The return of Christ is presented as a source of comfort and a vital doctrine for believers, as emphasized in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. The sermon contrasts the hopeful Christian perspective on death with the despair of those without hope, highlighting that Christ's return will bring believers who have died and those who are alive together to be with Him. It notes a decline in the common expression of
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First Thessalonians chapter four, I know you can quote this, but let's read it anyway. Sometimes we see nice bright new things when we just read over the word of God. We'll begin with the thirteenth verse, where the topic changes. But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, but ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope. Seven times in the New Testament, he tells us, here's something, I don't want you to be ignorant of.
I think if you look them up, make a list of them, you find out these are the seven things that we're most ignorant of, really. But we don't need to be, and we shouldn't be. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus, literally who sleep through Jesus, whom the Lord Jesus has put to sleep, will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent or precede them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.
And the dead in Christ arise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. He said this morning that we are comforted through the Scriptures. But of course there are many topics in the Scriptures. The Word of God comforts us in many different ways. One of the ways in which the Word of God can be a comfort to these people is by teaching us and reminding us of the return of Christ.
I'm a little bit afraid about something that is happening among those who need as we do. I have been able to look over a number of years and see changes, and as you get older, it's easier to look back. I don't want to get like the mythical fluggy bird who always flies backwards because he doesn't care to see where he's going, he just wants to see where he's been. Sometimes old people are allowed to do that very thing, and I don't want to do that. I don't always be flying backwards, looking back over the past. But it's easy to do as you get older. And as I look back over the past, I can see a marked change in the attitude of the Lord's people toward the coming of Christ.
For instance, when I was a young Christian, It was customary among all of my acquaintances that you signed your letters, Maranatha. My brother was an engraver. We used to be in the jewelry business together. And he engraved for me a tie class, which he made for me out of sterling silver. He said, what do you want on it? Your initials? And I said, no, put Maranatha on it. You know, I had to quit wearing that thing because I had to explain to everybody. You say, Maranatha, that's a camp someplace, isn't it? This never would have been asked when I was a youngster.
It just wouldn't have been asked. It's all because we use this word among ourselves. Christians said it to each other. Maranatha. The Lord has come. I never remember hearing my parents say, we're going to do this or that. They said, either if the Lord will, or they said, if the Lord hasn't come. I remember a man who accepted Christ, he had been an organizer for the foray, the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, or as they call themselves, the damn soul society.
He'd been an organizer for this, and my cousin wrote him a letter and sent him a gospel tract, and the Lord hooked him through just one sentence on that tract. He couldn't get away from it, and he got saved. And I tried to lead him along for the first two or three years of his Christian life. I took him to his first prayer meeting. He just couldn't believe it. He said, just imagine me at a prayer meeting, and I enjoyed it. just couldn't get over the change that came over it. But his background was one thing, and the Christian life into which he'd been introduced was another thing, and for a while he kind of intermixed, you know.
And I guess this happens with all young Christians. It was a common expression in those days that you were going to do something if you didn't fall down and break a leg. So when I bid him goodnight one Sunday night, he said, well, I'll see you at the meeting Wednesday night. Lord willing, if I don't fall down and break a leg. He wanted to get them both in there, you know. Get this thing straight. But he wanted the will of the Lord in his life. And that young man learned to say, I'll do this or I'll do that if the Lord hasn't come. And I don't hear this very much now. At a conference shortly before dear Mr.
Sheldrake was taken home to heaven, he preached on his favorite theme, The Coming of the Lord. If you ever received his monthly ministry letter, which it was my great privilege to edit and send out for him for a while after he was stricken with his last illness, I know that you notice that almost every issue of that monthly ministry letter had an article in it about the coming of the Lord, or a paragraph at least, about the coming of the Lord. He believed it. His eyes simply shone when he talked about the coming of the Lord. He would say to me sometimes, this might be the day, John.
This might be the day. We were at a conference, and he had spoken on this theme, and a man who should have known better came up to him. And in a kind of a sneering tone, said to him, Well, Mr. Sheldrake, you're still talking about the coming of the Lord. I remember at a conference, thirty-five years ago, you thought the Lord was going to come that year. And in his delightful childlike simplicity, he said, Yes, I was looking for him that year, and don't I have far more reason to look for him this year? And the smile on his face and the light on his face completely baffled that fellow.
He just turned and walked off. You just can't argue with that kind of hope. Don't I have far more reason to look for him now than I did thirty-five years ago? But are we? I think you know that every chapter in First Thessalonians ends with a reference to the return of Christ. And I think you know that the second epistle to the Thessalonians is written for the purpose of correcting certain errors that surrounded their belief in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And these letters were written to Christians with whom Paul had spent only three Sabbath days.
