This morning's message is from 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 50 to 53. And the title for the message this morning is, The Return of Christ. From 1 Corinthians 15, verses 50 to 53. And the Word of God says, I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. Join me in prayer. Our gracious God, merciful Father, we pray that as we walk through this text, these three so important verses of Scripture, Lord God, Lord, we pray that we would find great comfort and encouragement in your word, Lord God. These words that were penned 2,000 years ago by your holy apostle Paul, that were designed to encourage us as we live in a fallen world, Lord God, as we struggle with the difficulties of life, as we live in a corrupt nation, in a corrupt environment, Lord. Father, we pray that these words would remind us that that in the end we will be victorious, that our great leader, our God, and our King will someday return victorious. And we pray that this truth would compel us, Lord God, to love you more, to live for you, to worship you more. to live a life that brings you great glory and honor and praise. We pray all these things in Christ's holy name. Amen. Throughout church history, there have been countless attempts made by various people through the last 2,000 years to predict the return of Christ. When will Christ return? And I don't know how many. There have probably been hundreds, maybe even thousands. Some of them were simply a flash in the pan, a blip on the radar screen, here one day, gone tomorrow, by and large forgotten by history. But yet there are others who have had staying power, so to speak. even making millions selling books and doing TV interviews and appearances. One of the earliest, just to show you how far back this goes, one of the earliest examples of this is with Pope Innocent III. His name is Miss Nomer. Pope Innocent III, in the year 1213, believed that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was the Antichrist. And because he so firmly believed that he was the Antichrist, he believed that the number 666, spoken about in the book of Revelation, the number of the beast, was the amount of years until Christ would return, dating from the death of Muhammad. So when Muhammad dies, you count 666 years after that, and Christ will return. Thus, he predicted the return of Christ in the year 1279. Well, we're still here. Fast forward to the early 1800s, and you have a man by the name of William Miller who was a Baptist preacher. And William Miller, in the United States, William Miller, early 1800s, believed that based on his interpretation of Daniel 8.14, that Christ would return in the year 1843. More specifically, he calculated that Christ would return sometime between March of 1843 and March of 1844. During that 12-month period, Christ was going to return. Daniel 8.14 reads, For 2,300 evenings and mornings, then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state. So you take 2,300 and you start counting from the time of the Book of Daniel and that lands you at the year of 1843-1844. And of course, we know that Christ did not return at that point. Being greatly humiliated, William Miller left the movement. However, he had a great following and unwilling to be deterred, one of his followers, Samuel Snow, believed that Miller had simply miscalculated. the number of years. He started in the wrong place. And so he believed that Christ would return on October 22, 1844. And, of course, Christ did not return on that date. It was a monumental disappointment, such a disappointment that the followers of that movement historically came to refer to that moment, that year, as the, quote, great disappointment. So, you've got the Great Depression, you've got the Great Disappointment of 1844. The remaining followers convened the following year to discuss, okay, where do we go from here, right? What do we do next? From that convention came the Evangelical Adventist, which would later become the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Fast forward to the 20th century, and we have Edgar Wissonet, who was a NASA engineer, of all things. who predicted that Jesus would most definitely return in 1988. Most definitely. In fact, he was so convinced that he wrote a book titled, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. And it sold over four million copies. I picked the wrong subject to write my book. Four million copies. landing him numerous invitations on TV shows and interviews. Of course, when Christ didn't return in 1988, he recalculated and readjusted the dates to 1989, and then later to 1993, and then later to 1994. And with each readjustment, there was a new book, which sold millions, by the way. And then, of course, who could forget Harold Campion, very recent, who came up with a really bizarre mathematical equation. I mean, literally a mathematical equation, which he claimed came from his understanding of the meaning of numbers in the Bible. From this, he calculated that Christ would return exactly 722,500 days from April 1st, 33 AD. This meant that Christ would return on May 21st, 2011. Of course, Christ did not return on that date, right? We're all still here. So, understandably, however, it's been over 2,000 years since Christ's first advent. It's been over 2,000 years since Christ said he would return And people begin to wonder, when is he coming back? Is he ever going to return? Peter understood that we were going to have to be very, very patient in awaiting the return of Christ because God does not operate on our timetable, right? God does not operate in terms of minutes or hours or days or months or even years. He operates in terms of millennia. is the way in which God operates. Peter warned his readers, for example, in 2 Peter 3, verses 3 and 4, telling them that scoffers will come in the last day with scoffing. Following their own sinful desires, they will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation." It's fascinating that Peter wrote this because he wrote it in the first century. He writes this only like a