After Marti surprised me with her tribute on my birthday, I thought it would be good to tell you what this watchman sees from the tower. There is plenty of bad news to report out there, but in the end, where does that get us? Besides telling us that we are getting nearer the end, there is not a lot we can do about the bad news. We are not here to make the bad news better, but to step up our efforts to spread the good news while there still is time.
I am personally not in favor of the popular Christian notion that we should be excited about the end times because that means the Lord is coming back soon to rescue us from this mess. No, I believe we need to opt for the Lord’s attitude about this as expressed by Peter in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow about His promise [to return], as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.”
There it is: the heart of God. More time means more people saved.
Contrast that with wanting the Lord to come soon so we can leave, and it makes the latter seem awfully selfish, like shutting the door on the ark so no-one else can get in.
This is the time to remember the good news of the gospel—that God is not mad anymore and has provided a way for everyone to be saved because of His grace. That’s huge.
Now mind you, that doesn’t mean we walk around with end-of-the-world placards hanging on our shoulders, passing out tracks. It means we foster relationships with non-Christians not with any agenda in mind but love. Believe me, God will do the rest.
And it means we measure all spiritual and religious efforts by the gospel. (That’s what I like about our current Pope. He’s always talking about the gospel.) And if anybody is in question about what the gospel actually is, it is the fact that God loved the world so much that He gave His only son to die on a cross as penalty for the sins of the whole world, so that all who believe in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.
That’s the gospel. The Good News. The best news the world has ever known. And that one simple message is what we as Christians want to be known for in these last days.
I appreciate your referencing 2 Peter 3:9 in the context of Christians hoping that the end times will come soon. We know that God is all loving and wills only the good for us. That suggests that He would come sooner if that better expresses His love and grace and allows more good to happen, and delay His return if doing so better expresses His love and grace and allows more good to happen.
I can’t claim to know with any certainly how God would make such an evaluation, but we have some hints in the Bible. 2 Peter suggests that, at least for a time, more repentance would be produced by God’s waiting, and we have been living in that time where God’s waiting produces more grace for the past 2,000 years.
In Matthew 24:22, Jesus says that if God did not shorten the days (of the Great Tribulation at the end of time or of the destruction of Jerusalem, depending on your interpretation), no one would be saved. This suggests that there might be a time when bringing things to an end would bring greater grace and love than letting humans continue on while undergoing terrible tribulation. The world would have to be in an awfully sad state for it to be the case that God could produce more grace by ending people’s lives prematurely and cutting off the days of the world than by letting things continue for God and His people to continue to share God’s love and grace with others.
I recall your post about the line in the Lord’s Prayer that says, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” and your suggestion that this line calls us to do our part for God’s to be done on earth as it done in heaven by extending the grace and love of God to the world around us.
If the world is in sad shape, it is not a call for us to ask God to end it all; it is a time for us to ask God what more we can do to extend his grace and love to others so that His love and grace can continue to flow.