The King is Coming, No. 2

RV249-01

God's Word Is "Faithful and True"

The King Is Coming, Segment Number Two, Revelation 22:6-7. The vision, which has been given to John the apostle, of the future Tribulation era of human history, has come to a close at Revelation 22:5. One of the leading attacks on God and His Bible today is the ancient myth of evolution. This is presented as the explanation for the source of life forms on this earth. This also affects the concept of spiritual evolution. Quoting this evening from Richard Greene, a New Age spokesman, he explains the concept of evolution from the lower stages of biology to the upper stages of the spiritual. He says, "We've mastered the evolution of the physical body. We've mastered the evolution of the mind. And we're coming to a time when we're using this perfected, quasi-perfected body, this opening and perfecting mind to access the true perfection of the universe, which is the spiritual dimension." So, evolution is not just some simple, misconstrued nonsense. It is a very serious matter because all of the scientific world structures itself upon that concept, that man is constantly improving. We pre-millennialist are often described as being very negative and being very grim because our message is the message of Scripture that things are not going to get better in societies, they are going to get worse.

And yet, man in his ignorance is determined to ignore God and to place evolution above anything that the Word of God has to say. As we pointed out this morning, the key word is superstition. How can people from the White House on down in our society today give the back of their hand to what the Word of God has said, to challenge the clear statements of God Himself, and to pretend that all is well with them and with the society in which we live? What evolution has demonstrated is that man is not spiritually getting better. The list of things I gave you this morning very clearly showed that our society is devolving, not evolving.

Let me show it to you this way. In the Dallas Morning News, "B.C." cartoon of Johnny Hart, here is the first brain. These two gentlemen are sitting up here on the cliff looking at the magnificence of this kind of a Grand Canyon.
One says, "It's hard to believe that all this happened by itself.
The gentleman next to him says, "I thought God created all this."
"Heh, heh, heh, heh, ... Don't be silly."
"Well, he created us from the dust of the ground, didn't He?"
"Heh, heh, heh, heh!"
"OK, what do you believe?"
"I believe there is no God, no Heaven and no Hell. I believe the universe was formed from an explosion and life was created by a chemical reaction when a bolt of lightning struck a swamp full of primal slime. After eons of time, a lungfish crawled out on land and mutated for billions of years until it became a man. That's it."
"The dust of the ground ain't good enough for you, heh?"

So, the biblical account is ridiculed as nonsense, but the slimy account is intellectual. How dumb can you be? You can be as dumb as the average evolutionist is today. Creationism is not un-scientific. Evolution itself knows that it has no scientific basis. It is a matter of personal choice and faith and belief. Creationism is ridiculed; but in spite of that ridicule, the facts of creation science are much stronger than the facts of evolutionary science. This is only one of the ways in which mankind, in its human viewpoint wisdom, is propelling itself into the conditions of the Tribulation.

There was another example in the Dallas News this morning in the comic strip, which I always carefully peruse. This one is little section to instruct children. Here's a picture of Isaac Newton, one of the all-time great Christian Scientists. He's got one of these big long wigs on his head. It's entitled "Famous Dead Guy in Science - Big Hair, Big Genius, 1642 to 1727." The question that was sent in from some child is "What makes the world turn?" And this little cartoon section explains that Sir Isaac Newton published his laws of motion in which he established 2 fundamental laws: and that is that anything which is in motion will continue in motion until it is stopped by a counter motion; anything which is not moving, inert, standing still, will not move until something moves it. Those are 2 very fundamental laws of motion which are very important in space travel. The question is "why does the earth turn around on its axis the way it does?"
Now, most of you low life intellects here tonight would say 'God made it that way. God created it and threw it out there with a spin, just the right spin, otherwise, slightly off would bring disaster, to heat, to cold, to a lot of things.
So, here's the answer. "The thing that seems to have pushed the earth is the moon. Without something coming along, the speed of the earth's spin would be really slow, like Venus, where one day lasts as long as a year. Once earth got that push from the young moon smacking into it, it kept spinning. Something else is necessary to stop it: something like friction brakes. The young solar system was not like the start of a game of pool with lots of balls flying all over the place, smacking into each other. It looks like the moon hit the earth and then went into orbit around the earth. Four-and-a-half billion years ago, the proto-moon put some English [It means a spin.] on the young planet Earth. It sped up the planet's rotation to one complete spin every 24 hours."
Aren't you glad you came tonight to find out this discerning scientific fact, the reason the earth is spinning is because the moon hit us and gave us just the right spin?

