BFM 2000 Salem Study: Last Things

Joel Hayworth

BFM 2000 Salem Study • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

0 ratings

· 28 views

Notes

Transcript

Sermon Tone Analysis

Emotion

Language

Social

View more →

Introduction

Whenever I first started pastoring in Conway, Missouri I began to get to know some of the people that lived near us… Now, in Conway your neighbors literally live across a cow field - not next door! One individual who lived on the other side of the highway was working in his garden one morning and we met while going to get the mail from the mailbox. We got to talking about our past and things like that and he mentioned that he was a believer in Jesus Christ but didn’t currently attend a church on Sundays despite living within walking distance of Morgan Baptist Church. I asked if he had ever been to the church before and if so, how things went. He said that he occasionally came to the church but he came very often for one study in particular that their previous pastor had done on the book of Revelation. In his own words as we were leaving to go back to our respective homes he turned and said, “If you do a study on Revelation and the end times, let me know and I’ll be there!”

This man is not alone in this - far from it, in fact. I’ve talked to several pastors who have said similar things. If you do a sermon series or Bible study from the book of Revelation you’ll have more people show up than just about any other study. Why is this the case? The book fascinates our minds as we look forward to the end of this world and the dawn of eternity to come. We read of interesting scenes unfolding and battles being waged. We read of judgment and mercy. For lots of people, they read the book and they are filled with hope of some capacity while others read it and are filled with immediate dread and terror. Some believe that they have it all figured out and they’re even willing to predict dates and charts and graphs with a timeline of when things will happen and where they will take place.

Revelation is a book that fascinates the mind but it’s far from the only book in our Bible that talks about a doctrine called Eschatology or the study of the last things. The Baptist Faith and Message shares with us a brief article that we’ll study more in depth this evening as we examine the full counsel of God’s Word to see what the Bible actually says about the end times, what the Bible does not say about the end times, and some distinctions concerning views about the end times.

The BFM 2000 says this, “God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord.”

Notice what this article says and all the Bible verses below it. Let’s examine some of those now

Mark 8:38 CSB

38 For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Luke 12:40 CSB

40 You also be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Acts 1:11 CSB

11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven.”

Philippians 3:20–21 CSB

20 Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.

1 Thessalonians 4:14–18 CSB

14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For we say this to you by a word from the Lord: We who are still alive at the Lord’s coming will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Revelation 3:11 CSB

11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one takes your crown.

Lots of Scripture references here and many more that we could mention as well - let’s begin tonight by simply looking at what the Bible actually says about the end times and what the BFM states

What Does the Bible Say?

The Bible is clear that several things will happen during these “last days” but there are passages of Scripture that can be confusing and there are people who teach about a billion different things concerning the topic. So, to start off tonight, let’s look at what we know about the end times and things that everyone agrees on:

Christ will return

Christ will judge

People will either spend eternity in glory or in hell

Regardless of some of the differences that we’ll talk about in a few minutes, we all can and must agree on these 3 things.

The Bible is crystal clear that Jesus Christ will return visibly for everyone to see. There are some people who believe in a secret return of Jesus Christ - that He will return not once but twice. Others believed that Jesus had already returned to the earth in the 1st century world and had taught some secret knowledge that we could find it we tired really hard and talked to the right people. This is called gnosticism and it was shot down as a heresy or unChristian belief from the get go… Yet, there are people who still subscribe to it today. There are some such as the Mormons who believe that Jesus not only appeared to His disciples but visited the United States and will return to the United States. You won’t find that in the Bible - the Bible shares with us that Jesus Christ rose from the grave, spent 40 days with His followers, and then ascended to glory and will come again some day. Whenever He comes back, everyone will know He came. There won’t be a second coming just for believers or just for Americans or just for Baptists and then another coming for everyone else… There will be one return of Christ that everyone will experience and witness. We can all affirm this based on what the Word of God shares with us.

Second, the Bible shares with us that Christ will also judge the world. Everyone in our world talks about wanting justice and everything to be fair and square because they believe that they are good and deserve good things to happen to them as well. We’re tempted to tell this to God at times as well… God, look at all of this good stuff that I’ve done, don’t I deserve good back? If God is just, then I should be blessed and prosperous because of my works. The problem with this mentality is that we don’t get to be the judge… God is the judge. God gets to determine what is good and what is not. God’s standard of good is perfection and, sadly, we all fall short. Rather than crying out for justice, we should cry out to God for mercy! Instead of praying that we get what we deserve, our prayer is that we instead get what Christ deserved. This is the transaction that transpired at the cross as Jesus bore our punishment and paid our debt so that we could be counted as righteous and inherit eternal life with God! The Bible is clear that if you reject Jesus Christ, you will spend eternity separated from God in a place called hell. The Bible is also clear that Jesus Christ will judge people. Not just some people, but all will give an account to God one day

