Why Christ Must Return

I have a different type of sermon today than I have given. I haven't given a sermon like this in 15-18 years.

Because it's... in one way it's cheering something on, but in another way it's not. As we reflect this, if anyone saw my sermon this morning about getting ready for a wedding, I want to ask you, because the title of my sermon is, Why Christ Must Return. So I'm going to ask you today, when's the last time you prayed, Thy Kingdom Come? Good. We need to. We need to. If we could see what our Savior sees, if we could see what God the Father sees, we would, even as that song projected there, look for a better world to come. Sometimes we can get caught up in our lives and say, Not too bad. And we go to a hospital and see someone suffering. We see life that is barely hanging in there. And sometimes we are more fervent in our prayer. Says, God, we need your kingdom to come. We come every year to the Feast of Tabernacles and we're shown a better world. And we're to celebrate. There are a few here that will be with us, be with my wife in St. Lucia, no matter where you're going to be. It's a time to celebrate. It's a time to enjoy good food, drink, laugh, enjoy beautiful things. Truly celebrate. And this day also pictures a time as Bill touched on in 1 Thessalonians 4. We're going to change a moment, twinkling of an eye, where the trumpet will sound and we will be forever changed and forever with him in his kingdom and that that has to take place before that. So I'd like to look at that. If you can, since Bill already touched on 1 Thessalonians 4, I don't think it's a day that I have spoken on hardly that didn't have 1 Corinthians 15 on the day of Feast of Trumpets. Let me find my way. Bill, I marked mine too. I'm hoping I didn't grab the wrong Bible. No, there it is. So why Christ must return 1 Corinthians 15. Let's look at verse 23 first, talking about the resurrection. So I break into Paul's thoughts here as he was talking to the Corinthians. And he said, but each one in his own order, Christ the first fruit. And he was those who died and brought back to life. A different kind of life, a spirit life, not like Lazarus, not like the little girl that Jesus Christ healed, like that, but a different spirit theme.

Afterward, those who are Christ at his coming, that's what's going to happen on the seventh trumpet. We talked here last year, I gave a sermon on the seven seals, and the seven seals are followed by the seven trumpets, and at the seventh trumpet, the dead in Christ will rise.

That is our changing, our quickening. Let's go, if you will, to 1 Corinthians 15. I'll read just four verses here in verse 50. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom we got, nor does corruption inherit what? Incorruption. I remember I was young. I was working summers. It was maybe 14 or 15. My father, who had come to this understanding of truth, was working with a man on the job who was a part-time preacher, and he was telling my father that he was already in the kingdom, that he was part of the kingdom. He was a citizen of the kingdom. And my father said, so you read the Bible, and you get that? He said, well, I know that. It's in my heart. He said, so you're in the kingdom? He said, yes. He said, do you mind handing me your arm? And he pulled out a knife, and he said, let me cut you and see if you bleed, because flesh and blood, according to my Bibles, cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Guys, you take too much stuff literally. I so remember that, because I was so enthralled at adults' conversation at that time. But it says in verse 51, Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, which means we're not going to stay in the grave, but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the... what, Trump? Which trumpet is it? Seven. That's what the Bible says. Now we know, there's no question about it. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For the corruptible must put on it incorruption, and the mortal must put on immortality. We'll be immortals! Never going to die. That starts with Christ's return, which this day pictures, because the seventh trumpet will sound. The first resurrection will take place. The saints who we are to be are to attend a wedding supper, as it reads about in Revelation 19. There's a wedding going to take place. And then, as it finishes in chapter 19 of Revelation, you can read that. I think I did it last year here.

We go with our leader, our king, and we come to fight a war to end all wars, because it will end all wars. It's amazing how World War I was called that. Yet, then they had World War II, and there'll be a World War III, but there was a Korean War. There's wars all over, so it wasn't the war to end all wars as it was proclaimed to be. But there will come a time when there will be a war to end all wars, and we will be involved in it. We'll be a part of it, as Jesus Christ will lead as the end of Revelation 19 says.

So, I want to look at something, because we don't know that day, as I talked about this morning. We don't know. Matthew 24 and verse 36 says, only the Father knows when that day is. We don't know. I have no idea.

I know it's not this year. I know it's not next year.

