Imminent (03/02/23)

I am combining three somewhat disparate thoughts under this heading, and will address them in the order they are presented in the title.  I begin with the matter of imminence.  I have already discussed it along the way, particularly that aspect of the day of the Lord always being near, as it comes upon one people or another.  We hear it repeatedly, particularly in the Old Testament.  And there, the message is primarily for those who are about to receive judgment, whether it be the nations that troubled Israel, or those within Israel who proved themselves not truly of the commonwealth of faith.  They may have had the fleshly connection to Abraham, but that was never the point, and would never serve to preserve them from the day now in view.  No.  Preservation lay with another, with the Seed of Abraham, the Son of David promised even from the first judgment rendered against Adam and Eve.

But the message comes over and over again.  Blow a trumpet!  Sound the alarm!  Let everybody tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming, and it is surely near.  That, of course, comes from Joel 2.  I have already looked at this passage somewhat in previous parts of this sidebar, particularly as it is one of the earliest recorded prophesies we have.  And it introduces, as I noted in that earlier examination, the idea of this being a dark and gloomy day, particularly for those upon whom judgment has come.  Here, though, I am more concerned with that opening note.  They day is coming.  The day is near.

Of course, in the context of Joel, we are observing, albeit in advance, the movements of military forces, of nations at war.  And we learn that even in these great earthly conflicts, God remains fully and finally in charge.  This can be hard to swallow sometimes.  It is hard, certainly, for unbelievers to accept that for all that they act as captains of their own ship of life, yet there is this Admiral over them, directing even these choices of theirs, steering if not their choices, then certainly their outcomes.  It’s hard as well for we who believe.  How could God condone such things as transpire in war?  We look upon the brutalities that are inevitable, the loss of innocent lives – or at least, relatively innocent lives.  And really, who can look upon the record of the likes of Pol Pot, or of Hitler, or of Sennacherib, for all that, and find anything in that record that in itself brings glory to God if in fact He gave charge for them to proceed?  Well, we must be careful, mustn’t we?  We have plentiful example in Scripture to demonstrate that while God may have utilized some truly unsavory characters to pursue His good ends, they exceeded their commanded purpose.  He directed, but they remained free agents as to how they proceeded.

But even such recognition as this doesn’t really leave us with God free and clear, does it?  For He knows all.  He knew beforehand that they would be excessive in their persecution of His command.  He knew the evils that would come of it.  Yes.  And even this is somehow to His good purpose.  It may be hard for us to fathom how it can be to good purpose that this nation or that leader or this organization or another is permitted to fill up the full measure of their sins.  But at bare minimum, I suppose we can recognize that in so doing they bring the majestic purity of God’s justice into greater relief, greater focus.  Not a direction I had thought to travel in my pursuit of this thread of imminence, but it’s there, so we tug at it.  And we see good purpose, even in these terrors, for they are brought as disciplinary actions upon His own, with one goal in mind:  “Even now, return to Me with all your heart.  Return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, and relenting of evil” (Joel 2:12-13).  “Do not fear, O land!  Rejoice and be glad, for the LORD has done great things” (Joel 2:21).

The day is always near, but it is no cause for terror for those who belong to our Lord.  They may come as discipline, but discipline is for our good.  All discipline seems sorrowful in its moment, but those trained by it gain the peaceful fruit of righteousness by it (Heb 12:11).  It is not pointless suffering.  It is difficult training.  It strengthens rather than destroys.  That is the message for God’s own.  But of course, for those who are not God’s own, the message is far different.  There, the message is of judgment rendered and sentence passed.  “He who does not believe has been judged already, for his unbelief” (Jn 3:18).  They preferred their darkness, so darkness they shall have.  You can hear the echoes of Joel in that.  The sun is dark.  The moon offers no light.  Even the meager light of the stars has gone out.  And all this is but the downpayment.

