A Lamb’s Eye View of the Lion’s Return

On several of my trips to Israel, I stood on the summit of Mount Carmel (where Elijah faced the prophets of Baal). I looked down. The scene below was the Valley of Jezreel (which is also called Esdraelon, Jehoshaphat, and the Valley of Armageddon) where Christ will come and defeat the gathered armies of the enemies of God. From Carmel, across that valley, I saw a village on an opposite hilltop. Just above Cana is Nazareth (population in Jesus’ day: around 200) which was the boyhood home of Jesus. As a child, Jesus was Mary’s little lamb. Later, outside the gates of another community named Jerusalem, He was our Lamb for sinner’s slain. One day soon, as King of kings and Lord of lords, He will return to Mount Zion and to that valley – between Galilee’s hillsides – as the Lion of victory for all who believe. Knowing that Jesus was, is, and forever will be God (with all God’s knowledge and with all God’s ways), have you (ever) thought about what Jesus thought when, coming out of his father's carpenter shop with nails in His hands, Jesus would stand at the edge of the nearby cliff-top (on Mount Precipice), gaze upon the Valley of Armageddon below, and think about the events that would lead up to – and happen – when, in all of His majesty and all of His glory, He will return to defeat the armies of evil and usher in one thousand years of peace? Was that, for Jesus, a Lamb’s eye view of the Lion’s return? This book examines what that Lamb Jesus knew (from His personal knowledge as God, as reinforced by what his mother taught Him when on Mary’s knee, and from what the Jewish teachers discussed in the synagogue school(s) – including that occasion when, as a twelve-year-old boy, His earthly parents left Him behind where He had discussions – in Jerusalem’s Temple – with the elders while “[listening] to them and asking them questions” (Luke 2:41-52). In that context, is it any wonder that the scholars – in His day – were as astonished about Messiah’s role in as-of-yet unfulfilled prophecies as many will be when Christ Himself fulfills those same prophecies when He returns a second time to that Temple Mount in modern-day Jerusalem? What I saw from Carmel inspired me to write this book – from Christ’s perspective. That is why I call it: A Lamb’s-Eye View of the Lion’s Return. I trust that His view is our view today.