few decades after Christ's ascension into heaven, and yet he says there's going to come a time when people are going to say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they have from the beginning of creation. Peter already knew that it was going to be a long, long wait. How did he know that? Aside from the fact that he's writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit, obviously. But I think even just from a purely human, logical, you could come to a logical conclusion when you sit and you just think about the fact that from the time that God promised to send A Redeemer in Genesis 3.15, it was thousands of years until the Redeemer would come. From Genesis, from the fall in the garden to the time of Christ, the Old Testament spans thousands and thousands of years. So, I think just understanding Old Testament biblical history, Peter understood God does not operate on our timeline, on our timescale. And so what is Paul doing in this passage? Well, Paul has, at this point, effectively argued that there most certainly is a future bodily resurrection for all believers. He's made that point quite strongly, and so now he wants to encourage his readers to look forward to the resurrection. It's going to happen. It will take place. We need to look forward to the resurrection. He also wants to help them understand what that day is going to look like because it's going to raise questions. Paul understands that. Okay, so you've made the argument there's going to be a future bodily resurrection. What is that day going to look like? And so this passage that we're looking at, these four verses, breaks down really into three main sub points that Paul is making. the first sub point is from verse 50, and essentially he's going to argue or he's going to explain why it is necessary, why it is necessary for believers to receive a glorified body in the resurrection. Why can't it just be this body? Why can't God just bring this body back to life, put this body back together, and simply cause this body to live eternally? Why does this body have to be different in any way other than it simply live eternally without ever dying or suffering. Because if you'll recall, the resurrection is not just this body put back together, right? It is not just this body being brought back to life. There is both a continuity and there is discontinuity. There is both similarities between this body and there are dissimilarities with this body that we have today. Our resurrected bodies are the same, some ways, but they will be different in another way. Remember what Paul says back in verses 42 to 44, if you're looking at your Bibles, he says, what is sown is perishable, but what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, but it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power, It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. And so, our resurrected bodies, so to speak, will be next generation technology. Right? This body 2.0. So, notice what he says now in verse 50. He says, I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable." So, first of all, the opening words are an attention grabber to Paul's audience. I tell you this Brothers, those words, those four words. And I say that it's an attention grabber because in the Greek, the word this stands in what's called the emphatic position. In other words, it's the first sentence in the statement. It comes first in the sentence. It's not, I tell you this. Rather, Paul says, this, I tell you, brothers, this right here, Listen to what I'm about to say, because this is important. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Now, when Paul says that, he's not saying, as we've already covered, he's not saying that there will be no physical bodies on the new earth, that somehow we're just going to be spiritual, that we're going to be phantom-like, because obviously, if that's what he's saying, then he's just undone everything that he's argued in chapter 15. He's made the argument very clearly that we will possess a physical body on the new earth in the resurrection. Then what does he mean when he says flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God? We know from extra-biblical rabbinic literature that the phrase flesh and blood was a Jewish idiom for being mere human, for being a mere mortal. It's a way of saying mere humans or mere mortals, flesh and blood, will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. We also see, and I think this is important to note, and it helps us to understand what Paul means by flesh and blood. Here's another way of understanding what he means by that phrase, flesh and blood, is that the two halves of this sentence, the two halves of this one sentence, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. If you line them up on top of each other, you have what's called synonymous parallelism, where one idea is echoing is being echoed twice. It's being repeated twice in a different way in order to help understand the first idea. In other words, flesh and blood is synonymous with the perishable. The kingdom of God is synonymous with the imperishable, if you line these up, right? Flesh and blood, perishable. Kingdom of God, imperishable. So, what he means by flesh and blood is that which is perishable, which means our Human mortal bodies as we understand them today So what Paul wants his readers to understand is that flesh and blood, mere humans, mere human beings, those who are perishable, us, today, right now, cannot inherit the imperishable kingdom of God. That which is perishable cannot inhabit that which is imperishable, the imperishable kingdom of God. Jesus, says this to the woman at the well in John chapter 4. There he says to her, the time is coming when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. That is, those who will inherit God's imperishable kingdom are those who will worship the Father in spirit, that is, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that is, in a spiritual body, a physical body, but a spiritual body, and they will worship the Father in the