Hebrews Chapter One, Waiting for God

 

Hebrews 1:2b has in these last days

 

Whereas in former times, the ministry of the prophetic office was discharged by God’s servants, in the last days He sent His Son. The writer of Hebrews uses the phrase the “last days.” Christ our Lord cautioned His audience that the coming of the Lord will be as a thief in the night, and we will not know the hour of His coming. His return is ever imminent, and its imminence was meant to inspire action in the service of God’s church. Though 2,000 years have elapsed since Jesus initially uttered those sayings, what is that to us? His coming is ever imminent; what I mean is, nothing prophetic needs to occur between His ascending into Heaven to wait at the right hand of the Father before His return. We are, as it were, in the valley of the church age that looms between the mounts of Christ’s First and Second Coming. The prophecy of the 70 weeks detail God’s relation with Israel and His contention with the Man of Sin, the Lawless One who rises to power in the absence of the church to serve as a witness against his nature and purpose. But I digress about these things, because this topic could lead us down a long detour.

No matter the case, the last days, the impending Day of the Lord, was not meant to frighten, but to motivate the saints to service. We WANT the Day of the Lord to come! We want to be in the presence of our Savior, reigning with Him, serving Him, watching Him make all things right, and then make all things new. He will deliver Israel from her enemies and fulfill the manifold promises made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. And we will be home! The saints march across a loveless battlefield, but in an instant we may be translated to meet the Lord in the air and to be with Him forever. The apostles anticipated the Day of the Lord and its imminence. For example, refer to 1 Corinthians 10:11, Philippians 4:5, James 5:7-9. The phrase “last days” cannot be underestimated or overlooked in a conscientious study of Scripture. Our hope as saints is to look for, “the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, “ Titus 2:13. “Appearing,” is the Greek “epiphaneia,” where we derive the English epiphany. To have an epiphany means: “an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure.” The same word appeared in 1 Timothy once and 2 Timothy three times, all of which were used as descriptors for the visible, glorious manifestation of Christ’s imminent return.

 

Look back at the prophets briefly mentioned. Enoch did not shirk his duty; nor was he timid in telling his peers of the coming judgment of the wicked for what they have done, and for the spirit in which they did it. Did Enoch condemn them? Noah’s act of faith, entering into the ark and having the Lord close him in doomed the world by a global Flood. Did Noah condemn them? No. According to Scripture they stand already condemned because they reject God’s salvation, John 3:18, Mark 16:16. Peter writes that believers ought to be, “looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God…therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless,” 2 Peter 3:12, 14. He also tells us, “Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells,” 2 Peter 3:13. Peter counsels the saints to look forward to and hasten the coming of the day of God and the ultimate dissolution of this present universe. In that same time Christians are told to look forward to the fulfillment of His promise to create a new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness resides.

 

It is unfitting for the saints to have become complacent with this present evil world. We no longer travel across it; we lodge here and are happy with it. We no longer look for the coming of Christ, who will make all things new, though we are reminded time and again in the New Testament that the Day of the Lord is imminent, and it is nigh-likely that Jesus will catch His saints sleeping rather than looking for Him. He intimates that saving faith will largely be absent from the earth upon His return because Christendom married the world, and no longer serves the interests of her Lord and rightful Husband. The “last days” have taken too long to come, though God’s longsuffering is to bring sinners to repentance while He continues to build His church. Like the bloated, lethargic, worldly church of Laodicea in Revelation, there remains little commendable about Christendom and its interests. The Lord has been dethroned and a small army of pretenders vies to take the empty seat. Meanwhile the flock suffers and starves without proper nourishment (fundamental Biblical teaching) and direction (waiting for Christ and hastening His return in glory).