The Time Has Come

December 18

Habakkuk 1:1-2:3

Psalm 143:7-12

Proverbs 30:7-10

Revelation 11:15-19

The Time Has Come

“Then Yahweh answered me and said, ‘Write down the vision and write it on tablets distinctly, that the one who reads it may run.  For the vision is yet for the appointed time;  it pants toward its end, and it will not lie.  Though it tarries, wait for it; for it certainly will come; it will not delay.”  Habakkuk 2:2-3 LSB

“We give You thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who is and who was, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign.  And the nations were enraged, and Your rage came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and to give reward to Your slaves—the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great—and to destroy those who destroy the Earth.”  Revelation 11:17-18 LSB

There is an appointed time that God set before the creation of the world for the end.  Before He created anything, He determined exactly when and how everything would play out.  God is not up in Heaven responding to what is happening and deciding how to act based on events that are occurring each day.  He is not waiting to see how things go to decide when it is time to return.   It is all preordained.  Habakkuk explains that the vision is for an appointed time.  Though it seems to tarry, we can be certain that it will come at exactly the right time and will not delay.  Revelation explains further that there is an appointed time for the dead to be judged and  destroyed.  This is a sobering reality.  God did not choose to tell us when these events would happen.  The believers in the early church would have been disheartened if they had known that Jesus was not going to return for at least 2,000 years.  And believers throughout that time would not have had the urgency to tell others about Jesus because they would have thought they had plenty of time.  Since His return is imminent we are instructed to live each day with the reality that He could return at any moment.  We are to make the most of every opportunity to tell others about Him and to be vigilant to live in a way that is pleasing to Him so that we may be found faithful when He comes to rapture His church. 

While we do not know the day and the hour, we can see the day approaching.  We are told in 1 Thessalonians 5 that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.  Destruction is going to come suddenly while the world is talking about “peace and safety.”  But we are not walking in darkness.  We can see the day approaching.  We will not know the exact time but we will see the signs pointing to His return and we will be able to discern that it is near.  Those who are awake and sober can see that everything is lining up.  The events spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 24 are happening around us now.   The time is near.  Attempts at date setting is unwise.  There have been lots of attempts to figure it out which up until now have all been wrong.  Our best approach is to live every day with the knowledge that it could be today or tomorrow or ten years from now.  We need to keep doing what God has given us to do, serving Him with all our hearts with one eye looking to the sky longing for His return.