All doctrine is with a view to practice. So that when one is engaging in doctrine or teaching, which may be better understood, teaching is not with a view only to information. Teaching is with a view to formation. It's not just to be told something so that you will know it. It's to be told something so you will mold your life in terms of what you've been told.

And I'm deliberately emphasizing that at the outset of this doctrinal word for the... A simple reason that as I get into it, you may say, what is the value of this practically? Now, I'll touch on the value of it practically at the end. But I want to tell you right from the beginning that it does have a practical purpose.

So that what I'm saying to you on this particular point of doctrine has some very practical implications. I've entitled it, for want of something more exciting, "A Serious Imbalance." And I'm going to address something which in my mind is just that, a serious imbalance.

It is something that has done us considerable damage over the past 150 years. It has caused Christianity, by and large, to take a detour around the Great Commission, in the full intent of that commission.

And before I get into it further, I want to affirm to you categorically, and I'm not going to keep repeating it, that I do believe in the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the body with which he went away, to receive his people to himself, to exact judgment upon the unrighteous, and inaugurate the eternal state.

So I want to state that clearly, so that no one will go away and say, because of what I'm going to talk about, Brother Earn doesn't believe in the second coming. Brother Earn does believe in the second coming. I don't believe it's going to happen at any moment, but I do believe in it.

My major concern in this talk to you is just this: The inordinate emphasis put on the second coming to the neglect of the extreme importance of the first coming. The inordinate emphasis put on the second coming to the serious neglect of the importance of the first coming.

Now, the significance of the second coming for every person is based on their response to the nature and purpose of the first coming. How you understand Christ's first coming will determine how accurately you are understanding his second coming.

There have been a lot of inaccuracies about the second coming. The second coming has been taught many times as though it were salvific, as though it had in it itself just to believe in the second coming. One of my closing remarks I intended to be one I'm going to use at the opening: "Is it possible to believe in the second coming and not be a Christian?" And it is.

And I can point to you whole sects who do not have personal faith in Jesus Christ as Redeemer, but who believe in a second coming of some kind. But it is possible to be so involved in the prophetic intricacies and novelties of prophecy that you are not one who has believed in Christ to the saving of your soul.

And that may be an extreme position, but it's one that we need to take into consideration.

The historic ground of the gospel, what is the gospel? What is it that saves a soul? It's been defined for us. And I want to give you the Bible definition as laid out by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1 to 5, and I'm reading from the New American Standard.

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel. Now you want to know what the gospel is? Here it is: "I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain."

For I deliver to you, here it is now, I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas and the twelve.

That is the gospel. No mention of the second coming. Why? The second coming is not a part of the initial approach of the gospel. You can lead a person to Jesus Christ wholesomely and wholly and satisfactorily without making reference to the second coming.

I'll explain to you more about that in a moment. Now, if you're looking for the second coming in here, the closest you can come to it in the definition of the gospel is the resurrection: how that he raised him from the dead.

And in the same 15th chapter, he goes on to tell us about the resurrection from the dead and how that the resurrection from the dead ensures our resurrection. Now, since our resurrection and the second coming are synonymous and concurrent in time, they happen at the same time, you could find a hint of the second coming in the resurrection.

But it is not a major thing. It is not something that Paul incorporates into the gospel. And for that reason, it does seem important to me that we find where the second coming really belongs and how important is the first.

Why did Christ come in the first place? Let's listen to John's introduction: "The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, 'Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.'"

Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Now you've got several things put in association here: God, sins, world, Lamb.

Lamb of God, take away the sins of the world. Jesus came primarily to deal with the sin question. He came primarily to deal with the relationship with God question.

These are the two major problems that face mankind. I've got a problem with God, and my problem with God has to do with my sin. I can't handle my sin myself, therefore I've got an eternal problem with God if somehow my sin doesn't get handled.

Jesus Christ came into that dilemma. When he came into that dilemma, he came in to deal with two sides of the question. He came as God's Lamb to deal with my sin. And as the Lamb of God, he took away my sin.

