BX 6333 -^38 A3 igAS Haldeman, Isaac nassey, Tei^sermons on the second comins of our Lord Jesus TEN SERMONS ON THE SECOND COMING of Our Lord Jesus Christ Preached in the First Baptist Church, New York City from October 15 to December 17, 1916 BY THE PASTOR I. m.'haldeman, d.d. Author of Christian Science in the Light of Holy Scripture, How to Study the Bible, The Second Coming of Christ Pre-Millennial and Imminent, The Signs of the Times, Christ, Christianity and the Bibk^ The Mission of the Church in the World, Millennial Dsvviiism, Two Men and Russellism, Could Our Lord have Sinned, Does it make *ny Difference, What is it to Believe on Jesus, Why are we to Believe The Bible is inspired, etc., etc. New York Chicago Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh I OUR LORD JFSUS CHRIST IS COMING TO THIS WORLD A SECOND TIME OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST IS COMING TO THIS WORLD A SECOND TIME By Rev. L M. Haldeman, D.D. OU will find my text in Saint Paul's' Epistle to the Hebrews, ninth chapter, twenty-eighth verse: "Unto them that look for Him shall He ap- pear the Second time." I desire to begin a series of sermons on the SECOND Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many long years before I became Pastor of this Church, it was my privilege to present the truth, and at a time when my voice was almost the only one in the land that upheld it. In my extended pastorate here I have preached it in season and out of season; so that almost every sermon, exegesis and exposition has centered itself in it or proceeded forth from it. I de- sire to preach upon the theme again, not only in its complete and sequential order, but in relation to all dispensational and proph- 6 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST etic truth. I am led to do so because al- though many are now bearing testimony to the return of our Lord, the ignorance concerning it is still widespread and abysmal. There are Christians who actually read their Bible and yet statement after statement which ought to gleam and scintillate with power to awaken interest passes across their vision or through the mind and leaves no trace. The average minister with an open Bible before him knows nothing about it, — ignores it, — is afraid to preach it, or when he does not pervert it, radically rejects it. The prejudice against the doctrine is amaz- ingly great. It is said to be non-essential (and here I desire to speak parenthetically and say to you that of all foolish, absurd and actually stupid things uttered by the tongue of Christians or written by pen, nothing is more excuseless than this attempted arraignment of "non-essen- tials." If the Bible be the revelation of God, as He is the great economist and never wastes or does anything that is unnecessary, it is evident He could not and would not introduce into His infallible Book anything that was not essential. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 7 Whatever statement or doctrine therefore may be in the Bible, however apparently inconse- quential and insignificant, is, nevertheless, es- sential. Since this doctrine of the Second Com- ing is very manifestly in, and a remarkable part of, the Bible it ought to be evident, to say the least, that the term "non-essential" cannot in any wise be applied to it.) It is held by many to be sporadic, the outcome of an unsettled state of theological definition in the early centuries ; that it has been handed down by ignorant, or half educated, or unequally bal- anced minds. The man therefore who in this hour of wheels, of machinery, of delicate mathematical constructions and the tidal sweep of materialism and sensuousness, dares to stand forth and preach the SECOND COMING of Christ is thought to be mentally uneven, the rider of a hobby, up in the air, and, at the very best — only a light and easy visionary. His sermons are supposed to have in them little that is practical, much that is sensational ; and that their tendency is to disturb the Church, bring about schism and lead those Christians who accept the doctrine to go ofif at a 8 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST i tangent. The study of it, it is said, gives birth to foolish vagaries, to grotesque schemes of inter- pretation, encourages many to look upon them- selves as certified prophets, and gives play to hectic and irresponsible imagination, rather than the cultivation of a sane and sober application of the principles and rules of a daily and dutiful life. And yet — in the face of all this, it is a fact wholly beyond dispute that of all the wondrous things in this book written in letters of light, re- splendent with the glory of God and resonant with the divine music, not one of them, not the fiat creation of the world, the stupendous fall of man, the birth of Christ, His death and resurrec- tion, none of these immense facts occupies the space or receives such mention as the SECOND COMING. The First Advent is without question, basic, fundamental, so much so that apart from it — Christianity could not even find letters to spell its name — and yet — foundational as it is — it is al- most insignificant when compared to the men- tion of the Second Advent. