Lou: Our question in this chapter has been, “How Soon Will the Conflict Be Over?” From what you have said, the close of the conflict seems to be tied in very closely with the Second Coming of Christ. But is that really the end of the conflict? Aren’t there some other very important events, such as the Millennium and the destruction of the wicked, that are part of what we might call “the conflict?”

Graham: That’s true. There are major events that come after the Second Coming. But there is a sense in which the Second Coming really does mark the end of the conflict, because the key to the conflict is not a physical war in which the powers of heaven are arrayed against the powers of earth. Rather, the essential conflict is in the minds of God’s children throughout the universe. And the Second Coming means it’s all over in that sense. The loyal are committed forever to loyalty, and the disloyal are committed forever to their rebellious rejection of God. The important conflict is the one that takes place in our minds.
We’ve talked about how the most essential aspect of the conflict is for God to demonstrate the truth about Himself. Some will object, “That doesn’t make us very important.” But if His demonstration does not lead some of us to inner conviction, He’s failed. So we are not just pawns. He is trying to win us. We are very much involved in this conflict. It is not just heavenly, this war is being fought in the minds of God’s own children.

Lou: This takes us all the way back to the first chapter, the one about the nature of the conflict. If it were a struggle about power or armies, God could have settled such a conflict in one minute. Instead, it is a struggle for decisions related to trust.

Graham: So we are not just spectators of the conflict. We are very much involved, and we are coming to understand some of the most important questions about Him.

Lou: Since we’re talking about the End, it reminds me of the first letter of John: “Children, it is the last hour. We know that it is the last hour” (based on 1 John 2:18). Was John wrong?

Graham: All the Bible writers who deal with the subject describe the End as very near. I’m thinking of Joel and of Jesus Himself, who both said the End was very near. One could also point to the statement in Peter, “With the Lord a thousand years are as a day, and a day is as a thousand years” (based on 2 Peter 3:8). Then John saw signs of antichrist in the apostasy of some key people in the Church, and that led him to believe that the End was near (1 John 2:18-19). And the impending death of John (he was in his nineties) also suggested it could have been near (John 21:20-23).
One night, perhaps soon after writing his letters, John fell asleep in death. When he wakes up, from the most refreshing sleep ever, it will be the Second Coming! Now, he might have some questions about the timing of the End at that point, but I doubt he will have any complaints. And while he didn’t see the great closing events before the Second Coming, he will get to witness everything from then on: the Millennium, the Third Coming, the re-creation of the world. John won’t miss any of that. All he will really miss are the troubles of the End-time (Dan 12:1; Rev 7:14). As we have discussed before, the saints who fall asleep before the Lord comes will arise in time for everything that really matters. They will even rise first.

Lou: John talks about the Antichrist in his letters (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 1:7). What is the Antichrist? What do we mean by that term?

Graham: “Anti” suggests opposition, and that opposition is expressed in many ways. The most destructive way is not open opposition but subtle misrepresentation. If anyone misrepresents Christ, he is an “anti-Christ.”

Lou: So it’s not just one person in all the history of the world.

Graham: There are many, many antichrists. Already in John’s day many antichrists had appeared (1 John 2:18). The spirit of antichrist has been working all these hundreds and thousands of years. I believe the End has always been very, very near. If the conditions had been met, everything would have ended much sooner.

How much longer do you think God will have to wait? Well, we can trust God to wait just as long as there is hope for anyone. We can also trust God not to wait a moment longer than makes sense. After all, who longs more than God to bring everything to an end, recreate this world, and give it to His trusting saints? When, then, will it end? Only God, the One who reads our every thought, will know when all final decisions have been made. That’s why Jesus gave this advice in Matthew: “So then, you also must always be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting him” (Matt 24:44, GNB).

