THE PRESENT

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“GOD’S PRESENT PRESENT PRESENT!

Translation:

GOD’S GIFT NOW GIVEN!

God was present, is present, always present.

“THE PRESENT”

(The Moment)

(Here & Now)

INTIMATE COMMUNICATION

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If we had as many answers to prayer as we have books on prayer the
battle would be won. Unfortunately it is easier to write a book on
prayer than to pray effectively. It is easier to preach a sermon on
prayer than to pray. It is easier to give a lecture on prayer than to
pray. It is easier to do just about anything concerning prayer than to
actually pray well and wisely.
The reason this is so is because we have not taken Christ as our
guide to prayer, and have tried to follow men who claim to be experts,
but who have made the matter of such complexity that it is too
discouraging, and we lose our motivation. If we went into a library
and found a dozen volumes on how to order a hamburger, we would
probably figure it is too complicated, and never brother to order one.
So it is with prayer. There are books galore, and seminars, and
special retreats, and so many people trying to teach us how to pray,
that we automatically assume that it is in the same category with
learning brain surgery and international law. So we lose hope, and
just accept the role of being poor at prayer.
People who are good at saying prayers only confirm our despair.
We say, come Lord Jesus be our guest, let this daily food be blest.
They can give a lesson on Bible history, and give guidance to
government leaders, and a challenge for world missions, all in a
prayer of thanks for a hamburger. It makes the rest of us feel like we
are not even really thankful for our hamburger, and also feeling like
we just don’t know how to pray.
The vast majority of Christians would list as one of the weaknesses
of their Christian life, their prayer life. We do not spend enough time
in prayer. We don’t pray for enough people. We don’t pray as
fervently as we ought, or as persistently as we ought. There is hardly
any aspect of prayer that we do as adequately as we ought. Christian
guilt feelings about this make them easy targets of manipulation. They
can be made to feel they need to go along with some prayer gimmicks
to get back into God’s favor. Maybe it’s an all night prayer meeting,
or some kind of prayer chain, or large group prayer service, as if the
length of your prayers or the quantity of them is the key to God’s
reluctant heart.
All of this Jesus put into the category of paganism in Matt. 6, where
He said the pagans think they will be heard because of their many
words. Jesus taught that God already knows what we need, and so a
short and simple prayer is all that is necessary. He never told His
disciples to get a big crowd together, but said get alone in your own
room and close the door. He didn’t give them a manuscript of
hundreds of prayers when they asked Him to teach them to pray. He
gave them a single prayer of about 50 words as an example.
My point is, the reason that prayer is so hard for Christians is
because they have made it hard. The Bible doesn’t. Jesus didn’t.
Christians have so complicated the simplicity of the Bible with pagan
ideas, they have put a satisfying life of prayer beyond the reach of the
average Christian. One Christian writer said she could visualize the
millions of prayers hurtling toward God at mealtime, and so she
decided to do her praying between meals when the prayer traffic was
not so thick. She also got up early to get her prayer in before the
heavy breakfast crowd. Of course, this is silly, but so is every aspect
of prayer that implies God is not omniscient. Jesus said in Matt. 6:8,
“Your father knows what you need before you ask Him.”
If that is the case, then being eloquent is no big deal, for we do not
have to persuade God. It is not as if we have to be intellects, and be
able to speak with great logic to get through to God. Neither the
quantity nor the quality of our prayers are the issue, for God already
knows what we seek to communicate. This puts all God’s children on
the same level. So what if we can go on for a half hour with flowery
words of oratory, and another can only say thank you Lord for today,
give me guidance for tomorrow?
The Pharisee in the temple was no doubt better at prayer than the
publican. If we took a vote among men after hearing them both pray,
the Pharisee would win on both length and eloquence, but Jesus said
the publican went away justified, not the Pharisee. “God be merciful
to me a sinner,” was his prayer, and on the cross the thief said,
“Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And the father
of the demonized boy prayed, “Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief.”
When you look at the prayers that Jesus answered in his life, you can’t
help but be impressed with their brevity and simplicity. They are
little more than cries for help.
When the disciples were caught in the storm, and feared the ship
was going down, they woke Jesus and their prayer was, “Lord, save
us! We are going to drown.” When Peter was going under his prayer
was, “Lord, save me!” All these prayers were answered. Of course,
they were emergency situations where eloquence and length are not
only irrelevant, but potentially deadly. But what we want to see as we
examine the prayer life of Jesus is that even the normal prayer life of
the believer is to be simple and not complex.

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Thank God Part Three

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THANK GOD FOR THE PRESENT
David calls upon us to join him in song in verse 4. “Sing to the Lord
you saints of His, praise His holy name.” Do it now, even if it is a tough
time, and you feel like you are under God’s anger. The good news David says
in verse 5 is, God’s anger only lasts a moment, but His favor lasts a
lifetime. Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the
morning. David is thankful for the present because he is an optimist. No
matter how heavy the present is, the burden will soon become lite, and joy
will replace sorrow. We see here that weeping is no sign of weakness, but
is merely an honest expression of emotion, which even a strong man like
David could show. Being an optimist does not mean you do not feel the
sorrow of present suffering.
How many times have we been there? The cloud cover is oppressive and
living is a chore, and so many things are discouraging. But those days pass
by, and the sun shines again, and we are delighted to be alive. Not
everything in the present is pleasant, but the thankful heart can and will
see values that are missed by the complaining heart. Listen for example to
the insight of this poem–
Thank God for dirty dishes,
They have a tale to tell:
While others may go hungry,
We still are eating well;
With home and health and happiness
We have no right to fuss;
This stack is ample evidence
That God’s been good to us.
The challenge of life is to find a reason to be thankful in what seems on
the surface to be a reason to complain.
There are volumes of testimonies by people who have come to actually
thank God for problems and trials, and even diseases and accidents because
these so-called misfortunes opened their eyes to the fact that they were
going away from God, and they were motivated by their need for God to get
back on the right road. Their burden became their greatest blessing.
Charles Colson in his book Loving God said all of his proud and
sophisticated labor in Government was not used of God–it was his shame,
humiliation, and fall, in the Watergate scandal that God used for His glory,
for when he was down he prayed as David did in verse 10. “Hear O Lord, and
be merciful to me, O Lord, be my help.” God listens to such a prayer, and
most of the thankful people in the world are so, because they know God
listens to the cry for mercy and help, and will work with them even in the
worst situations to bring forth good.
Chuck Colson is thanking God for the present ministry he has in the
prisons of our nation where many are coming to Christ because God is
merciful and turns wailing into dancing. The worst can be used for the
best, and that is why the thankful heart can always be thankful for the
present, for no matter what it is, it has potential for good. The very
trial you now endure can be laying the foundation for a triumph tomorrow,
and so be thankful for the present. The thankful heart is ever searching
for that diamond that is hidden in life’s dirt.
Matthew Henry, the famous Bible scholar, was once accosted by thieves
and robbed of his money. He wrote these words in his diary. “Let me be
thankful…….
First, because I was never robbed before,
Second, although they took my purse they didn’t take my life,
Third, because, although they took my all, it wasn’t much,
Fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.”
Could you be thankful for the present if it was as unpleasant as being
robbed? You could if you choose to count as someone has written-
Count your blessings instead of your crosses,
Count your gains instead of your loses,
Count your joys instead of your woes
Count your friends instead of your foes
Count your courage instead of your fears,
Count your health instead of your wealth,
Count on God instead of yourself.
One of the quickest ways there is of quenching the spirit, and thereby
withering the fruit of the spirit in our lives, is by an attitude of
ingratitude which focuses on what we do not have rather than on the
abundance which we do have. The quickest way to cure any negative mood is
by the therapy of Thanksgiving. There is healing power in praise. David
said his sack cloth was removed and he was clothed with joy,
and that is what can happen to anyone who will chance their tune from the
blues to the song of Thanksgiving.
A surprising conclusion that many have come to is that Thanksgiving is
to the Christian what swearing is to the non-Christian. It is a release,
and a therapeutic expression of emotion. The one takes the low road of the
negative, and the other takes the high road of the positive. Pastor Chase,
a Presbyterian minister, was visiting a hospital ward late at night where
two elderly women were in great pain.
Both were terminal patients. One of them was cursing God and swearing at
life. The other was thanking God for the precious memories of that life and
love had given her. She was saying with the Psalmist, “Blest the Lord O my
soul and forget not all His benefits.”
The present was unpleasant for both of these ladies, but one was
building on a broader foundation than the moment. She had a reservoir of
memories she could thank God for, and that made her thankful for the
present, for her now was not empty, but was packed with grateful memories of
the past. The past influences the present, and, therefore, every one of us
has an obligation to our future self to start being grateful for the
present, so we can have a positive past to influence our future.
This makes more sense than it sounds like, for what it means is,
everyday we are laying up a treasure of Thanksgiving that will bring healing
in some future circumstance. If we neglect being thankful for the present,
we will someday go to the medicine chest, and find it empty. If you want to
enjoy the therapeutic power of Thanksgiving do not wait until someday, start now, and thank God for the present.

