Five POSITIVE Signs of the RETURN OF JESUS

There are many signs of the approaching return of Jesus Christ but here are FIVE which are not always emphasised because they are positive and many people like to emphasise the negatives. 

ONE... Not only is the nation of Israel restored but there is a great rising up of Jewish people standing for the Messiah. There is a mighty Messianic movement and the followers of Yeshua in Israel are multiplying rapidly, both Jews and Arabs.

 

The Book of Revelation speaks of 144,000 JEWISH spiritual leaders during the traumatic rule of Anti-Christ.. We are seeing a raising up of Jewish spiritual leadership. 

• SID ROTH's TV program IT'S SUPERNATURAL inspires believers around the world.

• JONATHAN BERNIS is evangelising multitudes of Jews.

• NICKY GUMBEL's father was a German Jew and his leadership of the Alpha Course has impacted many nations. The rabbis do not recognise him as a Jew because his mother may not have been Jewish but God might not always agree with the rabbis.. Jesus often didn't.

TWO ... dramatic movement towards reconciliation and unity between the different branches of the family of God.. between Christians of different traditions and even between Christians and Jews!

 John 17:20-21 (NKJV)   "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word;

that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.

Then we see also the promise of the restoration of the Jews, which is brought much nearer by the alliance developing between Christians and Jews particularly centred around support for Israel.

 Romans 11:24-27 (NKJV)

24  For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

25  For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

26  And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;

27  For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins."

THREE... The great End Time pouring out of the Holy Spirit began over 100 years ago in the USA and God set in motion the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement which is gaining strength every day on every continent. 

This is often not emphasised by End Times prophetic teachers because many of them (and very good ones) are conservative and not Charismatic.       

FOUR ... There has been a rising up of a world wide movement of prayer, worship and intercession.

Luke 18:1-8 (NKJV)

1  Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.....

7  And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them?

8  I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?"

GOD IS LOOKING FOR A PEOPLE WHO WILL CRY OUT TO HIM..

The answer to the question of Jesus is clearly YES. The Son of Man will return to His people on earth who are Filled with the Holy Spirit, persistently crying out in faith, united in Love and reaching out to the lost Jewish brothers and sisters of Jesus.

FIVE ... Many emphasise the sad prophecies of Jesus, that the love of many will grow cold and many will fall away but in the same chapter of Matthew, we see a wonderful POSITIVE prophecy.

Mt 14  And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE SEEING IN CHINA, IN AFRICA, IN LATIN AMERICA AND INCREASINGLY IN INDONESIA AND INDIA... and the great evangelism explosion has hardly begun in post-Christian Britain, Europe and Australia.. BUT IT WILL COME SOON.

GOD SPEAKS TO YOU

Proverbs 1:33 (ESV)   but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster."

John 10:27 (ESV)   My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

In Mark Chapter 5, we see two stories. In the first, an uncontrollable maniac is delivered from demon possession and begs Jesus to let him become a disciple and travel with Him. The response of Jesus is surprising. 
 

Mark 5:19-20 (HCSB)

19 But He would not let him; instead, He told him, “Go back home to your own people, and report to them how much the Lord has done for you and how He has had mercy on you.”  

20 So he went out and began to proclaim in the  Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and they were all amazed.   

Jesus delivers a raving lunatic from demon possession and IMMEDIATELY sends him out to testify and witness! 

How many preachers today would do what Jesus did? 

Would you do it?

In the next story in the same chapter, Jesus raises up a dead girl and instructs her parents not to tell anyone what happened. 

Sometimes God speaks more powerfully by what He DOES than by what we say. 

People can argue with our words but it is hard to argue with facts. 

A girl was dead but after a visit from Jesus she was visibly alive.

Jesus came to earth to demonstrate what God is like and how He communicates with people. Clearly God gives clear specific instructions which we cannot predict with the best Bible knowledge in the world. 

How does God do this today? Through the Holy Spirit. 

• We must allow God to train our spiritual ears to know what God is saying. 

• I must know what God is saying to me here and now. 

There are times when you must know exactly what God is telling you to do NOW. 

Bible study will help you to learn to know God’s voice but Bible study alone is not enough.

• We must read the Bible with listening ears.