Therefore, the Lamb of God did for my sin what I couldn't do for my own sin. Now that's the good news. That's the thing that's got to be told to people.

That their problem is not their future outlook. Their problem is handling the major issue in a moral universe, which is how a moral intelligence stands in the presence of a holy God with sin on him, which he cannot take care of himself.

Therefore, he needs the Lamb of God.

Now here's Jesus himself, who's called a faithful and true witness. If anybody's going to tell us the truth, it's the one who is called the truth.

And here's the witness to his own reason for coming: "Listen, before he comes into the world, he cries out through Hebrews 10, 5, 9."

Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, "Sacrifice an offering thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared me."

In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, 'Behold, I have come.'

In the roll of the book it is written of me to do thy will, O God.

After saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast not desired, nor hast thou taken pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law. Then he said, 'Behold, I have come to do thy will.'

He takes away the first in order that he may establish the second.

Now he said, 'I am on my way into the world, and I'm on my way into the world to do the will of the Father. And I'm going to do it in the light of history.'

Up until now, there has been an interim program of taking care of sin. It's been the sacrifice of animals. It's been the sacrifice of bulls and goats.

But that never did take away sin. Every time an Israelite laid his hand on the head of a little lamb, he transmitted his sin to that little lamb. That's the meaning of the laying on of hands.

The laying on of hands is not just a meaningless gesture. When you lay on hands, you are symbolizing impartation and identification. It always means that.

That's why the Bible says, 'lay hands on no man suddenly.' And also be careful who lays hands on you.

because there is something in the laying on of hands that is very important.

There's an impartation made.

Now, when that Israelite laid his hands on that lamb, he was imparting his sins to that lamb. That lamb then became him, and the lamb was slaughtered, and his blood was offered to God as an expiation for the sins that that man had put on the lamb.

But that went on again and again and again. The man had to come back over and over and over again. Many sacrifices were offered for the same person, often.

But the Bible said that this man, by one sacrifice of himself, hath perfected forever those who've put their trust in him.

We don't have to have a lot of lambs and bulls and goats.

Christ, God's Lamb, died for us once for all, and our sins were placed upon him. There's an old hymn that says, "I laid my sins on Jesus." No, you didn't. The Bible tells us that God laid our sins on Jesus.

"Oh, we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, but the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

The Father gathered up the sins of mankind, and he put them on his Son.

And in the mystery of Calvary, as Jesus hung there, all kinds of strange things took place.

There was a great darkness that came over the world, and the rocks rent and split, and there were voices and strange goings-on. And that's all that you could see were the senses.

We are dependent upon revelation to tell us what's going on behind the scene. Because behind the scene there were things going on that you and I couldn't imagine.

If we stood at the foot of the cross with a gaping mob.

and watched what was going on in those three crosses.

we watched the middle man. He was the one we were interested in.

We'd see him suffering. We'd see him crying out, which was not unusual for suffering people.

We would have observed his limp body, his gangrenous tongue, his swollen lips, his cry for some water.

It would all have been quite natural to us.

But when the Holy Spirit draws back the curtain and tells us what was going on behind, the drama of the cosmos was taking place. A great drama was going on.

And behind the scenes, the Bible said, that God was putting his sin on Jesus.

The Bible says that he who... knew no sin, was made sin. He wasn't made a sinner. He was made sin for us. He was made sin with my sin.

In that moment of awful darkness on Calvary, Jesus Christ became the cosmic sin center.

There was no sin anywhere else in the universe. It was all right there. It was all concentrated on Jesus.

All sin was concentrated on Jesus.

And the psalmist says in prophetic foreview, "all thy billows have rolled over me."

It was in that moment that God drew back the arm of his judgment and smote his own son.

It was in that moment that the son cried out, 'Eloi. My God, my God, you too.'

My disciples are gone. My followers are gone. And now you're gone.

And in that moment, if we are deciphering the mystery of those words correctly, God, looking upon sin and judging it in that moment, seemed at least to the Son as forsaking Him.

as he dealt the blows of infinite punishment against sin.

