The waiting church

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, May 28th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: The end times.

If you flip through the pages of the New Testament, you’ll find that right behind the message of salvation, the single most discussed topic is the return of Christ. 

Early church fathers wrote about it often, treating it as foundational to Christian theology. But in the modern church, eschatology often triggers a different reaction. 

For some, it’s a source of divisive theological debates. For others, it’s simply ignored.

REICHARD: John Bevere is a minister, author, and co-founder of Messenger International. In his latest book, titled, The King Is Coming, he argues that the Second Coming shouldn’t produce panic or passivity, but resolve and readiness.

Our producer Lindsay Mast talked to him about it.

LINDSAY MAST: Well John, you’ve written dozens of books on foundational Christian concepts. But tackling the return of Christ feels like stepping into a theological minefield. Why did you feel like now would be the right time to write this particular book?

JOHN BEVERE: Yeah, 10 years ago, I would have laughed you out of the room if you said I was going to write on this. It's what the Holy Spirit did in me. 

My family—you know, my greatest fear was it would produce dogmatic, argumentative Christians, people that had an escape mentality, so I stayed away from it. And the Lord pulled me in in 2021, started, and I've spent thousands of hours. And my family started saying, Dad, you're changed. And I realized that it was having good fruit. And what it spoke to my heart, when I saw the frequency that it's written in Scripture, is that when eschatology, which is the study of end times, is preached correctly, it produces an urgency.

I'm pumped because I believe I've watched some of my close friends who've been in ministry for decades, and all of a sudden they're preaching on it. I felt the compelling to preach on it. So obviously, I believe the Spirit of God is saying something to the church, because I believe His return is so close.

MAST: Well, I want to talk about that. Lots of people over time have predicted—wrongly—the return of Christ. You have maps, some calculations, things like that in the book. What makes you think your predictions might be different?

BEVERE: First of all, I have not predicted anything other than the season. Jesus said we would not know the day or hour. The Son of God doesn't even know the day or the hour, how much more I don't know the day or the hour. 

However, He said we'd know the generation. So I plan like he's not coming back for 200 years, but I live like he's coming back today. 

Dates and timelines are not what's important. What's more important is us being ready. And there's a lot He talks about for us to be ready for Him because He's coming as a thief in the night. 

So when I was in university and I was studying engineering at Purdue, it took me about five or 10 minutes to find out where the final was gonna be, what building, what classroom. But I spent hours preparing. And I find that a lot of eschatology, when it's preached today, deals with the when instead of the more important aspect of being prepared. 

Both are important. However, the most important is the Bride— according to Revelation 19—has made herself ready.

MAST: In the book, you talk repeatedly about how you really have shied away from topics that people might argue over when it comes to eschatology. So I'm curious, what is one aspect of the return of Christ that you would be willing to argue, or debate, or to really try to convince someone of?

BEVERE: Holiness. 

The only description of the church that Jesus is coming back for, it's not a leadership church, I believe in leadership. It's not a relevant church, I believe in being relevant. It's not a community church; God said it's not good that man's alone. The only description of the church, the only description, is a church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. She is holy without blemish. 

So it's a church that's not in bed with the world. And we have a church today that almost gives you permission to sleep with the world while you're saved, and that is not the grace of God. Jude actually tells us in the last days there are to be people who have creeped into our churches unnoticed who will tell us that the grace of God gives us permission to live a ungodly, immoral life. 

And this has been the greatest deception, I believe, in our entire lifetime, is the fact that we have not preached that grace empowers us to do what we couldn't do in our own ability.

We have preached so powerfully that we're saved by grace, you can't earn it, that the grace of God forgives us our sins. But what we have not preached is the grace of God empowers us to live like Jesus. That's why John writes, John, the apostle of love, he who says he abides in Jesus ought to live the way He lived. 

I've seen people in prisons, preaching in prisons, maximum security prisons, that are living more Christ-like than many of the people attending our churches in America today.

MAST: You deliberately avoid matching prophecy to current headlines, but your book did launch during a period of global instability. What do you make of that timing?

BEVERE: Well, welcome to the last days. Jesus said there will be wars and even rumors of wars, but the end is not yet. The end comes when this gospel of the kingdom is preached in every nation. That's when the end comes. And that's the main sign that He attached the word end to. 

Does there happen to be wars going on? Sure. That's going on right now because Jesus said it would happen. But that's not the focus, and I never ever would have written a book because of current headline events. 

I'm more interested in how does the truth identify where we're at right now, not how the headlines are identifying where we're at right now.

MAST: Alright, fiinal question: What is one truth that you want readers of this book to remember, regardless of how chaotic the world might get around them?

BEVERE: To be eager. Eager in anticipating His return.

MAST: Well, I can hear the eagerness in your voice. John Bevere, thank you so much for being with us. John Bevere's latest book is The King Is Coming. 

John, thanks again. 

BEVERE: Thanks, Lindsay.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.