Question: I'm getting so fed up with the idea that "soon and very soon" we're going to see the King.

Question: I believe in the Pre-trib Rapture and could be considered a dispensationalist, but I remember when Israel captured the temple mount in the Six-Day War. That's getting close to 50 years ago, and the Lord hasn't returned. Besides that, in 1998 Israel celebrated her 50th anniversary as a modern nation. I'm getting so fed up with the idea that "soon and very soon" we're going to see the King.

Response: Let's see if we can figure out what's behind your being "fed up." If you are a born-again Christian, then previous to that you were dead in your trespasses and sins, a condition of separation from God forever; you were His enemy, subjected to His wrath, headed for the everlasting torment of the Lake of Fire. In order to save you from that condition, Jesus, who is God, became a Man and loved you so much that He went to the Cross, where He paid the penalty for every one of your sins--past, present, and future. You can't comprehend, let alone imagine, what He suffered for you (and me, and every one of His human creatures). After He rose from the dead, He said that He was going to the Father to prepare a place for you and that He would return for you in the same way that a groom returns for his bride. In the meantime, He expects you to grow in your personal relationship with Him, desiring to be with Him more and more, day after day.

Prior to His physical return for you, He gave you His Word so that you might know Him more intimately by following His instructions. He said, "If a man love me, he will keep my words" (Jn 14:23), and in another place He admonished those who dismissed His instructions: "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (Lk 6:46). Are you following His instructions? Paul's letter to Timothy tells us what Jesus desires in us as we wait for Him: "But thou, O man of God, flee [sinful] things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness, fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. I give thee charge in the sight of God...that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Tm 6:11-14). You appear to be like the bride who is more focused on herself than on her husband-to-be. That will kill a relationship and end any hope of true joy. The Apostle Peter, however, gives us the antidote for being "fed up": "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls" (1 Pt 1:6-9).