Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” -2 Peter 3:3-4 (NASB)
I sometimes think about that day when those who believed in Jesus and His work are taken up to heaven, and all those who didn’t are left behind. Like the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, God’s reapers (His angels) will come to separate the saved (the wheat) from the ones to be burned (the tares).
There won’t be any “I told you so” or last laugh or anything like that for true believers. There will be no laughter to see so many perish and suffer for eternity in separation from the Lord. But that concept is laughable if you don’t believe.
The idea of mocking God and His followers is nothing new. It’s been going on since well before Jesus walked the earth. People who followed other gods would mock and taunt Old Testament Israelites, and centuries later, the Pharisees would do the same to Jesus and His followers in the New Testament.
Today, churches fail and shut down by the hundreds each year. And increasingly, the influence of the world and its messages seem to get stronger and stronger: Believe in yourself. You can do anything you want. Right and wrong is up to you to define as you please. And, of course, God can’t be real because the world would be perfect if He were real.
The third chapter in the second book of Peter jumped off the page at me as I read it the other day, relevant as ever:
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. -2 Peter 3:10 (NASB)
As believers in the face of an unbelieving world, we have to stick with the faith, and walk by it and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).
You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. -2 Peter 3:17-18 (NASB)
Like so many before me, I’m speechless at the amazing love God has for us, to give His only Son to save the world…and that we only need to believe in Him and His works as the path to salvation. Though there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth for the ones left behind, there will be much rejoicing for those who chose to believe no matter what.
Today’s soundtrack
Steven Curtis Chapman’s “Speechless” perfectly encapsulates the wonder and amazement true believers have at the love of God to save those who wish to be with Him for eternity.
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