Well, here we go again? More challenges, more stress, less liberty, the military on standby, etc… The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes says “there’s nothing new under the Sun” and actually before the first Christmas they had a similar experience: though they didn’t know exactly when, many were longing for the Saviour to come just as was promised and suddenly He came!
We are waiting for Him to come back a second time, just as He promised, and when He does it we’ll enjoy the amazing new creation!
As we saw on Sunday morning from Rev ch 22, the great certainty of the New Testament is that we should expect Him to come soon and in the meantime view the world in which we live AND our experience of it from exactly that point of view:
“Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book.”
Rev 22:7
Yet that’s harder than it sounds because, as we considered: it’s already been about 2000 years so what does ‘soon’ mean?!
On point is from 2 Peter 3:8 “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”
But the other point is to understand the range of experience described through the book: from religious persecution to political challenges, from witnessing judgement to experiencing plague – all things that are common to believers at various times across the world at any given point of History – but who all share the same wonderful hope: He is coming soon!
In the coming disrupted weeks, let’s encourage one another to ‘keep the words of the prophecy in this book’ and be thoroughly blessed with the certain hope that Jesus will soon return!
Spencer Shaw