Epilogue: The Subpoena Has Been Served

You have read the book.

I do not know what is happening in your chair as you read these last pages. I know what happens in mine when I sit with the material long enough. The seventy weeks of Daniel are not a calculation problem; they are a knock on the door. Once you hear the knock, you do not get to un-hear it. You can ignore the door. You can pretend the knock was the wind. But you cannot, after this much hearing, claim that you did not know someone was there.

I have written this book in the conviction that the Bridegroom is on His way and the calendar is much further along than most of His Bride realizes. The seventieth week of Daniel — the closing seven years of the long human story — is, by every honest reading of the math, almost upon us. The window in which we are living is the breath before the alarm. There are only so many ordinary mornings left. There are only so many news cycles, only so many holidays, only so many dinner conversations, only so many ordinary Sundays in ordinary churches before the first seal breaks and the calendar that has run for six thousand years runs out.

I am not telling you this to frighten you. I am telling you this because He told me to tell you. The whole purpose of biblical prophecy is to give the Bride enough warning to be ready. The Bridegroom does not announce His arrival to terrify His Bride. He announces it because He wants her dressed. He wants her watching. He wants her standing at the door.

So this is the last page of the book, and the question that has been hovering over every prior chapter now lands directly on you.

Are you ready?

I do not mean ready in the sense of having a theological position on the timing of the rapture. I mean ready in the sense the seven letters meant when our Redeemer addressed His Bride in Revelation 2 and 3. Have you returned to your first love? Are you wearing the white garment of obedience or the half-clothing of compromise? Is your lamp filled with oil, or are you the foolish virgin who will be running to the merchant when the bridegroom arrives?

There is a courtroom involved in everything this book has been about, and you have been present in that courtroom for seventeen chapters. The squatter has been on trial. The avenger has been building His case. The verdict is rendered. The execution is imminent. But the courtroom in which you sit has one more docket item to dispose of, and the docket item is you.

The subpoena has been served. You are called as a witness in the closing arguments. The question put to you is the simplest question the universe ever asks: Whose side are you on?

The Bridegroom has paid the redemption price for everyone who will receive Him. The cross is two thousand years done. The blood is sprinkled. The contract is signed in the Father's hand. What remains is the personal, individual reception. Our Redeemer will not force His way into a heart that has not opened its door to Him. He stands at the door and knocks, the seven letters say. "If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me." (Revelation 3:20). The dining is the wedding feast on a small scale, in this present age, in the heart of the believer. It is the down payment of the supper to come.

If you have never opened that door, the closing of this book is the moment to open it. There is no formula. There is no specific prayer. There is only the simple act of turning your face toward the One who has been waiting, and saying — even in your interior silence, with no one listening — Yes. Come in. I want what You bought.

If you have opened that door before but the engagement has gone cold, the closing of this book is the moment to walk back into the room. The Husband has not stopped waiting. He has been keeping your name in His mouth in the throne room. He has been preparing your seat at the table. The chamber is almost ready. Walk back to Him. He has been there the whole time.

If you have been faithful through a long obedience, this book is your encouragement to keep going. The end is closer than you thought. The door is about to open. The wine the host has been keeping until now is being poured. Watch. Pray. Stay with your lamp filled. You are nearer to His face than you have ever been.

I am writing these last lines on an ordinary day in 2026. The light is coming through my window the way it has come through windows for six thousand years. The kettle is on. The world is making its noise outside. Nothing in the texture of this morning suggests that the cosmos is closer to its consummation than at any prior morning in human history. But it is. Every clock that has been ticking since 457 BC has been ticking toward this decade. The Bridegroom has been writing dates on the calendar of the universe with the patience of a Husband and the precision of a King, and the dates are now arriving.

He is on His way.

Listen.

There — at the door of your own life — you can almost hear it.

A footstep.

A knock.

The Husband is here.

Open the door.

— H.V.