My charge to you, Brian Tabb, as the third president of Bethlehem College and Seminary, may be spoken in a rhyming couplet with iambic tetrameter. It goes like this:

Hold fast the word, unchanged and true;Let insight, joy, and song be new.

Hold Fast the Word

Hold fast the word, unchanged and true. Be like those who received the word in good soil: “Hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15).

Hold fast the word, unchanged and true. Be a firm and steadfast lover of the gospel: “I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word” (1 Corinthians 15:1–2).

Hold fast the word, unchanged and true. Be a guardian of the apostolic traditions: “Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:15).

Hold fast the word, unchanged and true. Be dogged in holding our confession: “Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession” (Hebrews 4:14).

Hold fast the word, unchanged and true. And be obedient to the risen Jesus when he says in Revelation 2:25, “Only hold fast what you have until I come.”

Hold fast the word, unchanged and true. You are our leader, our pacesetter, our example, our ethos builder, our inspiration, and our truth protector. Hold fast to the inerrant word, for “the words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times” (Psalm 12:6). And Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35). “More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:10). Hold fast to the inerrant word.

Hold fast to Reformed soteriology — that is, the unchanged truth that our great salvation is a decisive work of God, start to finish. He chose, he predestined, he died, he rose, he bore our sin, he took condemnation, he calls, he causes new birth, he gives saving faith, he forgives, he adopts, he guards and sustains and keeps, he sanctifies, he perfects and brings us to God where there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. And whatever contributions we make in the obedience of faith, it is not we but the grace of God working in us what is pleasing in his sight, so that our salvation — from eternity to eternity, from start to finish — redounds to the glory of his sovereign grace. Hold fast to the infinitely precious Reformed, biblical soteriology.

“Hold fast the word, unchanged and true; let insight, joy, and song be new.”

Hold fast to the fullest glorification of God through the joy of God’s people in God. Hold fast to Christian Hedonism — by whatever name. Hold fast to the serious joy that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him — or as Paul expressed it: “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Hold fast to the truth that gladness in Christ in weakness magnifies the glory of Christ.

Hold fast to the beauty of biblical manhood and womanhood as God created them and orders them in complementary relationships. Hold fast to marriage as a lifelong covenant union between a man and a woman, with the man taking his cues from Christ as the head of his wife, and the woman taking her cues from the faithful, submissive, loved body of Christ, the church. Hold fast to the burden that men must bear as those responsible for the pastoral leadership of the church. Hold fast to the truth that God has spoken in Scripture and in nature that men are men all the way down and women are women all the way down, and this is a godly, glad, and glorious thing.

Hold fast to them all, Brian Tabb — all the precious realities of our Affirmation of Faith.

Hold fast the word, unchanged and true.

Let Song Be New

And in all your steady, solid, stable, unflinching, unchanging holding fast to what is true, let insight, joy, and song be new.

Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the Lord, and greatly [freshly, newly!] to be praised. (Psalm 96:1–4)

When the psalmist said, “Sing to the Lord a new song,” he did not mean, “Write a new Bible, find some new doctrine, bow to a new Lord, bless a new name, tell of a different salvation, praise a novel glory, or be amazed at a greatness that never existed before.” That’s not what he meant.

He meant, “Hold fast the word, unchanged and true, but by all means, let insight, joy, and song be new.”

You have a great faculty in the school. And they have amazingly gifted eyes to seek and find treasures in the Bible — “the word, unchanged and true.” The word of God — and the world of God — is like an ocean of insight without bottom and without shore. Inspire these teachers. Challenge them, equip them, and pay them to see what is really there — insights they may never have seen before — so that they may train the students to do the same. “Every scribe [and these are worthy scribes] who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure [his bottomless ocean] what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13:52). Old truth, new insight.

Let insight, joy, and song be new. Let joy be new. “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5). Yes, there is a serious joy that endures through the night of weeping: “Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). But dawn is not darkness. Dancing is not weeping. Birth is not death. And the joy of the bridegroom coming out of his chamber at sunrise is not the same joy as the joy of the old man thankful for sixty years of marriage, standing by his wife’s grave. They’re all different. Every joy is different. The mercies are new every morning; the joys are new every morning — and every night.

Brian, know this, savor this, live this, and pray this until education in serious joy in this school is new every morning.

Let insight, joy, and song be new. If our president, our faculty, and our students are finding new insights in the ocean of God’s unchanging truth, and if we are tasting new joys every morning, we will sing new songs. And we will sing old songs like we’ve never sung them before.

So, I wrote a new song for you, Brian, which I would like our congregation to sing over you. (It’s to the tune of “All People That on Earth Do Dwell.”)

God’s Truth stands like his holy Name,     No origin, nor e’er became,Eternal, absolute, the same,     Forever one in sum and aim.

Yet oh how new and fresh the taste!     Linger with him and make no haste.Through every line the sweet is traced;     May we forever so be graced.

Come every scholar, poet too;     Keep ancient truth and bliss in view.Hold fast the word, unchanged and true;     Let insight, joy, and song be new.

Amen.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20)

The last prayer in the Bible is also one of its shortest — and yet it’s layered with heartache and anticipation, with distress and hope, with agony and joy. Can you imagine the apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 13:23), savoring those three words — “Come, Lord Jesus!” — while he was abandoned among criminals on the island of Patmos? Does the promise that Christ will come again ever feel sweeter than when life on earth feels harsh and unyielding?

It’s almost as if John tries to draw the risen Jesus out of heaven, praying with all his might. The barren, rocky ground beneath his knees was more than a prison; it was a model of the curse, twenty square miles overrun with the consequences of sin. Suffering does this. It opens our eyes wider to all that sin has ruined, just how much pain and havoc it has wrought in the world. And, in a strange way, suffering often awakens us to the promise of his coming.

