Amir Tsarfati: Where is the Promise of His Coming?

The title of the message this evening is, “Where is the Promise of His Coming?

Unfortunately, this is one of the biggest questions that a lot of either non- believers or very big doubting believers are asking themselves.

But before we dive into that, who would believe that in less than 2 years,

USA pulled out of the Iran deal;

imposed very harsh sanctions on Iran’s oil and metal industry; moved its embassy to Jerusalem;

recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights;

declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp as a terror organization;

and the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

None of these things could have happened, unless God did a miracle to this country with this administration.

You don’t have to be in love with the personality of a specific leader.

You have to look at the policy of the leader.

This is how we need to look at things.

To me, every morning waking up and seeing more and more things added to this list,

its amazing.

It is beyond amazing.

I am amazed.

I am grateful.

I believe that maybe this is what America, today, is for

as it is all about “for such a time is this”.

I had a chance to share with Congressmen from different states last week in DC. And Steve was there with me.

It’s interesting that sometimes your own congressmen are not even aware of the magnitude that the decisions taken by your administration have all around the world.

The trump effect is shaking planet Earth, basically.

All around, everywhere from Indonesia, all across the Middle East, to the European side, all the way from Mexico, to Canada, and in America.

It’s quite amazing how God can use a person.

Again, it’s not that person.

It’s what he’s doing. What he’s standing for. This is what’s amazing.

I am so amazed.

But I must say, however, we have too many people that still doubt, and there are those who will always be the naysayers.

2 Peter chapter 3:3-4,

“Knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming?

For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.”

In Jude, there’s only one chapter, verses 17-19,

“But you beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.

How they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts.

These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.”

This is an amazing thing in that we’re watching God doing his thing in the world, while the fig tree comes back to life.

We are the only generation since the time of Jesus Christ to see Israel back in its land.

We are the only generation since the time of Jesus Christ to see Jerusalem back as our capital.

We are the only generation since the time of Jesus Christ that we don’t have to say, we hope for it, we pray for it.

But we see the day approaching.

We see with our very eyes.

Yet, we are even more so today, surrounded by those naysayers that will tell you, where is the promise of his coming?

There is a promise here.

When is that promise? What is that promise? Who is the one who promised?

Why is it? Who is the one who doubts the promise? These are so many questions that we have.

First of all, we ask ourselves, okay, the scriptures are telling us that it is going to be in the last days.

Make no mistake that a lot of people are saying, “if I only saw Jesus today, I would believe.”

Well, the people who saw Jesus then did not believe.

Faith is not about what you see.

You understand that in Hebrews chapter 1:1-2, the definition of what the last days are all about is quite clear.

The last days began, right there, at the time of Jesus.

The Bible says, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son,

whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.”

So, through Jesus, when Jesus came, God spoke to the world and that began the last days.

Up until Jesus, the prophets were talking about him and promising about his soon coming.

We know that Simeon, that old man, was waiting for the Consolation of Israel.

He was patiently waiting for the coming of the Redeemer.

People were longing for him. People were hoping for him. People were praying for him.

Then he showed up and the last days began.

Because he is now fulfilling everything.

So, the last days started.

Who are those people that are mocking, doubting, the scoffers?

The Bible says in Jude, these people, these mockers, these people “would walk according to their own ungodly lusts.”

1 Peter 2:1-3, “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,

if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”

People who have never tasted the graciousness of the Lord,

they don’t even know him, probably.

They think they do.

They don’t lay aside the malice; they feed on it.

They don’t lay aside the deceit.

This is their modus apperandi. This is the way they operate.

They don’t even tell you the truth to your face.

They’re hypocrites. By the way, “hypocrates” in the Greek is a mask.

I don’t know if you know that in the theater world of those days, the mask they used during a show was called Hypocrates.

That’s why hypocrites are people who are putting on themselves something that they are not.

Envy.

