I Wanted You to See
I Wanted You to See
Written on 14 September 2026.
There was a believer who had become tired of the people around him.
He wanted to live quietly and be left alone. But the people around him were wicked, and as time went on he saw more and more of what they were capable of doing.
Eventually he prayed:
“Father, why don't you take me away from these people? Why don't you put me somewhere safe?”
He wanted to leave.
There had to be somewhere else. Somewhere quieter. Somewhere these people could not reach him.
He thought about the words of Jesus Christ:
Matthew 17:17 Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.
The circumstances were different, but the words stayed with him:
“How long shall I be with you?”
That was what the believer wanted to know.
“How long do I have to be here?”
But he remained where he was, and he continued to see what was happening around him.
He saw that wickedness looked very different when it was no longer an abstract subject.
From a distance, men could speak about humanity as though everybody basically wanted the same things. They could speak about understanding everybody, finding explanations for everybody, and seeing good somewhere inside everybody.
But the believer was seeing something else.
He saw what people could be willing to do to someone who belonged to God. He saw how easily cruelty could be justified when the cruelty was directed at somebody they had decided deserved it. He saw people doing things to another person that they would immediately call evil if the same things were done to themselves.
And he kept wondering:
“Father, why am I still here?”
Then one day God the Father answered him:
“I wanted you to see.”
The believer stopped.
“See what?”
“I wanted you to see why I condemn them.”
Suddenly the believer understood what the Father was telling him.
He had read about the judgment of God. He had read about hell and the lake of fire. He knew what Revelation said would finally happen to those whose names were not found written in the book of life.
But there had always been an enormous distance between reading those words and seeing the wickedness of men for himself.
Now that distance had become smaller.
He opened Revelation.
Revelation 16:5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
Revelation 16:6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
Revelation 16:7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
He read the words again:
“For they are worthy.”
And then:
“True and righteous are thy judgments.”
Before, he had believed those words because they were in the Bible.
Now he understood something about them that he had not understood before.
God knew these people completely.
God knew what men did when nobody stopped them. God knew what they wanted to do. God knew what was in their hearts when they turned against his people.
The believer had seen only a small part of it.
God had seen all of it.
Then he came to another passage:
Revelation 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
Revelation 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
Revelation 6:11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
Again there were the words:
“How long?”
The believer recognized the question.
He had asked his own version of it.
How long before God did something?
How long before he could get away?
How long could wicked men continue doing what they were doing?
The souls under the altar asked God to judge and avenge their blood. God did not tell them that judgment would never come. They were told to rest yet for a little season.
There was an appointed end.
The believer continued reading until he came to the final judgment.
Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Revelation 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Revelation 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Revelation 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Those were terrible words.
But now the believer remembered what the Father had told him:
“I wanted you to see why I condemn them.”
The believer thought about the people he had wanted to escape.
He thought about what he had seen.
And for the first time he understood the final judgment from a different direction.
The question was no longer merely:
“How can God do this?”
There was another question:
“What would wickedness become if God never judged it?”
If there were no final judgment, there would be no final answer to what men had done to God's people.
But there was a Judge.
There was an end.
And God called his judgments righteous.
The believer still wanted to leave the wicked behind. Nothing he had learned made him want their company. If a door opened through which he could go somewhere peaceful and live quietly, he would walk through it.
But he understood something now that he had not understood when he first prayed.
He had asked:
“Father, why don't you take me away from these people?”
And the Father had answered:
“I wanted you to see.”
“See what?”
“Why I condemn them.”
The believer had seen only a little.
God had seen everything.
And the believer finally understood why heaven could say:
“Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.”
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