Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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(Today’s Reading)
The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact
(Book Installment 29)
Part Two – The Timing of the Second Coming
Chapter 4 – What the Epistles Say
What John Said About the Timing (1 and 2 and 3 John)
Most Bible scholars and historians agree that the apostle John lived long and wrote late in life. Both Peter and Paul are deemed to have died in the 60′s A.D. and therefore before the destruction of the temple (70 A.D.) and the onset of the great tribulation. John, who also penned the book of Revelation, is probably writing his letters during that great tribulation. Of course, this is not a complete surprise given what the Lord said to Peter in John 21 about John when the three of them were together (that Peter would die before the Lord came but that John might make it until the Lord came). It also fits with what John says in 1 John:
Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. 1 John 2:18
The last sign to appear before “the Son of Man comes on the clouds” (Matthew 24, 26; Mark 13, 14) has now been manifested – that is, the rise of lawlessness and the proliferation of false teachers. John uses the term antichrist(s). Other terms we have heard are “false Christs,” “false prophets,” “false teachers,” “man of lawlessness,” and “son of destruction.” There are other synonyms as well.
How strong an influence these false leaders came to have is seen when this great, and now aged, apostle said, “I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say” (3 John 1:9). Thus we have a leader dominating a church and refusing the words of a true apostle. This you’ll note is a clear sign from the Lord’s
timetable that His coming is near. (I should ask you parenthetically if you have noticed that prophecy experts and churches today who look for the coming of the Lord in the future, that is not within the Lord’s timetable, also “do not accept what” the apostles say?)
In 1 John 4:3, John calls antichrist a false spirit. This fits with what Paul said about “deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). Just as the Holy Spirit had gotten into the true apostles, this was the time when the devil’s spirit got into the false apostles. Just as Jesus was betrayed at the last when Satan entered the erring Judas Iscariot, even so His larger body was being betrayed all over the world as Satan’s evil spirits were entering into erring teachers. But just as the Lord’s resurrection overcame Judas’ betrayal, so the Lord’s return would overcome these betrayals. (It is not hard to conclude that the Lord placed an ultimate traitor within His chosen twelve to foreshadow and prepare His followers for the betrayals they themselves would face.)
If the apostles saw themselves living in the end times before the Second Coming of Christ (and you have seen that they did), then John saw himself writing at the end of the end times. This point of view will be amplified when we get to another of his writings – the book of Revelation.
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