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 9 Neither the tongue of angels, nor men can fit- tingly describe the measure, the marvel and the glory of the cross; even the Holy Ghost with all His measureless powers finds Himself limited by the limitations of human vocabulary when He seeks to portray it. In all the speech of men there is no word so great as this word, "Atone- ment." It is the revelation of the genius and the wisdom of God, of His law and His love, of His justice and mercy, His hatred of sin and His love of the sinner. His rejection of merit and His gift of grace. It is a revelation of how He has found a way in which He can be just and yet a justifier of the ungodly: and yet — that word "Atone- ment" occurs but once in the New Testament, and there should not be translated atonement — but "reconciliation," the consequence of atone- ment; but the statement concerning the Second Coming of Christ occurs in the New Testa- ment— owce in every twenty verses. It begins with the beginning. In the first chapter of- Genesis God speaks and sun and moon and stars, constellations, systems of constellations, and measureless nebulae sw^eep 10 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST forward in that infinite harmony which the si- lence of the skies proclaims. In the second chap- ter man is formed from the dust of the earth, his soul kindled with the flame of the divine breath. In the third chapter he sins, he falls and the whole race goes down in the wreck of his sin. Side by side with his sin and woe is the promise of redemption. The first woman stands forth in all the beauty of her fresh creation, but stands there with the shame of her sin, and as she listens to the voice of judgment which condemns her husband and herself to go forth as v/anderers in the earth, learns, not only that the serpent shall bruise her seed, the foreseen and promised Re- deemer, but this very Redeemer shall bruise the serpent's head. Turn to the last chapter of Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans and you will find the serpent (that old serpent which is the Devil and Satan) is to be bruised be- neath the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ at His Second Coming: and if you will turn still fur- ther to the nineteenth chapter of the Revelation you will behold a scenic description of that event in the hour when the door in heaven opens and THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST T i the Son of God, as the Word of God, as King of kings and Lord of lords is seen coming down the slant of heaven with the thundrous echo of His steeds of judgment, followed by the throng- ing armies of His righteousness clad saints. He lays hold on Satan, binds him with a great chain, casts him into the bottomless pit and bruises him beneath His heel for a thousand years; and thus it is evident that side by side with this first an- nouncement of the First Advent in that far away Eden time is the first announcement of the SEC- OND. In the sixth chapter of Genesis you will see the flood gates of heaven opened, the fountains of the great deep broken up and all but eight of a guilty world swept away, while over the rush and terror of the seething waters the voice of the Son of God is heard saying, "But as the days of Noah, so shall also the Coming of the Son of man be;", and when next you stand upon some mountain height and see the line of shells de- posited there by invading waves which once drowned all the high hills and made the swing- ing globe a dark and watery waste, pick up that 12 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST shell, hear in it still the sound of the receding deep and let it repeat to you, that as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of Man comes: and let the flood proclaim to you the Son of God is Coming a SECOND time. If it be your privilege to journey to Palestine, go yonder to that Dead Sea whose every wave rolls over the spot where the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah, went down in the wrath of Him whose breath like a fiery flame consumed them; and above the depths where the buried cities lie hear the voice of the Son of God saying, "as it was in the days of Lot (in Sodom) even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed;" and let the Dead Sea as the burial place of a dead city and the judgment tomb of indescribable vice, tell out with its bituminous swirl and swish that the Son of God is coming a Second time and coming not only with grace but with vengeance in His heart. Not only is the Second Coming portrayed in the open statements and quivering accents of in- spired prophets, but in the pictured prophecies of illuminating types, living figures and colorful symbols. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 13 Abraham under the command of God took his son to the top of the mount which he reached after a three days' journey, laid him upon the prepared altar, lifted his knife to slay that un- resisting son (doing so in the confidence God would raise him from the dead) when the voice of the Almighty bade him take a ram caught by its horns in the thicket and sacrifice it as a substitute in his stead. He raised him up from the altar in an act which was typical of res- urrection: the son then disappears from view; but Abraham calls his servant Eliezer and bids him go forth to find a wife for his son. He finds her at a well drawing water. He enters with her the house of her brother Laban, the fleshly man, takes out the pack of precious things sent from the father in the name of the son and shows them to her; and as she consents to be the bride, leads her forth to meet him, talking to her of him by the way; 'v\'hen, suddenly, unheralded the son appears, comes forth to meet her and take her to himself. Two thousand years after, on this very spot, the Son of God offered Himself as a sacrifice 14 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST for sin, a substitute for the sinner, then on the third day rose from the dead; for two thousand years He has like Isaac disappeared from view; but the Holy Spirit like Eliezer has come forth from the Father in the name of the Son to seek for Him a bride and to call her by His name, — the Church, THE CHRIST. He is finding her at the Gospel well, the well of glad tidings and of living water. One by one as we believe we become members of that bride, because we be- come members of His spiritual body; the Spirit enters into our fleshly lives, as Eliezer into the house of Laban, and unfolds the Bible as the pack of precious things sent from the Father in the name of the Son. He is leading us along the way of time and circumstance, talking to us of the unseen and absent Bridegroom when, sud- denly, He will come into the air and take the Church to Himself, and thus this story of Eliezer seeking a bride, and the coming forth of Isaac to meet Rebekah, is the full and analogic, but prophetic picture of the Second Coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Head of the Spiritual Body, and His Bride, the Church. