Why Are We Still Here?

Why do you think we’re still here?
Why do you think the rapture has not come yet and the Lord waits so long? You would think He could call it the end by now. Jesus said the gospel would be preached to all the world and then the end would come (Matt 24:14).
There has never been a time until now when such a thing could be legitimately said. Television and radio, not to mention the internet, has blanketed the planet with the gospel. The gospel is in every region. Yet the rapture has not happened yet. What could be the reason for God’s delay?
Could it be that God is waiting us to be more spiritually mature? Why not bring us to heaven and make us immediately perfect?

1 John 3:2
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

In heaven we would share in His glory and perfection. We would see Him as He is because we would be like Him. So keeping us here to grow us to be more spiritually mature can’t be the reason.

Perhaps it’s so we can grow in knowledge? But in heaven we would have perfect knowledge and know as we are known (1 Cor 13:12). There is no way we could ever attain as much knowledge as we could in one second of being glorified in new bodies. We’re not here to get more knowledge.

Maybe the rapture is waiting for us to make the world a better place. There was a time when serious Bible scholars taught this as fact. That we would make this world a Christian planet and then Jesus would come back to take it from us as a gift. But the Bible doesn’t teach this anywhere. Quite the contrary, (2 Tim 3:1-5), and besides we could never make a planet that would be more perfect than the world Christ will make when He returns.

Isaiah 11:9
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

Or perhaps Jesus is waiting for all of us to repent. The Bible teaches that the world will not get better it will get worse.

2 Timothy 3
1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

No, there is only one real reason we are still here and that reason is evangelism.

I don’t know where you stand on the whole Calvinism versus Arminianism debate but the fact is that God has fixed a day in which He will judge the world and that day is when a certain event happens.

Romans 11:25
25 Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way all Israel will be saved,

When the last gentile has accepted Christ and come into His salvation it will make a final member that God has set as the criteria for swapping one branch out for another (Rom 11:24).

Whether you believe God has set that number as people He has selected to come in or has foreknowledge of what that number will be it still remains the “fullness of the gentiles” is a threshold that will mark the end of the church age and the beginning of the “Seventieth Week Of Daniel” (Dan 9:25-27), and the Tribulation.

That threshold is only reached by a set amount of people coming into the salvation of Christ.

How bad do you want the rapture to happen and take us out of here? We are taught to say “Maranatha, come Lord Jesus” (Rev 22:20), but how are we helping that day to come?

There is only one reason we are all still here and that is because there still remain more of our yet unborn brothers and sisters left out there that need to come in before Christ will come in the clouds and take us to be with Him.
A greater, more serious, effort toward evangelism will hasten that day all the more.

Can you see all the more how prophecy can do so much good? The knowledge of fulfilled prophecy can give us assurance and courage (1 Cor 10:11). The fear of the immanent return of the Master at a time we don't know (Matt 24:50), can seal us in a lifestyle of seeking holiness and godly conduct (2 Pet 3:11-12).
And knowledge of God’s time table and plans for the future can motivate us all the more to evangelism and warning a dying world.