That is something we must keep in mind when we look back to the prophets.   All that they foresaw concerning the nations, and concerning those Jews who insisted on their rebellious ways, was but a downpayment.  That last day that is always near, always imminent, but foreshadows the true and final Last Day.  That true and final Last Day is the day of our Lord’s return, and this being the case, we who are His own, look to it not with trepidation, not with fear of judgment, but with confident expectation.  James speaks to us of that day, and he can often come across as the sternest of the New Testament authors.  But what does he say?  “You too be patient.  Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand” (Jas 5:8).  Well, that ‘you too’ is certainly an invitation to review and find our context, isn’t it?  The rich, in his perspective, have much to answer for.  This is, I should note, not some new perspective discovered by the radicals of our day.  Neither is it a blanket statement.  But there are those who have earned the ‘miseries which are coming upon you’.  Why?  Because their riches have not come of earnest endeavor, but by abusing and cheating their workers.  And again, I have to observe, this is not a blanket statement.  This is no condemnation of the capitalist system, nor a promoting of socialism.  It is an observation of human depravity, and human depravity will out regardless of the system.  See again Pol Pot, or any number of other ‘benevolent’ leaders in countries both socialist and capitalist.  It’s not the system so much that produces evil, as those who lay hold of the levers of power within the system.  “You have condemned and put to death the righteous man, and he does not resist you” (Jas 5:1-6).

And it is into this setting that James advises patient waiting.  Be patient until the Lord comes.  The farmer waits.  He plants, but he knows he must wait until both the early and the late rains have come.  You too be patient.  The day is at hand.  The Judge is standing right at the door!  (Jas 5:7-9).  Then comes a message of endurance.  But the focal point for me is this imminence of the final Day.  It is at hand.  It is, as I have been observing, ever at hand.  We live, we are called to live, in recognition of this.  But the imminence may well be, for us, an imminence of yet another foreshadowing.  In this sense, I would say every physical death is a foreshadowing of that day.  There is a reason we call out for those to whom we preach this gospel to receive it now, before it’s too late.  Comes the grave, and that opportunity has come to an end.  For that one, the day of the Lord has arrived.  Judgment has been settled, and there awaits only the sentencing phase that comes when our Lord returns.

We ponder, don’t we, the state of those who have died.  Catholics put forward their theory of purgatory, a period of cleansing where the dead are neither in heaven nor in hell, but rather, in some ill-defined holding pattern until such time as they have done sufficient penance, or, in some of the more perverse forms of the teaching, the living have paid sufficient price to the church to obtain their release.  But there’s nothing to be seen of this in Scripture.  Rather, we have Jesus announcing to the thief on the cross next to His own, “Today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”  Rather, we have images of the martyred dead before the throne of the Lamb even now.

Well, much of what we see in all this is the state of the dead in Christ.  What of the dead outside of Christ?  We don’t read a great deal about them.  We have that parable of Lazarus and the rich man who died.  And he is found already in a place of torment, a place of perpetual punishment.  We read of those sinful angels committed to pits of darkness in Tartarus, ‘reserved for judgment’ (2Pe 2:4).  They are already punished, and yet there remains the consigning of them to eternal punishment.  There remains the full and final sentence pronounced at Christ’s return, when He takes up His place upon the throne in the sight of all the earth, the living and the dead alike called to appear before Him, and fully and finally separates the sheep from the goats.

You too be patient!  That day is coming.  It is at hand.  It is ever at hand, though it may come long years after your death.  Think of it.  For James, for Paul, for Peter, that day was imminent, and yet we who are here in the early decades of the 21st century are still waiting.  And who’s to say but that those who find themselves alive come the 22nd or 23rd century may still be waiting?   For a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day to our Lord.  But He is not late.  He is not held up in traffic.  There is a date certain, set irrevocably in God’s schedule (to the degree that date has meaning to Him Who exists outside of time) on which these events will most assuredly transpire. 

How do we respond to this?  Well, the proper response is suggested in what we have been looking at, certainly.  Be patient.  Strengthen your heart, and look for it.  But don’t try and rush it.  Don’t try to help it along.  That’s making the mistake Abraham and Sarah made, and look how well that has played out over the centuries since.  No.  It is not for us to immanentize the eschaton, as the phrase goes.  It is ours to go patiently about our business, doing that which the servant of the Lord ought to be doing, so that whenever it is that He returns, we are found in good order, maintaining His interests and bringing Him increase.

