What if He Tarries?

 

There are so many memes about what part of Revelation we are seeing today. It seems that the implication is that the problems in our own nation point to one chapter or event in Revelation and Hamas attacking Israel or Israel declaring war points to another day or event.

There are different teachings on the “end times.” This makes it hard to  know who is a false teacher, who just has a different eschatology than others and who just wants to start a good old fashioned Facebook fight.

What if we’re still in the midst of the warnings of Matthew 24 that tell us that there will be “wars and rumors of war?” In the same verse it says, “See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet” (Matthew 24:6).

After other warnings of all that will take place as “the beginnings” of sorrows, false prophets who will come, and the love of many growing cold, Jesus tells us that “he who endures to the end will be saved. In Matthew 24:14 Jesus then tells us, “And the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

The Joshua Project is a ministry that tracks the reached and unreached people groups. Today’s numbers show that 7398 people groups have not been reached. It was stunning to see that that totals 3, 395,949,000 individuals! (https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/dashboard)

Surely, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord is not covering the earth as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).

So, what if all the memes are wrong and the end of the world is not coming with the war between Israel and Hamas? What if Christ tarries? Of course, it is by human understanding that He would be thought to tarry. He will not come back one day earlier or later than He wills (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%2010%3A37&version=NKJV). But, for us, what if the signs we are seeing are not the signs of the end but that they are just the beginning of sorrows? What is our response to be?

Any war is a sorrowful thing. For the most part the average Joe American Christians are powerless to stop or participate in the war. However, we can intercede for those who are in the midst of it and we can heed the call of Christ to preach “the gospel in all the world” as a witness to the “nations” (Matthew 24:14).

What about the witness we have to our own nation? If the second coming of Christ is many years away or if it is relatively close, what are we doing for the furtherance of the Kingdom of God? And maybe before we check our witness to the nations, we should check it within our families and spheres of influence at home, work, and neighborhoods.

What if, according to our own timelines, Christ tarries? Will He find us busy with the works He’s called us to do to increase His Kingdom or idly awaiting His return?