How to Properly Understand His Second Coming

It is the second most talked about subject in the entire Bible. There are 318 verses in the New Testament. One out of every 26 verses in the New Testament talks about the second coming of Jesus. You've got all this ambiguity, this controversy around prophecy. The prophetic word of God is not about timelines, tsunamis, blood moons. Yeah, that's a part of it. It's really more about— ah, you know what you see it as? You see it as an event. It's so much more than an event. It is actually a marriage. I'm talking about Jesus Christ. He doesn't know when the Father's going to look at him and say, go get your girl. So here's the thing I want to ask you, and be honest with yourself in your assessment: where is your mind set? Do I think about the NFL too much? Do I think about social media too much? First thing I do when my mind's in neutral, pick up my phone and start looking at what everybody else is doing. You're not set on things of heaven. That's why you've got no eager anticipation. Here's the way I like to see it. Hey everybody, welcome to the John Bevere Podcast. Arden, it's great to have you on today.

It's good to be on.

All right, so we're talking about the second coming of Jesus. Yes, out of the new book, The King Is Coming.

Yes, which I'm very excited because people can go and order that book in the description below. And not only that, I want to let you guys know that everything we do is made possible because of our partners, the people who partner with Messenger International. And so if you're interested in partnering with Messenger International, you can find out more in the description below. But excited to talk.

Okay, so, you know, I, I'm going to ask you again, if you didn't watch the last podcast, really quick, what happens when you hear about the second coming of Jesus? What goes on on the inside of you? Fear, uncertainty, ambiguity, maybe even controversy? Yeah. Mockery? Indifference? Or what I'm really hoping all of you say is eager anticipation, because I'm gonna show you today how important the second coming of Jesus is. First of all, let me say this again, once again, it is the second most talked about subject in the entire Bible. There are 318 verses in the New Testament. 1 out of every 26 verses in the New Testament talks about the second coming of Jesus. It is the second most talked about subject of the early church fathers. Hey, if God has so much to say about the second coming of Jesus, first of all, shouldn't we be talking about it? Secondly, what's the wisdom behind it? Now, Arden.

Yes.

I was at dinner with a man who absolutely loves God. He and his wife just recently. This just happened. He's on the board of an international ministry. And you know what he said to me? He said, John, I've read the entire Bible, but I'm not reading the Book of Revelation. I said, you haven't read the Book of Revelation? He goes, no. I said, why? He said, I'm scared of it. He said, and it's so— and he said, it's ambiguous to me. Yeah. Which means, you know, it doesn't make sense.

It doesn't make sense. Yeah.

So this is what the Holy Spirit led me to do when I wrote the book. He said, go back to the first coming. Were there people that were uncertain about Jesus' first coming? Yes. Were there people that were in arguments over it? Yes. Were there people that mocked it? Yes. All of this you have with his first coming. And I started realizing something because I didn't study this for years and years. 5 years ago, the Holy Spirit put me in a deep dive and I'm like, God, this is taking a lot of time, prayer, and searching in the scripture for me to learn what you're saying. And I'm starting to realize why that man said he's not doing it, right? And all of a sudden I realize that God intended it to be this way. He almost made like a mosaic. He caused the prophetic scriptures that you have to seek and you have to inquire in order to really get it. It said the prophets, listen to this, inquired. What does inquire mean? They were praying about it. Yeah. They inquired and searched carefully. So we got praying carefully and searching the scripture carefully of this salvation. So they tried to find out what time or situation the Spirit of Christ kept referring to. Now, Arden, behind this book is more time in prayer and searching the scripture than I've done for any message, I think, in my entire life.

Wow.

I mean, it has been 4 years of just nonstop in the gym, listening in the car, listening, reading in the mornings.

And which is so cool because you didn't know you were going to write this book. But it's funny because God— you're right— is God started actually birthing this inside of you. I would say it's about 5 years ago when you started. 5 years ago you started reading books because you don't read a lot of books.

Unless they deal with like what's on my heart.

Yeah, well, yeah. Or post-life experiences, post-death experiences, heaven experiences, second coming of the Lord. And so I started seeing that more and more. That's a great call out.

So I was out just meditating and the Holy Spirit brought up an example to show you how important it is, first of all, to take the time to inquire and search the scripture when it comes to the prophetic scriptures. He gave me this idea and I knew my kids had this puzzle. So I ran in the house and I got this puzzle and I laid this puzzle out. Now, Arden, look.

Puzzles for Christmas.

I sent you these pictures, okay? All right, so the first frame, what do you see? You see puzzle pieces.

Yeah, it's just random puzzle pieces.

Can you tell me what that is a picture of?

No.

Okay, that's the friend that I have dinner with. Right now, prophecy is totally confusing to him because he hasn't taken the time to inquire, and to search the scriptures diligently, carefully, right? So that's what it is. Now let's do a little something here, okay? Now, now, this will really encourage you. This is the— this is the example the Holy Spirit gave me, and I, I— it helped me. Yeah.

