DENYING THE ADVENT

By

W. F. ROADHOUSE

With the vast majority of [regenerate] believers of all groups openly denying the Second Advent, our Lord's warnings to His Church become extraordinarily significant, with the drastic consequences of disobedience.

A study of the elements that make up the essential attitude of our hearts toward the Lord Jesus and His Return in the New Testament, actually number twelve.  By no chance could all this admonition and example be a casual matter - for there are scores of references with their contexts to Christ's Coming for His "faithful" ones.  We cite these.

1. "Wait for" - Heb. 9: 28, "Unto them that wait for Him shall He appear a second time, apart from sin, unto salvation." 1 Cor. 1: 7, "Waiting for the revelation of the Lord." Also Rom. 8: 19, 23, 25; Gal. 5: 5; Phil. 3: 20; also 1Thess. 1: 10.

2. "Give diligence" (an overplus word) - 2 Tim. 2: 15, "Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God." Heb. 4: 11.

3. "Fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God." 1 Tim. 6: 18, "Rich in good works ... laying up ... lay hold on ..."  Paul speaks 16 times of "good works."  Total usage is 26 times; look them up.  We are [eternally] "saved" without works - we are studying REWARDS here.

4. "Awake" - Rom. 3: 11-13, "That now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation (end-time rapture)* nearer ... the night is far spent, the day is at hand." - Eph. 5: 5ff.

[* That is, the rapture which will take place before the Great Tribulation, (Luke 21: 36)]

5. "Watch" - Luke 21: 36, "Watch ye therefore ... (thus) accounted worthy to escape" (in rapture). Mark 13: 35; Matt. 24: 43; Rev. 16: 15. Used 15 times.

6. "Pray" - Luke 21: 36, "And pray always ... escape."  Escape used 13 times.

7. "Look for" - Titus 2: 13, "Looking for that blessed hope." Jude 21, etc. Used 14 times.

8. "Hasting unto" - 2 Peter 3: 12, "Hasting unto the day of God." Three times.

9. "Endurance" - Jas. 1: 12, "Blessed is the man that endureth (hupomeno, Gr.) temptation ... approved ... the crown." Heb. 12: 1; Matt. 24: 13; Mark 13: 13.  Twelve times, and another great word (makrothumia, Gr.), 3 times, Jas. 5: 7, 8; Heb. 6: 12, "Be patient therefore unto the coming."

10. "Love" - 2 Tim. 4: 8, "Unto them that have loved His appearing." Contrast Demas (v 10; Jas. 4: 4). Matt. 24: 12.  The overcomers (Rev. 12: 11) "loved not their lives unto death."  The word is hagios, the deeper word for love.

11. "Ready" - Matt. 24: 44, "Therefore, be ye also ready ... the Son of man cometh." Luke 12: 40.  This word is used fully 10 times re preparedness.  "All things are now ready!"  Are we?

12. "Abide" - 1 John 2: 28, "And now little children, abide in Him; that if He shall be manifested, we may have boldness, and not be ashamed before Him at His presence?" 1 John 2: 17, "He that doeth the will of God, abideth forever." 1 Cor. 3: 14, "If any man's work abide ..."  Five times.

Summary - Thus there are 122 references to one's deep, innate attitude toward our Lord's return.  The worldling, the apostate, the agnostic, the cleric minus the evangelical message (1 Cor. 15: 1-4), the all-absorbed world-betterer without "the blessed hope," these and multitudes everywhere of indifferent, self-pleasing believers will be shortcomers in that day - not "overcomers" as the foregoing Scriptures reveal these to be.  IT IS HIS STANDARD - not ours!  Do we "love His appearing?"

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