Collision With Prophecy

Collision With Prophecy #11:
Janet Reno's Worst Nightmare

Introduction

A maelstrom ("mayl-strom") is a "great whirlpool," or a "state of confusion." So says the dictionary. Well, that's what we're in right now. Doubtless, by now you realize that (at least) I believe that we are going through the rapids of this epoch's close. Very little remains that is very simple any more. Or so it seems.

We saw in our last meeting how much of Christendom's, like the Hebrew nation for over a 1000 years, failure to enter into rest. And heaven calls us yet again, just as so many generations before, to enter into this rest of Christ.

During this meeting, I want to share a topic I'm going to call "Janet Reno's Worst Nightmare?" I want to share with you about what the Bible says about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

But why "Janet Reno's Worst Nightmare?" I've never met the Attorney General of the United States. I don't know what her religious convictions are. Some of us probably think that we can guess.

Perhaps you've heard a quote claimed from an interview of Janet Reno on the television program 60 Minutes in 1995. The "quotation" goes like this:

A cultist is one who has a strong belief in the Bible and the Second Coming of Christ; who frequently attends Bible studies; who has a high level of financial giving to a Christian cause; who home-schools for their children; who has accumulated survival foods and has strong belief in the Second Amendment; and who distrusts big government. Any of these may qualify a person as a cultist but certainly more than one of these would cause us to look at this person as a threat and his family as being in a risk situation that qualifies for government interference.

Janet Reno, Attorney General, USA. Interview on 60 Minutes June 26, 1995

Just one problem.

She never said it.

But that hasn't stopped it from circulating. Especially among some Christians. Here's how one non-Christian individual responded to this:

"My conclusion: If we can't believe them with stuff like this, why should we believe them any other time? If "Christians" are so gullible that their own pastors can pass off lies like this to them without their noticing, why should we even bother to take them seriously? It's clear that they don't know what they're talking about, and this kind of thing just proves it." http://www.ebeneezer.net/main/special/christian/lie/.

Well, what about it? You thought you might know her (Reno's) religious convictions. Perhaps you've heard of this before. As for some pastors using this quotation, its true. I once heard a sermon where the very same quotation came up. It happens.

Did you know that you all know some Hebrew? Among the most common Hebrew words coming over into English is this one: Satan. Satan is originally a Hebrew word. It means "adversary." An adversary is one who is directly opposed to you. And of course the devil is directly opposed to us. The Bible says (of those persecuted by Babylon as the world moves toward close-out), "And they overcame him [the beast] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto death" (Revelation 12:13). But if, our testimony is erroneous--if we permit ourselves to be credulous Christians, then instead of overcoming deception by the word of our testimony, we'll spread deception through the word of our testimony. Your influence, my influence--they're precious. Our adversary has come down to us in anger, knowing that he has but a short time. He wants to lead us to do a self-destruct sequence on our credibility. he wants us to do his work for him.

This is no age to be a gullible Christian. Friends, two minutes on the internet was enough to ascertain that the Janet Reno quotation was utterly false. I don't say everyone has to be on the internet; just that we want to think a bit more biblically and carefully before we pass something on. The credibility of our testimony about Jesus is at stake.

So friends: what about your belief about the second coming of Jesus? Is it credible? I guess that depends. The purported quotation from Janet Reno states that "A cultist is one who has a strong belief in teh Bibloe and the Second Coming of Christ." Well, what about the second coming? Let's take a look at what the Bible does teach about it.

Jesus Went to Heaven to Prepare a Place For Us

Among the classic texts on the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is one we'll look at now: John 14:1-4. . .

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

As the time for Jesus' ministry was closing up, He paused to share that precious promise. He was leaving, but He would return! But the disciples were confused and concerned at this saying. They still hoped that He would drive out the Romans, establishing the kingdom of Israel in a blaze of military glory. This talk about His "going away," was strikingly out of sync with their expectation--with their conceptions and views of prophecy. Immediately the group was enclosed in a cloud of anxiety. Jesus leaving? No! How could that be? What would they do without Him?

The Lord began by assuring them that such anxiety was unfounded. "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me." Just as God sent Jesus the first time for their sake, He would send Him the second time for their sake! The interest of both the Father and the Son is carefully focused on the redemption of humanity. God has not lost interest in our dilemma at all. His gaze is focused squarely upon the challenges that we face.