• We must pray with listening ears. 

God rarely speaks with an audible voice but He speaks to the heart of all who love Him. 

• Do you practise listening with your heart? 

JESUS THE OPTIMIST

Optimism.. Adapted from a sermon by John Watson, 1850-1907.

Go ye therefore and teach all nations.—Matthew 28:19. 

Among the characteristics of Jesus' teaching which have passed into the higher consciousness of Christianity is an inextinguishable optimism. 

• When He was only a village prophet, Jesus declared that the social Utopia of Isaiah was already being fulfilled;

Luke 4:18-19 (NKJV)   "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

TO PROCLAIM THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD." 

 

Isaiah continues to prophesy the glorious future of the nation of Israel which we have not yet seen but it will come to pass. I agree with the many who see the modern nation of Israel as a preparation for the restoration of the Kingdom of God in the Holy Land.

Isaiah 61:4 (NKJV)   And they shall rebuild the old ruins, They shall raise up the former desolations, And they shall repair the ruined cities, The desolations of many generations.

• ...when He gave the Sermon on the Mount He spoke as a greater Moses, legislating not for a nation but for a race.... (not only for the Jewish nation but for the human race).

Matthew 5:5 (ESV)   “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

• If He called apostles, they were to disciple every creature, and if He died it was for a world.

John 3:16 (ESV)    “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

• His generation might condemn Him, but they would see Him again on the clouds of heaven.

Mark 14:61-62 (NKJV)    But He kept silent and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked Him, saying to Him, "Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" 

Jesus said, "I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven."

• His death would be celebrated in a sacrament unto every generation, and being lifted on a cross He would draw all men to Him.

John 12:32 (ESV)    And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

• The apostles who failed in His lifetime would afterward do greater works than Himself,

John 14:12 (ESV)   “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

• and He who departed from their sight would return in the Holy Ghost and be with them forever.

John 14:16-19 (ESV)    And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,

17  even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

18  “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

19  Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.

The great Apostle Paul suffered terrible hardships and constant persecution, yet his writings are full of FAITH, HOPE and LOVE.

 

Many say they have hope because they expect to go to heaven or because they believe Jesus will come again. 

 

This is good and but true Christian HOPE is more than expecting to go to heaven. It is an attitude of expecting the best and not being overly discouraged by disappointments.

 

Oral Roberts, a famous American evangelist, often received supernatural words of wisdom to share when he preached. Two of the most powerful were these:

• EXPECT A MIRACLE EVERY DAY

• SOMETHING GOOD IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME

This is the Jesus kind of optimism, expecting the best every day and also to hope for great things in the future.

Kleiser, Grenville, comp. The World's Great Sermons – Volume IX: Cuyler to Van Dyke. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1908. WORDsearch CROSS e-book.

GOD WILL RAISE YOU UP WITH JESUS

God is so good and kind and He wants you to get to know Him in all His goodness.

 

Jeremiah 29:11  For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 

 

But God does not want to have passive religious puppets as His children. If we actively seek after Him, we will discover His amazing love and power for ourselves. 

 

We cannot give ourselves credit for our effort to find God. If we are interested in God at all, it is only because He has created us with a need for Him and He has secretly stirred up our hearts to seek after Him. 

God is like a loving father who hides, not to escape from his children but because he wants his children to look for him until they find him. He wants to be found.

 

Jeremiah 29:12-13  Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. 

 

There are times when God comes to us but if we never have to search for Him, we can become complacent and take Him for granted.

Jeremiah 33:3 (NKJV)   'Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.' 

 

What does God want to do for you?

John 11:25-26 (NKJV)   Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" 

 

Notice the words: DO YOU BELIEVE THIS? Your decision determines your eternal destiny. 

 

But isn’t it God Himself who chooses you for salvation?
It is true that God has chosen to save you. He sent His only Son to die to pay the penalty for your sins and failures. He chose to pay the ultimate price for your salvation, the death of His Son.

God chose to save EVERYONE ON EARTH but not against their will. This is where your decision comes in.

2 Peter 3:9 (NKJV)   The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. 

 

1 Timothy 2:4 (NKJV)   (GOD) ... desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 

 

John 3:16 (NKJV)   For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 

 

So you decide to put your whole life in the loving hands of Jesus, the Son of God who died for you. Many noble souls have died for others but not one except Jesus returned from the grave as the resurrected Son of God. 