Of course, or natural response is to ask, “When, Lord?”  When will these things be?  The disciples who gathered around Him when He was here wanted so to know.  What signs do we look for?  How much longer?  Oh!  This is so exciting.  I mean, not that You’re going away for a time, but that if You are going, and You are going to return, all of this must be coming very soon, right?  And as we have seen, the answer was not what they expected.  Here are the signs, but they are just the first bits of news.  They are, if you please, the early warning system.  And that system has been sounding the alarm pretty much ever since.  It’s not a drill.  But we become inured to the noise of it.  It seems a commonplace.  Well, I suppose it is, as it’s ever happening.   There will be earthquakes and wars and famines, and we might well ask, when have there not been?  Sure, there are times when war is far more consuming of our attention than otherwise.  I am quite certain that for all that we had the live reporting from the Gulf War, yet the period of World War II had a far greater sense of imminence for those alive at the time.  Even Viet Nam, for all that it looms so large in the psyche of my generation, was some distant business, not really involving us, unless of course we had a family member over there.  But it led to protests for the very reason that it was remote.  It wasn’t really any of our business.  The Gulf War had some of that same perspective.  It’s rather surprising that the current conflict in Ukraine hasn’t received quite the same response.  Perhaps it is because we don’t as yet really have flesh and blood in the game, or so we believe.  It’s even more remote.  It may be expensive as more and more rounds of funding get shoveled into that black hole, but the lives that are being lost aren’t ours, so what’s the fuss?

And we lose sight of that which is of first importance.  We stop asking the why of such things, and just bicker about the details and the proper pursuit of the program.  We read of earthquakes in Turkey, but hey, it’s not local news, and it certainly isn’t us put out by the effects.  So, we sit back and get all happy about a cat or a rabbit or a horse pulled from the rubble.   Oh, isn’t that sweet?  Who cares about the suffering?  Don’t show us that.  Who cares about those poor folks down in Ohio, sickened by the chemical outfall of a train-wreck.  Just so’s it’s not us.  But whatever you do, don’t ask why.  Don’t look beyond the politics of the situation to wonder what it all means, why these things are all happening seemingly at once.  No, no.  Remain comfortable.  Take shelter in your entertainments, and wait for it to pass.  That’s probably the best answer, right?

Unannounced (03/03/23)

So, yes, let us recognize what’s happening around us.  Let us take note of the messages God is sending our way, and take care to respond as we ought.  But let us not fall into insisting that He must be coming so very soon, so soon that we may as well leave off all earthly concerns.  That, after all, is what was happening with some of those who had heard Paul’s message in Thessalonica.  If His return is imminent, what point is there to worrying about mundane matters of laboring and earning a living?  Best we just rest in Him and wait.  After all, God will provide.  But this view is roundly rejected, and why?  Is it because Paul is beginning to realize that maybe that aspect of his message wasn’t quite right?  No.  No, Paul’s teaching, coming from the divine inspiration of God Himself, was and is incapable of incorrect.  Our understanding of it?  Now, that’s a different matter.  And as I have been seeing, if there’s one thing we must understand, it’s that this day is always near.  Always.  And the signs of its nearness are just as constantly present for us to observe.  But don’t be numb to it.

Peter, among others, told us it would be thus.  Indeed, he considered it a matter of first importance.  Know this!  Get this down!  In the last days mockers will mock and go on chasing their own lusts (2Pe 3:3-13).  They’re not going to listen to you.  They will laugh you off.  He’s coming?  Really?  When?  Look around you.  Nothing has changed.  Everything goes on as it has since the world was formed.  Oh, but Peter tells us, they have failed to notice this in God’s word.  Long ago, the earth was formed out of water, and long ago, the earth was destroyed through water, as well, in the Flood.  He leaves it unsaid, but we recognize it anyway.  Those caught in the Flood were just like you, looking at the solidity of the earth and the constancy of day and night and laughing off the warnings.  Look!  It’s always been like this, and it always will be.  Except one day it wasn’t anymore.  And at that point it was far too late.  The window for repentance had closed.  So, Peter returns to his own moment, to these last days.  It’s the same deal.  Only now, the schedule calls for fire, the fire of the Last Day and its judgment upon the ungodly.

And again, he calls his readers to attention:  Don’t miss this!  Don’t forget this!  Time is different for God.  A day, a thousand years, it’s all the same to Him.  But He’s never been late yet, and He’s not late now.  He hasn’t forgotten His promises.  He hasn’t blown you off, as they seek to convince you.  No!  He is patiently pursuing His purposes, wishing for none to perish, and all to come to repentance.  Okay, pause.  I know there is a penchant for looking at that statement and seeing evidence that God will not in fact allow any to perish, but will save one and all.  Welcome to universalism.  But seriously, if that were truly the case, this whole business of religion could be cast aside.  We can stop shuddering at events like the Flood, stop shaking our heads at the destruction of Sodom, of Gomorrah.  We might have to start asking ourselves just how appropriate such things were, and wonder at how pointless Jesus’ pronouncement of woes upon Bethsaida and Chorazin were.  I mean, really, what’s the point?  If You’re going to save us all anyway, then leave us be until You’re ready.  But that is quite clearly not the case.  What God wishes, in this case, certainly expresses His preference.  But He has set man here with a will of his own, and God is not so foolish as to suppose that all will, of their own will, choose Him.  He knew better than that the first time He came.  “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.”  Even those who should really have known – especially them – wanted nothing to do with Him.  “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God” (Jn 1:11-12).

