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Sabbath, January 15, 2005 Newark Seventh-Day Adventist Church
Pastor Tom Hughes

“SIGNS OF CHRIST’S SECOND COMING - I”


…to homosexuality, fornication, rape, murder, and violence. When people can murder children and get off, when people can murder their spouse and get off…

We all know about a very famous case where a knife-wielding person was found guilty in one court and not guilty in another and never served a day in jail.

And I can give you a dozen examples like that; where people have committed murder and, because of a technicality or some policeman didn’t quite do something right –
even though the guy confessed and they had the DNA evidence and everything else, they walked and they’re out on the street today.

Violence is a common practice. Statistics show that murder and rape and violence are taking place every day in our world. Now Jesus said it would be that way. But did He say that He would like it? Did He want it that way? Is this a sign that Christ is coming soon?

He said, “When you see them acting like they did in Sodom and Gomorrah, and when you see the marrying and giving in marriage…”

Now what’s that mean?

Everybody for all time has married and given in marriage. He’s talking about excessively. It’s going on. It’s a practice that’s not the normal practice. Because of all the divorce and remarriage today did you know that all male heads of households is now up since 1990 by 62%? That means more and more women are also becoming immoral and giving up their children and walking out on their marriages. Our country, culturally, is in a tailspin heading straight for disaster.

Now we look around and we’re horrified by this. We see a 71% increase in people living together without getting married and we’re horrified by it. Well that’s fine. It’s okay to be horrified by it and to not like it, and to not approve of it. But more importantly, be alarmed by it because it’s one of the signs that Jesus is going to come again very, very soon. And if you find yourself sleeping you just might miss the boat.

You know that the Bible says that the last days movements at the very end are going to be like lightning. How fast is lightning? Very, very fast!

Now I think the disciples sometimes would ask Jesus some kind of dense questions and sometimes Jesus would get very frustrated because the disciples didn’t get it!  How many of you have noticed that in the Bible? I’ve noticed that sometimes they didn’t get it and Jesus even was so frustrated He would say, “Have I been so long with you and you don’t understand?”

But in Matthew 24, Jesus doesn’t do that. As a matter of fact the apostles asked questions and they hit the nail on the head. In verse three it says, “As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?’”

And Jesus did not brush aside their questions. He did not tell them that it was not important for them to know the signs of His coming. He took their questions very seriously and He emphasized the importance of paying close attention to the signs of the times particularly the sign of His coming and the end of the world.

And He made it very clear if you look at Matthew 24:33-35 it says, “so, you also, when you see all these things, know that He is near, at the door.
34 Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.”

He’s saying “When you see these things, you know I’m at the door. I’m getting ready to come. I’m at the door.” What door? Well right now the door is swung wide, the door of mercy, and it is swung wide on hinges of grace for us to go into the most holy place in heaven and become perfect through Christ’s righteousness.

By accepting His righteousness we receive as a gift His perfection, His holiness, His righteousness. God gives that gift to us and we stand before God as if we’d never sinned! And we’re encouraged now, while Jesus is at the door of the most holy place ministering for us.

We are to go now and accept that free gift of His righteousness so that when He leaves that most holy place and takes that golden censer and throws it down, and probation closes, we will be in and not out! He is at the door even now. Are we paying attention to the signs of His coming?

He spoke out against those who ignore the signs of the times. So picture Jesus and His apostles sitting on the beautiful Mount of Olives. I’ve been there many, many times. And as you come over the hill on the Mount of Olives, right around the corner you’ll come down to this overlook and you’ll look down over the city of Jerusalem. You’ll see the golden dome shining in the sun, you’ll see the temple mounds spread out before you, and you’ll see the holy city right there before your very eyes.

It is a beautiful city; to me, the most beautiful because that’s where my Savior bled and died. That’s where He gave His life for me. So I love Jerusalem and I love that sight in Jerusalem where Christ gave His life. You know, on that temple mount, on Mount Calvary, on Mount Moriah, I love that mountain and I love what happened there – my Savior died for me.

