What a difference a couple of
thousand years make, huh? When Jesus came the first time, he came as a little
baby, was laid in a feeding trough, and lived a lower-middle class lifestyle.
As an adult, you could walk right past him on the street and not notice a thing
about him. The end of his life was spent in ultimate humiliation, torture,
betrayal, abandonment, and rejection. But this time. . . .whoa.
Mostly I want you to bask in what
this passage is describing, but here are a few notes:
·
I
find it really interesting that perfect people and angels up in Heaven are glad
and praising God that sinners are being judged. Down here on earth, while there’s
still time for repentance, that’s what we—like our Lord—earnestly
want to see. We hope for, we pray for, and we work for people to come to faith
in Christ, no matter what they’ve done. But up in Heaven, where there’s no
danger of self-righteousness or misplaced anger, when the time for judgment has
come, then it’s time for rejoicing. As believers, even here on earth we're supposed to hate
sin and love righteousness. Sin dishonors and mocks our beloved Father. We want
to see an end to it, and this is it.
·
I
absolutely love the “Hallelujah Chorus” in Handel’s Messiah, don’t you? It’s probably one of the most famous piece of
classical music ever. Of course, it—like all of Messiah—is totally Scripture set to music. That’s why verse six might have
been familiar to you: The “Hallelujah Chorus” is made up solely of that verse
and 11:15.
The wonderful song we sing, the rush we feel as we stand up when the choir
sings “King of kings and Lord of lords,” is talking about when he comes to
judge the world and destroy his enemies.
·
I’ve
said this before, but it bears repeating: All of God’s enemies will be
destroyed, but his preferred method is to destroy his enemies by turning them
into his beloved children and heirs. But make no mistake: His enemies will all be destroyed
in the end, one way or another. His rule will, in the end, brook no
rebels.
·
I
always visualized this scene as the Lord Jesus on his white horse coming down,
all of the angels and redeemed humanity following him in order to fight
alongside him. Take a closer look at today’s reading: Do you see anywhere in
this chapter where we fight? I have to
give credit to MacArthur: He’s the one who pointed out to me that the Lord
Jesus Christ does all the “fighting” in this chapter. Of course, I put “fighting”
in quotes because this really isn’t a fight. It’s a literal slaughter. If it
ever comes down to force against force, there’s really no contest here. He breathes
on them and kills them where they stand. One moment after this "fight" starts, there won't enough of the Lord's enemies left of them for their own mothers to identify.
·
I
believe in representative democracy as the best form of government. It’s the
best out of all the imperfect options we can have here in a fallen world with
only fallen people to run things. But when he returns, Jesus is not coming back to
set up the “Democracy of God.” No, John alludes to a quotation that goes all
the way back to Psalm
2: “You will rule them with an iron scepter.” Right now you have a choice about
obeying him or not. On that day, the rebellion stops.
·
I
know that the last few verses are a little gross to modern sensibilities. I get
that. They make me just a tad uncomfortable myself. But I have to remind myself
that A) The Lord has done so much to keep them from this fate. As someone once said,
“Yes, you can go to Hell, but you’ll have to step over the broken and bleeding
body of Jesus in order to do it.” B) We have to get this into our head: This
is merely a description of people and fallen angels getting exactly what they
deserve. And apart from the grace of God, I'd be right there next to them.
I have to end this with a plea: If
you happen to be reading this and don’t know Christ as your Savior, today’s the
day to change that. Yesterday’s gone, and you have no promise that you’ll get a
chance tomorrow. Please don’t put this off. Please please please read this.
If you belong to Christ and are
reading this, this should arouse longing within you. Maybe not a longing to see
sinners judged and destroyed, and since we have a sinful nature, that’s
probably not very healthy anyway (this side of Glory). But you should have a
longing to see your Lord finally officially claim what belongs to him, finally
get the honor and glory he deserves, and finally see everything that’s wrong be
made right. That’s worth waiting for, but it gets awfully hard to wait
sometimes.
Come, Lord Jesus, come. Please come
quickly. And help me to get ready.
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