Weakness and illness make us long all the more for new bodies. Prolonged relational conflict makes us long all the more for peace. Wars and hurricanes and earthquakes make us long all the more for safety. Our remaining sin makes us long all the more for sinlessness. “Come, Lord Jesus!” is the cry of someone who really expects a better world to come — and soon. Suffering only intensifies that longing and anticipation.

Many Prayers in One

The prayer “Come, Lord Jesus!” is really many prayers in one. What will happen when Christ finally returns? The opening verses of Revelation 21 tell us just how many of our prayers will be answered on that day.

Come, Lord Jesus, and dry our tears. Followers of Jesus are not spared sorrow in this life. In fact, following him often means more tears. Jesus himself warned us it would be so: “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). But one day, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 21:4). In that world, we will not have tribulation, or sorrow, or distress, or persecution, or danger. When he returns, we’ll never have another reason to cry.

Come, Lord Jesus, and put an end to our pain. Some long for the end of heartache; others feel the consequences of sin in their bodies. Pain has followed them like a shadow. Revelation 21:4 continues, “. . . neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore.” Can you imagine someone who has battled chronic pain for decades waking up one morning and feeling no more pain? It will be like a man who has never seen anything clearly finally putting on his first pair of glasses — except the sufferer will feel that sensation in every muscle and nerve. The absence of pain will free his senses to enjoy the world like never before.

Come, Lord Jesus, and put death to death. Jesus came to dethrone death. Hebrews 2:14–15 says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” Every one reading this article was once enslaved to the fear of death. But death lost its sting when the Son of God died. And one day, death itself will die. When the Author of life comes, “death shall be no more” (Revelation 21:4).

Come, Lord Jesus, and rid us of sin. This burden may be more subtle in these verses, but it would not have been subtle in John’s imagination. He writes in verse 3, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.” And he knew that God cannot dwell with sin. For God to come and dwell with us, he will have to first eradicate the sin that remains in us — and that’s exactly what he promises to do. The sin that hides in every shadow and behind every corner will be suddenly extinct. He will throw every cause of sin into his fiery furnace (Matthew 13:41). “When he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

“In the world to come, we will have nothing to fear, nothing to mourn, nothing to endure, nothing to confess.”

Come, Lord Jesus, and make it all new. In other words, anything not included in the prayers above will be made right too. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). Nothing here will go untouched. Whatever aspect of life on earth afflicts you most, it will be different. Whatever fears have plagued you, whatever trials have surprised you, whatever clouds have followed you, they all will be transformed — in the twinkling of an eye — and stripped of their threats. In the world to come, we will have nothing to fear, nothing to mourn, nothing to endure, nothing to confess. Can you imagine?

More than a prayer for relief, or safety, or healing, or even sinlessness, though, “Come, Lord Jesus!” is a prayer for him.

His Presence Is Paradise

The burning heart of John’s three-word plea is not for what Jesus does, but for who he is. This is clear throughout the book of Revelation. The world to come is a world to want because Jesus lives there. John’s prayer, after all — “Come, Lord Jesus!” — is a response to Jesus promising three times in the previous verses, “Behold, I am coming soon. . . . Behold, I am coming soon. . . . Surely I am coming soon” (Revelation 22:7, 12, 20).

“The world to come is a world to want because Jesus lives there.”

While the apostle wasted away in prison, he could see the Bridegroom on the horizon (Revelation 1:12–16). His hair white, like snow. His eyes filled with fire. His feet, like burnished bronze. His face, like the sun shining in full strength. The man he had walked with, talked with, laughed with, and surely cried with, now fully glorified and ready to receive and rescue his bride, the church. The Treasure was no longer hidden in a field, but riding on the clouds.

Even the vision of the new heavens and new earth in Revelation 21 makes God himself the greatest prize of the world to come: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Revelation 21:3). Yes, we want a world without grief, without pain, without fear, without death. But better to have a world like ours with God, than to have any other world without him. His presence defines paradise.

Randy Alcorn writes,

Nothing is more often misdiagnosed than our homesickness for Heaven. We think that what we want is sex, drugs, alcohol, a new job, a raise, a doctorate, a spouse, a large-screen television, a new car, a cabin in the woods, a condo in Hawaii. What we really want is the person we were made for, Jesus, and the place we were made for, Heaven. Nothing less can satisfy us. . . . We may imagine we want a thousand different things, but God is the one we really long for. His presence brings satisfaction; his absence brings thirst and longing. Our longing for Heaven is a longing for God. (Heaven, 166, 171)

A Second Coming

While the apostle’s brief prayer may be the most memorable invitation in Revelation 22, it is not the only one. The Bible doesn’t end only with a desperate plea for Christ to return, but also with a warm invitation to the weary, the suffering, the spiritually thirsty.

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. (Revelation 22:17)

As John anticipates Christ’s returning, gathering his people and wiping out all his enemies, his last thoughts are not of judgment, but of mercy. He ends not with smoke rising out of torment, but with a free and overflowing fountain held out to all who would come. His words ring with an old and glorious invitation, Isaiah 55:1–2:

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

When Jesus comes, we will eat and drink and enjoy without end. Hunger and thirst will become distant memories. If sorrows have robbed you of sleep, if pain has made even normal days hard, if death has taken ones you love, if life has sometimes seemed stacked against you, if you can’t shake a restless ache for more, then come and eat with him. This world may be the only world you’ve known, but a better world is coming — and there’s still room at the table.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15758627/a-vision-for-leading-and-being-led