And there the apostles were looking out over this beautiful city, looking at this beautiful temple building which looks something like our White House. I mean it was beautiful! It was white, it had gold doors, it had all sorts of pretty embroidered, kind of like thick oriental rugs, weavings, and different items like the laver where they would do ritual washings and all. You could look down and you could see this big beautiful temple with the beautiful marble, marble floors, big huge gold doors - very impressive sight!

And in Matthew 24, Jesus told His disciples “not one stone in that beautiful temple will be left standing. You’re enemies are going to surround you and they’re going to take everything away and this city will be destroyed.”

Matthew 24:1, 2… “Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him.
2And He said to them, ‘Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.’”

Now as they sat there on that beautiful day looking down over that gorgeous building and seeing the impressiveness of the city of Jerusalem they found it very hard to believe what Jesus was saying. It looked like it would stand forever. The marble looked so strong, it looked as if it would never fall. But in 70 A. D., just as Jesus predicted, Jerusalem was leveled to the ground and not one stone was left upon another in that temple mount! I’ve been there, there’s no temple there.

When Jesus prophesies something, it always comes true! You can build your faith on fulfilled prophecy.

Jesus talks in the Bible about Noah, “As it was in the days of Noah…”

How was it in Noah’s day? Peter warns us (2 Peter 3:1-13). Peter talks about people in the last days who hire laborers to work in their fields to harvest their crops and then they don’t pay the laborers. And Jesus talks through Peter there in that section about the flood. And he said – just as God prophesied the flood and then the flood happened –

Peter says at the end of the world this world’s going to be destroyed by fire. But before God destroys this world by fire He’s going to punish those evil people who are taking advantage of the laborers and stealing their money, and becoming rich and fat. “I am going to come because I’ve heard the cries of these laborers and I am going to punish those thieves, those rich fat cats who are stealing that money from those working people!”

Now let me ask you a question. Here in the United States of America, people, your crops and the food you eat is being harvested, as we speak, by illegal aliens who are being paid far less than they are deserving of being paid, and they are being exploited by people who are taking advantage of them because they are poor.

They’re coming here to America to try to start a new life, to try to gain freedom for their families. And we can all say they need to follow the law and we need to stop them and make them do it in an orderly and lawful fashion, but just like when there was Berlin wall, people longed for freedom. Economic freedom, and freedom for their families. And if there is corruption and a dictatorship, and there is abject poverty in Mexico, those people are going to try to find ways to get here! And you just might do it too if you were down there in that position.

Now just because they’re poor, and just because they sneak across the border, does that give anybody the right to exploit those people, and make them harvest those crops, and take their money, and not pay them an honest wage? No, it does not. And the fact that there are illegal aliens being exploited by people and people are getting rich off the backs of these laborers is one of the signs of Christ’s coming.

Also, have you ever heard of a thing called Enron? In Enron – and many, many other companies – they raided the pension funds of all the workers, stole their money, found legal loopholes and ways to get away with it; they pulled their little ripcord on their golden parachute and some of these executives walked away with 8- and 10 million dollars while the people got nothing in their pensions after they worked thirty years! – and they walk away with nothing – because they weren’t allowed to move their money and they had to keep it all in Enron’s stock. And the fat cats up top knew the company was going down in flames and they bailed out and got their money out.

Is that right?

Did you know that Enron was one of the signs of the Second Coming according to 2 Peter 3, and James 5, where it talks about the workers being exploited? There are signs all around us but we’re sleeping! We don’t have our eyes open. We’re not awake! We’re not watching.

When a mayor of a city starts issuing licenses to homosexual couples – and it’s against the law of the county that the city’s in, and the state; trying to make a lifestyle that is called an “abomination” in the Bible something that’s an “ acceptable alternative lifestyle,”

When we see Enron exploiting people,

When we see millions of “illegals” being exploited and used,

When we see even our largest retailers – in the name of giving us cheap goods – going over to foreign countries and making the clothes in these sweatshops, and in these places where a human being should not be forced to work for ten- and twelve- and sixteen hours a day – little kids – so we can have a two-dollar less price on our lamp,

The fat cat America sits raking in the wealth and we have people twenty miles south of us that don’t even have food to eat and a place to sleep, and we build a big huge wall and tell them “You’re not allowed in because you speak a different language.” But those people on the north end of the country, “Oh, you can come right down.”