Back to Peter.  And this is where we begin to focus on the unannounced aspect of this return.  “The day of the Lord will come like a thief” (2Pe 3:10)  What have I called this section?  “Imminent, Unannounced, and Thorough”.  And the whole of that head is contained right here.  The signs are all around.  His return is always near.  But it is unannounced.  He’s not coming with fanfare and messengers sent on ahead to make ready, like the kings of England were wont to do.  His lords and ladies aren’t busily preparing rooms and feasts, and laying on supplies to keep Him entertained in style so long as He chooses to visit.  No.  He comes like a thief, unannounced, slipping in when you least expect it.  How could that work if His people truly lived in persistent, constant expectation?  Well, perhaps for them, it is not so much a thief-like assault on their homes, but rather, the master returned from his travels.  It’s a surprise, still, for we know not when he is expected.  But it’s a pleasant surprise, and the house is ready.  The house is always ready.  For the rest, though?  For these mockers?  The heavens will pass away with a roar.  The very elements will dissipate in the intense heat.  All the earth and all its works will be burned up, exposed, nothing hidden, nor anyplace left to hide.

As I observed when studying that epistle not so long ago, it doesn’t matter of mankind has become multi-planetary.  It doesn’t matter if we’ve devised some way to survive a direct hit by asteroid.  For those worked up about some invisible rogue planet careening towards us to finish things off, that doesn’t matter either.  How the day of the Lord comes about is not the point.  That it is universal, inescapable?  That’s rather critical to understand, I should think.  When God says it’s time, there’s no evading it.  Death and taxes, they say, come for every man, but the cheat may be able to evade either for a time, though only for a time.  This is bigger.  Heavens and earth are done away.  The very elements are destroyed.  There is no evading this.  If death and taxes are unavoidable, I assure you, this day of Judgment is far less avoidable.  It will come, and you will face it – ready or not.

And so, Peter calls for action.  You see this is coming.  You who know the Lord know this is coming, and you know that you don’t know when.  This being the case, live in godliness, conduct yourselves in holiness.  Look forward to this day, don’t fear it!  And live such that you can do so.  Remember yourselves!  We look forward to a new heavens, a new earth in which righteousness – and only righteousness – dwells.  And that requires this cleansing come first.  Just don’t suppose you’ve got it timed out.  You don’t.

Paul has the same message for these Thessalonians, indeed, in much the same words.  No real surprise there.  Peter was quite familiar with Paul’s writing, and both have shared the service of young John Mark in the course of their ministry.  So, we find Paul telling his charges,  “You know full well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1Th 5:2-10).  The strength of that must surely inform us that he had taught them this very thing when he was there with them.  It was a point not to be neglected.  This was, as Peter said, of first importance.  That wasn’t just for Peter’s readership.  That was for all believers.  You know this – akribos oidate.  You perceive this accurately and completely.  Your knowledge of this fact deviates in no way from the Truth.  All around you, they say, “Peace and safety!”  And in that moment, destruction comes upon them, just like birth pains.  They shall not escape.  This won’t be missed.  This won’t be evaded.  This won’t be preannounced.

But he adds this.  “But you, brothers, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief.  You are sons of light and day, not of night or darkness.  So let us not be found asleep as others.  Let us be alert and sober.  Keep your armor on – faith and love, with the helmet of the hope of salvation.  God has not destined us for wrath, but for salvation through Christ Jesus our Lord.  He died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him.”  Okay, so we may see that waking or sleeping as referring back to the question of what happens to those believers who have died.  That may very well be the point in view.  But it could as well be an assurance given to calm those who, upon hearing his admonition, find themselves concerned about the effects of slipping up in this effort.  To borrow from an old Andy Pratt song, was it for life, or only so long as I keep my nose clean?  Oh, dear ones!  Rest assured.  It’s for life.  If He has called you, you are His (Isa 43:1).  And if you are His, know that you know that you know that nothing, no one, not your enemy, not the fiercest demon, not yourself, can take you from His hand.  The power does not exist that could do so (Jn 10:28-29).  Fear not!  But be ready.  Be about the business for which God made you.  Walk worthy.

