As the calendar turns and we settle into the rhythm of another year, there is a pervasive tendency to succumb to the ‘assumption of resumption’, the over confidence that everything will continue as it is. We mark the passing of time with joyful celebrations and thoughtful resolutions, assuming that history is merely a revolving cycle of years that will continue indefinitely. We plan our days, weeks, months and years with the unshakeable belief that the world will go on exactly as it always has.
However, the Biblical perspective of history is not cyclical, but linear; we are moving toward a definitive, climactic conclusion. To live solely for the perpetuation of the current state of being is to risk missing the signs of the times we live in; a spiritual blindness that has dangerous implications in Scripture.
This complacency is strikingly illustrated in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 2, during the time of Jesus the Messiah’s birth. Matthew documents the arrival of Magi, ancient sage-astronomers, arriving in Jerusalem from the east, asking, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matt 2:2) Herod, the puppet king of Judea, was deeply disturbed by this news, and all Jerusalem with him. It is a profound irony that the pagan astrologers from afar were alert to the heavenly events signaling the arrival of Israel’s Messiah, while the King of Judea and the religious elite were caught entirely unaware. Herod had access to the chief priests and teachers of the Mosaic law, who correctly identified Bethlehem as the location of the Messiah’s birth, yet they lacked the spiritual vigilance to know the time of its fulfillment. They knew the theology, but they missed the reality.
Herod’s ignorance of the time and place of the Messiah’s coming serves as a stark warning to us today, who are faced with the possibility of being unprepared for another epic event of Biblical proportions; the second coming of Christ.
Scholars and theologians have noted that for every single prophecy in the Old Testament concerning Christ’s first coming—His birth and life, His rejection and suffering, His death and resurrection—there are many, many more regarding His second coming. Since the prophecies regarding the first coming of Christ were fulfilled with literal, mathematical precision, we have every reason to believe that the far more numerous predictions of His return in power and glory to establish the Kingdom of God, at the end of the age, will be fulfilled just as literally.
To accept His first coming as history while dismissing His second as fantasy is a dangerous misread of the very heart of the redemptive story of the Bible.
Yet, as the centuries pass, the human heart grows skeptical. This, too, was predicted. The Apostle Peter, in his second letter, explicitly warned that in the last days scoffers would come, following their own evil desires and saying, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” (2 Peter 3:4) This mockery is born of the same New Year’s presumptions that plagues us today—a subtly implied belief that the patience of God is actually the absence of God. Peter reminds us that the perceived delay is not a failure of God’s ability, but an extension of God’s mercy, allowing time for repentance. However, that window of time is not infinite. The scoffers mistake the pause in the music for the end of the concert.
Jesus’ return will not be a metaphorical or spiritualized awakening as some interpret, but a concrete event. In the first chapter of Luke’s ‘Acts of the Apostles’, after Jesus had risen from the dead, He ascended into heaven while His disciples watched in wonder. As they stood there, straining their eyes toward the sky, two angels stood beside them and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:9-11). The scriptures are clear; Jesus’ return will be as literal, physical, and visible as His departure was.
This highlights a fascinating trend into our modern era. We are a generation obsessed with the heavens. We spend billions scanning the universe for signs of life; we obsess over astronomical and planetary alignments; we track the trajectories of comets and asteroids with fascination. We are constantly looking up, understandably awestruck by the stars, the planets, and the vastness of the unknown. Yet, in all our looking to the heavens, we often fail to look for the very One who made them all. We are like the men of Galilee, staring into the blue void, or like Herod, troubled by rumors of a King we are not ready to receive.
The biblical warning is clear: history is not just headed to another date on the calendar, but towards a person; Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God. To miss this, to miss Him, is to miss the point of life itself.
Therefore, the only rational response to these things is to live in readiness. Let us learn from those who failed to recognize the clear signs of the days they were living in. History is rushing toward the coming of Christ Jesus the King! Are you ready? We must examine where we stand. The time to seek Him is not when He arrives in judgment at the end of the age, but now, while the gift of grace and salvation which He accomplished at the cross is still available to us. We must turn from our sins and the arrogance of thinking we control our own times—this is repentance. We must place our total trust in His finished work on the cross and His promise to return—this is faith.
Do not let another year slip by in the comfortable illusion that tomorrow is guaranteed. Look to the future and to the heavens with a repentant heart and a believing spirit, so that when Jesus appears, we will be ready.
1 John 3:2-3 “Dear friends… we know that when Christ appears…we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.”
By Pastor Tim Mattox
Paphos Calvary Chapel
www.calvarycyprus.com