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 1 5 Jacob wearied with his flight from home lies down at eventide there in the plain of Luz and takes for his pillow a cold and barren stone, while the quiet stars watch him from afar. As he sleeps he dreams ; and then a vision of the night is on him. He sees a ladder of gold leaning against the shining sky. At the top of it he beholds the Holy One of Israel, none other than the Christ of God who is to be. He sees Him coming with ten thousands of the heavenly host. He listens while the Lord declares to him that all the land on which he lies shall be his and his posterity's after him; and that of his seed shall come a na- tion—and this nation shall have temporal sover- eignty in the end of days ; he wakes to learn, and we learn with him, that the nation of Israel shall find its permanent and abiding place in the land of Palestine, be the head and no longer the tail of nations, and find its consummation in the hour- when the Son of God shall come as the covenant seed of Abraham, the seed of Is- rael, the seed of Jacob and heir of David's throne; and this, when He comes a SECOND time. 1 6 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Joseph is the son of his father's old age, goes out to visit his brethren, is rejected by them, is cast into the pit of death, taken out alive and sent into the far country, into Egypt, is there exalted to co-rulership on the throne, takes a wife from among the Gentiles and at a determined hour, with her, goes forth in his chariot of glory that he may bring his father's house and his brethren after the flesh in to Goshen the promised land of Egypt. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of eternity, the Son of the infinite Father. He was sent to His brethren in the flesh, they rejected Him, cast Him into the pit and place of death. God took Him out alive. He has taken Him into that far country, into the highest heaven itself, He has exalted Him to the throne as a co-ruler with Himself, He is now, as also typified in the story of Isaac, getting a bride from among the Gen- tiles. At a predetermined moment He will come forth with His chariot with ten thousand times ten thousands of His angels that He may bring His father's house, His brethren after the flesh, the Jews, into the promised land of earth, into THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST I? Palestine; and thus the story of Joseph is the typical story of the Lord, and finds its prophetic climax in His Coming a SECOND time. David goes up the slopes of Olivet, bare- headed, bent back, bare-footed, his face washed in tears, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, a rejected king. Later on, he comes back with a mighty host, the victor's shout, crosses Jordan, enters Jerusalem, and sits a king in lordly fashion on Zion's heights. Surely, we know our Lord was a man of sorrows and ac- quainted with grief. Behold Him on the slopes of Olivet, weeping over the city of His love as His gaze sweeps down the centuries of the com- ing woe, by that city is repudiated, goes forth a rejected King, goes forth to death and the grave. But, behold. He is to come back with the victor shout and song, cross Jordan from the east as He comes from Idumaea up, enter Jerusalem and enthrone Himself on Zion's heights as Lord and King; and this when He comes a SECOND time. And this Second Coming of Christ Inspires David to draw his fingers across his golden harp 1 8 THE SFXOXD COMING OF CHRIST Strings, evolve the loftiest notes and sing in his most daring and exalted symbols. He speaks of that hour when the heavens shall bow down to the earth ; when the waves of the sea shall lift their tidal voices and break with triumphant tu- mult on all the shores; when the hills shall melt and flow down as the sea; when all the trees of the wood as transfigured witnesses shall clap their hands ; when all voices in earth, in hell and heaven shall cry out till the whole universe is full of the refrain, "He cometh. He cometh — He Cometh to rule the earth in righteousness and truth: He is coming a jfco«J time." The prophets choose their choicest words and find their noblest phrase when they seek to por- tray the Second Coming of our Lord. Isaiah sees Zion exalted above all the hills and the Lord's house crowning all the lifted heigths. He hears the war sword's final clangor as into plough shares beaten, and beholds the spears as pruning hooks amid the gathered fruitage of the growing vines. The law goes forth from Zion and the Word of God prevails; and this they teach, when the Lord comes, not the first, but *'the SECOND TLME." THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 19 Micah announces when the Lord comes the second time war shall cease and men shall learn its ways no more, but each beneath his own vine and fig tree shall sit, none daring to molest nor make afraid. Joel