EAGER FOR THE END: One important Biblical prayer is “Lord, come quickly!”
- Revelation 22:20.
- The KJV has this verse as “come quickly.” What is the meaning there? We live in a world of heartache and turmoil. In many times down through the centuries the church has been under severe persecution. Looking at all that, the church cries out for the Return of Christ.
- (I think that the American church is less inclined in this direction than most of the church today and throughout history. Why? Because of our material prosperity and our religious freedom. That inclines us more in the direction of “it’s not too bad right now.”)
- As Christians we believe that Jesus is returning to earth someday. His second arrival will not be meek and mild as His first was. No, it will be the arrival of the Lion of Judah, coming to set things right and to defeat the forces of evil in the world.
- Unpack the implications of that.
- If for no other reason, the placement of this “come quickly” prayer makes it significant. Here we are at the end of the Bible in Revelation 22 and we have final words from John. That final prayer is for the return of Christ.
- This makes perfect sense. Our only hope of the world finally being made right is found in Jesus. That's why we pray in those moments, “Lord, come quickly!”
- But there are some aspects of this that we don’t always fully consider when we think about this. And that's what we want to focus on this evening.
WAIT A SECOND, THOUGH: Seeing horrific evil in the world can cause us to cry out for God’s judgment without thinking about where that may touch us.
- Ezekiel 30:3.
- As we go back to our passage for this evening, Ezekiel 30:1-4 is not a unique passage. It’s a judgment passage and in that way is like many Old Testament passages where God promises judgment.
- Verse 3 just kind of stood out to me and led me toward this sermon. This passage tells us that day is a day of doom. That's a day we need to take seriously.
- I want to say up front before getting down into the weeds a little bit that I do believe in the importance of the cry of Revelation 22. It’s ultimately our only hope for a redeemed world and for the judgment of evil in the world.
- But we need to think about the full implications of this idea.
- First, why is this an idea that doesn’t bother very many people in general? I think there are a host of reasons why.
a. People are caught up in living in the here and now so there is no thought to ultimate things.
b. We have an incredible ability to justify our own sins.
c. We are blind to the true extent of our own sins.
d. We are unaware of our culpability in many of the cultural sins.
- Example: materialism destroying the planet but we just keep buying cheap stuff.
e. We have a picture of God as a kindly grandfather who would never say a negative word to anyone.
f. Many have a great ignorance of God’s moral standards.
g. Many presume that the cultural standards are the ultimate moral standards.
h. The hypocrisy of the church has rendered obsolete people’s concern when Christians warn about Final Judgment.
i. The secular nature of society today.
j. Disbelief in the possibility of hell.
- Those are all true and important to understand about our culture in general.
- I want to spend the rest of the sermon, though, talking to us within the church, not to the unsaved.
- What is the danger here?
- The danger is that often when we cry out as Revelation 22 does we presume that it’s something that will impact the world around us without necessarily thinking about how it might impact us.
- That's what I want us to ponder tonight: how might this prayer impact us?
- I want to break my thoughts down into three points.
WHAT IS THE RIGHT APPROACH?
1. Rejoice that there is a day of accountability.
- Revelation 20:7-15.
- We need to start with the big idea: there is a day of judgment.
- Most of us at some point or another - probably pondering the worst thing we’ve ever done - have thought that we wished there wasn’t a day of judgment. I totally understand that as something that we would think.
- At a much bigger level, though, we want there to be a day of accountability.
- Imagine the alternative. There is lots of horrible evil that happens in the world and then when we all stand before God at the end, He just shrugs His shoulders and says, “What are you going to do?” That would be infuriating. The most obvious example would be seeing God look at the evil that Hitler did and then shrugging His shoulders and saying, “What are you going to do?”
- The key idea here is justice. We all have a deep yearning for justice, at least in the cosmic sense. One of the ways that we deal with the injustice and evil in the world now is that we hold onto a belief that there is a Final Judgment coming. Things will ultimately be made right.
- Even when we talk about the forgiveness of sins that is offered in Jesus, God does not excuse our sin or say it’s not a big deal. No, Jesus dying on the cross is a way for God’s love and God’s justice to coexist. God’s love wants to save us. God’s justice demands punishment for sin. When we say that “Jesus died in my place” we are speaking of the way that God brought His love and His justice together. Jesus paid the penalty for my sins, thus satisfying God’s justice. That opens the door for me to be able to grasp onto His love through the forgiveness of sins that He is offering.
- We should rejoice that we serve a God of justice.
2. We should take seriously the implications of divine judgment for my life.
- Romans 6:1-23; 1 Corinthians 3:10-15.
- We can think of the desire for Final Judgment with regard to the world in general without thinking about the fact that we are part of the world.
- “But wait, preacher, I’m a Christian so I don’t have to worry about that!” Well, you don’t have to be concerned about the Great White Throne Judgment but you do need to think about the Bema Judgment. That's the judgment discussed in 1 Corinthians 3 for Christians regarding their rewards.
- Unpack that passage.
- This is why we are to actively pursue what Paul writes about in Romans 6 - the transformation that is possible in Christ.
- Unpack that passage.
3. Don’t leave quietly unconfronted the “what I think is right for me is what’s ultimately right” attitude all around us.
- Ephesians 4:15.
- The point I want to end on - and this is one I’m sure you saw coming - is that we need to have a greater burden for the lostness of those around us.
- There are a lot of ways that I could state this but let me say it this way: there are a ton of people today who are living blissfully with the idea that their personal standard of right and wrong is the standard by which they will be judged. That, of course, is deeply untrue. We will all be judged by God’s standard, not our own.
- Most of us aren’t particularly good at confrontational evangelism. There are a few who are gifted at that.
- But we can gently push back on that “personal morality” idea. It’s something we need people to be thinking about, at least.
- Ephesians 4:15 tells us to speak the truth in love. We need more of that.
- Unpack what that might look like.