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Thank God

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If all we are and all we have is a gift from God, then the best we can do is to give back to God what is already his. But this leads to a problem. The problem is, it seems like much ado about nothing. Our giving to God is like giving a thimble of water to the ocean, or like giving a candle to the Sun. It seems so insignificant that we tend to lose the thrill of Thanksgiving. Sir Michael Costa, a famous composer and conductor from Naples, was once rehearsing with a vast array of instruments and hundreds of voices. With the thunder of the organ, the roll of the drums, the sounding of the horns, and the clashing of the cymbals, the mighty chorus rang out. You can understand the mood that came over the piccolo player who said within himself, “In all this din it matters not what I do!” So he ceased to play. Suddenly, Costa stopped and flung up his arms, and all was still. He shouted out, “Where is the piccolo?” His sensitive ear missed it, and it’s absence made a difference to him. God has a sensitive ear as well, and he misses any voice that is not lifted in Thanksgiving to Him. Besides the angelic host of heaven, millions on earth join the chorus with all sorts of spectacular things to thank God for, and it is easy for us to feel like that piccolo player and say, “How can it matter what I do? In the colossal symphony of voices, what does it matter if I remain silent? God’s blessings are more than I can count, but my ability to express my thanks is so inadequate.” Simon Greenberg expresses the frustration of the thankful heart as he deals with the gifts of God just in nature alone: Five thousand breathless dawns all new; Five thousand flowers fresh in dew; Five thousand sunsets wrapped in gold; One million snowflakes served ice cold; Five quiet friends, one baby’s love; One white mad sea with clouds above; One hundred music–haunted dreams, Of moon–drenched roads and hurrying streams, Of prophesying winds, and trees, Of silent stars and browsing bees; One June night in a fragrant wood; One heart that loved and understood. I wondered when I waked that day, How–how in God’s name–I could pay! He never even got into the greatest gifts–the gifts of love and salvation and eternal life in Jesus Christ. We can’t even pay for the gifts of natural life let alone for the gifts of eternal life. So let’s face up to the reality that Thanksgiving is not a way to pay God back. All we can give is what is already His, and we can only give a fraction in return for the fullness He has given us. So forget the idea that thanks is to pay. It is not to pay, it is to pray, and to say to God, this is how I look at life, history, nature, and all that is, because I acknowledge you as my God. Thanksgiving is the expression of an attitude, or a philosophy of life. The thankful person is a person who looks at life from a unique perspective, and, therefore, sees what the ungrateful do not see. At best we see only a part, a mere fraction of God’s grace. We see through a glass darkly Paul says, and so none of us can be as thankful as we ought to be, for we are all ignorant of so much that God has spared us from, and even of what He has given us. We can get tiresome and superficial when we try to enumerate all the things for which we are thankful. One author describes the boredom of going through and endless litany of thanks: For sun and moon and stars, We thank Thee, O Lord. For food and fun and fellowship, We thank Thee, O Lord. For fish and frogs and fruit flies, We thank Thee, O Lord. By the time you are finished, what you are most thankful for is that the list is over. David here in Psalm 30 does not give us a long list, but focuses on just a few ways of looking at life that expresses the grateful heart. I hear him saying here, thank God for the past; thank God for the present, and thank God for the permanent. I. THANK GOD FOR THE PAST. David looks back and recognizes that had God not loved him, led him, and lifted him, he would have been long gone, and a part of the population of the pit. The only reason any of us are sitting here, and not lying in a cemetery is because of the grace and providence of God. There have been millions of people just our age who have gone into the grave because of war, accidents, or disease, but we are alive, and not because we are more worthy, but because we have been spared. David knew he was alive for that same reason, and he says in verse 3, “O Lord, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit.” Life has its burdens and sorrows, and sometimes we even get depressed enough to want to chuck the whole thing. David knew these dark depths as well, but most of the time we feel like David does here, and like the modern poet who wrote, Thank God I’m alive! That the skies are blue, That a new day dawns For me and you. The sun light glistens On field and on tree, And the house wren sings To his mate and to me. The whole world glows With a heavenly glee! I know there are heart–aches, A world full of strife, But thank God, O thank God, Thank God just for life. We could not say that or feel that unless we could look back to the past and see how God has spared us and protected us to this point. David saw many a good man go down in battle. Israel was a winner, but even the winners lose men, and often a great many men. Some of you have no doubt survived wars. Some of us could have been killed in the wars of our nation, as many thousands were. We were spared, and we got the chance to live, to marry, to raise children, and to have grandchildren. We have been granted the gift to be a part of history, and not because we are more worthy, but because of the grace of God. It is good for us to reflect on this, for it can help us to develop a more thankful perspective. So often we forget the enormous privilege it is just to be alive, that we become resentful and even bitter because we are only among the riches people of the world, and not literally the richest people around. The curse of comparative thinking takes its toll on all of us at come point in life. We compare ourselves to others who have been more materially blest, and who have acquired more things, and we envy them, and this envy quenches the spirit of thankfulness. Many of the most blest people alive are not happy to be alive because they are caught in this curse of comparison. There is no level of life you can arrive at where you can escape this curse. Millionaires compare themselves with multi-millionaires, and they grieve. The multi-millionaires compare themselves with billionaires, and they grieve, for they have been deprived of the highest place. Art Linkletter actually has a friend who has eight million dollars, but he is always depressed because all of his friends have at least 10 million dollars. The only cure for this curse is to change your perspective and look at life like David is doing in this Psalm. He is not comparing himself to the Pharaoh of Egypt, or to the kings of the world. He is comparing himself to those in the grave, and he likes his place better. If you have to compare, don’t look up, for by this foolish logic everybody is nobody except the man at the very top. The only one who can win the comparison game is the one that has nobody he can look up to because he is on top of everyone else. In other words, only one can win this game, for anyone else is below him and thus, by comparison are failures. But if you look the other way, and compare yourself to those who are in the grave, you are the very essence of success and superiority. How do you measure the degree of value between you and those not alive? Are you fifty percent, seventy five percent, or one hundred percent better off? Keep in mind, we are not talking about eternal life, but temporal life. The dead in Christ are with him, and are blest beyond our knowledge, but they have zero potential to enjoy the gifts of God in this earthly life. Compared to them we are infinitely blest. Therefore, let us look back, and thank God for the past and for all the ways by which He preserved us so we could be alive this day. In our pride we often think we are who we are because of our labor and wisdom. There is some truth to this, but if it hinders our sense of thankfulness to God, we need to see life from a new perspective. Did you choose to not be raised by the Mafia, and learn to live by crime? Did you choose not to be born in Ethiopia, and be starving? Did you choose not to live in Mexico City and be killed by a earthquake? Did you choose not to be a farmer in Columbia and be killed by a volcano? The list could go on for hours of all the evils you have escaped, not by your own choice and wisdom, but by the grace of God. Henry Ward Beecher said, “A proud man is seldom a grateful man for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.” David is a grateful man for he knows he has received so much more than he deserves. Let us join in the spirit of David, and thank God for all His deliverance’s of the past that bring us to the present, alive and full of potential. Thank God for the past.