That's as long as he was in Thessalonica. He had to move on. The authorities were after him, and after spending three Sabbath days with him. And whatever time was connected to that. So it couldn't have been more than three weeks. It might only have been two weeks of three weekends. Anyway, that little bit of time of these people, he had been able to teach them about the coming of Christ. This is a topic that ought to be given to the early date in Christ. The youngest Christian put this in his first formula, feeding this with his first bottle of milk. Teach him that the Lord Jesus has gone into heaven, but that he is coming back again.
Every young Christian ought to be helped to understand, help to see, help to know that the Lord's coming is near. I believe in the coming of the Lord, and I believe the old-fashioned doctrine of the Scriptures about the coming of the Lord. I believe that the Lord Jesus is coming back personally. And I believe that he is coming back before the tribulation, and therefore before the millennium. I believe that he is coming in the air for his people, and then after the tribulation period he is coming on down to the earth with his people.
If you've got anything better, I'm glad to listen to it, but I still believe this simple old teaching that the Lord Jesus is going to come for his own before he comes with his own. And I don't know any other way that the blessed hope can really be a hope. How can you expect anything, such as was written up in one of the Christian magazines a few years ago, and I believe the man who wrote it is a real believer, But he very unnecessarily made this statement. He said, we only know that Christ is coming back.
We know that we have been told to look for him. And so we are looking for him. He may come today. He may come in ten years. Or he may come in a hundred years. I don't know why he said that. But I'll tell you one thing. I can't look for anything. It might not be for a hundred years. because I don't expect to be sticking around here for that. If you don't think that the Lord might come for another hundred years, I don't think that the Blessed Hope has a grip on your soul as it ought to have. Let me say a few things about the coming of the Lord this afternoon. The topic is taught in this passage and in First Corinthians fifteen in a very special way, but it is mentioned many times in the New Testament.
Now, one of the reasons, one of the reasons why I believe implicitly in the teaching of the Bible about the second coming of Christ is because the prophecies of the first coming were so completely fulfilled. All through the Old Testament, the prophets said he's coming. He's coming. They said he's coming to this place. He's coming at this time. He's coming to This nation and this tribe and this family, he's coming in this manner. And the Old Testament prophets, one by one, added to our knowledge of the coming of the Lord. And when the Lord Jesus came, he fulfilled these with the very letter.
It's true that not very many were looking for it. I think you could count up on your two hands the people that God tells us that were really looking for that first coming. There may have been others, but I mean those were mentioned by name. There was Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth. They were looking for the Lord to come. And Joseph and Mary were looking for him. And Anna and Old Simeon were looking for him. Now you take it from there. How many can you count up? I think that's a little sample of what we may expect in our days. Those who believed God's word believed that the Lord Jesus was coming.
Were they disappointed? Not at all. Came exactly as he said he was going to. I don't mean to imply that he's that explicit about his second coming. He has not given us dates about his second coming. He hasn't even given to his people signs. There are signs. The signs were given for Israel, I believe. The signs have to do with his coming as the Son of Man, rather than his coming as the Lord. And while we may not see things being fulfilled, I couldn't go that far as to say the things that are happening around us are the fulfillment of prophecy, because I believe that the clock of prophecy stopped when the Lord Jesus ascended.
I believe that God has set Israel aside in this present day. And I don't believe that we are seeing signs to indicate the coming of the Lord. I think we are seeing signs that the stage is being set. I think we see signs that things are heading up for this. I think we can see things to tell us that God is getting ready to do the things that he's going to do. Somebody has said, we are not told to look for signs, but there's no harm in looking at them. And when you see things happening around you, as he says in the tenth chapter of Hebrews in verse twenty-five, he tells us there very plainly, so much the more as you see the day approaching.
Undoubtedly there is the day of apostasy, not the coming of Christ, but you see the apostasy precedes that, and you see approaching. Also in the book of Luke, Luke's account of the Olivet Discourse, Luke emphasizes our side of things, while Matthew emphasizes the Jewish side of things. And in Luke's account, he says, when you see these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your head, for your redemption draws not. So I believe that we can begin to see these things coming to pass. Now I believe that the prophecies of the return of Christ are much more frequent than most people have any idea.
Someone who has taken the time to count these has told us that there is one verse out of every twenty-five in the New Testament referring to the coming of Christ. That there are three hundred and twenty-five distinct mentions of the second coming Christ in the New Testament. Now these are not all of the rapture, of course, but they have to do about the coming of Christ. Three hundred and fifty-five distinct references are made. I think this indicates that it's a very important subject. Every writer in the New Testament refers to the coming of the Lord. Now there are many other things that we can accept, do accept if it's even once in the Scripture.
