The One who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon."  Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus.  May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with everyone.  Rev. 22:20, 21.
 
    A woman once wrote to the famous columnist Ann Landers about the "best experience of my life."  It happened on a bus in New York City.  "It was a cold, rainy night--and also my birthday....Having just moved from Phoenix to New York, I was feeling miserable, homesick, and alone in the big city.  I boarded a crowded bus at Columbus Circle.  The only seat left was at the back, behind the other bored and cold commuters, next to an elderly man."
 
    She sat down feeling quite dejected.  To her surprise, the elderly man turned to her and said, "You look so sad.  What's wrong?"
 
    Touched by the concern of this stranger, she poured out her heart and ended up sobbing.  She finished saying, "I'm homesick and cold.  It's my birthday, and nobody cares."
 
    As her tears continued to flow, the entire bus became quiet.  Then the man began to sing: "Happy birthday to you..."  Several people joined him, until soon everyone on the bus was singing, "Happy birthday, dear...Happy birthday to you!"
 
    Applause and laughter erupted.
 
    The woman concluded her account to Ann Landers, "I was showered with good wishes and warm smiles all the way to my stop at 72nd and Broadway.  It was the best birthday present I've ever received."
 
    Compassion has a healing quality.  This story of a lonely woman demonstrates that an act of compassion will soothe pain, heal hurt, ease fear, soften a blow, and relieve anxiety.  Our world always needs compassionate people--those who have an awareness of the suffering of others and who also have the willingness to relieve it.
 
    Our journey through the book of Revelation has been a roller-coaster ride filled with war, famine, pestilence, wild beasts, earthquakes, and scorching fire.  Through it all we have tried to maintain a focus on the book's primary theme, the revelation of Jesus Christ.  The plagues of the book are a demonstration of His power to save.  So it is not totally out of character for an action/adventure book such as Revelation to end with grace.  Grace is a special manifestation of the divine presence and power, an expression of kindness, mercy, and good will.  An excellent translation would be "healing compassion," the very thing the woman on the bus received.
 
    As the book of Revelation draws to a close, I invite you to drink in the healing compassion of Jesus Christ.  Let Him heal your wounds, soothe your hurts, and affirm your value as a person.  There is no better friend when in need.
 
Lord, thank You for Your overwhelming grace.  I accept it with my whole heart.

 I bear witness to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone should add [words] to it, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book, and if anyone should take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part in the tree of life and in the holy city, things which are written in this book.  Rev. 22:18, 19.
 
    We noticed in the previous day's reading that the Bible, as it reads, has been fitted by God for its purpose.  To tamper with it, to ignore one part or another, would be to interfere with its divine mission.  Having said that, I doubt that very many people have ever done this intentionally.  Most of us sense that it would be wrong to cut large portions out of the Bible or add things that we or someone else had written.  That kind of tampering is not really a major threat.
 
    What concerns me more is the way we often add to or subtract from the Bible without even realizing that we are doing so.  For example, take a passage such as Matthew 6:25-34.  It tells us not to worry about our lives--what we will eat, drink, or wear.  It even suggests that to spend a lot of time in anxiety about such things indicates weak faith (verse 30).  Taken by itself, such texts can lead well-meaning Christians to conclude that whenever they are depressed, anxious about the future, or feel stressed, it indicates something wrong with them spiritually.
 
    The bigger picture of the Bible, however, tells us that even the most faithful of God's servants have had episodes of depression, anxiety, and stress.  Fueled by pain and depression, Job says some nasty things about God (Job 9:16-21; 10:3-17; 27:1-6)!  Was there something wrong with him spiritually?  His friends thought so (Job 8; 15:5, 6; 22:1-11).  But God recognized differently.  He said there was no one like Job in all the earth (Job 2:3; 42:7)!
 
    Elijah became deeply fearful and depressed after his victory on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 19:3, 4).  Did the Lord abandon him?  Absolutely not (verses 5-18).  Paul came under such pressure that he was convinced his life was over (2 Cor. 1:8, 9).  Was there something wrong with him spiritually?  No, God continued to work with him (verses 9-11).  Even Jesus felt deeply troubled emotionally on more than one occasion (Mark 14:32-34; John 11:33; 12:27).  Was there something wrong with Him spiritually?
 
    Revelation 22:18, 19 implies that before we assert, "The Bible says" it would be wise to read everything Scripture has to say on the subject.  Whenever we take isolated texts and use them to support our ideas, we run the danger of adding to or subtracting from the Word of God.
 
