How to Prepare for the End of the World – Part One

1 John 2:28

January 26, 2003

 

            Our text this morning is 1 John 2:28-3:3.  1 John 2:28-3:3.  I invite you to turn with me to these verses as we look into God’s Word this morning.  1 John 2:28-3:3.  Follow along as I read the text.  Read text.

            In 1988 a man by the name of Edgar Whisenant published a booklet entitled 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988.  Edgar Whisenant was a former rocket scientist known to have “impressive academic credentials.”[1]  In this booklet Whisenant claimed to have made several scientific calculations based on biblical data that proved that Jesus would return on September 12, 1988.  It is reported that many Christian families became alarmed at this new information, even to the extent of pulling their children out of school so their families could be together at the coming of Jesus.  As most of you probably remember from 1988, and as I remember from 1988, Jesus did not return that year.  In response to his failed predictions, Whisenant and new co-author Greg Brewer published a sequel to his well-read 1988 booklet entitled The Final Shout: The Rapture Report 1989.  He revised his calculations to determine that Jesus would return on September 1, 1989, give or take one day.  If that failed then Jesus would return on Rosh Hashanah 1990, 1991, or 1992, and if not on those dates, then most certainly it could be no other date than somewhere between September 15-17, 1993, according to Whisenant and Brewer.  As we all know, these predictions failed as well.

            Many people have come and gone with predictions about the coming of Christ, the end of the world, and the final judgment.  Those who have contradicted the plain teaching of Scripture have all been proven to be false prophets.  The Scripture is clear when it teaches that we are now living in the last hour and that the coming of Christ to this earth in glory is a future certainty.  It is these two facts that John concerns himself with in 1 John when he deals with eschatology, or the study of last things.  In verse 18 of chapter 2, we read, Children, it is the last hour.  John transitions from verse 17 concerning loving the world to verse 18 by noting the period in which we find ourselves.  We live in the last hour, and the last hour is a perilous time because of the proliferation of false teaching and antichrists who propagate such lies. 

            Every now and then I like to turn on TBN to see what they are talking about, and not too long ago I saw a preacher who was teaching the same heresy John was dealing with in the first century.  This preacher taught that Jesus, the man, was not God the Son until His baptism.  As you remember from last week, that is one of the heresies that John condemns in his letter to these Christians, and he calls those who would teach this doctrine antichrists and liars.  So this type of teaching is not limited to the first century, but even today false teachers abound even in so-called Christian circles. 

            As we come to verse 28 it is important that we bear in mind that John has mentioned the last hour in verse 18.  This is something John still has in mind in verse 28.  One aspect of the last hour is false teachers, but another aspect of the last hour is the return of Jesus Christ to this earth in glory and splendor.  John, in verse 28, picks up on the theme of the last hour to transition to a new topic.  Verse 28 is a link between verses 18-27 and verse 29 to chapter 3 verse 10.  It is as if John is concluding one section and beginning another all in the same verse.  The topic that John concludes is this: Fellowship with God is only through His Son Jesus.  That is what verses 18-27 are all about.  You have to have Jesus to have the Father.  John, then, begins a new topic in verse 28, and that topic could be summed up like this: Fellowship with God is only for those who are the children of God.  John, from verse 28 through chapter 3, verse 10, deals with this new topic of being a child of God, or being children of God, and verse 28 serves as a segue, a link from discussing the necessity of true doctrine about Jesus to the necessity of being God’s children and how to know if we are in fact His children. 

            If you recall from a few months ago, the whole purpose of 1 John is to teach us how to have real, authentic fellowship with God.  John wants to give us instructions on how we can know we are in a relationship with God through His Son Jesus.  That is what we see in 1:1-4.  He goes on to deal with that by discussing how we need forgiveness to have fellowship with God, who is light.  John next showed that we also must be obedient to have fellowship with holy God.  Then John instructed us that we must have the Son to have fellowship with God, and now he teaches us that we have fellowship with God because we are God’s children.  We must be God’s children if we are to have fellowship with Him. 