So much of why they tell you that your hope is not valid, that the promise is not true, it is because they envy.

They look at you, and they see people with hope.

They see people with great expectation.

That expectation brings forth holiness, and righteousness. Then they look at their life.

It’s envy, evil speaking.

That’s why we, as newborn babes, we need to desire the pure milk of the Word.

I am not even sure how much they find themselves in the Word.

“That we may grow thereby if indeed we have tasted, the Lord is gracious.”

Proverbs 13:1 says, “A wise son heeds his father’s instruction.

But a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.”

These people are not even willing to listen to a rebuke.

They know better.

They know everything.

What is it that they mock you for?

They’re saying, where is the promise of his coming?

Where is it? Show it to me.

I don’t believe it.

Interesting.

They’re doubting the coming of Christ for his people.

They’re basically saying, look, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was here, and yeah, he said things.

But you have to take things in the right context.

Look, ever since our fathers were here and they died, things are the same.

Things are the same for them, maybe.

But for a newborn, spirit filled believer, things are not the same.

They can never be the same.

You saw my testimony.

If things were the same, I wouldn’t be alive today.

They doubt the coming of Christ to his people.

They doubt the literal promise.

They start speaking in a figurative way.

Interesting.

I’m saying to myself, when you talk about Christ and you deny his resurrection, your whole faith is basically gone.

But when you talk about Christ and you don’t deny his resurrection, but you deny his coming back to take us,

then what’s the point of his resurrection?

Doubting the literal promise of his physical return to this earth, not to touch earth with his feet yet.

But to meet us in the clouds and take us to be with him.

John 14,

“So where I am, you will also be.”

Not where you are, I’m coming to be there too.

He says, I will take you and receive you unto myself.

It’s a very interesting word in the Hebrew and in the Greek, “to receive” is to take to yourself.

It’s interesting because those people are telling you, look, the world is the same.

It’s all the same from the time of our fathers. Nothing is changing.

These are the same people who are really acting as in the days of Noah, basically.

If you really think about it.

Everybody knows that in the days of Noah there were very few people that prepared themselves for something great.

Yet the rest of them, what is it that they did?

The Bible says in Matthew 24,

“But as the days of Noah were, so also will be the coming of the Son of man be.

For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying, giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark.”

This is an amazing picture of us being taken out of here.

“And did not know until the flood came and took them all away,

so also, will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

They just didn’t want to hear what Noah had to say.

They didn’t want to listen to the warnings that God through Noah was speaking to the people.

So just like those scoffers, okay, everything is the same.

Why are they doing that do you think?

To put people to sleep and steal their hope.

You see, the hope of the coming of Jesus is the most important thing that the believer can hold onto today.

It is the #1 thing Satan wants to steal from you.

He is going to use people, sometimes from within, most times from outside.

But he will always bring those scoffers to always tell you, where is the promise of his coming?

They doubt his promises.

They doubt his appointed times,

and they doubt the redemption of our bodies.

You see, they don’t say, oh, I don’t believe we are saved or redeemed.

They don’t understand that there is awaiting for us another redemption.

Not the redemption of our soul, but the redemption of our body.

In Romans chapter 8, he says so.

We better not get used to this body.

This is a very lowly body, the Bible says.

I don’t know if you know that.

Put your picture from 20 years ago next to you. You’re dying.

You look terrible today compared to 20 years ago.

Put on as much makeup as you want. Go to the best plastic surgeon.

You will never be like 20 years ago.

Let me tell you, folks, because this is a lowly body. The body is in the process of decay.

This body must wear incorruption in order to make it to heaven.

We will smell bad in heaven in this body.

We have to have a new body in order to get there.

So we have the promise that he will come.

The promise that there is a set time,

and the promise that he will take us.

Take us, as we are right now.

The redemption of our body. These are the tactics of the enemy.

So many churches around the world teach Universalism.

Universalism, everybody’s saved.

That’s it.

