Great Truths and Relevant Prophecies for all
Nations and Peoples during this 21st Century
September 19, 2024
HOME | REVELATION 21ST CENTURY COMMENTARY | ADDITIONAL PROPHECIES | REBORN | SOCIAL CULTURAL ETHICAL | INTELLIGENCE KNOWLEDGE WISDOM | COMFORT and HEALING | MORTAL to IMMORTAL | WORLD RELIGIONS | BELIEF DISBELIEF | DEITY | VIDEOS | ABOUT | RECOMMENDED SITES | SPANISH SITE EDITORIAL LA PAZ | Documents for Limited Use Smartphones
Highlighted today: Approaching God in Search of Honor, Glory, and Immortality
Peace Publishers LLC. Resources for self-instruction, classes, sermons, and conferences in fifteen categories. A Commentary on Revelation by HD Shappley is being added.
Translate documents on this site using Google’s Gemini (over 100 languages
and the dialects for them), or Microsoft Copilot..
8 to 9 minutes to read the following message.
“Ι WILL COME
AGAIN,"
said
Jesus
Christ.
That is, precisely, the incredible promise the Teacher Jesus of Nazareth made to his apostles in Jerusalem in the upper room, where they had gathered for the Passover, on the very night before his excruciating death by crucifixion the next day, according to the Gospel written by the apostle John, chapters 12, 13 and 14.
Specifically, the words are from John 14:1-3 and 28-29. Jesus “knew” that portentous, dangerous night “that his hour had come to depart out of this world to” go to his “Father” in Heaven. John 13:1. He knew that he would be put to death on a cross within a few hours, and he also knew that after three days in a tomb, he would be resurrected to life again, walk among the inhabitants of Israel for forty more days, appearing to more than 500 at one time, then ascend to Heaven. Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; John 20:17-18; 1 Corinthians 15:3-8
All that is exactly what happened as related in reliable historical documents of the first century! Acts 1:1-11; 2:1-47, and 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 are but two examples of many. And it was, decidedly, in that context that he says: “I am going away to the Father… to prepare a place for you. I WILL COME AGAIN and will take you” to that “place… in my Father’s house.”
WHEN will you COME AGAIN, Lord Jesus?
To this day, 3 June 2024, one thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-four years later, the Teacher Jesus of Nazareth has not yet made good on his stupendous promise. WHY NOT? I would reason that, obviously, because all the events he prophesied would come to pass BEFORE his appearing “a second time” (Hebrews 9:27-28) have not yet taken place. Some have. Some have not.
Are preachers and teachers of the Christian religion justified in pronouncing, as many of them do often and with great vigor, that “Jesus can come again any moment! Even on this very day! YES! RIGHT NOW!”
Regarding those “events,” even during the three and a half years of intense instruction he carried out on earth, including his rather lengthy dissertations on that last Passover night, he understood that he would not be coming “again,” “right away,” after his ascension to his throne at the righthand of his Father.
He prophesied in detail that the complete destruction of the great Temple in Jerusalem, as well as the city itself (Matthew 24; Mark 13), would take place BEFORE he would “come
again.” That prophecy was fulfilled to the letter about 40 years after Jesus proclaimed it, when the Roman military laid waste to Jerusalem and the Temple in 67 to 70 CE.
Jesus also prophesied that the Israelites, as a nation, would be “led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” Luke 17:24. More than NINETEEN CENTURIES would go by before that astounding prophecy was fulfilled in June 1967, when Jerusalem was finally freed from Gentile rule in the Six Days War.
People of India and all the Orient, Middle East, Africa, and the whole Earth, why should you read this message? Because Jesus Christ is the only religious leader of this world who has made such a promise in all its magnificent fullness.
اسلامی جمہوریہ پاكستان ਕ੍ਰਿਸ਼ਚੀਅਨ ਚਰਚ” (Krishchian Charach) Church of Christ. 218-3C1, Township, Lahore, Punjab 54770, Pakistan. +92 42 515 7057. Multilingual.
“I am going away to the Father… to prepare a place for you. I WILL COME AGAIN and will take you” to that “place… in my Father’s house.”
Thousands of Churches of Christ in the great country of INDIA, many bilingual.
Indonesia. Jakarta. Church of Christ: Gg Gading I/14 (Dr. Stovall Foundation), Jakarta, Java 10350, Indonesia. Phone: +62 21 386 1517. Many more in the country.
Filipinas. Iglesia ni Cristo. Church of Christ. Baguio City. Top Floor Marlett’s Bldg., Km.4 Marcos Highway, 2600. 0916 543 7746. midtownchurchbaguio.org
Years after Jesus ascended to Heaven and the church was established, “…the SPIRIT of PROPHECY” which is “the Testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 19:10) revealed to the apostle Paul that the “DAY of the LORD," the very "DAY" when Jesus WOULD "COME AGAIN,” “WILL NOT COME UNLESS the REBELION COMES FIRST” among the professed followers of Jesus, “and the MAN of LAWLESSNESS IS REVEALED, the SON of DESTRUCTION… whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth (Revelation 19:21) and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.” 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; Hebrews 9:28. [Several translations read “apostasy” or “falling away” instead of “rebellion.”] The “REBELLION,” the “apostasy,” once formed, would last, then, across the years until the Second Coming of Jesus. And so would the “lawless one,” once he forcefully and blasphemously took “his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” The student of these subjects who has knowledge and wisdom knows the identity of the “lawless one,” the painting on the left by Francis Bacon being a clue.