There are many other things in the Word of God which are important to us even though they're only mentioned once. Only once in the New Testament does he tell us how often the Lord's people met together to break bread? Well, that's enough for me. If he only tells us once that on the first day of the week they came together to break bread, that sounds as far as I'm concerned. But if he tells you the same thing three hundred and twenty-five times in the New Testament, how can you possibly overlook it? Sounds like I'm arguing with you. I just want to strengthen your confidence in this doctrine of the return of Christ. Let me say a little bit this afternoon about the effects of the coming of Christ.
I'm not now thinking of the unsaved. You know what the effect will be on the unsaved. Those who have heard the gospel, Those who have rejected the gospel, I believe according to Second Thessalonians chapter two, will never have another chance after the return of Christ. As far as I'm concerned, this is settled in my mind. Second Thessalonians chapter two, for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they might believe a lie, that they all might be damned to believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. A person who has heard the gospel, and rejected it in the present time is doomed when the Lord Jesus comes and takes away his oath.
Recently somebody has put out a book. He's had this book printed, especially for people who are left here when the Lord comes. I haven't seen a copy of it, but two or three people have told me about it since we've been here at Lake Peronis. This man has written this book, which he hopes will be in the hands of people so that they will know what happened. and they find themselves left behind at the rapture. Christ takes his people home. And in this book, he tells them what to do and what not to do. He warns them not to believe in the Antichrist. Well, personally, I don't see what he's going to accomplish with that, because if they have rejected Christ, he plainly says, God shall send them strong delusion.
And they will believe a lie. In spite of anything that we can do, what we ought to do is try to win them to Christ now. because they're not going to be saved after the Lord Jesus comes back. There will be people saved during the Great Tribulation, undoubtedly. Seventh chapter of Revelation is very clear on this. There will be a hundred and forty-four thousand, well that number is literal or figurative, really doesn't matter, but there will be a great many of the Jews. And then Aaron will witness to the Gentile, not heard the gospel in the present age, and of course there are many of them. And there will be a great multitude and could number which is out of the great tribulation. They'll not be a part of the church, but they will be.
God has always, in grace, been able to reach some. But I'm thinking of the effect on believers. I'm thinking what will happen because this is the way we get comfort about the coming of Christ. We've thus read together from First Thessalonians chapter four and the eighteen first. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. Now we are comforted, first of all, by the thought of being face to face with our Lord Jesus Christ. I received the letter from my wife today, and I was glad to see that she's still crazy about me. Very pleased that she misses me and that she's looking forward to my coming home again.
Frankly, that's the only reason I want to go back to Colorado Springs, because I'm going to go back to hard work and trouble. I always do. First day after I land back to the children's home, the roof always falls in on it. I said this to a friend of ours who has no sense of humor, whatever. She said, well, can't they fix the roof? You know what I'm talking about anyway. You know what I'm talking about. And I do not look forward to going back into the things that have to be done, which I have had to neglect for a week while, and I am here. Our children don't live there.
Our grandchildren are not there. But there is one person there that I want to see. In the letter today, she said, I'll meet you at the airport. When I come down in the plane, I'll be looking toward the terminal building. There may be other people there, but I won't see anybody else because my intention, by the Lord's grace, my intention is to meet my wife face to face when I get off the plane Colorado Springs. Heaven's going to be a wonderful place.
There are going to be many wonderful things happening in heaven. I've heard a lot of people talk about it. I remember a fellow my father led to the Lord. He said, Bill, you mean to say we're really going to know each other when we get to heaven? He said, sure, we'll have as much sense as we got now, won't we? You know me now, and I know you. Why wouldn't we know each other there? Well, he said, you mean you know I'm the same fellow that you led to the Lord down here? He said, why certainly? He said, well, when you see me in heaven... He said, you wave at me and call me by my first name, will you? So I'll know that you really know who I am. And my dad said, yes, I'll do that. I'll be looking for you.
And I'll call you by your name so you know that I know who you are. But he said, don't expect me to pay any attention to you for the first thousand years because I want that long just to look at the Lord Jesus himself. And I think he sincerely met it. A lot of wonderful things will happen in heaven. I don't think you'll have to be introduced to the Apostle Paul and the prophet Jonah and the rest of the patriarchs and the New Testament saints and the martyrs from Fox's book. I know them almost personally. My dad put Fox's book of martyrs in my hand when I was twelve years old and it made me into a dyed-in-the-wool prodigy. I have many use for it.
for this kind of nandy-pandy sort of thing. Christians say, oh, we're not Protestants. We aren't. We ought to be. And if you knew what Rome is, you'd be a Protestant. I want to see those people who gave their lives, those people who died for the sake of the Lord Jesus, those people who died in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, those Christians who gave their lives at various times. I want to meet them personally. But I don't want to bother them for the first thousand years. I want to see him. We're going to see him. Brother and sister, if nothing else will warm the heart, this one thing will do it.
