What are we to do?

We can work for good but, in the end, in this age, evil is going to triumph. The Antichrist comes from below, he comes from the pit, inspired by Satan, and he comes with power to take over the world. That is going to happen.

Now, as I said, if God’s put so much about this in the Bible, it sure is going to happen. If you’re a sensible person, if you see this coming, you’re going to take some action at least to preserve yourself.

I’m telling you that’s what you should do. You should preserve yourself in the light of this. And the most important preparation is the salvation of your soul.

When Jesus comes, He’s going to judge the world in righteousness and He’s going to separate the sheep from the goats. The sheep will go into the eternal kingdom, the goats will be slung out. Who are the goats? The goats are the ones who reject Jesus. Who are the sheep? The sheep are the ones who accept Jesus as Saviour. There’ll be an eternal separation.

Once that’s happened, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s too late to change your mind, you must make your decision now to follow Jesus.

Jesus is coming with power to judge the world in righteousness. The sensible person then will make preparation and work for the salvation of his soul. If you’re on a sinking ship, (maybe you saw the film Titanic), if you’re on the ship which is sinking, what can you do about it? You can’t plug up the holes to stop it sinking, the only thing you can do to save yourself is to get onto a lifeboat and be taken away to safety.

Basically, what I’m saying is that we, the human race, are on a sinking ship, there’s only one thing we can do to get off that sinking ship which is to get onto the lifeboat which is salvation in Jesus the Messiah.

And we must make the choice to do that, we have to repent of our sins and believe on the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and then get onto the lifeboat for salvation and eternal life.

When Jesus comes back, He’s not coming back this time as the suffering servant, not coming this back time to suffer and to die.

Another objection to what I’ve told you is (I read this from a Jewish man called Asher Norman, who wrote a book called 26 reasons why Jews don’t believe in Jesus and said that) basically, ‘if you say Jesus is coming back a second time, is he coming back because he failed the first time? And is He’s going to have another go that, again, ends up not working out?’

Well, Mr Norman doesn’t understand the Messianic program. Jesus did not fail when He came the first time. He succeeded absolutely, one hundred percent in fulfilling the prophecies of the suffering servant Messiah, particularly Isaiah 53 which speaks about the one who’s despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows one who’s acquainted with grief, one upon whom the Lord has laid the iniquity of us all, as he suffered and died on the cross fulfilling Psalm 22 where it speaks about his hands and his feet being pierced, fulfilling so many prophecies which point to the death and resurrection of Jesus as a way in which God is going to put right the problem of sin in the human race and redeem us.

Jesus did not fail in one single prophecy of the first coming of Jesus the Messiah. He fulfilled them all and, having defeated Satan at the cross, He rose from the dead, He ascended to heaven from where He sent out the Holy Spirit and from where He will return when He comes the second time.

So, if Jesus fulfilled the first coming prophecies, He’s going to fulfil the Second Coming prophecies. He fulfilled the first coming prophecies to the letter, every single one of them.

I could give you 300 prophecies He fulfilled: about His birth, His ministry, His teaching, His parables and, above all, His death and resurrection, all of which He fulfilled absolutely.

That means to me that He’s going to fulfil absolutely every single prophecy about the Second Coming of Jesus. I don’t understand how He’s going to do it, but He can do it because He’s God. Therefore, the sensible person is going to believe in Jesus and be ready for His coming.

I just want to refer to one aspect of this which I put into the leaflet. I had a question mark whether I should put this in today’s talk, but I thought ‘yes’, I will put it in. It’s halfway down second page and says that,

In Matthew 24, Jesus spoke of this event happening when one shall be taken one shall be left. So, it will happen as when a thief comes in the night, in other words, it will something which will take people by surprise. He told us to be ready for it at all times because it will happen unexpectedly, and we will not know the day or the hour when it will come, the event known as the Rapture of the church.

This is controversial because people have different ideas about when it happens.

Does it happen before the Tribulation? In which case it could happen any time now.

Does it happen in the middle of the Tribulation? In which case it can’t happen until the Antichrist is revealed and we get halfway through the Tribulation period even up to the mark of the beast time.

Or, does it happen right at the end of the Tribulation? In which case we go right through the Tribulation and, only at the very last moment, does Jesus take the people who believe in Him out of the world to be with Him before He comes back to the earth.

It does make a difference in how you view these events because if Jesus is coming back before the Tribulation, He could come at any time now, therefore we must be ready now for the coming of the Lord.