Lord, I don't want to add or subtract from the Bible's picture of You.  I want to be attentive to Your whole counsel and not give distorted pictures of You to others.

  I bear witness to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone should add [words] to it, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book, and if anyone should take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part in the tree of life and in the holy city, things that are written in this book.  Rev. 22:18, 19.
 
    At first glance it seems a rather threatening way for God to end the Bible!  "Don't mess with this book!  If you touch even a word of it, you will be in such trouble that you will wish your life was over!"  While such ominous words undergird the authority of the book of Revelation in particular, they seem appropriate also for the Bible as a whole.
 
    The Bible as it is does not contain all truth.  "Two plus two equals four" is a truth, for example.  But it doesn't appear in the Bible.  "It is warmer at the equator than at the poles" is a truth.  But it also isn't in the Bible.  So the Bible is not a collection of everything that is true--it is like a yardstick, by which we measure claims to truth.
 
    That's why it is important to leave the Bible as it is.  God fitted it for its own purpose.  To tamper with it, to ignore one part or another, would be to interfere with its divine purpose.  And to add something or to leave something out would be to distort God's intent.  It seems to me that has implications for us as well.  Every one of us is unique.  We too are fitted for a purpose.  Sometimes we might want to add or subtract from the work God has done with us, but we would be wiser to accept His purpose and use our unique characteristics for His glory.
 
    Kathleen Donovan, former missionary to Papua New Guinea, describes this humorously.  "I have fat legs," she says, "multicolored because of varicose veins....They're not things of beauty,...but they reach perfectly from the ground to my hips....They never tempt other people to envy."  She goes on to point out that because of her legs, she has learned methods of varicose vein management that are helpful to others.  A friend even uses her legs as an illustration of the results of sacrificial missionary service.  It turns out that the ailment was inherited rather than the result of standing for hours at operating tables.  Nevertheless, the sight of Kathleen's legs inspired a mission presentation that convinced others to consider similar service.  Some listeners might never have done so if Kathleen's legs "had been slim and beautiful."
 
    Donovan concludes, "Our job is to accept gratefully what we've been given, and find ways of using it to the glory of God."  That would be true of the Bible as well.  We should take it as God has given it, rather than try to manipulate its message to our own satisfaction.
 
Lord, help me to accept the way You designed me.  Use even my less-desirable features as an illustration of Your benevolent purpose!

The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come."  And let everyone who hears say, "Come."  And let everyone who is thirsty come.  Let everyone who wishes take of the water of life without cost.  Rev. 22:17.
 
    Isn't it amazing how many people wait until their deathbed to apologize to either a family member or a friend? It seems that when people are bedridden, or in a weakened state, or near death, they start to contemplate their life and the impact that they might have had on people.  Hospital chaplains witness such deathbed confessions many times.
 
    Why do people wait until the end?  Why do they procrastinate until it is too late to undo the injured feelings that have partially destroyed someone else's life?  Why didn't they make thier amends when it would have done some good instead of waiting until they knew others would have pity on them?  Is this not cowardice? fear? human pride?
 
    People do not like to risk being made a fool.  The fear of appearing to be foolish, or wrong, is so strong in most of us that we spend our lives pretending that everything is OK.  We are afraid to admit that we were wrong, afraid to appear foolish to others--especially our own families!
 
    But who was the biggest fool that ever lived, according to human standards?  Who endured total humiliation in order to reestablish a relationship with you and me?  Christ, of course.  He never once feared making a fool of Himself.  Even when others jeered, "He saved others,...but he can't save Himself!" (Mark 15:31, NIV).
 
    Jesus became the biggest fool that ever lived so that the real fools might come to love Him as He loved us.  He put relationship before His own pride.  Tempted to come down from the foolish cross, He still reached out to us, not caring if people called Him foolish.
 
    The book of Revelation, as we have seen, is full of unusual stories and even stranger creatures.  It would be easy to get the impression that war, famine, pestilence, and judgment are its primary themes.  But our text for today reminds us that the fundamental topic of the entire book is the "revelation of Jesus Christ."
 
    Revelation reminds us that salvation in Christ came at infinite cost (Rev. 5:6; 12:11; 13:8), yet it is absolutely free to us.  But the foolishness of the human heart rebels against receiving anything that it hasn't earned.  We humans fear the foolishness of admitting that we are wrong, that we need what Christ offers (Rev. 3:17).  But in His sacrifice we see that it is foolish pride that causes us to postpone the day of our salvation.
 