truth of God's Word always. You know, that's the amazing thing about the new earth. Because, quite frankly, no church does that perfectly. Not even this church, probably. Right? Very likely. In all of our efforts to get our theology right, no church can claim to know absolutely everything there is to know correctly about God. We hope and we pray and we strive for that. But we know that that's true because that's why we have so many different denominations. But someday we will all hold to the same theology of worship. Someday we will all practice the same liturgy because someday we will all worship the Father in spirit and in the truth of God's word. word, one church worshiping together forevermore. What a glorious day that will be. But since God is spirit, then those who are not spiritual cannot worship God and therefore cannot inherit God's kingdom. It's important to note that when the Bible talks about inheriting the kingdom of God, this does not mean that the kingdom is only future, that we only look forward to entering the kingdom, that we only look forward to inhabiting the kingdom of God. Remember what Jesus said to the religious leaders in Matthew 12, verse 28. He says there, if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come. The kingdom of God is here. is what Jesus says to them. If it's by the Spirit of God I cast out demons, which we know He does, He says, then the kingdom of God is here. Some might say, well, yes, when Jesus was here, but now Jesus is up in heaven and the kingdom is no longer here. We're waiting for the kingdom to come. Colossians 1.13, we're told, quote, that God has delivered us, that is believers, God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred, past tense, transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son. When we get saved, the moment we put faith in Christ, we are transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God. So we are in the kingdom Now, the kingdom is not just future. The kingdom is here. Thus, the kingdom of God exists in a now and not yet form. Right? That's the theological language if you're looking for it. How do you describe the kingdom? The kingdom of God exists in a now and not yet form. For more on that, I would recommend Anthony Hokema's book. The kingdom of God exists in a now and not yet form. The kingdom of God is here. The kingdom of God is here. It is present in the sense that Christ currently is seated upon his throne. And Christ is reigning. He is ruling on earth through the church. And the kingdom of God is advancing as the gospel goes forward, as it spreads across the nations, as more unreached people group are reached by the gospel and brought into the kingdom of God. God's kingdom advances, advances, advances. One of the few points where I agree with post-millennials, that the kingdom of God continues to advance with absolute certainty. Thus, the kingdom is here, it's just not fully here. It's not fully here. It existed in now and not yet. It will fully come to earth in its fullest form when Christ returns and establishes the new earth. And so Paul says, the perishable cannot inherit the imperishable. Then how is this going to take place? How will this happen is the question this raises, and he answers that in verses 51 and 52. And so these two verses, again, begin with an attention grabber. from the Greek can also be, listen, listen, I tell you a mystery, pay attention to what I am saying. So Paul really wants them to get this because this is really, really important. And he calls it a mystery because this is not something that would be understood just from a reading of the Old Testament. I mean, we have isolated events in the Old Testament, right? Enoch walked with God and was no more. You've got Elijah who's taken up in a chariot of fire, right? There are instances where people are raptured up. They're just taken into heaven. and they don't die. But what Paul is about to describe and explain in detail is not something that we could understand simply from the Old Testament alone. So, this has been revealed to the apostles. And he says in verse 51, Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. in a moment in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, the dead bow will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed." So there it is, Paul says. Here's the newsflash. We shall not all sleep. Not every believer is going to experience death. Most will. But at the end of time, not every believer is going to experience death. Jesus touches on this in Matthew 24, verse 36, where he says, But concerning that day and hour, that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. He then says four verses later, so verse 40, then two men will be in a field, one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken and one will be left. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 15 to 18, the Apostle Paul says this, For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. Which is the biblical way of talking about believers who have died. The Bible consistently in the New Testament talks about believers who have died as being asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with the cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, with the sound of the trumpet of God, which is important, we'll talk more about that in a minute, and the dead in Christ will rise first. then we who are 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. Therefore, encourage one another with these words." So when Christ returns, according to the Apostle Paul, with the cry, of a command. Come forth, just as he spoke to Lazarus. God's power is in his words. He speaks creation into existence. God speaks to Lazarus' dead body. When Christ returns with the cry of a command to come forth, to come alive with the trumpet of God, the dead in Christ will rise. than every other believer who is alive at that time, according to Paul, will be caught up with them in the clouds. Just as Jesus ascended after his resurrection, the apostles watched him go up, up, up into