Reggie Weems

I didn’t watch the Vice-Presidential debate on Thursday evening.  I have already decided for whom I’m going to vote.  (As a side note, presuppositional apologetics has taught me that objective truth must be propositional or it is not objective at all, and that no objective truth exists when humanity claims to be its source.  So, in the end, everything in any debate between or among finite creatures discussing temporal issues is unintentionally subjective at best and intentionally false at worst.  When politicians discover that the audience in a debate understands this, the rhetoric becomes admonium abusive, which describes the reason for this campaign’s quick descent into personal attacks). 

Instead of watching the debate I read the Revelation.  Now there’s a sure word that cannot and will not be contested.  The outcome of the presidential campaign changes as often as hourly news reports based on the fluctuating whims of self-interested voters.  Every promise either gains support from some while disenfranchising others but no promise can be guaranteed.  Thus, voters exchange their ’souls’ for porridge in a never-ending search to gain the blessing of certainty that only an eternal God can give.  We vainly trust in horses and in chariots instead of the name of the Lord.

Who can bring peace but the Prince of Peace?  Who can prosper but the God Who owns everything and is gracious to give it all.  Who can promise and deliver everything promised?  Only a God Who can prophesy the end.  He has never failed.  He declares the end from the beginning for He is the Beginning and the End.  Nothing stops Him, much less hinders Him.  We have grown too accustomed to the phrase that Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords.  We fail to understand, much less appreciate the implications.  Sovereignty is only a word that does not properly explain Him. 

Amazingly, we are invited to join Him in His eternal kingdom.  Beggers with no bread, we are given the bakery.  Robbers who have been caught, we are invited to join the Board of Directors.  Killers who have murdered His only Son, we are accepted as sons.  Of His reign there will be no end.  And those united to Him will have no end. 

These things are certain.  There will be no election.  He does not vie for the title.  By His cross and resurrecton, He has won!  Of this there has never been and never will be any debate!                    

In 1718 Neumeister Erdmann (German) wrote the song translated into English as “Christ Receiveth Sinful Men.”  The first verse and chorus read,  

Sinners Jesus will receive;
Sound this word of grace to all
Who the heavenly pathway leave,
All who linger, all who fall.

Sing it o’er and over again;
Christ receiveth sinful men;
Make the message clear and plain:
Christ receiveth sinful men.

Could there be any more wonderful news?  Could there be any news any more worth repeating?  In these days of corporate corruption, bank fraud, the Fannie Mae collapse and Bernie Mac’s unexpected death (okay, that’s kind of funny - get it, Bernie/Freddie???), there is still good news.  Your bank may not loan you money because credit is tight but Jesus still saves anyone who by faith, looks to Him. 

Come, and He will give you rest;
Trust Him, for His Word is plain;
He will take the sinfulest;
Christ receiveth sinful men.

Sing it o’er and over again;
Christ receiveth sinful men;
Make the message clear and plain:
Christ receiveth sinful men.

The only proper response to such a wonderful offer is Paul’s utopian exclamation in Romans 11:33 - “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 35 “Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”

Who could repay God?  How could God be repaid?  Impossible!  Salvation is no loan - it is paid for in full through the blood of Christ as God Himself paid the penalty He set for sin.  Only God could satisfy God and God did satisfy God.  And the result?

Now my heart condemns me not,
Pure before the law I stand;
He who cleansed me from all spot,
Satisfied its last demand.

Christ receiveth sinful men,
Even me with all my sin;
Purged from every spot and stain,
Heaven with Him I enter in.

In the midst of a world of uncertainty, one thing remains certain.  Christ receives sinful men!  He must receive sinners, for, if God is going to save anyone, He can only save sinners.  Sinners are the only kind of men there are.  All bankrupt.  All corrupt.  All failed.  Yet bailed out by faith!  And not simply bailed out but delivered.  Not simply declared forgiven but justified.  Not just a clean slate but Christ’s righteousness.  Not only made right with God but inheritors with Christ.  And it is ” an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice” (I Peter 1:4f).

Christ doesn’t help us pay for our house.  He doesn’t bail us out of the debt on our house.  He takes us into His house - and not as guests for a moment but as residents for ever!   

This friends, is news and news worth repeating.  Christ receives sinful men!  So…

Sing it o’er and over again;
Christ receiveth sinful men;
Make the message clear and plain:
Christ receiveth sinful men.

I’m taking a fast from national news, primarily because I’m rather disappointed with the nontruth telling by both Presidential candiates, their campaigns and their parties.  Still, I know already for whom I’m voting so, at this point, to listen to either candidate or their talking heads is only exasperating, even discouraging.  I am however still listening to good preaching.  This evening I heard Sinclair Ferguson speak on the human tongue from James 3:1-12.  

I was particuarly struck by verse 9 which reads, “With it [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.”  Sounds like a Presidential race to me.  One aspect of God’s judgement on a nation is that their leaders reflect the people who support them.  America isn’t going to be judged.  It’s Presidential candidates reflect the judgement of God. 

