God’s Plan Demands Christ’s Return, Part 1, Luke 21:8

This is a time when He comes for the gathering of Israel, the salvation of Israel. But it’s also a time for the destruction of the nations. Jesus in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, you need to look at it for just a second. Jesus in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew further describes this same event. And this is in the Olivet Discourse, this is in the Second Coming sermon, the same one that we’re looking at in Luke 21, but Matthew includes some components that Luke does not. Verse 31 of Matthew 25, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne and all the nations will be gathered before Him.” Very different than the Rapture, isn’t it? In all those Rapture passages, He doesn’t come down, He doesn’t sit on His throne, He doesn’t gather the nations, there’s no judgment, there’s no wrath, there’s no vengeance. He just takes us to heaven. There we become rewarded. We have the bridal feast, the marriage supper of the Lamb, we receive our eternal rewards. And after the Tribulation on earth, then He comes back in glory, all His angels with Him and His saints as well, all the nations…verse 32…gathered before Him, He will separate them from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He goes through the nations of the world to separate believers from unbelievers, believers from unbelievers, believers from unbelievers.

To the believers, verse 34, “Come you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you.” Prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Verse 41, to the unbelievers, “Depart from Me, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.” Verse 46, “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” He has a plan for the whole world. He’s going to come and all of them are going to be brought before Him in the day of decision in the valley of decision where Yahweh judges and He’s going to separate. At that time, Revelation 11:15 says, “The kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ,” and Psalm 2 says, “He rules with a rod of iron.”

The language of Joel, by the way, is repeated in the fourteenth chapter of Revelation. It sounds just like what Joel wrote. “John had a vision, I looked and behold, a white cloud, sitting on the cloud one like a Son of Man having a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand. Another angel came out of the temple crying with a loud voice, to Him who sat on the cloud, Put in your sickle and reap for the hour to reap has come because the harvest of the earth is ripe. He who sat on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, the earth was reaped. Another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, also had a sharp sickle. Another angel, the one who had power over fire came out from the altar, called with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle saying, ‘Put in your sharp sickle, gather the clusters from the vine of the earth because her grapes are ripe.’” This sounds exactly like Joel 3. “The angel swung his sickle to the earth, gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth, threw them into the great winepress of the wrath of God. The winepress was trodden outside the city. The blood came out from the winepress up to the horses’ bridles for a distance of 200 miles.”

Armageddon, the great battle when all the nations come to fight against Christ in Israel stretching from the northernmost border to the southernmost, 200 miles and the blood splatters as high as horses in the massacre. God has a plan for the church. And when the last believer is redeemed, comes the beginning of His Second Coming events with the Rapture of the church. He has a plan for the nations, and when time for judgment comes, He will return to judge the nations, separating them, judging those who rejected Him, taking those who received Him into His Kingdom.

And then finally, and just a comment. God’s program for Israel demands it. God’s program for Israel demands it. I don’t need to go over this because we’ve done it so many times. He has promised to save Israel, Romans 11, all Israel will be saved in the future. The Kingdom promised to Israel will come, I covered that in detail in the series I did on divine sovereignty, Israel and eschatology. I don’t know how many messages I did on that, but I don’t want to drag you back through all of that. Old Testament promises again and again and again the salvation of Israel, the Kingdom that God promised to them, all the promises given to David and given to Abraham, all the New Covenant promises will come to pass. He will bring them into full Kingdom glory.

Let me show you just one prophet and what he says. Ezekiel…Ezekiel chapter 20, looking ahead to these promises. Verse 33, “As I live, declares the Lord God,” God swearing by himself, “surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out, I will be king over you.” That hasn’t happened yet. “I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you were scattered with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out. And I shall bring you into the wilderness of the people and there I shall enter into judgment with you face to face.” God is going to gather the Jews and He’s going to do the same thing with them that He does with the nations. He’s going to sort them out. “I’ll make you pass under the rod as a shepherd would his sheep to examine every one of them, and I’ll bring you into the bond of the covenant and I shall purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me, I shall bring them out of the land where they sojourn. They will not enter the land of Israel and you will know I am the Lord your God.” They’ll never go the Kingdom, those Jews who rejected Him.

But for those who receive Him, Ezekiel 36, our last passage, Ezekiel 36 verse 22, “Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, It is not for your sake, O Israel, that I’m about to act but for My holy name. My name is at stake in your salvation because I promised it. You’ve profaned Me among the nations where you went. But I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations which you have profaned in their midst. You have profaned My name,’” the opposite of what He desired them to do. “But I will vindicate My holiness,” verse 23, Ezekiel 36, “then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight, for I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, bring you into your own land…I love this…then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean, I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and all your idols. Moreover I will give you a new heart, put a new spirit within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to talk in My statutes and you will be careful to observe My ordinances and you will live in the land that I gave your forefathers, so you will be My people and I will be your God. Moreover, I will save you from all your uncleanness.” He promises them salvation and the land and the Kingdom.

God’s not finished with Israel. He has a plan for Israel, He has a plan for the nations, plan for the church. That’s why He must send Jesus Christ back because as Zecharias said in Luke 1:72, “The Lord will remember His holy covenant.” Jesus is coming. It all begins with the Rapture. That’s a signless event. It can happen at any moment. Believers have always lived with the reality of the imminency of that event. Let’s pray.

Father, so much to think with this profound and sweeping revelation regarding Your return. The sending of the Lord Jesus Christ to finish the work is so important. It is the reason for everything, this great climactic culmination of this universe’s story, prewritten for us to know in detail. Lord, we rest in it, we trust in it. Your Word is true…Your Word is true about the past, true about the present and true about the future. May we be prepared for this, may we be ready when Jesus gathers His own. I pray, Lord, that You’ll work in the hearts of those who have never embraced Jesus Christ, that this day would be the day of their salvation. When you break through the dying power of sin, the killing power of sin, when you break through blindness, the work of Satan to obscure, and the light of shining glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ becomes clear, we pray that You would do that in hearts today. And for all of us knowing these things to be so, fill our hearts with hope, fill our hopes with zeal to reach people who need to be reached before this ending. May we be like John who in knowing this felt both bitterness and sweetness. Sweetness because Christ will finally be exalted. Bitterness because sinners will be judged. May we live in that tension and may it affect both our work and our anticipation for Christ’s glory as well as our passion to reach those who don’t yet know Him. Amen.

“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”