declares the voice of the Lord shall be heard from Jerusalem. He will overthrow the enemies of Israel and Zion shall be His dwelling place forever. Zechariah testifies the Lord is coming, coming with all His saints: that His feet in that day- shall stand upon the mount of Olives which is on the east before Jerusalem, it shall cleave in twain and roll forth as a platform for His feet, and the feet of His saints; and because this has never taken place, it is not at His First, but at His SECOND coming. When you open the last chapter of Malachi, the Lord is seen, not at His First Advent, but at His Seconjd, arising as a sun of righteousness with healing in His wings, ready to cast His benediction and His bounty on the earth before He smites it with a curse. Then we close the Old Testament with its mul- 20 THE SECOND CC«V1ING OF CHRIST tiplied and precise announcements of the Second Coming of our Lord, and lean across four cen- turies of prophetic silence. As we listen we hear the sound of angel song; we hear the Gloria in Excelsis; beneath the star lit sky a babe is born, and we rejoice at the First Advent of the Christ; but scarcely have we done listening to this rapt announcement of the First Advent when we hear the Christ Himself grown to manhood and to ministry proclaiming not His First Coming but His SECOND. He speaks of it in parable, in open discourse and story. He tells His disciples that a householder called his servants about him, gave to each one of them a work to do, bade the porter watch and said, "I am going into a far country, but I am coming back at an hour when ye think not. It may be at evening when the sun is low, it may be at midnight, in the deepest darkness and when the stars arise. It may be in the cock crowing when the night begins to advance, or it may be in the gray of morning when the dawn begins to turn through rose and purple to the gold of day." THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 2 1 And the Lord said to them, "You are the house and you are the servants, you have each of you your work, and the Holy Ghost shall keep the door. I am going yonder into the land of 'far distance,' into heaven above; but I am coming back, I am coming a second time and at an hour when ye think not. It may be in the evening as the age draws to its close. It may be in the mid- night when the spiritual darkness is deep. It may be at the cock crowing when the sound of trumpets begins to be heard. It may be in the blaze of the morning, in the splendor of that new day that shall dawn as the Day of God. What I say unto one I say unto all — Watch! Watch! be ready! for I am coming a SECOND time." He compares His return to that of a bride- groom who comes at midnight to meet the wait- ing bride's maids and with then enter into the marriage chamber, to the marriage supper and the joy. He says He is coming as King of glory to sit upon the throne of His glory, as the throne of the Lord, in Jerusalem, to enter into judgment of the nations, and to judge them according to the 22 THE SECOND COMIXG OF CHRIST fashion in which they have treated His brother in the flesh, the Jew. Then in that last discourse upon Olivet when His disciples come and ask Him what shall be the sign of His coming, He tells them of mul- tiplied war, of famine and pestilence walking to- gether cheek by jowl, of shattering earthquake, of false apostles, of deceitful workers, of distress of nations, of men's hearts failing them for fear; and then declares He will come as the lightning shines from the east to the west and with all His holy angels. But on that night of nights, at the last supper, when every heart was mute with sadness; when they were quivering at the very thought that He who had led them so long among the hills and vales of earth was going away, He bids them look up at the crystalline arch of the nightly stars, and speaks to them words that should be let with diamond pointed pen into the face of an eternal rock, such words as these: ''Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are manv mansions: if it nere not so, I THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 23 would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, / will come again: and receive you unto myself : that where I am, there ye may be also." And then, in that tragic hour, in that gaiish morning light when He stood before His judges, mocked, spit upon, bound, a rope about His neck as when a lamb is to slaughter led; standing on the threshold of His shameful death, He said to them that thereafter they should see Him sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then they crucified Him. They put Him to death. They laid Him in the grave and rolled the stone to the door of His tomb. His sun seemed to go down at mid-noon; but the third day He rose, forty days later He ascended from the midst of His disciples, and as they saw Him swallowed up and lost to gaze in the deeps of the upper infinite; even while they watched Him through their wonder and their tears, two men in white from the other country stood by their side and said unto them: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up 24 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so conic in like man- ner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." After the day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter with John went up into the temple to pray. They saw a lame man there. Peter in the name of the Lord Jesus bade him rise up and walk. He did so leaping and running into the temple. The people followed him and a great crowd gathered about the Apostles, asking them how it was done. Peter answered he had not healed the man with his own power but by the name and, therefore, by