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1 01, 2024

A Very New Year

By |2024-09-20T13:31:13-04:00January 1st, 2024|

For a number of our readers, particularly the seniors among us, there have been times in our lives when “normal” was anything but normal. Some still retain vivid memories of the Second World War and the suffering, privation, and loss that accompanied it. During that difficult time, it might have seemed there was no end in sight. But the dark night did pass, and a new day dawned. Others remember the tumultuous decade of 1960s where assassinations, riots, space exploration, and other epochal events seemed to shift the very foundation on which our society rested. It could be reasonably argued that we have never recovered from that era but are increasingly experiencing its bitter fruits. Still others, especially our relatively younger readers, have never known life without computers, cell phones, the internet, and other technological developments that, in reality, have not existed all that long. It’s becoming increasingly hard to remember life before such inventions, isn’t it? On New Year’s Day, it’s typical to look forward, not backward. Yet it is becoming harder to do that. So much has changed in the past two years, and at such an astonishing pace, that it is challenging to picture what a new normal might look like. It’s also unsettling to concede the normal we used to know might never return. We are losing our illusion of control. These are uncharted waters. What is the church of God to make of all this? The following suggests one line of thought. Today I read the well-known parable of the lost son. I reflected on how, by God’s remarkable grace and mercy, I was that son. Soon after, I sat to write this article. I realized we all are that lost son, “we” being the church in the West. It is important to observe that the father in the parable didn’t prevent his son from going to the far country and wasting his substance with riotous living. God doesn’t always restrain, at first, those He intends to help. Surely the church hasn’t devolved to such a degree as that young man—or has it? Shall we reflect on that question a moment before drawing our conclusion? How much righteous indignation, earnest prayer, and lawful action have we undertaken in opposition to the decades of carnage visited upon the unborn and, more recently, the elderly? To what extent does immorality thrive, not only apart from, but also inside of, the church, whether actually or virtually? What might be the proportion of time and resources we invest in the eternal welfare of others compared with what we expend on ourselves for pleasure and comfort, or edification instead of entertainment? Do we pride ourselves over doctrinal orthodoxy and our experiential emphasis while passively observing multitudes shrouded in darkness and dropping into the eternal inferno? What should our “new normal” be? What was the prodigal’s new normal? Repentance, confession, and return. He concerned himself, as it turned out needlessly, over his father’s reception. The latter did not need to hear all that his son planned to say. A couple of lines sufficed. A celebration followed the embrace of acceptance and forgiveness. I am frankly concerned that we may enter the New Year focusing on trees and missing forests, treating symptoms yet ignoring diseases, bemoaning lost liberties while neglecting God’s calling. We are in the far country. The famine is just starting. Will we come to ourselves and head home, resolved to repent, or will we wait till all that we have left to live on are husks? Would to God that instead of “Happy New Year,” we might this year be able to say to one another, “Welcome home.”

17 12, 2021

The One Who Has the Ending in His Hands

By |2023-06-29T15:03:11-04:00December 17th, 2021|

Everyone loves stories, and stories need endings. A story isn’t a story without an ending. Further, stories don’t need just any endings; they need good endings. If there isn’t a good ending, the whole story just isn’t satisfying. The story just isn’t good anymore.

Let me ask you a question. Are you afraid of how the story will end?

December 31 is coming. The story of 2021 will end on New Year’s Eve. Are you anxious about its ending? Maybe you are not anxious about this year’s story’s ending, but you’re anxious about another story’s ending. Perhaps you’re anxious about the story of your life ending or the story of your country ending or the story of your culture ending. Yet we must remember that our stories are really part of one story—God’s story. As 2021 ends, we need to remember who has God’s story and that all our endings are in His hands.

In Revelation 5, we see that our Lord Jesus has all the stories and the ending in His blessed hands. Revelation 5:1 sets before us the book of God’s great story. The book is a scroll with all of what God has planned. It is full and contains all the stories: “I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.” Though the book is in the hands of the Father, there is none “worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof ” (v. 2). What is the response to there being no one to open the book and allow the story to continue? Weeping, much weeping, results (v. 4). How will the story unfold? There will be no blessed ending! No culmination, resolution, closure, and blessed revelation of God’s will and His glory in all things. It appears that in all things He will not be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28).

Yet, there is no reason for anxiety or fear or sadness or dismay. We are told to “weep not,” for “behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and loose the seven seals thereof ” (Rev. 5:5). He is worthy, and He has done what no one else could do.

Who is this Lion? What has He done to be counted worthy? He, the Son of God, has come as the Son of Man—bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, under the law, to be faithful and true, fulfilling all righteousness—to realize God’s great purpose in delivering His people (Dan. 7:13–14; Luke 1:31–35; Gal. 4:1–5): “And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (Rev. 5:9).

How has He done this? By the power of the Spirit, “having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth” (Rev. 5:6). He is anointed with the Spirit without measure (John 3:34) and has done His work by the power of that Spirit (Matt. 12:28; Heb. 9:14). Further, because the Lion has done His great work as a Lamb, the story of God will unfold, and all our endings are safe in His blessed hands: “And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne” (Rev. 5:7).

Seeing as there is no need to be anxious about any of our endings, including the ending of 2021, how ought we live? What should our response be as we by Spiritworked faith lay hold of the work of our blessed Savior in securing history and all our endings? We should “weep not” (Rev. 5:5). Rather, we must rejoice and take encouragement in Him and His work, as all of creation does in Revelation 5:8–14. They reverently worship the Lamb by rejoicing in recognition of what He has done. As the old year ends, let us see it out with joyful and worshipful hearts, knowing by faith that God’s great story and all our endings—even the ending of 2021—are in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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