            As we come to this next section, this is the key: Fellowship with God through being His child.  John is going to deal with this in two ways.  Remember, we are living in the last hour, which means we find ourselves in a very interesting situation.  We live between the Incarnation and the coming of Christ in glory.  We live in a unique period of history as children of God.  John knows that we sit between the cross and the coming, and he wants us to understand what that should mean to our lives as Christians.  So he first deals with how we should live as children of God because of Christ’s coming in glory, and he does that in 2:28-3:3, and then he deals with how we should live in light of the Incarnation, Christ’s coming as the Suffering Servant, and he does that in 3:4-10.  How should Christ’s coming in glory cause us to live as children of God, and how should Christ’s first coming as the Suffering Servant cause us to live as children of God?  This morning we are going to begin to deal with that first question: How should the coming of Christ in glory affect our lives now? 

            Before we delve into this section of verses, I feel it is important to say a little bit about the return of Christ.  First of all, the return of Christ is essential to Christianity.  If Christ is not going to return bodily, in glory, then all of Christianity falls apart.  This is not a negotiable doctrine.  Anyone who does not believe in the bodily, glorious coming of Jesus Christ in the future has not understood or believed the Gospel message in its fullness.  This can be seen in the fact that every writer in the New Testament refers to this coming of Jesus in the future.  There is not one person who contributed to the New Testament, even Jude, whose epistle is only one chapter, who does not refer to the second coming of Jesus.  The writer of Hebrews refers to this second coming in Hebrews 9:28 when he writes, Christ…will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.  The implication of this verse is that the salvation of Jesus at His coming is only for those who are eagerly awaiting His coming.  It is crucial that Christians who believe in Jesus’ Incarnation await His glorious, physical, bodily return.  This is a major New Testament doctrine that cannot ever be compromised. 

            There’s a second point that I feel is necessary to make at the outset of this section.  As essential as the doctrine of Christ’s return is, one could argue that there is no other doctrine that has been the subject of so much disagreement, debate, and difference of opinion.  Jesus is coming, and all Christians agree about that, but not content with that, many Christians divide over when He is to come, how He is to come, what happens after He comes, and a host of other matters which are not major doctrinal issues.  These are minor things, and to avoid having us divide over them unnecessarily, I want to give you some reasons why predictive prophecy is given, especially in the New Testament.  We all agree that Jesus is coming again in glory in person, but to avoid disagreements that could unnecessarily divide us over the particular details of how that glorious appearing will take place, I want to give some biblical reasons we have prophecy about the future in the Bible, especially from the New Testament.  In order to help make those reasons more clear, let me start with the negative, and show one thing that prophecy is not intended to do. 

            The reason we have predictive prophecy is not so that we will know every detail about future events.  We all have a desire to know the future and to know what is going to happen.  Yet the Bible does not tell us about the future so that we can know every detail about the coming of Christ.  In fact, the Bible tells us that quite the opposite is true. 

First, we learn that no one knows the day nor the hour when the coming of Christ will take place.  Matthew 24:36 says, But of that day and hour no one knows.  Even Jesus when He was on earth did not know the timing of His return.  The angels do not know it.  So no one is able to pin down exactly when Jesus will come.  There is no timeline of events that we can construct to show when Jesus will come. 

Second, we learn that we will not fully understand the events until they happen.  Jesus continues in Matthew 24, verses 37 through 39, saying, For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah.  For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.  The ones who mocked Noah did not understand what was going to happen.  They did not get it.  When the rain began to fall, suddenly Noah’s prophetic preaching made sense and they wanted in the ark, but until that point, it was a mystery they could not understand.  It is also probable that Noah did not fully understand what was going to happen.  All he knew was that God said the earth would be destroyed by a flood, and he needed to build an ark.  He had never seen a flood, and probably had never built an ark.  But God said, “Noah, be ready because the flood is coming.”  Noah’s job was not to answer the questions of how God could get enough water together to make it happen, or the timing of the flood, or the events surrounding the flood.  All he knew was that something called a flood was soon to come upon the world, and he needed to be ready with an ark to save himself and his family. 

            So we do not have predictive prophecy so that we can map out a series or sequence of events and figure out exactly what will happen in the end times.  It is important that we study these issues and try to understand the biblical teaching about the end times, but these secondary issues are not issues we should divide over.  So as much as it would be nice to have a detailed timeline of the future of the world, God has not given us these prophecies for that express purpose, but has plainly said that the day is unknown and we will not fully understand all there is to understand about it, much as people did not fully understand Jesus’ Incarnation until after the event.  Now, two reasons why we have end-times prophecy. 

