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Coming with the Clouds

• We do know that Jesus is coming back.
• Jesus acknowledged that the kingdom would be God’s even though He would be ruler.
• People will see Jesus as He really is. There will be absolute proof that God is real. Everyone – even those that pierced Him – even those who do not believe – will know that Jesus is the only way to salvation.
• Not everyone will be glad to see Jesus come.
• We should experience this event with grateful acceptance.

• When we hear the words Jesus is coming back, what is our gut response? Do we say come now, or do we say can you hold off a bit? The answer tells a lot about our spiritual condition at the time.

Glossary

Kingdom of God

Coming in Glory

•  Jesus will return in honor and glory provided by His Father. 
• The Second Coming is going to be totally different than Jesus’ first coming. There won’t be any humble surroundings as a defenseless child. King Jesus is going to come in all the might and power bestowed on Him by His Father.
• God honored Jesus because He humbly agreed to His part of the Plan of Salvation. Now, God probably had the easy part – designing it.

•  Jesus, as God, has glory of His own. Jesus is coming in His glory as Mediator.
• We shame Christ when we compromise with the world. And ooo, baby, is the world ever stressing that is what disciples need to compromise!
• It is sad that unbelievers think they can demand that God fall into line with their opinions and goals. They ignore the authority their Creator has over them.
• We shame Christ when we try to hold onto our pet sin.
• When we endure in God’s Will, we will appear with Jesus in glory.
• If we are ashamed of Christ, He will be ashamed of us. We will be sentenced accordingly.
• Being a disciple of Christ’s means sacrificing. We are called to be living sacrifices.
• When Jesus comes again, He will come with angels.
• We can look at the Second Coming in two ways. It is either going to be a revelation or a disaster. How it affects us will depend upon our spiritual condition.
• We prepare for Jesus’ Second Coming by shedding the sinful nature and embracing God’s righteousness.

Glossary

Sin

Bringing His Saints with Him

•  Jesus will bring back with Him the souls of His disciples who have already passed.
• We will be judged in the end.
• Being pure and holy isn’t a result of His coming – we are already that because our love for Him covers our sins.
• We are to live for Christ for He is our life.

• We know Jesus’ name was not mentioned in the Old Testament, but there are many prophecies that speak of Him. He was hiding in plain sight.
• The dead will share in the Second Coming of Christ, just as the living will.
• Christ’s resurrection ensures the resurrection of all His saints, not just those living at the time.
• We just know that the dead have to be with Jesus now in order for Him to bring them with Him then.
• We don’t get preferential treatment because Jesus comes when we are alive.
• Jesus Himself mourned the death of Lazarus – even when He knew He was going to raise Him from the dead. He wants us to comfort the mourning.

The Noise of the Second Coming

•  Jesus is going to give a cry of command.
• It isn’t going to take much to call the church home to Heaven. All Jesus will have to do is shout.
• If Jesus was like us before, but we are going to be changed to be like Him, then that means He is no longer like us.
• The last thing Jesus did on the cross was utter a great cry.
• The archangel will take up the cry.
• The archangel could be relaying Jesus’ command to the holy ones with Him. Then again, he could be acting as a herald to announce His arrival to the earth.
• If the Second Coming starts with a shout, it is a shout of joy. That would be because Jesus is coming for God’s children.

What Happens to the Redeemed?

• The dead rise first to be reunited with their souls.
• When we get right down to it, does the order of resurrection really matter? Probably not. In the end, it will probably look like it occurs simultaneously.
• Our acceptance of death is important to our walk as a disciple. It helps us learn discipline and control.
• Jesus was obedient even unto death. Should less be expected of us?

• Death was one of the major results of sin. To show that disciples live after death is a very graphic way of showing God’s superiority over sin. Plus, resurrection does not occur if we are not dead.
• The dead and the living are caught up together. There are no levels in Heaven. We get back on equal footing, then go the rest of the way together.
• Paul’s use of the words caught up make it see that it is sudden – and easy. We won’t be resisting because we are scared of what is happening.
• The clouds may mean our visible sky. The dead and the living could meet Jesus in the air, meaning space.
• All saints will gain their eternal bodies – in whatever form that takes. When we have ABCDed, we will spend eternity with Jesus.
• Our goal is to be holy and blameless before God.
• We go from a sinful nature to a pure and holy nature. True, we will only find perfect freedom from sin when we are perfected in Heaven. Still, eternal life starts now when we focus on the quality of our life with God. Eternal life is really addressing the wellbeing of our soul.

