Endure Suffering with Patience until Jesus Returns
What Revelation Does and Does Not Tell Us
It may be that many people approach the book of Revelation with the assumption that somehow, as they look at the book, it's going to give them a better sense of when Jesus is going to return and how they can watch for signs for when it's going to happen.
I think Revelation is actually not about that. I think Revelation is not about when Jesus is going to return. More—far more—significantly, Revelation is about who you and I are to be as we live in this world, waiting for Jesus to return.
Blessed
Nancy Guthrie
Blessed, by bestselling author and speaker Nancy Guthrie, gives individuals and small groups a friendly, theologically reliable, and robust guide to understanding the book of Revelation.
The book of Revelation is calling us, over and over again, to patient endurance. But it does give us some pictures of what this world is going to be like when Jesus returns. Jesus came the first time as a shepherd, but Revelation shows us that when he comes again, he's going to come as the divine warrior.
Maybe this is the part of Revelation that some people don't like so much, because Jesus is pictured with the blood of his enemies on his garments. Jesus is going to come again as King. And when he comes, he's going to destroy his enemies and he's going to save his people. This is the beauty of the book of Revelation, because it has both. Jesus is going to deal with all of those who have hated him and his people.
Jesus is going to come again as King.
He's going to deal with the evil in the world and he's going to deal with it by innocence, burning it away by cleansing this world, cleansing it for a great purpose. He's cleansing it because he's making it into the new creation that all those who are joined to him by faith are going to be invited into.
So I think what Revelation is meant to do—rather than get us thinking about when he's going to return—is to instill in us a longing for that day. It’s to instill in us a longing for Jesus to return, a longing for him to judge his enemies with justice and righteousness and to protect and provide for his people and to lead them as the King of Kings and as the Lamb into the new creation that will have been cleansed of all unrighteousness—a new creation in which he's going to dwell with us face-to-face in an eternal marriage, in an abundant garden that's going to last forever.
Nancy Guthrie is the author of Blessed: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Revelation.
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