“Look, Jesus is coming in the clouds!”

Sunday   12-27-15  Felton, California (Home in Modesto) 

Scripture reading:  Rev 1 - 4

S=Scripture  O=Observation  A=Application  P=Prayer  SOAP for the soul.

S.  Rev 1:7 Look! He comes with the clouds of heaven. And everyone will see him — even those who pierced him.  NLT

O.  The people of this globe are going to experience some powerful scenes somewhere in God’s perfect timing.  Galatians 4:4 tells us that the newborn Savior was born exactly on time.  The prophecies had been made many centuries earlier and many, even among the religious Jews, had probably lost all hope of the coming Messiah. 

A.  Now John, in his Revelation of Jesus, is encouraging me to be ready.  He is coming again on the clouds, just as He had left.  Many of us understand that first there will be an earlier moment when all those how are ready will be caught away to meet Jesus in the air.  But we all must be ready however He chooses to show up.

I was serving as Assistant Pastor with Rev. Mel Woods in Orangevale, CA.  John, the father of a young family had just been saved out of a life of drunkenness.  I had him and several youth in my car along with my wife, Frances.  It was night.  I remember we were heading south on Hazel Avenue less than a mile from the church.  Somebody happened to be looking up at the sky and yelled, “Look, Jesus is coming in the clouds!”  I looked and saw.  I pulled the car off the road and screech to a stop.  We all jumped out of the car.  There high in the sky was a bright opening in the clouds and a shining figure standing on the cloud.  We stood in awe for a minute or so and the cloud formation changed slightly and we suddenly realized that this shining “figure” was the tip of the point of a bright crescent moon.  The clouds had hidden the moon, all but this tip.  False alarm!  Yes, but one of these days He IS coming back. 

P.  Even so come, Lord Jesus!  You knew that we would all think You are delaying Your second coming.  Centuries have passed.  You are always coming “soon”, but I guess “soon” means one thing to me and another to You.  May my heart always be looking for You, waiting, anxious... for I am confident that in Your perfect timing You will come back.  Amen.

Ralph