In Isaiah and Hebrews we have some stirring verses. Isaiah says to the Almighty, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (26:3). One can live surrounded by confusion, as Paul often did, but still have peace of mind. Isaiah writes of the ideal attitude, “My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you” (verse 9). He looks ahead to when God takes action against an evil world. There will be a time when this happens.

Of that time the Lord says, “Come my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by. For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity” (verses 20,21). Those who God regards as “my people” will be prayerfully waiting and maybe “hiding” as they wait for his deliverance because they have “drawn near to him with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:22).

Hebrews continues, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful” (verse 23). These words would have served a purpose in all the calamities that surrounded Jerusalem in AD 67-70 and they have been just as meaningful in many situations for faithful believers ever since. His advice continues, “Let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day of God’s ultimate judgements drawing near” (verses 24,25).

That encouragement is followed by a warning to those who have “outraged the spirit of grace” (verse 29) who may be inclined to accept the philosophy of some churches of ‘once saved, always saved’ regardless of any future lifestyle. The words (from Habakkuk) quoted in verses 37,38 seem so appropriate to conditions in the world today, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him”.

By our concept of time He has delayed, but the signs are multiplying that man’s time is almost at an end – and our eternal future depends on us using our time now by keeping our mind stayed on our Lord.