Oh, could there be a little racism involved? Could there be a little exploitation going on? Could it be that the American dream is “I want everything for me, and if you don’t have, too bad. We don’t care about you, it’s just about us. It’s what’s good for us, it’s good for our country. We’re the ones that are gonna get rich, and if you don’t, that’s too bad! We will come over, build our shops in your countries, we’ll exploit your workers, we will pay you a dollar, and two dollars an hour for 16-hour days, and that’s just fine, isn’t it?”

You know why it isn’t fine? Because God’s Word says that you don’t exploit people.

Now what are you going to do? You’ve got to wear clothes, you’ve got to go somewhere. You’ve got to buy them someplace. So I’m not saying that what we should do is stick our head in the sand and not buy any clothes, and not watch the television ever, and just act like we’re not in this world at all. Although if we got rid of a lot of that stuff we’d probably be better off.

What I am saying is this: Open our eyes! Let’s look at the world and see the signs of Christ’s coming! He is begging us to see the signs that are pointing toward His soon return! And we’re asleep! There’s like an alarm bell ringing and we’re sound asleep, and we’re not hearing it.

I asked Debbie to set an alarm for me. And she was up very, very late; she had a lot of work she had to do for a report that had to be in to the Conference about our finances, and she got like two hours’ sleep. And the alarm went off and she just slept right through that alarm – I mean for like fifteen minutes – and she didn’t even hear it! And I thought to myself that’s kind of like we are with God.

Jesus is coming soon, He’s setting off alarm bells all around us, and we’re sound asleep! We’re so close to the end of the world, we have no idea! And yet we have become so accustomed to rape and murder and violence; exploitation, that it doesn’t even phase us anymore. We don’t even notice it anymore. Why is that?

What’s Jesus’ cure for this? He warns us against indifference. In 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6, the apostle Paul tells us this:

“But concerning the times and seasons brethren, you have no need that I should write you.
2For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.
3For when they say ‘Peace and safety,’ then sudden destruction comes upon them.”

Think about the people who were on the islands of Thailand and Indonesia – a veritable paradise! They thought they had peace and safety: and sudden destruction came upon them. Did you know that tsunami is one of the signs of the end time? It says, “it comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman and they shall not escape.”

Now how do labor pains come? They start pretty far apart. Right? Now when you get closer to the birth, do the pains get closer together? What God is telling us is these signs started out like a woman in labor. You’d have a hurricane once every few years. You’d have an earthquake occasionally. Now you’re having four hurricanes in one month hitting Florida. Now you’re having earthquakes, tsunamis, plane crashes, train crashes – every day the birth pangs are “panging.” Are we sleeping? Do we realize that God is trying to get our attention?

Let’s keep reading.

“But you, brethren (verse 4) are not in darkness. So this day should not overtake you as a thief.
5You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness.
6Therefore, let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep watch and be sober.
7For those who sleep, sleep at night. And those who get drunk are drunk at night.
8But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.
9For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
10 who died for us that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.
11 Therefore comfort each other and edify one another just as you also are doing.”

So Paul is urging us to “not sleep as others do,” but to “watch and be sober.”
Are you watching? Are you sober?

So James warns of the last days, Peter warns us of conditions in the last days, and then there are signs of the Lord’s Second Coming.

Luke 19:44… This is where Jesus looked out over the city of Jerusalem. If you go back to verse 41, “As He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it.”

He looked out from the Mount of Olives, He saw Jerusalem, He started crying, and he said, (verse 42) “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
43For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you, and close you in on every side.”