You can get comfort from this anytime you turn to the scriptures and read. We're going to see him face to face. I suppose because of meeting his daughter here, but it isn't unusual. I often think of Mr. Sheldrake. And I can see him yet, speaking about the coming of the Lord. And when he was really enjoying something, he tucked one hand on his head. You see him do that? He tucked that hand on his head. And he would say, one of these days, brothers and sisters, you're going to be walking on the dirty streets of your city. And suddenly he said, you'll find yourself stepping on the golden street of heaven.
You'll be looking into the face of someone who doesn't think too well of you, and suddenly you'll be looking into the very face of the Lord Jesus Christ. In that split second, we're going to see his face. All that accomplishes you. It'll also help you to behave yourself. You'd hate to be blasting somebody in your temper, wouldn't you? And then suddenly be face to face with the Lord Jesus. It ain't to lose your patience with, as the boys say today, lose your cool with what's going on all around you and then suddenly find you don't have to endure it at all.
It's all over. It's your face to face with him. And there's the physical change. The physical changes are going to be marvelous. It does not yet appear what we shall be. There's much we don't know. But we do know that we're going to be like him. There was a dear Christian lady in Kansas City, and she was working for Mr. Cole's grandparents. When Mrs. Ross had reached the point where she was hardly able to keep everything going, and one day Mr. Ross said to her, Annabelle, she was a colored woman, he said, Annabelle, when you get to heaven, what color do you want to be?
And very sweetly she replied, Mr. Ross, I want to be just exactly like the Lord Jesus. Isn't that a nice answer? I want to be just exactly like the Lord Jesus. I believe we're going to be like him physically. I don't mean by that that we all look exactly like, but I mean that we're going to be transformed to have bodies like his own. If you want to know anything at all about the resurrection body, Read about the Lord after his resurrection. That's what he had. He had a resurrection body. He could eat, but he didn't need to. Eating is one of the pleasures that we enjoy.
It would be one of the pleasures of heaven. Twelve manner of fruits. Do you think those are just put on the center table? The Lord tells us a great deal about what we're going to do. One is that we're going to sit down at a table. And the Lord himself is going to gird himself and serve us. Now, perhaps it is figurative. That's not the point. The point is that we're going to have bodies that are suited for that country. When we send an astronaut into space, we have to surround him with a little bubble of our own atmosphere, don't we? If he's going to step out of the bigger bubble, he's going to have a little bubble before he steps out onto the moon or any other place.
That's because he has a body that's suited only to this earth and to this atmosphere. And that body is made out of the dust of this earth, and he constantly replenishes it with the same kind of thing. It's really humiliating when you think about it, that we have to do exactly the same thing the animals do. We have to constantly stuff things in under our noses to keep our bodies together. But after we have erection bodies, this won't be necessary. If we eat, it will be only for pleasure and fellowship. And then, you know what a problem transportation is. I spend more money getting my carcass around me than I do for a great many other things.
But this isn't going to happen any longer when we get home to heaven, or even before we get there. It costs some billion dollars. I don't even know how much that is. It costs twenty-four billion dollars to put two men on the moon. That's twelve billion apiece. Think what it would cost for this crowd. And this is only a little part of the total. We're going to be placed not on the moon, but in heaven itself. There's going to be no transportation problem at all. When the Lord Jesus wanted to be there instead of here, he was there. If there happened to be a wall in between, that made no difference.
They were locked in a room, and suddenly the Lord Jesus appeared with them. I don't know anything about how he got in. I know that our law of physics say that two bodies can't occupy the same space at the same time. But I don't know that that's true at all. In the other realm, apparently not. These are just some of the things that are going to happen. As you get older, you look forward. You anticipate with great pleasure the fact that you're going to have a new body. You young people don't need one yet, and you don't appreciate what I'm talking about. But I'd sure hate to have to drag this thing around for eternity.
The older you get, the more difficult it becomes. The time I get all the things put on and in and around that I have to have to get myself together in the morning, it's getting to be quite a problem. Almost as bad as the fellow said about his wife, that she's just as pretty as she ever was only takes her so much longer. Well, that's part of it. That's because we're getting older. We've got problems. And I don't intend to look like this for all eternity, and I'm glad I don't have to look at you like that for all eternity. We're going to be changed, brother and sister. We're going to be changed. We're going to have bodies like his own. And this is a comfort. It'll help your arthritis.
