And in Conclusion… :: By Terry James
This commentary will be a bit personal, so I must warn that included is information I believe the Lord wants presented, but that the writing of it might be taken as self-attention-gathering allure. Please know that’s not what I intend.
While working in advertising many years ago, I served as creative director in a couple of ad agencies. We, of course, worked to put our clients’ businesses in the best possible light, and create allurements aimed at potential customers of our clients’ products and services through regional and national print and broadcast venues.
We constantly searched the recesses of our brains for the cleverest, yet on-the-mark lines of copy (word pictures) to attract customers for our clients and to demonstrate to our competitor ad agencies just how good we were at the business of advertising.
Annual awards were presented for such narcissistic endeavors. I loved the business of advertising, but, being younger than the agency heads, I never got caught up in the higher level of the business where the top guys would gather to accept the awards.
The one time I wish to relate here, in which the part I loved–the creative process—was involved, is captured in the title of this commentary. I’m sure the phrase has been used many times since that moment long ago. But it was the first time it was used, and we all sat around the ad agency’s creative environs wishing we could have thought of it.
It was emblazoned across a billboard. I can’t remember the ad agency that came up with it, or which funeral home it was created for, but it was, at the time, absolutely the perfect slogan for a funeral home: “And in conclusion….”
I guess that thoughts of funeral-type things are always close to the surface of our thinking, particularly the older we get.
My eighty-fourth birthday is the day after we post this article, and I’ve been listening to the funeral of Senator Lindsey Graham, who died considerably younger than I am at present, as I write it on Tuesday, July 28. So the slogan from long ago came to mind in a most poignant way.
Here I sit, thinking on, praying on, and writing about the biblical conclusion of things–Bible prophecy.
It comes to mind the many great friends that have gone to their heavenly rewards, some considerably younger than I am now. Like Dr. Dave Breese, truly one of my most beloved friends, who helped me get started with my first book—Storming Toward Armageddon.
Dave, one of the most eloquent and brilliant spokesmen for God’s Word, was just seventy-three when he was called into Heaven.
I think of my wonderful friend Dr. Tim LaHaye, who was sixteen years older than me. I remember this because the first time Tim and I met, he figured the age difference with a smile. Tim is certainly now enjoying the tremendous rewards of heavenly life–eternal life!
Then I think on the great preacher and teacher Dr. J. Vernon McGee, who inspired so many of us with his down-home but tremendously powerful teachings. He was…well…he was eighty-four when he passed into that heavenly dimension! Eighty-four!… Well…I’m now 84!
Time to think of what the slogan I remember so vividly from those many years ago really encompasses! “And in conclusion….”
This is not meant to be read like my own impending epitaph. I trust the Lord has me here yet for His own purposes. I won’t go into the widow-maker heart attack and heart stoppages way back on Good Friday, April 22, 2011, and the miraculous trip to Heaven and back three times. (Well, I guess I just did go into it again but just can’t help myself.) It’s a witness, and I will always interject it when opportunity permits.
And the witness–the main reason I believe I’m still topside of the soil, as I like to say—is to tell that God is warning the world that the end of this age (Age of Grace or Church Age) is about to come to an end. This means that the worst time in all of human history, as Jesus Himself stated (Matthew 24: 21), is about to come upon rebellious humankind.
The Tribulation will be the last seven years that will put an end to humankind’s rebellion against God. It will be Daniel’s seventieth week.
The telling of this terrible era of Heaven’s punishment against earth’s rebels, found mainly in the book of Revelation, detailing twenty-one judgments in a series of three specific acts of God’s wrath: seven scrolls, seven trumpets, and seven bowls, will be God saying, in effect, what that billboard advertisement presented all those years ago.
And in conclusion…
The Lord is indeed slow concerning His judgment. He is not willing for anyone to perish in their sin. He pleads for all to come to repentance. But His patience is not without limits, and it is obvious to any true student of Bible prophecy that this generation is bumping up against the very end of this age of God’s patience.
