Ben Fourie

The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life. … ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Revelation is a book with a lot of songs, speech-choruses and many special parts that borders on real poetry. What an unbelievable climax to the great story of how God walked the road with mankind from Genesis to the second coming of Christ.

In Romans 8 Paul wrote: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth” as creation is still subject to “bondage to decay”. But it is not only creation that groans to be liberated, “we ourselves, who have the firtsfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly …” When we look around us, we can fully understand why we and the world around us are still groaning and longing for deliverance.

Rubbish dumps are threatening earth, we waste water on an enormous scale, nuclear refuse is become more and more of a problem, global warming is already visible in many places and we produce and waste so much plastic products that our oceans are chocking. When we look inward we see little morality, even less honesty and integrity. Crime is rife, not only petty crime, but crime on a grand scale that affects us all. In many instances we do not worry much about nature, the animals and people that share the world with us and thus we completely miss the commission that God gave us to rule and watch over the world.

But the Bible tells us there is a beter future waiting for us and it is this future that we read about in Revelation when the Spirit and the church call out: “Come, Lord Jesus”. The faithful in the time when this book was written around 90 AD endured unimaginable sufferings under the Roman emperors. They thirsted to be delivered from these hardships. That is why Jesus extends the invitation to come to Him for only with Him will their thirst be quenched. And so it will be with us. This is not “a pie in the sky when you die” kind of theology, this is the water of God’s grace. Now we know why the caption in Romans 8 is “Future glory.”

Prayer: Thank you Lord that we can look forward to the new heaven and the new earth where we will have abundant life with Jesus Christ. Amen