Sermon manuscript:
Generally speaking, old people receive comfort from things
being predictable. They like to know what to expect. They are not bothered by
one day plodding into the next where everything happens just the same. Perhaps
this is related to something else that I’ve noticed for myself as I’ve gotten
older—the days go by so quickly. One after another the days fly by. Soon a
whole year has passed. Where did all the days go?
This is not how it is for young people. Young people do not
like it when one day is just like the day before it. They want new experiences,
new challenges, new surroundings. If they do not have this, then the days drag
on forever. One hour can seem like an eternity. And why? Because they are
looking for the next new thing that is different from what they have been
doing. They are hopeful. Perhaps this explains old people’s contentment with
everything staying the same. They have lost their hopefulness. From long and
bitter experience they have learned that life isn’t as thrilling as young
people believe it to be. They become tamed and domesticated. They are easier to
handle.
There’s no sense in trying to fight against this. It’s just
how life is. We see this not only with human beings but with all kinds of other
forms of life. The puppy is different from the old dog. The young tree is
flexible, full of sap. The old tree is hard and brittle. Those old people who
pretend that they are still teenagers look terribly foolish. Just as we can’t
escape the wrinkles and the gray hair, we can’t escape the aging of our minds
and souls.
But this serves its purpose too. There’s a good reason why
older people are chosen to be leaders. They aren’t as impetuous. They don’t
love or hate as much as young people. They are more even keel. Unpredictability
is not a good trait in plumbers or electricians or bakers or nurses. Maturity
and stability can be very helpful. How would a lot of our work get done if
everybody were bored out of their minds all the time, like young people are
prone to be?
With all this being said, though, I think you might agree
that something is lost when youth goes away. It is the progressive onset of
death. The energy, the health, the strength gets less and less.
Speaking of aging as the progressive onset of death is not
very common, and there’s a good reason for that. It is believed that there is
nothing that can be done about it. There’s no way to roll back the clock.
There’s no way to be young again. It’s strange how much faith people put into
innovations that might make their bodies last a little longer or work a little
better, but nobody talks about the aging of the mind and soul. But isn’t it
precisely this youthfulness of spirit that we miss the most from our childhood?
Who cares if our body lives on for decades, but we have no get up and go? There
is nothing that can be done about this humanly speaking.
But the Scriptures give us a different possibility. In fact
it is not a matter of possibilities but a matter of two eventualities. The
Scriptures speak of a new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells.
That’s one eventuality. The other eventuality is an immense increase in the
progression of death—a further increase in embitterment, sluggishness, anxiety,
and pain. What we are speaking of here is heaven and hell—the vast change that must
happen to every individual. There are no other possibilities.
So we must do away with what is undoubtedly the most common
view of the afterlife, which is that things are going to go on pretty much the
same but only a little better: Donna, the card shark, is going to be playing
bridge endlessly. Sally, the jokester, will be making people laugh eternally.
Bob, the farmer, is going to be farming eternally. Barf. These are old people’s
dreams about heaven. Old people want everything to stay the same. Old people
want everything to be predictable—including what happens to them after death.
It is very comforting to them, therefore, to think that the afterlife is a
gentle slipping off into another existence where everything is familiar and
safe.
The truth is, though, that with our death we have the
beginning of a great adventure. It will be the greatest adventure that we have
ever had, for everyone will be nearer the One from whom come all triumphs and
defeats, comedies and tragedies, loves and hates. The good will be better and
the bad will be worse. It is the opposite of an even keel.
I could show you many proofs of
this from the Scriptures, but let’s just consider our Old Testament reading
from the prophet Malachi. He has been given a vision of the great and terrible
day of the Lord. He says:
Look! The day is coming,
burning like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble.
The day that is coming will set them on fire, says the Lord of Armies, a day which will not leave behind a root or
branch for them. But for you who fear my name a sun of righteousness will rise,
and there will be healing in its wings. You will go out and jump around like
calves from the stall. You will crush the wicked. They will surely be ashes
under the soles of your feet on the day which I make happen, says the Lord of Armies.
The whole population is here divided
into two. There is one day that is coming, burning like an oven, but it is
experienced so terribly differently depending on whether you are with the one
group or the other. The one group is like stubble. The heat kindles them and
they burn. They are not left with root or branch. All that they hoped for and
worked for will be as nothing, for they were working for idols. Among this
group will be the vast majority of the world’s so-called great people—the ones
who worked their tail off to make a name for themselves. Such people better
enjoy their fame now, because it ain’t gonna last.