So, we are facing here in the final Book of the Revelation a summary statement about the disasters that are going to come upon this world that have been described in this book because people think God is a superstition, think the Bible is nonsense, and they go with their human wisdom, which is the real superstition.

We read this morning in Revelation 22:6 "And he [the angel] said to me, [John] 'These words are faithful and true';" which meant that they are reliable. John is actually telling us what he heard and they are true. They are compatible with God's standard of integrity. Revelation therefore, is an inerrant book of Scripture because it has been inspired by God the Holy Spirit, who guided its production. The Tribulation Era is the final world that Satan is going to be able to produce, and it's going to be a huge catastrophe. God the Holy Spirit taught the content of Revelation to John so that he could record it for the enlightenment of Christians who are the servants of God about God's final plan for His creation. [continuing in Revelation 22:6] "And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, [the God who teaches the human spirit to the prophets,] sent His angels to show to His bond-servants [we who are believers] the things which must shortly come to pass."

"Must shortly come to pass," - that's the first thing that we want to direct our attention to this evening. What does shortly come to pass? Does that mean soon? The amillennialists say yes, that means soon. Therefore, they say the Book of the Revelation has been completely fulfilled in the first century A.D. There is no future beyond that first century for the Book of the Revelation. Or does this, instead of being a matter of time reference, stressing fulfillment of time, does this mean that once the time of fulfillment has arrived things will roll quickly and completely to completion? This stresses the manner of fulfillment.

The Time Factor - 4 Basic Views

So, we have to look at the meaning of this word shortly, and there's a related word in the same family in verse 7; Jesus says, "And behold, I am coming quickly." What does he mean; I'm coming soon? The liberals say yes. They can't say He came physically soon, so you can figure out what they're going to have to say as to how He came soon, because He had to come immediately after this book was written. Or does this mean that once the time for His arrival has come around in God's program, His rapture and all the events associated will take place rapidly? First of all, I want to show you the 4 basic views toward the meaning of the Book of the Revelation.

Number one... we call this, to past view, the technical word - preterist. You might want to remember that word because some very good articles are written and they talk about the preterist view. That means the past view. For these people, virtually all of Revelation has already been fulfilled with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Therefore, they interpret these words "shortly" and "quickly" as meaning soon. So, there's no place in the New Testament era for pre-millennialism, they reject pre-millennialism completely. All this has been done within the first century. They do not distinguish between Israel and the church. Israel becomes the church.

The second view is called the present; this is called the historical view. The historical view says that much of the current Church Age is the fulfillment of the book of Tribulation and that this era of fulfillment began in about 350 A.D. when the Church became the dominant power religiously of the Roman Empire. This historical view does not distinguish between Israel and the Church. It tries instead to relate the various events in the Book of the Revelation to events in history of the Church era. You can see that there's no agreement between the writers as to which event is being referred to because it is a very subjective interpretation. They'll read something and say, 'you see, this is talking about this great event, historical event that happened, this great famine condition that happened here in Central Europe. This event refers to the black plague that killed so many people. This event refers to the conquest of Napoleon.' So, they go through history and they try to attach a historical meaning to the events of the Tribulation. Israel and the Church, again, are not clearly separated and distinguished.

Third is the future view. This is called the futurist view. Isn't that simple? Most of you would belong in this category; Berean Church does. This view takes the Book of the Revelation as a record of future events which have not yet been fulfilled; that the prophecies in the Book of the Revelation are to be fulfilled after the Rapture of the Church during the Tribulation, with the Second Coming of Christ and the Millennial Kingdom. Here Israel and the Church are very clearly distinguished. Israel has a place right out there to the end in the future. The Church has a separate place right out there to the end.

There is a fourth view of the Book of the Revelation. This is called the timeless view. It is also referred to as the idealist view. This view says that there is no timing of events given in the Book of the Revelation; prophecy there is mainly to teach some great ideas, give you some truths about God for application to all times. This again, is a very subjective view. Everybody has to decide exactly what these events are teaching us about God.