Jesus Christ was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Also in that moment, some other interesting things took place.

Because as he gave his soul an offering for sin, and God judged him for sin, and he met the demands of that sin, Satan was around.

Satan up until this time had the power of death. Satan up until this time had the right to take the souls of the righteous and the unrighteous and incarcerate them in Sheol.

That's what the book of Hebrews said, that he had the power of death.

And so now he's got his prized victim. He's been waiting for him for 4,000 years.

Ever since God said in the garden, "the seed of the woman's going to crush your head."

He's watched for the seed of the woman.

When Abel came along, he said, that looks like the seed of the woman that's going to do me in.

And so he inspired Cain to kill Abel. And all down through the Old Testament scriptures, you can trace the satanic conspiracy to kill the seed.

And at times the seed hung on a bare thread.

which shows the magnificence of God.

At times, it hung, for instance, on a little baby in an ark of pitch floating around in the bulrushes down by the side of the river. He was supposed to be dead.

If his mother had followed the edict of the Pharaoh, she would have slain that little baby that was floating around in that ark.

But God had arranged it providentially.

And the daughter of the man who gave the edict came down in the morning to bathe.

And as she looked in the bulrushes, she saw this strange object.

And moving over to it, she looked in, and there was a little Hebrew baby.

And right at that moment, an angel pinched him on the bottom, and he cried.

And there's no woman can resist the baby's tears.

And she looked at him as he cried.

And she said, take him home and we'll look after him.

And she bypassed her father's edict.

That was part of the messianic plan. God has allowed his plan sometimes to exist in the most tenuous circumstances so that you'll look back and say, that had to be God.

Now.

He recognizes that this is what he's been waiting for for 4,000 years.

So he calls all his princes around and all his satellites and underlings and his flunkies and he calls them all around and he said, we've got a big job. We've got to take this one down into Sheol. He's our master prize.

So he said, because this is the greatest one we've ever had, I'm going to appoint some of my leading princes to go and take his soul from the cross at Golgotha and bear him to Sheol.

And so these princes came in all their satanic royal regalia, riding their horses. They came to take the soul of Jesus to Sheol.

And as they came, they said, you don't see this. If you're standing at the foot of the cross, you wouldn't know this drama was all going on.

You say, that poor man, he is suffering. He was suffering, but he was conquering in his suffering.

And as these princes came to lay claim on him, the Bible said he flung them off. He just flung them off.

This is all going on in the spirit world. These princes were coming to pick. He just flung them off.

Flung them off. If you had eyes to see, there were all kinds of bodies lying around the foot of the cross. Satanic princes. Their crowns all school G. Their purple robes all messed up with mud. There they are, all lying at the foot of the cross.

And the Bible goes further and said, that he destroyed principalities and powers, making a show of them openly, triumphing over them in his cry.

Now, when he cried out, it is finished, it was finished. There were a lot of things finished.

What did he do? Well, he came, let me just inject so we don't get away from our subject matter.

Let me inject here that the second coming is the third aspect of salvation. We are saved, we are being saved, and we will yet be saved. But that's the third aspect. You don't preach the third aspect to a sinner, you preach the first aspect. He better get rid of his guilt, he better know the power of God over sin in his life before he gets involved with anticipating a new body.

But as we've done with our inbred perversion, we turn everything upside down. So we preach great sermons to crowds of sinners on the second coming, warn them and tell them what an awful thing it is.

And that's not what the apostles preached.

But we'll come to that in a moment.

Why did he come? First, he came to call sinners. Matthew 9:13. "Go and learn what this means. I desire compassion and not sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

There's another reason for his coming, similar to the first. He came to save the lost. Matthew 18:11. "For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost."

You say, well, we know that, Baxter. That's trite and banal. Oh, don't you say that. That's not trite and banal. That's of extreme importance.

Do you know one of the reasons today we don't have conviction for sin is because people no longer tell men they're lost. People no longer use the word sinner. We don't punish sinners anymore. We try to rehabilitate them.

