Not Seduced by the "Good Life"

Miles to Go

We have recently been reading a book on the apocalyptic tradition or genre which flourished in what is called the inter-testamental period in Israel. One of the characteristics of that genre was, due to the wracked and weakened circumstance of Israel, the belief that the Kingdom of God could only come about if God were to enter from "outside" history and establish His Kingdom upon earth by miraculous and dramatic power. In our day, the word "apocalyptic" has thus come to mean a final, earth shattering cataclysm of enormous destructive power.

It is very clear that Jesus and the apostles utilised the language and images of the apocalyptic literary genre--but primarily not to refer to some cataclysmic judgement millennia away. Rather they spoke of a radical, dramatic, miraculous entering of God into human history which they witnessed and of which they were a part. So the Kingdom of God was announced to Jesus' Jewish hearers as having arrived and as being amongst them.

Now, two thousand years later, we are entitled to ask, How has this Kingdom fared? Many would answer, not well at all. The Christian faith is being eclipsed thoroughly and relentlessly in its area of former strength--in the West--or so it would seem. The more things decline, the more likely it is that apocalyptic hopes would become more popular amongst Christians. The prospects for the Kingdom have become so bleak that believers are attracted once again to an apocalyptic-type hope of God miraculously coming down to earth to sort things out. Usually, these hopes focus upon modern day Israel, its threat from its enemies, and the expectation that God will come down to set everything to rights.

We do not believe such things are faithful to the Bible's teaching concerning the Kingdom of God. Not that we disagree with the whole idea of God entering human history to establish by His divine power the Kingdom of God upon earth. But, rather we believe that such an advent has already happened: Messiah has come, died upon the Cross, descended into Hell, rose again from the dead, led captive a host of captives, and entered into heaven where He reigns to this day, working commanding and ruling His kingdom upon the earth.

Once these great divine "intrusions" into history were completed, forever establishing His Kingdom upon earth, the reverberations have been spreading out over all the globe. These reverberations are seen in the global preaching of the Gospel and the discipling of the nations. We believe that the promises of God are so wonderful and powerful, and the intent of God so impeccable, that this enterprise and work will not only be successful, but that the earth will indeed be covered with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. Over two thousand years since the Ascension and Pentecost, then, the earth has been gradually filling with the glory of God as His Kingdom comes to pass.

When Christians are first confronted with this idea of the Christianising of the globe--not in name only, but in spiritual reality--they generally have two reactions. First, they are attracted to the glory and the grandeur of the prospect. All true Christians long to see our Lord and Christ honoured and reverenced in every place upon earth. Their second reaction is to come down to earth with a thump, as it were, and reckon with the fact that we are million miles away at the present. This second reaction can lead them into revived apocalyptic speculation. Faced with the distance of the journey, we become tempted with shortcuts: "there's got to be a better way" than the persistent, slow, gradual preaching of the Gospel, planting churches, establishing Christian schools, living holy and fruitful lives, etc.

We think that, faced with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, we need God to come down and do something spectacular. We forget that He already has. He has told us: "this is my beloved Son. Hear Him." But, ever the feckless creature, we want things done now, quickly. However, has it ever been that way? In the New Covenant, we are instructed to imitate Abraham's faith. Critical here is that Abraham believed over the long, slow, and at times tiresome years, turning to decades and a lifetime in which he did not experience or receive what God had promised. But he continued to believe, nonetheless. It was only when he tried to take short cuts and engineer things a faster way that he and Sarah got into trouble. As the Apostle Paul recounts it:

In hope against hope he (Abraham) believed, in order that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, "So shall your descendants be." And without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb; yet with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able also to perform. Romans 4: 18--21

As we contemplate our "lot" in God's Kingdom, we in the West, have been called to labour in a time of declension and apostasy. It is inevitably a time of great grief and sadness. Like Jeremiah of old, we find ourselves lamenting

But if you will not listen to it, my soul with sob in secret for such pride; and my eyes will bitterly weep and flow down with tears, because of the flock of the Lord has been taken captive. Jeremiah 13:17

Nevertheless God does not make mistakes and He has called us to live in such a time because He deems us particularly fitted to labour in such conditions. Paul said he had learned to be abased and he had learned to abound. We must believe that God has both equipped and gifted us so as to labour faithfully and effectively in this time of Babylonian captivity. In faith, we believe we are the ones of our hour; others would not be so equipped or effective. We believe this because we know God does not make mistakes.

But our great temptation ever remains that we would become weary in well-doing; that we would despise the day of small things. Let us take to heart the words of Frost:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of the easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Indeed. We have promises to keep, and miles to go before we sleep.