Through one man, sin came into the world;

through another one, redemption and salvation came to the world.

That’s it.

All men are saved.

In fact, there is one theology called the Finished Work Eschatology.

This is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard.

Originating from the USA and poisoning the whole world with short little video clips.

Basically, saying that all has been was fulfilled already in the year 70 AD.

Thus, don’t expect a rapture.

Don’t expect tribulation.

There is no heaven. There is no earth.

There is nothing.

Looking around, if this is it, I’m pretty disappointed,

I must say.

I have a pastor friend, a dear friend who lives in the Philippines.

One day I get an email from someone telling me that this friend decided that he believes that all men are saved.

I said, No, I know this friend.

He’s a great friend.

Why would you say something like that? So, I invited that friend to dinner.

I could not believe what my ears were hearing.

He actually gave me 3 personal questions.

Actually, some of them were questions and some were points.

He basically said, I no longer have the stress and the burden.

I am free at last.

I said, what do you mean? He said, I don’t have to preach to people that they have to get saved anymore.

Because all people are saved.

I don’t wake up in the morning with a burden for the lost.

I said, Pastor, do you understand what you’re telling me right now?

You’ve been leading hundreds of people to Christ.

What happened? He said, well, I found finally the truth.

I need to go and apologize to all the people I led to Christ.

I said, wow!

Can we ever live in this world without being burdened by this dying world? How can we?

In 2 Corinthians 11:16-33,

“I say again, let no one think me a fool.

If otherwise, at least receive me as a fool, that I also may boast a little.

What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord.

But as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting. Seeing that many boast according to the flesh,

I also will boast. For you put up with fools gladly, since you yourselves are wise!

For you put up with it if one brings you into bondage.

If one devours you, if one takes from you, if one exalts himself, if one strikes you on the face.

To our shame I say that we were too weak for that!

But in whatever anyone is bold. I speak foolishly,

I am bold also. Are they Hebrew? So am I. Are they Israelites?

So am I.

Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I.

Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool,

I am more. In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often.

Once I was stoned, 3 times I was a shipwrecked,

a night and a day I have been in the deep, in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city,

in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

Besides the other things,

what comes upon me daily, my deep concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not?

Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?

If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity.

The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.

In Damascus, the governor under Aretas the king, was guarding the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desiring to arrest me.

But I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.”

That’s someone who was burdened.

This is true care for the people.

How can we wake up in the morning thinking, everybody’s saved?

I don’t need to do anything anymore.

When we look, turn on TV, open a newspaper, watch the news online, actually just go around the city.

This world is getting crazier and crazier.

The ungodliness, the wickedness, the cruelty, everything is intensifying by the minute.

And you’re going tell me that there is no burden in the heart of the believer for the lost?

You doubt the literal promise?

It’s very interesting because he asked me also, Amir, don’t teach on the rapture.

He said, there is no rapture.

Of course, there is no rapture?

You think this is it?

You doubt the literal promise of Jesus to his disciples to come and take them?

Well, I want to tell you something,

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the Sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willing, but because of Him, who subjected it in hope;

because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.

Not only that, but within ourselves eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

For we were saved in this hope.

But hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?

But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.”

Paul is writing these words to a church he’s never been to.

He never visited Rome even one single time, before he wrote this letter.

He’s writing the letter to the Romans.

This is the longest epistle Paul ever wrote to any church, ever.

He wrote it with the knowledge that there was no situation he needed to deal with:

Tell this one not to do this to this one; and tell that one not to say this to this one.

He doesn’t know anyone there.

The entire book of Romans is pure doctrine.

Its the doctrine of the hope that we must have.

Of the fact that we must wait with perseverance.

Of the fact that there is coming a day, when not only the soul, not only the spirit, but our body is going to be redeemed out of this world.

1 Thessalonians 4,

“…I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.”

He says, guys, even if some of our brothers and sisters died, if they are believers, thank you, Lord!

