IN LIGHT OF ETERNITY

 

Do you remember the biggest problem you faced when you were 9 years-old? Unless you had a traumatic event take place at that time, chances are that you can’t. The problems that we had to deal with when we were children seemed enormous at the time and probably resulted in many frustrating tears. But years later, looking back, they more than likely now look either trivial or long-forgotten. Actually, you probably don’t even have to try and recollect back to your childhood to now see the problems you had just a few years or even months ago in a different light which now makes them look a lot smaller than they appeared at the time. The passage of time tends to give us a different perspective on life and our priorities.

¶ I have been young, and now am old,
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or his children begging for bread.
Psalm 37:25

TAKING A LONG-TERM VIEW

It’s difficult when you’re young to think too much about the future. When we’re young we tend to focus on the now. On the other hand, when you’re old it’s too easy to look back over the years of your youth with a host of “If only” regrets. If only I’d…saved my money…listened to my parents…gone to university…said yes…said no…not eaten so much…learned the piano…made more time with those I care about… You can tell when a person has become wise by how they regard their future. A wise person will always take a long-term view of their life. It’s not that they don’t make mistakes now, or even seem to waste time or money occasionally. A wise person takes a long-term view of their life and adjusts their perspective on their present challenges accordingly.

The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance,
but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.
Proverbs 21:5

LIFE IS SHORT

The other week I saw a childhood schoolfriend of one of my children whom I hadn’t seen for quite a while. Four days or so after I had seen him I received a phone call from one of his other friends that on the weekend their mutual schoolfriend had been killed in an horrific accident. Today, someone came to see me to tell of a friend of theirs whose child had committed suicide this week. Both of these lives ended tragically and prematurely. When we say, “Life is short” –  it’s easy to think of such youthful tragedies. But the reality is, everyone’s life is short!

F.W. Boreham in 1908 in Hobart Baptist Church where he was the pastor

My hero, F.W. Boreham, was fond of writing in series. He wrote a five volume series on Texts That Changed The World that became a best-seller and still inspires millions of people even today. When he turned 40, he began to write a series in which the first instalment was entitled, On Turning Forty. He wrote the second instalment when he turned 50. He wrote the third when he turned 60. He wrote the fourth when he turned 70, and he wrote his last when he turned 80. As he got older he increased his reflections on some of his regrets. Even though he was one of the world’s most acclaimed preachers and Christian authors – whose books have possibly led thousands to Christ – he said that he had one big regret toward the end of his life and career as a preacher. “I did not preach enough about God!” he lamented. To be sure, he had preached about God’s deeds and acts, the attributes of God’s grace and love, and other peripheral topics associated with the doctrine of God, but he felt great sorrow that he had not preached more about God himself! If only, he said, if only I had presented God for who He truly is then surely more people would have come to see Him as the most beautiful being in the universe whose magnificence and wonderfulness would melt the hardest heart and soften the most resistant. His regret spurs me on to make sure that I know who God truly is and love Him for who He truly is and serve Him because He is who He is. And I daren’t waste a moment in this holy quest because life is short.

¶ A voice says, “Cry!”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the LORD blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
Isaiah 40:6-7

 

IN THE END

As F.W. Boreham approached the end of his life, he longed to know God more richly and deeply. This was also the quest of the apostle Paul as he approached his end. He wrote to the Philippians from a jail cell. Even though it appears that he held out hope for an early release from his imprisonment after he was to be brought before Caesar, this hope was not realised.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.
Philippians 3:8-10

“That I may know Him!” Fancy that! The apostle who was struck from his horse by the radiant glory of Christ while on the Persecutor’s Road to Damascus; the apostle whom the resurrected Christ appeared to in a vision and spoke directly to him (Acts 18:9-10); the apostle whom Christ used to raise people from the dead and to heal many people miraculously; and, the apostle who testifies that he was caught up to heaven and saw things too wonderful to reveal — this apostle gets toward the end of his life and states that he doesn’t yet know Christ the way he should! This apostle, the apostle Paul, toward the end of his life begins to see his life and his troubles in the light of eternity. And I am thus assured that in this light many of the problems that we face today will fade from our gaze and vanish as we fix our eyes on the Source of eternity’s Light.

