God Controls The Clock
There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
2 Timothy 4:8
Many people are asking, “Where is history heading?” A careful student of the Bible will be led to see that God controls the clock of destiny. Amid the world’s confusion, God’s omnipotent hand moved, working out His unchanging plan and purpose; and the kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. “For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25).
The Communists say that time and history are on their side. But they ignore the fact that Jesus Christ is coming to earth again. He is in control, and He will determine the outcome. If the Bible is clear at any point, it is this: “Unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time” (Hebrews 9:28).
What is to be the attitude of the Christian toward the fact of Christ’s coming? One man said to me recently, “Well, the Lord is coming soon; so what is there to do anything about?” Such a fatalistic attitude is not the one taught by the Lord Jesus Christ. When He told His disciples of His return to earth, He said, “Occupy till I come” (Luke 19:13), and “Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing” (Matthew 24:46).
Dwight L. Moody once said, “I look upon this world as a wrecked vessel. Its ruin is getting nearer and nearer. God said to me, ‘Moody, here’s a lifeboat. Go out and rescue as many as you can before the ship sinks.’” If the end seemed about to come in Moody’s day, how much closer must we be to the climax of history?
If there was ever a time when we should man the lifeboats and go out and rescue as many as we can, it is now. That is why we are proclaiming the Gospel in the strategic centers of the world wherever we can.
We believe this is a day of glorious opportunity to proclaim the saving grace and power of Christ, and to declare the Gospel against the opposition of every false ideology.
George Whitefield, the great English evangelist, said, “I am daily waiting for the coming of the Son of God.” But he did not sit down and do nothing. He burned out his life in proclaiming the Gospel of Christ. Can we do less?
Our Father and our God, Your name is mighty to proclaim, and I am so inadequate to proclaim it. But use me, Lord, in some small way to further the good news to my dying world. Let the name of Christ be heard victoriously through me. In Him. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).