Because you don’t have that lifestyle of having no hope, like so many.

He says, “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.

For this we say to you by the Word of the Lord.”

When Paul says, “For this we say to you by the Word of the Lord,”

Paul basically says, Okay, I’m telling you, exactly what God is speaking.

Okay? It’s not my opinion. It’s not my theology.

Look what God says,

He says, “that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.

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.

Therefore, (he said), comfort one another with these words.”

Everyday remind yourself that your citizenship is not here anymore.

You have a heavenly citizenship.

When you die, you don’t die. You go home. You go home where you belong.

Okay? When somebody dies here, he just falls asleep.

It’s like when your child falls asleep in the living room and you take him all the way to his bedroom. He wakes up in his bedroom.

We fall asleep here; we wake up there.

Good deal.

That’s the comfort we need to comfort one another,

with these words.

Don’t listen to those naysayers.

Don’t listen to those scoffers and those mockers.

The easiest thing to mock in our faith is the rapture.

Why? Because it sounds really out of this world.

I mean, think about it.

(whoosh) We’re gone.

But hey, was the parting of the Red Sea not something else?

Why is the rapture your only problem?

I mean, wasn’t Jesus taken in the cloud?

What about Elijah with all that amazing drama?

What about the Jordan River rolling all the way back and piling water all the way to the sky as a pillar?

Letting almost a million and a half Israelites crossing, at the same time?

How come you have a problem with the rapture of the church, and you can accept all the other things?

Isn’t God the God of miracles?

I mean, you want God to just be an ordinary God.

The world to be just an ordinary world. And things to be as they always have been.

This is like putting you to sleep.

It’s amazing.

John 14, “Let not your heart be troubled.

You believe in God. Believe also in me.

In my Father’s house are many mansions.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

And I go to prepare a place for you.”

Jesus said, Look, I need to go first.

I need to prepare a place for you.

Okay? So stay here and I’m going to send the Holy Spirit.

He’ll comfort you. He’ll guard you.

He’ll be with you.

Okay?

I’m not leaving you as orphans. Don’t worry.

But he said, “And if I go and prepare a place for you,

I will come again and receive you (where?) to Myself; that where I am.”

Where is Jesus now? At the right hand the Father.

So “where I am, there you may also be.

And where I go you know, and the way you know.”

Then Thomas asked, show us the way? He said, “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.

No one comes to the Father but through me.”

This is an amazing promise that we have here.

The 3rd thing that pastor told me during that dinner that I almost choked to death is

that your messages cause people to fear and doubt their salvation.

I spoke to so many people that called me after you teach, they’re afraid.

Wow, I didn’t know that. I looked in the mirror.

Do I look that scary? I mean, think about it.

It’s only sin that causes us to hide in fear.

I mean, I’m thinking about the Garden of Eden, Genesis 3,

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise.

She took of it first and ate, and she also gave to her husband with her and he ate.

And then the eyes of both of them were open that they knew that they were naked,

and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’

So he said, ‘I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself’.”

First sin, a result of rebellion, brought forth shame and fear, and therefore hiding.

So when you preach the Word of God and someone suddenly is afraid, many times it’s because there is something wrong with his life, and there is fear.

Now, make no mistake, by the way, walking with God gives us confidence.

The Bible says in Isaiah 32, “The work of righteousness will be peace and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance, forever.

If that’s not enough, in 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a Spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

So we clearly can see

that when you preach about the soon return of Jesus, and somebody is afraid that Jesus is coming soon.

There’s only one reason he’s afraid, he’s not ready.

He is not ready.

Bible prophecy is not to scare, but it’s to prepare.

You have to remember that.

The Bible wants us to learn what patience is all about.

We give God “timing”.

It’s something we need to remember.

People think that God is late.

Excuse me, but I’m still here?

What’s going on here?

Well, you know what? God has appointed times.

Romans 15 says, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning that we through the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded towards one another, according to Jesus Christ.”