But I want to look at something that is sobering to us, because this is, as Bill says, cheerleaders. We need to be, because we want that kingdom to come here. And we want the world to be changed. We want human nature to be changed. We want a lot of things. It starts with prayer. God needs to see that we are praying for His kingdom to come. His son told us to. Effective prayer of a righteous man avails much, as James says. But there's some sobering times ahead. And sometimes we get that in our mind, and it's hard to pray. Thy kingdom come because, hey, I've got. Mary just showed me a picture of my little niece that was just born. It's a little bitty thing. And I have nieces and nephews I'm very close to. Family members. I don't want to see them to go through pain, suffering, because their life's okay right now. So is most of ours. But not everyone has that today. Like you go with me, Revelation 6. I'm sorry. Yes, Revelation 6. Let me get back there. Revelation 6.

And we see these seals that I had talked about last year. Seven seals, and then lead to the seven seals that open the trumpets, seven trumpets. But in Revelation 6 and verse 9, I'd like you to read on this with me. Very sobering thought. Sometimes we don't want to think about it, but also we say God's in charge. He's got this, and He's had the future. Verse 9. We know this time has been called the time of tribulation. Great tribulation. It's the fifth seal. It said, When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. I had a pastor one time tell me that, See? Souls are alive up there. Why? Yeah, the immortality of the soul. They're hanging up there with God. You said they're not. No, they're not. This is symbolic of what's going on. This isn't real, otherwise the rest of the Bible. The dead know nothing at all. Then where's David? And said, And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth. And a white robe was given to each one of them. And it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who would be killed as they were were completed.

Wait a minute. There's a time that this fifth seal is going to take place, but there's a time when there's going to be people having to be killed and martyred and their saints.

I have a book. Matter of fact, Matthew said he wanted to read this after it was done. It's up in my library. I didn't carry Fox's Book of Martyrs. I didn't carry any of the death of saints that I have. But this is a search for the 12 apostles. Interesting book. Historic. I don't know that all of it is correct. They can only guess. But it basically then tells what happens to most of to all of the disciples and all the leaders and what historians say and wasn't too good. Other than John, most of them all were martyred. And some of them if something we wouldn't want to have to do, something especially we wouldn't want to see as we look at that.

So I think about that and I hope you do too.

Because what has Christ and the Father, what have they had to watch for the last two thousand years? Yes, saw martyrs. Saw Peter supposedly crucified upside down. Saw others who were killed. India, Africa, England, all parts of the disciples. But what have the two heavenly hosts had to watch? Here, feel for the last two thousand years since Christ died.

First John 4 and verse 16. You don't have to turn there. It's just scripture. We all know. It says that God is what? Love. God is love. It's not who He is. It's what He is about. It's His motivating factor. God is agape. Godly love, a deep love, unconditional love. Thankfully, He has all that for us. And thankfully, He even has it for the entire world. For God so, what agape the world that He gave His only Son. He feels deeply. He feels deeply watching His children kill each other day by day by day. And the affliction of pain by His children would be unbearable to most of us. We would want to see it stop. We would say, just stop it. But we're not Him. He has had a purpose and a plan worked out, what does it say, since the foundation of the world? Because that's when His Son was slain. Thirteen and a half billion years ago. That's how old they think this earth was. He's had a plan, and even though I know He's wanted to change that plan, He hasn't. Because He's written this book, which tells us from the beginning to the very end. What's going to happen in the order in which it would be conducted?

Nero, 30 some years after Christ was killed, Nero became the Roman emperor. I mean, Roman emperor. And he found incredible ways to torture Christians. I could read it, but I won't. You can read his history, because it was written down, whether you read Tacitus or whether you read Pliny the Elder or anyone else who lived at that time. You can read that. You can see how he used Christians for sport. That always concerned me how God could watch that.

Well, it bothers him, just like it would bother us, but to a deeper degree. I found it interesting as I was reading a historical book about Rome, as I just finished one on Cicero and finished another one on the Roman times. And I found it so interesting because this is the first book that ever gave me that perspective. And it would talk about the Colosseum and the games that were conducted in the Colosseum. And this writer brought out how false so many of the reports were about Christians being fed to lions. Everybody heard about that, the lions and the Christians, and they take them into the Colosseum. And one writer actually wrote, there were thousands and so forth.

According to this writer, that didn't really take place. It took place a time or two with five or six people each time thrown into this Colosseum, unlike this picture here.

But the people put a stop to it. Isn't that amazing? People sitting up in these stands said, no. Do you know why?

It was boring. It was boring. That's right. The Christians would just stand there and the lions would eat them, kill them right then and there, all over with like that. There was no fighting. They wanted to see people fighting for their lives. It didn't happen. And so pretty soon they booed when they brought the Christians out. Did you find that interesting? I did. I also found it empowering.

Because I just heard these stories time and time ago, how all the Christians made movies and they had pictures like this. Which I thank David for putting this up. Exactly what I was thinking without even talking to you about it. So, I think this is a wake-up call for all of us.

