Why Did You Wait So Long?

Is Jesus waiting for more wars and earthquakes—or for what?

"If Jesus came through our front door right now, what would you say to Him?"

I directed this question, on an impulse, to Mrs. Alice Weitz, my mother-in-law, a very special elderly lady. Mamma dearly loved Jesus. On the furniture and walls of her bedroom in our house she had mounted at least six different pictures of her Saviour.

We were having family worship one Friday night. I don't know what triggered the question in my mind; but there it was, "Mamma, if Jesus came through our front door right now, what would you say to Him?"

She didn't hesitate a bit but replied instantly, "I would say, 'I love You.'"

How beautiful!

I wanted more. "What else would you say or do?" I asked. Without the least hesitation, she lifted her frail little arms and said, "I'd hug Him."

I was hungry for still more, so I asked, "Is there anything else you would say or do?"

This time, after only the slightest interval, she said, "I'd ask Him, 'Why did you wait so long?'"

"Why So Long?" Of course! This is a question many of us would like to ask Jesus face to face one of these days. Meanwhile, we ask the question frequently in our own hearts. Why is Jesus waiting so long?

Around 1960, some 35 years ago, when my mother was diagnosed as having Parkinson's disease, with its slow but inevitable decline into paralysis, my twin brother Lawrence sighed in a family letter, "If only Jesus would come before Mother gets any worse."

Some of you who are reading this article have loved ones who are seriously ill. How you wish Jesus would come and heal them. Some of you have lost loved ones, even recently. How you long to have Jesus come and restore them to you.

Some of you are suffering a variety of discomforts yourselves. How you would like Jesus to come and heal you. How good it would be to dispose of those endless pill bottles, discard your dentures and fling away your trifocals. Young readers would be glad to be rid of their braces and their contact lenses and worrying about pimples.

Jesus has promised to come; why does He wait so long?

Signs Fulfilled? To many Seventh-day Adventists, and to many other Christians also, the question seems especially appropriate at the present time because so many signs seem to be occurring one after another.

A bad earthquake in Los Angeles is followed by a bad earthquake in Kobe, Japan, one year later. Oklahoma City is bombed. Crime is increasing. Rape, incest, child abuse, and AIDS abound. Christ must come soon!

'Tis almost time for the Lord to come,
I hear the people say;
The stars of heaven are growing dim,
It must be the breaking of the day.

Are All "Signs" Really Signs? It would take a whole article, maybe two whole articles, to discuss fully the question of what constitutes a true sign that Christ is coming soon.

Certainly we know that we are living in the end time, because the great time prophecies of the 1260 days and the 2300 days have come to their close and because the predictions about the Lisbon earthquake, the dark day, the bloody moon, and the falling stars predicted in Matthew 24 and Revelation 6 have been realized. The three angels of Revelation 14 are being fulfilled. Yes, we know all right that we are in the end time.

But what about wars, famines, pestilences, and such things? Are they signs of Christ's imminent coming?

When Christ's disciples asked Him, "What shall be the sign . . . of the end of the world?" His first response was, "Take heed that no man deceive you" (Matthew 24:4). This is significant. It is as if, in this matter of looking for signs of Christ's immediate return, we need to be on our guard against deception. Says Jesus in effect, "You have been warned." He wants to protect us from thinking events are signs of His immediate coming when they really may not be.

In Matthew 24:7, 8, Jesus said, "Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in divers [various] places; all these are the beginning [not the end!] of sorrows."

Verses 9-13 speak of upcoming persecution and the arrival of false prophets. Jesus cautions that those who endure to the end will be saved.

Now we are ready for verse 14, well known among Seventh-day Adventists: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come."

Analysis. It is a good thing that Jesus warned us not to expect every war, famine, pestilence, and earthquake to announce His immediate arrival on the clouds, for there have been almost countless such events through the nearly two thousand years since Christ spoke these words.

Four major famines are known even from the short reign of the Roman emperor Claudius (A.D. 41-54), who ruled soon after Jesus spoke this warning. One of these famines is reported in Acts 11:28. Serious earthquakes are known to have occurred around the Roman Empire in Crete (in A.D. 46 or 47) and in Rome (in 51). Rome fought significant wars in Mauritania (41-42), Britain (43-61), and Armenia (early 60s). Guerrilla and terrorist activity engulfed Palestine during these years. "Galilee," reports Josephus, naming only one area of Palestine, became from end to end "a scene of fire and blood" (Jewish War, 3:63; see God Cares, 2:21).

None of these wars, famines, and other things portended the immediate return of Christ, did it?

None of these wars, famines, and other things portended the immediate return of Christ, did it?