And if you're listening to this, I'd encourage you to jump over to YouTube so you can see the pictures because we'll have them for you.

Yeah, so true. All right, so let's say I'm a teacher and I have a classroom. I've got 40 people in my class. I say, all of you, I want you to divide up into 10 groups of 4 people. I am going to give you all the same puzzle. Here is the assignment. The first group that tells me where, in what region of the world, what nation, region of the world this puzzle is a picture of wins. Okay? So I hand the pieces to the 10 different puzzles to these 4 groups of 4. And they start the first group, they put a couple of pieces together and they go, oh, Arctic, Arctic. Now look, look, a couple of bears. Why? There's a couple of polar bears there in the water, right? Arctic, Arctic. And they're sure they're right. Right. And the teacher goes, wrong. Then the next group, they put together about 4 or 5 pieces and they see donkeys and horses. They go, that's Old MacDonald's farm. This is the United States. This is North America. Teacher goes, you're wrong. Next group puts together these couple of pieces is about 5 pieces. And they see these panda bears and pandas. And they go, "Ah, China, China, China." And the teacher goes, "You're wrong." Next group goes, "Oh, there's the tigers. This is India, India." And teacher goes, "You're wrong." Well, there's another group that they put together a lot more pieces. And now what they see is giraffes, elephants, lions.

Rhinos.

They're seeing rhinos, they're seeing antelope. They're sure. Africa. And the teacher goes, You're wrong. But then there's one group that puts the whole thing together. They diligently work to put it together and look what they get. Yeah. Noah's Ark. It is the Middle East is the right answer. Yeah. So in other words, you got all this ambiguity, this controversy around prophecy. It is because people are not doing what the early church did. Do you know the early church actually, listen to this, this is crazy, had meals and they called them prophecy meals.

Yeah.

I'm talking about the first 3 centuries. They would come together, have a meal together, and then all they do is talk about the prophetic scriptures. And God did this on purpose because he, you know, how many times have I heard somebody say, give me one verse about, okay, let's just say the rapture catching away. Give me one verse in the Bible. I'm like, you're not gonna get your one verse because God put the whole picture together like a puzzle that if you try to just use one verse, you're probably not gonna get it right. But when you see the whole mosaic, the collage, the puzzle pieces all put together, All of a sudden things become pretty clear. And you know, the people who argue the most that I find are the people who have spent the least amount of time studying it. Hmm. Okay. We're going to briefly pause because I want to tell you about Logos.com. So many people say, John, how do you write your books? Believe me, these books would take a lot longer to write if I didn't have Logos. And I'm looking at The King Is Coming, and I use Logos more on this book than any other book. And what I especially enjoyed was the AI feature. Because what I can do is ask a question, any question. And I've got, I think, about 75,000 books on my Logos program. It reads all 75,000 books and gives me the answer out of it and gives me the summary out of it. And I didn't have to spend the thousands and thousands of hours of reading the 75,000 books.

And not only that is it's pulling only from those books. So it's pulling from the appropriate sources. So what they're doing for us, which is an amazing thing, They're giving all of our listeners up to 60 days free to be able to use it. If you need to use it for the 60 days and you just feel like it's not something you like it, just unsubscribe, cancel, that's all you have to do. But I can't encourage you guys enough to go sign up. Not only that though, is that if they do sign up, there is 90% off of all of these resource bundles that they did.

Wow.

Resource bundles that has Messenger resources so that when you're asking the AI, these questions, it's able to pull from even more things.

All right. So how do they order it and get this big discount? Yeah.

So they go to Logos, so Logos.com/Bevere, B-E-V-E-R-E, and they can sign up today.

That's amazing. Now let's get back to the episode.

That's interesting.