In this case, both candidates reflect a nation whose church hallway conversations or office watercooler gossip would elect a candidate like themselves.  They are candidates and we are citizens who are talk like “wild horses” act (v 3), “beached ships” who are off course (v 4), “exaggerating” that doesn’t know that exaggerating is lying (v 5a), a “forest fire” that destroys much good (v 5b), ”restless evil” (v 8b), and “deadly poison” (v 8c).  It’s the kind of talk that hypocritically thinks it can bless God while cursing the people whom God has made. 

That single verse teaches us that whatever we say to or about a human being, we say to/about an invisible God Whom we treat with the same disrespect by ‘dissing’ His creation.  For McCain to ‘dis’ Obama and Obama to ‘dis’ McCain is to ‘dis’ the God Who gave them tongues.  And the same is true for people who speak ill of others.

Link speaking ill of others to Romans 1:32 which not only condemns sin but also those who “give approvel to those who practice them” (various sins) and you arrive at the reason for my fast from national news.  I don’t want to do what the Presidential caindidates are doing, I don’t want to be influenced by what they are doing and I don’t want to approve of what they are doing by watching or listening to them.  Any person who speaks like this to get elected is probably not worth listening to if he gets elected.   

I’m not sure if Sinclair Ferguson would take his message as far as I have with regard to American Presidential candidates but, then again, he can’t vote…he’s from the land of the Weems (Wemys)…he’s Scottish.               

Jim Croce wrote, “If I could save time in a bottle, The first thing that I’d like to do, Is to save every day, Till Eternity passes away, Just to spend them with you.”  Time began the very moment God spoke (Genesis 1:3), He set light in place (which requires time to exist for the speed of light is a finite constant, essentially measurable in its existence by time) and a sequence of events that had both a beginning and will, if they have not already, have an end.  Thus time, though finite, (and thus proof of a Creator) is a genuine reflection of the I AM, or, always present.  Just as God is essential for life (John 14:6), so time is essential for life EXCEPT…just as no one ever died in the presence of the incarnated Christ during His earthly ministry, so life can exist outside of time.  EXCEPT, because God, Who is infinite, is outside of time, those who belong to Him, are indwelt by Him and will live with Him, are impervious to timelessness.  Once outside of time, anything that does exist, will always exist.  Hence, only God could have existed before Genesis 1:3 for only God is outside of time, as evidenced by his independence of and from time.  (The Big Bang theory just got banged).  Go ahead, sing with me, “How great is our God!” 

What does all this mean for the people of God?  It means that “salvation” takes on a whole new dimension when we consider that eternity is a fortress against nonexistence.  Once we are outside of time, we must, by virtue of timelessness alone, always exist forever and equally as important, free of those things that are dependent on time for memory and existence.  And at the exact moment that the Scripture says, “There will be no more night” (Revelation 22:5), time ends.  Thus, just as Genesis 1:3 introduces time to existecne, Revelation 22:5 ends time forever.  It comes as a great comfort that timelessness will end time (I know that sounds repititious but it isn’t).  As time is a great healer of all things harmful to the people of God so timelessness will once-and-for-all put an end to the thihgs from which we need healing.  The great joy is that, contrary to ”Time in a Bottle” eternity will never pass away.  When time ends, hurt ends.  When time ends, fear ends.  When time ends, joy beyond understanding begins.  No wonder Revelation 22:3 says, “ No longer will there be anything accursed…”

Croce lamented, “But there never seems to be enough time, To do the things you want to do, Once you find them…”  But there will be.  And that time will be filled with only those things that are joyful to the people of God.  But what a thought, that timelessness or eternity will only begin an aspect of our ’salvation’ that it will take forever to enjoy and experience.  And since eternity doesn’t end, there will be no end to the joy of that experience.             

There is something in the heart of every human being that drives them on an unceasing search for this kind of never-ending happiness.  Pascal once remarked that

 
All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves. And yet, after such a great number of years, no one without faith has reached the point to which all continually look. All complain, princes and subjects, noblemen and commoners, old and young, strong and weak, learned and ignorant, healthy and sick, of all countries, all times, all ages, and all conditions. A trial so long, so continuous, and so uniform, should certainly convince us of our inability to reach the good by our own efforts. But example teaches us little. No resemblance is ever so perfect that there is not some slight difference; and hence we expect that our hope will not be deceived on this occasion as before. And thus, while the present never satisfies us, experience dupes us and, from misfortune to misfortune, leads us to death, their eternal crown. 

No one “without faith” has ever found the happiness sought by humanity and so we are on every occasion, “deceived as before”.  God never intended death to be the eternal crown for His creation.  His goal is a love that elects us, secures us and enthrones us with Him forever.

No one “” has ever found the happiness sought by humanity and so we are on every occasion, “”.  God never intended death to be the eternal crown for His creation.  His goal is a love that elects us, secures us and enthrones us with Him forever.