Thief in the Night or The Strange Case of the Missing Millennium

10. The rich who are poor

“Be watchful … If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come upon thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come upon thee.”¹

To those who would cling to His old name, denying the new name, Christ in that same chapter admonishes:

“I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.”²

As a Christian, I didn’t like the idea of a new name at all. In fact, throughout the early part of my investigation I suffered frequently from the pricking of my conscious. This theory of a new name, however clearly it was written in both the Old and the New Testaments, was contrary to everything I had been taught. Still, I had to admit that those words ‘If thou shalt not watch, I will come upon thee as a thief’ could not be lightly set aside.

My investigation of this clue of the new name demonstrated clearly that the followers of Christ had been told in unmistakable terms to cast aside all that they held dear in the hour of His second coming, just as they had been forced to do in the day of His first coming, if they hoped to recognize Him and receive His new name.

The evidence showed distinctly that His return would not be according to the beliefs, standards or expectations of any man. Each individual was warned to seek out the truth for himself, to be among those who ‘overcome’ the obstacles

placed in their path. Each one must look with his own inner eye for the Messiah. It would not be sufficient in the day of Christ’s return to go along the old path and call upon Him by His old name, for in the same chapter in which is promised the new name, it is also foretold of God:

“Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars.”¹

Later in that same book of Revelation, it speaks of the ‘great day of God Almighty’. Again Christ warns:

“Behold, I come as a thief.”²

Then He comforts those with spiritual insight, saying:

“Blessed is he that watcheth …”³

I discovered an astonishing fact in two successive chapters of this final book of Christian Scripture. In these two chapters, mankind is repeatedly warned of the second coming of Christ, and is cautioned again and again that it will take a spiritual eye and ear to see and to hear this truth. We find these warnings coming rapidly upon each other in the following order:

1. “I will come onto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.”

2. “He that hath an ear, let him hear …”

3. “I will give thee a crown of life.”

4. “He that hath an ear, let him hear …”

5. “… I will come unto thee quickly …”

6. “He that hath an ear, let him hear …”

7. “… hold fast till I come …”

8. “He that hath an ear, let him hear …”

9. “Be watchful …”

10. “If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come upon thee as a thief …”

11. “… Thou shalt not know at what hour I will come upon thee.’

12. “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life.”

13. “He that hath an ear, let him hear …”

14. “I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”

15. “Behold I come quickly …”

16. “I will write upon him my new name.”

17. “He that hath an ear, let him hear …”

18. “I know thy works, that thou are neither cold nor hot …”

19. “I will spue thee out of my mouth …”

20. “… thou sayest I am rich … and have need of nothing: and knowest not that thou are … poor and blind …”

21. “… be zealous therefore, and repent.”

22. “Behold I stand at the door …”

23. “… and if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in.”

24. “He that hath an ear, let him hear …”¹

There seemed little doubt that only those who had ‘eyes to see’ and ‘ears to hear’ would ‘receive’ the new name, recognize it, and understand it.

In the midst of this outpouring, so filled with the promise of Christ’s second coming, and so laden with warnings that spiritual faculties would be needed to perceive the manner of His coming, the promise of a new name is given yet another time.

This time it speaks not only of the new name, but of the new city, the new Jerusalem of that day. In these words, all those things with which man was then familiar would be changed, just as they had been changed in the day of His first coming. Unless a man could ‘overcome’ his preconceived ideas, his prejudices, and empty his cup of ‘former things’, he would not recognize the new name and the new day. If he could set aside

all he possessed and believed in, Christ promised him the following blessing:

“He that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.”¹

The deeper I went into my search, the more I realized that I had a tiger by the tail and couldn’t let go. Instead of gradually diminishing the interest The case of the missing millennium steadily gained momentum.

But now my most difficult problem was with myself. I had many mental obstacles to overcome. I had to work overtime at being (in the words of Christ) ‘him that overcometh’, and I didn’t like the taste of it at all. I found the story fascinating, but something inside me rebelled. Long years of training at school, Sunday-school and home rose up within me to do battle. I hoped for the moment that all my research would prove to be nothing more than a fascinating story, but I had a nagging suspicion that the fun was only beginning. I repeated to myself a number of times the words:

“He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear.”

“He that hath an eye to see, let him see.”

Frankly, it didn’t help much. Then I began to laugh at my predicament and to remind myself that I was a detective trying to solve a century-old mystery, and not a Christian trying to defend my beliefs.