The Rev. Willie Denson

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. (Romans 8:22, KJV)

And not only they, but we ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:23, KJV)

The phrase “the end of the world” usually gets our attention. There have been many predictions about the date when the end was coming, but each date invariably comes and goes uneventfully.

After this last predicted date came and went the predictor said it was a miscalculation, so he recalculated it. Well, the only way that this man knew that it was a miscalculation is because it didn’t happen. Well, I want to apologize to you right now because I have no prediction about the day the world will end. I don’t have a clue about when the world will end, but I do know for a certainty that it is coming to an end. This man would say to us, “The world is coming to a particular end.”

He never elaborated on it or argued about it, but just said it. We would laugh about how drunk he was, but I would always get a feeling of fear or dread when I would think about what he said. I no longer have fear or dread when I think about the world coming to an end because I know that it is a part of the plan of salvation.

Here in the eighth chapter, 28 and 23 verses of Romans, we find Paul writing about the groaning and travailing of the creation and man as both wait for total redemption. You noticed that I said total redemption. I say “total redemption” because we have been redeemed from the penalty of sin by the blood of Christ, and we have been redeemed from the power of sin by the Holy Ghost. It is the very presence of sin that we, and the whole creation, are groaning and in travail about. We are looking for the coming of the Lord because when He comes we will get totally redeemed bodies, and the devil and all his cohorts will be taken out of God’s creation, and we will have a sin-free world.

So, let us live our lives in obedience to the will of God so that we may long for the coming of Christ and the end of this sinful world.