The Coming Day of the Lord – Ready or Not?

“With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The 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.”

~2 Peter 3:8b-9 (NIV).

Time. We can hardly work it out. It happens far too slowly for us for the most part, but in at least one way it can happen far too quickly. Try meeting God before you’re truly ready. It happens, and too much—far too much. And the nature of the end of days is a phenomenon that seems to take forever:

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.”

~2 Peter 3:10a (NIV).

Time looked at again, especially through the eyes of those euthanasia boffins, seems to be our universal enemy—most certainly in pain. And the medical fraternity will be the first to weigh in and reject the so-called positive notion that a quick end to the pain is the right way to go. We so do not like pain.

Peter has prophesied so very accurately. Back in his day the common concern was for those ‘end days’ and when, imminently, they were coming. His ‘thousand years’ analogy is in the ball park.

We have no idea of when God will choose to burn the planet and possibly the heavens a.k.a. the created universe—in sum, the “elemental” fire. But, we need to be ready—not just for ‘the day,’ the Parousia, which is unlikely to come in our lifetime (if it hasn’t already happened in the previous 1,980 years), but for our deaths more appropriately—for we shall all die; and in the terms of the minutes of the Lord, it’s not far off!

The thing about time is this. If God deemed a start to the world he can deem a close to it—indeed he has. But his time schedule is beyond our comprehension. Either way we will face God, even though it seems incredible. It is most likely that our circumstance for meeting him will be the day of our death; but the Day of the Lord still beckons... it always has.

Additionally, we have but a taste of God’s time. Each succeeding year seems so short—from reflection—it’s almost cliché, yet we also know how long one single day is; some days are horrendously long and arduous. Time is hence a most difficult thing to grasp. And we certainly can’t physically hold it.

Notwithstanding the scoffers who delight in joking about the second coming—the Day of the Lord—it’s a simple warning requiring a simple response: repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.

And repentance should be the factor speaking all over our lives, continually.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.