Religion has often been criticized for a tendency to draw believers away from life here and now toward some better afterlife. The criticism is that the focus on another realm becomes a form of sanctified escapism and renders the believer of less benefit to the world and to society. At times, believers have left themselves open to such criticism, sometimes even cultivating, preaching, and practicing these kinds of attitudes.

Hope

And, too, we have terrible examples of those in power telling the poor and oppressed to just accept their sad lot now because, when Jesus returns, all will be made right.

Yes, our world is a fallen, broken, and tragic place—and there is nothing wrong or misplaced in longing for the time when God will set the world right; when He will bring an end to injustice, pain, and sorrow; and when He will replace the current disorder with His glorious and righteous kingdom. After all, without that hope, without that promise, we really have no hope at all.

In His sermon on the end of the world (see Matthew chapters 24 and 25), Jesus spent the first half of His discourse detailing the need for escape, even getting to the point of saying that “if those days had not been cut short, no one would survive” (Matt. 24:22, NIV). But this is more an introduction to His explanation of the significance of these promises of God. To focus solely—or even primarily—on the “escape” aspect of the Christian hope for the future is to miss some of the deeper points Jesus was making.

Read Matt. 24:1-25:46, NIV, (Matthew 24 and 25). What are the most important points from your reading of this sermon of Jesus? How would you summarize Jesus’ instructions for how we are to live as we wait for His return?

What we believe about the future has important implications for how we live now. A healthy reliance on the promises of God about His future for our world should be the catalyst for energetic engagement, the spark for a life that is rich and deep and makes a difference to others.

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Throughout the Bible’s story, there is a repeated call from God’s people—particularly those experiencing slavery, exile, oppression, poverty, or other injustice or tragedy—for God to intervene. The slaves in Egypt, the Israelites in Babylon, and many others called out to God to see and hear their suffering and to right these wrongs. And the Bible offers significant examples of God’s actions to rescue and restore His people, at times even taking revenge on their oppressors and enemies.

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But these rescues were usually short-lived, and the various prophets continued to point forward to a final intervention, when God would put an end to evil and lift up the downtrodden. At the same time, these prophets continued the cry, “How long, O LORD?” For example, the angel of the LORD asked about the exile of the Israelites, “LORD Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy”? (Zech. 1:12, NIV).

The psalms are full of laments about the apparent prosperity and good fortune of the wicked while the righteous are abused, exploited, and poor. The psalmist repeatedly calls on God to intervene, trusting that the world is not presently ordered in the way God created it or desires it, and taking up the cry of the prophets and oppressed. “How long, O LORD?” (see, for example, Ps. 94:3-7).

In a sense, injustice is more difficult to endure among those who believe in a just God who desires justice for all His people. The people of God will always have a sense of impatience about evil in the world—and God’s seeming inaction is another source of impatience. Thus, the sometimes harsh questions of the prophets: “How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save?” (Hab. 1:2, NIV).

A similar cry is taken up in the New Testament, where even creation itself is portrayed as groaning for God to rescue and re-create (see Rom. 8:19-22). In Revelation 6:10, this cry—“How long, O LORD?”—is taken up on behalf of those who have been martyred for their faith in God. But it is the same cry, calling on God to intervene on behalf of His oppressed and persecuted people.

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