the sky. What an amazing thing that would have been to behold. And I say that because, you know, the closest I could ever even relate to that. You know, when you talk about those things in the Bible, what do you compare that to as a human being? What would that have been like? The closest thing that I can relate that to is I remember being a young child. I was a teenager. I went to one of those air shows at an Air Force base in California. And this was at the height of the Cold War. It was the late 1980s. And the SR-71 Blackbird was a major piece of weaponry that every other spy technology that every other nation dreaded because it was a plane that could fly faster than three times the speed of sound. And it could go so fast and climb so high, it could literally fly at an altitude where if it went any higher it would go into outer space and then be lost forever because it was not designed to fly in outer space. And I remember to this day vividly watching the SR-71 Blackbird fly around demonstrating itself and even understanding the speed of sound, what that really means. I never really understood it. until that plane started flying toward the audience. And the announcer said, he's now, he has just broken Mach 3 as he is approaching us and we can see him in the distance. It then flew over us and went past us in complete silence. And about 20 seconds after it passed us, then we heard it. because he was traveling faster than his own sound could keep up with it. But another amazing thing I still remember is that they ended the show by him flying toward us and then going straight up. And it was a clear blue sky. There wasn't a cloud in sight. And we watched it go straight up and up and up until it turned into a tiny black dot and then disappeared into the blue sky. We simply lost sight of it because our eyes couldn't see it. And I think of the disciples standing in front of Jesus, and then he goes up, and he goes up, and he goes up, and they're watching him, and he gets smaller, and smaller, and smaller, and he just disappears. That's gonna be us. For those who are, if you're afraid of heights, yeah, I don't know. The comfort of God will envelop you. That will be those who are alive on the day when Christ returns. And why is this necessary? Because when Christ returns, the Bible tells us He destroys the earth. Peter says in 2 Peter 3, verse 10, that the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and all the works that are done on it will be exposed, which is a reference to the day of judgment. But Paul makes clear that when Jesus returns, this is what's going to happen. When he returns, he raptures up his people because he's not going to punish them. He preserves them from the wrath of God because those who have placed faith in Christ, the wrath of God has already been absorbed for us by Christ himself on the cross. So, when Christ returns, he removes his people from the earth. He raptures them up and then he destroys the earth. Unquenchable fire destroys not the planet itself But everything that inhabits the earth like the great flood only with fire God will destroy every living thing on the planet and then the day of judgment Jesus tells us this in Matthew chapter 25 verse 31. I Jesus says, when the Son of Man comes in His glory, talking about the second coming, when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, which would be a reference to Revelation 19, He will separate the people one from another as a, well it says, Sorry, I skipped a line. And all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goat. The great day of judgment when Christ returns. He comes back. He raises the dead in Christ. He raptures all believers who are living at that time. He destroys every living thing upon the earth in unquenchable fire. And then there is the great day of judgment somewhere, someplace. And that we do not know. Will the Great Day of Judgment take place upon the new earth? Will it take place in some spiritual realm, in some spiritual third dimension? The Bible does not make that clear to us. But what we do know, what we do know is what happens at the Day of Judgment. We know what that day is going to look like. Revelation 20 verses 11, to 15, Scripture says this. John the Apostle writes, Then I saw a great white throne, and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away. No place was found for them. In other words, no place to hide. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened." Matthew 25. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. It's interesting. what they had done. Not that works get us into heaven. We are justified by faith alone in Christ alone. But our deeds matter. They play a part at the day of judgment. And they were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. So unbelievers are brought out of hell, a minor reprieve for the day of judgment. You see, they're being held in a jail, so to speak, right? They're like in the county jail. Then there's the judgment day. They're brought out of hell and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. Listen, beloved, and if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. I pray that everyone here today has their name written in the Book of Life. Because that is the determining factor at the Day of Judgment. Is your name written in the Book of Life? And the way that your name becomes written in the Book of Life is simply this. Put your faith in Christ. Admit that you're a sinner. Just admit it. That you've sinned against God. You have violated His Ten Commandments. That your only hope of salvation and eternal life is faith in Christ. Put your faith in Christ. Become a disciple of Christ. Follow Him all the days of your life. And at the Day of Judgment, when that book is opened, glory be to God. Your name will be found written in the book of life. All of this happens when Christ returns the first time, right? There is not one second coming and then a thousand years later, a second second coming, right? There's no two second comings. There's one second coming. Christ came