•  Our relationship with God will be much different for eternity than it is now.
• We will be with God for eternity as He reveals Himself to us and as we worship him continually. We have to open the eyes of our hearts in faith until we can see Him face to face.
• On the Day of the Lord, all God’s promises will be fulfilled.

The Change of Rapture

• Disciples – both living and dead – will be changed to possess our eternal bodies.
• This change is going to be into our glorified condition. In other words, we are going to get our eternal bodies – in whatever form that is going to take.

• Our bodies aren’t going to be the only thing that is changed. Our minds, feelings, opinions, and conditions will also be changed.
• Since this is going to happen when we meet Jesus in the air, this will happen before judgment.
• The reason for the change is because sin cannot enter Heaven.
• We cannot inherit the kingdom of God when our sinful nature rules us. We can’t enter His glory in eternity unless we have conquered our sinful nature. We only do that by ABCDing and navigating the Sanctification Road. That is where the initial part of the change comes into play. We have to be changed so that we can be pure and holy to enter Heaven.
• It is more than just cutting out the evil. We have to replace it with God’s attributes.
• More importantly, it begins the change in us now. We become as Jesus is.
• We have to put off our corruptibility and mortality – sinfulness – for incorruptibility and immortality – purity.

•  We have to see this as a victory. Taking our place in eternity is a victory because we conquer death.
• Having faith for the unseen will eventually be rewarded with sight.
• We think eternity means we become totally perfect. This makes it sound that we will be exactly where we end up here in this life. We won’t get an automatic upgrade. But I don’t think it means a one-size-fits-all level of faith. I think we remain where we are when we are taken off the Sanctification Road.

Glossary

Faith

Salvation in the Second Coming

• Our condition is to die because of our sin.
• Some think of death as a sentence, an extinction. That is understandable if they do not consider all souls are eternal.
• The whole purpose of the Plan of Salvation was so that Jesus could sacrifice Himself for us. He came to be the substitute for us.
• We will be judged for sin. Judgment is God’s vengeance. God has assigned that duty to Jesus.
• We will be judged on the gospel.
• All will be judged – but we don’t always remember that. We think being a disciple helps us escape judgment. It doesn’t.
• Sin, at its root, is disobedience to God. That is why it hurts so much to remove sin from our lives. It is deeply imbedded into our very beings.
• Christ and the salvation He brought the first time He came delivered us from our sin, but His Second Coming isn’t going to deal with our sin.
• Jesus isn’t coming back to die again.
• This time Jesus isn’t going to deal with sin. He is going to judge. At the Second Coming, He is going to judge whether we have genuinely ABCDed and navigated the Sanctification Road. That is why it is important that we don’t wait for salvation.
• Sin has an important role in preparing us for eternity. It teaches us discipline and shows us the need for repentance. This strengthens our prayer lives. Moreover, it teaches us voluntary sacrifice.
• Christ will bring salvation to those who are waiting on Him.

• Disciples are told to watch and wait for Jesus’ Second Coming. We have to prepare ourselves for His return.
• We have to be looking for Christ, not looking for Him to fix everything that is wrong with this world.

• We have to make sure our relationship with God is where God wants it to be.
• We want Jesus to find us regenerated and working out our salvation.
• Our connecting with Jesus will be in proportion to our faith.
• If this world is going to keep on spinning without His Church in it, Jesus is going to leave it as it is. He is just going to remove His Church.