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Happy New Year Revealed

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In Luke 6:20 Jesus is recorded as speaking to the literal poor and  saying, “Blessed (or happy) are ye poor for yours is the kingdom of God.” On the other hand, it would be very superficial to conclude that poverty is the biblical road to bliss. The facts of life, and the rest of Scripture no more support this than the other fallacy that riches are the key to happiness. Kim Hubbard said, “It’s pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness. Poverty and wealth have both failed.

Most of what Jesus taught about happiness does not deal with the absence or presence of possessions at all, but with what a person is in himself. The blessedness, happiness, and joy of Christ was not in anything he had, but in what he was. If our goal is to be Christlike than a happy new year for us will consist in becoming more like Him.

Happiness on its highest level is not to be found in what comes to us, but in what we come to be. That is what the beatitudes are all about. Jesus knew the importance of being happy, and that is why He begins His greatest sermon with a list of ways to be perfectly happy on earth for those who would follow Him and be citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus wishes to each of His followers, not only a happy new year, but a perpetually happy new life. Jesus expected His disciples to be the happiest people on earth. Sometimes this has been true, and sometimes not.

Tertullian, and early Christian writer, said, “The Christian saint is hilarious.” Jesus said to His own, “My joy be with you.” The fruit of the spirit is joy, and time and time again through history Christians have produced hilarious saints. A member of the Salvation Army band was once asked not to beat the drums so loud. He replied, “Lord bless you sir, since I have been converted I am so happy, I could bust the blooming drums.”

Every person wants to be happy, or if they are already reasonably happy they want to be intensely happy. William James in his classic book Varieties Of Religious Experience writes, “How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.”

Happiness is not only a result of health and peace of mind, it is also a cause of these values. Philip Gibbs in The Hidden City writes, “Unhappiness affects the internal secretions. It has an odd effect on the heart sometimes. It lowers physical resistance. It debilitates the nervous system and weakens willpower. Sometimes it leads to queer obsessions. Louis Evans went so far as to say, “More people are sick because they are unhappy than are unhappy because they are sick.”

Happiness is medicine for the body, mind, and spirit of man, and Jesus the Great Physician prescribes this medicine in its greatest potency. If we are to have a happy new year, we must know what happiness is, and how to obtain it. Our Declaration Of Independence declares that all men have certain inalienable rights such as the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There is no question about our right to pursue happiness, but there is considerable question about the chances of catching it, and the means by which it can be caught.

Happy is a word that comes from hap, which means chance. Happiness is a matter of luck for many, and when they wish you happy new year, they mean good luck-we hope you get all the breaks, and that no misfortune befalls you. The happy-go-lucky man is one who trusts to luck.

The earnest social worker said to the village reprodate, “Robert, the last time I met you, you made me very happy because you were sober. Today you have made me unhappy because you are intoxicated.” “Yes,” replied Robert with a beaming smile, “Today its my turn to be happy.” Many feel that the essence of happiness is to be intoxicated. It is fools paradise, however, and Paul warns in Eph. 5:15,18, “Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as wise,….do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” The filling of the Spirit leads to all the values that intoxication offers without any of the dangers and defects.

The joy of the Christians at Pentecost led people to accuse them of being drunk. Jesus was also accused of being a wine bibber because of His happiness in relation to sinners. The loss of power in attracting the world to the church is due in large measure to the loss of happiness. Happiness is essential, not only to the health of the individual, but to the health of the church as a whole. All men are looking for happiness, and only when they see examples of the joy of Christ in human flesh will they be attracted to the happiness He can give in forgiveness of sin, and assurance of eternal life. We want to be happy, therefore, as a means to personal health in our total being, and as a means to be used of God for attracting others to God. In this introductory message on the beatitudes it is our purpose to get a broad view of the subject of happiness before we concentrate on the specifics.

We are not interested in the purely materialistic concept of happiness. Rousseau said, “Happiness is a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.” There is some truth in this view, but nothing that is distinctly human let alone Christian. This is the happiness of a dog, a cow, or any animal. We want to look at those philosophies of happiness that rise above the animal level, and which are part of a total Christian view of happiness. These philosophies fall into two basic categories. There are those which find the key to happiness in externals, and those which find it within the mind of man.

Let’s look at the external system first. I. EXTERNAL SYSTEMS. J. M. Goad said, “Now happiness consists in activity; such is the constitution of our nature; it is a running stream, and not a stagnant pool.” Happiness is doing is the essence of this philosophy, and it is to be pursued by work. Tolstoy said, “The happiness of man consists in life, and life is in labor.” Whittier wrote, He who blesses most is blessed; And God and man shall own his worth, Who toils to leave as his bequest And added beauty to the earth.

Many are philosophers and poets who expound the doctrine of happiness through creative work. If you want to have a happy new year, you must labor, build, and create. You cannot leave it to luck. You must work to be happy. We can’t go into the biblical philosophy of work at this point, but nothing is more clear in the Bible than the truth that work is a part of God’s plan for man’s happiness. God is a worker, Jesus was a worker, and He urged His disciples to work for the night was coming. “Sweet is the sleep of the laboring man,” is the Old Testament proverb. Work gives purpose to life, and gives a person an outlet for creative energy. It brings the reward of satisfaction and material blessings.

Canon Liddon, the great English preacher, said, “The happiest days of my life have been those in which I have had the most work to do, with fair health and strength to do it.” Spurgeon, the most famous of Baptist preachers, said, “The happiest state on earth is one in which we have something to do, strength to do it with, and a fair return for what we have done.” Robert Louis Stevenson kept writing even when he was in terrible pain. He did it because it was his secret of happiness. He wrote, “There is no duty we so much under-rate as the duty of being happy.”

Helen Keller who was blind, deaf, and dumb, all of her life did so much good because she felt it was her duty to be happy. She wrote, in her book My Key Of Life, “But since I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical deprivation.” Where did she get her inspiration of such a view of happiness? She wrote, “His joyous optimism is like water to feverish lips, and has for its highest expression the 8 beatitudes.” We see then that on paper and in real lives the finding of happiness in externals is consistent with the happiness Jesus would have us possess. What we do will certainly play a large role in determining our happy new year.

This is not the whole truth, however, so we need to also consider- II. INTERNAL SYSTEMS. Centuries ago Cicero said, “A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.” You can do all kinds of great work, but if you are filled with fear and anxiety all your labor will not make you happy. Jesus recognized the basic need for peace of mind and heart, and this was one of the greatest gifts He offered to men. “Blessed are the pure in heart,” puts the emphasis on the inner nature of happiness. Henrich Ibsen wrote, “Happiness is above all things, the calm, glad certainty of innocence.” Here is peace and purity combined. It is the peace of sin forgiven and eliminated.