"In My Father's house are many mansions," said Jesus. Many Christians have lost sight of a simple fact. The way everything is here now is very wrong. Christians are not called to acclimatize themselves to a fallen world. We are called to pass through a fallen world as pilgrims moving towards a better and a righter tomorrow. We are on our way home to our Father's house. The whole family in heaven and earth is in a temporary state of separation and trial. God is bringing it all back together again, better than ever before.

Woe to those who teach Christians to "adapt and prosper," pitching a "peace and safety" message, designed to justify our continued sinning and our dalliance with the wickedness of this temporary world. We are not called to move in here, but to move out. Not to set up camp, but to break camp. Not to call this world home, because heaven is our home. Not to absorb the music and the media and the morality of a world under the sway of the evil one, but to live above the crowd, sober, righteous, and godly now in this present world (Titus 2:12). We are called not to a passive waiting, but to look for and hasten the coming of the day of the Lord (2 Peter 3:12).

There is no place for us here. In a world like this, a spiritual person really has no place to lay his head (Matthew 8:20). But there are "many mansions," literally, "many places" for us in our Father which art in heaven's household. His family embraces us and longs to incorporate us into heaven's society. You and I--we're being called into the company of angels and righteous men and women. In the Father's house, where the cherubim and the seraphim dwell, there, Jesus has gone to make ready a place for us to dwell!

Jesus said, "I go to prepare a place for you." Do we understand the breadth of what this means? It means not merely that He is going to prepare a physical location, an apartment of some sort for us in the New Jerusalem. To make a place for us in His and Our Father's house means that He has intervened to remove the alienation caused by sin between God and humanity. He has embarked upon heaven's plan to take away that which has separated us from God. He's bringing us back together with Him.

You remember what we presented in Yom Kippur and End-time Prophecy about the high priest going into the sanctuary and once a year cleansing it from the record of the sins of the camp of Israel there recorded? And recall how we saw from the Bible's books of Leviticus and Hebrews and Revelation that all those ancient rites pointed ahead to Jesus who would be the real high Priest? Remember how we saw that the atonement--if we are going to be biblical about it--was notcompleted at the Cross!? (A full sacrifice of atonement was offered, its results are still being processed in our lives.) Remember how Jesus had to go to the heavenly sanctuary and be our Mediator, our Intercessor? Through the linkage of faith, He communicates to us His supernatural power, enabling us to live above the crookedness of our natures, obeying Him. Through His strength we can keep the commandments of God and have the faith and testimony of Jesus (Revelation 12:17; Revelation 14:12).

Yes. This is the broader sense of what it means that Jesus Christ has returned to heaven to prepare a place for us. He went back to repair us. He returned to heaven to make effective the cooperation of the human with the divine in the real gospel of Scripture.

What assurance does Jesus share with His beloved disciples? "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know." Because God fought back against sin, the sin of this world is temporary. And because Jesus was willing to come and become our sacrificial Lamb, dying in our place for the sins we have been responsible for indulging in, His remaining in heaven after His crucifixion is only temporary. "I will come again!" He says. Why? To receive us, and so that we may always be present with Him.

No sin will intervene. No darkness will trouble our steps. No wickedness will express itself through what He remakes in us. No longer will any veil separate.

We're going home.

And He's coming back.

But there's the question for us--one that this passage doesn't really address: How is Jesus coming back? What will it be like, in what manner will He come back when He returns for us? Might a deceiver, according to Bible prophecy, be scheduled to come first?

A Return Visible to Everyone?

Listen to this rendition by a very popular preacher telling how Jesus will return to the earth:

[He described] how he had recently been given a vision by God. I heard Copeland say that God had told Him that Jesus would soon begin to appear in a physical form in the churches. Jesus, perhaps accompanied by His angels, would be seen walking down the aisles and then would disappear. This would occur in several churches with increasing frequency.' Will Baron, Deceived by the New Age, p. 108.

This might be helpful to us if the Bible left us in question about the manner of Christ's second coming. But the Bible does not. It speaks plainly and certainly. The New Testament is laced with many, many references to the second coming of Jesus. Let's sample some of them. Turn with me to the book of Acts, chapter one.