And if the word of the Apostles will not suffice for you, hear it from your Lord Himself.  Over and over it rings out as He speaks of the coming kingdom.  “Be on the alert.  You don’t know the day of your Lord’s return.  You can be certain that if the master of the house knew the hour when the thief was coming, he would be alert and waiting to prevent his house being broken into.  You be ready, too!  For the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you don’t think He will” (Mt 24:42-44).  Listen!  This wasn’t some warning shouted at unbelievers.  This was the faithful disciples hearing their Lord teach on this business of the Last Day.  You don’t know.   You won’t know.  You won’t be thinking, ‘I bet this is the day’.  You’ll be pretty sure it isn’t.  But you’ll be wrong.  Just be ready.  Be the sensible slave doing his job in his master’s absence (Mt 24:45-51).

It comes up again in the parable of the ten virgins.  Pretty sure I’ve already looked at that here, but I’m just by for the conclusion.  “Be on the alert then.  You do not know the day nor the hour.” (Mt 25:13).  How much more plainly can He say it?  You aren’t going to get a heads up.  Prophet or no prophet, this one’s not being previewed for you.  Go back a bit earlier in this set of teachings.  “Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels, not even the Son!  The Father alone knows.”  It’s going to be just like Noah’s day.  They didn’t understand.  They didn’t expect it.  It just hit.  This will be no different (Mt 24:36-39).  Look:  if the Prophet, the Lord Himself is not given a heads up, what makes you think you will be?  And why expend all your energies trying to discern the day?  Let me just observe:  If you are putting all your effort into knowing the unknowable day, then you are not putting your effort into the task He gave you, that of the faithful servant in His house, doing the work that was given you.  If you’re busy looking for signs, scouring the pages for clues and numerical clues, trying to devise some formula to translate these various prophetic declarations into a date certain, then there is all that time spent which quite clearly has not been given to the task assigned us in the great commission.  And that, I should think, must be heard as the summation of all that Jesus taught in regard to the kingdom.  “Go therefore, and make disciples.  Baptize them in the name of the Triune God.  Teach them” (Mt 28:19-20).

Notice what He doesn’t command here.  He doesn’t say to point out the signs to them.  He doesn’t say to announce that this is that day.  No!  He says teach them.  Show them by your example and your message how to observe all that I commanded.  Indeed, teach them by your example and your message that “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  Honestly, that’s pretty much all we need to know about the timing, isn’t it?  When it comes, I am with you.  Whenever it comes.  And however long it should tarry, guess what?  I am with you.  Whatever you face during these last days?  I am with you.  However hard the tribulations may become, I am with you.  You never walk alone.

If nothing else, I think we must glean this much from the opening verses of Hebrews.  God spoke over long ages by varied means, and in these last days, He has spoken to us in His Son, the appointed heir of all things, the One through whom He made the world (Heb 1:1-2).  Here is the Prophet par excellence.  Here is the antitype of which every other prophet was but a type.  Here is the real deal.  And He spoke everything which the Father gave Him to say.  “I speak just as the Father has told Me” (Jn 12:50).   No more, no less.  And surely, we can conclude from this that He has spoken all that the Father desired to have spoken.  Surely, with this, as Peter writes, He has given us everything pertaining to life and godliness.  He has imparted to us true knowledge, epignosis knowledge – life-changing, thorough and precise (2Pe 1:3).  Just like Paul was saying of his readers knowing that the schedule would not be announced.  You know all that you need.  Jesus saw to it.  You have no need of further prophesies, additional notes about the end.  You don’t need a schedule of events.  You need to get on with living as you ought.  You need to walk in faith, walk worthy, and do those good works which God has prepared beforehand that you may do them.  Be occupied with that.

Thorough (03/04/23)

So, we come to the thorough extent of this day of the LORD, and for this, I turn first to Zephaniah, and the very beginning of his writings.  I was going to start somewhat later in the chapter, but in searching back for context, I see the beginning of his message, and it’s something to hear.  “I will completely remove all things from the face of the earth”, declares the LORD (Zeph 1:2).  This was the message he had in the days of king Josiah.  Everything.  “I will stretch My hand out against Judah, against the inhabitants of Jerusalem.  I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and every other idolatrous practice, along with the practitioner” (Zeph 1:4-5).  That’s our lead in, and already we have learned the extent of this day, the thoroughness of the judgment.  Everything goes!