It'll help your problems to know that it's only temporary. I went to see a dear old man in the hospital at home. He was taken to the hospital for another reason, but while he was there his plebitis kicked up and they had to take off a leg to save his life. When I went into the room, he was suffering so, and I said, Grandpa, we called him that. He was a maintenance man at the home. I said, Grandpa, what's wrong? Oh, he said, I don't think I can stand it. The doctor told me this morning it'll be three months before I get over this pain. I don't think I can stand. And he just went. So I said, well, Grandpa, do you think you could stand it for one more day? He kind of frowned and said, what do you mean?
Well, I said, do you think you could stand it one more day? Well, I reckon. And I said, well, that might be all you'd have to stand it, because the Lord has promised to come back. And if he comes back before tomorrow, he won't have three months. If you have to stay two days, he'll give you the strength for that. But if you can just stand it for one day, And then he began to cry again. I just picked up my hat and left. I figured he'd have enough. I came back the next day and I said, well, how are you today, Grandpa? And he said, I think I'm a nickel's worth better. And I said, that sounds good. Is the pain let up? He said, no, it hasn't let up any, but I'm just suffering at a day at a time. That isn't philosophy. That's the teaching of the Word of God.
Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. You trust God about today, and he'll take care about the pains next week. Do you know what torments old people? It's the fear of the future. What am I going to do when I get helpless? What am I going to do if I have to go and live with my children? Well, I don't intend to. I don't know about you, but I might have to. Let's don't worry about this. Let's leave the physical in his hands. We're going to be changed. He just read about reunion with our loved ones. The longer we live, I think the easier it is to set our affection on things above because we've got more affectionate objects above.
Both my parents have been in the glory for a long time. Half of my family is there. I'm the oldest, but still I have three brothers who have already gone home to heaven. And I have so many friends up there, and it's going to get this way more and more as you go along, you know. My wife has lost three of her brothers recently. Thank the Lord all of them that accepted Christ. You've got a lot of people up there, haven't you? We're going to have a reunion now. My people came from the South. Came from Kentucky and Tennessee.
And I think there's more affection among the Southern people than there is the Northern people. Maybe that's just because I've got my roots back there. But I think that the Southern people have a great deal of affection for each other. They use the diminutive forms, for instance. All my people are called by some name that ends with an IE. I wasn't named John at all. I was named Johnny. And I had an aunt, her name was spelled like Ella, but we called her Aunt Ellie, and Aunt Maggie, and Uncle Charlie, and Uncle Frankie, and Uncle Jesse, and Uncle Alvy. They're all IE's. This is the diminutive form, and this is the familiar form. This is the affectionate form.
The Southern people are affectionate people. It's a very difficult thing to preach among them. I preached in the South quite a little bit. It's a difficult thing to get them together because they're always having reunions. They're always getting together on a Sunday. They don't come to the meetings because they're busy getting together with the rest of their family on a Sunday. The Southern people enjoy... reunions with each other. I suppose we all enjoy it to some extent. Oh, think what a reunion that's going to be when you're together with those you love. And it isn't going to be for a weekend. It isn't going to be a temporary thing. It's going to be from now on. So shall we ever be, we, all of us together, so shall we ever be with the Lord.
In the twenty-first chapter of Revelation in verse four, we read this, God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. You shed a good many tears in your life, Dionysus. Some of you have shed tears because of the loss of loved ones. There are worse things than that. A man came to me and he said, I've lost all heart. My son was killed in Vietnam. And he said he was such a godly young man. He was going on for the Lord.
And he died in Vietnam. And he said, all the heart has gone out of me and I don't care to live. And I saw that he needed rather strong treatment. And I said to him, I'd be tickled to death and trade places with you. He said, what do you mean? But I mean exactly what I say. I'd be tickled to death to trade places with you. I said, I have a son who has denied everything. I have a son who said to me, Dad, I don't see how anybody as intelligent as you seem to be could believe that there is a God. He has spoken blasphemously about the Lord Jesus Christ. He is a disgrace to the Lord and a disgrace to his parents.
I don't know if he ever knew the Lord at all or not. Only God knows. I don't know what's going to happen to him. He's already lost his wife and his girl, his daughter. His life is blighted. If he did come back to the Lord, he would carry these scars for the rest of his day. And you've got a son in heaven. I don't even have any assurance that my son will ever be in heaven. You've got a son in heaven. I'd like to trade places with you. He was sobered by that. He said, I never thought of it that way. There are sorrows far worse than having a loved one taken home. And some of you have felt them.