the first time 2,000 years ago and he will come a second time. The Bible only ever talks about one second coming. And that is when Christ returns at the head of His army. And when He returns at the head of all of the angelic hosts of heaven, that's it. Game over. No second chances. The credits begin to roll. The lights come on. It's judgment day. There is no left behind where you get another chance to choose for Christ. When Christ returns and the trumpet call is made, time is up. And that day could be at any moment. Christ returns at the head of his army with his sword drawn, ready to finally and once and for all destroy the enemies of God's people. This is what John sees in Revelation 19, right before the great day of judgment that we just read about in Revelation 20. There in Revelation 19, John writes this, Then I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse. The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire and on his head are many diadem. He has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a white robe dipped in blood." We know who this is, right? And the name by which he is called is the Word of God. The name by which he is called is the Word of God. John says in John 1.1, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God. Jesus is the Word of God. John goes on to write, and the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. Christ came the first time humble and meek on a donkey, pleading with people to repent and believe upon the gospel. But when he comes back the second time, he comes on a war horse with his sword drawn, ready to destroy the enemies of God's people. Why? Because time is up. God has been patient long enough. Because contrary to what a lot of people say, God's patience, beloved, is not infinite. His grace and His love and His mercy toward the elect are infinite. God's patience is not infinite. If it was infinite, then there never would have been the sacking of the Northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians. There never would have been the Babylonian captivity. There never would have been the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. There never would have been the great flood of Noah's Ark. There comes a point when the great God Almighty will say, I have had enough of this rebellion. and he will someday return, and he will unleash his fury and his anger on all those who refuse to bow the knee to his kingship and to his authority. I pray that will not be you. He comes with a trumpet call. That's really the implication of the trumpet, by the way. that Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 15.52 and in many other places. In 1 Corinthians 15.52, remember, Paul says that in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable. In Matthew 24, 31, Jesus says this, and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other. And in 1 Thessalonians 4, 16, the apostle Paul writes, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of a trumpet call. So what is with the trumpet call? It's an alarm. It's an alarm. And the trumpet call was either something that was encouraging or greatly discouraging. It was either the sound of a warning. If you were the guard on top of a guard tower and here's an invading army, what do you do? You sound the alarm. We're being invaded. Or it was the sound of the attacking army. They sound the trumpet call and they charge. Christ will return to sound the trumpet. The end has come. That's why they'll never make a movie about amillennialism. Because Christ returns and that's it, the end, the credits roll. There's nothing left. Thus, when Jesus returns, He is on a war path. And when he comes, Paul says, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised and perishable, and we shall be changed. And so it is, in a moment, Paul says, in the twinkling of an eye, which is a way of saying in the blink of an eye, in the blink of an eye, the dead will be raised and we shall be changed instantaneously. Believers who are still alive today, when Christ returns, will be raptured up and immediately given a glorified body. We shall be changed, Paul says. Why is that? Because, as Paul said in verse 50, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Remember what Paul says back in verse 38. God is able to give us each a body as he chooses. You don't have to die to receive a glorified body. God will simply give it to you. In a moment, in the blink of an eye, you don't have to see death, you don't have to see decay, you don't have to see corruption. But when will this all take place? Well, the Bible simply does not tell us that. And it is foolish to try and figure it out or to spend your time trying to figure it out. Because, I read one commentator who said this, if you spend all your time looking for signs of Jesus' return, you can easily become a Christian who is a sign watcher rather than a disciple maker. Right? Our mission in life, our goal in this world, is to make disciples of all nations, to take the gospel to the four corners of the earth, and to make disciples of all nations, not to sit around with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, trying to figure out when Jesus is coming back. That's not what we're here for. Jesus will come back. That's all we need to know. What we need to know before then, what we need to do before then, is take the gospel to everyone. Because someday He will return. And when He does, it will be too late for those who have not submitted their life to Christ. Now, that's not to say that the Bible gives us no indication of when Christ will return. There are two, I think, clear signs the Bible speaks of that will be a clear indication of Christ's imminent return. The first, according to 2 Thessalonians 2, is that the man of lawlessness must first be revealed. the man of lawlessness must first be revealed. Paul makes clear that Christ will not return until that individual who is the Antichrist is revealed, he is made known to the world, and the man of lawlessness will be someone or some entity, possibly some world