See, I'm telling you, when God told me to write this book, Garden, I was like, no, no, no, no. I called 2 or 3 men of God that I greatly respect, men of their peers. Men that have been walking with Jesus for decades. And I said, God, I, I went 4 decades and didn't preach a message on the second coming. Yeah, I feel like I'm supposed to write on it. And the one minister who's been in ministry for 4 decades said, John, my spirit just leapt. I really believe you're supposed to do it. Well, I'm going to tell you something. No books affected me. No book that I've written other than maybe Driven by Eternity has affected me personally. Arden, there were mornings I came to breakfast. I couldn't even talk. You know, the Spirit of God was showing me so much. And really, the prophetic word of God is not about timelines, tsunamis, blood moons. Yeah, that's a part of it. It's really more about transformation. Yeah, preparation, preparation and transformation. I mean, here's the way I like to see it. See it, you know, at Purdue University, um, we had finals week. Now please remember, we didn't have these things when I was at Purdue University, okay? All right, so We can't get, when finals week comes, the dreaded week of every college student, right? So you have about, what, 7 finals? And you know, I'm an engineering student at Purdue, so we got to go to the mechanical engineering building. Now you gotta remember, there's a mall of buildings. You know, you got the electrical engineering building, the chemistry building, you got the materials building. I go to the mechanical engineering building 'cause that's what I'm majoring in. And the list is up on the board. It's a typed out list. And you got to find out the hall, which building, the classroom, and the time of all your finals. Yeah, that took me 5 or 10 minutes. But you know what I spent hours and hours and hours and hours and hours doing? Yeah, preparing. And you know when I started preparing? The first day of class. Yeah, you know, I was in a fraternity. I had fraternity brothers, they were chasing girls, they were playing Frisbee football, they were, you know, partying 5 nights a week. It just went nuts. Okay, um, And, and when finals week came, the week before finals week, they were staying, pulling all-nighters, cramming. I was just reviewing because I started at the beginning of the semester. Yeah, you start preparing for the second coming of Jesus now. Yeah, not when you see maybe the Antichrist revealed, not maybe when you see maybe the war of Gog and Magog coming down on Israel. You start now because this is something we live Yeah. And so here's the thing. I find that people don't talk about eschatology at all. That's a big word. Eschatology means the study of end times. They don't talk about it at all, or they spend a lot of time on the 5 or 10 minutes. As I wrote this book, I felt the Holy Spirit was showing me how much more important it was to prepare people. Yeah, prepare, prepare the way of the Lord. Remember, I'll send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. What's he gonna do? Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God, right? Because all flesh is gonna see the glory of God together. That's Isaiah 40, go look it up, okay? So now we were talking about the fact that Simeon was a man of righteous character, right? He feared God. And what was the third thing? 'Cause, okay, wait, wait, let me, in case you didn't listen to the last podcast, the Pharisees couldn't recognize Jesus on his first coming. They were totally outta sync with God. Here's a guy named Simeon who comes to the temple. Jesus is a 40-day-old baby, holds him up and goes, "The Messiah." Immediately acknowledges it. How can you recognize the Messiah at 40 days and the Pharisees 30 years later can't recognize the Messiah when he's casting out devils? I mean, that's mind-blowing. So I want to learn from this guy, Simeon, right?

Yeah.

So he is righteous in character, right? He is devout. Yep. And what's the third one?

He's eagerly waiting.

Eagerly waiting. So that's what we're going to focus in on is eagerly waiting. Just as Simeon Jesus was eagerly waiting, we're supposed to be eagerly waiting. Now I'm gonna tell you, by the time we're at the end of this podcast, you're gonna understand how important it is to be eagerly waiting. First of all, I'm gonna read you some scriptures that will solidify it. 2 Timothy 4:8, "And now the prize awaits me," this is Paul writing, "the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on the day of His return." And the prize is not just for me, Paul said, But now listen, who's it for? But for all who eagerly— that's the word— look forward to his appearing. So those who say, ah, the Lord delays his coming, they become more worldly. The people that are eagerly looking for him, they purify themselves. The Bible says they actually— it, it— when you are eager about the Lord's coming, it has a purifying effect. It gives you the power to walk in holiness. Yeah. Okay, Hebrews 9:28. So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many, to those who eagerly wait, there it is again, for him. He will appear a second time apart from sin for salvation. 1 Corinthians 1:7. Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you, what does it say?

Eagerly wait.

Eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, so what, again, I just said it, what is the antithesis of eagerly waiting? Jesus in Matthew 24 tells about his second coming, the whole chapter, and then he ends it with this parable. He says, if the servant thinks my master won't be back for a while— in other words, if he puts it off, if he's not eagerly waiting, right— he will begin to beat the other servants. He will begin to party and get drunk. So in other words, when we put that the Lord's coming in a delay mode, we actually become more worldly.

Yeah.

Wow.

And, and can I ask it? I feel like it's also you become more passive. 'Cause obviously everything you're talking about, the gentleman that didn't understand the Book of Revelation, so he was like, I'm not even gonna touch it. I feel like there's been a lot of pastors that say that same thing as well. And so it causes the church as a whole to be more passive and not taking ground. I remember you shared this story and it was after you were at Driven by Eternity or before, but when you went to the church that was down there in Brazil and it was a massive church. I think it was like 200,000 people.

Yeah, it was 300,000 people.

300,000. And you were thinking this has been a church that's been established for 50, years, or it's been passed down for decades.

100 years.

Yeah.

But 300,000 people.

But it had only been established for how long?

16 years. And it started with one man. And I met the man.

Yeah. And so you see a lot of churches even today, I mean, in the US that are been around for 20 years, they're struggling to take ground, struggling to do these things. And you ask them, how did you build this in 16 years? And they said, it's easy.

We teach on the second coming.

Yeah, about the millennial—

the positions we will hold in the millennium and throughout all eternity. Yeah, I was like, what?

So it's, it's— you refocus. It's that C.S. Lewis quote that was like, those who do the most in this lifetime are those who think the most about heaven.

