“Preaching on Christ - The Sovereign Servant”

 

TOPIC:‌“Christ - His Visible Return”

                 by Rev. Dr. Reg Dunlap

 

TEXT:‌Titus 2:13

 

‌‌“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God

‌‌and our SAVIOR, Jesus Christ”

 

‌Certainly no series of messages on Christ should be undertaken without some word about the great truth of His visible return from Heaven. I for one believe that this world has not seen the last of Jesus Christ. The verse before us, and especially the Bible itself, points to the day when He will return to judge the nations, to cast down Satan, and to establish His eternal Kingdom upon earth.

 

‌According to the Apostle Paul, the Christian has a hope in his heart and a destination for His soul. Listen as he writes to the Philippians “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). The word “look” implies eagerness, intensity, alertness and desiring. Paul lives on the brink of eternity. With eager eyes and expecting heart he lived with the truth that Christ may come at any moment.

 

‌“Ah, yes,” cries Paul, “our Blessed Lord is coming again. We must be ready for it. We must live with the prayerful thought, perhaps today the Lord will come.” Let us look now at the coming of Christ and what it will mean for each one of us.

 

I.

 

‌Think, to begin with, of the DECLARATION of our Lord's return. Notice again Paul's words from our text: “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ” (v. 13). I like Weymouth's rendering of the last part of these words: “the appearing in glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”

 

‌Within the New Testament we have a mass of evidence of those who expressed their belief in the unshakable hope of a future appearance of Jesus Christ in glory. The Apostle Matthew wrote: “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30). The angels declared: “This same Jesus…shall so come in like manner” (Acts 1:11). The writer of Hebrews declared: “So Christ…shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Hebrews 9:28). The Apostle John wrote: “Behold, he cometh with . . .