Malachi, or some of you call it Malachi if you’re Italian,

Malachi 2:17,

“You have wearied the Lord with your words.

Yet you say, ‘In what way have we were wearied Him?’

In that you say everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.

Or ‘Where is the God of justice?'”

They are asking. They are mocking.

They are doubting.

Psalm 3:1-2, “Lord, how they have increased who trouble me.

Many are they who rise up against me.

Many are they who say of me,

‘There is no help for him in God’.”

Amazing.

David was attacked by his own people.

Where is your God?

Where is his salvation?

Hebrews 9:28, “…so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him,

He will appear a second time.” To those who eagerly wait for him.

Appear, not return.

Appear, it’s different, He will appear.

We will be taken.

It’s not the physical return of Christ to earth.

To those who eagerly wait for him, he will appear a second time up, apart from sin, for salvation.

Romans 8 explains the salvation of our body.

1 Corinthians 1:4-9,

“I thank my God, always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus that you were enriched in everything by him in all utterance and all knowledge,

even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who will also confirm you to the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.”

Romans 8:18-22, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”

If somebody tells you that believing in the soon return of Jesus is escapism.

It’s like, oh, that’s an easy way to escape from troubles.

Absolutely not, the opposite.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time,”

You acknowledge that there is suffering in this present time,

“are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the Sons of God.”

We need to wait.

Luke 2, Simeon, what a great man.

He was in Jerusalem. He was just and devout waiting for the Consolation of Israel.

All the Israelites went to the temple.

All of them brought sacrifices.

All of them pretended that everything was the same.

All of them ignored all the words of the prophets.

All the expectation for the soon arriving of the Messiah. Excuse me.

All of them ignored what Daniel said, and what Isaiah said, and what Jeremiah said.

All of them were just living their days and their lives, as if it was the same.

There was one man, an old guy, “waiting for the Consolation of Israel,

and the Holy Spirit was upon him.”

See, the Holy Spirit, if you have the Holy Spirit, that’s the key.

To have the hope, the expectation, the endurance, the patience, all of that.

“Because the Holy Spirit was upon him.”

In those days, the Holy Spirit was not in you.

You were not sealed with the Holy Spirit.

It had not yet arrived as the promise was. But it would come upon people and leave people.

This is why David said, “Do not take your Holy Spirit from me”.

Upon, the Bible says, it came upon him, …the Holy Spirit was upon him.

And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” The Lord’s Messiah.

The Spirit said, You’re going to see the Messiah before you die.

He looks all around and he could have said, No, everything is the same.

He could have.

But, no,

he was waiting for the Consolation of Israel.

The Bible says, “He came by the Spirit into the temple.

And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law,

he took Him up in the arms and blessed God and said,

‘Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your Word. For my eyes, have seen your salvation,

which you have prepared before the face of all people,

a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.”

The same Holy Spirit that can never, ever say anything different.

Because it’s the same God yesterday, today, and forever.

He’s the same Lord.

The same Holy Spirit is telling you today that he’s about to return, any day now.

Galatians 4,

“But when the fullness of the time had come,

God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”

You see, “when the fullness of the time had come”.

God has an appointed time.

He’s not working by our own schedule.

He’s asking us to be patient and to be ready.

Let him do the rest.

The last thing he wants you to do is to mock, and to be scoffers, and to say, where is the promise of his coming?

Because he is about to send, just as when the fullness of the time had come,

then he sent forth his Son to be born of a woman.

When the fullness of the times will come, he’s going to send him back.

It’s amazing how God works.

I’m thinking about Daniel, the prophet.

Daniel was so happy because Daniel knew the times. He knew the seasons. Daniel counted days, months, years.

He knew that the prophecy written and spoken by Jeremiah, the prophet, was about to be “fully” filled.

He knew that 70 years, since the time they were kicked out of Jerusalem, were about to come to an end.

He was full of expectation.

He was full of hope.

