Talk of JESUS .com

Category: In these last days… Revelation

He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. Revelation 5:7
His Authority to Judge

In these last days – The Revelation of Jesus Christ

to John.

– IS HE TALKING TO US?

– How does CHRIST’s Revelation written to seven first century churches apply to you + millennia later in the 21st century of the Common Era?

What should we expect any DAY now?

– Do YOU have the boldness to SHARE the revealed ending [apocalypses] to your SOCIAL friends?

Take a glimpse and tell us what you think about the apocalypse revealed by the risen Christ Jesus to the Apostle John. THEN SHARE God’s WARNINGS with a comment added to Talk of JESUS .com

  • Who Is It?

    Who Is It?

    A knock at the door:

    What is your first thought?

    ‘Who is it?’ your mind rapidly asks. “Who is it?’ your voice may even inquire loudly?

    Perhaps you know who to expect and will just open the door to welcome your guest. Or in a more hostile environment you might even ask, ‘Friend or foe?’

    The door stands as the remaining barrier between you and the unseen ‘friend or foe,’ the known guest or unknown visitor who has come to meet you face to face in the place where you live.

     “Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” invites the painting which does grace the walls of many homes and houses of worship.

    The friendly guest is none other than the Lord, Jesus.

    I have heard a sermon or two using the illustration of Jesus at the door – some based on the actual scripture; other messages from the pulpit using the picture to illustrate other applications of other scriptures.

    (Personally, I had forgotten for a moment the source of this scene.) The author, through the Spirit, is not an unexpected guest to the Apostle. The context, perhaps a bit unexpected for this tranquil scene, is the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John.

    The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John…

    3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

    Greeting to the Seven Churches

    4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

    Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.

    To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

    7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

    8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

     

    The Apostle John then describes his vision and prophesy from the Risen Christ Jesus and continues with Christ’s word to each of seven churches.

    STOP. Do not be deceived for an instant that this Revelation of Christ Jesus does not apply to you and me (even though addressed to ‘seven churches of Asia’ in the first century).

    We are the church – the churches of Christ Jesus in this day.  The Revelation is timely to Christ’s Church worldwide (catholic, universal, orthodox, protestant, Greek, Roman, etc.): ALL who are true Christians, faithful to our One Lord, who IS faithful and true.

    Behold, it is Christ who knocks at the door.

    Look! See the Word of scripture. Listen to the Voice of Jesus.

    What is your answer to His word to each of the seven churches? [See Revelation 2-3]

    To the Church in Laodicea

    [He has kept this Revelation until last for the seven churches.]

    14 “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.

    15 “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot.

    Is Jesus (at the door of your heart) a friend?

    OR is Jesus, the Amen and final Judge of all souls, a foe?

     “I know your works,” says the Lord.

    He knows our love. (OR He knows our lack of love.)

    He knows our faith or lack of faith.

    He knows our service for Him or our lack of fruit for His Kingdom.

    Imagine that our risen Lord Jesus comes to your door and confronts you with this:

    Would that you were either cold or hot!

    16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold,

    I will spit you out of my mouth.

     

     To be continued…

     

  • No More Tears

    No More Tears

    Each man (especially analytic types of men and women like me) will consider sin and judgment, punishment and grace, in the light of heaven and eternal life. Few will give much consideration to our own possibility of judgment followed by eternal punishment: after all, have we not each chosen our sin knowing the consequence of death?

    Death (the elephant in the room, as an older sister called it) is not much spoken of by sinners or even by the forgiven. Eternal life is mentioned by those covered by the grace of the Cross as a given, often not in light of the consequence of our present fruit of grace. So few christians consider that we may indeed be the fruitless branch the Gardner will prune to give more abundant life to the remaining branches in need of more fruit, namely, the fruit of the Spirit.

    My dear brothers and sisters, how we long for the place of eternal joy and the heaven where there shall be no more tears.

    The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John illustrates a tender scene of those who have come out of the great tribulation.

