Reading:
Revelation 5–6
When
he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those
who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they
had maintained. 10They
called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and
true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our
blood?" 11Then
each of them was given a white robe, and they were told
to wait a little longer, until
the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters,
were killed just as they had been. (Revelation
6:9-11)
The
cry which these saints have as they await the vindication of God on
their behalf is a common cry throughout Scripture. “How
long, Sovereign Lord... until...”.
“How long, O Lord, how long?”
(Psalms 6:3; 13:1; 35:17; 79:5; 80:4; 89:46; 90:13; 94:3; Habakkuk
1:2; Zechariah 1:12.) How often have
you wanted to cry out to the Lord, “How long, O Lord, how long must
I put up with....?” Is that where you
find yourself now?
There
is something surprising in Revelation 6:10 in this familiar prayer.
In every other case we have this prayer on the lips of those in this
world, on this side of death. Yet here
this cry is coming from the martyred saints on the other side of that
great divide called death. No doubt
they are ruling and reigning with Christ (Revelation 20:4), but they
still await the day when all wrongs will be righted; when the wicked
shall be dealt with rather than going on in their wickedness. It
surprises me to see that they are still crying out, “How long, O
Lord?”
Maybe
it surprises you that you are crying out, “How long, O Lord?”
Maybe you thought that because you have served God, because you have
raised your kids a certain way, because you have (fill
in the blank),
that your life would be different: old age would have been kinder;
your sacrificial living would mean that you had gotten ahead; your
sacrifices for the work of the kingdom would have been rewarded by
the Lord. Instead
you see the wicked prospering, and the righteous suffering. “How
long,” you ask, “can this go on?”
The
preacher in Ecclesiastes observes this same fultility with which we
too wrestle:
There
is a futility that is done on the earth: there are righteous people
who get what the actions of the wicked deserve, and there are wicked
people who get what the actions of the righteous deserve. I say that
this too is futile.
(Ecclesiastes 8:14 HCSB)
All
of creation longs for this frustration, this fultility, to be
overturned (Romans 8:19-21). You and I long for it to be overturned.
And it seems that the martyred saints still long for the restoration
of all things that awaits the second coming.
I
suspect, based on what I see as I observe the world today, that we
will be praying “How long, O Lord?” prayers more and more in the
days to come.
We should not be surprised that the world hates us (John 15:8; 1 John
3:13), it hates Jesus. We should not act so shocked and horrified
that it wants to stop celebrating “Christmas” as “Christmas”
but would rather secularize it. (It may help to remember that it
wasn't called Christmas in Paul's day.) I am not saying that I want
these changes to happen; I am merely wondering what our expectations
were—mine included.
How
do we respond?
What do we do if our lives seem to be a far cry from what we hoped?
What if it seems that the wicked are prospering, and, though we have
served the Lord, we are going backward? What do we do when the
wicked continue aborting children, while those opposed get mocked?
What
can we do?
We
can pray. We must pray. And when you pray, don't be afraid to ask,
“How long, O Sovereign Lord, how long?” May
the fragrance of that prayer rise up before the Lord continually.
Love
the Gospel, Live the Gospel, Advance the Gospel,
Jerry