Yes, but that's actually a command. Colossians tells us to set our affections on things above, to set our mind on things above. We're going to talk about that here. Yeah, because that's what causes us to eagerly wait. Okay, and so yeah, I, I, I, I remember, you know, When those guys said that to me, I was so in shock that the one pastor sitting across the table, he could see the shock. And he said, "You know, John, I do a lot of preaching in America because I speak really good English." He said, "You Americans are, you have a perspective of 70, 80 years." He said, "Our Christians have an eternal perspective." Now I started thinking about this perspective thing and I thought, whoa, if I walk into a really elaborate Sunday morning brunch and they got two tables filled with the most beautiful desserts, right? What am I gonna do? If I got a 1-day perspective, I'm gonna eat every single dessert I can. But if I have a 1-year perspective, I'm gonna eat one or none. Why? Because I don't want excess fat on my body next week. I don't want an upset stomach tomorrow. I don't want compromised long-term health. So your perspective determines how you live. So it's about perspective. Okay, can I ask you a question? We had Christmas a few months ago, right? All right. Your 1-year-old girl and your 3-year-old son. Yeah. Which one was more excited about Christmas?

Azariah, my son.

Your son?

Yeah.

Why?

Because he understood it.

He understood it. He had a vision for it. He knew he was going to open up some pretty cool gifts.

Yeah, there's a lot of anticipation.

Was trying to figure out what was going on. She had no eager anticipation. He had eager anticipation because he had a vision for it. He saw what was coming. He knew what was coming. People who know what is coming They're going to have a greater anticipation. So the question, what fuels eager expectation, is the vision, the prophetic vision.

So do you think, because obviously in our—

Sorry, I'm getting sidetracked.

No, no, and I think this is actually really good. So obviously when I remember actually a few years ago, I had a pastor who spoke on eternity and I was like, wow, this is like the first message I've heard a pastor speak on eternity solely. Outside of my dad and like in my lifetime, I feel like. Do you feel that if pastors in the church shift their focus to spending more time throughout the year rather than talking about the things that are necessarily like current struggles and they focus in on the vision and where things are going, that it would actually shift the nature of their church and the perspective of the church? 'Cause I've heard it said like when you just talk about everything that is going on right now in your world, what you often are doing is just stirring it all up and you're muddying the water. But then what you've gotta do is you've gotta take more of like, what's the vision for your life? Pour it more into it. And as you do that, that dirty water overflows and outflows and you fills it up. And so the second coming, almost seeing that as a way, as we talk about the anticipation for the coming of the Lord, that's going to clear the water of your day-to-day life. 'Cause I know we're not supposed to, we're supposed to take on the things that come each day. We're not supposed to just live worrying about tomorrow. But I feel like having that eternal mindset just shifts and changes.

What fuels eager expectation? How do we get it? Proverbs 29:18, where there is no prophetic vision. I am actually reading what you just said. Yeah. Where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint.

All right, so, but hang on, prophetic vision though. So let's talk about that because right there, is it talking about What's coming? Is it talking about prophetic vision as a large whole, or is it even talking about specifically Second Coming?

It's talking about as a rule of thumb, a prophetic vision. Think about it. Prophetic is something that has not happened, but it's, it's predicted that will happen.

Yeah.

So 28% of the scriptures were prophetic in nature when they were written. So in other words, a lot of them have been fulfilled. You have 300 prophecies about Jesus' first coming, right? He's already come. So what I'm saying is a prophetic deals with a future event in God. If we don't have that future event in God, we will cast off restraint. So it's just like, remember Jesus said, the servant says in his heart, my master delays his coming. Yeah. So the prophetic vision has been put aside. It's been put off, right? So now what happens? The restraint to walk in holiness is cast out. He loses the restraint. Now he starts acting like the world around him acts. Okay? The prophetic vision is the word of God that is spoken that has not yet manifested. So it does include the second coming, which remember, the second most talked about topic in the whole Bible is the second coming of Jesus. So yes, it does. But it talks about other prophetic things. I mean, the very fact, Arden, that you have a dream in your heart, I know we've talked about this, about these things that keeps you going.

Well, and that's what I think I'm alluding to, is I think there's a lot of Christians that say, well, I just don't have a vision for my life.

And then I think in the word of God, spend time with the Holy Spirit.

Yeah, but, but no, but, uh, that's— yes, that's one element to it, but I think you're identifying something is I think there's a lot of people that say, I don't have a vision for my life, so I'm just going to kind of keep going through the motions until one day I die. But yet the prophetic vision that God's given every single Christian is the second coming.

Yes.

In this eager expectation.

In eternity.

Yeah, and so it almost shifts this perspective off of the, you know, what that pastor was identifying as your worry. Like, we spend so much time talking about the individual focus.

Yep.

And not the prophetic calling of the entirety of the church, which is—

I wanna read this.

Yes.

This, it was for later, it's way down the notes, but I went to my Bible. All right, this is Colossians. This is amazing. Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set— hear the word set— your sights on the realities of heaven where Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand. Think about, set your sights, think about the things of heaven. This is a command. This isn't a suggestion. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of the earth. Yeah. Wow. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. Okay. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world— second coming— you will share in all his glory. Now let's just stop a minute, okay? When I'm driving a car— well, of course, you know, now we got self-drive, but I'm talking about when I used to really drive a car. My sight is set on the road.

