With great anticipation, we look forward (December 27, 2024)

Listen here:  https://www.pastorwoman.net/podcast/episode/3ae69017/with-great-ant...

Over this Christmas season, we have looked together at how God spoke through prophets, angels and creation. He spoke to a young Jewish maiden, a simple Nazarene man, to shepherds and wise men. And certainly, God has spoken to us over years and years, across continents and cultures in various ways. God yet speaks today through the divinely-inspired pages of Scripture. 

Again I say to you: if I were to tell you that tomorrow at 2 pm at a well-known place in your town, God was going to be there to speak to you, you. would. go. 

So, based on that, what are some of the other things God has spoken that you need to know--especially for your future? After all, if he spoke the details of the Savior's birth some 700 years before it happened, and then it took place just as he said... what else has he said will happen that you must know?

Step a little closer please. Oh, I wish I could take you with me to the Upper Room in Jerusalem... yes, it is still there! On the same night Jesus was sharing the Passover meal with his disciples in that big old room, (the night he would later be arrested and illegally imprisoned), He told his friends he would be leaving them. And where he was going, they could not come. 

We remember Jesus told them, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.1 from John

from Matthew, "They will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory."2  

And from Paul, "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord."3  Okay, I love these last verses, written to the Thessalonians and often called 'the blessed hope,' because Jesus will forever be our blessed hope! 

Jesus did indeed leave his followers, ascending into the clouds some 40 days after he walked out of the grave. They watched him go from atop the Mt. of Olives. Again, Jesus told them what he was going to do, and then he did it. Here is Luke's brief accounting of what happened: ...he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.  “Men of Galilee,” they said, “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.”4

The same way? Yes, Jesus ascended into the clouds and so he will return.

It is a promise. God's prophecies are fulfilled and his promises kept.

Sometimes when I am driving down the highway, taking in the beauty of varied cloud formations, I think . . . “Today, Lord? Is this the day you will return?” It could be any day! Jesus told us to be ready because in the hour we least expect it, he will come again.5 

Hmmm, what do you think the clouds will look like on that day Jesus comes again? I would like to put my request in for those well-formed grayish clouds, outlined on the top with what looks like liquid silver against an amber glow, and the sun's rays shooting out behind them like the ones pictured above.  How magnificent!  I wonder, do you think we'll be able to see the trumpet or just hear it?  Think of that day, because it is coming, and I can only imagine . . . !

God has spoken--he is coming again. Therefore we can look forward and greet each day with great anticipation.

"He's coming on the clouds . . .Kings and kingdoms will bow down..." Well here, listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DINsi5p-jDU

In expectation,

Christine

PastorWoman.net

1 - John 14.3

2 - Matthew 24.30 

3 - 1 Thessalonians 4.16-17

4 - Acts 1.9b-11

5 - Matthew 24.44; Luke 12.40