Then the angel comes and say, Hey, Daniel, I want to tell you something.

I don’t know what it is but God really likes you.

I want to tell you something, Daniel,

from the beginning of your prayer, from the moment you opened your mouth,

the decree was already given to me, to come, and tell you this thing.

In other words, God decided,

and the Archangel Gabriel had to fly, very fast, to come and tell Daniel something.

That’s the time.

Then he says to Daniel, listen Daniel, I’ll tell you something.

Whatever you know about Jeremiah and 70 years, that’s nice.

It’s good. But I am about to reveal to you something even greater.

Take your pen, take the scroll, and write it down.

Because God has appointed times and when the time comes, he’s acting.

Now He’s not telling us sometimes the day or the hour.

In certain times, by the way, he does tell us days.

He tells us that there are 7 years of tribulation.

He tells that there is 1260 days in the first half, and 1260 days in the other half.

He tells us exactly how many months, how many years, and how many days. We know all of those things.

But he also says, regarding my coming to take you,

no one knows the day and the hour, because I want you to be ready at all time.

Hum, sounds familiar this whole “fullness of the time”?

Romans 11, which is going to be the topic of our next message,

“For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your opinion,

that blindness in part, has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”

There is a set time.

We’re going to talk about it, if we’re still here.

Revelation 5:1-10,

“And I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back sealed with seven seals.”

You see, John was brought up to heaven after he spoke to the church, about the church.

Now in chapter 4, the Lord calls him up and says, I want you to see what’s going on there.

“Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice,

‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?’

And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll, or to look at it.

So I wept much.”

John wept.

The whole plan of God is based on that scroll that somebody has to open.

The hope, and he’s weeping.

“I wept much because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it.

But one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep.

Behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its 7 seals’.

And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the 4 living creatures,

and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb

as though it had been slain, having 7 horns and 7 eyes, which are the 7 Spirits of God sent into all the earth.

Then He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne.

Worthy is the Lamb.

Now when He had taken the scroll, the 4 living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb,

each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

And they sang a new song, saying:

‘You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals;

For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,

And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth’….”

There is a great promise that we will be in heaven, groomed to come back, and reign with him on the earth.

And you want to tell me that I should weep and cry that there is no one worthy to open the seal?

John wept, because he didn’t understand what was going on here.

I thought that I’m coming to heaven and everything is already set.

Everything is set.

But, John, we’re not working according to your schedule.

There is one that is worthy.

He is going to open the scroll and loose the 7 seals, when the time comes.

Because he has already won.

He has already been victorious.

He is the one who prevailed.

He has prevailed and he will.

He will open the scroll.

He will loose its 7 seals.

There will be a great tribulation.

There will be great catastrophes.

Those things are given to us in the Book of Revelation all the way almost to chapter 9.

We see all of that.

But we, we are meant to be up there.

We are meant to be groomed, to become the kings and priests.

So we shall reign on the earth.

“Indeed, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its 7 seals.

He redeemed us to God by his blood out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation,

and has made us all kings and priests to our God. We shall reign on the earth.”

Philippians 2:5-11,

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,

but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant, and coming in the likeness of men.

And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even to death on the cross.

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth,

and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

He has won.

So, the hope is that he’s coming back.

I will end up with his words, not mine.

“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely, I am coming quickly’.”

Amen?

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Hallelujah!

Father, we thank you so much for this promise.

We thank you that he who promised is faithful.

We thank you, Father, for having the Holy Spirit,

surrounding ourselves with the right people, like-minded people,

being encouraged by your promises.

We want to wait upon you with patience and perseverance.

Because the Lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed.

He has already won.

And when the time comes, he will return to take us.

And until then, he expects us to share the hope of his soon return, everywhere, every day, to all people.

Let not the scoffers mess up our mind and tell us, where is the promise of his coming?

He who promised, indeed, is faithful.

In Jesus name, we pray.

Amen.