Jesus, after rising from the dead, appeared to His disciples and gave them instruction. And when He had finished, before their astonished eyes He ascended to heaven. Join me now in reading the biblical description of this in Acts 1:9-11:

And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.

Let's notice now together the manner that they saw Jesus go into heaven. What do we find here?

1. "While they beheld," the ascension event occurred.
2. "A cloud received Him out of their sight." Another clear indication that the event was visible.
3. "While they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up." He had their undivided attention.
4. The angels asked them, "Why stand ye here gazing into heaven?"

Um. This wasn't something secret or unseen. Jesus left visibly. And the angels told them and us that "This same Jesus . . . shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go." We are left in no doubt; the return of Jesus to this earth will be very visible.

But some say this is speaking of spiritual sight only; that the unbelieving will not see Him, that somehow His return will be hidden (we'll look more at this in our very next meeting!) Fine. But let them read these verses: Revelation 1:7-8:

Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Notice what else we learn here. Not "most" eyes, or "many" eyes, or "almost every eye," but "every eye" shall see Him. In fact, we are even told that "they also which pierced Him" will see Him. Now that's interesting! It seems that heaven's plan includes a special resurrection of those who had literally pierced Jesus' side as He hung upon the Cross. Certainly such could not be classed as "believing" persons. But they will see Him come, for the Scripture says ". . . and they also which pierced Him."

One group, insisting that Jesus actually returned to our world in 1914 has a problem with this passage. And so they say that "every discerning eye" will see Him. A handy explanation. But hardly Scriptural. The same group teaches that when in Acts Jesus ascended and the apostles beheld Him He went up until He was hid behind a cloud and then "dematerialized." Fine. I'll give them an "E" for effort and creativity. But they don't score well when it comes to letting Scripture interpret Scripture and simply take it as it reads.

Jesus is not just going to materialize though. He's not just going to randomly show up, walking up and down the aisles of the churches. "He cometh with clouds"--in the sky with angels. Matthew 25:31 speaks of, "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory." Let's turn to one more major passage that will help us on this point. We want to get it right. Turn to the New Testament book of 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17:

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.

I want you to notice something here. The Scripture says that Jesus descends from heaven "with a shout, with the voice of the archangel." His return is very audible. In the same line, we see the trump, or "trumpet" of God will sound. That's interesting too, since the sounding of trumpets in ancient times was how Generals communicated with their armies. They issued orders to their trumpeters to sound certain trumpet calls, signals to advance, retreat, turn left or right, etc. Jesus' return is heralded by the sound of war. And then we see that the "dead in Christ" will rise first. That is, those who died in the faith, believing in Jesus for salvation, come up first, at the call of the trumpet. He's calling out His warriors, up, out of the grave! They get to see His triumph firsthand.

"Then," the Bible says, "we which are alive and remain shall be caught up." But we don't go to heaven alone. "Together with them" we are caught up, "in the clouds." We'll all go together friends. They won't get there first. Now notice this: where do we meet Jesus? Will He come walking up and down the aisles of the churches? "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." Where do we meet Him? Together, in the air. We'll all ascend, like Jesus did back in Acts one, and we'll all meet in the air. Jesus isn't coming walking up and down the aisles of the churches. The meeting will be in the air, and then, we are told, "so shall we ever be with the Lord." We go back with Him to heaven, where He has been doing what? Preparing a place for us.

Friends, at the second coming Jesus doesn't touch down. He comes in clouds, meets us in the air, and takes us back with Him to heaven. That's the testimony of Scripture. This event will be very visible to every eye. Very audible to every ear. Even the dead in Christ will hear and rise. The peel of the divine trumpet will herald the approach of Jesus to reclaim His own.

But There are Those Viewing Us as a Danger

While the quotation from Janet Reno turned out to be false, and possibly doesn't represent her sentiments (although we really don't know one way or another for certain), friends, I must add that there are those who think like that. There are those who are disturbed by us if we believe in a literal, physical, visible, second coming of Jesus; if we distrust government, if we home-school our children, or disagree with having public schools teach them the evolutionary "religion" of this age. She may not have said it. No one may have said it except its creator (who must hold the principles of justice and truth in low esteem, as well as the Christian believers to whom he passed it). But there are those who do think that way. There are those to whom we, because we believe the Bible--because we persist in being non-PC (politically-correct)--represent a threat. To them we are perceived as being backwards, indifferent to progress, perpetrators of myth and superstition, parasites on society, neandertals that would be better-off dead.