God wants to use the same almighty power that raised Jesus from the dead, to use that power to raise your life from earthly failure to heavenly blessing.

 

That heavenly blessing includes healing for your mind and body and provision for your natural needs. God also has a purpose and destiny for your earthly life. He wants you to be a part of His plan to save others and to establish the Kingdom of God on this earth. 

YOU HAVE A UNIQUE PART TO PLAY IN GOD’S PLANS BUT YOU NEED TO SEEK GOD’S PRESENCE AND HIS GUIDANCE TO FIND IT.

You can only fulfil your destiny WITH God and in partnership with Him.

When you put your life in the hands of Jesus, He not only forgives your sins but He gives you a new life. Your new home is in Heaven with HIM but He also makes HIS home with you on earth, to lead you, guide you, heal you, provide for you and change you into a wonderful new person like Himself.

Your Words Create Life or Death

The Bible is a personal message from God to you (and me) because He loves you as no father ever loved his own natural child.

The Bible is a supernatural book because God communicates to us through the thoughts of the writers, thoughts entirely inspired by the Spirit of God. It is a Message from God to you.

In the Bible, God tells us that He loves us with all His heart.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16 (NKJV)

God created Adam and Eve in His own image and likeness, perfect in love and wisdom.

The first task that God gave the first man was to give names to all the animals.

Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. 

And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.   Genesis 2:19

Not only did Adam give meaningful names to thousands or millions of different species but he had the amazing mental capacity to remember the names he had given.

The first woman was in no way inferior to her husband.

And the LORD God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." Genesis 2:18 (NKJV)

The word helper in English might imply an inferior subordinate but the Hebrew word is EZER, which also appears in texts which refer to GOD Himself as the helper of men.

Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our HELP and our shield. Psalm 33:20 (NASB)    

• God is perfect, and consequently, He can only speak truth. He is almighty and as a consequence, when God speaks, His words have power.

• God is the Creator and when He speaks, His words have creative power.

Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.
Genesis 1:3  

When we trust God, we must take Him at His word. When we trust His words, we trust Him.

God made Adam and Eve to be His own partners in populating and governing the earth.

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Genesis 1:27-28 (NKJV)

As long as Adam and Eve lived in agreement with the creative words of God, all was well but there was an enemy in the Garden. 

We know Satan was the chief angel in heaven until he rebelled and became the chief devil or demon. In Genesis, he appears as a snake in the Garden of Eden. We know from Mark’s Gospel that evil spirits can take possession of natural animals. 

Jesus sent a legion of demons into a herd of pigs and they rushed into a lake and drowned themselves. Mark 5:12-13 (NKJV)

So Satan appeared to Eve in the form of a snake, determined to break the invincible partnership between God and the human couple.

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. 

And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?"  Genesis 3:1

• We promote evil by not trusting the words of God, by not fully believing in the Bible as His message to us.

• We reverse the curse of evil by believing in God’s words and speaking words in agreement with God.

• God creates and governs by speaking His powerful supernatural words. As we are created in His image, we also have power to influence the reality of our environment by the words we speak.      

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ by faith in His word, you are a son or daughter of God. 

You are commissioned to govern this earth in partnership with your Father in Heaven. 

Read His words and think His thoughts. Speak His words and change your world          

NO WAY OUT, BUT ...

Four girls, aged 9 to15, were manhandled and dragged onto a plane by strong policemen. 

Their violent kicking and screaming upset the other passengers but it did not save them. They were flown to Italy against their will to join their father, leaving their weeping mother in Australia.

Ancient Greek dramatists also wrote about tragic situations, in which there could be no happy ending.

After reading the news and seeing the disturbing photos, I lay awake late into the night. If I were the oldest sister, aged 15, what would I do?
But then I prayed and wiser thoughts prevailed. I prayed for the girls to find wise adults who would love them, who would help them and not just manipulate and control.
 
What does the Bible say:
“Honour your father and your mother...” Wow! How could that work in this situation?

Then I read my Bible and I found an unexpected answer. Bible knowledge is no substitute for active Bible reading when the Holy Spirit leads you.