The other group of people
experience the same day, the same heat, the same Lord, but in such a different
way! “But for you who fear my name,” Malachi says, “a sun of
righteousness will rise, and there will be healing in its wings. You will go
out and jump around like calves from the stall. You will crush the wicked. They
will surely be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I make
happen, says the Lord of Armies.”
The same heat that set the
wicked ablaze is healing and invigorating to those who fear the Lord. It’s like
coming in from the cold and standing in front of a warm, radiating stove. The
heat warms the bones. Or it is like those fine days in spring, when the power
of the sun has returned after the bleak winter, and you can feel it sinking
into your skin. The calves jump and frolic when they are released into the
fresh green pasture.
But let us not forget what it
says immediately after that: “You will crush the wicked. They will surely be
ashes under the soles of your feet.” Old people might be able to get on
board with the whole warm, spring sun thing. But they surely will stumble and
fall over this—that the righteous will crush the wicked. That the wicked will
be ashes on the soles of their feet. Old people’s blood gets cold. They do not
hate like young people do, and they do not love like young people do. Here with
God’s saints you have a love that is greater than any we have ever known—a love
for righteousness. There is also a hatred, a burning hatred, of what is wicked.
This is a great adventure where there are winners and losers. Our emotions are
not taken away in heaven. We do not become stoics. The opposite happens. Our
emotions are renewed and strengthened—just like we see in the young.
This applies also to the
Christian Church in this age. When the church gets old she doesn’t love very
much or hate very much. She takes everything on an even keel. If ever some
controversy should arise she always begins here response like this. She says,
“Well…” And what follows after that is some theological rationale for why she
doesn’t have to be too concerned about this or that. What is most important to
the Church when she gets old is comfort and predictability. Nothing should be
done so vigorously that the Church should lose its monetary support or be
looked down upon by anybody in the community.
Compare that attitude to the great
heroes—those who now inhabit heaven. Moses stood firm against the most powerful
man on earth while plagues rained down upon thousands and thousands of people,
bringing untold suffering. When his own people sinned with the golden calf the
rebels were killed. He loved his people, and prayed to God for their salvation,
but he would not spare them when they were intent on committing wickedness.
Or think of King David, that
great man, the apple of God’s eye. We are all familiar with how he killed the
giant Goliath with his sling shot and cut off his head when he was but a boy.
But do you know why he did this? It is because Goliath was mocking the Lord God
together with his powerful Philistine friends. All the Israelite men were
scared. David was angry. He was so angry at these words against his God that he
immediately went out to challenge him. It was the love of the Lord that made
him hate Goliath.
Or think of Paul and the rest of
the apostles. They were not afraid to turn life upside down in the ancient
Greek cities where everyone worshipped other gods—the very same gods that get
worshipped today among us but with different names. When people began to be
converted the powers that be could not stand the change that these Christians
were bringing about with their shunning of evil. They lashed out against the
apostles and tried to make them miserable. They mocked, gossiped, threatened,
whipped, exiled, imprisoned, and if all of that wouldn’t work they finally
killed them. All it would have taken for the apostles to have a pleasant,
comfortable life was for them to quit preaching like they were. All they had to
do was tone it down. But the fire of their love for the Lord Christ was such
that they even boasted and rejoiced in their shameful treatment. They thanked God that they were counted
worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus.
So tell me: How on earth could
heaven be this sleepy place where life goes on in some quiet predictable way?
It would be a contradiction of the lives of the greatest saints. It would be a
contradiction of Christ’s life. For Christ did not come to be served, but to
serve, and give his life as a ransom for many. He himself says, “Do not
think that I came to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace,
but a sword.” The culmination of his earthly life was a mortal battle with
Satan. He fought to the death. He died. But he prevailed, redeeming all people
so that we could be set free from the devil and live before God in
righteousness and purity forever.
And so we must reject and denounce
this “all dogs go to heaven” kind of Gospel. It cuts a poor figure. It’s a
rocking chair kind of heaven. Wouldn’t we all get sick to death of doing our
hobbies? The only thing it has going for it is a sense of comfort and safety.
But ask any young person and they will tell you that risk is the spice of life.
It is why it is so thrilling.
Heaven is thrilling. God is the
God of the living, not of the dead. If you are looking for safety above all
else, then you will turn out like that man in Jesus’s parable who buried his
talent in the field because he hated his master. His talent was taken away and
given to the man who had ten talents. Jesus sums up that parable by saying, “He
who has will be given more. He who has not, even what he has will be taken away
from him.”
And so we might as well get busy
being bold. Do not be ashamed of Jesus’s name and his words. Confess him before
men, and he will confess you before the Father. You have been given the
knowledge of eternal life. Fight against all lies, and help your neighbor learn
of the truth. Jesus is the way, the truth, and life.
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