"I AM COMING QUICKLY"

(I am currently writing a series on the last two chapters of the Bible. These chapters are the only two in the entire Bible that are dedicated exclusively to telling us what eternity will be like for the believers in Christ)
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“Behold, I am coming quickly,” Jesus told John. “Blessed is he who heeds the prophecy of this book (Revelation 22:7 NAS).

John wrote these words some two thousand years ago, and Jesus has not yet come. This is not our idea of the word “quickly.” Nevertheless, there are very many of us who still take Jesus at his word and believe he is returning, just as he promised multiple times in the Bible. Are we foolish to do so?

There are people who ridicule these words of Jesus. Perhaps you have not heard anyone mock this statement outwardly, but certainly, the priorities of the lives of many people demonstrate that they do not believe what Jesus said. This should not be surprising to any of us. After all, we were told by the Apostle Peter that we might expect this to happen.

Peter said, “Know this first of all, that in the last days scoffers will come with their mocking, following after their own sinful desires. They will be saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? Ever since the ancestors died, everything continues just as it was from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:3-4).

Peter’s response to these doubts is that the people who think in this way, simply do not consider the entire scope of the history of the earth into their view of reality. Not only is this assessment of the history of the earth wrong, it is an assessment of pessimism and doom, as voiced in the book of Ecclesiastes: 

   All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full.

   To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again.

   All things are wearisome; man is not able to tell it.

   The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled
 with hearing. 

   That which has been is that which will be,

   And that which has been done is that which will be done

   So there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:7-9 NAS) 

New Things Under the Sun

The true fact is however, everything has not continued as it was from the beginning.(to continue, press READ MORE below)

THE REVELATION

(I am currently writing a series on the last two chapters of the Bible. These chapters are the only two in the entire Bible that are dedicated exclusively to telling us what eternity will be like for the believers in Christ)

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We are coming near to the end of the book of Revelation – indeed to the end of the entire body of the revealed word of God. John is preparing to conclude his writings of what will become the final book of the Bible. From this point in the book of Revelation, verse six of the twenty-second chapter until the end of the book, John tells us no more of what he has seen in this vision of the new heavens and earth, or more of what he saw in the New Jerusalem. This final portion of his book can be considered an epilogue of his vision.

In verse six, John writes this: “He said to me, ‘These words are faithful and true.’”

To know who the “He” is, that is, who it was who told John that the words are faithful and true, we must return to what we might call the prologue of these two chapters, when John first began to have his vision of heaven and of the throne room of God. There, the one speaking is identified as the “Alpha and the Omega,” the same way that Jesus identified himself in the very beginning of the book of Revelation (1:18). The Alpha and the Omega are the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet, and by identifying himself as these letters, Jesus is indicating that he is the beginning of all that there is, and he is also the conclusion of it all.

John wrote of Jesus in the beginning of his vision of the throne room of God, “He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new…Write, for these words are faithful and true’” (Revelation 21:5 NAS)

This twice repeated phrase by the one who sits on the throne, “These words are faithful and true,” speak of the certainty of what John saw. (to continue, please press the READ MORE button below)