We’re in the last days; amen? Make sure our steps are being ordered clearly in preparation for the victory of the Lord’s coming, praise God! Let’s turn to Matthew 24 this morning. We want to talk about the coming of the Lord and the days that are ahead for us, the great victories we can expect. I believe that in these last days we’re going to see some of the greatest outpouring of God’s power that the world has ever known. We’re going to see it manifested in two ways. We’re going to see it in judgment and we’re also going to see it in the preservation of His saints. We’re going to see great, great manifestations of the power of God! We’ll get into the study and into the book of Revelation a little bit. We’re not going to spend a lot of time with all the specifics of the book of Revelation. We’re not going to spend a lot of time, actually, dealing with the intricacies of eschatology as much as we’re going to talk about the preparation of our lives for the return of the Lord Jesus. Because, very factually, we don’t need to know all the rest of that stuff. We’re not going to be here, so why worry about it? These are some of the things we need to understand as the body of Christ. What our responsibilities are now as long as we’re here....
Jesus is Coming, Part 2
February 24, 1993 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Amen! Let’s turn to John 16. Those of you who normally don’t take notes, you’ll want to get a pen, a piece of paper, and limber your fingers up a little bit. We’re going to do something we don’t normally do. I want to deal with a number of pertinent, future events that we’re going to see as believers. You’ll want to get these down. I’m going to give you a few Scripture references for each one, not exhaustive by any means. But it’s preparing us to get the overall scope of what we have to look forward to and prepare ourselves for. (Sunday morning we’re going to be talking about the rapture of the church, if it doesn’t occur before then.) We’re going to address it pretty specifically, and deal with many of the things we’ll need to know for us to help others be ready.
There are a lot of Christians who believe they’re ready. They’re not going to be ready, based upon their theology. Because of the false understanding of the Word of God they’re not going to go. It’s not an automatic ticket out. He’s going to appear to those that are looking for Him; amen? We need to understand this. We’re going to be sharing the passages we made reference to last Sunday morning. If you’re here today and you’ve heard the gospel, you’ve known the grace of God, experienced and tasted the free gift of God...
Jesus is Coming, Part 3
February 28, 1993 • Pastor Star R. Scott
We want to continue our teaching on the coming of the Lord and its drawing night; amen? It’s sooner than when we first believed, praise God, and it’s an exciting thing to watch! Let’s turn to Philippians 4 and James 5 this morning, just to look at a couple of passages to start us off. We need to realize that not everybody who says they’re a part of the body of Christ or who professes themselves Christians really believes the Lord is coming back. There’s been for centuries now—in fact we’re into millenniums of different perspectives on the return of the Lord and, in fact, for many centuries it wasn’t even a subject that was spoken of, because it was already assumed that there would not be a literal return of the Lord—because of the influence of the Catholic Church, and this is why you have so much trouble finding literature over these years on the Rapture of the church and the coming of the Lord. In fact, there’s people today who still embrace the heresy of Origin and others where this started in the spiritualizing of these principles instead of the literalness of interpreting the Word of God—that still adhere to this and it’s greatly influenced the way many people approach the coming of the Lord.
Even after the Reformation there was still confusion. Many, after the Reformation, were still adhering to these principles because there wasn’t illumination on this subject. So when we talk about these things and you begin to question and you say “How is it that anybody could not really believe in the coming of the Lord?” You’ve got to understand, there’s a big segment of professed Christendom that’s never really been instructed in this. That’s why you have the different camps...
Jesus is Coming, Part 4
February 28, 1993 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Well, it’s not going to be long; amen? The Lord’s coming back, and I believe that we’re going to do everything in our power to be prepared for the coming of the Lord.
Let’s turn to Matthew, the twenty-fifth chapter, and we want to speak toward a couple of things that we were addressing when we let off this morning. We ran out of time this morning. I heard a guy that was speaking, it was a meeting, actually, of the Republican Party, and they were in a think-tank type situation and actually were having some different speakers that were coming and addressing them, I can’t remember, I caught the middle portion of this. Did any of you see that on C-Span? Did any of you check that out? It was interesting, that was taking place, and they had a number of people that had worked previously in different positions of authority, plus some of those from the scholastic realm that were there or the academic realm that were there and speaking toward the situation that we find the country in, and I liked what one of the speakers said when he got up. He said, “Really, [he said] I don’t have a lot of time, and I will not be speaking that long; it will not be near as long as it seems to some of you.” So, I think sometimes as we’re moving in these particular areas, we understand that it has to do with whether or not it’s meeting a need in our lives, and from some that I spoke to this morning, needs were met, so we say thank God for that; amen? Some that had come and said, “You know, I was, as a young believer and a number of years ago, I was excited about the coming of the Lord, and it was a motivating factor in my life, but, you know, I’d begin to hear the teaching of some of these others who were in positions of prominence that had actually stole that hope and that fervency from me, and actually got to believe the propaganda that was being put forth, but when you see what God’s Word clearly says and let it speak for itself, there is no question about the fact that the Lord is coming back.” Amen? He’s going to come back and take a church to Himself that’s spotless, that He can present to Himself a chaste virgin, and we need to be preparing ourselves to be that bride. So, thank God that the Word is ministering that life to us...
Jesus is Coming, Part 5
March 3, 1993 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Well glory! Are you looking for the Lord’s return today? Amen. Good chance He’ll be coming in the next few days. It’s going to be raining for a few days and He’s coming in the clouds; amen? The percentage has gone up, praise God. Amen! Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.
You know, it’s amazing. You just share casually, and the effect that it can have. I was sharing, I think, with you last week that I was, just in passing, I was sharing with one of the ball players from the Redskins. It so happened that he was working out again, I guess it was yesterday, we were down there. He works out with his brother, so we were just talking a little bit, and they went off somewhere, so I jumped up on one of the machines to get a little bit of work. As I did, there was another fellow that I’m always talking with down there, the one who’s involved in the stock market, and is an amateur historian. The guy is very well read, so I like talking with him. We’re always spending a lot of time talking, too much, probably. But it’s a good way of finding out what is going on. We’re sitting there, talking, and this one player comes back over and he says, “Are you still on that machine?” I said, “Yeah, do you want to do another set?” He said, “Yeah man, what are you doing? Hoping the Lord will come back?” I started into the set, and I said, “Yeah, in fact, I believe He’ll come back before this set is over.” He said, “Don’t say that, man. Don’t say that!” I said, “I’m ready. How about you?” Amen? It’s obvious he’s not, but he’s thinking about it, praise God. Thank God for seeds that are sown, you just never know. Let’s just continue to keep sewing seed and let this generation know that Jesus is coming back, praise God; and I believe that it’s going to be in our lifetime...