Yeah.

Okay, now we are commanded to set our sights on the realities of heaven and to think about the things above, right? So in other words, set our mind on the things above. My sight is set on the road. Are there times I glance over to the person sitting in the passenger seat and talk to them? Yeah, really quick. But I get back to where my eyes are set. Yeah. Other times I look at the instrument panel and I see what the temperature is inside and change it. And but what do I do? I go back to where I'm set. Okay. In this life, we have jobs. I have to think on my job. That's like glancing over to the passenger, right? I have— we need to have Sabbath. We need to have recreation. And when I'm on a pickleball court, I'm thinking about the shot. Yeah. Okay. That's okay. But when the pickleball shot is over, or the game's over, I should say, my mind goes back to where it's set. So here's the thing I wanna ask you, and I want you to do a really honest assessment, 'cause the Bible says to examine yourself to see if you're in the faith. Where does your mind go when it's in neutral? In other words, when you don't have to think on your job, you're not with a group of people, you know, and let's say you're at a ballgame or something, where does your mind go? So I can tell you, if you do an honest assessment, you go, do I think about the NFL too much? Do I think about the NCAA basketball, the Final Four too much? Do I think about social media too much? Does my mind go to, is the first thing I do when my mind's in neutral, pick up my phone and start looking at what everybody else is doing? That's where your mindset, you're not set on the things of heaven. That's why you got no eager anticipation. Because you don't have the prophetic vision. You have more of what the world's looking for. I mean, ask yourself, are you really excited? Are you really eager and eagerly anticipating the World Cup? The NFL playoffs? The Final Four? A date? Maybe a social gathering? You're not gonna be eager about Jesus coming. Literally, we are to set our sights on things above. And this is where I really believe we're not teaching the church. I mean, C.S. Lewis, you quoted it. He said that the man who actually does more in this life is the man whose mind is set on the things of heaven. And so it is so crucial that we understand what is important. Creates the prophetic vision. Now I'm going to give an example. Where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint. Restraint here is not a negative. It's actually a positive. And I'm going to— I'm going to show you why. I have a brother-in-law. His name's Dale Wilbur. He is the husband to my sister, my kid sister who's one year younger than me, Laura. Dale, at the turn of the millennium, had a desire to build a brand new 1966 Chevelle SS. He loves muscle cars.

Yeah.

So Dale, I did an interview with him. I actually spent time on the phone. I asked him questions. I said, okay. I said, Dale, what did you do? He said, well, I found an old rusted out frame and that was where I began. I said, what'd you do? He said, I sandblasted the thing and then I started finding the parts and all of this. Now, I interviewed him a lot. He spent over 1,000 hours building this thing. All right. He spent nights, many, many, many nights that he was out in the— they have a barn garage. He was in the barn garage till 10:00 PM. My sister Laura on the phone said, yeah, there were so many nights I had to walk the dinner out to him in the garage while he was working on the car. Okay. I asked him in that 1,000 hours, it took him 3 years to build this thing. Okay, were there times that you fought discouragement? He said, yes. And then he said, many. I probed further, were there times you wanted to quit? He said, yes. One was after he built the entire engine, which took hundreds of hours, and he discovered there was a leak in the oil. He said, John, he bemoaned as he was on the phone, I had to pull the entire engine apart and rebuild it because of that oil leak. He said it was in a place that absolutely you couldn't get it unless you took the whole engine apart. It was a constant hunt for him. He said, John, to find bolts, screws, and other small parts that would go into the Chevelles. He said most of them weren't in good shape. He said, but rather than just inserting them in the rusted, dirty condition, he chose to sandblast them and polish them down and refinish the nuts and bolts. And even though nobody would see them, he desired every aspect of the car to be restored to its original glory. I ask, Were there days requiring hours of research, both online and making phone calls, with no apparent progress? He said, absolutely yes. I said, were there appointments requiring long drives to just get one little part? He said, absolutely yes. Were there times you chose to sacrifice other fun activities to work on the car? He said, absolutely yes. What fueled his persistence? Well, let me just, you and I, together saw it for the first time. Do you remember this? Yeah, we went and he said, do you want to see the car? It's finished. I said yes. We said— Alec was with us too, if I don't— if I remember right, we were on the Killing Kryptonite tour. And I actually got some pictures of it. Look at these pictures. I couldn't believe it. When he opened up the hood of that thing, it was like I got transported in the 1960s and I'm looking at a brand new— yeah, '66 Chevelle SS. You could eat dinner on that engine. You could eat dinner on the car. It was perfectly clean, perfectly polished. There There wasn't one scratch, one rust spot. There wasn't any dirt anywhere. I mean, this thing was gorgeous. All right, so what fueled his persistence? What kept him from giving up? It was his vision. Do you know what's interesting to me? If you saw Dale, one of the things that took a lot of time, I mean, probably 40, 50, 60 hours, was building the carburetor. Carburetor. Okay. Do you know carburetors don't exist in cars anymore? What is a carburetor? It injects the fuel into the engine. Do you know that carburetors got replaced in 1990 by fuel injection systems? But Dale spent hours and hours and hours and hours and hours building the carburetor. If you saw him building that carburetor, you would mock, you would laugh. What in the world are you doing? Those things went out 30 years ago. But yet he is spending literally, I mean, dozens of hours building this thing because he's got a vision of the overall picture. He's got a vision of the 1966 Chevelle being brand new, like going back into time. Well, listen to what— let me tell you something. That restraint from his vision of a finished car, that restraint kept him focused. So as a former tennis player, I remember, Arden, when I was in high school, I chose to miss two proms. I chose to miss a lot of other social events because I had a dream. I, I mean, I played the USTA circuit, I played Junior Davis Cup, but my dream was I wanted to start on an NCAA Division I tennis team. And I would spend 6 hours a day. My mom literally threatened, she said, I, I am going to move your bed down to the tennis court. Yeah, because I was on a tennis court 6 hours a day. I'd leave school and we'd drive straight to the indoor courts in winter and we drill for, for hours. Okay, because I wanted to start, and, and, and the dream was fulfilled. I started on the Purdue varsity tennis team.