We are not entirely in the dark about this, however. Paul counsels us in 1 Thessalonians 5: “But you, brothers, are not living in darkness, and so the day will not like a thief take you by surprise.” 1 Thess 5:4, Kleist and Lilly. You see, like the angels, we do not know the exact day or hour. But we do know what will take place before the End comes. We can count on it. After all these years and after paying such a price, God is not about to change His way of leading the family. Nor is He about to fail. Consistent with the way God has always handled this conflict in the family, He never asks us to believe without evidence. He does not offer claims, but rather demonstration, and this takes time. We know that God will not come until the world has been warned. And He will not come until His children are ready. But when they are ready, He will waste no time. He will come.

So how soon do you think the conflict will be over?

About a century and a half ago there arose, in various parts of the world, the growing conviction that the coming of Christ was very near. Bible students in many different churches began to see in certain remarkable events the fulfillment of some of the signs that Jesus had given to His disciples in Matthew, signs like: “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky. . . .” Matt 24:29, NIV.

They saw the fulfillment of this verse in the darkening of the sun and moon on May 19, 1780 and the remarkable falling of the stars on November 13, 1833. They combined these observations with their study of prophecies in Daniel and Revelation that pointed to important events that would occur in 1798 and 1844. They saw in all these things an accumulation of evidence that the long-looked-for advent was very near. Though some are now puzzled about these signs and dates, that was when the great second-advent movement did begin. It was precipitated when all those remarkable signs and prophetic periods seemed to come together. It was not just one date, one event, or one piece of evidence. It was all that evidence combined. That’s the way God has always sought to convince us throughout the history of the conflict. Not just a little here and a little there, but an accumulation of evidence.

Some of those eager “adventists” were led by their study of the prophetic times and the heavenly evidences to begin giving special attention to the three angels’ messages in Revelation 14. They came to the conclusion that the time had arrived for these three messages of warning and invitation to be given to the whole world. They undertook a very bold venture. The excitement and the disappointment of those days are all part of religious history. There are millions of Christians in the world today who agree that those early adventists had indeed seen God’s signal that the Second Coming was near. They didn’t read it correctly at first. It was not a signal to pack for the trip up to heaven. Rather, it was a call from God to prepare the whole world for His coming. That’s why we are still here, because we haven’t completed the task.

Time has continued much longer than the early adventists expected. The signs that so stirred them occurred hundreds of years ago. But are we surprised or even ashamed that our God would be willing to wait this long? Are we more concerned about our reputation or His? The good news, the gospel, is not about us.

Sometimes I think we make that mistake. We act as if the good news were about us, but it’s not. The good news is about our God. Now if our failure to complete the task has contributed to the long delay, then we deserve to be ashamed. But the longer God waits, the more gracious He looks. His delay only confirms the good news. The delay should lead us to speak with pride about our God and not to make the awful mistake that Jonah made.

You see, God needs better witnesses than Jonah proved to be. Reluctant teachers of the truth, moved only by fear or obligation, are themselves a very sad denial of the Good News. God is waiting for people who, in the words of Peter: “Look eagerly for the coming of the Day of God and work to hasten it on” (2 Pet 3:12, NEB).

God’s incredible graciousness has even been an embarrassment to some of His people. Do you remember when the prophet Jonah was asked by God to go and give a serious message of warning to Nineveh? At first he ran away. Later, under considerable pressure, he went and delivered his message. He was hardly a “missionary volunteer.” Think of the pressure the Lord had to put on Jonah to get him to go to Nineveh and deliver a very serious message to a very dangerous people. Jonah walked the streets and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed” (based on Jonah 3:4).

Then he went out and sat down on a hillside nearby to watch the city come to its end (Jon 4:5). But it didn’t. The people of Nineveh repented, and the city was not destroyed (Jon 3:10). And Jonah complained angrily to God. He said, “God, that’s why I ran away. I knew You were far too kind to go through with that threat. You’ve made me look like a false prophet. I’m humiliated enough to die.” Imagine saying such words to God! Here’s how the biblical text puts it:

Lord, didn’t I say before I left home that this is just what you would do? That’s why I did my best to run away to Spain! I knew that you are a loving and merciful God, always patient, always kind, and always ready to change your mind and not punish. Now then, Lord, let me die. I am better off dead than alive. Jonah 4:2-3, GNB.

