Jesus Is Coming Back Soon
Growing up as a Christian and attending Sunday services with my family, I would sit in the back pew of my church, occasionally tuning in and out of messages presented by our bilingual preacher. Sermons were twice as long. Sometimes, the preacher would amplify his voice when saying, “Jesus is coming back soon!” And everyone would follow with a hearty “Amen!” I remember as a kid thinking, “I wish He would come back soon. I want to go to heaven.”
Years later, through my mom’s divine appointment, a recorded audiotape of sermons about the Sabbath, and careful self-study of the Scriptures, my family was Spirit-led to a local Korean Seventh-day Adventist church. Shortly after, we attended the Net ‘98 evangelistic series by Pastor Dwight Nelson. His messages of Bible prophecy brought conviction in my heart. The message, that “Jesus was coming back soon,” was preached with assurance in those final meetings, and I decided to get baptized with about a dozen other youth members from my church.
The imagination of a teenager can run wild. I thought to myself, “Wow, there are natural disasters, wars, rumors of wars, and evil people in the world right now. He must be coming back soon!” But time passed, life carried on. My convictions fainted through those years. Of course 9/11 woke us up. But we fell back asleep. The stock market crashed in 2008, but we recovered and went on. There were agitations here and there, but life seemed to be about the same, just like when I was a young boy sitting in the back row hearing the bilingual preacher say, “Jesus is coming back soon.”
Then COVID happened. It changed our world. When COVID lockdowns started to happen the Spring of last year, I was vacationing with friends in the Great Smoky Mountains. Downtown Gatlinburg was bustling. People were out, eating and drinking, and carrying on with their usual amusements. We were shopping around downtown, stopping by to eat chocolate peanut butter ice cream, my favorite, at Kilwins. It was nostalgic for my wife and me, reminding us of our dates at Kilwins when we attended Andrews University. I got a text that day from another friend, to start stockpiling food. There were shortages at the grocery store. Still on vacation, my friend and I went to the local grocery store in town, and piled up on water and non-perishable items to bring back home with us, in case our stores were empty.
Like the rest of us, 2020 became a year to remember (or forget!). Toilet paper became gold. My choice of masks was similar to my choice of neckties. With my patients, I had to start donning PPE. Some co-workers were laid off from work. People in my community struggled with sickness and their finances due to the pandemic.
We all saw the protests and riots that broke out in the cities after George Floyd. Cries of racism and social injustice rang in our ears throughout the Summer. Popular hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter and #Defundthepolice went viral, followed by #AllLivesMatter and #Backtheblue as a response.
Even my company that employs about 20,000 people followed the example of many large corporations to give birth to a Diversity and Inclusion committee, to address these issues and to help change the corporate culture. Of course they asked me to be on this committee, I’m always the token Asian guy.
Then the most contentious election in memory took place in November. The election outcome took over a week to decide, followed by legal challenges to the results. An awkward, lonely, socially distanced Thanksgiving and Christmas followed. As we entered the New Year, about two million people died in the world from this disease.
Now here I am thinking to myself, in just a short year, how so much has changed in our world. Ellen White gives us timely counsel for the last days:
“We are living in the time of the end. The fast-fulfilling signs of the times declare that the coming of Christ is near at hand. The days in which we live are solemn and important. The Spirit of God is gradually but surely withdrawn from the earth. Plagues and judgments are already falling upon the despisers of the grace of God. The calamities by land and sea, the unsettled state of society, the alarms of war, are portentous. They forecast events of the greatest magnitude. The agencies of evil are combing their forces and consolidating. They are strengthening for the last great crisis. Great changes are soon to take place in our world, and the final movements will be rapid ones.” Testimonies to the Church, Vol. 9, p. 11
With so many agitations taking place in our world, where are we on the prophetic timeline? A godly evangelist, Mark Finley, was asked this question, and he told the congregation without second thought, “We are at the four winds in Revelation 7.”
“After these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the winds should not blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree.Then I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, Saying, “Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”
We read that the angels are holding back the winds of strife until the people of God are sealed for a coming crisis. What is this seal on the forehead?
“Just as soon as the people of God are sealed in their foreheads—it is not any seal or mark that can be seen, but a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so they cannot be moved—just as soon as God's people are sealed and prepared for the shaking, it will come.” Maranatha p. 201
To be sealed is to have God’s character, which is His commandments, in our minds and lived out in our lives, overcoming sin and the devil.
The reality is, of our own power and merit, we cannot attain this kind of character. Jesus has to give us His Spirit. We need the daily infilling of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Like the parable of the wise virgins waiting to meet the bridegroom, let us fill our empty vessels with oil and humbly ask God to give us the infilling of the Holy Spirit each and every day.
What exciting times we live in! And the preacher said, “Jesus is coming back soon!”
Tom Kim is a physical therapist and serves as an elder at Jasper SDA Church. He married his Korean camp meeting sweetheart and has two precious daughters. Currently, he lives in the beautiful foothills of the Cumberland Plateau in TN. He loves to spend time in nature, exercise, garden, and play with his three dogs.