Glossary

Salvation

Being Prepared for Jesus’ Second Coming

•  Jesus will refine us until He returns so that we can be purified.
• Jesus’ Second Coming isn’t a big deal for us unless we believe God is real, Jesus is the way to obtain salvation, and we will be punished if we don’t have that salvation. That is what faith is — belief in the unseen. We believe even though we don’t understand.
• Yes, there is a lot of uncertainty in the Second Coming. But it proves the point that we just have to be ready.
• It isn’t about us and what we know or don’t know. It is about us watching for Jesus to return — and longing to see Him face to face. It is about us believing anyway.
• Jesus will return as Judge and King. He isn’t going to take excuses – even from disciples.
• Success in enduring in our faith will be rewarded with the crown of life — eternal life.
• We have to endure until the Day of the Lord. Yes, part of that is suffering patiently.

•  We either endure in our faith or we don’t. There is no middle ground.
• Judgment for non-believers and Matthew 7: 21 people will not be pretty.
• The Church thinks it knows things it doesn’t. We have been taught incorrectly for whatever reason — mainly to make sure it falls in line as we want.
• Refining is needed to purify us.
• God discloses Himself in more ways than presenting Himself before us. He reveals Himself through disclosing knowledge to us.

Glossary

Salvation

God – the Alpha and Omega

•  We generally think of Jesus as the alpha and omega. God is, too.
• God and Jesus are the A to Z of the Bible.
• God and Jesus are the first and last because They have no beginning or end.
• Eternity is in the spiritual world.
• The Trinity isn’t labeled as such in God’s Word. But it is alluded to a couple of times.
• We set up this hierarchy. Father is top dog, Son in the middle, and Spirit on the bottom.
• Jesus and the Father are the same. Jesus is the manifestation of God. But Jesus never once came out and said He was equal to God. He always deferred to God’s authority.
• Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the same. Basically, Jesus was saying in John 14: 16 that He was asking God to send another One – just like the other One – Him.
• God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, while They are the same, are separate. Since Jesus always gave God deference, so should we. But we are never going to totally understand it – so into the UNR book (understanding not relevant) it goes.
• God is King of kings.
• God was present in the eternity past and will be present in the eternity future. He knows no beginning or end.
• We know Jesus was present before the world was created. We know Jesus was not only present at creation but also instrumental in creation.
• God is still sitting on His throne waiting to judge us. He never abdicated, although He has given the authority to Jesus.
• Because God and Jesus are the first and last, They live eternally and will never change.
• God’s character doesn’t and won’t change. He is perfect – He is totally pure.
• We can trust His goodness to never change Him. We can trust His promises.
• But it can change – and must – change us. We need to be more like God.

Glossary

Holy Spirit

Setting Up the Vision

•  The beloved disciple of Christ was in a difficult place.
• John identified his readers as brothers and partners. Instead of leading with he was a cousin to Jesus and companion of the other Apostles – and the only remaining Apostle alive at this time – John humbly lowered himself to be their equal.  
• John’s readers could take these words to be true because they knew him.
• As fellow members of the family of God, they would have been brothers and sisters in Christ. They would have been partners in the Kingdom of God.
• Salvation is the same for everyone. “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (I Cor. 10: 17 ESV).
• God calls us to be content while we wait for the fulfillment of His promises.
• We have to patiently endure trials. We have to patiently endure this life so that we can enjoy the Kingdom of God in the next life. Patience is the connection between trials and the Kingdom of God.
• Patmos was a desolate prison island in the Aegean Sea that was used as a place to banish criminals.  
• I had always thought that John was alone on the island, but he wasn’t. Instead, he would have contact with other prisoners as he worked in the mines on the prison colony.

• John was alone in his worship service.  Not we, I.  
• We can worship God on our own. We are expected to worship God individually. Yes, we are also expected to worship corporately. But that does not mean we aren’t supposed to worship God only on Sunday morning. We are expected to worship God daily. 

•  Worship is where we put ourselves in line to listen to God. We praise Him and thank Him. But most of all we open the eyes our hearts to listen to Him.
• It also edifies us and transforms us. The purpose of this transformation — and worship, for that matter — is to sanctify us.
• Even alone, John worshiped God on the Lord’s Day.
• John heard a voice telling him what to do.
• God’s voice has been categorized before as sounding like a trumpet.
• John was instructed to document what he saw. The job given to John was to be a scribe. He wasn’t asked to interpret it or form an opinion.
• God’s Word is an introduction. He more fully reveals Himself to us — His children — once we become His children.
• The individual letters written to the seven congregations follow an established pattern.