 

To cause us to be holy

 

            Reason number one: God has given us prophecies about the future in His Word to cause us to be holy.  Predictive prophecy has been given to cause us to be holy.  Jesus demonstrates this truth so powerfully in Matthew 24-25.  This is Jesus’ sermon on His coming and the end of the age (verse 3).  If you read through this sermon, you will notice that the first 41 verses of the chapter center on the events that are to happen, with a few warnings mixed in.  There are 41 verses of description.  But then something interesting happens.  Jesus’ attention and focus switches from the future to the present in verse 42.  He says, Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.  After making this statement about the disciples’ responsibility in the present, Jesus continues to explain the importance of being on the alert for the next 40 verses!  There are 41 verses of explanation followed by 40 verses of exhortation to be ready!  Following those 40 verses we find 16 verses about the final judgment, as if to put an exclamation point on the command “Be ready!”  There are more verses telling us to be ready (56 counting the exhortations about the final judgment) than there are describing the events themselves (41).  Clearly Jesus’ emphasis here is on our responsibility to be ready for His coming.  Jesus’ point in all of this, which we will see in more detail next week, is that we need to be holy people because we don’t know when He is coming. 

            In Revelation 22:12 we have a statement made by Jesus, and in this verse He says, Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what He has done.  The point of this verse is this: Jesus is coming and your life will be evaluated.  How are you using your life?  What are you doing?  The point of the word quickly here is that it will be sudden, and we don’t know when it will be, but when it happens Jesus will come to evaluate us.  What grade will you receive? 

            1 Thessalonians 3:13 concludes Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians, and his prayer for them is that God would establish your hearts without blame in holiness at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints or holy ones.  Paul prays, “Jesus is coming with all of His holy ones, His saints, those who are righteous, and my prayer for you is that in light of that day God would make you blameless and holy.”  He prays virtually the same thing in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 for this church in this same letter.  This is one reason why we have prophecy – to cause us to be holy. 

            One more passage.  Turn with me to 2 Peter 3:11.  We have to do this because it is so important that we understand why we have these texts about the future of the world so that we don’t misinterpret and misapply them and do violence to them.  2 Peter 3:11.  Peter writes, Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way…  What things?  The heavens and the earth are what he is talking about here.  They will be destroyed with intense heat and be burned up (verse 10).  So he writes in verse 11, Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness!  “The earth and the heavens are going to be destroyed with intense heat, they will be burned up, and so what kind of people ought you to be?  What kind of lives should you be living since you know that in the future the day is coming when all that is temporary and physical and of this world is going to be destroyed?  You should be living lives of holy conduct and godliness!” Peter says.  This is a convicting, moving, soul-searching, heart-stirring, life-changing passage.  I’m not so concerned that you all get your theological ducks in a row, so to speak, about the end times and you know whether the rapture is pre-trib or post-trib or if you’re Amillenial or Premillenial.  I’m concerned that you live lives of holy conduct and godliness because Jesus is coming and the world, the heavens and the earth, will be destroyed, and that is for sure and clear as a bell.  “You ought to be godly,” Peter says.  That means that you should imitate God.  You should have the same priorities as God, and God’s priority is His own glory.  If you get that right, it doesn’t matter when Jesus comes back because you’ll be ready.  So we see that predictive prophecy is given first to cause us to be holy.

 

To cause us to be hopeful

 

            The second reason God has told us about the future coming of His Son in glory is to cause us to be hopeful.  To cause us to be hopeful.  Turn to Titus 2:13.  Titus 2:13.  This verse, by the way, is a great verse to show someone that Jesus is equal to God and is Himself God.  In fact, it might be one of the clearest verses in the Bible, I think, to show that Jesus is God.  So if someone comes to you and says that Jesus is not God or He’s less than God or something like that, just take them to Titus 2:13.  It’s a great verse to show the deity of Jesus.  In verse 11 of Titus 2 Paul says that the grace of God has appeared and this grace has instructed us to be, verse 13, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.  There it is – hope.  The grace we have received from God teaches us that we should be looking for the coming of Jesus with hope!  It is our blessed hope!  Jesus is coming not only to cause us to be holy, but also to cause us to be hopeful. 