Some of you have sorrows that nobody else knows anything about. Some of you are keeping up a front. Some of you are having a difficult time in your own home. You don't want the Lord's name dishonored. You don't want people to know what's going on. You don't want even your close friends to know. And so you're keeping up the front. And your heart is torn to pieces. I know. I counsel with people like this all the time. And I never get over the shock of finding out that this is so. I never suspected it at all. God knows about all of us. Do you remember what the Psalmist said? Thou has put all my tears in thy bottle.
God has a bottle with all your tears in it. God knows exactly what you feel. God knows exactly what you suffer. And it's all going to be over in these days. God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. A man in his life who spent many years together were parting for the last time on this earth. She was ill. The doctor said it's just a matter of hours, perhaps minutes now. He was sitting by her bedside trying to comfort her. And they said their last words to each other, and she closed her eyes. And as she closed her eyes and breathed her last, one tear squeezed out of the corner of her eye.
And he took his handkerchief, and he caught that last tear. And he said, That's the last tear she'll ever shed. The Lord is coming. And when He comes, He'll wipe away all tears from our eyes. That ought to comfort you. Can't you stand a few more? Can't you stand a little more difficulty? Can't you go on faithfully for Him in spite of hell and high water? Your life is going to be filled with all kinds of difficulties. We're not going to get over this, but we're going to get out of it.
There's another great comfort in the return of the Lord. We all enjoy reading First Corinthians chapter three. Don't read it without chapter four because we need both of them. First Corinthians chapter three tells us about the judgment seat of Christ. and the works which will be rewarded. But First Corinthians chapter four tells us about the motives which are behind those works. It isn't enough that you do right things for the Lord. It's essential that you have right motives for doing the right thing. And he tells us plainly in the fourth chapter of First Corinthians, judge nothing before the time when the Lord shall come, who shall make manifest the hidden castles of the heart, bring to light the things of darkness, and make manifest the hidden castles of the heart, and then shall every man have praise of God.
At the judgment seat of Christ, the Lord is going to richly reward you for everything you've done for him. Is that a comfort? Yes, that's a great point. Every once in a while, somebody gets a little lopsided. You know, the word heretic means literally a lopsided person. Whenever you find a person is getting a little lopsided, getting too much truth in one pocket, drop a few rocks in these other pockets. See if you can't level him up. Every once in a while you see a Christian and he says, oh, I don't think God do anything for rewards. God is just because you love the Lord. Well, drop a rock in these other pockets. It says in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews that Moses had respect under the recompense of the reward.
If you're not interested in rewards, you ought to be, because the Lord is going to give us. If I offered my children a reward for certain things that they did, and they said, I'm not interested in your rewards, my feelings would be hurt. And the Lord has plainly offered us a reward. I don't say that ought to be your controlling motive. I don't say that ought to be the only reason why you're serving him, nor even the most important one. But it's a reason, isn't it? doesn't mean something to you to have the Lord say to you at that coming day, well done, a good and faithful servant. Does he want to hear him say that? I can't think of anything I'd rather hear him say. I know that he talks about giving a man responsibility over ten cities and another one over five cities.
That would be real nice. I don't expect to ever get to be even dog catcher in my town. But some of these days it may be that the Lord would give me responsibility over a city or five cities or ten cities? That would be very wonderful. But I think much more important than that is to hear him say, well done, a good and faithful church. I often think about what the Lord said to Paul. Paul must have thought, well, I really flubbed this one out. You know, when he got up before the people and made a statement and then caused a bigger uproar than it was already at his arrest, you know, in Jerusalem. And then in the jail at night the Lord appeared to him, and he said, Fear not, Paul, as thou hast witnessed of me in Jerusalem, thou shalt also bear witness in Rome.
And the word for witnessing at Jerusalem is the strengthened form of the word, which means thou hast fully witnessed for me. I'm sure he thought, well, I did a poor job on that. I got the whole thing twisted up. Why didn't I say this instead of that? I didn't do a good job at all. The Lord said, Don't be afraid, Paul. You did a good job. Do you remember that the night the Lord Jesus was betrayed, he called his own together, and he said, Ye are they who have continued with me in my tribulation. Now just reading the account, would you think that that was true of the disciples?
They quarreled about who would be the greatest. They went to sleep when he asked him to watch with him. I could name a dozen mistakes that they made. But he said, he said of them, ye are they who have continued with me in my tribulation. The Lord appreciated what they had done. Every once in a while somebody says to him, well, I don't suppose I'll have any reward at all if the judgment seat of Christ. Now if they're sincere, I feel sorry for them because that's a kind of a discouraged attitude. I'm going to be very disappointed if the Lord doesn't have something nice to say to me because that's his way. That's his character.
