QB12 Why Should the Bride Call Come Now? (Part 3)

In the final chapter of our Bibles Revelation 22, Jesus is on centre stage and talking directly to us through the words of the prophecy given to John. Each time Jesus speaks it reveals something important either about the manner of His coming or the glory in which He will come. Like the closing argument and summation in a courtroom, where emphasis is given on the main points to be considered and a justification of what the correct response or outcome should be, we can look at this chapter in a similar way. What were the last recorded words of Jesus in the Bible? Because whatever they were it sets the whole context of how the church should live, what should be its vision, and what should be its heartbeat. The closing words of Jesus is embedded within the DNA of the church today. So what were our Lord’s final words? In Rev 22:20 Jesus says “Surely I am coming quickly (or soon)” and John replies “Amen, Come Lord Jesus”. This is the correct response and reflects John’s heart for His Lord. This is John who was known as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’, John who witnessed the miracles, the humanity and the deity of Jesus whilst upon the earth. John who stood at the foot of the cross and took Mary the Mother of Jesus into his home, and for more than 60 years after Jesus ascended back to Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, had lived his life as the apostle of love, and now in his old age exiled on Patmos. John knew Jesus intimately perhaps more than any other. He knew Jesus’ heart for us, and he also knew that the only answer for a victorious church, was for it to be ready as the Bride so that Jesus would come back again to establish His throne personally and geographically in Jerusalem, because that’s what Heaven is waiting for, for the Wife to make herself ready. Not a Kingdom Now perspective through a surrogate church representing Jesus on earth while He remained in Heaven, O no, such post millennial thinking was never a thought in John or the early church fathers. No, it was only by Jesus actual bodily return as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, crowned with many crowns, that would finally overthrow the kingdoms of darkness, destroy the antichrist and the false prophet, and establish a millennial reign in which Satan would be bound for a thousand years. This is the blessed hope that we should hold so dear to our hearts, the hope of His glorious appearing, that Jesus who promised will come back, shall return soon. So when Jesus said He was coming quickly, what else could John say? What else can we say, if Jesus says He is coming soon, what should our response be? Should we say, not yet Lord, I haven’t finished what I wanted to do, not yet Lord the church is still growing, not yet Lord we haven’t established your kingdom in every nation and sector of society. No, the call to come is the right and honouring response that can only be made by the Bride. Did you notice the Bible doesn’t say the Spirit and the Church say Come! But it is the Spirit and the Bride who say ‘Come’. For the church without her bridal identity will continue to go through an endless cycle of reformation and reset until she can finally agree with Spirit and Call Come as the Bride. It is this call to come, that breaks that cycle and aligns us with our destiny and it is this call that Heaven is waiting to hear as a sure sign that the Bride is getting ready, and more than anything else that her desire is for Him.