No one can dispute the internal nature of happiness. Jesus says the externals can be such as to make you mourn, and you can be in the midst of persecution, and yet it is possible to be happy because happiness is not dependant upon the externals. This means that the handicapped, the old, and the ill can still experience true happiness, even if they cannot work and create. This is what lead Joshua Liebman to write his book Peace Of Mind, which lead to an avalanche of books on the subject both Christian and secular. The danger of the peace of mind and happiness cults is that they make this partial grasp of truth the whole, and expect to find the ultimate in the mind. This is not new, for Seneca the ancient Roman said, “Unblessed is he who thinks himself unblest.” There is basic truth here, for Jesus said, “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” You can build a strong case for the totally internal system of happiness.

Epicurus, the ancient philosopher, said, “Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.” Paul would not reject this partial truth of a pagan, for he said, “I have learned to be content in whatever state I am.” Paul found happiness in the power of positive thinking. The truth of happiness by means of peace of mind is universally recognized. We had a Hindu from India for dinner on one Christmas. He was a vegetarian from a community of vegetarians. He said that the motive behind not eating animals was compassion on all life. Some carried this to a greater extreme than others. Some of his people ate supper at 5:30 rather than 7 or 8 like most. They do this for peace of mind. If they ate later they would need to turn on their lamps, and dozens of bugs would come to the light and be killed. So they eat before the sun goes down, and avoid the needless killing. This gives them peace of mind and makes them happy.

We see then that both the external and internal views of happiness are valid in that both do account for much of what we call happiness in human life. Both are recognized by Christians and non-Christians alike. This means that in themselves neither of these systems of happiness are distinctly Christian. The reason we have looked at them briefly is that we might recognize that Christian truth does not eliminate pre-Christian or non-Christian truth, but rather gathers up the fragments and unifies them into a whole.

Jesus magnifies the meaning of happiness, and He goes beyond the systems men have expounded so as to be all inclusive. Jesus introduces something strikingly new into the philosophy of happiness with His beatitudes. They are paradoxes in that they include among the happy those that the systems of men exclude. Jesus is saying, even those who are not happy according to the philosophies of men can be happy. Even the unhappy can be happy. That is the paradox of His teaching on happiness. His is the only truly universal philosophy of happiness, for no person needs to be excluded. The happiness He can give is not only universal, but it is unique in that He adds to the external and internal the third dimension of the eternal. The happiness of Christ is lasting, whereas the best that men can offer is temporal.

What happens to the happiness in work philosophy when the boss says you are getting a raise because they want your last week to be a happy one? What happens to the happiness in the peace of mind philosophy when tragedy strikes? In a moment all the happiness men can gain by their philosophies can be shattered. Goethe said, “The highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last.” Because this is so we need to move into a new and lasting dimension of happiness in which we grasp and comprehend the teachings of Jesus in the beatitudes.  

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THE ORDER OF HEAVEN

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In the sixth century B. C. a boy by the name of Pythagorus grew up with his father, who was a gem-engraver. He noticed that gemstones came in regular geometric shapes. The beryl was a hexagon, the garnet was a 12 sided crystal, and each gem had it’s own unique order. This observation was the beginning of what we call science. If gems have a special order to their nature, that makes it possible to classify them. This carries over to the study of all reality. He went on to discover that a pitch of a note on the seven string lyre depends on the length of the string. Music is thus, also, a matter of order. The whole universe was a cosmos–a creation of order.

He saw order everywhere, and modern science has confirmed his view. It has discovered that every atom of the universe has a very specific order with a certain number of electrons. T he simplest atom has just one electron, and the next two, and the next three, and without skipping a number, on up to 109 electrons. Each is a different element–one of the building blocks of the universe. The last few are created by man, and are not natural. What is fascinating is, it all began with the order seen in gemstones. Jewels led man to the discovery of order in his world, and we will see that jewels also lead us to the discovery of the order of heaven. The task of science is to discover order in God’s creation. The task of theology is to discover order in God’s revelation.

The vision God gave John of the New Jerusalem is a vision of precise and exquisite order. Pythagours said, everything can be described in numbers. That was a profound insight, for numbers are the ultimate symbol of order. God is the great mathematician, and everything He has made has a number. 12 is the number of the heavenly city. If we could send mail to those in heaven the address would always be 12 Gold Street. It has 12 gates with 12 angels at them, and the 12 tribes of Israel written on them. It has 12 foundations with the names of the 12 apostles on them. It is 12,000 stadia long, wide, and high. A perfect square of 12ness. It’s walls are 144 cubits thick, that is exactly 12 times 12. The foundations are decorated with 12 precious stones, and there are 12 gates which are 12 pearls. In case you haven’t guessed, it is no accident that everything about the heavenly city is described by the number 12. This is a significant number all through God’s Word.

If we look at the element with 12 electrons in it’s atom, we will be looking at magnesium. It just so happens that this element is basic to light and life. When you see an old movie with a photographer under a hood, and an explosive flash, that is magnesium powder. Today we have flash bulbs, with a network of magnesium wires, to give the flash. The flares used to light the battlefield at night are burning magnesium. This number 12 element, not only gives light, it is the key to using light to produce life. Chlorophyl traps the energy of the sun that keeps all green plants alive. Every chlorophyl molecule contains one atom of magnesium. Without it chlorophyl will not work, and all plant and animal life will die. There is only about three fourths of an ounce of magnesium in our bodies. Most of it is in the bones, but without it our bodies would not survive. The number12 is vital to the order of life in both time and eternity.

The point is, God is God of order. The first picture we have of God in the Bible, is that of a Creator, who takes a formless chaotic mass, and turns it into an orderly universe. He does so by a systematic and orderly process. He did not say, let there be animals, and then, when they began to die like flies from starvation, say, I guess I should have started with plant life. God is not haphazard. George Adam Smith, the great scholar, said, “The All-mighty and all-merciful is also the all-methodical too.”

Every science is a study of some aspect of God’s creation, and in each case it is a study of order. If there was no pattern in the movement of the sun, moon, planets, and stars, there could be no such thing as astronomy. Science depends upon order, and mathematical precision for it’s existence. You cannot classify chaos. If there was no pattern–no rhyme or reason why anything worked the way it does–there could be no science. It only exists because God is a God of order. We see it in His creation, and also in the laws He gave to Israel.

God’s laws gave order to society. They enabled people to live with proper patterns of behavior, and with responsibility. Take law out of society, and you lose harmony and beauty. There is no happiness without order, but only anarchy. The perfect picture of order in the New Jerusalem is a symbolic way of telling us heaven is the ultimate in harmony and happiness. Heaven is perfect order, and thus, the ultimate in beauty.

If you study architecture, art, music, language, landscaping, or just about any subject, the key to beauty is order. All beauty is based on some kind of order. Look at anything you consider beautiful, and you will see order. If all the books in a library were thrown together in piles, with no order whatsoever, they would be of little value. If the dictionary or encyclopedia were printed with no order, they would be worthless. It is the alphabetical order that makes them, and the phone book, and many other tools, so valuable. An orderly arrangement of things make them beautiful and useful. When something does not work we say it is out of order. Therefore, when something does work, it is in order.

Music is simply sound in the proper order. Out of order those same sounds are called noise or racket. Get them in proper order, and you can be moved to sing, rather than be annoyed. Order is the characteristic of all that is good, true, and beautiful. The reason we love all the values that order brings in life is because we are made in the image of God, and the very essence of God’s nature is order.

The essence of sin, on the other hand, is disorder. It is to be out of harmony with God, man, and nature. I have a misprinted concordance to the Bible, and some pages are missing, and others are in the wrong place. The N does not follow the M, and the P does not follow the O. Any book that does not follow the proper sequence is a nuisance, and a source of irritation. This is what man is to God when he sins. He is out of order. He is not fulfilling his purpose, and therefore, no longer a useful tool.