It says we do not have a high priest that cannot sympathize with us. We have a high priest and he sympathizes with us. My question, can we sympathize with the world today? Can we pray thy kingdom come and really mean it for their sake?

No. Because as pray thy kingdom come so thy will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Heaven, there's no pain right now. When the kingdom comes, he's going to wipe away every tear. You're going to hear that at the feast. That's what's so empowering. There's a there's such a great world coming. That's what we need to see that we can pray for that. I bring this out because there was a man. I knew his family lived in Shelbyville, Tennessee. His name was Darryl Holton. Darryl Holton. Darryl's family lived in the town of Shelbyville, Tennessee. Darryl was a former military man in the army. And Darryl got out of service early because he had three kids and his wife had some issues, substance abuse problems, took the kids away. So he got out of the army early. Came back to Shelbyville, Tennessee, a town 30 minutes from my house, basically from my house. David and Diane know exactly where it's at. Small town was then about 20,000 people. And Darryl had some problems. His wife had his kids taken away from him. And she went off and lived with another man and had another child.

And Darryl Holton couldn't really stand for that. And so on November 30, 1997, he had weekends with the kids and he picked up the kids. The two boys were 12 and 10 and then he had a younger son who was six and he even took his stepdaughter who was four. And he took them out to get something to eat at McDonald's. Love to go. And then he said, well, I may not be able to have you guys on Christmas Day, being this was November 30. So he said, I'd like to give you your present today. We'll go over to my shop where his uncle worked.

I know exactly where the building is. And so he took two of the kids in the back, had them play with some toys. Then he took his two sons, 12 and 10, and he had them face them back to back. And he told them to close your eyes and stick out your hands. At which he took a rifle and shot through both of them, killed them both. And then he covered them up and took the others, brought the other two children out, told them he had a special surprise for them and had them do the same thing.

And he shot and killed all four, three of his children and stepdaughter. And then he decided he would kill his wife and her new boyfriend. But for some reason, he didn't. He didn't know if he could find them because he had the kids and didn't know where they might be. So he drove to the police station that night and told the policeman in Shelbyville what he did.

At first they thought he was joking, but then they were to find out that he was not joking. And I remember it very well because I remember every time I drive by that place in Shelbyville, I wouldn't that stuck in my crawl. Well, Darryl pleaded guilty and wanted to be executed. And he was given the death penalty in the state of Tennessee. Lawyers even fought for his life, but he said, no, I just want to end it.

I just want to get it over with. I deserve to die for what I did. And so after giving the death penalty, two lawyers came up and said, no, we're fighting his appeal. We're appealing for him, even though he rejected them. And it was for my company, it was my attorney who was with me on another case when a judge came up that day in the courtroom and said, Darryl, which was from Darryl South, my attorney, he said, you're getting the Houlton appeal.

And he says, I don't want it. I don't want anything to do with that case. And he said, I'm assigning it to you. He said, why? Because he said, we all need to see the guy for I for what he did.

And he said, he's trying to die. I just want to make sure there's no way to overturn this. So my attorney did. My attorney became his lawyer, court appointed attorney. And they did put Darryl Houlton to death soon after. Shelbyville, Tennessee has never been the same. They still remember all those sweet little children and this man. Her name, Judith Ann Neely. Her before unmarried name was Judith Ann Adams. Judith, I went to school with her younger brother and was in class with her first cousins. And Judith and Neely. grew up very tough life.

As the Adams did, but the boys did fine later. But Judith and Neely. When she was 15, Judith Ann Adams met a guy that was 26 years old. And she ran off with him. His name was Alvin Neely. I never met Judith Ann Adams. I just knew all of her family. But I did know Alvin. He was a few years older than I was. And he worked at a convenience store that I would stop in a lot of mornings when I was working 19, 20 years old.

And Alvin would always say, hey, why don't you give me a job with you guys? Can't seem to make do any good here. And I remember we joke with Alvin Neely. Because Alvin was like five foot eight, weighed 280 pounds. I was six foot weight 160. I said, I doubt you want to climb ladders. We do Alvin. And he wasn't very smart.

Well, Alvin married her and got Judith Ann Adams or Neely. She married him at 17. Had children with him. And for some reason, they decided they would abduct young girls.

And they would use them, abuse them, sometimes runaways, find them in malls. And then they would kill them. And she was the one that did all the killing. She was the vicious one. You can read about it in newspapers.

I won't go into the gory details, but she was about as vicious as any man could ever be.

