While growing elements of American culture spend the Christmas bashing Christ, there is frequent media speculation under the guise of, "What would Jesus do?" about all manner of social ills that beset the world. Environmentalists attack SUV's in Jesus' name, because they get poor gas mileage. Socialists attack corporations in Jesus' name, because they make "too much money." Theologians infected with the modernity virus attack the Church, insisting that Jesus would have married homosexuals. All of which tells us rather more about the motives, goals and mindset of those posing the question than it does about the Babe in the Manger.

The world – and to a large extent the Church – has got its spiritual knickers in a twist over speculating, "What would Jesus do?" But the real question facing the world is not, "What would Jesus do?" The very real question facing the world is, "What will Jesus do?"

On this question, we have no need to speculate. We have it on the very best authority – Jesus Himself speaking to John, the disciple "whom Jesus loved" – while John is exiled on the island of Patmos for the "crime" of being a Christian. It is Sunday, and John is praying. "I heard a loud voice behind me, trumpet-clear and piercing: 'Write what you see into a book'" (Rev. 1:11). Then the apostle John, who was as close to Jesus during His earthly ministry as any human being has ever been, turned to see the voice. John's reaction?

"I saw this (the resurrected Jesus) and fainted dead at his feet" (Rev. 1:17). Jesus' response? "His right hand pulled me upright, his voice reassured me: 'Don't fear: I am First, I am Last, I'm Alive. I died, but I came to life and my life is now forever. See these keys in my hand? They open and lock Death's doors, they open and lock Hell's gates. Now write down everything you see: things that are, things about to be'" (Rev. 1:19).

John is then transported to the end of human history, when mankind no longer calls the shots. We can read John's account in the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible. John fainted dead at Jesus' feet not because he'd seen an old friend he thought was dead, but because he'd seen the resurrected Jesus as he really is. No longer the helpless babe in a manger, he is "Lord of lords, and King of kings."

Like characters caught in a bad novel, whose lives occupy but two dimensions, who never change regardless of what happens to them during the story, much of the Church and most of the world has an incomplete, two-dimensional picture of Jesus. They seem to imagine him distraught and wringing his hands over SUV owners, gas mileage, corporate profits, socialism, capitalism, school funding and other conditions here on earth. But that is not the case. The Jesus who John saw is preparing to deal with evil in the world that He created.

There will be no military defenses against Him, for the one who created the universe also created the rules by which it operates, and controls them even today. There will be no moral defenses against Him, because he comes to execute the judgment of the holy God against a creation long in rebellion. There will be only the seething hatred and rage of evil people, false religious figures and wicked governments whose domination of the earth has finally come to an end. There will be nothing remaining for those on the earth other than natural disaster, economic calamity, war, blood, tears and death on a scale unimaginable to the modern mind. John was a witness to the end of human history. He saw Jesus as the world will finally see Him.

The book of Revelation is our book – it is the book for our generation. The New Testament without the book of Revelation gives an incomplete picture of Jesus. It leaves him a hapless do-gooder with a few trite sayings, hung out to die on a Roman cross, whose spirit later drifted back to Heaven leaving only a plaintive, "Can't we all just get along?" echoing in His absence.

This Christmas, I encourage you to read the account of Jesus' birth in a manger, God's gift to all of humanity who care to return home to Him. Just don't imagine that Christmas is the whole story, or that the New Testament ends before the book of Revelation. The Bible is filled with stories of changed lives as individuals interacted with Jesus during His time on this earth. As the book of Revelation indicates, there will be a whole lot more changed lives upon Jesus' return. It is God's gift at Christmas that you have a choice of how Jesus will deal with you.