Now, from the Reformation to about the year 1850, the historical view was the dominant view of Christendom because the historical view is what the reformers held. But beginning about 1850, there was a great, enormous revival of Bible studies, and it began with a group of Christians in a town called Plymouth in England. Therefore, they were referred to as the Plymouth Brethren. They had some great scholars among them. Out of their studies of the Bible, they realized that God has made promises to Israel, that God Himself would sin were He to go back upon His Word because the promises were unconditional. You have several covenants to Israel; one of them has an "if" clause. Remember which one it is... the Mosaic. All the other covenants, from the Abrahamic, the covenants that expand the Abrahamic covenant, the Palestinian covenant that the land is theirs forever, the Davidic covenant that they will have a king ruling forever, and the New Covenant that the whole nation will receive a Savior and Israel will come to the place where it accepts Christ, the Messiah. None of those covenants have an "if" clause. When God told Abraham that He's going to make him a great nation, give him a great posterity, He did not say if you do this. But when He told Moses, I will bless the people, He said if they do this. But God did tell Abraham that your descendants will rebel against me. They will turn their back upon me. They will chase after false gods. And when they do that, I will discipline them, but I will not take My mercy away from them; so that God said I'll not ever turn My back against them.

Today most fundamentalist biblical Christians are futurists, they believe that the Book of the Revelation deals with what is still down the line coming; but they are being strongly challenged by the preterists. So, these are the two views that are the main ones, the past view and the future view. They are the ones that are receiving the most attention today in theological circles. There is little common ground between the futurists and the preterist interpretation of Revelation.

Use of the Word "Shortly"

The words, ... we have to decide exactly what these words "shortly" and "quickly" mean, because the past view people, the preterists, say that means it had to happen immediately after this book was written. If that means soon, then they're right. But we have to look at what the Greek language says. In Revelation 22:6, "these things must shortly come to pass the word." In Revelation 22:7, 'I am coming,' Jesus says, 'quickly.' Quickly and shortly are related Greek words. Let's look at quickly. Looks like this is the Greek language, T a c h o s, tachos. This is a noun. It means swiftness, speed, and is related to variations. It can mean 2 things. This word can mean 2 things. It can mean 'soon.' That's what the amillennialists say it means. But it can also mean in the Greek Bible 'quickly,' so that it is stressing rapidity. This one deals with time where this one deals with manner.

Soon is time; quickly is manner. Now which of the two uses of this word, which is used various places in the New Testament, which of the meanings of tachos number one or number two here, has to be determined by the context. For example, this word is used in 1 Timothy 3:14: "I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long." "Before long" is this word tachos and how is it being used here? Well, obviously I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long: It is being used in the number one sense; I'm hoping to come to you soon. It is being used in its relationship to time. Look at Acts 22:18, "and I saw Him saying to me, 'Make haste, and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about Me.'" Here's the Lord speaking to Paul, warning him that his life is in danger. The word quickly is this word, tachos. Here's the other meaning. Obviously here it means "get going," this means rapidity. It is true that he did it immediately, but the stress is here, get out of Jerusalem as fast as you can, hit the ground running and don't stop because they're coming after you.

The preterists claim that when this word is used in the Bible, it is always used as soon. You can see that we've already shown you that that is not the case, it is clearly not the case in the Book of Acts, furthermore, the claim that this teaches Revelation is past history when it is used in Revelation 1:1 and here in Revelation 22:6. There's a dictionary definition of this word that we should look at. When we look at this in the Greek dictionary, this word, the first definition is defined as speed, quickness, swiftness. So, how does the dictionary show it? This is the main: quickly. That's the main use; the dictionary gives us that information.

In Revelation 1:1 where this word is used, that's what it means; it means rapidly. Revelation 1:1, "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must shortly take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John." "Shortly" take place, it must "rapidly" take place. There it is used in the sense that once these things start, things are going to go fast. That's exactly the way it's used in Revelation 22:6, He "sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must shortly come to pass," the identical phrases in the Greek Bible.

So, we know this furthermore, because the word tachos is used with a preposition "en" e n, entachos, which makes it an adverb, describing how an action takes place, not when an action takes place. So, it tells us that the action is quick. This isn't too hard to understand. This is a little grammatical, but I want you to know that this is describing the suddenness with which the events will take place. It'll will be quickly. It'll be speedily. What does that support? That supports the futurist view of Tribulation – that the events predicted in Revelation concerning the Tribulation will occur with great rapidity once they begin. If you just run your mind back over all the things we've learned in the Book of the Revelation about the Tribulation era, the great things that are going to take place, you know that those things pile up one on top of another with great rapidity. When they get to the Bowl Judgments, that's in the very last weeks of the Tribulation. And they come one upon another with great speed and great rapidity so that the Bible tells us, God says, 'I'm going to have to shorten the Tribulation or all humanity would be killed off from the earth and there would be no human beings to go into the Millennium. So, this word tachos, by definition, is used primarily as "quickly," and when it has this preposition that even stresses it more.

