Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Jesus promises that He is coming again for His people, what Scripture calls “that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). We will be kept out of the Tribulation (Revelation 3:10) and will meet Him in the clouds (I Thessalonians 4:16-17) rather than on the Mount of Olives, where Jesus metes out necessary judgment (Zechariah 14:1-11; Revelation 19:11-21). The Tribulation period is a terrible time on earth when God’s righteous wrath will be poured out on those who have willfully rejected His goodness. Revelation 6:17 asks this sobering question: “For the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” The answer is obvious (as the immediate context of verses 12-16 clarifies): no one can withstand this judgment. Christians are promised that we will not be part of this wrath; we are “to wait for His Son from heaven, Whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, [Who] delivered us from the wrath to come” (I Thessalonians 1:10). In I Thessalonians 5:9, we read that “God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” Since the immediate context of I Thessalonians 4:13-5:11 is dealing with the events of the end, we must interpret this verse as an explicit promise of deliverance from the time of God’s holy wrath, the Tribulation. Let us thus heed the kind command of verse 11: “Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.”