God's Plan of Salvation -7
As you are aware we have during Holy Week since last Sunday morning been looking at God's Plan of Salvation. Not all of you of course for a variety of reasons have shared with us in this event. So I would like to begin this morning by repeating the last part of what we said on Friday evening, in order that what we have to say this morning might be seen in its proper context. But before we do that perhaps you would be good enough to mark in our Bible Revelation Chapter 21... for we will need this later in the Sermon.
So let's summarise again.
God created a perfect world that we destroyed by our disobedience. God set in motion a plan to undo the effects of the fall if you want to think of it that way. He called Abraham and founded his people. Through Moses and others, the people were brought into the promised land and moulded into the chosen race. The laws rules and teachings were given to them. Then they were taught about the coming Messiah and came to expect him in their hearts. The Messiah came - God incarnate in Jesus. In dying on the cross Jesus died for our sins that we might be set free. In rising from the dead Jesus became the first fruits of all those who will follow who love the Lord with all their hearts. The way to heaven is for the moment wide open.........
So what now? Well in our final part of the Plan we look at how it is working out in our world and what the future holds.
The immediate consequences of the Plan being put into action can be found in the latter parts of the Gospels and then in the rest of the New Testament. It begins as we read in Matthew 28,16-20:
"The eleven disciples went to the hill in Galilee where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him, even though some of them doubted. Jesus drew near and said to them, "I have been given all authority on heaven and on earth. Go then to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: baptise them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And I will be with you always, to the end of the age."
And there it is. That is the age in which we live and the task that we have been given to fulfil.
We have but one reason to exist and that is to make disciples for Jesus, apart from the primary function and duty of worshipping God the Church had no other reason to exist. No choir, boys or girls organisation, or committee, or grouping has any other reason to exist. I know some people don't like that idea but they had better argue with God and not the Church! The role of the Church is quite clear - make disciples of Jesus. Evangelise! Teach the truth. Lead by word and example. Nothing else matters but this.......but when the Church is disobedient to her Lord then it gets into the kind of mess we see in Scotland today. There is real call in all of this to return to Basics. To return to what is essential and above all else to return to what is required of us by God!
So you see the Plan is in operation. The program is up and running. And day by day throughout the world people are being added to the number of those who are saved.
But what happens next? What is the future? For this present age will not last forever!
Listen to Jesus: ".....then the Son of Man will appear in the sky and all the peoples of earth will weep as they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. The great trumpet will sound and he will send out his angels to the four corners of the earth and they will gather his chosen people from one end of the world to the other....."
This then is first thing we must learn. Jesus is coming again. Judgement day, Armageddon and all the other images and promises must come to pass. Dreadful days lie ahead for the earth.
One of the things it says in the Bible that must happen before the Lord returns is that the God's chosen people must be returned to live in the promised land.
I was reading a book written on the subject of the return of Jesus. It was written by someone who obviously wasn't prepared to always believe the Bible. It was written in 1939. Listen to it: "They maintain that .... the Jewish nation will be re-established in the Holy Land and that this will take place immediately preceding the millenial reign of Christ. It is very doubtful, " he writes, "whether scripture warrants the expectation that Israel will finally be re-established as a nation........" Then he writes, " Does the News Testament justify the expectation of a future restoration and conversion of Israel as a nation?"
I am sure that seemed a very grown up, rational kind of view in 1939. There were no obvious circumstances that would lead one to expect that from the four corners of the world the people of Abraham would be gathered up and live once again in Israel. Such a notion could only be found in the Bible. And after all they reasoned such things don't happen in the real world do they?
How different it all is now! There indeed is Israel. There is Jerusalem. God's chosen race occupy the Holy Land for the first time since 70AD. And more and more of them are coming to accept that Jesus was and is the Messiah.
So be aware of this. Think about it. If this could come true and only a decade or so after it could be so firmly written that it couldn't possibly be true........ might it not suggest to those of you who waver in the truth that maybe after all the Bible is the ACTUAL LIVING WORD OF GOD. And that what is written will come to pass!
Anyway this is the first part of what we must expect of God's Plan of Salvation - Jesus will return - and already the buds are on the trees in a way that has never been the case before.
When the world comes to its end then the Plan will be almost complete. There will remain only the final act.
Let me quote to you part of Isaiah Chapter 65 : "The Lord says I am making a new earth and new heavens. The events of the past will be forgotten. Be glad and rejoice forever in what I create.......The new Jerusalem I make will be full of joy and her people will be happy.....wolves and lambs will eat together; lions will eat straw as cattle do and snakes will no longer be dangerous......"
And then consider Revelation Chapter 21 & 22....here we hear and see the fulfilment and completion of God's Plan of Salvation in these words we find and see and realise the point of Easter.....the point of the Church...listen then to these words...they come from God and to them I can add nothing and I would not dare. Listen to these chapters and follow them now with me as we read them.
{Read here Chapters 21 & 22 starting at Revelation 20 verse 11}