CHRIST FOR PRISONERS WEEKLY BULLETIN
Sunday, December 16, 2007

HE’S COMING BACK

You are in your car driving home. Thoughts wander to the game you want to see or the next meal you want to eat, when suddenly a sound unlike any you’ve ever heard fills the air. The sound is high above you.

A trumpet?
A choir?
A choir of trumpets?

You don’t know, but you want to know.

So you pull over, get out of your car, and look up. As you do, you see you aren’t the only curious one. The roadside has become a parking lot. Car doors are open, and people are staring at the sky. Shoppers are racing out of the grocery store. The Little League baseball game across the street has come to a halt. Players and parents are searching the clouds. And what they see, and what you see, has never before been seen.

As if the sky were a curtain, the drapes of the atmosphere part. A brilliant light spills onto the earth. There are no shadows; NONE. From whence came the light begins to tumble a river of color spiking crystals of every hue ever seen and a million more never seen. Riding on the flow is an endless fleet of angels. They pass through the curtains one myriad at a time, until they occupy every square inch of the sky...North...South...East...West.

Thousands of silvery wings rise and fall in unison, and over the sound of the trumpets, you can hear the cherubim and seraphim chanting, Holy, holy, holy. The final flank of angels is followed by twenty-four silver bearded elders and a multitude of souls who join the angels in worship. Presently the movement stops and the trumpets are silent, leaving only the triumphant triplet: Holy, holy, holy. Between each word is a pause. With each word, a profound reverence. You hear your voice join in the chorus. You don’t know why you say the words, but you know you must. Suddenly, the heavens are quiet. All is quiet. The angels turn, you turn, and the entire world turns and there He is.

JESUS

Through waves of light you see the silhouetted figure of Christ the King. He is atop a great stallion, and the stallion is atop a billowing cloud. He opens His mouth, and you are surrounded by his declaration:

I am the Alpha and the Omega.
The angels bow their heads.
The elders remove their crowns.

And before you is a Figure so consuming that you know, instantly you know: Nothing else matters. Forget stock markets, school reports, sales meetings and football games. Nothing is newsworthy...

All that mattered, matters no more...for Christ has come

-Max Lucado-

Matthew 24:40-44 (NKJV)
⁴⁰ Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left.
⁴¹ Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.
⁴² Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.
⁴³ But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.
⁴⁴ Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Matthew 24:40-44 (RVR)
⁴⁰ Entonces estarán dos en el campo; el uno será tomado, y el otro será dejado.
⁴¹ Dos mujeres estarán moliendo en un molino; la una será tomada, y la otra será dejada.
⁴² Velad, pues, porque no sabéis a qué hora ha de venir vuestro Señor.
⁴³ Pero sabed esto, que si el padre de familia supiese a qué hora el ladrón habría de venir, velaría, y no dejaría minar su casa.
⁴⁴ Por tanto, también vosotros estad preparados; porque el Hijo del Hombre vendrá a la hora que no pensáis.

2 Timothy 3:1-5 (NKJV)
¹ But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come:
² For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
³ unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good,
⁴ traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!

2 Timothy 3:1-5 (RVR)
¹ También debes saber esto: que en los postreros días vendrán tiempos peligrosos.
² Porque habrá hombres amadores de sí mismos, avaros, vanagloriosos, soberbios, blasfemos, desobedientes a los padres, ingratos, impíos,
³ sin afecto natural, implacables, calumniadores, intemperantes, crueles, aborrecedores de lo bueno,
⁴ traidores, impetuosos, infatuados, amadores de los deleites más que de Dios,
⁵ que tendrán apariencia de piedad, pero negarán la eficacia de ella; a éstos evita.

1 Timothy 4:1-3 (NKJV)
¹ Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons,
² speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron,
³ forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

1 Timothy 4:1-3 (RVR)
¹ Pero el Espíritu dice claramente que en los postreros tiempos algunos apostatarán de la fe, escuchando a espíritus engañadores y a doctrinas de demonios;
² por la hipocresía de mentirosos que, teniendo cauterizada la conciencia,
³ prohibirán casarse, y mandarán abstenerse de alimentos que Dios creó para que con acción de gracias participasen de ellos los creyentes y los que han conocido la verdad.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 (NKJV)
³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;
⁴ and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 (RVR)
³ Porque vendrá tiempo cuando no sufrirán la sana doctrina, sino que teniendo comezón de oir, se amontonarán maestros conforme a sus propias concupiscencias,
⁴ y apartarán de la verdad el oído y se volverán a las fábulas.