Mark 13:33 “Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.”
Commentary from the sermon “A Wake-Up Call!” by Alistair Begg:
“In Jesus the kingdom has come; in the preaching of the Gospel, the kingdom is coming; and in the return of Jesus Christ, the kingdom will come in all of its fullness. …
“Let us be absolutely clear that we are ignorant about the time of Christ’s return. … We ought not to feel bad about that, because we’re in good company. Actually, we’re in a large company to begin with, because He says that ‘no one knows.’ …
“Our ignorance as to timing provides no excuse for being unprepared. Rather, it is our very ignorance of the timing of the event upon which the stress is actually laid by Jesus …. Ignorance, far from being an excuse, is to be an incentive.”
Luke 11:2 “Your kingdom come.”
Commentary from the sermon “‘Your Kingdom Come’” by Alistair Begg:
“There is both a now and a not yet dimension to the kingdom. So, for example, Jesus spoke about conferring a kingdom on His disciples. And we anticipate a day when Jesus will say to the whole of His people—Matthew 25:34—‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.’ So, as much as we look for God’s kingly rule in the life of an individual who is presently in the dominion of darkness and is transferred into the kingdom of the Son he loves, and as much as we need to live in submission to His kingly rule in terms of the advancement of His reign within all the facets of our lives, so we look forward to a day when God will finally bring to completion this great master plan. …
“The King is coming, and the full disclosure of His reign, the ultimate establishment of His kingdom, awaits His coming. And when He comes, the visible establishment of God’s reign over all of the hosts and powers of evil will be seen. And for all the things that I don’t know and understand about the coming of the King, I do know and understand this: that the return of Jesus will be personal, and physical, and visible, and sudden, and glorious, and will usher His people into His everlasting kingdom. And it is the awareness of that then which brings transformation into this now. So it is only as we’re able to live with a genuine expectation of that consummation that we will then be prepared to live in such an expression of submission and we will continue to thank God for the wonder of our conversion.”
Revelation 7:9–10 “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’”
Commentary from the sermon “The Perfected Kingdom — Part Two” by Alistair Begg:
“What do we know about the return of Jesus Christ? Well, there are certain things that are absolutely straightforward and about which there is no debate …. The return of Jesus will be personal, physical, visible, and glorious. The return of Jesus is secret, it is sudden, and it brings separation. …
“When you stand back far enough from the Old Testament and you look at it, you see that it is an unfolding arrow, as it were, scrolling forward to Jesus. And when you stand back from the book of Revelation, you discover that what is being declared, first to these beleaguered saints in the first century, is that they shouldn’t be alarmed by all that is taking place because Jesus is actually in control—and that, eventually, the reigning power of Christ will be established when His kingdom comes in all of its permanent fullness.”
James 5:7 “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.”
Commentary from the sermon “Be Patient, The Lord Is Coming — Part One” by Alistair Begg:
“The Bible … not only tells us that our history is broken, but it also tells us what God has done in time to deal with that brokenness; that the God who made time, who established the universe, comes … to sound, as it were, a megaphone down through the centuries concerning the good news of His intervention so that what is broken may be, by His goodness, repaired, fixed, transformed.”
John 14:3 “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
Commentary from the sermon “The Return of Jesus Christ” by Alistair Begg:
“In the New Testament, there are literally hundreds of references to the return of Jesus Christ. It has been estimated that one in twenty-five verses of the New Testament in some way relates to this doctrine. … The range of references should leave us in no doubt whatsoever that the return of Jesus Christ is consistently and progressively pointed to throughout all the pages of Scripture. The first appearing of Jesus Christ was the central point in history, the hinge upon which the whole of history since has swung. It was the decisive moment. It was the date from which all other dating has come. …
“Let men and women say what they will, that fact remains. And He has cut across time in His first coming. In the same way, the reappearing of Jesus Christ will bring to completion that which God has purposed. It will be the hinge which joins the world as we now know it with the world that is to come. …
“The Christian hope is not related to a timetable of events. It is not related to a series of impersonal happenings. The Christian hope is related to the personal, visible return of Jesus Christ, just as He promised here in John 14. Our gaze is to Jesus. Our eyes are for Jesus. …
“The cardinal rule in considering the doctrine of the return of Christ must always be this: Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.”