How could a woman do that? How could a woman do that? And just continue to do it. They convicted her on two murders. And Alvin said there were others, at least seven or eight women, young girls. One was 13, one was 14, one was 18. Thankfully, he actually shot a guy and didn't kill him. And he identified him. And that's how it stopped, is they found them in a motel. In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, my hometown.

She got the death penalty.

But then they reversed it. Now she's serving life. And just this year, she's 59 years old, she came up for parole. And thankfully, she didn't get it. People said no. People still remember. But you know who remembers more? God.

God has seen that. He also sees that some day, on the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles, what it pictures, this woman will be brought to life. Because I'm sure she's dead by that time.

But you wonder, God, how could you? How could you do this? How could you watch that and then watch this woman? Watch this woman kill these young girls by putting Drano into their blood system? Until they finally died, how could you do that? And then you want to give her life back? How could God do that?

God understands. Judith Ann Nealey. She never knew God. She never knew anything about a guy. Her father was killed when she was nine years old on a motorcycle.

She never really had a father. She was looking for one. And she found this loser called Alvin Nealey. Alvin got sent to prison. He died there just about seven, eight years ago. Heart attack. Alvin Nealey will come up.

How does a loving God do this? But he does.

Except for the grace of God, there go I. With a different way growing up, different influence.

It might have been my sister, my family, because I knew her brother well. I knew him, and he asked him years later. He says, I don't know. He said, it's not that she was ever mean, but sometimes she would just be evil. Does that answer who her God was? Brethren, we are blessed. For this day. We're blessed that we have the opportunity to live our lives.

There's a book written about 20-some years ago by John Douglas. It's called Mine Hunter. I read the book. I wouldn't want to read it again, because he was the father of the profile serial killers. He interviewed every single one of them. He invented everything about profiling serial killers. He was a originator, and he wrote this book about Mine Hunter, because he saw it was always in people's minds. You had to get into their mind. And the one thing he looked at, and one thing he said about each and every one of them, whether it was Gacy or these other ones here, they were just evil. And he even brought out the point, you can't let them loose because they're evil, and they can't stop being evil because evil has so taken them over. Brother, I bring this up because that's what the world's going to be like before this day comes to fruition in the future. When that seventh trumpet is sounded, it must sound because it has to stop. This evil has to stop, and it will be so bad. It's even compared to the time of Noah.

When every thought of mankind was evil.

Is that a reason to pray thy kingdom come? We know it is coming. We have family. We have loved ones. We have a world that we need to pray for.

God listens to prayer. And what did I say? The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man, a righteous woman, avails much. Do I need help from my family? Do I want to see whatever life they have that it be peace? As much peace as possible? Yes, we need it. We need it for them.

There was a movie a while back, one picture of the year, whatever. It's called Silence of the Lambs, a famous movie. And the story is based on people that really existed, killers that really existed. And it talked about it had Jodie Foster, I guess, as an actress who was an FBI agent. And her boss was this guy with gray hair and glasses. He was the head of her division of the FBI. Well, this man was Scott Glenn, the actor, and his character was based on the man I just talked about, John Douglas. So that was John Douglas, you see, who he was playing. And so he asked John Douglas, the FBI at the time, could I, I would like to shadow you just so I can play you and play the part right. John Douglas goes, well, if you want to do it all, he said, yeah, he said, let's tell you right away. I don't believe in the death penalty. He said, I think everybody has a right to live as long as they possibly can. And John Douglas writes in his book about Glenn coming there and working with him for about a week. Then all of a sudden they caught Otis. They found the two tapes from Otis Toole. Otis Toole and another man ran down here in Florida and they picked up young boys. Seven, eight. Yes, Henry Lucas. Yes, Lucas and Toole. And they kidnapped the guy used to be on most wanted it was yeah, it was that little boy he caught one of them. Over 50 or 60 little boys, most of them were blind, seven or eight years old. They caught with entice them in malls, pull them away. And so he made Scott Glenn go in and listen to the tapes because they didn't have video. So they recorded the killings, torturing of these little boys and parents that had to go in and see if they could identify their their their child screams. And when they would say, Mommy, help me, you imagine that? Scott Glenn came out that day and told him, I believe in it now. He said, I just never knew there was such evil. John Douglas told him, you watch too many movies. This is real life and this is happening.

So I bring that lost my note, I think. It's it's a world that needs our prayers. That's why it's a somber message. But it's one that's necessary because we have a lot of power. God gives us a lot of credence. God loves for us to pray for others. Even Jesus Christ, they pray for your enemy. It's hard enough to pray for people we like sometimes, right?

God and Christ have seen and felt it all. Sometimes we need to feel it too. So we can beseech them. Are we repulsed by wickedness? I hope we are. I hope we haven't become so jaded from TVs. Now they even have video games that show young kids how to kill people on video and play it as a game and get points.