Lord, I accept the water of life that You offer so freely.  My pride suggests that I do something special today to earn the gift.  Help me to trust in Your loving and graceful provision.

 I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you concerning the churches.  I am both the root and the descendant of David, the bright and morning star.  Rev. 22:16.
 
    The church deacon had thoughtfully prepared a place for the guest speaker to look over her notes before the worship service.  The speaker was seated at the church secretary's large desk just outside the pastor's study.  A short while later three women came into the office and asked, "Have you seen our purses?  We left them on the desk a half hour ago."
 
    "I'm just a visitor here, not the receptionist," the speaker replied, "but no, I have not seen any purses, and I've been here for 15 minutes."
 
    The women panicked, looking underneath the desk, beside it, and in the drawers, but still found no pocketbooks.
 
    Just then the helpful deacon reappeared, and the frantic women asked him the same question.
 
    "Yes, I have seen your purses," he said.  "You left all three of them on top of the secretary's desk. So to make sure they were not stolen, I took all of them and locked them in the closet."
 
    The women were understandably relieved.
 
    But the deacon was not finished.  He offered a gentle reprimand.  "You should know better than to leave pocketbooks lying around anywhere.  After all, although this is a church, it is not heaven!"
 
    The deacon was balancing the ideal and the real.  While the church can offer a foretaste of heaven, it is not heaven in the fullest sense.  It is very much a part of the great battle at the center of focus in the book of Revelation.  The church family consists of human beings with a great number of imperfections.
 
    In Revelation Jesus offers a clear testimony concerning the churches.  This is true not only of the first three chapters of Revelation but of the entire book, according to this text.  Every vision, every beast, every blessing, every war, every song of praise, has as its purpose to instruct the churches.
 
    One thing is clear.  The churches are not whitewashed in the book.  Jesus applies a searching scrutiny to them and portrays their characters and experiences with rigorous honesty.  While the churches contain many faithful ones, the people of God are still far from perfect.  They deeply need the cleansing that comes from the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 1:5, 6; 7:14; 12:11).  And they look forward to the transformation of all things that Jesus will effect when He returns.
 
Lord, help me to keep my balance between the ideal and the real in the church.  When things go wrong, keep my eyes fixed of Jesus.

 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.  Blessed are those who wash their robes, in order that they might have rights to the tree of life and might enter into the gates of the city.  Outside [the city] are dogs, sorcerers, the sexually immoral, murderers, idolaters and everyone who loves and practices lying."  Rev. 22:13-15.
 
    Even among Christians some take sin lightly.  "I'm not so bad."  "God isn't that particular."  They do not seem to realize that forsaking sin is a crucial need in the Christian life.  While our performance does not save us, a pattern of sin can have such a deep impact on our lives that we lose our way in the end.
 
    We cling to cherished behaviors because they are exciting, attractive, or meet certain internal needs.  Sexual attraction, for example, is particularly dangerous.  A pastor named Randy Alcorn, therefore, offers a powerful solution for sexual temptation: "Whenever I feel particularly vulnerable to sexual temptations, I find it helpful to write out what effects, what consequences, my actions could have.  Here's what I write:
 
    " 'If I go further down this road, I will probably grieve the One who redeemed me.  I will probably drag His sacred name into the mud....One day I will have to look Jesus, the righteous Savior, in the face and give an account of my actions.
 
    " 'If I go further, I will probably inflict untold hurt on my wife, who is my best friend and who has been faithful to me.  I will lose my wife's respect and trust.  I will hurt my beloved daughters.  I will destroy my example and creditability with my children.  I might lose my wife and my children forever.  I could cause shame to my family.
 
    " 'I could lose self-respect.  I could create a form of guilt awfully hard to shake.  Even though God would forgive me, would I ever be able to forgive myself?  I could form memories and flashbacks that could plague future intimacy with my spouse.  I could heap judgment and endless difficulty on the person with whom I committed adultery.  I could possible reap the consequences of disease like gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, or AIDS.  Maybe I could cause a pregnancy, and that would be a lifelong reminder of my sin.  Maybe I would invoke shame and lifelong embarrassment on myself.' "
 
    What an incentive to end a train of thought or an affair in the making!  And I would add to his list the danger of a place outside the Holy City, as our text warns.  Over the short run, sinful actions may seem harmless, but in the long run the consequences are too heavy to consider.
 
