Are you familiar with the Christmas story? I am guessing that most of you reading this post are. I am not talking about the myth concerning Santa Claus and the North Pole, I am referring to the Messiah, Jesus Christ, being born in Bethlehem.
The events related to the first coming of Jesus are some of the most familiar in all of Scripture. We have sets of figurines in our homes that we display seasonally recounting the story. We dedicate a month of sermons every year to remember Jesus arrival. And all this for good reason! The first coming of Jesus IS MASSIVE NEWS. In fact, MASSIVE GOOD NEWS of GREAT JOY for ALL THE PEOPLE!!!!!
However, did you know that Jesus is planning on coming back to this earth a SECOND time? That’s right. He is coming. He is coming soon, and the wise man or woman takes this to heart.
Though you may have heard that Jesus is coming again, you may not know as much about the second coming as the first. You probably don’t have a second coming decorative that you set out every August on your mantle … you may have never heard a SINGLE sermon about the event (though you have heard thousands of Christmas messages). Because of this, knowledge of the second coming of Christ may be a mystery to many.
Our ignorance of the event is not because God has not been telling us about it. According to Pastor David Jeremiah (I have not done the independent research on this, but trust his work), one out of our every 30 verses in our Bibles makes an allusion to the second coming of Jesus. It is mentioned in 17 of the 39 Old Testament books, and in 23 of the 27 New Testament books. There are 1,845 total references in our Bibles to Jesus return! That is a LOT of material!!! There is roughly 8x the biblical references to the second coming of Jesus as to the first. God has consistently spoken of this event through the prophets, the apostles, and Jesus Himself. He obviously wants us to know what’s coming!
This Sunday, at Wildwood Community Church, we will be in Revelation 19:11-21 (in part 2 of our “The Lord of New Heaven and Earth” sermon series) as we will be looking at the central passage on Christ’s second advent that vividly describes the day He returns to this earth.
- If you have never heard a sermon on the second coming … come Sunday. Let’s educate our minds.
- If you have questions about why this event matters so much … come Sunday. Let’s invigorate our faith response.
- If you are a prophecy junky, and regularly compare headlines to Scripture … come Sunday. Let’s reconnect this message to our hearts (not just to our heads).
Apparently God wants us to know about the return of Jesus, so let’s see what He has to say together as we gather on August 28 in our 8:30, 9:45, and 11:00 service.