Eschatology — pastoral readiness and the hope that can be prayed out loud
The last prayer in the Bible is four words long. After sixty-six books, after the law and the prophets and the gospels and the letters, after seals and trumpets and vials and a white horse and a new heaven and a new earth, the canon closes with a man on a prison island saying this:
He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. (KJV)
Revelation 22:20
Here is the question this article exists to ask, and there is no gentle way in: could you pray that this morning and mean it?
Not whether you believe it. Not whether you could defend it in a study. Whether you could say come, Lord Jesus — today, before lunch, with my calendar exactly as it stands and have your heart agree with your mouth.
It Is an Answer, Not an Opening
The first thing to see in verse 20 is that John is not starting the conversation. Christ speaks first: “Surely I come quickly.” John’s prayer is a reply.
That order matters more than it looks. Biblical hope is never a wish launched into the dark; it is agreement with something already said. “Even so” is the old English rendering of a word that means yes, let it be, amen to that. It is not resignation, the sigh of a man accepting what he cannot change. It is consent. Christ announces His intention and the church signs it.
Which means praying this prayer is not an act of spiritual bravery. It is an act of obedience to the plainest promise in the book. You are not asking God for something He is reluctant about.
Why the Words Stick
Be honest about the hesitation, because almost every believer has it and almost none of us say it in church. There are three ordinary reasons the prayer catches in a Christian’s throat.
First, the people. A daughter who is not walking with God. A brother who laughs at all of it. You cannot in good conscience ask for the door to close while someone you love is still outside it. Hold that thought — the chapter itself answers it, and better than you expect.
Second, the unfinished things. The marriage you are rebuilding at eighteen months. The business that would finally be stable in two years. The book half written. It feels like asking for the whistle to blow with the field half plowed.
Third, and least spoken, the fear. Not fear of hell exactly, but a low unease about standing in front of Him with this particular week on the record. That one is worth naming out loud, because it is a gospel problem and gospel problems have gospel answers.
The Chapter Points “Come” in Two Directions
Now look three verses earlier, because this is the part most readers walk past.
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. (KJV)
Revelation 22:17
The same chapter uses the same word in two directions. In verse 17 the church says Come upward, to Christ — and in the same breath says Come outward, to anybody who is thirsty. One word, two faces. The invitation to the world and the plea for the King are not rivals in Revelation. They are the same sentence spoken by the same mouth.
That dismantles the first objection without softening it. You do not resolve the tension by praying “come” less. You resolve it by letting the prayer do to you what it did to John — the man who wrote verse 20 spent his last years telling people to come to the water. If you cannot say come, Lord Jesus because of a name, then the name is not an argument against the prayer. It is your assignment inside it.
And the delay has a stated reason. Peter did not leave it to speculation.
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (KJV)
2 Peter 3:9
“Slack” in the King James means loose, late, slow to keep terms — the word you would use of a man who does not pay on the agreed day. The verse denies that of God outright. The calendar is not negligence. It is patience with a purpose, and the purpose has faces.
Nothing Good Is Lost in the Interruption
The second objection — the unfinished work — dies on verse 12.
And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. (KJV)
Revelation 22:12
He is not coming to cancel your work. He is coming carrying its wages. The half-plowed field is not wasted because the owner arrived early; it is weighed by a Man who knows what the ground was like. Every quiet obedience nobody thanked you for is in that reward. You are not asking Him to interrupt something valuable. You are asking the only One who can finally value it to show up.
You Are Not Joining a New Prayer
And if you think the prayer is presumptuous, understand that it is already in progress above you.
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? (KJV)
Revelation 6:10
Under the altar, the martyrs are asking the same question in a different key. Paul ends a letter with one Aramaic word the Corinthians evidently used as a watchword — Maranatha, our Lord, come. This is the oldest reflex of the church. You are not inventing anything. You are joining a chorus that has been going for two thousand years and has never once been told to stop.
Readiness Is Affection, Not Arithmetic
Here is where a great deal of modern prophecy interest goes wrong, in both directions.
One man treats the end as arithmetic. He has charts, he has a theory about a news cycle, he can tell you which treaty matters. He is informed and he is not ready, because nothing in the material has ever reached his affections. Jesus did not say the faithful servant would be the one with the best timeline. He said the Son of man comes at an hour the servants do not expect, and that the one found working is the blessed one.
Another man treats the end as an exit. He prays “come, Lord Jesus” the way a tired employee watches the clock — mostly to be let out of a hard assignment. But Scripture never offers the return as an escape hatch from responsibility. It offers it as the reason responsibility is worth carrying.
Between those two stands the thing Paul could say at the end of his life: a crown waiting “unto all them also that love his appearing.” Not them that calculated it. Them that loved it. Readiness, in the New Testament, is measured in affection and in faithfulness at your post — never in confidence about a date.
The Reason the Prayer Is Safe
That leaves the fear, which is the one that actually keeps men from praying this.
You can pray for His coming because of the way He came the first time. He came the first time to a feed trough and a Roman cross, and He settled there, in public, under witnesses, what the second visit will mean for everyone who is His. The One you are asking to come is the same One who already came and bore what you are afraid of being handed.
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (KJV)
Hebrews 9:28
“Without sin” there does not mean He was sinful before. It means the sin business is concluded — He is not coming back to deal with it again. He dealt with it. The second appearance, for those who look for Him, has nothing left on its agenda but salvation.
If you are in Christ, you are not awaiting a verdict. The verdict was read at a hill outside Jerusalem and the sentence was served by someone else.
What to Do Before Breakfast
- Pray the four words out loud, today. Not in your head. Out loud, once, before you look at your phone. Find out what your heart does with them.
- Name the person who makes you hesitate — and then act like it. Write the name down. Pray for them by name. Then do the one thing you have been putting off: the call, the invitation, the sentence you owe them. Verse 17 will not let you hold a name as an excuse.
- Fix the thing you would not want in progress. You know what it is. Everybody does. Readiness is not a mystical state; it is usually one unresolved item with a name and a phone number.
The Bible does not end with a prediction. It ends with a promise and a prayer — His word and the church’s yes. Four words, and the whole canon closes on them.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Teaching the Word. Watching the Times.
— SmithForChrist