So He’s looking at Jerusalem and Jesus in His prophetic role as a prophet could see ahead. He could see a vision of Jerusalem being taken down by their enemies. In verse 44, He says, “…and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

So Jesus came to them, and this is around 31-33 A. D., somewhere in that timeframe. A little less than forty years later Titus and his army were going to come and take that city apart and carry them off and kill many of the people who hurt him. But because they didn’t pay attention, because they didn’t listen, when Titus came they weren’t ready.

They didn’t know the signs of the end and when Titus came and then withdrew they figured that they were off the hook and they didn’t run. The Christians all ran and not one of them died in the siege of Jerusalem. But all those Jews who stayed and didn’t flee when the armies withdrew, very shortly later they came immediately back and leveled the city and they killed man of the people that lived there. And Jesus is saying to us today, “The signs are all around you: in your culture, financially, spiritually, morally – the signs are screaming ‘Get ready! Watch! Be sober! I’m coming very, very soon!’”

Are we awake?

Are we listening?

Are we serious about our Bible study time?

Are serious about our prayer meeting?

Are we serious about Sabbath School?

Are we serious about witnessing for our faith?

Matt D. and I were talking about ways to witness and we’re going to be trying to help you to become better witnesses. There’s all sorts of ministries we want to do here. We have great ministries already thriving. The Pathfinder ministry is so exciting! I just can’t even believe how awesome it is to have a ministry like that in this church! And our Worship Committee and some of these committees that are functioning.

I want to challenge you. The time is short. The alarm bells are going off. If you’re in leadership, take your roles as committee chairmen as committee workers seriously. Work now while you have a chance because very soon Christ is near even at the door. And when He steps out of the most holy place you won’t be able to be saved, and you won’t be able to be redeemed at that point, and it’ll be too late. How sad for anyone who has sat in these pews to ever be lost because they weren’t awake, they weren’t watching, they weren’t sober, they weren’t vigilant.

Why do I preach these things to you? Why am I emphasizing this in the first month of the year? I’m doing this because I want to give you a wake-up call. It’s a new year, it’s a new opportunity to put Christ first in your life. Only what’s done for Christ will last. We have one message: I am a great sinner, Jesus is a great Savior. He is coming again. Let us prepare to meet Him. Let us be ready in our hearts to meet Him, and let us help others to be ready to meet Him.

In Revelation 1:7 it says, “Behold He is coming, with clouds and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.”

John says even though all the world is going to be mourning because of Christ except for those who are saved, he says, “…Even so, Amen! Come, Lord Jesus.” For us, it won’t be the end of everything, it will only be the beginning of something far more wonderful. “Be ye therefore ready. For in such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man will come.”

Father in heaven as our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed: Thank You for Jesus who died on the cross for us. Please come into our heart, Lord, and forgive us for our sins. Write our names down in Your Lamb’s book of Life.

We pray especially, Lord, for Don F. who’s in Hospice care and all those families who have lost loved ones recently. We also pray that You would encourage the leadership of our church as they lead out during these difficult times – these heartbreaking times – and who carry some of these very heavy loads. We need you, God, more than we’ve ever needed You before. For we surely are in the last days and the signs are all around us that You’re coming very soon.

Now while our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed: If you’d like to say to Jesus this morning, Precious Savior, be my Savior today and prepare me for the Second Coming of Christ that I might not sleep but that I might watch and be vigilant. Help me to get ready, Lord, so when You come I can be saved. If that’s your prayer today would you raise your hand?

Angels of God, write these down in Your book of remembrance, and we thank You, Lord, for this message that comes from Your Word – to watch and be vigilant and not to sleep. Because if we sleep now, we only do so at our own peril.

If the church is asleep we know that it is Satan who is rocking the cradle. Wake us up, God! May we be alive, vigilant, on fire for Jesus, and may we do the maximum now while there’s still time; so that we won’t regret it later.

In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen, and amen.

Closing Song: No. 626, “In A Little While We’re Going Home” Seventh-Day Adventist Hymnal, 1985.

All Scriptural References: King James Version



Ellen G. White References: www.whiteestate.org

Transcription: Wendy J. Riebel

This sermon is also available on cassette tape.

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