That's like him. He is always doing more than you'd expect. The Lord is always better to us than we have any reason to expect. And I'm sure that he'll be the same Lord at the judgment seat of Christ. You ought to take great comfort in looking ahead to the judgment seat of Christ. I don't think God ever intended us to be afraid of the judgment seat of Christ. I have no use for the kind of thing that says, when the Lord gets through with us, we're going to have plenty of tears. I've heard men say this. Well, it does say you shall suffer loss. But suffer loss means simply that anything it was of no use will be burned up. I suggest you burn up some other right now and not have to bother with it, say it.
And you can do that. You can go back over your own life and say, now, Lord, what I did then was done in the flesh. And it was really not done to please thee at all. Let's get rid of it right now. And never have to meet it up there. But I don't believe for a minute that the judgment seat of Christ is a time when God deals with our sins. My sins have been dealt with. And justified freely from all things. From which I could not be justified by the law of Moses. And then the Lord is going to set up his kingdom. Oh, brother and sister, don't lose sight of the kingdom. Every once in a while some Christian says to me, Don't you think that the blessed hope for the Christian is the return of the Lord Jesus in the air for his saints?
Now you're whittling it down two things. Aren't you interested in setting up his kingdom? After all, he is your Lord. Don't you want to see him on the throne? And he says, if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him. That's part of your reward. And then he says that he has five crowns for the people of God. And he lists those five crowns. Now where do you wear crowns? Wouldn't I look silly going down the streets of Minneapolis with a crown on my head? Nobody wears crowns now. The Apostle Paul wrote from the Corinthians and he said, you've reigned as kings. I would to God you did reign. But I might also reign with you. But you've got no business reigning as kings now.
When are we going to have crowns? In the kingdom. Where else? And authority over cities? Where will that take place? In the kingdom. Where else? The kingdom means a great deal to you and me. This is what we're being trained for. I've often used this illustration. I grew up at Atumwa, Iowa, where they had the largest pork-packing plant in the world, John Merle and Company. And... They had all kinds of jobs there, John Morrell and company. Some of them didn't take very long to learn. One of them was holding doors. They usually gave this to a fellow who didn't know more than twice, or maybe didn't have much for anything else, and so they gave the job holding doors.
Now, you can teach a man to hold doors in about ten minutes. He doesn't learn that length of time. He's going to get run over by one of the carts anyway, and he'll have to replace it. Doesn't take long to teach a man to hold a door back and get out of the road when they come through with their car. So you get your training in short order. But you know, one of the sons of the fosters, the fosters succeeded the morale of the head of that company. When I was still there, I was in the jewelry business, and I used to have them for customers, and I got to know them in that way. And they decided that they were going to groom one of the young fosters to become the superintendent. of the John Merle and Company. Do you know what they did to make that fellow ready for that?
Well, first they gave him six years of college. And then they took him to another packing plant associated with the same company, and they gave him some special training there because it would be embarrassing for him to get it where he was going to be superintendents, you know. So they took him to another place and let him understudy there for a while. I think he spent about two years at that. So after about eight years of intensive study, they brought him back and put him in as superintendent. Now, do you think that was fair? Ten minutes to train one man and eight years to train another man? They were being kind of hard on that young fellow, don't you think? Making work for eight years to learn to do his job.
But you see, the difference was in the kind of a job that he was going to have. Some of you are being trained for a high position in the kingdom. That's why you're suffering so much. That's why you're facing so many problems. That's why you have to go through so much. God is getting you ready for a very important place in his kingdom. I'm assured of this. But some of you don't want any difficulty in your life. You say, now, Lord, please let me go back to sleep. So he says, well, all right, ten minutes will fix him. All I can ever use him for is holding doors anyway, figuratively. If you want a place in the kingdom, if you want to share in the Lord in that wonderful day, be happy for the opportunity. take the training that he wants to give you now.
And then last of all, the twenty-twentieth and twenty-first chapters of the book of the Revelation tell us how God is going to set everything right. How things are not right now, and don't be surprised. Don't be disturbed that things are not right now. Things are not right in your local assembly, and you're not going to get them right. You'll get this adjusted and that'll be how to kill it. And then you'll get that all fixed up and something else will pop up over here. That's the way the world is. That's the way life is. That's the way the church is in the present age. This church age is going to end in the lay of the seonism. I don't mean by that that you don't try to do anything about your assembly.