And you know, my, my claim for your, your tennis fame is that you have an indirect win over John McEnroe.

That goes over some information. So I was, I was hitting with a guy and could stay with a guy who beat a guy who beat John McEnroe.

That was a very indirect It was a very indirect one. I always thought you beat the guy in a tournament that beat John McEnroe in a tournament. So that's much more interesting.

But listen to what Paul says, 1 Corinthians 9. Don't you realize that in a race everybody runs, but only one person gets the prize? Now listen to what Paul says to you and I. So run to win. Now you're not competing against other Christians, you're competing against the world. All athletes are disciplined in their training. I just remember us getting up at 6 o'clock in the morning, going down the courts, hitting cross-court forehands, cross-court backhands, backhands. Then we would hit approach shots, down the line approach shots, cross-court approach shots. We would do overheads. We'd just do drills, drills, drills, drills. We were disciplined in our training because I had a goal. I saw the end picture. I'm going to start for an NCAA, you know, Big Ten tennis team. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. Paul said, I've got purpose in every step. What is purpose? Purpose is is fueled, fueled by eager anticipation.

Yeah.

I run with purpose in every step. I discipline my body. Listen to what Paul's saying. I discipline my body like an athlete. He's not a couch potato. He's not sitting there scrolling through Instagram 4 hours a day. He's not even doing it an hour a day. He has purpose in every step. He disciplines his body. He trains it to do whatever it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others, I myself might be disqualified. Wow. Whoo. So what's, what's the prophetic vision? A lot of people don't get it. You see the second coming, you know what you see it as? You see it as an event. That's why you're not eagerly anticipating it. It's so much more than an event. As I wrote this book, I realized it is actually a marriage. It is a deeply in love bridegroom who cannot wait to be to be united with his bride, but he doesn't know yet. I'm talking about Jesus Christ. He doesn't know when the Father's gonna look at him and say, "Go get your girl, go get your bride." That's us. So here's Jesus, you know, he's died for us. He has suffered terribly for us. And he's just waiting for the Father to say, "Go get her." Okay, now I'm gonna take you back. Lisa and I got engaged June 6th, August 26th, 1982. We were married October 2nd, 1982. So it was a 4-month engagement. That 4 months, Arden, I'm going to ask you because you and I both have similar experience. Okay. That 4 months to me felt like 2 years. I mean, a day seemed like a week and a week seemed like a month.

Yeah.

Right? Because I could not wait to be, I was so eagerly anticipating being married to my girl. Right? Now, what got even harder was she, the last 2 months of our engagement, I'm in Dallas working as an engineer for Rockwell. She flies back to Indiana to get all the wedding ready. And I'm like, oh my gosh. Now it was really hard because I didn't see her for 2 months. And that literally a day seemed like a week. And I remember when I flew up to see her and she walked into that luggage claim, oh my gosh, my heart was just overwhelmed. But what I really remember is she spent hundreds of hours getting that dress ready, getting the church ready, getting the home ready that we had a reception in. But nothing was more beautiful to me than when she appeared at that back door with her dad and she had her beautiful wedding garment And she came walking down with longing eyes. I mean, what I've been eagerly anticipating for 4 months, I'm watching come to pass.

Yeah.