Lord, I thank You for the challenge of this text.  Help me to remove everything in my life that divides, separates, hinders, or fails to honor You.

Behold, I am coming soon!  And my reward is with me, to pay back everyone according to his work.  Rev. 22:12.
 
    Today's text has two parts.  We tend to seize on the former and ignore the latter.  The crucial message is not the nearness of the end, but the fact that our behavior today affects our reward then.  God gave prophecies such as those in the book of Revelation not to satisfy our curiosity about the future, but to teach us how to live today.
 
    Some Christians invest a great deal of energy in determining the timing and nature of end-time events.  Not only does this miss the point of Bible prophecy, it can have unfortunate consequences, as illustrated in the following story.
 
    Michael tells the story of a religious camp meeting.  After an open-air worship service and a potluck lunch, the young marrieds went on walks, the older marrieds went for traditional "rest," and the teenagers either wandered toward the river or hung out by the lunch tables.
 
    Will and Bobby were in the group by the tables.  An 8-year-old girl with red hair and freckles sauntered up to their table and asked, "What's up?"  Will said, "Nothing much," but Bobby quickly added, "Except a tornado is headed this way.  Hail the size of golf balls are close behind, and we are directly in its path!  It should be hitting us in about 30 to 40 minutes!"
 
    The redhead's eyes opened wide, and she dashed off to warn everyone else of the impending danger.  Within minutes most of those present were tuning in to all the local stations.  Many began packing up and getting out of there.  Of the hundreds of families camping there, about a third had evacuated within the space of 20 minutes, even though the sky did not have a single cloud and the tents were stifling hot because of the lack of a breeze.
 
    Michael's first thought on hearing the report was I should have brought a radio.  His second thought was I wonder what Will and Bobby have to do with this?  So he went looking for the teenagers.  Sure enough, Will and Bobby laughingly admitted to having told the redheaded girl of the impending disaster.
 
    Searching for the child, Michael found her running to another part of the campgrounds.  He stopped her, much to her agitation, and told her it was all a joke.  She became really upset and argued that he was lying to her, that a tornado was really headed their way, and that he had better get out while he had the chance!  And off she went on her mission to warn everyone.  The weather that weekend was perfect.  If a tornado ever does hit that campground, who will believe the warning? 
 
Lord, keep my study of prophecy focused on You more than on the events around me.

 Let the one who is unrighteous remain unrighteous, let the one who is filthy remain filthy, let the one who is righteous continue to do righteousness, and let the one who is holy remain holy.  Behold, I am coming soon!  And my reward is with me, to pay back everyone according to his work.  Rev. 22:11, 12.
 
    When I was 9 years old, someone convinced my mother that Jesus would return in the year 1964.  He noted the text "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of Man comes" (Matt. 24:37) and reckoned that the days of Noah had lasted 120 years (the time it took Noah to build the ark).  He added that period to the year 1844, which was significant to him for other reasons, and concluded that Jesus would come back in the year 1964.  The idea impressed me enough to decide that I would have fun until around 1962 and would then get ready to meet Jesus!
 
    In the year 1975 a pair of brothers held some studies in which they argued that Jesus would return in 1981.  I was studying at the seminary then, and the men urged several of us to quit school and get down to the business of warning the world.  Had I taken them seriously I might have done so, but I had already been through this once before.  I had learned that one has to balance one's belief in the soon return of Jesus with an awareness that God wants us to prepare thoroughly for future service.
 
     First-century Christians tended to read texts like the above in a similar fashion.  As time went on it tempted them to think that the Lord was becoming slack in the fulfillment of His promises (2 Peter 3:9).  But the apostle Peter pointed out that the seeming delay of the Advent was because of God's desire that all would come to repentance.  The time between Christ's first and second comings is an extension of His grace.  God's desire to save is so great that even those who scoff against the reality of His second advent receive more opportunity to repent.
 
    Those who have genuine faith, however, will find that it gets stronger and stronger as the delay gets longer and longer. The key to this text is not the timing of Jesus' return but the identity of the One who is coming.  Those who are waiting for the arrival of a great friend find their anticipation growing as the time of separation increases.  When I am traveling away from my wife, she gets more beautiful by the day, and my desire to be with her increases with time.
 
    It is out of a living relationship with Jesus that we maintain our confidence in His soon return.  While we should live each day as if it were our last one on earth, delay will not destroy that relationship.  For each day of our lives the word is "He is coming soon!"
 