Should it not be clear to you, the painting is of a Roman Catholic Pope, who sets himself up as the Vicar of God on planet Earth, claiming exclusive authority and power over all souls, religions, governments, cultures, societies, families, and economies. Nothing remotely similar to the "Kingdom of God and Christ" which is "not of this world." Roman Catholicism is, decidedly, NOT the Face of Pure Christianity. John 18:36; Colossians 1:13; Ephesians 5:5
Now, history testifies abundantly to the fact that the prophesied “apostasy,” also represented metaphorically in Revelation as “the great prostitute… Babylon the great” (Revelation 17 and 18), flowering in the 4th century CE, prevailed during the long, ten or eleven centuries of the Middle Ages. During those Dark Times, Satan was loosed and played havoc with peoples and nations. Secular and religious powers were deeply deceived by him, and religious liberty was at a very low level, practically nonexistent.
As the Middle Ages waned in the 12th and 13th centuries of the Common Era and the Renaissance began to flourish, emerging nations, symbolized by the “ten horns,” broke themselves loose from the odious, bloody yoke of religious intolerance and massive, barbaric persecutions of the Dark Age, ushering in “a thousand years” of religious liberty (the Millennium) when “the nations” are not deceived.
After the Millennium comes the “little while” when “the nations” will be deceived once more by Satan, resulting in renewed persecutions, and terminating with “Armageddon.” Revelation 20:1-10
It is then, and only then, that Jesus fulfills his promise to “COME AGAIN.”
In our ponderings about WHEN Jesus will “COME AGAIN,” surely, we also need to take into account the prophecies and timelines of the Seven Seals, the Seven Trumpets, the Two Prophets, the Woman Clothed with the Sun, the War in Heaven, the Two Beasts, the Six Kings-Heads-Mountains, the Seventh King,
the Eight King, the Ten Horns, the Little Horn, the “little while” and other specific time periods mentioned in Revelation, etc.
The “day of the Lord… WILL NOT COME” until all these prophecies are fulfilled. Therefore, the apostle Paul exhorts: Do “not… be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord HAS COME. Let no one deceive you in any way. FOR THAT DAY WILL NOT COME, UNLESS the REBELLION COMES FIRST…,” etc., as detailed by Paul, and expounded upon a thousand-fold by the apostle John in Revelation. “The DAY of the Lord” HAS “NOT COME,” and “WILL NOT COME” UNTIL all the GREAT MULTI-SCENE DRAMAS of far-reaching prophecies in the New Testament have played out completely on the World Stage, including the ones in Revelation.
Given these facts and parameters of prophecies and the entire divine timeline in the New Testament for
our Common Era, how could I justifiably exclaim: “Jesus can come again at any moment! Even on this very day! YES! RIGHT NOW!”
Personally, after much study, I no longer make that statement when teaching about the appearing of the Lord “a second time” and urging sinners to obey the gospel with all speed.
"Jesus can come again at any moment!
Even on this very day! Yes! RIGHT NOW!”
A statement of Jesus I do find most apropos is the one Jesus made to his four earthly brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas (Matthew 13:55), when he said to them: “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.” John 7:6. That is, you can die at any moment! A powerful reason and motivation for being spiritually “READY” all the time! By the way, statistically, one out of every hundred human beings experiences “SUDDEN DEATH.”
So then, Jesus will fulfill his marvelous promise “I will come again and will take you” to “my Father’s house,” when all his prophecies for this present Common Era have been duly fulfilled and the Father fixes the exact time. This is one of the profound reasons for the simple exhortation: “Do not despise prophesies.” 1 Thessalonians 5:20
May we always be “children of light” in the context of prophecies, as well as in all others vital for our eternal salvation. 1 Thessalonians 5:1-7
“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Mark 16:16. “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the give of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38-47. “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:14. If you believe it, that leaves out all religious founders and leaders of the Orient, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Australia, and the rest of the world.
Have you believed that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that HE “WILL COME AGAIN?” Have you repented, and been baptized (immersed in water) “in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins?” If not, “why do you wait?” Acts 22:16. For indeed, “your time is always here.”
Sincerely yours, Dewayne Shappley. hshappley@yahoo.com
Text and Document Composition by the author Homer Dewayne Shappley. All rights reserved. The only restrictions on the use of this document are that it not be sold in any format and that its origin be properly identified.
This document is assigned to the following Categories.
Additional Prophecies of the New Testament and some of the Old