How Long?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Why do wicked people seem to thrive?

These are just two of the hard questions people ask when they are hurting. It often seems that faithful servants of God are hurting while wicked people of the world are enjoying all the pleasures of sin.

This has been a question for hundreds of years. Consider that even the psalmist in Psalm 94:3 asked, “Lord, how long will the wicked, How long will the wicked triumph?”

As I was recently reading 2 Peter it struck me anew that while our human perspective frames these situations this way, nothing that happens surprises God and He is fully aware of who deserves both reward and punishment.

Peter uses multiple examples of God’s faithfulness from the past to show his readers this. He lists angels that were punished, the fact that Noah and his family alone were saved from the flood, and the example of Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction as proof that God does, indeed, punish the wicked while sparing the righteous. Peter also singles out Lot, saying specifically that Lot “liv[ed] among them day after day, [and] was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard” (2 Peter 2:8; NIV). 

The phrase “day after day” is what caught my attention. It often seems that time just continues to go on with wicked people prospering and good people struggling, but Peter assured his readers then and now that God “knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.” (2 Peter 2:9)

Some of you may have noticed that I left out an important word from a phrase I used earlier. I mentioned the wicked of the world are enjoying all the pleasures of sin. The key word I left out is “passing.” The pleasures of sin are passing (Hebrews 11:25). The reward which Peter is reminding his readers is coming their way is precious, divine, and incorruptible (2 Peter 1:4). And while we may have to wait, God is faithful …

“But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (1 Peter 3:8-9)

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AUTHOR: Amber Tatum