This word in the sense of quickly is used in Revelation 2:16, 3:11, 11:14, 22:7, 22:12, and 22:20. These all are used with the word "to come," these are to come rapidly when they arrive. It means without delay, it indicates the manner of fulfillment. It connotes therefore, in the Book of the Revelation, not the idea soon, but the idea of rapidity of manner as the action once begins.

We have an English word that comes from this word tachos, it's t a c k y, tacky, that's the first part; then the Greek word for heart, kardia, k a r d i a, tackykardia. Do you know what tachycardia means? Cardia has to do with your heart, tachy means an excessively rapid heartbeat. So, somebody comes to you and says, "When you speak to me, you give me a tachycardia condition," they're telling you that you make their heart beat rapidly, quickly. They don't tell you that your heart is going to start beating soon. The tachycardia is an exact English use of the way the Bible uses this word, quickly, rapidity. It doesn't mean soon in time, that soon your heart will start beating. Swift action, of course, may take place as soon as an idea is presented, that it's going to take place rapidly and indeed it may take place rapidly. It may take place rapidly and it may take place soon. The two might come together, but that is not generally the meaning of the word.

We do have an example of that. I do want to show you that in Matthew 28:7-8. "'And go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going before you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you.' And they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to report it to His disciples." There, the women are told, 'go tell what's happened. Jesus is gone, the tomb is empty.' Go quickly, tachos, a word from this family, and in verse 8 it uses it again. What do they mean? They told them to go fast. They were telling them the manner of their departure; run as fast as you can, move quickly. It is true that once they were told this, the women also acted soon. They turned right around and they did move out. The two here can be combined. But what is the stress upon this again, is that the women ran, they moved very quickly.

"Quickly," But Never Means "Soon"

Greek authorities classify tachos and its related words as adverbs of manner; they never say it is of time. It's always describing the manner of an action rather than the time of an action; that is not the normal use. It's mostly as a manner. All uses in Revelation of this word, mean "swiftness," "quickly," "rapid pace," "once things start moving, it goes in high gear." It's always used this way. So, these amillennialists are completely wrong when they try to make this soon. Speaking from the Greek language, which is a little more difficult to show you, but I think you've got the drift of this, from the Greek language, it doesn't mean "soon," it means "quickly." And that's the way it's always used. It's never classified in Revelation as meaning soon.

This book was written in the year 96 A.D., so how could it be a prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.? You see, it was supposed to be completed by 70 A.D.; everything in the Book of the Revelation is to have been fulfilled by 70 A.D. What kind of a prophecy is that when you write it after the fulfillment? If I tell you at the end of the service that we are going to have a service tonight, is that a prophecy; it's not a prophecy after it's happened. So here again, it's really strange how people just hate to let the Bible say what it means. These are not the liberals. These are people who respect the Word of God, who treat the Bible as a book that is for their instruction. But they cannot accept letting the book have a literal statement of what means, so they have to twist it.

"Shortly" Means Sudden Rapid Fulfillment

All of this is to point out to you that Revelation 22:6-7 speak of a sudden and rapid pace of fulfillment of the events predicted in the Book of the Revelation concerning the return of Christ. Once the time has arrived for their fulfillment, these things will move into high gear; things will be on a high roll. No one in the Tribulation will be able to keep up with the events that will be taking place, that will be unfolding in the world. The leaders and the common people of the Tribulation will be caught up in a tidal wave of rapidly moving divine judgments. That's what this text means. He has revealed by His angels to show His bond servants the things which must shortly, rapidly take place once they go into motion. The swiftness of Christ's Second Coming appearance will leave no room for anybody even to prepare for it. So, when Jesus said, "I come quickly," He's telling us that once the Second Coming has arrived, He's gone and once the time of the Rapture has arrived, He's down here to get us, things move quickly.

