LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
The Hope of His Coming
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
It is vain to look into the prophetic pagan order to find the church's position, her calling, or her hope. They are not there. It is entirely out of place for the Christian to be occupied with dates and historic events, as though he were in anywise involved therein.
No doubt, all these things have their proper place and their value, and their interest, as connected with God's dealings with Israel and with the earth. But the Christian must never lose sight of the fact that he belongs to heaven, that he is inseparably linked with an earth-rejected, heaven-accepted Christ - that his life is hid with Christ in God - that it is his holy privilege to be looking out, daily .and hourly, for the coming of his Lord.
There is nothing to hinder the realization of that blissful hope at any moment. There is but the one thing that causes the delay - God's patience and His unwillingness for any to perish, rather, desiring all to come to repentance. These are precious words for a lost and guilty world!
The salvation is ready to be revealed; and God is ready to judge. There is nothing now to wait for but the gathering in of the last elect one, and then - oh, most blessed thought - our own dear and loving Savior will come and receive us to Himself to be with Him where He is, and to go no more out for ever. (C.H. Mackintosh).