Seeing the images from Bible prophecy of faithful born again Christians, the saints of God Almighty in Heaven at the end of last week’s post was deeply encouraging to me and I hope you also if you are a fellow believer.1 They are victorious over the treachery and violence of the most evil man to ever walk the earth and all other haters! How God loves us and cares for our encouragement to present these images to us in advance over nineteen hundred years ago. Indeed, the images convey the tender love God has for all who believe in and follow Christ very powerfully displayed to His eleven disciples as He prepared to make His departure back to Heaven in the Gospel of John.
Under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, this episode I am permitted to title, “The Lord’s Long Goodbye,” begins at John 13:1, the apostle writing: “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end,” (NKJV). From that launch point, the final Passover meal and evening together with what began as His twelve apostles proceeded with Him washing their feet and identifying Judas Iscariot as His betrayer he left to fulfill. Alone fully grasping the moment’s significance, the Lord began to declare His and the Father’s glory in it (John 13:2-32)!
Then, the Lord makes a shocking announcement saying, “‘“Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, “‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’” so now I say to you,”’” (John 13:33, NKJV.) From here there is His “new commandment” (John 13:34-35, NKJV), instruction, dialogue with the disciples and prayer to the Father that ends His long goodbye at John 17:26. All of what is said during this time hangs on and is tied to the announcement of His impending departure which is my focus in this post. As such, speaking from the heart “Simon Peter said to Him,” ‘“Lord, where are You going,’” (John 13:36a, NKJV)?
Peter’s question had all of the astonishment, emotion, disappointment, fear of loss, change and the future we all have when confronted with the sudden news someone we care deeply about is leaving for whatever reason. The Lord already knows every one of the other ten men feel the same way as Peter and answers him: ‘“Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward,’” (John 13:36b, NKJV).2 Not satisfied, Peter in all sincerity is insistent. He wants to know “why” he cannot “follow” Him “now” and asserts his willingness to die for the Lord which He rebukes; revealing Peter will in fact “deny” Him “three times” before sunrise (John 13:37-38, NKJV).
With great empathy the Lord Jesus begins to comfort the hearts of His eleven that have become deeply saddened by the announcement of His departure. First, He encourages their faith in Him to be on par with their faith in God the Father (John 14:1). Second, He assures, “In my Father’s house are many mansions” or rooms and He goes “to prepare a place for” them (John 14:2, NKJV). Preparing a place has to do with paving the way and readying the rooms where they will live with Him in the “heavenly Jerusalem” though, final fulfillment awaits the New Jerusalem constructed in Heaven and brought down on “a new earth” by God (Hebrews 12:18-24, 13:14; Revelation 21, NKJV).
Final future fulfillment in the New Jerusalem is made all the more sure by what the Lord says in John 14:3a. If He is going to go to the trouble to prepare a place for His disciples, He will “come again and receive” them to Himself (NKJV). What they did not grasp at the time was that the Lord’s departure and return had two parts. His departure from them initially would be by way of death near to being carried out by crucifixion, but He would return on the third day after through resurrection in God’s plan for their eternal redemption (John 14:15-18, 16:16-22)!3 After this initial brief, but all important departure and following instructions He gives making plain why they could not go with Him, the Lord would ascend to Heaven and the Father before their eyes then, come again (Acts 1:4-11).
Third and last, telling about the Lord’s love for His disciples in His long goodbye are the words, “that where I am, there you may be also,” (John 14:3b, NKJV). This is clearly very important to Him for He petitions His Father for the disciples’ union as and with Their Own plus reunion with Him (John 17:20-24). As He taught, His disciples knew where He was going and the way and were enabled to follow Him to the Father (John 14:4-6).4 Once more, this was so they could be with Him there and wherever He was to be thereafter; never to be separated again! This is why in His coming again to earth He brings with Him the spirits of His disciples to resurrect and gather them with the living to Himself as His first priority act (Matthew 24:29-31; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 19:9-16).5
1 Read the October 23, 2022 post, Revenge Of Those Without God’s Mark, under the category, Bible Prophecy.
2 With this statement, the Lord assures He was only leading out first. His eleven would follow after Him to where He was going at a later time as millions have done until now, through death!
3 The Lord’s resurrection after securing the eternal redemption of His followers made possible the reality of Him, the Father and Holy Spirit taking up residence in them so that even though physically He would return to Heaven, He could still be with them as He explained (John 14:19-24). Later, the apostle Paul celebrates being used of God to re- veal “the riches of the glory of this mystery…which is Christ in” us who believe, “the hope of glory,” (Colossians 1:24-27, NKJV).