    Revelation 7

    15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God,

    and serve him day and night in his temple;
    and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
    16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
    the sun shall not strike them,
    nor any scorching heat.
    17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
    and he will guide them to springs of living water,
    and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

     

    How can there be no more tears?

    When my beloved wife died, I endured many days of mourning with many tears. When your child dies young or before you, you will mourn your loss with many tears.  When your life-long friend or your relative of your own blood and flesh and ancestry dies and leaves you here on your own, you will mourn and miss the wonderful times with many tears.

    Yet the hope of the eulogy is that we will be reunited with our loved ones in heaven. How can that be?

    Only through the grace of Christ Jesus and His Cross of sacrifice for our sins.

    Those, and only those, who have place their souls in the hands of the Lord will already have made their place in eternity with us. What a joyous reunion with lost loved ones it will be!

    Many place their hope of heaven falsely in their own goodness or in the ultimate goodness of God that a loving God will not punish our sin with eternal torment and the second death.  We will not see these in heaven, nor even remember the days of their flesh and sin.

    Some, even relatives and near loved ones, expound unfounded hope that death of the flesh is death of the soul – the end. It is not. The Bible and the words of Christ Jesus are clear that the death of the flesh is only the death of the flesh.

    Do you really believe that you are not more than the flesh and bones and brain of your body? Is your meaning of death brain-dead or death of the heart (as if you can observe the very death of who you are as created by God for this temporal body)?

    Do you really think that you are not a soul? Do you not understand that you are not part of the earth anymore than you are part of your bones and blood and flesh?

    Who are you?

    You are a soul, created by God with a body.  Who are angels? Not spirits from bodies, but souls created only with a spirit and no body such as given to man. Yet the Bible is clear that when a man dies, our spirit does not die. The Bible is also clear that our spirit will receive a resurrected body – a risen body – to join once more with our spirit eternal in Christ.

    Without dwelling on the punishment of hell for those who refuse in this short life to come to Christ and follow Jesus in His new righteousness for us, I have often thought of Heaven and how my joy may finally return. It seems that Judgment demands the punishment of the souls of some, even many I love. If I miss these in some way already, how can I not miss these loved ones destined for Hell after I am taken up to Heaven by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ?

    ALL will pass away: every body, every soul, even the earth will pass away into an end and a judgment and a new untainted sinless life with God OR destruction in punishment.  Yet some, in Christ, will have no more tears… no more suffering from the sin of this world.

    Revelation 21:

    Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

    And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

    And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

    He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

    How can there be ‘no more tears?”

    The answer would seem that we will no more remember them.

    We will not remember that sinful relative, that fun person who reveled in sin at the expense of heaven. We will not remember that friend who clung to Buddha or Muhammad or ancient idolatry of ancestry to reject the grace of Jesus Christ as Lord. As nice and good as these all seemed – as much as we loved these – there is only one way we, of the new heaven and the new earth will not miss them.

    We will remember them no more, forever.

    No more tears.

    Thanks to our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, God with us. We are with Him, forever.

  • A Calm with the Storm

    A Calm with the Storm

    Take note of the calm following a storm of winter. A God-imposed calm in the places of hustle and bustle stills the plans and activities of man. Snow covers the streets and does not relent. His blanket of purity glistens upon the rooftops and signposts. Innumerable distinct flakes of cleansing whiteness fall on all creation not covered, all creatures and dirt of life’s daily dirge.

    A poet may speak of the calm before the storm or a painter glisten the canvas with a scene frozen in time, but God only interrupts our imaginings of daily life, our comings and our goings, our breathing in and breathing out. Only God does bring the storm and only God does cleanse the creation. Only God has brought the tempest. Only God does bring the calm.

    From the boat of fisherman on Chinnereth or from above the lower heavens known to man, God does stir the sea, calm the storm, bring in the tempest of wrath and set still the storm of bright cleansing.

    Psalm 107:29 He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

    As it is and was, it will always be. The Lord giveth and the Lord takest away. So even with the storm and the cleansing. So even with the earth and the cleansing.

    Revelation 15 And I saw another sign in the heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.

    And I saw as if it were a sea of glass mingled with fire…