Lord, I thank You that the constant barrage of date-setting that we once experienced has faded.  Help me to keep my focus on knowing You, which will make me ready for Your return.

 Behold, I am coming soon.  Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.  I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things.  And when I had heard and seen them I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things.  But he said to me, "See that you don't!  I am a fellow servant of you and of your brothers the prophets and of those who keep the words of this book.  Worship God!"  And he said to me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near."  Rev. 22:7-10.
 
    Prophets are making a comeback in today's world.  The tabloids are full of them.  Perhaps you've heard of Nostradamus, the sixteenth-century French physician and chef of Jewish heritage.  Born to a father forced to convert to Catholicism around 1501, Nostradamus became renowned because of predictions that seemed to come true a short time after he made them.  He laid out his predictions in 1,000 four-line poems divided into "centuries" of 100 each.  The most famous of Nostradamus' dated predictions was the one for the year 1999:
 
                                        "The year 1999, seven months,
                                        From the sky will come a great King of terror,
                                        To resuscitate the great king of Angoulmois;
                                        Before, after, Mars will reign by good luck."
 
    This language is clearly ambiguous.  Many looked for its fulfillment in terms of a meteor shower or some other heavenly event.  Most of them also anticipated that some significant conflict would break out during the year, if not in the month of July itself.  But the date came and went, and no one observed anything of the sort.
 
    In the mid-1960s another alleged prophet names Jeane Dixon caught the public imagination.  I made note of two verifiable predictions on her part.  One of them was that the unpopular views of Barry Goldwater, who lost the presidential race in 1964, would be vindicated within the next decade.  The other was that the scrapping of a miniature missile project would prove to be a huge mistake by the end of the 1970s.  Neither prediction ever came true as far as I know.  The concept of prophets is something we're used to.  But the concept of successful prophets in another matter.
 
    The book of Revelation claims to be a written prophecy (Rev. 1:3 and 22:10).  Unlike the works of Nostradamus and Jeane Dixon, this book bears the clear evidence of God's hand.  As we study those prophecies already fulfilled, we learn how to interpret those that haven't yet come to pass.
 
Lord, open my eyes to see more clearly the purpose You had in giving these visions to John.  May I direct my true worship to You alone.

  They will see His face, and His name is upon their foreheads.  And there will be no more night.  They have no more need for the light of a lamp or the light oft he sun, because the Lord God will shine over them and they will reign for ever and ever.  [The angel] said to me, "These words are faithful and true.  The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent His angel to show to His servants what must soon take place."  Rev. 22:4-6.
 
    A Christian apologist once spoke to a group of atheists.  After finishing his speech, one of the atheists complained to him, "Christians have their special holidays, such as Christmas and Easter; the Jews celebrate their national holidays, such as Passover and Yom Kippur.  But we atheists," he said, "have no recognized national holidays.  It's unfair."
 
    As a humorous response the apologist replied, "Why not celebrate April 1?"
 
    Those familiar with North American customs know that April 1 often goes by the name of April Fools' Day.  Some believe that the holiday had its origins in France.  It may be related to the vernal equinox of March 21 (the first day of spring).  The vernal equinox was the beginning of the new year, according to the Julian calendar.  Because of small inaccuracies in its calculations, the Julian calendar was 11 days off by the sixteenth century.  So the vernal equinox was on April 1 until Charles IX implemented the Gregorian calendar in 1582.  Then the vernal equinox reverted to March 21.
 
    Before the calendar change people gave gifts to each other on April 1 in honor of the new year.  After the date change pranksters sent mock gifts to people they had selected, thus making them "April fools."  The custom made its way around the world to many other nations.
 
    Regarding atheists, Psalm 14:1 reports, "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God' " (NIV).  The fool is someone who is proud of his or her earthly knowledge and ignores the evidence of a higher power.  In the words of media mogul Ted Turner, a fool believes that "Christianity is a religion for losers."
 
    Our text promises that in the new earth we will see the face of God.  When looking at a person's face, you can often learn a lot about them, because they express character through their expressions.  After years of experience I can often tell at a glance that a person has been heavily traumatized in the past.  Our characters and life experiences have an impact on the features.  So when the redeemed get to see God's face, it means that they will come to know His character and will be in intimate relationship with Him.  Heaven will have no atheists.
 
Lord, I am awed by Your willingness to enter into intimate relationship with me.  With You in my life I will be preserved from foolish thoughts and actions.