The goal of God is to restore order where it has been lost. To be saved, is to be restored to harmony with God and man. It is to become a useful tool again to achieve God’s purpose. The cross has become a symbol of beauty, because on it, Jesus gained the victory over death, decay, and chaos, and restored fallen man to fellowship with God. Jesus destroyed the work of the devil and restored order. The perfected order of the New Jerusalem is the final result of all that the cross accomplished.

Everything in the New Jerusalem is arranged for beauty and symmetry. There are not two gates on one side and four on the other, but each of the four sides have perfect symmetry with three gates on each side. There are no loose strings or rough edges. All is a work of art pleasing to the eye of both God and man. They will share together in perfect harmony all the aesthetic pleasures God has imparted from His nature to man. God is the architect, artist, and jeweler, who put together this holy city for an eternal environment of order.

Keep in mind, the city represents the Bride of Christ–the people of God–and so, this perfect order has implications for what the redeemed will be in their resurrected bodies. Spurgeon, the great and eloquent preacher, sums it up in this paragraph- “The body is to be changed. What alteration will it undergo? It will be rendered perfect. The body of a child will be fully developed, and the dwarf will attain to full stature. The blind shall not be sightless in Heaven, neither shall the lame be halt, nor shall the palsied tremble.

The deaf shall hear, and the dumb shall sing God’s praises. We shall carry none of our deficiencies or infirrnities to Heaven. As good Mr. Ready-to-Halt did not carry his crutches there, neither shall any of us need a staff to lean upon there we shall not know an aching brow, a weak knee or a failing eye. ” The inhabitant shall no more say: ‘ I am sick.’ ” And it shall be an impassive body-a body that will be incapable of any kind of suffering. No palpitating heart, no sinking spirit, no aching limbs, no lethargic soul shall worry us there.

No, we shall be perfectly delivered from every evil of that kind. Moreover, it shall be an immortal body. Our risen bodies shall not be capable of decay, much less of death. There are no graves in Glory. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for their bodies shall rise never to know death and corruption a second time.” Now let me throw in some theological speculation. The question has been asked millions of times. Why did God let man fall, and let the world become so full of disharmony? Why did God allow evil to ever exist? It is a question often asked, but seldom answered to anybody’s satisfaction.

The best answer is that God could not have free willed beings, like man, and not allow sin as a possibility. Let me add some detail to this that makes it even more likely. The only way I can ever create anything of beauty and order is to first make a mess. To create a sermon I have to get books, file folders, and papers all over my desk. I create a chaos first in order to assemble the resources for an orderly sermon. Out of chaos comes order. If there was already order there would be nothing to create. You need to start with non order, just as God did. This is part of all creativity. The scene of a beautiful building is first a mess of dirt, ugly holes, and piles of material in disarray. But out of this chaos the beauty of order takes shape, and all the disorder is removed. Artists often make a mess in creating beauty, and so it is with authors, poets, and every other form of creation.  God’s goal is the beautiful heavenly city of ultimate order. To achieve this end, He to needed to go through the process of overcoming chaos and disorder. It is the paradox of the universe that the good, the true, the beautiful are established by overcoming the bad, the false and the ugly. That is the battle of all human creativity, and it is God’s battle as well. The more disorder is overcome and order established, the greater is the beauty. The reason we comb our hair is to restore order out of chaos. We are always seeking order in all aspects of life. Flowers are beautiful in themselves, but man has found a way to make them even more beautiful, by putting them in order. Flower arranging is an art and some people are gifted in putting them in such order that they achieve their highest level of beauty. The greater the order the greater the beauty, and the New Jerusalem is a place of perfected order.

What are the practical implications of the perfect order of heaven? The obvious one is, that if order is our final destiny, then that is to be our goal for this life as well. The great commandments are to love God with all your being, and your neighbor as yourself. What is this, but another way of saying, God’s will for us is that we live with order in our lives. Love is the highest order in the spiritual realm. God is love. God has the most beautiful and harmonious emotions with perfect balance. His choices are always loving, and His responses are always just and fair. A loving person is one who has all their emotions in proper order, and balance so that they are beautiful in attitude and action. When we embody God’s love, we are appealing, for others can see the balance and harmony in how we relate to people. We are examples of order, and thus of beauty.

When we reveal prejudices, bitterness, and lack of forgiveness, and any other lack of love, people can see the disorder in our lives. None of us are yet part of the perfected beautiful Bride of the Lamb. Christians display every sin, defect, and disharmony in the book. But, our destiny is to be constantly before us to motivate us toward a greater life of order and beauty.

Stanley Shipp travels alot, and one day on plane they were told there was a delay, and they had to get off and wait in the terminal. It was a long wait, and when they got back on they had to wait another half hour. When they were ready to go a man came on and said, “I ask for an aisle seat, and this is a center seat.” Stanley jumped up and said, “Here, you can have this one.” “No! “he said angrily, ” I don’t want your seat! ” Then he took off his coat in disgust, wadded it up, and threw it in the baggage compartment overhead, slammed the door shut, and sat down. Stanley got up, opened the compartment door, took out his coat, shook it, folded it neatly, put it back smooth and straight, and sat back down. The man said to him, “What do you do for a living?” Stanley said, “I teach people how to live.” The man nodded his head and said, “Start teaching.” Here was a Christian man seeking to restore order in a chaotic life. That is what Christian living is all about.

Love is the desire to create order, and make things beautiful. Because we love order, we arrange our furniture so as to make it as pleasing as possible. We strive to match our clothes so we are appealing to the eye. We strive to organize our desk, and any other area which tends to get messy. The good life is the ordered life. Plato said the order of the universe makes it clear that God is a creator of order, and that man should be able to order his life and government so as to please God.

The heavens are to be a model for life on earth. If He could see this in creation, how much more are Christians to see it in the revelation of the order of the heaven? This picture of the holy city is to be our model for life. This city is the final work of art of the master artist. It is His own perfection imparted to those He has redeemed. His Bride is just like Him-perfect.

Jesus had to face a fallen world of imperfection and disorder. That is why His ministry began with the temptation in the wilderness. The goal of Satan was to throw Jesus into a state of disorder. Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, that prince of expositors, describes this great confrontation. “The king must not only be in perfect harmony with the order and beauty of the heavens, he must fact all the disorder and ugliness of the abyss. Goodness at it’s highest He knows, and is; evil at it’s lowest he must face and overcome. And so in the wilderness he stands as humanity’s representative between the two, responding to the one and refusing the other.”

Jesus won that battle for order, and the result is this picture of perfection for His Bride. But until that ultimate order of heaven is a reality, we must fact this challenge daily to choose order over disorder. Dr. Paul Faulkner in, Making Things Right, says the world is a place of “ubiquitous ambivalence,” which means, it is messed up everywhere. Life is full of disorder, and it is our job to straighten it out wherever we can. Phil. 2:14 says, “Do all things without grumbling or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure–in a crooked generation in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.” Order is the name of the game, and we will not be finished until we enjoy with our Lord forever, the order of heaven.

 Based on Rev. 21:9-21

The End Days

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  I just read a sermon that was spread across this country in a major periodical. The title was “The Days Of Noah Repeated.” The point of the message was that when we see the conditions of our world become like those in the days of Noah, then we know the end is near. In other words he is saying that Jesus is giving us signs to look for so we can know when His coming is at hand. He then goes on to show how our day parallels that of Noah, and so we see the signs of the end everywhere. There is only one mistake in the sermon, and that is that he totally ignores the point of Jesus in this paragraph.

