When the end comes . . .

 

2 Chronicles 33; Malachi 1; John 18; Revelation 19

Last night my left shoulder began to hurt. The pain under the blade was severe and made me wonder if this was a heart attack. It was not. It turned out to be one of these annoying issues of getting older — pain from repetitive movement. It is subsiding. However, during those hours, I thought of the end of life and lamented that I’m not ‘done’ yet. I’m not finished all the projects on my plate nor have I mastered the spiritual disciplines that the Lord is working to establish in my life.

This morning’s readings are sharp reminders that I don’t get to choose my last day on earth. As my hubby often says, when our time is up, our time is up. When Jesus’ hour had come, He didn’t change the clock. Instead, He said, “Not my will but thine be done” and yielded to those who came to take Him to Calvary.

Revelation 19 is about the end of time also. It starts out with the praise in heaven for Almighty God who has destroyed evil. It goes on to bless those invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb, then describes Jesus and the armies of heaven all on white horses entering the scene to ‘eat up’ the enemies of God.

Some of that reads like a dream where the banquet changes from glorious to horrifying yet the dreamer knows what is happening. But this is not a dream! It is prophecy yet to happen. I live now yet know God always does what He says. Peter knew it too. He wrote:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. (2 Peter 3:10–14)

He gives me a clear understanding of what I am to be and do as I wait for these events. He could take me out of this world before all these judgments, yet if not, I’m to keep my life clean and my heart at peace.

I’ve a relative who believes that “without spot or blemish” is talking about physical health and God will not accept anyone who is sick or in any way physically unfit. This puts salvation out of reach for millions. Instead, those OT sacrificial lambs were described that way to point forward to the ultimate Lamb of God who was sinless. That means this description is about a holy, clean life. Since we cannot do that, and since only Jesus can impute to us His righteousness, this is about all who have been saved by faith and are trusting Jesus for the holiness required. There is no other way to be perfect but ‘in Christ’ who is our perfection.

All through the reading of these passages and the commentaries of authors, the truths of these verses ran through my mind:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Romans 8:1–10)

APPLY: Jesus is my Savior, my righteousness, my sin-bearer. He gave me Himself, even His mind that I might think His thoughts and live by His Spirit. As I set my mind on Him, I’m kept in perfect peace — I do not fear the horrors of the end of the world or judgment — because He has blessed me with the ability to trust in Him.