Now a leper came to Him (Jesus), imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, "If You are willing, You can make me clean."

Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, "I am willing; be cleansed." Mark 1:40-41 (NKJV)

Jesus says you have a Father in heaven who reads your every thought and longs to help you in the most hopeless situations. Why not talk to Jesus or even to your Father Himself?

As I read the story of the social outcast and how Jesus gave him his life back to him, the thought hit me. There are situations in life which can only end in tragedy. There simply is no way out except through Jesus, who died to provide a way out of hopeless situations.

I have seen so many wonderful turnarounds in my life.

• A baby boy is profoundly deaf but after the prayer of faith, Jesus heals him completely in a few weeks.

• My mother and grandmother lived all their lives without Jesus but made peace with God on their deathbeds.

• Dear friends are healed from apparently hopeless mental illness and their lives are restored.

I was on my way to Sydney airport.

• Delayed again and again, I am caught in traffic jams. I am lost in a strange big city and I can’t get my GPS to work. I ring my cousin on my mobile phone. She guides me by phone for about 10 to 15 kilometres and through the city centre. I return my hire can and then I have only a few minutes to get from the city centre to the airport.

• I pray for a taxi and immediately a vacant taxi turns into the quiet side street next to me. I reach the airport 20 minutes before the final boarding time. I have no time to check in my small suitcase but the airline staff let me take it with me on the plane.

A Muslim woman in Iran watches a Christian program on Satellite TV. She hears words of Jesus from the Bible.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.   Revelation 3:20 (NKJV)

She goes to her front door where she sees the risen Jesus Christ and invites Him to come in. He comes in to her house and she begins her new life as a persecuted follower of the Son of God. 
 
All over the Middle East, many stories like this are coming from people who have nothing to gain and everything to lose in this life by joining the persecuted church of Jesus Christ.

Why do these things happen? Because people pray and God answers.

If God can deliver Muslims from hopeless darkness like this, why should He not be willing and able to answer prayers for non Muslims, like your rebellious and drug addicted daughter, like your mentally ill son, like the girls in the news who were forced to fly to Italy against their wills?

 

A NEW REFORMATION

In the Middle Ages there were few books and most people could not read, apart from some Catholic monks and the Jews, who lived in separate communities. Christian belief became hopelessly mixed with magic and superstition.

Then came Luther and the Reformation. 

The Reformers reacted against the superstition, idolatry and corruption surrounding the supernatural beliefs of their time and Calvin proclaimed the doctrine of Cessationism. 

Calvin taught that the miracles in the New Testament were signs from God to prove that Jesus was the Son of God and the miracles of the Apostles were designed to establish the Church as the elect people of God on earth. 

Calvin taught that after the passing of the Apostles and the completion of the New Testament text, Charismatic gifts and most other miracles were no longer ordained by God. 

The new Protestant dogmas produced a religion that was often dry but apparently correct. However this doctrine left God’s people with contradictions that were not easily resolved. 

Many found it difficult to believe in a God with unlimited power to answer prayers, who appeared in the Bible as a miracle worker but who was not supposed to manifest Himself through dramatic miracles in the here and now. 

Even the best theologians can never build a system of thought which encompasses the unlimited eternal God, however ingenious they might be in reconciling their ideology with the Bible text.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NKJV) 

Werner Nachtigal grew up in Germany without religion and with no knowledge of God. At the age of three he saw Jesus in his house with brilliant eyes and a wearing a white robe. As a drunken teenager, he heard Jesus calling him to be an evangelist. Later he discovered the message of Salvation and became a follower of Jesus Christ. Then he really did become an evangelist. As he travels the world, many are miraculously healed and many thousands discover eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.

In one of his books he wrote:“People get caught up in witchcraft and occult practices because they long for the supernatural but find no answers to their search in the church.”

A church dominated by theological dogmas and human systems can never satisfy the God given longings of the human soul. 

1Co 9  But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him." 10  But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. (NKJV)

In the Western World dominated by science, technology and rational humanism, Christianity has been in decline for over 100 years but in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the supernatural realm is well known. There the Christian Gospel is rapidly advancing and the message of Jesus is confirmed by signs and wonders.