December 27, 2020
Coming Events – Revelation 19:10-19
Dr. Larry S. Lightner
Worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. –Revelation 19:10
While we have spent the last weeks in our devotional reading, looking at Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace—all linked to the character and person of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—there is more to come. The Advent is not finished.
We can find, in Scriptures, the indications and declarations of the Second Coming of Christ. The prophecies related to the End Times are quickly coming upon the world. Today we will look at some of the biblical indications of what is to come and the inferences of the order of the prophecies to come.
Just a thought: what would it be like to be able to look over God’s shoulder to get a peek at His prophetic calendar? Actually, we can do that very thing—we find what we need to know in our Scriptures. We will not get the exact dates and times, but we can study the Scriptures and pretty much determine the order of events to come. The next great event in prophecy will be the Rapture. Every coming event will speak to our Advent period of Hope Still. Let’s look briefly at two of these events.
The Rapture
We do not find the word rapture in our English Bible. The term comes from the Latin rapio, meaning caught up. It is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. The rapture has not yet occurred; however, nothing prevents its occurrence to come very quickly.
In John 14:1-6, Jesus clearly says that those who will take part in the rapture are those who have chosen to believe in Him while alive on the earth. Christ “catches up “His followers from the earth to live with Him in heaven to escape the hour of testing (tribulation) that we read of in Revelation 3:10.
Jesus steps out of heaven, comes with a shout, and the bodies of the dead in Christ rise, along with the living who are in Christ. It takes place in the twinkling of an eye. Believers exchange their bodies for new heavenly bodies and will live in the presence of Jesus forever (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
It is a great message of Hope Still for those who follow Christ. It is an Advent message.
The Judgement Seat of Christ
In the Roman empire, the arenas had raised platforms as places for officials to view, judge, and reward, called the bema seat. Paul uses the term in 2 Corinthians 5:10, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
For the believer, this is not a seat assessing salvation, but to assess the life lived on earth as a believer. Any work done for “self-elevation” will be burned up as sticks for a fire (1 Corinthians 3:13).
Thus, the believer will experience the final act of their purification. Believers receive the reward of crowns, while Christ receives those crowns back at His feet so that the glory goes to God.
It is a great message of Hope Still for those who follow Christ. It is an Advent message.
Life Application
When we come together for worship in the Advent season and reach Christmas Day, we will discover that Advent is not yet done. There is more to learn and apply to our lives. We have the history of pre-Advent events. We have the Advent events themselves. We have the grand conclusion of the birth of the Christ Child.
So, the events lead us to where? They lead us to see what God is going to do with all this. We do not like very much that the truth of Christ’s birth was to come to die. It takes away from all the sparkly days we have been celebrating during our Advent season.
He is born, He is born to die. But there is more. He dies to be raised from the dead. It is a brutal death. Yet, it is a death that compliments Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace. Without His death and resurrection, we would have no Hope Still. Without Hope Still we would be left floundering and fretting about our future.
That is not the kind of great God we have. He honors the Hope He established. He makes us participants in His Love, Joy, and Peace. He brings conclusion to His plan and purpose for us as He comes to “fetch” us home, and to present us as clean vessels to bring Him glory.
So . . . the question that comes is a frequent one. How then should we live? The Scriptures bring the answers plainly. Let’s be found in them.
Prayer
- Pray for yourself that God would help you live a life that speaks of the gift of Christ to everyone, so that all might come to Him and never perish.
- Pray for your church that God would find her faithful in these days of world distraction and chaos.