• When we do change things around to God’s way, we do gain God’s promises.

The Vision of the Son of Man

• John did not call the Person in the vision by name.
• In John’s vision, we read this to be that John recognized, as the English Standard Version translates it, a son of man. This could be anyone.
• God had been talking. Had John moved on to something else? Do we need to take the description on its own merit? But that leads to confusion, too.
• Jesus never was characterized as having a voice as a trumpet, but God never used the title Son of Man. The Person described could either have been God or Jesus.
• But, Jesus was a likeness of man, wasn’t He? He was 100% man with sinful flesh, but He was also 100% the identity of God.
• John probably didn’t call Jesus by name because John could have been seeing the glorified Jesus. He had been one of the few to see the Son of God glorified. 
• I would say it was more than what John had seen here on earth. He was seeing the exalted Christ as he never had because he had seen Jesus pre-ascension without His glory. Now, He is seeing Him in all His glory – if it is Jesus.

• Truth be told, either One could be the One in the vision. I don’t think it is our place to try to understand. If we were supposed to know, we would have been told.
• A robe was the garment for a priest. Well, isn’t Jesus our High Priest?  
• Taking that a step further, it is important that we be clothed with the same garments.
• The rest of the characteristics used to describe Vision Man had previously only been used to describe God.
• That was what the whole Plan of Salvation is about – our being able to approach God again. The only way we can do that is to restore our relationship with Him through admitting we are sinners, believing in Jesus, and confessing Him as Sovereign God.

• God’s Word is a sword.
• God’s Word talks about having a two-edged or double-edged sword. One edge of the sword is for convicting us to become God’s children and correcting us to sanctify us. The other edge is to protect us from Satan.
• On the Day of the Lord, we will be judged by what is in God’s Word. It will be the sword that separates us as sheep from goats.

• What was Jesus’ mission here on earth? It was to give us the gospel. What is the gospel about? Salvation only found through belief in Jesus. Jesus and the salvation He brings is the message of the gospel, written out in God’s Word.

• If we have problems reading God’s Word, we have problems being a disciple — being a Christian. If we have trouble studying it, ditto.
• If we have problems getting God’s Word into our hearts, we aren’t Christians.
• We are to seek God.
• God is Spirit, so He doesn’t necessarily have human characteristics – face, hands, eyes, emotions, etc. But we attribute those to Him to help us understand Him.
• God’s “face” is His personality — and I am not sure that is exactly the correct word. It is another attempt to describe Him in human terms so we can understand.
• God makes it personal. We aren’t supposed to fear Him – feel terror. We are supposed to fear Him – feel awe.
• We don’t want God to turn away from us, especially in anger. Bad things happen when He does. When God takes His presence away, it is because of our doing.

John’s Response to the Vision

• John fell to his feet because he was probably overwhelmed with everything.
• Not only did John not recognize Him, but also his response was interesting. He just passed out.
• John would have told this exactly right. If the wasn’t as dead, he wouldn’t have written it that way. (I don’t know for sure, but I doubt a Jewish man would readily admit to fainting.) 
• What a perfect place at which to faint – at the Savior’s feet.
• Everything God and Jesus do is based on love.
• Don’t we feel woefully unworthy to even approach God? We see ourselves so flawed from sin. God, on the other hand, sees us covered in the blood of Jesus. Our sins have been blotted out.