But what about the Second World War, by far the worst war in history? Well, it came to an end fifty years ago, and Jesus still hasn't come. Jesus must be waiting for something other than another war!

Depletion of resources leading to famine and other apocalyptic hardships is one of several popular arguments "proving" that Jesus will come soon. Look at this one. In the 1960s, about 30 years ago, when India was already teeming with 500 million people and was one of the poorest nations on the earth, an Indian expert—Dr. P. S. Chandrasekhar, the nation's Minister of Health and Family Planning—made a dire prediction. "Imagine," he said, "if India had to support 600 million [citizens]—that means the government is going to break down. The average citizen is going to face absolute misery.

Food supply will dwindle. There will be no living space. We will all be reduced to the level of a cabbage patch."

Commenting on this statement and on similar ones by other experts, a well-known Christian writer said, back then in the 1960s, "Thus . . . does evidence increase to show that history's climax is approaching, that the greatest events of the ages are upon us, and that this is the end (This Is the End, pp. 39-43).

What has actually occurred? India's population has not only shot up to 600,000,000; it has soared past 900,000,000. But far from being a starved and impoverished cabbage patch, India today is one of the world's ten wealthiest nations, and it has a reserve five years' worth of surplus food. An Andrews professor from India told me a few days ago that in a recent year India was able to ship 3,000,000 bushels of grain to Russia.

At the end of the Gulf War, America's emergence as the only superpower seemed to some Christians like a sign of the soon coming. Perhaps these Christians had forgotten that America was the only superpower for a while at the close of World War II, 50 years ago; but America's unique status then didn't bring on the second coming in 1945.

In the 1980s, alarmists were holding audiences spellbound with their argument that the imminent collapse of first-world banks would precipitate the mark-of-the-beast crisis within three years. In actual fact, ten years or so later the banks are stronger, not weaker, than they were then.

The oil crisis of the 1970s called our attention to rapidly dwindling supplies of oil and natural gas. Time was surely running out, some people said; Christ must be coming soon. But after twenty additional years of using up the world's oil and natural-gas supplies, we are being told that reserves of oil and gas known today are larger than were known to exist before the fuel crisis.

Signs Long Ago. Let us read a quotation from a devout Christian who lived many centuries ago. Cyprian served as a church leader in North Africa in the 250s. He was a brave man who in due course faced martyrdom courageously. Cyprian believed that the world was coming to an end in his day and that Christ would come soon—back in the 250s. Listen to some of his arguments:

"The world has now grown old, and does not abide in that strength in which it formerly stood; nor has it that vigour and force which it formerly possessed. . . . The layers of marble are dug out in less quantity from the . . . mountains; the diminished quantities of gold and silver suggest the early exhaustion of the metals, . . . the husbandman [farmer] is failing in the fields, the sailor at sea, the soldier in the camp, innocence in the market, justice in the tribunal, concord in friendships, skillfulness in the arts, discipline in morale" (Cyprian, Treatise 5.3; Ante Nicene Fathers, 5:458).

So let's review Matthew 24:6 and 7, *"You will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places; all this is but the beginning [not the end] of sorrows."*

What Jesus Waits For. So if we are not to look on wars and famines as signs of the nearness, but nonetheless we know we are in the end time because of the fulfillment of other prophecies, what is Jesus waiting for?

He is waiting for two things: (1) for the seed to be sown and (2) for the crop to be grown and ripened.

Said Jesus in Matthew 24:14, "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come." Jesus is waiting until the gospel is preached to all nations (literally, "to all Gentiles") in all the world.

Jesus is waiting also for something He spoke of in Mark 4:26-29: "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep and rise, night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself: first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come."

Jesus is waiting (1) for the seed to be sown (the gospel carried to everyone in the world living at the time) and (2) for the crop to be grown and ripened (when the fruit is ripe, He will put in the sickle).

Let us look at these two points more closely.

The Seed Sown. While remembering Matthew 24:14 about the gospel going to all the world "and then shall the end come," let's tie in 2 Peter 3:9. "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

God is not willing that any should perish. We know this! He "so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

It is quite likely that you, yourself, are praying earnestly every day for the full conversion of some young person or persons, yours or someone else's. Let me ask, if when you finished reading this issue of ADVENTISTS AFFIRM you should receive in the mail a specially marked letter, or a fax, perhaps, or some e-mail, sent to you directly from heaven, letting you know confidentially that Jesus would be returning before bedtime tonight, what would your reaction be?

You would actually ask Jesus not to come so soon!