4 This truth taught by the Lord is why no aspiring strong man or great woman of God in His image is found among the religious seeking to connect to the Father through any manmade religious means! As the Lord leads I write about essential relationship with Him in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics. Get it along with the com- panion Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study and Great Woman Of God Women’s Group Study for the equipping of the saints in the home and churches in the Strong Man Store, at your favorite internet bookseller or brick and mortar bookstore.
5 The Second Coming of Christ for the saints then, is not about rescue from tribulation as much as it is the union of Christ with His bride and their final reunion as eternally living, glorified immortals (1 Corinthians 15:20-23, 50-57)!
Among the epidemics of just this 21st century caused by things naturally unseen is the most deadly of all: unbelief in God! After nearly 2,000 years of being “to God the fragrance of Christ” as His faithful spreading the Gospel and witnessing Him throughout earth, the world is still wicked and growing worse; having rejected His faithful, our message and witness as an “aroma of death leading to death,” (2 Corinthians 2:14-16, NKJV).1 Indeed, this is happening despite more than a millennium of dominance by Christianity as manmade religion over most of the world starting from the Middle Ages when men at least outwardly professed a belief in God. Now, they are turning even from this!
The turn away from a general belief in God can be traced to the 14th century rise of humanism during the Renaissance that made man rather than God the center of existence.2 This philosophy elevated human reason as more authoritative than the Bible and religion and spurred such critical historical events as the 17th century European Enlightenment as well as the divorce of science from a biblical worldview of creation beginning earnestly with Charles Darwin’s “Theory of Evolution” in the 19th century. Today, all of our nation’s secular and not a few professed Christian educational institutions operate with the mindset God’s existence is only a faith construct of the religious.
It is one thing for the unsaved world to be turning away from belief in God with a corresponding rejection of His Word including prophecy, but it is another over the top thing for anyone claiming they are Christians to do so! Nevertheless, I have pointed to recent research in other posts that shows the epidemic of unbelief in God fully infecting the unsaved population of our nation is growing too, among many that profess to be Christians who are de facto apostates.3 I am convinced of the Lord that this epidemic of unbelief with its beginnings in the Renaissance which was certainly in part a freeing reaction to corrupt, stifling, dead manmade Christianity the religion, is also a satanically cultivated outcome of it!4 Truly, He foreknew these days and wills that His faithful not be discouraged by them.
Speaking of Himself as the manifestation of God’s Kingdom, His glorious future return after enduring Israel’s rejection and warning that it will be “as it was in the days of Noah” and “Lot” (Luke 17:20-37, NKJV), the Lord Jesus Christ “spoke a parable” to His hearers encouraging “that men always ought to pray and not lose heart,” (Luke 18:1, NKJV). The Lord compares the response of an unjust judge to a persistent widow and that of God to “His own elect” waiting on Him and vengeance on the faithless wicked who have mistreated them a long time (Luke 18:2-8a, NKJV). God’s elect and faithful are to wait on Him in persevering faith which tragically, the Lord laments in a rhetorical question He will not find in predominance on earth at His return (Luke 18:8b).5
1 As I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics and will not cease declaring, God’s faithful are always going to include every aspiring strong man and great woman of God in the image of Jesus Christ! The book is available with the companion Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study and Great Woman Of God Women’s Group Study in the Strong Man Store, at your favorite internet bookseller or brick and mortar bookstore.
2 Use your favorite search engine for articles on the origin of humanism.
3 See the 2019 Pew Research Center article, In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace. Also, learn how lack of a biblical worldview is widespread in professing American Christianity and among its leaders in a recent study by the Cultural Research Center directed by Dr. George Barna at Arizona Christian University.
4 Read the two-part post beginning August 21, 2016, Christianity The Religion Of Men, under the category, Instruction. Religion constructed and controlled by men is a fully inferior substitute for relationship with the living God whose reality in “wrath” is near to being displayed because they purposely “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” a- bout what can be “clearly seen” of Him “in” and all around “them,” (Romans 1:18-21, NKJV).
5 The Lord’s lament affirms what He has repeatedly led me to write concerning the number of those “who are alive and remain until” His coming as being very small (1 Thes- salonians 4:15, NKJV). Indeed, He even speaks to this remnant in advance warning them to stay alert in their persevering faith near the time of His sudden appearing (Rev- elation 16:15).
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