That's the way Jesus feels about us. That's the way we should feel about him. Yeah. I want to ask yourself, are you like, are you like a bride that she and her groom are separated? I mean, Lisa and I were on the phone every night talking about, okay, it's only, it's only, it's only 46 more days. It's only 32 more days. It's on. Is that— I look at when I was a kid at Christmas time, I mean, my sister and I, our rooms adjoined, we would stay up till 11 o'clock at night talking about what we were anticipating Christmas. I couldn't even sleep Christmas night because I couldn't wait to get to those packages and open up. That eager anticipation kept me awake. Is that the way you are about your groom coming back, or is it just an event to you? See, what I realized when I was writing this book is that Jesus paid a very, very, very high price because for the joy set before Him, He endured the unbearable pain, agony, and even the forsaking of His Father for a few moments. I realized that He did it because He saw His bride, He saw— listen to me, I've been married, I've been married now for 43 years this year. When Lisa and I first got married, we loved each other. We enjoyed working together. But after 4 decades, I can tell you this honestly, I am so much more in love with Lisa than when we first got married. I mean, the love is so deep and strong for my wife I— she is my favorite person to be with. I love doing things with her. The whole vision began before man was ever created. God said, I want a family. I want a family. But even more, I want a bride for my son. So the Trinity had a meeting. I mean, listen to this. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in advance to adopt us into his own family. That's Ephesians 1:3. Okay. God says, God says, we're going to create human beings. And he says, they're going to mess up. See, God's not bound to time. Here's Adam. Here's Moses. Here's Jesus being born. Here's you and I today. God is here. He's not bound to time. So God sees the end from the beginning. And God says, we're going to create mankind. They're going to mess up. Son, would you be willing to die for him? Yeah, Dad, I'll do it. So that's why Jesus is called the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world. God says, I want a family, but even more, I want a bride for my Son because there are gonna be, there's gonna be a universe of development and people throughout eternity, but I want my Son to have a bride to govern with them. When you understand that it's not just it's the reuniting of a groom and a bride, like on their wedding day, then all of a sudden now you're eagerly anticipating it. If you just see it as an event, well, yeah, it's an event. I'm enjoying myself here right now. I'm really more excited about the World Cup soccer coming up, but yeah, yeah, Jesus is coming, yeah, yeah, yeah. I find the closer I get to Him, the more I yearn. You know, Paul said, we groan, we groan, within our bodies to be what? To put on our heavenly bodies so that we can see him and behold him face to face, and he can behold us. There is a desire in him. There should be a desire in us to be reunited. Yeah, that's the vision.

I love that. And it's just, that's, that's what gives people something to continue to keep fighting for.

Yes.

And striving for.