I think I know what your reaction would be. You would get down on your knees at once, and you would plead with God not to let Jesus come quite so soon but to give you at least a few more days, or a few more weeks, to secure the conversion of those young people. You would actually ask Jesus not to come so soon!

When I was in the hospital in December and about to be anointed, Pastor Raymond Holmes (who wrote The Tip of an Iceberg) asked me why I wanted God to heal me. Of the four reasons I gave him, one of them was that there were people, young and old, in my church family that I wanted to go on praying for. God made me well, or at least a lot better than I was at the moment, and I have been praying. For some people, younger and older, I have been praying every morning and every evening. I ask God not to give up on them, but instead to draw them close to Himself until they love Him happily with all their hearts and their salvation is assured. I am serious about this.

Others of you are praying similar serious prayers.

If we mortals are serious, how serious is Jesus?

Hebrews 7:25 says that Jesus is interceding for sinners all the time!

In one of her early visions recorded in Early Writings, Sister White was shown the four angels of Revelation 7:1-3, whose duty it is to "hold the four winds until the servants of our God are sealed in their foreheads." The vision focused on a moment when, for whatever reason, the angels assumed, wrongly, that their commission was fulfilled.

"Their hands were loosening," she says, "and the four winds were about to blow." Notice that they were "loosening" and the winds were "about to blow." In that very instant, before the angels actually did let loose of the four winds, "the merciful eye of Jesus gazed on the remnant that were not sealed, and He raised His hands to the Father and pleaded with Him that He had spilled His blood for them."

Jesus "gazed in pity on the remnant, then raised His hands, and with a voice of deep pity cried, 'My blood, Father, My blood, My blood, My blood!'" (emphasis in the original).

Says Sister White, "I saw an exceeding bright light come from God, who sat upon the great white throne, and was shed all about Jesus. Then I saw an angel with a commission from Jesus, swiftly flying to the four angels who had a work to do on the earth, and waving something up and down in his hand, and crying with a loud voice, 'Hold! Hold! Hold! Hold!' until the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads'" (Early Writings, p. 38).

When you and I think about the second coming as a time when we shall be freed from disease and from all our fears, when we shall be happy day and night at last, do we realize that the second coming will mean the end of life for everyone in the world who is not ready? Does such mass dying matter to us?

In Christ's day on earth, many of the Jewish people longed for a Messiah who would give them prosperity and political dominance—and who would kill off all the Romans, rude and cruel as they were. If we want the second coming only for our own comfort and convenience, regardless of the death of millions of non-Christians, are we any better than the people in Bible times?

The potential death of millions of lost souls is apparently a matter of grave concern to the Lamb who died to prevent it. It is a major reason why Jesus is waiting so long.

*"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness: but is longsuffering to usward,

not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance"* (2 Peter 3:9).

How Can It Be? Almost incredulous, we ask, "How can it ever be that everyone in the world, living at any time, can hear the gospel before Jesus comes, whether He comes in a few months or in a thousand years?"

One answer is that God has prophesied that it will happen, and so we are to believe it! "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness to all nations, and then shall the end come" (Matthew 24:14).

We have another prophetic answer to our question in Revelation 18:4, "The earth was lightened with his glory."

In this passage, God's glory is His gracious character. The earth will be

Do we realize that the second coming will mean the end of life for everyone in the world who is not ready?

lightened with God's gracious character when He has wholly dedicated, Christlike followers reflecting the beauty of His way of life to everyone around. Many, many lost souls will then be attracted to Jesus and His end-time message, in the last moments of probation.

Many people agree with Edgar Guest, "I'd rather see a sermon than hear one, any day."

Far from it being impossible for God's special followers to take the third angel's message to all the world in the near future, we learn that they could have taken it to all the world more than a hundred years ago! Says The Great Controversy, p. 458, first published in 1888, "If all who had labored unitedly in the work in 1844, had received the third angel's message and proclaimed it in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts. A flood of light would have been shed upon the world. Years ago the inhabitants of the earth would have been warned, the closing work completed, and Christ would have come for the redemption of His people."

The astonishing statement continues with the information that "it was not the will of God that Israel should wander forty years in the wilderness. . . . In like manner, it was not the will of God that the coming of Christ should be so long delayed and His people should remain so many years in this world of sin and sorrow. But unbelief separated them from God. As they refused to do the work which He had appointed them, others were raised up to proclaim the message. In mercy to the world, Jesus delays His coming, that sinners may have an opportunity to hear the warning, and find a shelter in Him before the wrath of God shall be poured out" (italics added).

Go quickly out in the streets and lanes
And in the broad highway,
And call the maimed, the halt, and blind,
To be ready for the breaking of the day.