But the message seems directed primarily at those who should, at least, be God’s own.  And it hurts.  “Be silent before the Lord GOD!  The day of the LORD is near, for He has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated His guests” (Zeph 1:7-9).  “But I will punish the princes, and those clothed in foreign garb.  I will punish those who leap on the temple threshold and fill the house of their lord with violence and deceit.”  There are a couple of things I hear in this.  I notice our translators, at least in the NASB, are careful to keep the reference to their lord lowercase.  I suppose this would lead us to associate the activities described as happening in some other temple, not the temple in Jerusalem.  He must mean the practices of those idolatrous followers of Baal and Milcolm, and the like, right?  But then I recall the description of Jerusalem’s fall when Jesus’ prophecy was fulfilled upon them, and honestly?  This could as readily have described the Judeans.

But there’s also, in that passage, a note redolent of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, isn’t there?  Our Lord has His guests, and they are clothed appropriately, we must assume, else they would be among the punished.  He has prepared a sacrifice!  Who ever heard of such a thing?  Gods don’t offer up sacrifices.  To whom would they offer them?  This is for the supplicant to do, the lesser party, surely.  But hear Him.  “He has prepared a sacrifice.”  And there He is, our Savior upon the cross, prepared and offered up, that we might, through Him, be brought to peace with our Lord God. 

And in that day, in Jerusalem, “I will search with lamps, and punish those who are stagnant in spirit, who say, ‘The LORD will do neither good nor evil!’” (Zeph 1:12).  Yes, this is a day of trouble and distress, of destruction and desolation, and – no surprise here – of clouds and thick darkness (Zeph 1:15-17).  They will walk about as if blind when I bring distress upon them, for they have sinned against the LORD.  And many will look at this prophecy and others like it and then look about them at the present day and conclude that indeed, as it was fulfilled upon Jerusalem, so it must be upon ourselves, for we have done as bad and worse.  And they would be right so to conclude.  We would do well to recognize that a just God such as our God, looking upon the myriad ways in which this sick society is insisting that what is evil must be declared good, and what is good must be declared evil, and doing its utmost to export these grotesqueries to every region of the globe, must surely bring about punishment as He has with those other nations before who, having called Him their God, proceeded to such depravities.  Even upon those who never acknowledged His rightful rule of them, He has done so.  How much more they who proclaim upon their very currency, ‘In God we trust’?  How much more that nation which proudly boasted of being that shining light on the hill?

So, yes, to see these signs and sense that the day of the Lord is indeed near for this nation in this time and place is proper.  It may even be right this time, though I wouldn’t venture a bet on it even now.  He comes, recall, at a time when we don’t expect it, not when we are dead certain He has to do so.  But many who spend their time seeking out these signs and bemoaning the inevitable judgment that must come respond in a most confusing fashion.  Do they repent?  If they can be convinced they have that of which to repent.  Or, they may seek to repent on behalf of those unwashed others or for their forebears, as if they have it in their power to make things right for any other but themselves.  Will they cry out in the wilderness, seeking to turn hearts back to God?  Not by any real action, no.  They will pray, I expect, but action is another story.  And look, I am quite certain we can find exceptions to this response.  I’m talking trendlines. 

What I see is this:  Seeking to make preparations, seeking to store up necessities so as to weather the calamities to come.  Well, let’s hear our prophet on that idea, shall we?  “Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them on the day of the LORD’s wrath.  ALL the earth will be devoured in the fire of His jealousy, for He will make a complete end, and a terrifying one, of all the inhabitants of the earth” (Zeph 1:18).  Peter’s message wasn’t some fresh news.  It just added detail.  We already looked at that, so I’ll just echo that detail.  “Look for and hasten the day of God, on account of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt in the intense heat” (2Pe 3:12).  The sci-fi fan in me reads that and sees perhaps an asteroid strike, or worse, a planetary collision.  For those soaking in the planet X business, yeah, maybe you’re right.  What of it?  Is it time to run around in fear?  Is it something that stockpiles of food and water are going to get you through?  I’ve got news for you.  If the atmosphere burns off, food and water will be the least of your problems.  “But God said to him, ‘You fool!’  This very night your soul is required of you.  Now who will own what you have prepared?  So is the man who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (Lk 12:20-21).  There’s your Lord’s word on it.   No, this man wasn’t some prepper scared of the end-times, but the principle is unchanged.  What are you trusting in?  Vacuum-Pac?  What are you trusting in?  Your water purifying straw? 

