Making a Differencewith Pastor Phil Erickson

Dec 15th, 2018 Jesus Is Coming Soon – The Saturday Morning Post

Today’s Passages – 2 Thessalonians 1 – 1 Timothy 3 (Click on the references to listen to the audio – click here to view the text from the Blue Letter Bible website)

(Second Milers also read –Psalms 71 – 75; Proverbs 15)

Read the “1215 Evening and Morning“ devotion for today, by the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

“Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.” (2Thesselonians 2:1-2)

Good morning. The year was 1914. World War 1 had started. By it’s end in 1918, and estimated 16 million had died. Blind Willie Johnson was around 21 years old at the time. The year 1918 was also the year of the Influenza epidemic. The war claimed 16 million lives, but the epidemic claimed 50 million. Blind Willie Johnson was an American gospel blues singer and guitarist. He was also an evangelist. One of the songs he wrote was about this time period: Jesus Is Coming Soon. Here are a couple of lines from the song…

Soldiers died on the battlefield, died in the counts too
Captain said to the lieutenant, “I don’t know what to do.”

[Chorus]
Well, we done told you, our God’s done warned you
Jesus coming soon
We done told you, our God’s done warned you
Jesus coming soon

Well, God is warning the nation, He’s a-warning them every way
To turn away from evil and seek the Lord and pray

Fifty million souls is a heck of a warning. This was a world wide war, and a world wide epidemic. Over here, the Dodge brothers were taken. One in 1918, the other two years later. Yet we still drive Dodges today. The epidemic in America did not subside until the summer of 1919, but the virus still circulates through the world today. The war lasted 4 years, the epidemic subsided after 1.5 years, but what a death toll. I look at America and wonder what it will look like five and a half years from now? Is Jesus coming that soon? People hate our president for trying to do what’s right. What happens if a liberal takes his place? As California works to ban the Bible as hate literature, and anything God connected is removed from public sight and schools across the nation. The photo above is the church a Ephesus. It was once a thriving church. Is this what the churches in America are going to look like in a few years? Jesus is coming soon. But one thing must happen before this…

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2Thesselonians 2:3-12)

And along with this…

“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” (1Thesselonians 4:13-18)

Jesus is coming soon. Are you ready?

Peace.