where the church is under pressure and others where it is not, such as Great Britain. 

Today there are some countries like Afghanistan and North Korea where there is great persecution, but not in the UK and many other countries. So this hasn’t happened yet.

Secondly, Jesus also taught that the effect of this will be a great reduction of the size of the church. People will leave, and give up on their faith. The love of Christians for God for Jesus, for each other will cool. They will walk away from it all.

I heard a story from Russia several years ago when it was under Communist rule still. It was the story of a prayer meeting in Russian where the doors burst open and two Russian soldiers came in with machine guns. There were shouting ‘We’re going to kill the Christians.’ The Christians thought the soldiers were drunk but to their horror, quickly realised that they were stone sober. Then the soldiers said, If your not a Christian, get out.’ A number got up and ran. The soldiers said to the rest, ‘Now can you tell us how to become Christians, please? We had to make sure that we got real Christians so they wouldn’t tell on us.’ My, a bit of pressure soon sorts out the sheep from the goats!

We could well see more pressure coming on the church in the UK if our country keeps on going the way its been going. We need to be ready for it.

It will be persecuted, many will leave it, many will be deceived. There will be false prophets who will deceive many. But in the midst of all this, those who are true to the faith will hang on to their death and will be saved. Those who are tenacious in the midst of this pressure cooker situation- will be saved and make it into the Kingdom of Heaven. 

The fourth feature of this signal is the most exciting. Jesus says ‘and the gospel of the kingdom will be preached to all the nations.’ He teaches that despite the pressure on the church, or maybe because of it, the church will get the job done and the gospel will be preached to every ethnic group and then the end will come! That means when the gospel is preached to all nations, we are right at the end of this present evil age, Christ’s second coming is very close.

That is not far off. 

But notice that this signal has not yet fallen. There is not universal persecution and the gospel hasn’t been preached to every ethnic group quite yet. So Jesus is not going to come back tomorrow- we are not there yet. 

Third sign- in the Middle East. Jesus says one day in Jerusalem itself, in the holy place, in the very temple of God there will be an abomination in God’s sight- the ultimate blasphemy and obscenity. Something obscene will be done in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. 

At that time there will be a great tribulation or big trouble and Jesus says here it will be time of great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the word and never to be equalled again. It will be a horrendous few years, for the world. If God hadn’t cut short the time of big trouble or desolation or great distress, then no-one would survive, but for the sake of the elect, Christians these days will be shortened.

So the persecution is going to crank up. It will be awful. Jesus wanted his church to be prepared for it.

Also there will be false Christs and false prophets and they will perform great miracles. Trying to deceive people. So we must be aware that there will be very believable people around in the future, near the end of the world, you will need to have your Bible very close to you not to be deceived. 

This third signal suggests that the Temple in Jerusalem must be rebuilt and at some moment after it is rebuilt, it will be desecrated. That is my understanding. And the Temple hasn’t been built yet and right now the Al-Aqsa Mosque is standing where it will be built. So that Signal certainly hasn’t fallen yet. 

Let us move to signal number four. After you see signal number three, start looking in the sky for signal number four. The fourth signal is immediately after all that trouble, which will be of limited duration. The fourth signal is that God will turn out every light in the universe. 

Have you been in a theatre when as the performance is about to begin, the lights in the theatre go out one by one, until the whole audience is left sitting in darkness? The audience’s anticipation rises as they sit there in the darkness, knowing the show is about to begin and then there is a blaze of light and the curtains come up, the show commences. 

That is what it is going to be like? The last signal is that the sun will go out, the moon will go out, the stars will go out. Every natural light in the universe will be switched off- at least from the viewpoint of planet Earth. 

Suddenly like lightning from one end of the heaven to the other, you will see the Son of Man appear in the sky. Christ appears on Earth to reign! 

You will hear a tremendous noise- the trumpet call sending out God’s angels to gather all Christ’s people, dead or alive to meet him. 

The dead in Christ will be resurrected and living Christians be transformed and will rise to meet him.

So how should we respond to this? Well John tells us to keep walking in faith and obedience so that on the day we meet him on that great Day we will unashamed. He writes in 1 John 2:28:

“And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.”  

We should be looking forward to his appearing, it should excite us and give us a yearning for it, for it will be a great day of blessing for us. 

2 Timothy 4:8, “There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord… will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

Do we love his appearing? As we reflect on it, I think we will come to do so.

Philippians 3 talks about Christians eagerly awaiting a Saviour from heaven.

Its something we should eagerly be waiting for.

Jesus said- “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.” – Revelation 22:12 On that Day we will be rewarded:  

And so let us hear the sound of the shofar and be alert, serving, watching and anticipating. The best is yet to come.