Jesus didn't come into the world to rehabilitate sinners. He came into the world to save them. He didn't come in to condone and play games with their sin. He came in to separate them from their sin. Save them from it.

What's the use of me getting saved to the thing I'm being saved from is not dealt with.

Luke 9:56, "For the Son of Man did not come to destroy man's lives, but to save them."

John 12:47, "And if anyone hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him, for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world."

And in that great passage in Timothy, it is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

Now, we've experienced almost a complete reversal of this emphasis in much modern preaching. Dr. Shuler, in a book widely publicized, and which he had... The expense of his corporation sent to every minister in America, probably every minister in the world. I don't know. I received one.

And he reverses this whole thing. He said, it's wrong for us to tell men they are sinners. We are to build up their self-esteem. What self-esteem does a corpse have? What self-esteem does a man have who, as the Bible says, is full of running sores from the top of his head to the sole of his feet?

What self-esteem does a man have who's bound in the toils of filth and dirt and muck and mire

Here is the cleaned-up version of the sermon transcription:

Ant to you, but our whole Christian world today has been infiltrated by a philosophy that says, don't tell men they're sinners, don't talk about sin, build up the human ego, build up the human personality, create self-esteem in men, give them pride. They can't have pride as long as they're loaded with guilt. And to get rid of guilt, you have to confess, I am a sinner. Now that may sound so simplistic to some of you that you wonder why I'm bothering with it. I'm bothering with it because it isn't said very much anymore. It's not declared. It's not preached.

We are trying to save men by not saving them. What did he do? He did two things when he came. He met the demands of God. Now that's important. Hebrews 9:22. And according to the law, well, let me give you verse 12 first. And according to the law, one may almost say all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Let's say that all together. Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Now, some of our major historic denominations are busy weeding out of their hymn books all the hymns that have to do with blood. Well, they pretty well succeeded in that. Now they become so pacifist that they are weeding out of the hymn books all hymns that have to do with a military analogy for the Christian.

And I can't recall, I'm sorry, which one, but one of the large ones recently, was it Methodist? Recently decided officially they would delete "Onward Christian Soldiers" from their hymn books. This, however, was countered by a popular reaction among the people, probably purely sentimental.

Do you know the most famous hymn in America is the old rugged cross? But the old rugged cross sung as a romantic celebration of a martyr is far different than the old rugged cross celebrated at the place where sin was dealt with. And so you can sing the old rugged cross and it's the celebration of the sacrifice of a man for his principles and go to hell.

Or you can sing the old rugged cross and say he died for my sins according to the scriptures and go to heaven. That's the difference. Now listen. Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness, not through the blood of goats and calves but through his own blood he entered the holy place once for all having obtained eternal redemption.

No man. In the prior economy, before Jesus came, no man ever had direct access into the presence of God and the basis of the blood of bulls and goats. The Bible categorically says the blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin. What did it do? It atoned for it. It covered it.

Covered it over. For instance, let me illustrate. When God gave Moses the pattern for the tabernacle, I said, Moses, I want you to build it exactly according to the pattern. Don't deviate a bit. Because what you're going to build is a materialized picture of the moral structure of the universe.

And you better build it accurately. If you've got one board out of place, then you've got the universe skewed G. So you build it the way I tell you. And he told them how to build it. Now he said, this room in here, we're going to call this the Holy of Holies, this room, will have in it an ark.

And on the top of that ark, there will be a lid. Now the ark will be made of gold, and the lid will be made of gold. And above the lid, there will be two cherubim facing each other. I said, I want to tell you where I'm going to live personally, specifically.

When you have a right to talk to me, you can talk to me above upon the mercy seat between the cherubim. He said, I live right in here. Right in here. And I live right on top of the mercy seat. Now, under the mercy seat, inside the box, was the law of Moses, the tablets of the law.

Later on, Aaron's rod that budded and a pot of manna. But the major thing on the ark was the law of God. Now, before blood was on that lid, God looked down and he saw the law and all its demands. He said to Moses, Moses, tell your brother Aaron that he cannot come into my presence at all times.