If He’s not coming back before the Tribulation, then He can’t come at any time now. Therefore, in this situation, you have to get that into your mind: He cannot come at any time now because certain things have to happen which have not yet happened, which are written about, particularly in Revelation 6 through to 19, concerning the coming of the Antichrist, the mark of the beast system, and even Armageddon, if the Rapture is right at the end of the Tribulation that is.

In fact, David Pawson (who has gone to be with the Lord now) and has got it worked out by now, he believed in the post-Tribulation Rapture. He said that Jesus cannot come until you see the darkness of Matthew 24 and then the piercing light in the sky after the Tribulation. Therefore, anyone who’s expecting Jesus to come now is wrong. But I think he was wrong in that.

I’m going to respect him, he said a lot of good things but I believe that Jesus can come at any time now because those prophecies will be fulfilled at the end of time. The end of the Tribulation prophecies will be fulfilled when Jesus returns. He will take the remnant of Israel who believe in Him to be with Himself, He will gather those who are redeemed from Israel, from the four corners of the earth, and from the four winds of heaven. The scripture says so, it’s not the same as the Rapture of the church.

Whichever one it is, basically, we need to believe in Jesus, to be ready now. If the Rapture does come after the Tribulation, then, of course, we are going to face the Tribulation which would mean the persecution of Christians, the underground church, all of which is a sobering thought.

Corrie ten Boom, a great lady who suffered under the Nazis and in a concentration camp, said she objected to the pre-Tribulation idea because she said ‘Why should you Christians in the West have an easy time and be taken out before the trouble starts when so many people in communist countries and Islamic countries are right now going through Tribulation?’

I respect her and she’s certainly stood for her faith, but I think, on this one, it’s not actually the case because we don’t get to heaven because we have suffered persecution, we get to heaven because we believe in Jesus. Some people die before the Tribulation anyway, so they won’t get go through Tribulation.

The only way the Rapture can happen at any time is if it is ‘at any time’, which could be at any time now. So, I believe that it’s going to happen at any time, and we must be ready for it to happen.

Obviously, this has not yet happened so I can state categorically that Jesus rose from the dead because it’s happened, but I can’t state categorically all the events of the Second Coming because they’re based on our deductions from the scriptures.

I do believe there are good reasons to believe the pre-Tribulation Rapture view, but it hasn’t happened. So, if I’m wrong on that, you will go through the Tribulation and you will have to suffer and to die for your faith. Therefore, be ready for that one as well and, in fact, it’s quite possible that if the Lord delays His coming, we will see some kind of ‘shaking’ in this part of the world which will lead to the persecution of Christians and the need for some kind of underground church in parts of the West as well as in the countries where there is now active persecution.

Whatever happens, this event will materialise, and Jesus will return. There will be a time when Jesus will suddenly take one to be with Him an one will be left behind, when there will be people who will be taken supernaturally into the presence of the Lord through faith in Jesus and that is something which is again part of the blessed hope, the hope in the Second Coming of Jesus.

If you’re not happy about the state of the world (as I’m not), and you believe in Jesus, you have this hope of Him coming to take you to be with Himself.

To conclude, where do we go from here? On the back page of this leaflet, I’ve written: ‘You don’t want to be around on the earth for the Great Tribulation period. The only way to escape this and to be saved from the wrath of God that is coming on the world because of the sins of humanity, is to repent of your sins and to believe the Gospel.’

That is the only hope which I can bring you today. In the Book of Acts 17.30-31, when Paul was standing in Athens speaking to the people there, he said:

Notice this is not a suggestion or a proposal, it’s a command. Either you obey the command, or you don’t, that’s up to you. God is saying ‘repent and believe the Gospel’, that’s the only hope you have of salvation. If you don’t, frankly, you’re doomed. Sorry to say that but, if you reject Jesus, you are facing a time of intense trouble coming on the earth and an eternity separated from God in hell. That’s not a good proposition and there’s no reason why anybody listening to me today should go there, because every one of us has the free will to accept the Gospel, to repent, to believe, and to make sure that you’re going to be with God forever in heaven.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15.3-4:

Jesus did that when He came to do the first time. When He comes the second time, He’s going to judge us according to how we have responded to the message of the Gospel.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved! That’s my message to you today, and it’s the message in this leaflet.

Encourage people to take the leaflet, to give it away. We’ve got hundreds of copies there. You can have 10, you can have a hundred, you can have a thousand, whatever! We don’t want them sitting on shelves where they do nothing, we want them going out into the world to reach people with the only hope there is for the future in Jesus Christ.

God bless you! Praise the Lord! Jesus is coming and Jesus has come, and He’s coming this time as King of kings the Lord of lords! Praise God, praise the Lord.