In just a relatively short time, there have been momentus changes in the government's interpretation of our constitutional rights involving freedom of religion. The Supreme Court of the United States has done some dangerous work. The pieces are in place for there to be a suppression of our religious freedoms by those holding views much as many think Reno holds. But what's more, the same revisions in thinking will make it possible for this country to impose its own religious views upon us all. In just a few nights we're going to talk about that, in our presentation "America in Prophecy." But that's then. this is now. Let's finish up by tying some loose ends.

We started this talk by noticing how some have unfortunately been led to circulate a quotation that is not accurate, that was never spoken. We considered what this means for the credibility of our witness. Remember the fellow who responded to the "Christian" circulation of this statement? What the critic who says, "Christians lie" probably doesn't realize is that while some who profess to be Christians lie, some actual Christians make false-statements because they've not internalized the principles of justice and fairness, and some Christians don't lie. I wish we wouldn't give the unbeliever the wrong idea through the wrong impression. If we fail to be credible, then we fail in representing our Lord aright.

Brothers and sisters, the Bible tells us that "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:11-13). Tonight we've turned our thoughts to the blessed hope. In ages past, our ancestors, often wiser and tougher than we, had a special wisdom that we must frankly admit we very much lack. Our own parents, or grandparents, as precious and special as they are, largely failed to pass on to us their belief in the blessed hope. And its our own fault too. But what we must ask ourselves, is, will we bypass this hope that made earlier generations so strong? Were they really so ignorant and blind that they believed all this stuff just because it was all they were ever exposed to? Or could it be that in the pages of God's Word they saw something that they recognized they needed?

Today the world offers us not a blessed hope but a twisted hopelessness. It wants us to go on, petting our ungodliness, partaking of worldly lusts, living drunkenly, unrighteously, and ungodly in this present burned-out world, which I might add, it says is really all that is. Don't look for the blessed hope to come. Get your piece of the action right now, cause' you won't get a second chance.

How different than the blessed hope. How different indeed. The blessed hope of Christians of all ages has been the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. May I appeal to you to make it your own? You won't regret it. It is well founded upon Scripture. It is well testified to by those who have it. It can be yours. But you'll have to change. You'll have to go deeper than you have in the past. Faith demands our response and will accept nothing less than real activity, real fealty to truth. Count the cost before you follow Jesus. But don't bypass the rewards that are built-in to the blessed hope. Do all your math with eternity in mind. And don't forget. The Bible says that, "Thou wilt show me the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore."

Conclusion and Preview

Is Janet Reno's worst nightmare that people might attend church somewhere, home-school their children, or believe in the literal second coming of Jesus? Or perhaps more soberly, that we who call ourselves Christians might inadvertently nullify the credibility of our own witness by playing too fast and too loose with the truth? May God help us to be biblical about our beliefs, and Christ-like in checking the veracity (truthfulness) of that which we pass onward to others. If we want to be believed when it comes to our faith, we actually need to be living it, guarding the reputation of others. Let the enemies of Christ make mud of their own names; they won't need our help. Jesus wants to extract us all from this tired world. He is coming back for us. The question is, are you internalizing the baseline principles of true Christianity, living them in your life? Are you ready for Jesus to come?

Jesus is returning: literally, visibly, physically, and quite audibly. He's coming in flaming fire, surrounded by angels, to receive His own unto Himself. His return will not be a secret; every eye shall see Him. Therefore let us now (for to wait until then will be too late), turn our eyes upon Him. He is the Author and Finisher of our faith. Our faith still needs finishing.

If we do not let Him finish it, the nightmare will be ours.

Our next meeting could really be considered "Part II" of this one. We'll examine, in the light of the Bible, the origin and teaching of what today has become the almost universally held teaching regarding the second coming in much of Christendom today. A teaching, that, in my estimation, is dangerously unbiblical, and qualifies as "The Final Lie." Be there. Now let's pray . . .

Larry Kirkpatrick, Last modified 9 November 2000