THE KING IS COMING!

His still, small voice spoke into my slumbering mind this morning, “The King is Coming!” I told the lady in my dream, “I don’t trust dreams or visions or extra-biblical predictions. You never know where or from whom they come!” I turned over, hoping to return to slumber. “The King is Coming!” the words grew more insistent. 

Adrenaline raised my heart rate with a river of stimulating thoughts. I turned to the woman in my dream and said, “I don’t make this up! I know what the Bible says, I listen to the news, and I observe signs of His promised return.” My eyes slowly opened at 6:45, and hope of more sleep only left me tossing and turning.

All week I had prayed for inspiration to write my next blog, but nothing came. Was this God’s message? An hour later, I bowed before the King, asking for a heart of obedience and for His sweet grace to flow through me to you.

So, I tell you, the King is coming! Jesus said no one knows the day or the hour, but He did not say we won’t know the month, the season, or the year, did He? That sounds dangerously presumptuous, I know, so I’m not telling you out loud what I think about the time, but I know it is dangerously and gloriously close!

At any moment, a reality beyond all imagination will come with a loud command from heaven, and a trumpet blast that shakes the heavens and the earth! Paul tells the believers, Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed (1Co 15:51-53).

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words (1Th 4:16-18).

When the King arrives to sweep His Bride away to His Father’s house, He has already exchanged the filthy rags of her self-righteousness for the radiant wedding gown of His own pure and holy righteousness. As the Bride awaits her Prince, she alone will hear the voice of the archangel and the trumpet call. To all other earth dwellers, this event will occur as silently as a thief.

The Apostle Paul tells us, Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief (1Thes 5:1-4).

Scoffers of this event ironically produce one sure sign of the very thing they deny. Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, ‘Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation’ (2Pe 3:3-4).

Then Peter tells us these people deliberately forget about the flood that destroyed the earth and warns them that next time, God will destroy the earth and the ungodly by fire.

These scoffers and deceivers kicked out the foundations and pillars of our faith in biblical inerrancy long ago with the steel-tipped boots of human intellectualism. If we won’t trust the Bible, we can make up whatever we want to believe. No hell, no heaven, no justice. The enemy masquerades as an angel of light to convince people that God would never send anyone to hell, and everyone goes to heaven on their own good works.

The truth stands that God is not willing that anyone should perish (Mat 18:14). That is why He sent His Son to die in our place. By receiving that gift, He gives us eternal life (Jn 3:16-17). No one comes to the Father unless His Holy Spirit graciously draws them (Jn 3:5), and no one comes to the Father except through the blood sacrifice on their behalf by the Son. Pure love and amazing grace! The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit (1Co 2:14).

So that’s the message: The King is coming! He graciously offers to reconcile us to Himself by His shed blood. He comes to take us to Himself, and after that, all hell will break loose on this earth. People scoff at this message today, but scoffers made fun of Noah, too, until it started to rain.

I wanted to write a sweet little devotional or page-turning story to encourage you to trust God and relax despite the global pandemic. I desired to speak peace amid relentless and unprecedented flooding, especially in China and India. I wanted to inspire courage to face the increased intensity and volume of lightning, fires, fire tornados, and heatwaves in California and around the world. When hailstones wreak havoc in city after city, powerful, wind-packed storms topple trees, and take out power,* I wanted to write about comfort.

All the weather patterns, disasters, and social unrest multiply exponentially and need a healing balm! Yet, for whatever reason, my mind and heart drew toward the coming of the King today.

*_{Notes taken from “Special Report” by John Traczyk on facebook.com}