Think how well this man knew God way back in Old Testament times! Those are words Isaiah, Jeremiah, Moses, or Abraham would have been proud to speak. In fact, none of them used better words than that to talk about our God. But Jonah was ashamed. God’s kindness had embarrassed him. He was so humiliated, his reputation as a reliable prophet was so destroyed, that he was prepared to die!

God reasoned with frustrated Jonah. “Have you no pity for these people? Aren’t you glad that they have chosen to repent?” Jonah 4:4, 11. God even mentioned the cattle in the city at the end of the book (4:11). But Jonah was much more concerned about his own reputation. Moses, Abraham, Jeremiah, and Paul all announced themselves proud to know God as they did. They were proud of Him and proud of the good news. Jonah also knew God, but he was ashamed.

Sometimes this patience of God has been misunderstood. Some think we can go on sinning with impunity because God is simply too kind and too patient to discipline us or to turn us over to destructive consequences. Paul warned that presuming on the kindness of God is a serious error: “Are you, perhaps, misinterpreting God’s generosity and patient mercy towards you as weakness on his part? Don’t you realise [sic] that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” Romans 2:4, Phillips.

God’s patience has even puzzled His trusting children. In the days of Habakkuk, they cried out to God, “Why don’t You do something? Why don’t You rescue us and help us in our predicament?” They were in despair that God seemed to be doing nothing (all based on Habakkuk 1:1-4, 13). And so the prophet Habakkuk was sent to urge them not to give up their faith, but to trust God to work out His plans in His own good time (Hab 2:1-4). The problem, according to Micah, is that we often don’t understand God’s plan (Mic 4:12). Let us trust Him as we seek to understand His plan, and let Him do it in His own time and in His own way.

The prophet Habakkuk sums up his message by saying: “[What God has planned] may seem slow in coming, but wait for it; it will certainly take place.” Hab 2:3, GNB. In fact, God’s first message to Habakkuk was, “I am doing something, but you wouldn’t believe it if I told you” (based on Habakkuk 1:5). Habakkuk said, “Try me, Lord. Tell me” (based on Habakkuk 2:1). And the Lord did (Hab 2:2-4). Habakkuk then indicated that he was willing to wait. That’s the source of that great verse, “The just, God’s friends, will live in faith, in trust” (based on Habakkuk 2:4). That verse was not about forgiveness. It was written about trusting God enough to be willing to wait. That great verse that Paul picked up in Romans is a most appropriate one for those who wonder why the Lord still waits.

In these last days, God’s patience even gives His enemies an opportunity to misinterpret it as weakness. They scoff at God’s apparent inability to bring the conflict to a successful conclusion. This issue is addressed in the whole of 2 Peter 3. Peter warns that:

In the last days there will come men who scoff at religion and live self-indulgent lives, and they will say: “Where now is the promise of his coming? Our fathers have been laid to their rest, but still everything continues as it has always been since the world began.” 2 Pet 3:3-4, NEB.

Doesn’t that sound like the doctrine of uniformitarianism? Nothing has ever changed and nothing ever will. But that is not the real reason for the delay:

It is not that the Lord is slow in fulfilling his promise, as some suppose, but that he is very patient with you, because it is not his will for any to be lost, but for all to come to repentance. 2 Pet 3:9, NEB.

Then Peter refers to Paul’s earlier advice in Romans 2:4: “Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you.” 2 Pet 3:15, NIV. God’s patience is often misunderstood.

Of all the things that must happen before the conflict is over, Jesus especially emphasized one. He said that the gospel, the true picture of God, must go to the whole world before the End will come (Matt 24:14; Mark 13:10). We can trust God to wait until His children all over this planet have had a chance to make an enlightened decision. In view of the confusion and the deception to come, God would not ask anyone to pass through that period without sufficient information upon which to base an intelligent choice.

This is consistent with the way God has treated angels and men ever since the Great Controversy began. He has always waited patiently for His children to make up their own minds. Think of how many centuries He waited for Israel to respond to the information brought by the prophetic messengers that He sent one after the other. It was not until Israel went beyond even the Creator’s power to restore, that He finally and reluctantly gave them up. But after the Israelites had been taken off to Babylonian captivity, God inspired the writer of 2 Chronicles to explain why He could no longer protect them, why He had to let them go:

The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people . . . but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, till the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, till there was no remedy. 2 Chr 36:15-16, RSV.