 The essence of what Jesus is saying here is that there are no signs of His coming. It is, in fact, so secret that no one knows just when it will be, not even the angels in heaven who are in on all God does, and not even the Son. This is one bit of information so highly classified that only God the Father knows. Then Jesus illustrates the point of it being totally unknown by referring to the days of Noah. In those days before the flood he says they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage, and just living life as usual with no sign of judgment about to fall, when all of the sudden the flood came and swept them all away.

 That is the way it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. People will be just carrying on life as normal. Two men will be in the field, and one will be a Christian and the other an unbeliever, and the Christian will have no more idea than the unbeliever. Two women will be grinding at the mill, and neither will have any idea that the day of the Lord is near. The whole point of this passage is that the coming of Christ will be totally unknown, and be a surprise to Christians and non-Christians alike. Those who greet it with joy, and those face it as judgment, are all in the same boat. They have no idea when it will happen.

 The people of Noah’s day were wicked, but Jesus does not refer to that here, for that is not the point. The point is, they were totally unaware to the judgment coming on them. It took them completely by surprise, and so they coming of Christ will be completely unexpected. People will be eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, and suddenly in the midst of life as usual the end will come. Many twist this passage to say that Jesus is giving signs of His coming, and they ramble on for pages about how Jesus is saying how awful they were in their eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage. They take what Jesus is saying to be just normal life of any generation of people, and they go on and on about drunkenness and adultery, and point out how we live in just such an age like that of Noah. It is all true, but it has nothing to do with what Jesus is teaching here.

 If you think eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage is describing awful wickedness, then you need some therapy. This is the description of life as usual for Christians as well as non-Christians. To twist this into some kind of description of depravity is to ignore the meaning of language. Jesus does not refer to a single sin of that generation, because that is not His point. His point is that they just went about life as usual unknowing of the fact that the end was right at the door. In contrast to the thousands of sermons preached on this passage as a sign passage, Jesus is teaching that there are no signs. That is the point. You have to be ready at all times, for He will come when life is just going along as usual, and nobody is expecting the end.

 This is in total contrast to the teaching He has just given on the signs of the coming of judgment on Jerusalem in 70 A. D. Jesus knew every detail of that event, and of His coming in judgment. In verse 15 He says when they see the abomination of desolation that is the time to flee to the mountains. Luke clarifies this for us and tells us exactly when this is in Luke 21:20. “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” Jesus makes the sign of the end of Jerusalem so clear that the blind could see it. Then in verse 29 He says the other signs in the heavens will be immediately after the tribulation of those days, and He goes on to say that when you see the leaves on the fig tree you know summer is near, and so when you see all these things you know the end is near right at the door.

 Now notice that everything about the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A. D. is sign oriented, and there is evidence galore when it is to take place. All of it will happen in that generation Jesus said. The whole point of all the signs is because Jesus wanted His people to escape this awful judgment. Then in verse 35 there is a transition where Jesus says that “heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” Just when will this final end take place-this passing of the heaven and earth, and the beginning of the new heaven and earth? This is not just the end of Jerusalem and the temple, but of the whole world. Jesus now deals with His final second coming, and it is in total contrast to that of 70 A. D. with all of its signs. There is no sign whatever, for He was without a clue, and so is everyone else.

 There is no sign to watch so that you can flee anywhere. There is no where to go for this coming anyway, for it is the end of the world. Getting to the mountains can save you from the Roman army, but it won’t do you any good at the end of the world. The whole point of Jesus in dealing with His final coming is, nobody knows, and there are no signs to be given, and so you have to be ready for the end at all times. Those who are careless in not watching for the Lord’s return will risk getting side tracked and out of His will, and they will face judgment when He comes.

 Jesus will come like a thief in the night, and no thief gives signs of his coming. He does not put a marker out front saying, “Hit this home at 11P.M. on Saturday night.” So also Jesus does not give us signs of when He will come, for if He would have said it will be in the year 2002, then every generation of Christians up to that year could be careless and unprepared for it. In order to keep every Christian in every generation on alert, Jesus had to keep the time of His coming secret and unknown, and that is the whole point of the closing part of this chapter. There is a sign filled coming of Jesus in judgment in 70 A D., but His final coming is a signless coming.

 Jesus expected all Christians to see through a glass darkly on the issue of His coming. Nobody who listens to Jesus will be persuaded by any sign fanatic that they have figured out the schedule. God did not let Jesus use that schedule, and it is presumptuous for any man to think he has been able to calculate it. But in spite of this clear teaching of Jesus many godly men and women have spent a major portion of their lives trying to figure out the exact time of the second coming. They are often ingenious, and when you read them you are almost persuaded they must have some validity. The only problem is that they are trying to go over the head of Jesus. He said you can’t know, but they are saying that you can. Many have chosen to follow them, but I choose to follow Jesus and recognize that all schemes for prediction His coming are not only always wrong, but they are a form of rebellion against His Lordship.

 Life will be going along as usual, and there will no particular reason in the world why this should be the end, and then like a lightening flash it will be over, and the day of judgment will be upon the world like the flood in the day of Noah. You don’t need to be a Sherlock Holmes to find the clues Jesus is dropping all over the place in reference to His coming in 70 A. D. in judgment. But the best in the business will not find a clue to His final coming, because Jesus says there is no clue. It will be a surprise for everyone, and so be ready.

 What does that mean? Do we stand gazing into the sky? Of course not. By watching He means be doing what He expects you to be doing. Don’t be like a servant who thinks his Lord is gone for a long time, and so he can goof off and abuse his privileges and power, and let his duties go undone. The watching servant is one who goes on faithfully doing the master will, and taking care of his household no matter how long he is away. Watching is simply being faithful so that whenever he comes it doesn’t make any difference, for you are ready to meet him as one who is living in obedience.

 It you are not living for Jesus and seeking to fulfill His will as a servant of the body, He will not be impressed that you have calculated that there are more people eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage than ever before, or any other such nonsense. He did not leave the church in the world to calculate and collect signs of His coming. He left the church to fulfill His purpose for coming, which is to gather His bride from all the nations of the world to live with Him in a new world forever. It was the Christians job to figure out the signs of His coming in 70 A. D. so they could escape the tribulation. It is not their job to figure out when the final coming will be, for there is no escape from that coming for anyone. You need to be ready for it at all times, for there will no sign to warn you ahead of time.

 So what do Christians do in their lust for signs of the times? They get around Jesus on a technicality. Jesus says in verse 36 that no one knows about that day or hour, but He does not say they do not know the month or week. So you can’t nail it down to the day or hour, but they go off seeking all the signs that will tell you when it will be approximately. I’m sure Jesus is just telling us we can’t know the exact day or hour, but that we can get real close. This sort of thing is seen in every book on the signs of the times, and Christians eat them up like they were inspired by the Lord Himself, when, in fact, they are calling Jesus a liar. I agree with the judgment of Charles Spurgeon, that king of preachers. He wrote, “Some would-be-prophets have rested this verse from its evident meaning by saying, though we can’t know the day and hour of Christ’s coming, we may know the year, the month, and even the week. If this method of treating the words of Jesus is not blasphemous, it is certainly foolish, and betrays disloyalty to the King.”

 The whole attitude of sign seekers is contrary to that of Jesus. He is teaching that since it can’t be known when the end is coming, you have to be ready always and live life constantly in consistency with His Lordship. The sign seekers are saying its time to shape up, for we see the evidence that He is near. Dr. Robert Mounce said this in an article in Eternity Magazine: “This approach seems to say that what is really important is to be in good shape at that particular point in time when Christ returns. (Its the old I-don’t-want-to-be-caught-in-there-when-Jesus-returns syndrome). It suggests in a veiled way that the mark we get on ethical report card is the mark we happen to receive on the pop quiz given at the Parousia rather the cumulative grade for the entire course.”

