Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Paul Harvey in, For What It's Worth tells of how Ann Connolly used modern technology to foil a crime.

She was in Red Food Store in Knoxsville, Tenn.

When a man snatched her purse from her cart.

She is a real estate broker and has a talk back beeper device in her purse.

She ran to the manager's office and dialed herself.

Then she spoke into the phone knowing her voice would be transmitted through the beeper in her purse.

The produce manager said, "You should have seen that surprised man standing there with a talking purse."

The voice was saying, "Take this purse to the manger's office immediately."

It spoke with such authority that he did it.

This example of the power of the voice dims like a candle before the noon day sun when compared with the voice of Jesus.

In John 5 Jesus gives two examples of the power of His voice.

In verse 25 he says, "I tell you the truth, a time is coming, and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live."

You would think that would be the ultimate in the power of the voice, but Jesus was referring here to hearing the Gospel, and being saved from spiritual death to life.

This is going on all over the world everyday.

But Jesus goes on in verses 28-29 to reveal a day when His voice will be more powerful than all the energy in the universe, for it will accomplish the supreme miracle.

He says, "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice and come out-those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned."

Every human being who has ever lived and died will be awakened by the voice of the Son of God.

Lazarus came forth when Jesus shouted, and this dead friend of Jesus walked out of the tomb.

When Jesus comes again He will say, "Everyone come forth," and all the dead, both good and evil, will come back to life to face reward or judgment.

Even Hollywood with all of its spectacular special effects would not be able to match this grand finale of the Lord's miracles.

Contrary to those who say, "When you are dead you are dead forever," Jesus says,

"Nobody is dead forever," for all the dead will be compelled by His voice to rise and live.

The Second Coming of Christ will be the greatest demonstration ever of His Lordship over all.

He was despised and rejected in His first coming, but in His Second Coming He will be King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and the first true ruler of the whole world.

The world is the field, and the farmer makes two visits to his field.

The first time he plows the soil and plants the seed.

That is what Jesus did in His first coming.

Then the farmer comes again to reap the harvest, and that is what Christ will do when He comes again.

The analogy breaks down, however, for farmers go back several times to spray and weed, but Jesus said to His disciples, "Let the tares grow with the wheat till the harvest."

Jesus only comes to His field twice in bodily form.

He comes often in spirit, for where two or three are gathered in His name He will be there.

We want to focus our attention on His second bodily appearing for all mankind.

David Koresh by his fanatical focus on end times has propelled the vocabulary of the Second Coming events into the media so that words like Armageddon and Apocalypse are in every paper and magazine.

Fanatics have, all through history, caused by their fanaticism the view that only Christian weirdoes, out in left field, are into the study of end time themes.

The fact is, the New Testament refers to the Second Coming over 300 times, and the early church from the start had this as a major focus.

John Wesley White, a partner evangelist with Billy Graham, in his book Re-entry II quotes the great Alexander Maclaren, "The primitive church thought more about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ than about death or about heaven.

They were not looking for a cleft in the ground called a grave, but for a cleavage in the sky called glory.

They were not watching for the "Undertaker," but for the "Uppertaker."

White goes on to add, "In other words, they were not druggies looking for a cocaine high.

They were believers looking for Christ from on high.

They were not gamblers waiting at the Hialeah Course.

They were Christians listening for the Hallelujah Chorus."

Jesus teaches us a number of things about His coming again, and we want to focus first of all on His teaching to-

I. BE WARY.

The world is full of experts who will tell you they have read the signs, and they know when Christ will return.

The one thing we can know for sure about the Second Coming is that we cannot know for sure when it will be.

Jesus did not just make this point in passing.

He stressed it over and over again.

Listen to the voice of our Lord, and the many voices of the so-called experts who think they have found a way to decipher the time of His coming.

"Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."

Matt.

24:42.

"Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh."

Matt.

24:44.

" Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh."

Matt.

25:13.

"Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.

Mark 13:33.

"Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly he finds you sleeping.

And what I say unto you I say unto all, watch."

Mark 13:35-37.

"Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not."

Luke 12:40.

The key word in all that Jesus says is the word watch.

This means it is legitimate to focus on the signs of His coming, and to join the multiplied millions who look for evidence of His coming.

The danger of this focus will be that we forget Jesus said we cannot know when He will come, and that it will be when He is not expected.

This means Jesus could come at any time, and not when men calculate that He should come.

The fact is that it is part of God's plan to keep the time a secret so that all generations are equally responsible to live in expectation.

If Jesus would have taught that He would return in the 20th century, the Christians of the centuries before could just forget watching.

Once you let the secret out, you lose the power of the secret to hold all Christians in expectation.

It was just as likely that Jesus could have come in the second, third, fourth, or fifteen century.

It has been an obligation for every Christian in every age to obey Christ and watch in expectation.

Jesus could have come anytime, and He can come at any time now, and there is no way to predict when it will be.

The New Testament Christians expected Jesus in their lifetime, and it has always been so, and should be so for us today.

To pretend that we know something that Christians of other centuries did not know is to ignore His clear teaching that His coming could be at any time, and not just when we think the signs are most evident.

I like the way John R. Rice the fighting fundamentalist put it.

He angered a lot of his fundamentalist friends by robbing them of the pleasure of thinking they had figured out the signs of Christ's coming.

He wrote, "The coming of the Lord might have been at any time from Pentecost on until now.

For that reason all the signs of the second coming are left indefinite in degree.

Wars grow worse and worse, but the Scripture never says just how much war must occur before the Savior comes.

Worldliness and unbelief in the churches grows worse and worse, an accelerating and increasingly weighty evidence that the Savior's return is "even at the door."

But some of this worldliness has been in the churches from the beginning, and how far wrong the church will go before the Savior's return is not revealed in the Bible.

There is not one single sign for which Christians have needed to wait before they should expect the return of the Savior.

And not one single event has occurred or will occur definitely enough that any person can know the day or hour of His return."

Knowing this is our only protection from self-proclaimed prophets.

They are not always fanatics, but sometimes very sincere Bible students who feel they have found the key to the mysteries that have been locked up.

It is very presumptuous for men to say we now know what Jesus said cannot be known, but they do it all the time, and history is filled with sincere Christian scholars who feel they have gone over the head of Jesus and figured out what He said we can't know.

1988 was the date for which a popular book was written proving that was to be the year of Christ's return.

Like all other such books, it was also wrong.

Be wary and listen to Jesus, and not men.

In the 40 days between His resurrection and ascension Jesus would come and go, and His disciples never knew when He would appear.

G. Campbell Morgan says of this: "Have you ever tried imaginatively to enter into the experience of those men during those 40 days?

They never knew where they would see Him next.

Suddenly appearing in their midst, no door opened, no bolt shot, not preparation made; but He was there with them.

His presence, parousia, nearness, they were made conscious of!

With equal suddenness He disappeared.

The appearances and disappearances of the 40 days were but to train these people to the consciousness of His constant presence, and to the fact that at any moment He might appear.

That is the teaching of the New Testament about the coming of our Lord.

Nothing in human pomp or pageantry can express the true idea of this great truth of the New Testament as to our Lord's second Advent."

The second thing Jesus says is-