            Look back with me at 1 Thessalonians 4:13.  We are actually commanded by God in His Word to comfort each other in times of loss and tribulation with the coming of the Lord.  He is to be our hope in times of difficulty and hardship.  Look at 1 Thessalonians 4:13.  Paul writes this: But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.  See that?  Here’s what Paul is saying.  “I don’t want you to be ignorant of the coming of our Lord, brothers and sisters, because if you don’t know about Jesus coming you will be just like the non-believer who has no hope.  You have to know that Jesus is coming again, and you need to not be ignorant of that, because ignorance of that fact will kill your hope!”  So Paul goes on in verses 14 through 17 to describe the gathering together of all believers to be with Jesus forever and how we will meet Him and see Him.  Then he closes by saying, Comfort one another with these words.  Give each other hope.  Remind each other of our hope in Christ when times are tough and people you love who know the Lord have died.  We are not like those who don’t have hope because we know that Jesus is coming and we will be with Him forever!

            But not only will we be with Him, we will be just like Him!  Now that is hope.  In 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 (you don’t need to turn there) Paul makes it unmistakably clear that we will be resurrected in exactly the same way as Jesus was on Easter morning.  We will be resurrected in the exact same way.  So here’s our hope – when Jesus comes again to take us to be with Him forever and we see Him, whether we are alive or asleep, we will be changed to be just like Him.  We will be resurrected in the same way as He was. 

            So God has given us these prophecies, these words concerning the coming of Christ, because He wants to cause us to be holy and cause us to be hopeful.  He does not necessarily want us to have it all figured out about the rapture, the tribulation, the kingdom, the day of the Lord, and all of these other terms that are so open to many interpretations.  When Jesus comes again, it will all make sense.  The important thing for us is, will we be ready? 

            Now, back to 1 John.  We have before us verse 28, and we’re not going to get too far into it this morning; we’ll save that for next week.  I wanted to preface this section with an exhortation to correctly apply the teaching about Jesus’ coming so you don’t forget why the teaching is there and get lost in an eschatological maze.        But briefly look at this verse with me.  John writes, Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.  There are two possibilities in this verse to how we will react to Jesus’ coming.  One is positive, and one is negative.  As we look at this section of 1 John, from this verse all the way down to chapter 3, verse 3, the message is clear – only those who are holy have a right to be hopeful. 

            The message of Jesus’ coming is not a message of hope to everyone.  It is only a message of hope to those who are holy.  It is only a message of hope to the children of God because the children of God are the ones who are holy.  So only those who are holy have a right to be hopeful.  Everyone else will be ashamed, terrified, and fearful at Jesus’ coming.  The coming of Jesus is good news to Christians who have the holiness of Christ and who walk in the light, but it is the sound of judgment and destruction for those who rely on their own righteousness to save them and who have rejected God’s Son who died on the cross.  While Christians should look to Jesus coming with hope, unbelievers should look to His coming with dread and fearful expectation if they refuse to turn from their sin and put their faith in Jesus.

            The only way to have the holiness of Christ is to turn to Him in faith and receive Him as your Savior and Lord.  The only way that you can be holy and therefore be hopeful is to turn from your sin to Jesus and place all your trust in Him alone for salvation.  Confess your sins and follow Jesus.  That is the only way to be holy, and that is the only way to truly have hope.  I say that for anyone who is here who is either not a Christian or who may be unsure about their standing with God.

            To those who are Christians, let me remind you that 1 John 2:28 is written to believers.  It is written to encourage believers to be holy, because if they are not, the coming of Jesus will also be a day of shame for them.  This is a promise of hope for those who are holy and who walk in a manner pleasing to the Lord. 

            The question is, How can you and I prepare for Jesus’ coming so that we are holy so that we can be hopeful?  As Christians, what is our duty, our responsibility, in light of Jesus’ glorious coming?  The answer is in verse 28, and I will try to help shed some light on how to apply that answer next week.  How are you going to prepare for the end of the world?  To see what John says about preparing for Jesus’ coming, I invite you to come back next Sunday.  In the meantime, realize that God has given us information about the future so that we might be holy, and since we are holy, we might be hopeful.  Let’s pray.

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