Final Setting - # 5.Why the need of the Second Coming of Jesus? This is not the first time I have been to three funerals in one year - two of which are family, an older brother and a younger sister. Wootton Bassett is very familiar having lived there for 10 years - and how that town has now come to represent the sorrow of the nation and the families bereaved by the loss of loved ones. Apart from victims of violence we can think of the millions in this world in a much worse situation than we have ever known or seen in our land - the TV brings it home to us all too frequently - the statesmen have been trying for centuries and will keep on trying to bring in that promised ‘New World Order’.
If Christmas means anything it means if Jesus came the first time he will keep his promise to come the second time - Matthew 28: 18-20; John 14:13. Every eye is going to see him, even those who pierced him Revelation 1:7, 8. Not a welcome site for many. But as John said back in his Gospel, in John 1:12, “yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave right to become children of God.”
Jesus came in human form to take the consequences for human sin and rebellion and died the eternal death in our place. The innocent died in place of the guilty, put simply, that was the purpose of the First Advent - Jesus came to give life to all who believe in God the Father and in his Son Jesus Christ (John 17:3). Jesus told us there is to be - a final setting “A new heaven and a new earth” where “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:1-5).
The Book of Revelation is a revelation of Jesus Christ given to the Apostle John (Revelation 1). In vision John gives us the final setting for our present world. The centre of all those heavenly wonders that John sees is the person who was unrecognised by the crowds down by the River Jordan and whom John the Baptist baptised. Comparing Queen Elizabeth in an informal setting against those settings of her being the centre of state pageantry and national grandeur really bears no comparison, a very poor analogy really to the unrecognised Jesus down at the Jordan River and then being seen worshipped as King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16). Said the Apostle John in Revelation 5:11-14,
“11Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. 12In a loud voice they sang:
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honour and glory and praise!”
13Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honour and glory and power,
for ever and ever!“”
That’s the final setting, all who have rejected Jesus Christ as Lord as well as those who have accepted him, will finally have to acknowledge him for who he is. The Apostle Paul says the same in Philippians 2:5-11. But only those who have accepted him as Lord in this life will enjoy eternity with him. “There will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new.” (Revelation 21:4, 5). The offer is open to all who will, who would want to turn it down?
