Christ Our Hope
Long before Christ entered this world, His coming had been predicted. True to those promises, He did indeed come. Manifold are the promises that He will come a second time. He said so Himself: " 'I will come back!' " On the final page of the Bible this promise is repeated: " 'Yes, I am coming soon' " (Rev. 22:20, NIV). This is the corporate hope of Christian believers. It is "the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13, NIV).
In what sense does the hope of the Christian culminate in the Jesus' second coming? (Rev. 22:7, 10-12, 20). Why are these promises so crucial to us?
How does the time aspect mentioned in 2 Peter 3:8, 9 impact our understanding of the term soon in connection with the Second Coming?
The ultimate solution for the sin problem and all the misery sin has caused is not found in anything humanity can invent or arrange, but in the intervention of heaven through our Lord Jesus Christ. Our hope is not in human technology, clever politicians, or social and moral progress. These things never can solve the problem of death. And although it is important to know what will precede and accompany the coming of the Lord, it is even more important that we are sure of the One we expect.
Our Lord will come soon. "It is just a matter of time, that's all. And no one can change this fact. No tyrant can reach up and grab the world from His grasp. It remains firmly and forever in the hands of the Crucified One. None can undo Calvary anymore than they can undo their birth. . . . Since the cross, we live in time filled by the victory of Calvary—time determined by that goal. Hence, whether they know it or not, humanity does not merely advance toward a hoped-for goal in some distant day, with the possibility that it may never come. No! Humanity moves triumphantly from a goal Jesus has already reached."—Norman Gulley, Christ Is Coming (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald® Publishing Association, 1998), p. 540. A philosopher naA philosopher named Martin Heidegger once said that "only a god can save us." Whatever he himself might have meant by that idea, why is it so true? Where are you placing your hope? If it's in anything but the true God, why is this hope a false one?
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