Later Than Ever Before
And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
Luke 21:27
A little girl heard a clock strike thirteen times. Breathlessly she ran to her mother and said, “Mother, it’s later than it’s ever been before.” Almost everyone throughout the world will agree. It’s later than it’s ever been before. The human race is rushing madly toward some sort of climax, and the Bible accurately predicts what the climax is! A new world is coming. Through modern technology and scientific achievement we are catching glimpses of what that new world is. If it were not for depraved human nature, man could achieve it himself. But man’s rebellion against God has always been his stumbling block. The penalty for man’s rebellion is death. The best leaders and the best brains have many times been stopped by death. The Bible teaches that “it is appointed unto men once to die” (Hebrews 9:27). Today the world longs for a leader such as Abraham Lincoln—but death took him from us.
God will use the angels to merge time into eternity, creating a new kind of life for every creature. Even today’s intellectual world speaks of a point when time will be no more. Most scientists agree that the clock of time is running out. Ecologically, medically, scientifically, morally, time seems to be running out. In almost every direction we look, man’s time on earth seems to be running out. Self-destruction is overtaking us as a human race.
Will man destroy himself? No! God has another plan!
That plan was inaugurated at the first coming of Jesus Christ. It will be completed at His Second Coming! You and I as Christians can look forward to that climactic event with joyous anticipation!
Our Father and our God, when You come again, please receive me unto Yourself. Send Your angels to translate me from earth to heaven. I wait with open arms for death, which I know is the door to eternity. Until then, I will live my life to the fullest for You. Through Jesus, the One who died so that I might live. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).