The Rapture of all believers, lifting them (harpazo) into the presence of Jesus Christ, who will receive (paralambano) them unto Himself where they will be with Him forever.
Now this is the way those of us who study and put forth God’s Word –particularly His prophetic Word—want ultimately for all who will heed Heaven’s call. This is the end of all things as God wants them to be because that end is really the Beginning.
Accept Christ and the redemption God offers through His Son’s death, burial, and resurrection. The words of that slogan I remember will then have a wonderful, not a fearful, meaning.
And in conclusion…
–Terry
Maintaining a Heavenly Focus
We live in the last moments before Jesus’ appearing. The Lord gave us a great many signs so we could recognize the season of His return for us, and this is it, no doubt about it. But is it possible to become overly preoccupied with what’s happening around us, the signs themselves?
As many of you know, Amir Tsarfati has stepped away from reporting the news each day. I very much miss his accurate perspective of the current war, but I increasingly understand his decision. In a recent post on Telegram, he said, “The world is captivated by what is happening. I am captivated by Who is coming.” I know from experience that it’s far too easy to also become captivated by the 24-hour news cycle and lose my focus on Jesus Himself.
I’m not suggesting that we bury our heads in the sand, but at the same time we must realize that not all Christian sources of end-time news are the same. Some don’t believe in a pre-Tribulation Rapture, and that significantly changes the way that they report current events. They lack the perspective of 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8, that of the Restrainer holding back the unveiling of antichrist and the rampant lawlessness he will bring with him after the Rapture.
As Amir so aptly stated, we must not become “captivated” by what we see, even though they are genuine signs of the last days. I might add that we must not allow others to needlessly alarm us when they report the dire news apart from the perspective of Jesus’ imminent appearing.
In Titus 2:13, Paul defined “our blessed hope” as “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” We see this same focus in Philippians 3:20-21:
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” (emphasis added)
I wrote the following in my book, The Triumph of the Redeemed:
The Greek word for “await” in verse 20 points to an “intense anticipation” or an “excited expectation” of a future event.[i]
Luke used the same Greek word for “await” in Acts 17:16 to describe Paul’s restless “waiting” in Athens for Silas and Timothy to rejoin him. After the apostle’s distressing experiences in Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea, we know he intently watched and longed for a reunion with his fellow laborers. This is the same passionate yearning of the soul with which the apostle characterizes the waiting of the Philippians for the Lord’s appearing.
Paul used that same word, properly translated as “eagerly await,” in other texts referring to the Rapture (1 Corinthians 1:7; Romans 8:23-25). The apostle taught all his converts to look for the Lord’s appearing (1 Thessalonians 1:8-10). Jesus is our hope. Without this perspective, the alarming news of our day often generates fear rather than hopeful expectation.
One of my favorite Rapture passages is Colossians 3:1-4:
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
Although the text doesn’t mention Jesus’ appearing until verse 4, it sums up our need for a heavenly focus on our Savior during these perilous times. He is our “life,” the reason we have hope as the storm clouds appear on the horizon. For me, these verses are the best remedy for feelings of fear or even anger brought about by reading about the widespread fraud, deceptiveness, and violence of our day.
Another reason for avoiding an undue reliance on the daily news cycle is its deceptiveness. It’s an extremely unreliable source for what might happen next. Solomon’s wise words in Proverbs 27:1 remind us of the uncertainty of thinking we know what lies ahead: “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.” Even when what we read is an accurate portrayal of what happened or what someone said, it often turns out to be a faulty indicator of what the next day will bring our way.
I pray Jesus comes very soon to take us to the place He’s preparing for us.
In the meantime, don’t let the daily hype of current events take your eyes off the source of our hope, Jesus. The Lord sovereignly controls all things, and at just the right time, He will take us out of here.
Maranatha!
-Jonathan
[i] Colin Brown, ed., Dictionary of New Testament Theology Vol. 2, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1969) p. 244.