It was not an arbitrary decision. They were misbehaving so grossly (as we know from Kings and Chronicles), He simply could not do anything more for them. He had to let them go into the discipline of captivity. And that’s what the “wrath of God” means, God sadly giving Israel up. Fortunately, it was not the final awful destruction at the end of the world. But it was discipline. And though God seemed to have abandoned them, we know that He went with them, didn’t He? He blessed Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Esther, Mordecai, and Ezekiel while they were in captivity. But by and large, God could not work through His people as a nation at that time. He had to give them up into the discipline of captivity.

Now in the passage we read above from Matthew, Jesus speaks of all the people on earth weeping as they see the Son of Man coming back. But other passages tell us that not everyone will be weeping. Those who have learned to trust Him will be very glad to see Him come. This was clearly predicted way back in the days of Isaiah: “In that day they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.’” Isa 25:9, NIV.

While many will rejoice when Jesus returns, most of the world will have turned against God (Rev 13:8). And because they have not learned to trust Jesus, they will flee from Him in terror, even though He will come back in human form: “They called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!’” Rev 6:16, NIV. How could they possibly flee from gentle Jesus, meek and mild? While He does come back in majesty and power, there is still no need to be afraid. But Satan has so convinced his allies that God is arbitrary, vengeful, and severe, they will actually flee from Him as He cries after them, “Why will you die? How can I give you up? How can I let you go?” Ezekiel 18:31; Hosea 11:8. How thoroughly Satan will have convinced these people that his lies about God are the truth!

What makes the difference between the reaction of the righteous and the reaction of the rest? Peter and Judas looked at the same gentle but majestic face of Jesus during His trial. One of them was moved to repentance (Matt 26:75; Mark 14:72; Luke 22:61-62). The other one was moved to go out and take his own life (Matt 26:47-50; 27:3-5; Acts 1:15-20). Our Lord is not two-faced. The difference is in us! Those who have learned to welcome the good news, the truth about our God, have learned to trust and admire God’s wise and gracious ways. They will be ready to see Him come, even to see Him in His glory, and not be afraid. They will be awestruck, to be sure, but not scared of our God. Those who have despised and rejected this good news, on the other hand, will actually look at the one who died for them and, like Judas, be driven by that sight to suicidal action (Rev 6:15-17).

In John 14 Jesus indicated that there was something much more important than knowing the exact time. It was far more important that His followers trust Him enough to be willing to wait. Do you remember Chapter Three, “All God Asks Is Trust”? If we trust Him enough to be ready for His coming, we really don’t need to know the exact time. If we trust Him, all will be well. Jesus indicated this in John 14:

Set your troubled hearts at rest. Trust in God always; trust also in me. . . . I shall come again and receive you to myself, so that where I am you may be also. John 14:1, 3, NEB.

Jesus did not tell His disciples when, but He did give them some details by which they could tell the approximate time. As they sat together one day on the Mount of Olives, Jesus spoke of many signs by which the disciples could tell when the End was getting near. These are very familiar passages to all who believe in the Second Coming. He spoke of alarming disturbances in earth and sky. He spoke of growing distrust between the nations. He spoke of the rise of false religious leaders. He particularly warned of those who would arise and teach that His return was to be in secret. “Don’t believe it,” Jesus said:

. . . for the Son of Man will come like the lightning that flashes across the whole sky from the east to the west. . . . and all the peoples of earth will weep as they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. The great trumpet will sound, and he will send out his angels to the four corners of the earth, and they will gather his chosen people from one end of the world to the other. Matthew 24:27, 30-31, GNB.

Now that is hardly the description of an invisible event. Quite to the contrary, John affirmed very clearly in the last book in the Bible that “every eye will see him” come. Rev 1:7, RSV.