organization, who will lead a global persecution against all Christians. This will be a clear sign of Christ's imminent return. I think a second clear sign is what we see in Romans chapter 11, and that is a global revival within the Jewish community. Either because of the worldwide persecution of Jews, or maybe despite the worldwide persecution of Jews, there will be a worldwide revival within Jewish communities. Paul says in Romans chapter 11 verse 25, lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers. A partial hardening has come upon Israel. A partial hardening, right? So even today, there are still some Jews who are converting to Christianity. They call themselves messianic Jews. They believe Christ is the Messiah and they're out there sharing the gospel with people. A partial hardening has come upon Israel But if there's a partial hardening, that implies that someday that's going to be removed. A partial hardening has come upon Israel until, notice the temporal language, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. In this way, all Israel will be saved. In other words, when the last Gentile elect puts their faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit will direct his attention toward ethnic Jews and there will be a massive awakening of Jews around the world and this will be noticeable. It will be noticeable and it will be obvious and a clear indication that the end is close at hand. But when that day will happen, we simply do not know. Remember that Jesus said in Luke chapter 12 verse 40, Be ready, He said, for the Son of Man is coming in an hour that you do not expect. In 1 Thessalonians 5 to you, Paul says that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. So whenever I hear someone say or I read on the internet that Jesus is coming back on this day in this year, I say, thank you very much. Now I know he's not coming back on that day, right? That's the one day of the year I don't have to be hopeful because he's coming back on a day when no one will expect. No one will predict it. No one will know. Alright, so now Paul's third point, and let me wrap this up. And it's short. His third point in verse 53. And by the way, the second point is explaining in verses 51 and 52 why receiving a glorified body at Christ's return is necessary. So now his third point. He simply reaffirms why believers must receive a glorified body. He basically re-estates what he just said. He says, for, so here's the reason for everything that he's just said in verses 51 and 52, for this perishable body must put on the imperishable. This mortal body must put on immortality. It simply must be because, number one, Christ is the first fruit. Christ is the first fruit of all those who have placed faith in Him. So, what happens to Christ is going to happen to all of us. Christ died, was resurrected in a glorified body, and for those who are still alive when He returns, just as He was ascended into heaven, so they will be taken up into heaven. He's the first fruit. What happens to him, the second Adam, happens to everyone who is in union with Christ. And number two, because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, because the perishable cannot inherit the imperishable, then those who will worship the Father for all of eternity must worship him in spirit, that is in a spiritual body and in truth. Whether we die or not, everybody receives a glorified body who has placed faith in Christ. Because the Father desires such people to worship Him. In the end, all of this, all of this should encourage us to live this life in a fallen world. as we struggle with the ups and downs of life, as we struggle with our own sin that often grieves us. We can look forward to the day when we will be done with this weak, corruptible, sinful body. We'll receive a glorified body. We'll live on the new earth with Christ, and all believers that have ever lived throughout all of eternity will worship alongside Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Paul, John, Peter, Calvin, Luther, Jonathan Edwards, and every other believer that we've ever known in our life, and maybe have not seen for years, we will worship with them on the new earth for all of eternity. This truth is designed to encourage us not just to persevere, but to encourage us to live a life that worships God, that glorifies Him for all that He has done for us. It ought to compel us to live a life that pleases Him in every way. It ought to compel us to pour over His Word to seek to understand what kind of a God would do this for me. I want to know this God. I want to read His Word. I want to take it in. I want to walk with Him in sweet fellowship. That's what this truth is designed to do. Not compel us to study the news. to try to figure out when Jesus is coming, but to compel us to pursue holiness and godliness and righteousness. Let's pray. Our gracious God, heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for this glorious and encouraging and comforting truth from your word. that truly, Lord Jesus, you have done everything for us. All we have to do is trust you, put our faith in you, believe in you. We died on the cross to pay for our sins, and you will even bring us into the new earth as we quite literally ride on your coattails. We thank you, we praise you, and we pray, Lord God, that this biblical truth, along with so many others, would just compel us, Lord God, to pursue holiness, but would also encourage us that as we struggle in this world, as we struggle with physical struggles, Lord God, medical struggles, as we struggle mentally and emotionally and spiritually, as we battle with sin that that plagues us even after so many years of walking with Christ. Some of us in this room just struggle with, why do I keep doing these things? Lord, we pray that this truth would encourage us that at the end of the day, all we have to do is cling to Christ. Cling to Christ knowing that you have and you will accomplish everything on behalf of your people. We love you, we praise you, we adore you. In Christ's name, amen.