Veterans Day is coming up
this Wednesday. It is a federal holiday observed every year on November 11. It
has been called Remembrance Day and Armistice Day, originally honoring the end
of WWI. Today, there are no veterans of WWI. The last veteran of World War 1,
Frank Buckles, died in February 2011 at the age of 110. And the veterans of
WWII are fast disappearing. According to one source, only 30,500 of the 16
million Americans who served in WWII are still living in 2026. Of those
millions who served in the last world war and died on the battlefield, the
remains of some soldiers are still unidentified. But the Defense POW/MIA
Accounting Agency (DPAA) continues to discover those soldiers who are still
officially listed as missing, and to identify the remains they have. As a
nation, we have promised to find our missing boys and return the remains to
family members. We do this because we honor the ultimate sacrifice they made.
On this coming Wednesday,
let’s say a prayer of thanksgiving for the men and women who have died before
their time, fighting in conflicts throughout time to protect the values of
freedom, decency, and respect for one’s fellow human beings. —Timothy Merrill
[Daniel 4:25] We often wonder
what the world is coming to; just how long will evil progress in our world? The
Bible ought to be at the forefront of our focus when we have such questions. That
God wrote the Bible is evident from many of its characteristics, one of which
is its controlled way of describing evil in the world. There is no shock at the
evil acts of men, but rather a reminder that God is in control over the
kingdoms of men and works according to His own timetable. Just as farmers wait as
long as it takes for their crops to mature before they harvest them, God waits
until the time is right to punish nations.
Often, we become anxious and impatient about
evil, wondering when God will deal with it. Men in the Bible did this as well.
Jeremiah questioned how long God would allow the wicked to prosper (Jeremiah
12:1-4). Habakkuk knew that God was of purer eyes than to behold evil (Habakkuk
1:13) but was troubled because to him it seemed that God was idly looking at
wrongdoing (Habakkuk 1:2-4). John saw the souls of them who were slain under
the alter crying out, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You avenge our
blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:10), an evident representation
of God’s sense of justice being so sensitive that innocent blood screams out to
Him (Genesis 4:10).
God will punish when the time
is ripe. In Genesis 15:16, God promised Abraham that his descendants (Israel)
would inherit the land where Abraham was sojourning (Canaan), when the iniquity
of the present inhabitants (the Amorites) was full. However, before that time Israel
would be a servant in the land of Egypt until the time was right for God to
judge them (Genesis 15:13-14). God had plans to bless Israel and to punish
Egypt and the people of Canaan, but it was all according to His time.
When will the iniquity of our
nation be full? God alone knows. He sent His Son to save the world “when the
fullness of time had come” (Galatians 4:4). Revelation 14:13-16 portrays an
angel being sent forth from God with instructions for Christ to reap the earth
with a sharp sickle gathering God’s people for deliverance.
The destruction of Jerusalem
in AD 70 came when the time was ripe. Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares
in Matthew 13:24-43 gives a glimpse of the harvest that will take place at the
end of time. God harvests when the time is ripe for individuals and nations. He
will issue His last and great harvest at the end of time, of which only He
knows (Matthew 24:36-39). It is up to us to make sure we are prepared for the
reaping when the time is ripe.
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