The Doctrine of Imminency

This "quickly," this swiftness of movement also stresses the Doctrine of Imminency. There's a nice, tricky word, the Doctrine of Imminency, the Doctrine of Imminency concerning the return of Christ in the Rapture for the Church. Imminency, when we speak that the return of Christ is imminent, it does not now you should know mean soon. The idea of imminency is something hanging over your head. It's hanging over head and it's constantly ready to drop on you, it's constantly ready to overtake you. In the ancient world, it was the sword of Damocles that portended some kind of a disaster. It was always hanging by a narrow little thread over a person's head. Well, this is the idea of imminence in the Bible. It is not that Jesus Christ is going to come soon, He might. It just means it's hanging there ready to go. It's like somebody at the starting line at a race. They're down, they're in position, the muscles are tensing, and the race is imminent. It means that they are hanging fire ready to go. It connotes an event which could happen, therefore, at any moment. Revelation 22:10 says, "And he said to me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near." What he is telling us is that the fulfillment of this is imminent, it's hanging there. Now, other things can happen before an imminent event transpires, but the point is that nothing else must happen before that thing can take place.

So, when we tell you that the return of Christ in the Rapture is imminent, we are not saying that it is soon. It could be. We're just saying that it's all primed and ready to go. Imminent means there is no other event in prophecy that has to be fulfilled before Christ can return. Can we say that about the Second Coming of Christ? No, the Rapture itself has to take place before the Second Coming can take place. There are a number of things that must take place, come to pass on this earth, before the Second Coming can take place. The Second Coming of Christ is not imminent. It's not hanging there primed, ready to go. But the return in the Rapture to take us to Heaven, dead and living Christians, that is hanging over us as a moment by moment expectation. If you could set a date for an event to happen, you cannot consider it imminent; it cannot be hanging there for any moment fulfillment, you've got a time period involved them. Imminent does not necessarily then mean soon, though an event could transpire in a short period of time from a certain point of reference.

The New Testament does indeed always convey the expectancy of the return of Jesus Christ for the body of Christ. It is at hand; it is imminent. And that means that at any moment it can take place. The basic outlook of the Church Age from Pentecost to the Rapture is based on the imminency of the Lord's return. What did Paul and Peter and James and the early disciples think concerning the return of Christ? They understood the Doctrine of Imminency and they understood that it was hanging over them ready to happen. They expected it could happen in their time, but they did not know that for sure that there was a date, because Jesus Himself said, 'My Second Coming is a date that I in My humanity don't know. Only My Father knows.' So, they knew that they could not set a date, but they knew that it could happen at any moment.

So, the Rapture event, when it happens, will set in motion the seven-year Tribulation period on earth, the final week of Daniel's 490 year timetable. The events of the Book of the Revelation are said to be at hand because they are next in line for fulfillment after the Rapture. When Jesus says, "These things must shortly come to pass," He is indeed saying that they are next in line after the Rapture and when they come they are going to move quickly. God will not have another program like He did in the Church. Those Revelation events are always at hand to begin because the Rapture of the Church is imminent. It is the starting signal.

Notice a couple of passages of Scripture. Romans 13:12, "The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light." That verse is telling us that the return of Christ is imminent. It is at hand. It is standing by to take place at any moment. Notice 1 Peter 4:7, "The end of all things is at hand; [There is our same word again,] therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer." It is at hand in that it's imminent. It's hanging over our heads, ready to be fulfilled. One more: James 5:8, "You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand," imminent. And this is stressing, as all through the New Testament it is stressed, the imminency of Christ's return for the Church saints.

The Purpose of God's Message in Revelation

So, the purpose of God's message in Revelation, which is a futurist Revelation, is talking about things that have not yet been fulfilled and the purpose of it is for information. Yet what do we find in Christendom today? Most Bible teachers view the Book of the Revelation as an imponderable mystery with no key to its meaning. You should by now have understood that the key to the meaning of Revelation is literal interpretation, reading it for what the words are saying so that you don't have to speculate or to invent meanings as the preterists or the idealists or the people who have the historical view do, looking back to something to connect this with. So, the literal meaning is the key.

But what's the case today? People in the average congregation are simply not taught this book. They touch on prophecy once in a while. I saw a church here in town had a sign up and it was something about your new life, begin your new life, something around New Year's Day. It referred to a passage in Revelation. And I know very well in that church, that is all those people are going to hear about Revelation for a long time. They're not going to be having any instruction in this book because that church does not believe that these things are in the future.

The angel stresses for us then here, that the Book of Revelation is not the vague imaginations of John but is a true and reliable Word of God. This book can be understood if you read it literally. That's the way the Holy Spirit had it written. The key to interpretation is this literal method. The symbols are explained elsewhere in the Bible or in the very context. Revelation was not given to us to be obscure or speculative, if it were, how could Revelation 1:3 be fulfilled? This verse [Revelation 1:3] says, "Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed [or obey, keep] the things which are written in it; for the time is near." Here again, this time is near, the time for fast movement, rapidity of fulfillment is near.

