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| My Word |
July 23, 2008
The Bible says in 2 Peter 3:7-9:
7By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. 8But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
Time is flying. A day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are indeed like a day. For me, it is tantamount to riding in the bed of a pickup truck that is speeding down a bumpy gravel road. What comes immediately to mind is Towpath Road, which runs alongside the old Erie Canal in Warners, N.Y. where I grew up. I am sitting with my back to the truck's cab, tightly clutching the side walls of the bed in order to not be ejected. The ride is analogously thrilling and terrifying. It is summer, I'm a teenager, and other than for my safety the concerns are relatively few.
Rides like that described above took place thirty years ago; and yet they seem like they are only thirty days in the past. My, how time flies and man, how times change! In my case, a day can be like thirty years and thirty years can be like a day. Circa 1978, I was an unsaved 17 year old who wanted nothing more than to be a rock-n-roll star and have the love and adoration of beautiful young women, or "Foxes" as they were referred to back in that time. Essentially, I was a good kid who was chasing and coveting things that were not so good. At the age of 17, I was of an accountable age where deciding for the Lord Jesus is concerned. I had heard the Gospel and decided it was not for aspiring rock-n-roll stars. To be sure, I believed that there was a God and a Heaven, but the "Jesus-Freak stuff" cramped my style and the Bible was an old book filled with antiquated ideas. Certainly, my misguided belief was that God must have become more tolerant over the years. Fast-forward thirty years and I am deeply grateful to Father God that He didn't send His son Jesus to rapture believers home in 1978. Likewise, there is deep gratitude that ejection from the back of that speeding pickup truck never took place. Towpath Road was and probably still remains filled with potholes that if hit quickly enough could bounce a grown man out of the back of a pickup, resulting in serious injury or even death.
Indeed, God was patient with me and did not want me to perish. Over twenty years passed from those pickup truck-riding days before the realization came that the 66 books of the Bible are absolute truth, absolutely alive, and that my life belongs to Jesus Christ who makes me alive absolutely and eternally. In retrospect, those twenty years seemed like a thousand; and yet for God those twenty years may have been equivalent to twenty seconds of human time.
The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise. He will soon come back for us and then He will come back yet again with us. He is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. And yet, while He is patient, it must be emphasized that He is not slow in keeping His promise. Jesus will come in the clouds and with a trumpet blast we will be changed. Our bodies will become glorified and we will rise to join Him in the air and be forever with Him. Just thinking about that glorious day (or night) brings tears of joy to my eyes.
If you have not yet accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, I would urge you please to do so. While He is patient and loving beyond our comprehension, time can and will run out on your life and on these last days. We know not the day nor the hour of the trumpet blast, but we can know the season. When we stand watch at the wall and survey the world, we can rightfully believe that the season is nigh upon us. Jesus will come like a thief in the night, and I would not wish for anyone to be left here on earth to experience what will begin to take place after those precious seconds have passed. To quote the scripture at the top: By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
My, how time flies. We are rapidly approaching the time of Christ's return. Are you ready?