- Many Yearn To Be Ready

There is no doubt in my mind, however, that millions of Christians in our day yearn within themselves to be ready to see the Lord when He appears. These are the saints of God who have a real understanding that what our Lord Jesus Christ is to us in our personal lives, moment by moment, is more important than merely dwelling always on what He did for us . A great segment of Christian theology emphasizes the utility of the cross on which Jesus died rather than the Person who died on that cross for our sins.

It may surely be observed that most present-day Christians regard redemption as a kind of cut-and-dried commodity—a commodity they may obtain whenever their minds happen to turn to it. Thus, the entire spiritual transaction takes place without emotional content, without spiritual lift and assurance.

So, for many there is no emotional yearning for the return of Jesus. The best hope they know is a kind of intellectual, theological hope. But an intellectual knowledge of what the New Testament teaches about the return of Christ is surely a poor substitute for a love-inflamed desire to look on His face!

Right here, let me tell you that people have different motives for whatever interest they have in the prophetic Scriptures. Some are just curious—humanly curious! They look upon all the minor details of prophecy as the details of an amazing jigsaw puzzle. They will spend much time and effort trying to put the various pieces together, hoping to be the first to arrive at some new prophetic twist or surprising suggestion. But that motive is improper where the promises and claims of our Lord Jesus Christ are concerned. To approach this book of Revelation simply out of curiosity is, in my judgment, close to sacrilege. I liken it to the interest some might have in examining the cerement, or grave cloth, in which the body of our Lord was wrapped for burial, or in chemically analyzing the blood that was shed for us on Calvary’s cross.