Who was it said that men will either fear the Lord or fear everything else?  Sounds like a C. S. Lewis thing.  And I doubt I have the quote quite right.  But the point is there, isn’t it?  If indeed your faith is in the Lord, what have you been instructed as regards this fearsome day?  “Look for it!  Hasten its arrival!”  Let John chime in, he who underwent exile on Patmos, and at least per the legends, being boiled in oil, and came out not only alive and well, but refreshed and recharged for ministry.  “He who testifies these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming quickly.’  Amen!  Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev 22:20).  It is the penultimate verse of the entire Bible.  And you know, we look at the Revelation, and even those with a penchant for the pursuit of detailed understanding of the end times do so with a fair amount of trepidation.  It doesn’t help that the text is full of weird and terrifying imagery, not to mention a wealth of death and destruction.  These are not scenes one can watch with joyful exuberance, not from this side of heaven, certainly.  I don’t think you really find that as the defining feature in heaven, either.  There may very well be a certain rejoicing to see God’s justice play out, to see every wrong being set to rights.  But this is not, I think, the vengeful whooping of riotous delight.  It is, perhaps, a sense of vindication, seeing our Lord victorious, seeing His Justice shown utterly Just, and seeing our own maligning by a fallen world proved invalid.  But it’s no celebration of destruction, this.  God is not pleased to destroy, though destroy He must in His wrath, for His wrath is Just, and His Justice must stand.  But if He does not take pleasure in this, surely His children do not either.

And while we are on the subject of the Revelation, let me consider one passage from that text, taken from near the start, where, at least in my view, things are a bit easier to grasp.  John has introduced himself, and explained the circumstances of his receiving this message, and it is from this opening description that I would take my reading.  He has noted who is writing, and to whom he writes, ‘to the seven churches that are in Asia’.  He has also made clear that this letter is not so much from him, as from ‘Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, first-born of the dead, and ruler of the kings of the earth’ (Rev 1:4-5).  John is but the messenger.  But we should hear this.  “He has made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father.  To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever.  Amen” (Rev 1:6).

And He is coming, coming with the clouds even as we were told.  Every eye will see Him – even those who pierced Him.  All the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him.  And as the book ends, so it begins.  “Even so.  Amen.” (Rev 1:7).  All will see Him.  Referring back to those who pierced Him, I should think we must find notice that living or dead, it isn’t going to matter.  Dead in Christ or dead in your sins, it isn’t going to matter.  Every eye will see this.  As I said, this Last Day is thorough, utterly inescapable and unavoidable.

And with that, we hear our first word direct from Jesus in this wild ride of a book.  “I AM the Alpha and the Omega, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev 1:8).  The beginning and the end.  Your Creator, who was in the beginning with God and was God (Jn 1:1-3).  And this same Jesus now boldly declares, as He said in so many ways while here among men, “I AM the Almighty.”  “You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, and may they likewise be in Us, that the world may believe.  May they be one, just as We are one” (Jn 17:21-23).  Let the world know that You sent Me, and you love them just as You love Me.

Let the world know.  We are given to understand the perennial imminence of this day.  We are given to know the unpredictable timing of this day – not as exceptions in having news of the timing, but as affirming what our Lord has said:  “You don’t know.”  We are given to understand the awesome and terrible thoroughness of that day when it comes.  We know there’s no evading it.  We know there’s but the one way of surviving it.  We know our God has the full number of our days, having determined them from before the beginning.  We know His promises, and His gift of life.  And we know that for each man and woman out there in the world, this day comes.  It comes, more than likely, in the foreshadowing day of individual death, that personal day of the Lord, beyond which all efforts to alter the outcome of trial are mooted.  And we know, too, that we have been left here, in the world though no longer of it, for a purpose.  There is the purpose.   Let the world know.  Let them see it in your demeaner and your respectful honoring of God’s image amongst brother and fallen alike.  Let them hear it from you, as you acknowledge God in all you say and do.  Be that servant who is going to be found faithfully at his labors whenever it is that our Lord and Master returns.

To which I can think of no more fitting conclusion to add than  that which we have seen from John now these two times.  Amen!  So be it.