2 Corinthians 5:10 CSB

10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Every secret will be revealed. Every action will be in the open and evaluated not by a human… But by God! This truth shouldn’t scare you to death because your sins have been covered by Jesus’ blood, but it should cause you to live a life of obedience. Think about the difference of obedience for a moment. Some children obey their parents out of a position of fear… I’m afraid that if I don’t do a good job my mom or my dad will punish me. While other children obey their parents out of a position of love… I love my parents and I want to make them proud of me, therefore, I’m going to obey them. We know that God does discipline His children, sure, but the stronger bond between parent and child is that of love, not fear. We obey God because we love Him - not because we’re afraid of His judgment, although that is a genuine thing. The Bible simply shares that Christ will judge - non-Christians will be judged and Christians will give an account for the things we did, said, and thought. Praise the Lord that there isn’t an unqualifying sin that will keep us out of heaven!

Third, the Bible shares with us that there are 2 eternal destinations where people will go after they die. The BFM shares with us that the unrighteous will be consigned to hell, the place of everlasting punishment while the righteous will receive their reward and dwell forever in heaven. Those are the only 2 options! Between those 2 options, everyone in their right mind would say that they’d rather receive a reward than be punished for all eternity… But there is a huge misconception about what heaven is and what it is not. Heaven is not a place where we’re going to go and try our best to act perfectly, exclusively wear robes, float with our wings, and only sing random tunes… That’s what angels do, but that’s not the entire picture that we see in Scripture about our future in heaven. Our future will be one of genuine worship. We will dwell with our Father. We will exercise rule and dominion over His Kingdom. As WT Conner once said, “Heaven is no lazy man’s paradise.” Heaven isn’t a country club that we retire to and kick our feet back and enjoy an eternity of relaxation. Heaven will be an eternity of joyful praise and worship and fulfillment.

What Does the Bible not Say?

The Bible does not tell us exactly what day Christ will return and it doesn’t give us a detailed, step-by-step blueprint as to how things will work out. If the Bible told us exactly how these last days would play out we wouldn’t have 4/5 very popular views concerning His return and reign.

Think of some things that the Bible is very clear about. The Bible is very clear about Jesus being fully God and fully man. The Bible is clear that Jesus is the Messiah. The Bible is very clear that we are saved by grace, through faith, in Christ and not by our works. The Bible is crystal clear about salvation, our sinful condition, the return of Jesus, the Trinity, the truthfulness and authority of Scripture and so many other topics that we must get right. You could say the “primary” things to our faith the Bible is clear about. Yet, there are many things that are in a secondary category. These are things that do not impact our salvation but they might impact our fellowship with other Christians. Take the age of the earth for example, I have a strong conviction that the earth is young but I know other Christians who believe in Jesus and follow Him faithfully who believe that the earth is older. I can still worship with these friends, but we won’t agree. The same is true for things like our theory of the end times, the continuation of certain spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, the method we use for baptism, and the way that we go about our style of worship. All of these things and so many more are secondary doctrine. The Bible gives us the essential truths that we have to all agree upon but where the Bible is silent we can only speculate. We have convictions based on Scripture, but other people have similar convictions based on other Scripture. We can’t turn secondary or tertiary things into primary things when the Bible doesn’t do that. We have to remember the adage: In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity.

It’s important to remember that God gives us exactly what we need to know but He doesn’t give us everything that we might want to know and He does this with a purpose in mind. Why do we not need to know exactly which view is right and how everything will play out? If God told you that Jesus is going to return on April 2nd, 3469 then you and I are not going to be around at that point in time and we might be tempted to be a little lazy concerning obeying His Word and sharing the Gospel with others. Why? Because He’s not coming back for another 1400 years! Someone else will tell them about Jesus, I can just wait out my days in Christian retirement and kick my feet up because He’s not coming back anytime soon.

The Bible does not tell us exactly when Jesus will return and that’s ok. We can’t insert words into the Bible as some individuals like to do with Biblical numerology as they try to make words mean numbers and they grab a chalk board and make a massive chart to try and prove to you that Jesus will come back on this day and this many things will happen during these 7 years and then this will happen and then this and that… No. The Bible doesn’t explicitly say that so we can’t insert what we think into a place where there isn’t a clear statement from Scripture.

