In the last installment of this series, I showed that the second and third petitions of the Lord’s Prayer—“let your dominion come” and “let your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”—entail calling upon our Heavenly Father to deliver the righteous with salvation and to curse the wicked with condemnation. This dual theme continues as we reflect upon a portion of the final book of the Bible.
Once again, the question I am interested to answer concerns how we should pray not only for those who govern us but also for those who govern other nations of this world, wherever the Lord’s people dwell. We must never become narrowly focused upon our own concerns in this regard to the exclusion of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. We, in the United States of America, though we are finding increasing Statist opposition to our practice of the Christian faith, which our Constitution protects (as in the First Amendment), do not yet suffer nearly as greatly as fellow Christians do around the world as they dwell under state-sponsored persecution. Therefore, as we pray for and concerning our own government officials and leaders, we ought also to pray for and concerning governmental leaders around the world. The Lord’s Prayer compels us to think beyond the boundaries of our nation and beyond those who govern over us to think of the coming universal dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ who will not forever forebear arrogant, God-hating tyrants to persecute God’s people.
Scripture tells us to call upon the Lord Jesus to come to reward his people with eternal life and to reward the unrighteous, the wicked doers, with eternal punishment.
“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”
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.
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen (Revelation 22:12-21).
a. Given what we have already considered from the Lord’s Prayer, it should now be obvious that every Christian who cries out, “Come, Lord Jesus,” is calling upon the Lord to bring curses down upon evildoers. The same should also be manifestly clear from this passage in Revelation 22. For otherwise, why does the passage make such a strong distinction between the righteous and the wicked, the pronounced antithesis between “those who wash their robes” and “those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, etc.”? On the one hand, the righteous are “blessed” and will be blessed at the coming of Christ Jesus. On the other hand, evildoers are and will be “outside,” called “dogs.”
b. We join the souls under the Lord’s altar who are presented to us in Revelation 6. “When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’ Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been” (Revelation 6:9-11).
c. To cry out, “Come, Lord Jesus!” is to call upon the Lord to come to judge the living and the dead, to reward the righteous and to punish the unrighteous, the evildoers. To call out, “Come, Lord Jesus!” is to cry out for the Lord to take complete and exhaustive dominion of his created order, to put an end to evil, to put an end to evildoers, to curse them with eternal perdition but to redeem the righteous, to deliver those who do good from the rage of the wicked and to usher them into Paradise to inhabit the renewed and redeemed earth forevermore.
Thus, we join with the Apostle Paul who wrote to the Corinthians, “If anyone does not love the Lord, let that person be cursed! Come, Lord!” (1 Corinthians 16:22).
Anathema! Maranatha!