Lighting the Candle: Preach endtime sermons!

“Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near…Look, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him”- Revelation 1:3, 7

The need to preach endtime sermons in this endtime generation cannot be underestimated. Regrettably, sermons on the end-times are gradually becoming extinct in the modern church. For whatever reasons, most preachers today shun this area in the process creating a wrong impression in their followers that the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ does not include such messages which are deemed as scaring. The gospel, according to many modern preachers, is viewed as solely centered on equipping believers on how victoriously and prosperously they can be in this life as a result of their newly-acquired salvation in Christ Jesus. Matters concerning the futurist events like Rapture, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, Heaven, Hell, the Millennium, the reign of the Anti-Christ or Son of Perdition as held in Bible prophecy[particularly in Apocalyptic books of Daniel and Revelation] are hence rendered irrelevant and not worthy spending time on.

However, the danger of neglecting such sermons is that it has the potential of suppressing in believers any futurist hopes as foretold in Bible prophecy.  Consequently, believers begin to solely focus on the attainment of the glories of this life and pay little to attention on issues that matter most in as far as the attainment of  the more glorious eternal life set before them is concerned like living a holy life, for without holiness no one will see God. As a result, we find ourselves in a situation as foretold in Revelation 3:1-3 where we have a church that has a reputation of being alive but in actual fact is dead. One professor in Systematic Theology Wayne Grudem warns: “the more Christians are caught up in enjoying the good things of this life, the more they neglect genuine Christian fellowship and their personal relationship with Christ, the less they will long for his return. To be ready for Christ’s return is to be faithfully obeying him in the present, actively engaged in whatever work he has called us to”.

While it is Biblical to enjoy the good things that the LORD blesses us in this life, it is unbiblical to enjoy such at the expense of your personal salvation or relationship with Jesus Christ that you forget about the afterlife. Yes, as the Bible declares what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world but end up his soul in Hell. Whether we like it or not there is eternity for everyone to spend after this life. Its either you spend it in Heaven or Hell. No other option.  It is in this regard that End-time sermons should no longer be ignored in our respective Christian gatherings. The very fact that Jesus Christ, himself, offered end times sermons to his disciples while on earth speaks volume of the importance of preaching such sermons today.

In other words, if preaching endtime sermons did not matter then our LORD and Saviour Jesus Christ would not have wasted his time telling his disciples about the signs of the end of the age.  Indeed, if the gospel of our LORD Jesus Christ is devoid of endtime sermons then the dedication of large volumes of chapters to endtime issues by Matthew, Luke, Mark, Daniel, Paul, John and others were in vain. Besides, why did the Lord Jesus Christ reveal to John while on the island of Patmos to dedicate the entire book of Revelation to eschatological events if He didn’t want future generations to know about the End-Times?

The truth of the matter is that our Lord Jesus Christ wanted his followers –then and those in future- to know what was going to happen at the end of the age for at least two reasons. Firstly, that Christians are to find hope and comfort in the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Second is that Christians are to warn humanity that one day God is going to judge the world and its inhabitants, and that the only way to escape this is by accepting the gracious free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ who is the atoning sacrifice of our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world (I John 2: 2). Thirdly, that Christians know that Jesus Christ is the only way the Truth and the life, and that there is no other way through which mankind can be saved and reserve eternal life. The book of Romans declares that the wages of sin is death but the gift of God through Christ Jesus is eternal life.

It is therefore in view of the above that just as it is with salvation and prosperity messages, end times sermons should also be preached in our churches in order to prepare the church for His coming and other futurist events; to remind the church of a greater glory and eternal life in heaven; and to help the church understand the times in which it is living. Most importantly, end times sermons remind and encourage the body of Christ to take the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) seriously in the face of the impending futurist events.

“Listen!’ says Jesus. ‘I am coming soon! I will bring my rewards with me, to give to each one according to what he has done. I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end’. Happy are those who wash their robes clean and so have the right to eat the fruit from the tree of life and to go through the gates into the city. But outside the city are the perverts and those who practice magic, the immoral and the murderers, those who worship idols, and those who are liars both in words and deeds.  – Revelation 22: 12-15

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