What to remember
- Locked due to inactivity on Sep 25, '20 3:54am
Thread Topic: What to remember
-
I've never made a thread in the Garden before, but I loved this one chapter of a book we're reading in religion class, and I wanted everyone to read it. So I'm going to post it here. It's chapter 13 of Connecting Sinai to Calvary by John C. Jeske.
When something is in bold, that's the title of a section. When it's in italics, it's a title of a smaller section inside the bold section. Bold and italics is the title of the chapter.
I have some rules, though.
1. If you want to say anything, post it with the ( )
2. I will not have any arguments in here. So if you do have something to say, state your opinion and leave.
3. I will not respond to anything in the parentheses. So don't bug me about it. If you want to talk to me about something in here, you're welcome to talk to me in my thread. -
Chapter 13 - A Future Life in a Better World
-
An English farmer noticed that every autumn a tragedy is played out in his cornfields. All summer long families of field mice make their homes among the growing plants.They eat and sleep, they work and play and raise their families. They imagine that those green fields belong to them. And then one day, at the end of summer, the mouse community gets an awful shock. The farmer enters those fields with his harvesting machinery. And all of a sudden those comfortable summer homes and the food pantries that the mice have enjoyed come crashing down on their heads.
Can you see any similarity here between these field mice and people? Maybe you know people who look upon this world as their home. This is where they belong. Day after day the work and play, earn money and fall in love, get married and have children - imagining that this world is their home and will always be their home. If you think of the mice, you might ask such people: "Are you remembering that this world is a temporary place to stay . . . that harvest day is nearly upon us? Are you making plans for living in another world?" If you ask that question, they might look at each other, roll their eyes, and change the topic of conversation. -
People don't like to think about death or about the end of the world or even about the existence of another world beyond the one we can see. They are willing to pay doctors high salaries to keep death away. Our society is willing to pay professional athletes and entertainers, because they distract us. They keep our minds off of things we'd rather not think about. If their lives are meaningless, people would rather not be reminded of it. Thornton Wilder, an American author, offered this advice to readers: "Don't ask: 'Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?' Just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate."
Some people flat-out deny that there is another world in addition to the one we can see. At Jesus' time, some of his opponents were the Sadducees, who claimed "that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits" (Acts 23:8). There are people like that today. There are people who argue: "There is no other world 'out there.' This world is the only heaven or hell anybody is ever going to see." -
Some people are convinced that pollution will choke out life on this earth. According to another scenario, the world we live in is going to self- destruct, and the entire planet with all of its people will end up as a gigantic thermonuclear fireball. As a result, the very grim possibility exsists that all of us may be "cremated equal."
-
Can that be true? At some time in the future, is everybody and everything out world has achieved in its long history going to be buried under the debris of a universe in ashes? No, that is not true. God did not design life on earth to be meaningless, to come to a dead end, to end up at zero. God taught his Old Testament people that there is another world and another life besides this one. The writer of the book of Ecclesiastes put it this way: "[God] has also set eternity in the hearts of mean." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
-
This has always been God's plan. In his letter to Titus, Paul emphasized that the hope of a future in a better world is not some new religious notion but something that God promised back in eternity. Saint Paul spoke of "the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time" (Titus 1:2)
-
God's Words
-
At the time the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt, God appeared to Moses in a burning bush. There he commissioned Moses to deliver his chosen people out of slavery. Listen to the words God used to identify himself: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob" (Exodus 3:6)
Fifteen centuries later, Jesus explained the significance of those words: "Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord 'the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' He is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Luke 20:37,38). -
At the time Moses stood in front of the burning bush, Abraham had been dead and buried for five hundred years. Yet God considered him alive. Abraham's personality did not cease to exist when, at age 175, he stopped breathing. His dead body was buried alongside his wife Sarah's, but his soul and his spirit were alive and well in the Savior's protecting care. He was resting,, until one day he would hear the Savior call: "All right, Abraham! Nap time is over! time to get up!"
It's interesting and instructive to see how the Holy Spirit describes the death of God's believers on the pages of the Old Testament. Look at several of the "death notices" God wrote for some of his people:
Abraham breathed his last . . . and he was gathered to his people. (Genesis 25:8)
[Isaac] died and was gathered to his people. (Genesis 35:29)
The LORD told Moses, " . . . you will die and be gathered to your people." (Deuteronomy 32: 48,50) -
Ever since God had first promised Adam and Eve that he would wend a Savior, in every generation God raised up people who believed in that Savior. When those believing sons and daughters of his died, God looked upon them not as dead and gone, but as still living - in another life, in another world. When he later had his Word put down in writing, the death notices of his believing children recorded that they were joining their believing ancestors.
The death notices God wrote for other people, however, were different. Ahaz was ah idolatrous king who "did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD. [He] even sacrificed his sons in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Isrealites. He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places" (2 Kings 16:2-4) -
Now read the death notice god wrote for him: "Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David" (2 Kings 16:20).
The expression "[he] rested with his fathers" is immediately clarified by "he was [i]buried with them in the City of David." In other words, in the royal cemetery in Jerusalem. Nothing is said about Ahaz' joining his believing ancestors around the throne of the Lamb. King Ahaz wasn't interested in a Savior who was going to trade places with sinners under God's judgement. During his life he made it clear that he preferred to live apart from that Savior. When he died he got to experience what he wanted. -
About 800 B.C. in the northern breakaway kingdom of Israel, a prince named Ahab became king. He not only worshiped idols but actually made the filthy fertility cult of Baal, the state religion of Israel. Listen to the description the Bible writer gives us of him: "Ahab . . . did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him." (1 Kings 16:30)
-
Now check out his death notice: "Ahab rested with his fathers" (1 Kings 22:40). These are the same word the Bible uses when describing death of the other kings of the northern kingdom. All were wicked, all worshiped idol, and when they died the Bible records only that they were buried in the same cemetery as their royal ancestors.
Once again, compare this with the way the Bible describes the death of one of God's believers, and you'll see the difference. "[Jacob] breathed his last and was gathered to how people" (Genesis 49:33). -
Remember that Jacob was living in Egypt when he died. He was not buried until several months later, when his funeral procession traveled to the land of Israel. there Jacob was laid to rest in the family burial plot Abraham had once purchased for Sarah But already at the moment of his death in Egypt, he "was gathered to his people." Although months would elapse before Jacob's mummified body joined Abraham's and Sarah's and Isaac's and Rebekah's and Leah's in the family burial plot, God announced that Jacob had joined his ancestors in another life in a better world. God announced that with words.
This thread is locked, therefore no new posts can be made.