Distinctions About the End Times

Notice, the Baptist Faith and Message says nothing about the rapture, millennium, tribulation, or anything remotely close to that. This is crucial in Baptist life and it’s an area where we stub our toes more often than not. While the Left Behind series sold millions of copies and was definitely good Christian fiction… It was in fact Christian fiction. The official SBC position is not a premillennial, pretribulational, rapture as the Left Behind books popularized because that theory is a relatively new theory… Dispensational Pre-Millennialism wasn’t really a consideration for the majority of the history of the church. It became popular in the United States in the 19th-20th centuries. It is not our default position on the end times and if you agree with it, that’s fine, but don’t get up in arms whenever someone else in church disagrees with it because there are 4-5 plausible, orthodox, and historically viable options out there. Here are 4 that we’ll briefly discuss this evening as options for a good Southern Baptist - we could spend a whole lot more time strictly on these positions and I can give you more resources than you’d ever care for if you’d like to study this more in-depth this week

Amillennialism

This position says that there is no future millennium to come as passages like Revelation 20:1-10 describe the present church age, not an age to come. Therefore, Christ could return at any point in time and bring about His divine judgment on His foes and bring about His eternal Kingdom. This is the most simple explanation and a good number of Christians and Southern Baptists have held to this position. The biggest strength with this position is the consistency with Scripture that the major events of the last days occur at one time. Not a staggering or multiple appearings of Jesus, He returns, the resurrection of the dead in Christ/lost, judgment takes place, people enter their eternal homes.

Postmillennialism

This position shares that times on the earth will get better, not worse and that eventually the millennium of peace and righteousness will take place as Christians grow and grow and apply God’s standards and Words to society. At the end of this millennium period, Christ will return, the dead will be raised, the judgment will occur, and people will enter their eternal destinations. This is an optimistic view about the future and has been very popular in times of success and progress within the church. Times of great revival within the church and times of peace within the world. This is a position that many Christians and Southern Baptists have advocated over the years.

Historic Premillennialism

This position has the longest track record of any view and great amounts of support from the early church onward. This view simply shares that Jesus will come back before the millennium as the chart illustrates. You see that we’re in the church age currently and then there will be a time of tribulation to which Christ will return and set up His Kingdom on the earth and rule as its king. Some take this Kingdom to literally be a thousand years while others take it to be a symbol (key in book of Revelation as it’s Apocalyptic literature) of a period of time where Christ reigns.

This view argues that during Christ’s reign, many non-Christians will turn to Christ and be saved. After the millennium, Satan will be loosed and those who continue to reject Christ’s rule will battle against Christ. Christ will win and then will come the judgment and believers will enter eternal glory.

This is a position that many Christians and Southern Baptists have held for literally thousands of years and is especially popular during times of persecution and suffering as Scripture provides hope in such times.

Pretribulational Premillennialism

This final position has the shortest track record of any view. It argues the following: Jesus will come back secretly and rapture His bride home for a period of time - 7 years. Whenever this happens, there will be a time of tribulation on the earth. Christ takes His people home before the bad stuff happens. After the tribulation, Jesus sets up His millennium Kingdom with His followers and after this time of rule, Satan and his followers will rebel and be defeated.

This view maintains strong loyalty to Israel because it posits that God has 2 chosen people: Israel and the Church.

Now, all 4 of these views have people who believe them and the Baptist Faith and Message purposefully allows for that. This is a secondary doctrine that will not divide unless we make it divisive. The only thing that we can do is study Scripture, not pop culture, and allow Scripture to help us see how things will play out in the end. As we read Scripture, we quickly see that some words never show up in it, hint hint. We also see that God’s people have always suffered for their faith. From the time of Noah to the early church in Acts and beyond, believing in and trusting in God leads to suffering for God. Yet, there is this idea that some Christians have today that says, “Hey, God doesn’t want me to suffer for Him… Therefore, we’re going to be taken home and not have to suffer.” That flies against the way that God has done things for thousands and thousands of years. Jesus said that in this world you will have trouble - tribulation has been the testimony of those who have gone before us, and if God chooses to send His people through tribulation in the years to come, sign me up… Not because it’ll be easy, but because God knows best and Christians have been going through it for thousands and thousands of years.

Conclusion

Last things stir our brain and prepare our heart for eternity. Much more could be said concerning all the views that people have concerning how it will play out, but here’s the core truth we hold on to. Christ is coming back. He will return and we all will see Him. Every knee will bow down and worship Him. If you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, this world is the worst thing you will ever experience because eternity to come will be so much sweeter than anything this world has to offer! But, if you don’t know Jesus Christ, this world is the best thing you will ever experience because your eternity to come will be so much worse than the worst this world has to offer… We don’t know when He will come back, but we know that He’s coming back. Are you ready for that day? Are you living your life in such a way that other people know that you are a born-again follower of Jesus? Are you walking the walk and talking the talk? While we should all be ready for heaven, think tonight about work that you still need to do here and now. As long as God has you here, He has you here on mission for a purpose. Whenever your mission is done, He will call you home. Until that day comes, you have a purpose from the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and His purpose for your life is greater than anything you or I could come up with on our own.

Instead of studying this subject exclusively - let’s use the fundamental truths of this doctrine of eschatology to motivate us to Glorify God, Proclaim the Gospel, and Make Disciples before Christ returns.

Related Media

Related Sermons