I'll tell you when it can come. He can come on the day of atonement, and he's got to bring the blood of a special sacrifice, and he's got to put it on the mercy seat. Now when there's blood on the mercy seat, he can draw near to me and I'll commune with him.

Why? Because as God looked at Aaron, he saw Aaron as a sinner. If there was no blood on the mercy seat, he would have had no alternative but to strike Aaron dead. But as he looked at Aaron, he looked down into the mercy seat. He saw the broken law through the blood. Somebody had already paid the price of Aaron's sin by blood.

However, the shedding of blood under the old economy didn't take away sin. It only covered it up. So that a man finished his life with a whole pocket full of credit notes. But if somebody didn't redeem those credit notes, it was all a waste of time.

That's why John said, Behold the Lamb of God. Now, Paul is more clear on this yet. He said that Christ's death had to do with the sins that were committed in the past. So that when Christ came, he not only redeemed all the future, but he redeemed all of the past that had been put under the blood of lambs and bulls and goats.

But up until that time, nobody could go into the presence of God. They all went down into Sheol. They all went to the same place. Now they were separated. There was paradise. And then there was the place of the lost, the unrighteous. They were separated, but they couldn't go into the presence of God.

On the cross of Calvary, Jesus said to the thief, the thief said, when thou comest into thy kingdom, remember me. He says, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. So where did Jesus go from the cross? He went down into Sheol. But he did something in Sheol. When he went down into Sheol, he made an announcement.

He preached to those in the prison of Sheol. And he denounced the unrighteous in the old covenant for not having received God's counsel, and they stayed there. But he turned to the ones in paradise, and he said, By my blood now, I can take you into my Father's presence.

And he took them out of paradise, or he took paradise out of Sheol, and he took it into the presence of God. That's why later on Paul said, I knew a man. Whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know, who was caught up into paradise. On the day of the cross, Jesus went down into paradise.

But in his resurrection, he took paradise up into the presence of God. Now, for us to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The blood of Jesus Christ accomplishes for sinners who believe what the blood of bulls and of goats couldn't accomplish.

The blood of Jesus Christ meets the demands of God. God looks at the blood and he said it is enough. Never again will a lamb be slaughtered. Never again will a Savior be sacrificed. That blood once and for all, that blood is fresh before God.

In the book of Revelation, written probably about A.D. 68, many years after the crucifixion, John is caught up in vision into the heavens, and he sees this magnificent vision. There's one sitting on the throne, four and twenty elders, four living creatures, a sea of glass. It's a magnificent sea.

And in the process of that vision, One of the elders said to him, don't weep, John, because John was crying about the fact that nobody could take the scroll. He said, don't cry. There is one, there is one who is worthy to take the scroll and break the seal thereof.

The lion of the tribe of Judah. And John looked around to see a lion. He couldn't see any lion. But as he looked at the throne, he saw the strangest creature emerging from the throne. It was a lamb. It was a funny-looking lamb.

It had seven horns. But the one thing that was distinctive about it was this. It was as though it had been newly slain. There was fresh blood all over it. And yet it was alive, but it was covered with fresh blood, as if it had just shed its own blood.

The blood was still fresh on it. Now that's in A.D. 68. This is 1986. If you saw him today in the same kind of a vision, the blood would still be fresh on him. For the blood has never lost its power. No, never. No, never.

I want to make a strong thing of this. Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. That's why John was crying. A voice went out, Who is worthy to take the scroll and break the seals thereof? And then the Bible says, There was none found worthy in heaven or in the earth or under the earth.

Where's Satan right now? Why doesn't he step up and say, I'm worthy? No, he's not saying nothing. He's nursing a sick head. Well, what about the great of the earth, the big mouthy politicians, the business tycoons? Why didn't they step up and say, we can handle it.

We got a plan. We got a think tank to deal with. Hell was silent. Earth was silent. What about heaven? Michael's had some big assignments. Why not step up and say, I think maybe I could handle it, God. Michael doesn't stir.