 If the threat of war, economic turmoil, unprecedented earthquakes, and other natural disasters motivate you to a deeper Christian life, you are marching to the wrong drum. If you listen to Jesus, you will live that life regardless of any signs, for it is those Christians who always seek a deeper walk in good or bad times who will be ready when He comes. Those who only get deeper when things get terrible will not be ready when He comes at a time unexpected, and when all is normal and routine.

 If the words of Jesus are not enough for you, and you need a sign to motivate you, there is a danger that the sign is your idol. Sign seeking is a form of idolatry, and Christians dance around it like the people of God in the Old Testament danced around the golden calf. Because Christians will not believe Jesus, and be ready for His coming regardless of any signs, they are living in disobedience. Spurgeon says of verse 36, “There is a manifest change in our Lord’s words here, which clearly indicates that they refer to His last great coming in judgment.” There is no escape from this event. All you can do is be ready for it, and be prepared to face it at any time.

 The greatest danger of the Christian is to think there is no sense of urgency. It has been a long time now and no second coming, and so it is not something to be very concerned about. There is a story about three demons who came to Satan with a plot against man. One said, “I will tell then their is not God.” Satan said, “That will not be very effective, for the evidence is too great.” The second said, “I will tell them there is no hell.” “That is better,” Satan responded, “but still man knows there has to be a judgment.” The third said, “I will tell them there is no hurry.” “Excellent,” said Satan, “go, for your plan will be most successful.”

 Christians fall for it too, and think there is always time in the future to be more committed to Christ, and more time to do His service. Even Christians can get so caught up in the routine of life and forget they have a mission. When were Christians to be ready to flee from Jerusalem? When they saw the signs that Jesus gave them. When are Christians to be ready for His final coming? They are to be always ready, for His coming will be unexpected and sudden. It could be that you haven’t heard of an earthquake for months, and wars are not in the news, and disasters are rare, and then like a thief in the night, or like a flash of lightning, Christ will come and all will be over, and there will be no more time to do His will. Wise is that servant who is always doing what pleases his master, for he will never be taken by surprise by His return.

 The Israelites did not know when Moses would return from the mountain, and so they fell into idolatry. The not knowing is a test of loyalty, and they failed the test. Not knowing when Jesus will return is a test of our loyalty. The one who needs signs to get ready is like the unfaithful wife who only stops seeing other men when she gets a letter saying her husband is arriving back from his trip the next day. The faithful wife is ready at all times for she is faithful regardless of when he will return, and she lives in constant anticipation of his return. The unfaithful wife needs signs to get ready, but the faithful wife needs no signs for she is always ready. The unfaithful Christian may be dabbling in false cults, and new age thinking, or questionable practices, and needs some sign to know when to shape up and put his full trust in Jesus. The faithful Christian does not need any sign, for he walks in obedience to Jesus all the time.

 Being ready for the coming of Christ is not a seasonal thing, or a matter of some sensational news event in the world. It is a matter of just solid commitment to Christ, and a living of the life that pleases Him. It is a seeking first the kingdom of God. The unfaithful servant in v. 48 just forgets his master’s will and does his own thing. He becomes a pain in the household of the master. We need to have the spirit of Luther who said, “I live as though Jesus Christ died yesterday, rose today, and were coming again tomorrow.”

 Someday Jesus is going to say, “Here I come, ready or not.” The wise Christian does not need to fear that day, for he, or she, lives with a spirit that is ready any day. Signs just get people alarmed, and that is just what Jesus did not want to happen. He did not want all of the wars and other bad news to get Christians all upset and emotional so they do not keep a balanced Christian witness. John R. Rice was one of the most anti-sign preachers I have ever known about. You cannot escape his logic if you believe what Jesus is saying. He writes, “I do not mean to state emphatically that “Jesus is coming soon,” as so many people say. He may; He may not come for five hundred years. No one knows. But His coming is possible at any moment and something we should expect.

 I do not mean that certain signs have appeared which indicate His coming is soon. We do not need signs; we need only to believe and heed His plain statements in the Bible. He commanded us to watch, and we should watch, knowing that He may come at any time. I do not mean that there is any evidence that we are “in the end of the age” or that these are “the closing days,” as so many people say. That is wrong and unscriptural. Nobody knows how close to the end we are.

 When we say that the coming of Jesus Christ is imminent, we do not mean that there is any special evidence that this age is drawing to an end. We simply mean that He may come at any moment, as He said, and we should watch. We should not expect Christ’s coming because of world events but because He said for us to expect Him. We should expect His coming Not by sight but by faith; not by the newspapers, but by the Word of God. An any moment-day or night-He may come to call all the redeemed-Those who sleep in Christ, and us who are alive and remain-up with them to meet Him in the air.

 The time of Christ’s return is deliberately and intentionally left in the Realm of the unrevealed. It is presumptuous for people to set out to know what God has plainly declared is not to be known. Nearly all fortunetellers play on this carnal longing to know the future. Nearly all the false cults some way appeal to me on this basis.” The debate over when Jesus will come has been going on for centuries, but way back in the 4th century St. Augustine settled the issue according to the words of Christ. He said, “He who loves our Lord’s coming is not he who asserts that it is near or he who asserts that it is far off; but rather he who, whether it be near or distant, waits for Him with sincerity of faith, steadfastness of hope and fervor of love.”

 There are many books written on the signs of Christ’s coming. The one thing they all have in common is that they have always been wrong in predicting the coming. Some sign expert will eventually be right, for he will live in the day that Jesus actually does come, but meanwhile all sign literature will go the way of the history of such literature, and end up in oblivion. Wise are those who cease to play the sign seeking game, and get busy doing something constructive for the kingdom of God. Jesus will be pleased with such a servant when He does arrive and fulfill His signless coming.

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THE GREATEST SON

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Because Christ sat down in glory, as the mighty Captain of our salvation, our salvation is a matter of certainty. We are now more than conquerors in him (Rom. 8:28-39).” This truth makes me respond with poetry.

Next to God Jesus is seated;

In humility we bow.

Never will it be repeated;

Sin has been atoned for now.

He has won the right to reign there

On the throne at God’s right hand.

None can with His glory compare.

We in awe before Him stand.

In Him we find all our treasure.

None can surpass His great name.

In Him is our greatest pleasure.

Praise the Lord our Savior came.

None in heaven, nor on the earth

Is superior to Him.

We now with the most joyous mirth

Surrender our all to Him.

We His praises will ever sing

As before His throne we fall.

We acknowledge He is our King;

King of kings and Lord of all.

They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?” He (Jesus) replied, “You are right in saying I am.” (Luke 22:70)

The Annunciation: The angel Gabriel told the virgin Mary that her son would be called “the Son of God”. (Luke 1:32,35)

The Baptism: God’s voice from heaven proclaimed: This is my Son, whom I love.” (Matthew 3:17, etc.)

The Transfiguration: God’s voice once again proclaimed: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to Him.” (Mark 9:7, etc.)

The Crucifixion: The Roman centurion and his men confessed at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion: “Surely he was the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:54)

The Resurrection: St. Paul writes that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead declared Him to be “the Son of God”. (Romans 1 :4)

Madmen and even unclean spirits confessed to Jesus: “You are the Son of God.” (Mark 3:11; cf. 5:7; Matthew 8:29; Luke 4:41; 8:28) .

Jesus’ disciples also confessed that He is “the Christ (Messiah), the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16; cf. 14:33).

 Jesus, as a true Son, preferred to give glory to His Father, but He too would not deny His Sonship (Matthew26:63f.; Mark 14:62; John 10:36).

Of interest in the first two of these passages (and others) is the close association between the terms “Messiah” and “Son of God”.