So why is Jesus waiting so long? Is it because He is like a naughty child, calling out, "Just a minute, Mother," while He goes on playing with His toys?

Ah, no! It is because He loves sinners and doesn't want to come until everyone of us has had a chance.

Ripened Crop. Now for the second reason why Jesus is waiting so long, the one found in Mark 4:28-29: "For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself: first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come."

Jesus is waiting so long because He is looking for people whose characters will be ripe and firm enough to endure the time of trouble and, after that, to help make heaven a happy place for everyone. He is waiting for the crop to be grown and ripened.

From 2 Peter 3 we read a moment ago that Christ is delaying His return because He is "not willing that any should perish." In that same chapter, in verses 11 and 12, we read, "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto [margin: hastening] the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and all the elements shall melt with fervent heat?"

Commenting on both Mark 4 and 2 Peter 3, Christ's Object Lessons, p. 69, in a deservedly famous passage, says that "Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own."

What a picture of the ripened harvest—a people in whom is reproduced the wonderful, beautiful, winsome character of Jesus Himself!

Continuing, the passage in Christ's Object Lessons takes up 2 Peter 3, with its remark about "hastening" the coming of day of God. "It is the privilege of every Christian, not only to look for but to hasten the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:12, margin). Were all who profess His name bearing fruit to His glory, how quickly the whole world would be sown with the seed of the gospel. Quickly the last great harvest would be ripened, and Christ would come to gather the precious grain" (Christ's Object Lessons, p. 69).

God needs us to be changed into the likeness of Jesus, not only so we'll be nice to live with in heaven but also, and emphatically so, so we can witness effectively for Him here and now. The effectiveness of our contribution to sowing the seed is in proportion to how we let it grow and ripen in our own lives.

According to popular theology today, accepting assurance secures eternal life, even without significant change of behavior. But is this true? Is God seeking to fill heaven with unreformed gossips, adulterers, backbiters, and other undesirables whose only Christian qualification is that they enjoy feeling saved? Or is it God's plan to populate the new earth with men and women, boys and girls, whose every-minute reflexes resemble the love-for-others and love-for-God that characterized Christ Himself? Of course, it's the latter!

It must be time for the waiting church
To put her pride away,
With girded loins and burning lamps,
To look for the breaking of the day.

The Latter Rain. In closing, another great "waiting" statement sheds light on the operation of the latter rain and on how the seed can be sown and the crop grown and ripened in a short time. This statement too comes from Christ's Object Lessons. "It is the privilege of every soul to be a living channel through which God can communicate to the world the treasures of His grace, the unsearchable riches of Christ. . . . All heaven is waiting for channels through which can be poured the holy oil to be a joy and blessing to human hearts" (p. 419, italics added).

As "living channels," too often we think we are willing for the holy oil to flow through us when in actual fact we are too selfish, in little ways, to be very useful after all. We are much like hoses on a frosty morning.

Likely you have had the experience of going outdoors on a chilly morning intending to wash the car or water some plants, only to find when you turn the faucet on that frost has rendered the hose useless as a "channel of blessing."

So what did you do? Probably you shook the hose to break up the ice—as it were, to break up the selfishness that was choking it. After a bit, a trickle of water appeared at the end, but not enough to be particularly useful. As you shook the hose some more, the warm water—the "Holy Spirit" in His day-to-day operation, if you please—continued to melt the selfish clogging ice. All at once, as all the remaining ice surrendered to the water, the water rushed out in a powerful stream.

God today is in the business of shaking hoses and melting icy selfishness. If we cooperate with Him, one day soon He'll have thousands, millions of "channels" fully surrendered to Him and in Christ-like fashion cleansed of all selfishness. "All heaven is waiting" for such "living channels," just as "Christ is waiting with longing desire" for His people to resemble Himself. Through such uncluttered Christly channels He will pour His Spirit into the world as never before. Christians will say, "It's the latter rain." Sinners will say, "Make us such channels too, O Lord."

"Quickly the whole world" will (1) "be sown with the seed of the gospel. Quickly the last great harvest" will (2) "be ripened, and Christ" will "come to gather the precious grain" (see Christ's Object Lessons, p. 69).

According to Matthew 24:14, Mark 4:26-29, 2 Peter 3:9-12, and Christ's Object Lessons, pp. 69 and 419, the reasons Jesus is waiting so long are that He longs to see the seed sown everywhere and the crop grown and ripened perfectly.

His reasons have nothing to do with "wars and rumors and wars" but have a lot to do with the degree of our dedication.

If we love Him, let us dedicate ourselves anew to bringing His waiting to a close soon.