Nor does Gabriel. If you're a Roman Catholic, nor does Raphael and Ariel and all the other elves. Why? There was none worthy. An angel can't die for sin, he doesn't qualify. A demon can't die for sin, he doesn't qualify. A man can't die for sin, he doesn't qualify.

Who died for sin? This amazing God-man, Jesus Christ. God, the very God, man, the very man, he alone qualified. And John says, well, there goes the world. There goes mankind. There was nobody able to open that book. We're all lost.

One of the elders steps up and taps him on the shoulder and he says, don't weep, John, because John was crying about the fact that nobody could take the scroll. He said, don't cry. There is one, there is one who is worthy to take the scroll and break the seal thereof.

The blood was still fresh on it. Now let me impress on you this morning, dear people, because you will be constantly subject, and more so as time goes on, to the seductions of alien philosophies that want to get you away from the fact that Jesus Christ and Christ alone is our Savior.

It's not Christ plus. One alone is worthy. Jesus satisfied. The righteous demands of God. Nobody else. I don't satisfy them. Daily I ask for the forgiveness of my sins. While I'm not a great follower of a kind of a... Terrible sinner of philosophy, yet I believe that one of the things that is unhealthy among Christians today is our unwillingness to look at ourselves as those who are still tainted by the failures of our fallenness.

My little girls went to an Episcopal boarding school at one stage in their lives, and they learned a lot of things out of the prayer books. And I used to hear them saying, God, be merciful to us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

And I kind of rebelled at that. But I find the way sin is treated anymore is treated so superficially, it might be a good thing for us to borrow back some of those statements. God, be merciful to Aaron Baxter, a sinner. God, forgive me for my sins today.

So somebody says, oh, you've got something to tell us? No, number one, it's none of your business. Number two, the sins that I may be confessing are not sins that you could see if you'd been there when I was presumably supposed to be sinning.

They're the sins of a faulty mental attitude to God. They're the sins of improper motivations. They're the sins of internal indulgence. They're all kinds of sins. It's my unlikeness to what I know I should be.

When I come to the end of the day or I wake up in the morning for devotions, I tell you I am glad to know that that blood, is still powerful not only to deal with a sinner's sin who has not yet been saved, but to deal with a sinner's sin who has been saved.

Well, let me hurry on. He met the needs of the demands of God. He met the needs of sinners. He was delivered up for our transgressions. He dealt with Satan. We've already touched on that.

1 John 3:8, the Son of God appeared for this purpose that he might destroy the works of the devil. That was at the first coming. Somebody says, oh, when Jesus comes, won't it be wonderful? He'll bind Satan for a thousand years. Oh, you're way behind the times.

He bound Satan 2,000 years ago. The cross is where Jesus legally accomplished everything that needs to be accomplished. There is no more legal dealings in the future. We're not waiting for the second coming to come along and deal with some legal matters that have been left undone.

At the cross of Calvary, he dealt with it. He dealt with the world. Somebody says, the world, that world, I don't know what's going to happen to that world. I know what's going to happen to it because I know what has happened to it.

Oh, you say, what happened to it? Well, listen, and I'll tell you. John 12:31, Jesus going to the cross says, now judgment is upon this world. Now the ruler of this world shall be cast out. When? Now!

Satan's been on a lost cause for 2,000 years. These are his dying squirmings. You say, well, that's a long time. That's not a long time. Today's 1,000 years of the Lord. You and I are bound by time. God's not bound by time.

Satan has been dealt with. Let's say it all together. Satan has been dealt with. Legally, Satan has been taken care of. The world has been taken care of.

That world out there, Paul says in Galatians 6:14, he said the world is crucified. The world is what? The world out there is a damn city. That world, and to the degree that you fool with it, to that degree are you fooling with damnation.

It's a damn city. It's a Sodom waiting for the fire and brimstone. It's got no future. World's got no future. Nations of no future.

Apart from the gospel, there's no future for the nations, no future for the world. Civilizations have collapsed. We've got historical pictures of what's going to happen to the world ultimately all down through the centuries. Civilizations collapse. They fall apart. Why?

They don't have the stuff of permanence in them. He that doeth the will of God abideth forever. People who don't do the will of God are impermanent. It falls apart.