•  How many times do we say we want to meet God on the Sabbath day, but don’t expect to or flat out refuse to get ourselves into the Spirit?
• We can question ourselves when God comes to see us through the Holy Spirit. John was witnessing the glory of God. That is beyond imagination, beyond comprehension.
• John’s emotional response was fear.
• Two words: fear not. No long discourse regarding what John isn’t supposed to fear. No slap because he was fearful. Straight comfort.
• By saying a short, direct command — fear not — it takes the focus off what we are fearing and puts it solely on Vision Man.
• John’s responded with reverence.
• Because Jesus was alive, John knew that he could believe in His promises. No only could John believe in them, but he could also be assured of them.
• It isn’t enough that Jesus died and came back to life. If He were to die again – like Lazarus did – He would no longer be the Savior. He has eternal life because God’s power resurrected Him. 
• Yes, Jesus died. He didn’t stay in some sort of suspended animation for three days. He was dead, gone, and buried in a tomb.
• Jesus didn’t stay there. Our living hope – our living faith – says nothing about us. It is about our living Savior.
• Now Jesus is eternal again. Jesus continues to live and will continue to live forevermore. He told us He would live forever.  
• Jesus isn’t going to just sit back, put His feet up, and enjoy eternity. He will be an active Savior.
• Jesus has to live forever. Our justification must be everlasting. This justification is only available to us because Jesus was alive from the beginning of eternity to His time here in human form to eternity forevermore. It is based on His being our Mediator.
• Jesus holds the keys that open to door of death.
• Jesus came to earth for one purpose – to die. He took on all our sins – the sins of everyone who has ever lived.
• Jesus had to shed His blood to be the sacrifice for our sins. The Plan of Salvation was complete with His death. But the resurrection solidified His position as God.

• Jesus returned to Heaven where He lives today. That is where He will remain for eternity.
• Keys represent that power and authority. Part of that authority is governmental authority. If the Head of the Church holds the keys, the Church need not fear.
• Jesus is Lord of death because He holds the keys and has conquered death. Only He can open the doors.  
• If Jesus holds the keys to hell, doesn’t that mean He and God send us there? No, it doesn’t. We choose to spend eternity in hell because we choose not to submit to God.

• We question how Heaven can be big enough to hold all the disciples who have lived down through the ages. We think there will be too many for it to hold. But will there? Maybe the question should be is, how is Hades going to hold all the people going there?
• We tend to think of Heaven and earth as separated. You know, the chasm between them (Lk. 16: 26). There is no portal for ease of travel between the two. But that doesn’t mean one doesn’t impact the understanding of the other. We may understand Heaven as being a utopia. But if we don’t understand hell, we may think everyone goes to Heaven. Only children of God — the sheep — get to spend eternity in Heaven. Those who have not ABCDed — the goats or Matthew 7: 21 people — won’t get there.

The Purpose of Revelation

•  God wanted John to make sure he shared what he saw with others.
• It was John’s job to write what he had “… have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this” (Rev. 1: 19 ESV). This needed to be written down so that we could read it. It is our job to believe. No, we are not necessarily to understand.
• Our job is to watch and wait for Jesus’ return. We have to prepare for His coming.
• John’s job was to truthfully write down what he saw. We are expected to believe he saw what he saw. Does that mean we take everything literally? Probably not. Does that mean we take everything symbolically? Probably not. It means we try to figure out what John meant. We can only do that by taking in to account what the good Jewish man knew to be true in his culture. We try to figure out his language.
• Understanding what God reveals to us is the only way we will get the blessing of verse 3.
• Each church has a lampstand.
• John’s vision showed Vision Man standing in the middle of golden lampstands. If Vision Man is Jesus, in the midst of the lampstands is exactly where we would expect Him to be. The Head of the Church should be smack dab in the middle of His Church.
• It also shows that Vision Man is doing all that He can be doing to keep the lamps running. It shows the concept off being a family because He is present, but He is also continually providing care for us.
• Being in Jesus’ right hand is a place of power and esteem. It is also the place of wisdom.
• The Church has not replaced Israel. God’s covenant with Abraham — therefore Israel — was an everlasting covenant. His covenant with Jesus is also an everlasting covenant.

•  Yes, how they worshiped God had changed. The how changed, but the Who didn’t. God didn’t give up on Genesis and the Old Testament to replace it with the New. He used the New Testament to fulfill the Old.
• We need to expect growth and change. We can’t say, “This is the way we’ve always worshiped God, so this is the way we will always worship God.” We have to follow His lead.
• God’s Word is all about the gospel message. No telling of Plan of Salvation, no salvation for eternity.
• The message is all about Jesus and His sacrifice for us in order for Him to save us. Only through that message can we find ourselves in the palm of Jesus’ hand — as the stars are.

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On the Day of the Lord theme