The Delay: How Much Longer Must We Wait?

For as long as we can remember and even before, the refrain “Jesus is coming soon” has sounded in churches around the world. Its theme is central to our message as a church – embedded in our very name – Seventh-day Adventist! Yet, still we wait.

If we step back for a moment and take a panoramic view, we see Adam and Eve waiting for the Promised One. They, too, must have wondered at the delay.

Author Marvin Moore observes, “There’s a tension between the belief, on the one hand, that Jesus is coming soon and the realization, on the other hand, that He hasn’t returned as soon as we had hoped.” How encouraging are these words: “God’s purposes know no haste and no delay” (The Desire of Ages, 32).

Moore concludes, “We need to apply those words to our situation.  Paul said that ‘when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son’ (Galatians 4:4). We can be sure that when the time has fully come again, God will send Jesus back to take us home!”