God has dealt with the world. All right then, quickly, why is he coming back? If the first coming is of that major importance, why then is he coming back?

Well, he's coming back for two reasons. First, to complete the believer's salvation. Hebrews 9:28. So Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second

Here is the cleaned sermon transcription:

Ius' household talked about Jesus and the remission of sins. And at that point, the Holy Ghost came and confirmed the testimony. He didn't say anything about the second coming. You say, are you trying to negate the second? No, you know I'm not. You know I'm not. I am just fed up to here with the distorted gobbledygook that is being presented to mankind. I'm distressed and grieved at the loss of great redemptive truths that have to do with the first coming. And this novel involvement and attraction to the future, my future is past.

In terms of sin, Christ died for my sins. It all happened back there. Right now, we're dealing with the mopping up exercises. The second coming, let me put it clearly for you. The second coming is not to be preached to sinners. It's to be taught to Christians. It is not to be preached to sinners. It's to be taught.

Actually, if you're going to send about the second coming in a message to sinners, you've got to do it in terms of judgment. You've got to tell them to flee from the wrath to come. There's no hope in the second coming for a sinner. It's hell. It's judgment. It's everlasting destruction.

Now, what are the implications? Ruth and I sat and talked about these one day, and I just put down a few of them. We finished up with quite a list. If the second coming is preached out of focus and out of proper relationship to the first coming, it confuses hopes. The sinner's hope is the gospel.

Colossians 1:23 said, "If indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from, here it is, the hope of the gospel." The hope of the gospel is for sinners. Now, what about believers? Well, Titus 2:13 says that we as believers are looking for the blessed hope.

Now, don't confuse the hopes. The second coming is my hope. It's the sinner's hell. What is the sinner's hope? Christ died. Christ rose. Christ offers life. What's the second implication?

This is the one I think affects me most. It provides a wrong worldview. If you believe Jesus is coming any moment, you've already conceded the world to Satan. You've already conceded history to Satan. You've already conceded politics and education and economy to Satan.

You said Jesus wasn't the stronger man after all. The strong man still keeps his palace. That's not what the Bible says. Jesus said, "The stronger man comes and takes the strong man's palace and all his goods." Is Satan the strong man? Is Satan going to finish history in charge of everything? No.

You say, well, boy, God better hurry up. God said, no hurry. Somebody says, well, he's got to do it before I die. No, he doesn't have to do it before you die. Can I give you a healthy approach to living? Hope for the second coming. That's your right.

But do what David did. David served his generation. Prepare material for the building of the temple. Serve your generation. Don't live with a false idea. The tomorrow will give you a wrong worldview.

We are under the mandate of the Great Commission going to all the world and preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all things, whatever I've commanded you, and baptizing them. We still have a tremendous task to take care of. And as the world is crumbling, somebody says, but Daxter, doesn't it bother you that the world's in such a mess? No, it excites me.

The messier it gets, the more God will be glorified. God isn't going to come to gild the lily. God's going to come to do something that mankind corporately couldn't do for themselves. And he does it in the gospel.

Finally, it is not the basis of saving faith. It is not the basis of saving faith. I'm going to say what I said at the beginning and intended to say at the end. Is it possible to believe in the second coming and not be saved? I believe it is.

And I urge you not to get men taken up with the enticements of prophetic dabbling. That can command your attention. It can make you unwholesome. But press men to the claims of the Christ who came, who lived, who suffered, who died, and who rose and ascended as a prince and a savior to give eternal life.

To all who believe. That, dear people, is our emphasis. And I applaud anything that promotes the gospel. And I'm very edgy about things that are taken up with novel views of the future, many of which are imaginary or based on bad interpretation of Bible verses.

I know this has been very onerous to some of you. It's been dry and doctrinal. But I hope the Holy Ghost has pinned a few things to the bulletin board of your heart. So that tomorrow sometimes you'll walk by your reading and say, where did I hear that? I don't care if you don't know where you heard it. I just hope you heard it.

Shall we pray?