 

It is also interesting to note how closely Jesus’ Sonship is associated with His suffering (Romans 5:10; 8:32; Galatians 2:20; Hebrews 5:8; 6:6) .

When Jesus was famished after a long fast, the tempter said to Him: “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread” (Matthew 4:3, etc.).

When Jesus was in agony on the cross, the passersby mocked Him and said: “Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:40).

Matt 16:13-17 13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am?” 14 And they said, “Some say that Thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias (Elijah); and others, Jeremias (Jeremiah), or one of the prophets.” 15 He saith unto them, “But Whom say ye that I am?” 16 And Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” 17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona (Peter): for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in Heaven.”

Every man in history except Adam has been a son of someone, but Jesus alone is the Son of God. By faith in Him we become a part of the family of God, and we are His brothers, and that makes us sons of God, or children of God. We only become this by our relationship to Jesus as our Savior, but He has been the Son of God for all eternity. Many have the right to claim to be a son of God, but no one but Jesus has the right to claim to be the Son of God. It is the uniqueness of His Sonship that is stressed in the words that call Jesus the only begotten Son.

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THE GLORY OF HEAVEN

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Try to picture in your mind a cake of ice one and a half mile square. Just imagine a total square
mile of ice, and half of the next mile, and then imagine that enormous block rising into the sky, not
just to the height of an ice cube, not even to the height of the Empire State Building, but rather, to
the height of 93 million miles. In other words, from the earth to the sun. Scientists have calculated
that this gigantic cake of ice could be completely melted in just 30 seconds, if the full power of the
sun could be focused on it.
This is power so staggering that almost anything you can say about the sun is an understatement.
It’s like the guy who watched the first atomic bomb test, and said after the explosion, that stuff is
dynamite. The sun is so powerful we do not have terms to describe it’s energy. At it’s core, where
the temperature is 13 million degrees centigrade, 4 million tons of hydrogen explode every second.
Man has not, since the dawn of civilization, used that much energy. The sun does this every second
of every day, and has done so since God created it.
Believe it or not, the children of God will go on shining and radiating with even greater energy
than the sun, even after the sun has passed away. John says in verse 23, that this great light will not
be needed in the new Jerusalem-the heavenly city. The glory of God is so great that no created
source of light is necessary. Neither sun nor moon are needed, for there will never be a night. There
can be no darkness in the presence of God.
Here we see an example of how the final paradise is not a replica of the first paradise. We are not
just getting back to Adam and Eve in Christ. Salvation is much more than mere restoration. The
first paradise was far from perfect, for it had in it the potential for the fall. In Christ we go forward
to perfection, and to the fulfillment of God’s ideal plan. The first paradise did need the sun and
moon, for God had not revealed His full glory, as He will in the final paradise. The poet has said,
No need for the sun in that glory-filled land,
The sun would itself there be dim!
That land where the shadows or twilight ne’r come,
Where the light and the glory are “Him.”
This was the glory the prophet Isaiah promised to Israel in Isa. 60:19, “The sun shall be no more
your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you by night, But the Lord will be
your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.” T here will be no dark ages in the New
Jerusalem, as there was in the old Jerusalem. Many of God’s people have had to endure seasons of
darkness, but never again in that city, for as verse 25 says, there shall be no night there.
He who is the Light of this world, and the Creator of all light, will be the lamp of the city. He is
the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, and thus, He becomes the Lamp of God that
takes away the darkness forever. There can be no night in His presence.
There is no night of things unknown, uncertain,
Things which now try the heart to make it strong.
There is no night-there is no veiling curtain,
Just light, and bliss, and joy, and endless song.
Take away the sun from our solar system, and we are plunged into endless night. So will it be,
for those who are not in the holy city. Hell is always pictured as a place of darkness, in contrast to
heaven where there is only light. There are only two destinies-light and night. The persecuted
Christians, who first read this book, and who lived in the darkness of Catacombs of Rome, would be
so encouraged to know that their future would be one of never ending light and glory.
John lists all kinds of things that will not be heaven, for there is no way to describe the positives,
except by the absence of their opposites. What will not be there is enough to boggle the mind, and
give us endless motivation to speculate on what it must be like to be where no evil can ever be.
Not all that is absent from heaven is evil. There is nothing evil about the sun or the moon, and
even night is a blessing in this world where we need sleep. It is not just the bad that is gone, but
even the good, when it is not the best. Many good things will be absent just because the good is not
necessary in the presence of the best. If you are in a dark room, because the storm has knocked out
the lights, you are grateful for the candle. But when the lights come on again, you do not continue
to burn the candle. It was good, but it was not the best. It goes back into the drawer, for when you
have the best the good is not needed.
This is illustrated by John telling us in verse 22, that there will be no temple there. What a
vacuum this would have created in the old Jerusalem. It was the most dramatic tragedy in Judaism
when the temple was destroyed. Christians did not need to get bent out of shape over it, however, for
John makes it clear, the temple is not eternal, but only temporal anyway. It was only a means to an
end, and when the end is achieved, the means are no longer necessary. When the building is
completed the scaffolding is removed, and nobody misses it, for it is no longer needed. The phone is
an excellent means of communicating with someone, but if that person is present, the phone is no
longer a help, but a hindrance. The phone is good, but the presence is best, and when the best is here
the good is gone.
In heaven there is no need for a place to go to worship God. He is everywhere present to all His
people. God and His Son are the temple, and they are everywhere. There is no need for a special
place to go to be in their presence. We will dwell in that presence, and there will no longer be a
distinction between secular and sacred. The temple, therefore, becomes totally obsolete in heaven.
Here is a great city that needs no church. In heaven we never have to go to church, for there is no
church to go to. This may be a real appeal to many-no more church forever. But keep in mind, the
reason you never have to go to church is because you are always in church-that is, you are always in
the presence of God.
The temple was the center of worship in Israel, but in Christianity the center is a person, and not a
place. Jesus Christ becomes our center of worship, and so the church becomes a transition between
Judaism and the eternal kingdom. The church never completely gets away from the idea of place,
however. The building, the church worships in, becomes known also as the church, and so the place
still is a vital part of the concept of church. In heaven, the place will fade completely, and the person
will be all in all, for there will be no place-no temple, in which worship takes place. Heaven is
Christianity finalized and fulfilled.
This has a powerful lesson for time. The goal of history in God’s plan, is to eliminate the
distinction between the sacred and the secular. In heaven we do all for the glory of God. If it be
eating at the marriage banquet of the Lamb, or enjoying the fruit from the Tree of Life, or admiring
the jewels sparkling in the city walls, or serving God in manifold ways, all is sacred. The more we
can bring the two together now, the more we will enjoy a truly spiritual life. To be able to enjoy the
secular life as a part of the sacred, is the ideal. We need to learn to do all that we do for the glory of
God. Our secular tasks will then be a part of our spiritual life.
When we get to heaven, all that was symbolic of the best to come, will be gone. You do not cling
to the picture of a loved one, when the loved one walks into your presence. Symbols will no longer
be needed, and that is why the temple will be no more. On the cross, Jesus removed the veil in the
temple. When He comes again, and receives us to Himself, He will remove the temple itself. No
one will ever have to come to God again, for God has come to all. Christians argue a lot about
whether or not the temple will be rebuilt, but there is no doubt, the temple will not be a part of the
eternal Jerusalem. It will be a templeless eternity, because it will be a Christ-centered eternity.
Spurgeon wrote, “What a glorious hour when God and not His creatures, God and not His works,
but God Himself, Christ Himself, shall be our daily joy! Plunged in the Godhead’s deepest sea, and
lost in His immensity.” Such will be the glory of heaven.

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