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
Matthew 16:26

 

Your pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

DIM YET GLORIOUS

PEOPLE HAVE A DIM VIEW

It would be easy to think that the Bible presents an unimaginably glorious picture of God. He is described as being light. His appearance seems radiate the kind of light that not only blinds the viewer but also attracts them as well. The light that God emanates is not the photonic light of this temporal dimension, but the kind of light which only eternity can sustain. It is the kind of light that warms and comforts those who are drawn to it and the kind of light that warns and exposes those who try to run from it. God’s eyes are described as being like fire – they pierce the soul of the onlooker. When He speaks His voice is variously described as being like mighty thunder or the sound of many crashing waters over a gigantic waterfall. When He speaks, whatever He decrees happens. Everyone who is permitted to be in His immediate presence is not only overcome with a sense of their deepest purpose being awoken – to fully worship the Most Glorious Being in the Universe – but also to discover that in so doing, their deepest longings are infinitely satisfied. Thus, every picture of God on His Throne which the Bible reveals to us is a scene of unimaginable worship. But even though it would be easy to think that the Bible presents an unimaginably glorious picture of God, it declares that what we see is actually just a dim view!

And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.
Second Corinthians 12:3-4

The banished Apostle John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, he tells us, when he had the most amazing encounter with God that caused him to fall to the ground ‘as though dead’.

¶ Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. ¶ When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last…”
Revelation 1:12-17

God possesses certain unique glorious qualities including omnipotence (He is all-powerful), omniscience (He knows everything), eternality (He has no beginning or end and always is), and omnipresence (He is everywhere). In attempting to convey the grandeur of God’s omnipresnce, the Prophet declares that the heavens are God’s throne and the earth is His foot-stool.

¶ Thus says the LORD:
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
Isaiah 66:1

Yet despite all of these magnificent descriptions of the Exalted Christ, there are some who consider that, since Jesus became incarnate, he no longer possesses all of these divine attributes. This week I received a phone from a troubled believer who had heard a Bible College lecturer during the week declare that because Jesus now has a human body, He was no longer omni-present. One of the supporting Scriptures offered in support of this heterodox idea was Hebrews 12:2 –  

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:2

The argument offered from this verse is that since Jesus is somewhere (the right hand of God) He cannot be everywhere. This teaching is wrong for several reasons. Firstly, Christ’s incarnation did not remove any of His divine attributes, including His attribute of omnipresence. Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Upon meeting Jesus for the first time, Christ said to Nathaniel that He had been watching him (even though this was not physically possible) –

Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
John 1:46-48

Secondly, when Christ ascended, His physical identity (determined by His unique DNA) became eternally His. But since He ‘ascended’ into Heaven (which is perhaps best understood as being translated from this physical dimension into the ultimate dimension of Heaven), a spiritual realm, His physical material would have remained in this realm to await His return to earth. This of course means that Christ’s omnipresence is not depleted in anyway.

Thirdly, embedded into the Great Commission is Christ’s declaration of His omnipresence: “And behold! I am with you until the end of the age!” (Matthew 28:20). This is supremely reassuring for every believer – especially those who pay the highest price to believe! (Christ’s omnipresence is more than a theological theory!)

Fourthly, if the Biblical statement that Christ is seated at the ‘right hand of God (the Father)’ means that He is not omnipresent, then what does it mean for God the Father (since He is at the left hand of God the Son)?

Errors like this heterodox idea (that Christ is no longer omnipresent) highlight that despite the Word of God being so freely and widely available, we still see God dimly. And this is remarkable because even what we can see dimly is so phenomenally glorious. 

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
First Corinthians 13:12

And if what we see of Christ in the Scriptures is a “dim” view – and yet it is so incredibly glorious and wonderful – then heaven only knows what the full picture of Christ will be when we see Him face to face! The next time you feel all alone, remember – even the dim view of Christ which we receive from Scripture tells us that: Christ is with us – even to the end of the Age! Imagine what our worship could be like this Sunday if some us get a closer view of even this dim picture of the risen, glorious, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, and omnipresent Lord! 

Amen.

Ps. Andrew Corbett

God Rewards