“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it”.1 These are the words of this Psalm of Thanksgiving for the Lord’s saving goodness. What a tremendously joyful day it will be for the true Church when Christ returns. How the bridesmaids have looked forward to the wedding day and the coming of the bridegroom.2 In the parable of the ten virgins, five girls have fallen asleep while waiting for the bridegroom’s arrival, however, and with no oil in their lamps, oil as referring to the Holy Spirit. So when the Lord finally came, they were not taken with the others, but left behind. He comes at midnight!
…and it is now five minutes to twelve on the world history clock! Do we have ‘oil’ in our lamp? Have we been born again personally? For the ‘oil’, the Holy Spirit, is given to us when we come to personal faith, to personal surrender to the Lord Jesus.3 When we are born-again. It is not enough to be a ‘member of a church’, or to have been ‘brought up as a Christian’, or to have had a ‘mother, grandmother or grandfather who was a believer’. You have to come to your Christian faith personally. You may have been baptised as a baby and confirmed later in life, but have you received the Holy Spirit? Are you able to say: “I also know that Jesus is my Saviour (not just ‘the’ Saviour); I too have knelt down and accepted Him personally”? Then you are born again. You can be sure of that. You would not have knelt down otherwise. Many in ‘Christendom’ will fall asleep in the end-time, just like the bridesmaids, and then, when Jesus suddenly appears in the clouds, it is too late. They will then be left behind and not be caught up to meet with Him in the air.4 What will be a feast day for Jesus’ Church, will be a day of disaster for many others. For the Lord is Coming to judge.
His eyes are like blazing fire that bores right through you. He passes judgment and wages war in righteousness, according to this verse in the Book of Revelation. Isaiah says: “He will judge the lowly in righteousness and administer justice fairly to the humble people of the land, but He will strike the earth with the rod from His mouth and kill with the breath from His lips.”5 His eyes are like blazing fire. That is how John saw Him right at the beginning.6 There are many crowns on His head. The many crowns Christ wears are in marked contrast to the ‘beast’ with its seven heads and ten crowned horns, and He bears a written name, known to no one else except Himself, in contrast to the many blasphemous names on the ‘beast’s heads.7 He wears the crown of royal dignity for He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings.8 He rose from the dead to be seated at God’s right hand. “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”9 That is why God has exalted Him to the highest place and given Him the Name that is above every name.10 For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.11 Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns.12 And His children, the ‘victors’, the ‘overcomers’ will also bear Christ’s Name, which no one knows other than He Himself. “I will make the one who is victorious a pillar in the Temple of My God. I will also write on them the name of My God and the name of the City of My God, the New Jerusalem, which is coming down out of Heaven from My God; and… My new name!’’13
• Just as God’s Name is unfathomable, because it is the expression of God’s innermost being, so Christ’s Name cannot be known, understood or fathomed either. No one realises its profundity and depth other than He, Himself, and through Him we alone are able to fathom the deep meaning of our own new name, which we shall receive.14 We alone know what it cost Him to succeed in giving us this new name.
• Only the Spirit of God knows the ‘depth of God’. “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.” For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the ‘depths of God’. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the ‘spirit’ of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the ‘Spirit’ of God.” 1 Corinthians 2:9-11
Bible References:
1.Psalm 118:24 2.Matthew 25:1–13 3.Ephesians 1:13–14 4.1 Thessalonians 4:13–17; 1 Corinthians 15:50–52 5.Isaiah 11:4 6.Revelation 1:14 7.Revelation 13:1 8.Revelation 17:14 9.Acts 2:36 10.Philippians 2:9–11 11.1 Corinthians 15:24 12.Revelation 19:6 13.Revelation 3:12 14.Revelation 2:17