I just mean that you don't let it get you down. You're going to continually face problems. Things are not right. Things are not right in the world. You can think of many things that are wrong in the world today. The devil is out of hell. Things will never be right as long as the devil is out of hell. That's where he belongs. That was made for him. And until God gets him there, things are not going to be right. Israel is out of the land. That isn't right. Israel ought to be in the land. The only ones you got there now are a few Zionists. When God gets through, he's going to get all of Israel back there into the land. And the church is out of heaven. The church shouldn't be out of heaven. The church belongs to heaven.
That's our fatherland. That's our home. Things are not right. The Lord Jesus is not on the throne. He's on his father's throne, but he isn't on his throne. And that isn't right. That shouldn't be like that. And I still got my own body. And that isn't right. Things are not right. But the Lord is going to put them right. The Lord is going to set everything right. He's going to put everything right. in this universe. And you think that'll work a little bit. And that's going to happen when the Lord comes back. Some people thought it was going to happen when the Republicans got in, but it didn't work, did it? Some people think it's going to happen by some quirk of faith.
We're going to reach a point when at last our assembly will have arrived. Or individually, there are many Christians, who were exploited by the Pentecostal movement today into believing that if they could just get the second blessing, as they call it, if they could just get the baptism of the Holy Spirit and every believer is baptized into one body, but if they could just get this super experience of some kind, well then from then on I'd be up on that plateau and everything would be lovely, lovely, lovely. And then I could look down at the rest of you peasants and say, I've arrived. come up on Bula Land where I am, brother here.
And it doesn't happen. And it won't happen until the Lord Jesus comes back. What's your attitude toward the return of Christ? Are you really looking for him? Two men came home from fishing. They were professional fishermen, commercial fishermen. When they got off the boat at the docks, the wife of one of them was standing there in the rain and threw her arms around her long-assened husband. And they went off toward their little fishing cottage together, arm in arm.
The other one climbed the hill to his house. There was a light in the kitchen. His wife was getting supper for him. He stepped in the door and said, I'm home. And she said, yes, I was watching for you. He said, yes, Bill's wife is waiting for you. Are you waiting for the Lord Jesus as well as watching for him? How do we wait? Well, we don't sit down and wait. She got down there in the storm, in the rain, on the docks, in an uncomfortable place. because that's where she was going to meet him. Where are you going to meet him?
What are you doing about meeting the Lord Jesus? What are you doing about bringing him back? Remember what they said about the people of Judah in David's day? Or rather, David said to them, Why do you not seek a word of bringing back the king? Why are you the last to bring back the king? What are you doing to get the Lord Jesus back? Are you winning souls? This is part of it. What does he tell us in Jude? Others say with fear, hating even the garments, spotted by the flesh, pulling them out of the fire. Did you ever pull anybody out of the fire, spiritually speaking?
What are we doing to bring back the king? What are we doing about shepherding his people? He told us a story in the twelfth of Luke about some who were looking for the Lord to come and they were ministering to the rest of the Lord's servants But he said, Some said, My Lord Delayeth is coming, and they began to beat the men servants and the maid servants. Are you feeding or beating God's people? What are you doing about the coming back of the king? Do you love his appearance? That's what the crown is promised for in Second Timothy, the last letter Paul wrote.
He said to not to me only, but to all them that love his appearing. If you love the appearing of the Lord Jesus, brother and sister, it's going to have a central place in your life. In Kansas City, there are two dear old Christians, Mr. and Mrs. Chris John, Aunt Jess, he called her. She's been so kind to my wife. He wasn't saved until late in life, and when he got saved... The coming of the Lord meant so much to that man that he went to a sign, Peter, and he had a little text made. I wish Christians had text on their wall. It just hurts my feelings.
See these texts here and none of them going home with you. You go into your home and your home is no different from anybody else's home. It used to be we had text on our wall. Why not now? This is a good thing. Get the word up. They have a nice little text right over where they eat. They have a little breakfast milk about this day. And it's printed on both sides. And on one side it says, He may come before morning. And on the other side it says, He may come before night. And every evening when they have their dinner together, they turn this over so that it reads, He may come before morning. And then they sit down and have their breakfast together and they turn it over the other way.
He may come before night. And that text is worn off on both corners. And there's a worn place on the wall from turning there daily, twice a day, just to remind themselves the Lord Jesus might come before another twelve hours is gone. That's what it means to love his appearing. At least that's an indication of it. Do you love his appearing? Are you occupying till he comes? Brother and sister, these things that they get hold of us will comfort our hearts. You will be a happy Christian. really looking for the Lord Jesus to come back.