P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

CLONING THE SECOND COMING

Would you like to help Jesus come again? Sometimes in my Adventist denomination we talk about “hastening” the Second Coming . . . and actually, that’s a biblical concept mentioned in II Peter chapter 3:

“What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness? Looking for AND HASTING unto the coming of the day of God.”

The NIV says: “As you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.” We want to return to this idea of “hastening,” of “helping” our Savior return sooner than scheduled, but there was an interesting item on the Internet a while back about some folks who really thought that Jesus Christ, King of kings, couldn’t make His return trip without their help. Here’s the story:

“The Second Coming Project is a not-for-profit organization devoted to bringing about the Second Coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ, as prophesied in the Bible, in time for the 2000th anniversary of His birth.”

Now, so far so good. The Voice of Prophecy would be glad to go in halves on an endeavor like that one. But here’s just a bit more:

“Our intention is to clone Jesus, utilizing techniques pioneered at the Roslin Institute in Scotland, by taking an incorrupt cell from one of the many Holy Relics of Jesus’ blood and body that are preserved in churches throughout the world, extracting its DNA, and inserting into an unfertilized human egg (oocyte), through the now-proven biological process called nuclear transfer. The fertilized egg, now the zygote of Jesus Christ, will be implanted into the womb of a young virginal woman (who has volunteered of her own accord), who will then bring the baby Jesus to term in a second Virgin Birth. If all goes according to plan, the birth will take place on December 25, 2001, thus making Anno Domini 2001 into Anno Domini Novi 1, and all calendrical calculations will begin anew.”

Well, we shift uneasily in our seats, I’m sure, but here’s a concluding paragraph, and then we’ll gladly escape to the sure Word in GOD’S Word. Back to this rather suspect Internet item:

“Throughout the Christian world are churches that contain Holy Relics of Jesus’ body: His blood, His hair. Unless every single one of these relics is a fake, this means that cells from Jesus’ body still survive to this day. We are already making preparations to obtain a portion of one of these relics, extract the DNA from one of its cells, and use it to clone Jesus.” And notice this: “No longer can we rely on hope and prayer, waiting around futilely for Jesus to return. We have the technology to bring Him back right now: there is no reason, moral, legal, or Biblical, not to take advantage of it. In order to save the world from sin, we must clone Jesus to initiate the Second Coming of the Christ.” And it’s tagged: Norfolk Genetic Information Network, 9 March 2001.

Well, friend, I’m glad to say that subsequent research proved the entire proposal to be nothing more than a hoax, yet another “urban legend,” as we call them these days. Some of us preachers have lost more than one good sermon illustration to the web sites that debunk these stories. But as we begin this brand new radio series, BEHOLD, HE COMES!, I have to ask immediately: does Jesus need “help”? Is the only hope of a Second Coming for a geneticist to make a new “Jesus” from some DNA off a scrap of fingernail? Is there no other way? This fictional web site lamented: “No longer can we rely on hope and prayer, waiting around futilely for Jesus to return.” And it’s true: Christians have been hoping and praying AND waiting . . . for 2000 years now. Is it a futile waiting? Is it sheer delusion to keep looking up into the eastern sky, to keep trusting in the many promises of the Bible? Is cloning – and getting some backup “Jesus” out of a genetic lab – our only hope of ever meeting the Messiah from Nazareth again? Are rocket ships and intergalactic travel mankind’s only way of getting to this ethereal place called “heaven”?

Well, friend, we’re going to spend the next three weeks right here in the reliable Word of God thinking about this one thing: the Second Coming of Jesus. Not by DNA, not by gene splicing, but by looking up into the clouds of heaven and hearing a great trumpet blast, and then seeing the original Jesus, the eternal Lord, the everlasting and pre-existing and forever triumphing Redeemer Himself coming to take us home.

It’s interesting . . . we were poking around in the archives and found a dust-covered book, circa 1955, by the founder of this radio ministry. I was just a kid in Saskatchewan back then, but Pastor H. M. S. Richards, Senior, had already been preaching right here on this radio for 25 years. And there was a sermon included entitled “He SAID He’d Come.” HE. Jesus. Not a reconstituted Savior, but the real one. And Pastor Richards goes on in this great message to point out that, really, if we don’t think Jesus Christ is alive and ABLE to come again – HIMSELF, not a substitute – then the entire fabric and framework of our Christian faith implodes right there.

For example: do you and I believe that Jesus was and is the Son of God? He can’t come back from heaven to earth if He’s not that. Do we believe in the Resurrection? Do we believe that there is forgiveness of our sins – which gives Him a purpose for returning? Do we believe in a place called heaven? Do we believe in the final and total defeat of Satan and his forces?

I could go on and on, but why don’t I just give you a paragraph right here from Pastor Richards’ original sermon? This is so very powerful:

“If Christ is God, His second advent is a certainty,” he writes. “If He is NOT God, it naturally will never take place. In the days of the apostles the test of faith in Christ was belief in the first advent, belief that Christ had come. In these latter days the test of faith in Christ is faith in His second advent, belief that Christ will come again personally, literally, and visibly.”

I think this is a point many in the Body of Christ have maybe lost sight of. We believe that Jesus IS the divine Son of God – which immediately tells us He has both the power and the purpose to return. The disciples were tested on the question of believing He HAD come; you and I will be tested on whether or not we hold onto our faith that He will come again.

But now, here’s the rest of the thought, where Pastor Richards takes us right through this dynamic framework, this solid, superior structure of beliefs, all hinging on the Second Coming of Jesus. Listen to this:

“But when a man says, ‘Yes, I believe in the personal, literal, bodily, glorious coming of our Lord and Savior in the clouds of heaven,’ you KNOW what he believes on all the other points of doctrine. He believes that the Bible is inspired and means what it says. He believes that Christ is God and that He is not only willing to keep His promise to come back to earth and take His people, but is also able to do it. He believes in Christ’s atoning sacrifice upon the cross and His resurrection from the dead — the two great reasons for His return. O yes, the truth of Christ’s second coming is a great testing truth today, because it rules out at once all so-called liberalism or modernism — or, as we might say, all doubt, skepticism, and unbelief in the Word of God.”

There’s a book in our offices written by a rather well-known liberal scholar. And the writer has a keen mind. But it becomes plain early on that he does not believe in the Second Coming of Jesus. And do you know what else? He really doesn’t believe in the Bible; he doesn’t believe in miracles; he doesn’t believe in the Resurrection or the hope of life after death. And when you get right down to it, he doesn’t believe that God is anything more than a kind of “the Ground of all Being,” and Jesus a good man who epitomized mankind’s restless search for that inner truth. God is without personality; He’s not a person you can pray to, Jesus is not a living Friend you can appreciate and love, and heaven is certainly not a place with a front gate you can ever walk through. When the Second Coming goes, it all goes.

And friend, do you know what? This bestselling theologian might be right. He actually might be right. But I’m going to say right here that I am betting my career and my destiny and my ETERNITY on the biblical conviction that he ISN’T right. I believe that the Bible is right. And when the Bible tells us more than 300 times in the New Testament that Jesus is coming back, I believe the Bible.

I think back on a day on this planet when a very real Man, who had 11 special friends, said to them: “Don’t worry. Don’t let your hearts be troubled. I – Me, your friend Jesus, not some delegate or substitute, but ME – I will come again. So that where I am, there you can be too.”

It all falls apart, or it all comes together . . . depending on whether or not you believe that promise.