In the last three chapters we have introduced the topic of when the conflict of earth’s history will be over and Christ will return. That time will come when God’s children on this planet have fully responded (“yes” or “no”) to His final pleading. The conflict will be over when His loyal children on this planet will have become so settled into the truth that they are ready to resist Satan’s final efforts to deceive. Christ will return when His followers not only know the truth well enough to survive but, like Job, they know it well enough to speak well and truly of their heavenly Father. This chapter explores the timing of the end of human history and its relevance to how we view the character of God. The question addressed in this chapter is not so much when the conflict will be over, but rather how soon it will be over.

Many of us wonder if the conflict will end and Christ will return in our own lifetime. The disciples wondered about this already in their time, and they asked Jesus: “Tell us, when will this be and how can we tell when You’re coming back and the world will come to an end?” Matt 24:3, Beck. And Jesus replied that even the angels do not know. In fact, in His human form, even He did not know: “But about that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, not even the Son; only the Father.” Matt 24:36, NEB.

Lou: What about some of these things you have referred to as “emergency measures;” like the law? Are you saying that even the law can be distorted? What is the right place for the law in a healthy, balanced view?

Graham: If we present the great controversy view, we show how God added these emergency measures when we needed them. Faith does not deny them, it thanks God for them. The law was given to lead us to Christ that we may grow up. For some, this is an essential step along the way. Misunderstood, emergency measures like the law can keep us as children, and hence vulnerable to Satan’s influences at the End.

Lou: What about the destruction of the wicked?

Graham: If that produces theophobia, it will lead to the obedience that springs from fear. Such obedience turns us into rebels and certainly keeps us children. “Love Me, or I’ll kill you” won’t produce real love, not even in a little child. So we need to see the destruction of the wicked in light of the cross.

Lou: How about the cross then?

Graham: If the cross is seen as propitiating the anger or winning the favor of an offended God, it also produces theophobia. Even the cross can make me afraid of God if presented in that way. “Thank God He’s forgiven me just now, but I better not give up or you know what He’ll do to me.”

Lou: What is the healthier view of the cross then?

Graham: The healthier view of the cross is as a demonstration that sin does indeed lead to death; it’s that serious. But the cross is not torture and execution at the hands of an angry God. He simply gave up His Son as He will give us up in the end. And when the Son died, the Father cried, as He will cry over us when we die in the end (see section “Three Questions Regarding the Character of God” in Chapter Eight). So, rightly understood, there is no need to be afraid of God when we stand at the foot of the cross. And there is no need to be afraid of God when we see the destruction of the wicked either.

Lou: How should we understand sin in the larger view of things?

Graham: If we view sin as breaking arbitrary rules, it makes sin something that God doesn’t like. It offends Him. It makes Him angry, so He punishes us. That’s a childish view. But in the Larger View, sin is something that’s really wrong in itself. It is like poison, producing its own consequences. In that case, the “punishment” for sin is not really punishment, it is a consequence inherent to the crime itself. Sin leads to consequences, all the way up to the consequence of death, and God would prefer to spare us those consequences.

Lou: What about atonement?

Graham: The Devil wants us to view atonement as reconciling God to us, assuaging His wrath, instead of God winning us back to Himself. The truth is, God never left us; we left Him.

Lou: Let’s take two more. First, intercession.

Graham: If by intercession we imply that the Father is not our friend, we’ve driven a wedge between the Father and the Son, and we’ve made the Father look very unforgiving and severe. So the intercession message could be used by the Devil to turn us against God and keep us as little children. But it can also be an encouraging message for those who need it.

Lou: What about the Judgment?

Graham: Again, if the Judgment is seen as arbitrary, or a positive outcome is seen as dependent on the pleading of Jesus, I think that’s cruel. The Devil is pleased when we assume that one member of the Godhead is more friendly than the other two. But a biblical view of judgment focuses more on what God is like and what He is doing for us.

Lou: You could say we just tried to review the first eighteen chapters of the book in the last three minutes here. Hopefully that will prepare us for Chapter Nineteen, “How Soon Will the Conflict Be Over?” And that has been a topic of conversation for God’s people ever since John said, “Come soon, Lord Jesus” (Rev 22:21). I’m looking forward to it.