the power of Jesus. Then he told them that He whom they had crucified and put to death was the Prince of life, the Au- thor of life — and if they should repent and turn unto the Lord, the Father w^ould send Him back. Having said this he quoted all the prophets from Samuel and assured them these prophets with one accord foretold that this cruci- fied but now risen Lord would come a SEC- OND time. Yonder in Jerusalem a great council, the first council of all the Churches, was gathered to de- THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 25 liberate and determine upon spiritual things. James the Apostle rose up and said it was nec- essary Christians should understand this age: in this age God was not seeking to convert the world, but was calling out from among the Gen- tiles a people for His name, a people to faith in the name of His Son; when this taking out was complete, when the Church number was filled up, the Lord would come back, would build up the nation of Israel; and in support of his testi- mony turned to the Old Testament, quoting from the prophet Amos, and thus from Amos pro- claimed that the Lord is coming a SECOND time. Paul writes to the Church at Rome that the whole creation is groaning and travailing in pain together until now. If you will put your ear to the bosom of the earth, the mother of us all, you will hear the moaning, the heaving sigh, the plash of tears, the tread of tragedy, the footstep and the voice of suffering; everywhere anguish and sorrow, heartache, mystery, confusion and in- creasing lamentation ; but, lo, the whole creation is on the tiptoe of expectation, waiting for the 26 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST manifestation of the sons of God, waiting for the Coming of the Son of God and His glory host; then shall creation break her bands of corruption, be delivered into the glorious liberty of the Son of God and flash on amid the rythmic splendors of the shining spheres. Thus shall this battle stained and sin scarred earth be delivered at the SECOND COMING of our Lord. He tells the Corinthian Church in the first chapter of the first epistle to see to it that they come behind in no gift, waiting for the Coming of the Lord. In the fifteenth chapter, in which every verse is like a string of pearls, he says the Lord is coming to waken the dust of those who sleep in His name. The trumpet shall sound, the dead shall be raised and the living changed; and this resurrection and transfiguration, it is af- firmed, will take place among those who are "Christ's at His Coming." He tells the Philippian Church that we who believe are citizens of a country which is in heaven ; from whence also we look for a Saviour, even our Lord Jesus Christ. He is coming to change these bodies of our limitation. (And lo| THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 27 we are limited, indeed). Here is a man with a will like iron and a body too weak to sustain it; a mind full of leaping desires and plans and high suggestions, and a body that cabins, cribs and confines them, a body full of tempermental and physical hindrances; but Paul says, Our Lord Jesus Christ is coming from heaven a second time and by His power, the same power by which He rose from the dead and upholds the universe, will change these bodies of our daily limitations and fashion them like unto the body of His glory. He assures the Colossians when Christ died on yonder cross we who believe, died with Him, and were put to death judicially in Him, as our representative and substitute. When He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, we rose and ascended in Him representatively. He is there as our life, our spiritual and eternal life. Our life is therefore hid in Him, and as He is hid in God, we are doubly hidden and secured in the deity of the Father and the Son; but Christ is coming forth: He is coming forth a second time and in glory, and therefore says 2§ THE SECOND COMING OF CHRISt Paul when He who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Paul's first epistle to the Churches was written to the Christians at Thessalonica. In his letter he commends them because they had turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God and to wait for His Son from heaven. He finds them sorrowing over their dead and not cer- tain as to what relation they should sustain to the Coming of the Lord; and he says to them they are not to sorrow as others which have no hope; but just so surely as these Christian dead have been put to sleep by Jesus, even as a mother puts her babe to sleep, so surely when He conies He will bring them with Him; and Paul says, I am saying this to you by a special revelation from the Son Himself, that when the Lord de- scends from heaven. He will do so with a shout, the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then these who are alive and remain shall be caught up to- gether with them in clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall they ever be with the Lord. He says the Coming will be like a thief in the THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST IQ night. In the first epistle to the Thessalonians he makes it plain tlie Lord is coming for the Church ; in the second epistle he shows that after He has come for His Church He will come witli her, and she shall be associated with Him in that hour of hours when He overthrows the man of sin, puts an end to the hierarchy of the Devil and brings in the reign of righteousness and peace. So full is the Apostle of this theme of the Second Coming that at the close of each chapter in both epistles he speaks of and describes it. To Timothy the young preacher, he writes and says: "Timothy, I am an old man now. 1 am n t