Is There Good News Concerning the Near Future?

INTRODUCTION

It would not be difficult for the believer, as he observes national and world events around him, to be pessimistic about the near future. Informed individuals know that the world is beset by all sorts of problems:

** International Conflicts
** Government Corruption
** Moral Corrosion
** Natural Calamities
** Theological Compromise
** Ecclesiastical Confusion
** Personal Concerns

Despite these problems listed—and they could be extended almost ad infinitum—the believer has not only reasons to be hopeful about the future but can be joyful because of certain verities. God is very much in control of the nations, their governments and each individual on this planet. Nothing takes Him off-guard. Everything is part of His sovereign plan. The Apostle Paul assures us that God “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will;” (Eph. 1:11). The discerning believer knows that whatever happens will ultimately result in God’s glory and for the Christian’s greatest good (Rom. 8:28).

An entire volume could be written on the supernal blessings promised the believer now and in the near future. After all, we have been “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places” (Eph. 1:3).

While it may be helpful to see God’s blessings and document them with a Scripture reference, it may be of greater benefit to contemplate the actual inspired words as we seek comfort, contentment and courage in these volatile days of the 21st century.

Let us enumerate a few delightful truths promised to us now and in the near future, based on the activity of our triune God on the believer’s behalf:

1. THE AFFECTION OF GOD THE FATHER:

a. God’s love is eternal:

Jer. 31:3 The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying:
“Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.”

What is true of God’s loving concern for Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, is equally true for every believer. When did God know us and love us? God has loved us from eternity past. Although difficult to grasp but glorious to contemplate, there never was a time when God did not know us and love us.

b. God’s love is presently active:

Rom. 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The blessed truth is that God does not love us for what we are but for what we are becoming through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. God loves us not because of our sinful character but because of our special connection to His Son.

c. God’s love is unending:

James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

Rom. 8:39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If nothing will ever separate us from the love of God, which He bestowed upon us because of “Christ Jesus our Lord,” then we do not need to fear anything or anyone about the future. This statement by the Apostle Paul in Romans 8 alone has given hope and courage to countless believers through the ages, many of them under severe persecution and distress. What more can the believer wish than to be forever an object of God’s love? And who is this God? He is the supreme ruler of the universe! He has loved us forever in the past, He showers us with His loving concern now and we are promised His loving presence for all eternity. What more could a believer ask for?

2. THE ACTIVITY OF GOD THE SON:

a. The Savior prepares for us a glorious home:

John 14:1-4 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And where I go you know, and the way you know.”

As the believer faces the vicissitudes of life, may he take courage from the fact that our Savior is departed to prepare our eternal home. It only took Him six literal days to create the entire universe. It appears that since His ascension, Christ has been working on our heavenly home. What a glorious place that must be!

The Apostle John gives us details about that home in Revelation 21:1-22:5.

b. The Savior presents us faultless before the Father:

Jude 24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.

No matter how anxious we are to please the Savior, we always sense that we have not lived up to our and His expectations. And yet when we are in the presence of the Savior, all our shortcomings, sins and faults have vanished.

Some time ago my wife and I attended a service where a pastor asked a rhetorical question, wondering what our personal feeling would be when we as sinners appeared in the glorious presence of the Savior. Would we be fearful, humiliated, saddened? After the service I approached the pastor, one of my former students, and showed him Jude 24. Persons with Christ and our heavenly Father will be characterized by exceeding joy. Our sins have been forgiven the moment we trusted in Christ as Savior. Unconfessed sins will have been removed before we ever entered heaven. We will have reached sinless perfection, a complete Christ-likeness. As the Apostle Jude speaks of our being faultless in the presence of God, similarly the Apostle Paul speaks of our being presented “without spot or wrinkle,” (Eph. 5:27).

c. The Savior prays on our behalf:

The Word of God reveals the wonderful fact that our Savior is even now engaged in prayer on our behalf. He is praying for our infirmities and for our security.

1) His prayer for our infirmities:

There are two aspects of that prayer. For one, Christ prays that we might not sin. This would be intercession; and then He prays when we do sin, which we call advocacy. How wonderful to realize that our Savior, while absent from us, has very much His focus upon us. As He prayed for us on earth, so now in heaven He prays that we might not sin:

John 17:15 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.

Rom. 8:34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

The believer, while on earth still sins and Satan accuses him before God (Rev. 12:10), Jesus Christ pleads our case because His blood shed on the cross was to care for all our sins.

The way Jesus Christ prays not just for our infirmities in His intercession and advocacy, but He also prays for our security. Christ prays that we might be eternally secure. In His high priestly prayer before His crucifixion, He indicates that He has kept us secure, He prays that the Father would keep us secure and He prays that “none of them is lost.”

John 17:11-12 Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. 12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

For the believer, his salvation can never be in doubt because Christ’s prayer will never go unanswered. Additionally, Christ assures us that we are safe and secure in the Savior’s hand and in the Father’s hand.

John 10:27-29 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.

3. THE ASSISTANCE OF GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT:

a. The assurance that we are the children of God:

Rom. 8:16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

Every genuine believer who trusts in God as Savior has the eternal witness of God the Holy Spirit, assuring him of his destiny being eternally secure in God. What a blessing to realize in this life that nothing in the future will ever cause us to lose our salvation and our standing as children of God.

b. The assurance that our prayers will be heard:

One of the blessings that should thrill every believer is the fact that the Holy Spirit assists us in our own prayer life and then:

1) He prays with us:

Rom. 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

2) He prays for us:

Rom. 8:27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

Sometimes we wonder whether we pray according to God’s will but we may be assured that if our prayer requests are not according to God’s will, the Holy Spirit will pray in our behalf that we might experience God’s perfect will.

c. The assurance that He aids us in whatever area we need help:

The Holy Spirit is called the Comforter, in the Greek Paraklete, literally “one called alongside of to help.” This is the same word translated as Advocate in 1 John 2:1.

1) The Holy Spirit helps us without fail:

John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—

2) The Holy Spirit teaches spiritual truth:

John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

3) The Holy Spirit points to the Savior:

John 15:26 But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.

4) The Holy Spirit informs us about the future:

John 16:13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

CONCLUSION:

The Holy Spirit tells the Apostle John at the end of the first century to record Christ’s words that He would depart from the disciples and fashion our eternal home (John 14:1-6). Virtually, at the same time, the Holy Spirit gives John the revelation with amazing detail of the appearance and nature of the saints’ everlasting home. It is a great city, the eternal home of the triune God, the saints of all the ages and the holy angels (Rev. 21:1-22:5).

Any one of these blessings enumerated hopefully will thrill the believer as he realizes the blessings of the past, of the present, and of the future, all because of God’s eternal loving care and present help and future fellowship. May the enumerated blessings from the triune God encourage us in these difficult days as we await our Savior’s return for us at the glorious rapture.

© Manfred E Kober