Not to Confuse but to Reveal

Do you know any other book in the Bible that gives you a special blessing if you will read this book? There is a special blessing upon those who read the Book of the Revelation. Furthermore, those of you who hear instruction on the Book of the Revelation, there is a special blessing from God upon you for that, because you're learning what the book has to say. Furthermore, if you heed, or keep is the idea, if you keep the things that you have been taught from this book, there is a special blessing for you. So, here's a triple whammy in the form of a divine blessing. There is no other book in the Bible that makes that kind of a promise. Yet if all of these things in the Book of the Revelation are obscure and we cannot understand them, how on earth can they be a blessing to us? This book is designed to be understood by the teaching Ministry of the Holy Spirit. The purpose of Revelation is not to confuse and to create some vain speculations, but to clearly reveal coming world events.

When God tells us something, and as He does here, that what He has given us is a reliable and a true report, He is confirming to us what He has said in Psalm 138 concerning His words, which we have imprinted in part here, that idea, on our pulpit. Psalm 138:2, "I will bow down toward Thy holy temple, and give thanks to Thy name for Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth; for Thou hast magnified Thy word according to all Thy name." God magnifies, or even places above, His Word recorded in Scripture, His Scripture, according to all His name. His name represents the God with all those qualities, including His veracity. And His word is on an equal plane with the name of God. The Jews to this day, so respect the name of God, that they won't even utter it. Whenever they come to the name of God as they read the Scriptures, they change it. Instead of saying the word that's there, they have a different word. They say "Adonai" instead of "Yahweh;" they simply will not pronounce this sacred name. God places His Word above His name.

In Summary

So, what we have learned tonight is this: that people have a variety of ways of looking at this book. Preterists - it's all done, it's all been fulfilled before 70 A.D. The present is attached to historical events since the time of Constantine the Emperor. Futurists - that the Book of the Revelation speaks about things that are yet to come. And the Timeless [Idealists], that it's just inspirational ideas. The words soon and quickly that are associated with the coming and the fulfillment of Revelation have two meanings in the Bible. It can mean soon in terms of time. It can mean quickly in terms of matter. The dictionary and the grammatical use of this word in the Greek New Testament always places it primarily as quickly. It is not a time word, it is a manner word, so that when it is said that these things are going to be fulfilled quickly or shortly, it means rapidly once they start, and that there will be no stopping them at that time.

Therefore, we also have from that the concept of immanency. That is, because Christ says "When I come, things are going to move rapidly," His coming is not hindered by anything. There's nothing that has to be fulfilled in the prophetic Scriptures for His Rapture coming as there is for His Second Coming. So, the Rapture is imminent and therefore He says, "I am coming quickly." And the idea of imminent is this thing is hanging over our heads, ready to be dropped down upon us.

So the people who are amillennialists and post-millennialists, the post-millennialists are the people who say the world is getting better and it's going to improve and Christians are going to take it over. As a student at Baylor University, the head of the Bible department was euphoric. We had conquered the great tyrannies of Germany and Japan, and now there was going to come a time of great peace upon this earth. He would tell us in Bible class, he would just be rhapsodic as he described how the Gospel is now going to go out to all the world, and Christianity would become the dominant conquering faith of humanity. I'm sitting there thinking, has he ever read the Bible? Because when the Bible speaks about end times, what we have is the Tribulation era, we have the whole Book of the Revelation. But the reason that it didn't bother him is because he believes that the Book of the Revelation is already out of the way, all fulfilled in the first century.

What a Destiny to Have!

That's why it's important for you to understand that this word "quickly" and "soon" does not mean time, but it means manner. And when these things are on God's time table, the time comes, they will happen quickly and rapidly. Once God said 'the time has come for the Messiah to be born,' things were set in motion and they were in high gear. Nothing could stand in its way. Nothing interrupted it. It went from conception to birth to the growth of this child, to His movement toward the cross and to His payment for the sins of the world. It was all in rapid succession, one thing after another, with nothing intervening that could stop it. That's the idea: that nothing can stop it. The return of Christ is imminent. Can it be soon? Yes, but that isn't what it's saying. It's telling us that it's hanging over our heads to take place rapidly once the proper time has come. When it comes, I want to tell you, if there's anything you want to take to Heaven with you, get it handy. Because when the Rapture takes place, you're not going to be able to pack anything, you're gone, it will be a fast event. What a destiny that is for us to have.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1989

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