5
and safety”, but suddenly they will be robbed
of everything they trusted in.
God has a perfect right to send His son for his
bride, as He chooses. We may not be certain
about the manner of his coming, but let us be
sure that we are open to God’s higher ways.
Above all, let us not be so taken up with our
conjectures that we are not ready when
Christ does come. That is what happened to
many of the Jews when Jesus came the first
time. Jesus’ mother, Mary, provides an excel-
lent picture of one with a submissive heart
before Christ’s first coming when an angel
told her that she would be his mother. “He
shall be great, and shall be called the son of
the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David, and he
shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever”
(Luke 1:32-33). Did Mary grasp everything
that the angel told her? Did she understand
how all the details would work out? She prob-
ably had a number of misconceptions about
the whole thing. But Mary’s response clearly
portrays a submissive heart. She simply said,
“Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto
me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). That
is very much like John’s response in
Revelation, “Even so, come Lord Jesus”.
3) A ready heart
In Revelation 22, John recorded various
truths associated with Christ’s coming; one is
in verse 11, “He that is unjust, let him be
unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be
filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him
be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him
be holy still.” Another truth is in verse 12:
“Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is
with me, to give every man according as his
work shall be”. The coming of Christ will
mean giving an account of our lives and being
rewarded accordingly.
John’s response, “Amen. Even so come, Lord
Jesus.” It seems that he was saying, “I am
ready. I have met the conditions that you
have stated, and I am living in accordance
with your will and your word.” Does our heart
echo the same readiness? Are we satisfied
that we are ready to be forever with the
“Even So, Come Lord Jesus”
Lord? What glory we will experience if it is
so!
But if we have failed to meet God’s require-
ments for salvation, we cannot always
honestly say, “Even so, come Lord Jesus.”
Instead, we need to take action to get
ourselves ready. In his first epistle, John
described how we can be righteous before
God: “If we say that we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8,9). If we
receive God’s grace and sincerely strive to
live above self and sin, we can always be
ready for Christ’s return. May that be true in
our experience. May we be like the five wise
virgins, who had their lamps trimmed and
burning ready for the bridegroom.
4) An eager heart
We sense this in the words, “Even so, come,
Lord Jesus”. Here is the cry of an eager
heart, one that is longing for Christ and even
urging him to come quickly. What was behind
this eager desire? Revelation 21 and 22 speak
of the wonderful things John saw, things so
marvellous that he had difficulty putting
them into words. The light of the heavenly
city was like unto a stone most precious
(21:11,18), “And there shall be no night
there; and they need no candle, neither light
of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them
light.” John was bursting with the splendours
of the New Jerusalem and these should also
quicken our pulse and stir the heart’s longing
for home. The greatest attraction in this
magnificent place is the throne of God and of
the Lamb, “And they shall see his face!” Oh,
do we not long for the time and day. What
overwhelming joy it will be to see our
precious Redeemer face to face!
We must hold fast to the truth, adding
nothing to it and taking nothing from it. If we
do these things and if we have a believing,
submissive, ready and eager heart, we can
echo John’s response: “Even so, come, Lord
Jesus.”