How are we? Where do we go from here? It's not going to be any better. It's going to get worse. We need to pray for our society, our country, our city, our streets, our family. Because we do know the difference. We're not Judith and Neily. We're not Darryl Holton. We're not evil. We know evil. And we know where it comes from. And that is a blessing. Truly, let's go as I close this today. I'd like you to go with me to Ezekiel.

I could go with me to Ezekiel. I'll be reading from the New King James Version. Ezekiel 9.

Ezekiel 9, and this is where Ezekiel is taken back and given a chance to see and have a vision of what's going to happen to Jerusalem at the time. A Jerusalem, a city of called out people who turned on God. That's why Jeremiah dealt with what he had to deal with. Because here, these people knew a God, but they turned against that God. It's like this country sometimes just turns and does things that just blow our minds. That is so against what God intended that we said, I don't know how we could get there. I don't know how we could do this. But he wanted Ezekiel to see this. Ezekiel 9 and verse 3 said, Now the glory of God of Israel had gone up from the carob where it had been to the threshold of the temple. The glory of God was about to leave. It had become so wicked in Jerusalem that even God's presence could not stay in that temple anymore. It had to leave. It was going to leave. And he's told Ezekiel, because Ezekiel was back in Babylon hearing that everything was great back in Jerusalem. Oh, the city's great. Oh, you should see. Oh, we're worshipping God. Oh, we're doing this. And he says, No, Ezekiel. It's not. Let me show you what was going on. And he took him back and showed him some of these things. And he called to the man clothed with linen who had a writer's inkboard on his side. And the Lord said to him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the forehead of all the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it.

And then he says, Go to the others. He said, Am I here? And go after the city and kill. Well, we know the angel didn't kill that night, but Babylon did. And they slaughtered so many in Jerusalem when the walls came down. They didn't have to be slaughtered. Jeremiah told them, Just let them come in, and we're going to have to be gone for 70 years because of what we've done. You know, we can do this. They didn't listen to him. So many people were killed and did not spare an eye nor have pity. Utterly slay all old and young men, maidens, and little children and women did not come near anyone. On whom is the mark? And began at my sanctuary. So they began with the elders there before the temple, the ones who were so corrupt, the leaders, religious leaders. And he said to them, Defile the temples and file the courts with the slain. Go out, and they went out and killed. And so it was, while they were killing them, I was left alone. And I fell on my face and cried out and said, Oh, Lord God, will you destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out your fury? Then God said to him, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed. And the city is full of perversity. He didn't see it. Just like so many of us don't see what I gave today because we're not wrapped up in that world. We live in a different world, and that's great, and we should. We don't need to get too involved in this, what's going on in the world. But we need to pray for what's going on in the world. For they say, The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see. And as for me, my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity, but I will recompense those deeds on their head. You realize at that time no trumpet was blown. No trumpet was blown. They breached the walls in Jerusalem, and they came in, and they just slaughtered people and took a remnant of that back to Babylon. They didn't have a trumpet being blown.

They didn't know about a trumpet. They thought there should be one, but they had gotten so far away from God, they didn't even know. So I must ask the last question or two. Do we sigh and cry? Do we sigh and cry? Enough? Enough. Enough that almost every day, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, because boy do we need it. We've got sickness. We've got sickness in this room. We've got sickness in this country. We've got sickness everywhere. People are dying of cancer, heart attack, everything you can think of.

You remember what God promised? If you obey me, you won't have to worry about sickness. You're not going to have to worry about death. I'm going to take care of you.

Do we pray for the seventh trumpet to be sounded so that people can stop suffering in this world? It's going to be some suffering till then, but it's going to be, unless that trumpet's blown, there won't be anyone left. No one but for the elect's sake, Jesus Christ said.

That is will will be done here on earth. Because in this world needs a Savior. They really need a Savior. We have one. It's our job to share about Him to other people. It's their job to accept or deny. It's their choice. So let Him come. Let Him come.

So must we pray? I think so. I think we have a choice going forward from this day because we don't know how many more days it will be. But we know what the world looks like. I bring this out because the world does need a Savior. And the Savior the world needs is our brother, our older brother. And He listens, and our Father listens. Let us continue. We're going to go here. We're going to go to the Feast of Tabernacles and have a great time. And we should because it pictures what's going to happen after all this. After the Savior returns. And we're going to have a thousand years of peace on earth. That's something to pray for. But it's also something to pray that His kingdom would come to help all the victims, all the people who have gone through so much and who will go so much in the years ahead. Thy kingdom come.