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Behold, I Am Coming Soon!

  Eschatology (es-kₔ-ta-le-jē) is the study of the end times. Reality television shows featuring doomsday preppers suggest an interest. Cached with pre-packaged food guaranteeing a twenty-five-year shelf life and constructing creatively structured bunkers, preppers plan to survive a nuclear holocaust or the lawless chaos of an economic meltdown.

  Indeed, the time is coming when this world in its present form will pass away (1 Corinthians 7:31). While some may “head for the hills” or pray for those hills to "cover” them (Luke 23:30), none will escape our Lord on Judgment Day. Our Lord’s call to remain spiritually prepped is obvious, since “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10). 

  Are we prepared for our Savior’s second advent? Some fear that day worse than any science fiction nightmare of a zombie apocalypse. Sin and unresolved guilt grip many with the terror of standing before a holy, righteous Judge. Such fear drives some to try to predict our Savior’s return. Perhaps they foolishly think that if they can calculate his second coming, they have time to tidy up their spiritual houses in God-pleasing order.

  When our Savior previewed the end of the age (Matthew 24), however, he didn’t so some could forecast the exact time of his return. Rather, by sharing these “signs of the end times,” Jesus urged constant watchfulness for his second arrival. The apostle Paul seconded vigilance to Jesus’ "Behold [“pay attention”], I am coming soon,” since our Savior will come like a “thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2).  

  Personal preparedness calls for Christians to daily repent of our sins of “thought, word and deed.” Paul pleads with the Day-denier ignoring the Savior’s soon return or our own death, because all will face God’s judgment (Hebrews 9:27) and there is no “second chance” in the afterlife (Luke 16:19-31), “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor and now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). Truly, even if Jesus does not return during our lifetimes, our judgment day will come soon since “the length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength” (Psalm 90:10). 

  Instead of fixating on the “when” then, by God’s grace through God’s word, the Holy Spirit keeps God’s preppers spiritually ready for his arrival. Our daily staple is the gospel, which feeds our faith with the Bread of Life who lived a perfect life to satisfy a heavenly Father’s demand for our perfection. The gospel shelters sinners with the absolute truth that Jesus completely paid for all our sins—in him…you and I are fully forgiven. The gospel comforts hurting hearts mourning the death of loved ones or fearing our own death because Jesus’ resurrection guarantees he conquered our sin and defeated our death to bless us with everlasting life. 

  That’s why living in the gospel’s state of grace, with the Holy Spirit’s gift of confident faith rooted in our hearts, we eagerly “lift up our heads” as we see signs of the end. As our final “redemption draws near” (Luke 21:28), there is no need hoping to escape. By God’s grace we have “no fear” of our Savior who promises, "Behold, I am coming soon!” (Revelation 22:7)