This is our heavenly abode, our eternal destiny as members of the Church the Body of Christ. Once sinners, “come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), we are now saints, appointed to glorify the God of the Bible in Heaven. Short-term, until then, we must endure “tribulations” (troubles). Rather than fear them as Divine punishment, we “glory” (or find value) in them. We are justified, having “peace with God,” never worrying about seeing His angry face or coming under His wrathful hand.

Tribulations can benefit us—they can work patience fully (peace under pressure), that patience can work experience fully (skill in circumstances), that experience can work hope fully (complete confidence in God’s promises coming to pass), and that hope will neither fail nor disappoint, “because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”

When we understand what God is doing, and what He is not doing, then we will begin to comprehend His boundless love for us. This “love of Christ” is featured in Ephesians 3:19, which love we are to experience and fathom. When all is accomplished, the goal is “that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.” All control over our lives has thus been surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ

Christian friend, have you ever wished the Lord Jesus Christ would hurry up and come back, and rid us of all these challenges besetting our society? Sure, we all have (and still do, oftentimes). Why has He not returned yet, even after 2,000 years of believers praying for it? Will He ever come back? When? What is taking Him so long? Has He forgotten? Is He lazy? Can He not sense the urgency? Has He turned a blind eye to the evil waxing worse and worse? Has He closed His ears to the cries of the oppressed?

God’s wrath, dear readers, would have actually been poured out on our planet 20 centuries ago. Jesus Christ should have returned long ago. Historically, it would have occurred in early Acts. The Prophet Stephen declared in Acts 7:55-56:

“But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.”

Psalm 110:1 had predicted 1,000 years earlier: “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” 

As soon as sitting Christ stood at His Heavenly Father’s right hand, that meant He was returning to judge His enemies in undiluted wrath (cf. Acts 2:33-36; Acts 3:19-23, especially the unbelievers being “destroyed” in verse 23).

John the Baptist forewarned of “the wrath to come” (Matthew 3:7-12), so did Jesus Christ (Matthew 13:36-43), Peter (Acts chapters 2 and 3), and Stephen (Acts chapter 7). They preached that Divine punishment would transpire within the lifetime of their audiences. Yet, it never came—and, as you know, we are waiting for it still. Why? The God of the Bible is deliberately doing something different today

The Holy Spirit says through the Apostle Peter, “be established in the present truth” (2 Peter 1:12). What is still holding back God’s fiery wrath from falling on sinful man? The Divine judgment preached long ago was not a “cunningly devised fable” (2 Peter 1:16)—it is real yet delayed. Jesus Christ came back in early Acts, but not in flaming fire taking vengeance on His enemies (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9). Rather, He poured out grace and mercy on His chief enemy, Saul of Tarsus!

Saul, now Paul the Apostle, writes in 1 Timothy 1: “[15] This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. [16] Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.” 

Even today, this dispensational change works to the sinner’s advantage, that he may trust Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour and avoid the wrath to come. Grace will not be offered indefinitely.

Peter continues in 3 of his farewell epistle:

“[3] Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, [4] And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. [5] For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: [6] Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: [7] But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. [8] But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. [9] The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

God is not sluggish, undependable, or unconcerned; He is merely giving ample time for people to join His family (become saints) before He judges them for not being in His family (sinners)!

“[15] And account that the longsuffering (patience) of our Lord is (opportunity for) salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; [16] As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.”

So, even Peter confessed that the Apostle Paul had been given Divine instruction found nowhere else in Scripture.

For the last 2,000 years, God has commissioned His people to preach “the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19). We find this Gospel of Grace in Paul’s epistles, Romans through Philemon. The Lord’s message today to the world—yes, this worthless, godless world—is “grace and peace” not “wrath and war.” “For he [Father God] hath made him [Jesus Christ] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (verse 21). We have an opportunity, by faith in Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour, to avoid God’s wrath. As members of the Body of Christ, we are destined to reign in the heavenly places throughout the endless ages to come.