Yes. So So there's so much more to it. I mean, I spent chapters on this writing about the uniting of the bride and groom. Guys, you got to remember the Apostle John writes, Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. I want you to stop and think about it. This is God Almighty. This is the one who Moses said when he saw him, he said, I was fearing and trembling. This is the one that Job, who was the most godly man on the planet— God said he was the most godly man on the planet— when he saw the Lord, he said, I abhor myself, because all of a sudden he realized who I am compared to this mighty, mighty God. I mean, Isaiah, one of the most godly men in Israel, he's a preacher of righteousness, sees the Lord and he cries out, woe is me, I'm unclean and the people I live with are unclean. The seraphim, so mighty, So mighty that their cries of holy shake an arena that seats over a billion people to its foundations. They're still crying holy every moment. They're not saying, I want to go to some other place in the universe. They don't want to be anywhere else. This God, you know, Arden, I mean, Psalm 8. Psalm 8 is amazing. Do you know how the Psalms— do you know how David wrote the psalm that said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I have come in the valley. It was David actually writing what Jesus would say. Well, I believe Psalm 8, these mighty seraphim that cry out holy and shake the whole arena of God. I think, I really think, I don't have Bible to prove that. I don't have a scripture to prove this, but I think Psalm 8 is one of those seraphim because those seraphim, they travel with God wherever he goes. Did you know that? I mean, when Ezekiel saw God's throne moving towards him, the seraphim were moving with the throne. So these seraphim are with God wherever he goes. I think this is one of the seraphim. Listen to Psalm 8, verses 3 and 4. When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers— so think about it, the closest star, the closest star to the Earth is 4 light years away. That would take about 570 million hours of flying non-stop, okay? But yet Andromeda, the closest galaxy, is 2.3 million light years away. Okay, so these seraphim just watch God create, put the stars in the fingers of this universe, right? When I think about the night sky and think of the work of your fingers, the moon, the stars that you set in place, what— this is, this is the seraphim— what are these human beings that you should think about them? And David wrote in another psalm, he said, your thoughts about me outnumber every grain of sand that's on this planet. The reason he's so eager for you is because He thinks about you. His thoughts about you are in the billions, okay? He thinks a lot about you. That's us individually, that's not the church collectively. He said, what are human beings that you should think about them, that you should care for them? Because this seraphim is looking, they're also called four living creatures, is looking at this mighty God who they keep crying holy because every moment another facet of His greatness is revealed to them. And he looks at this little speck of a man who's nothing. I mean, when human beings see angels, they freak out. Okay? These angels are so mighty, but yet they cry, "Holy." And then he watches Holy God. And this Holy God not only crowns man with glory, but this Holy God says, "I want them to be a part of my family." I mean, that's like a king, the most powerful king ever, can't be defeated, goes to one of his outer realms, goes to the slums, finds this this kid who's in the— who lives— who lives on the street and says, I want him— I not only want him to be my son, I want him to be heir of anything, everything I own.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh. And I want him to marry my daughter. Or let's say it's a girl. I want her to marry my son. I want her to be the queen of my kingdom, my son's wife. I want her to be queen, and I want to be heir of everything I own, and I want her to sit on the throne with my son. My gosh, you're going, what? Can you imagine the attendance looking at the king going, "Are you kidding me? This girl has got dirt all over. She's got a dirty dress. You want her?" And yet that's nothing compared to what's happened. When you realize this, it puts an eager anticipation in you. I mean, more so than I had for my wedding day, more so than I had for Christmas, more so than Dale had for his '66 SS Chevelle. The problem is the American church, we're living in the now. We have the 70 or 80-year vision. We don't have the eternal perspective. We don't realize that Jesus says, He says, "Those who are victorious will sit with me on my throne. You're gonna be my queen. You're gonna be my bride. And we're gonna rule together." You know, I love doing things with Lisa. I love, love, love, love. I have loved doing this ministry with her. Yes, it's been a little difficult at times because we are, you know, strong-headed sometimes, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I was a single man and then I was a married man and then I was a married man with my wife and then I was a married man with my sons Now my sons are in high-level positions. I love it. It's so much richer. But I'm gonna tell you something, to have my wife walk alongside of me with Messenger International has been nothing but a joy. It's been a joy. Yes, it's been difficult at times, but we're not gonna have that difficulty with Jesus 'cause we're gonna be perfect like He is perfect because He made us perfect. We're gonna sit with Him on His throne just as He was victorious and sat down on His Father's throne. And you gotta understand there's gonna be civilizations, there's gonna be communities. People think heaven's gonna be a boring worship service for eternity. That is so crazy. Are you kidding? What created this is so much better that when you leave this life, this life's gonna seem like a fog, like a dream, a bad dream actually, because there's gonna be so much activity, so much planning, so much, so much. And we're gonna be doing this with Jesus. Listen to this one. "To all who are victorious, who obey me to the very end, to them I'll give authority over all the nations." There's gonna be nations, there's gonna be cities. Let me tell you something. When you have this, you have an eager expectation. The prophetic vision is what causes you to put up a restraint to keep you from walking in worldliness and sloppiness, being distracted. It causes you to stay focused. A lot of you sometimes wonder, why is it that I have friends that are so passionate about Jesus? Why do I have friends that are so passionate about the kingdom? I'm struggling. Check, do a checkup. Where's your mindset? Yeah. All right, are you just looking at your phone while you're driving? You're going to have a crash. If your eyes are set on the road, that's where they're supposed to be, and you just glance when you have to, If your eyes are set on heaven, your mind is set on heaven, your mind is set on the eternal, and you glance every once in a while when your mind is required to do your work here, or maybe you're in your recreation here, whatever it is, 'cause that's important, where's your mindset? Ask yourself that, be honest with yourself in your assessment. Where is your mindset? Where does it float to when it's not required for service or work? That's where it's set. And if it's not set on the things above, you're not eager. And if you're not eager, you're in a bad place because the one who says, my Lord delays his coming is the one that becomes more worldly. They gossip more, they beat up their fellow servants, they party, they become more worldly. Hey, I want to encourage you, set your eyes. Jesus said, when you— when these things begin to come to pass, look up, look up. Because your redemption is really close. Well, that's all I got. You got anything else?

No, I think this has been great.

I think I've been more preached this one. I'm sorry, I just—

No, I mean, I just—

I'm a bit overwhelmed.

I was listening to this and this is so powerful and it's such a great reminder. I think taking that last statement alone away from this podcast is where does your mind drift to? I mean, the amount of times that I'm thinking about my mind I'm get up in the morning and I, I need to take a shower before I go get in the word. And then that's like my time period. I'm not thinking about anything. Where I clearly have seen times where I'm thinking about, you know, it's drifting consistently to an NFL game, it's drifting consistently to something different. Um, and I, I've made that shift even— I know you talked about this, Addison— I made that shift about probably about 6 months ago, 7 months ago, that I will not touch my phone until I at least an hour into my day or I get into the word of God. And that's the priority before I touch my phone because it will prioritize my day of what it should be keeping its eyes fixed on from the get-go.

That's why I love getting up at 4:35. I was up 4:30 this morning. I was over the tennis courts praying. Then I came in and it's because I want the word of God to start my day. And it's so important. But let me say this, I've just scratched the surface on this, on The King Is Coming. This book so impacted me. I mean, my life has changed, Arden. I spent the entire year of 2025 writing this, and my life has literally changed. I believe it's going to change you. One of the guys on our staff, he's read every single book that I've written, and he said, John, this is my favorite. He said, I cried my way through this book. I'm telling you, I read it in the studio yesterday, Arden, and I was literally flying my arms everywhere. I was preaching and I'm in this little phone box thing just having, having revival because I was, I was getting so ministered to by the word of God. I realized that really the Holy Spirit gave this book, not me. I never could have written this book.

Yeah. And they can order it. You can order it below in the description if you need to find that link to it.

Yeah. Well, until next time, this has been the John Bevere Podcast.