August 12, 2009
Naturally
Recently two obituaries published in the paper on the same day caught my eye. Interestingly both deceased men, one 54 and the other 76, died of natural causes. I’m sure most of us believe we’ll die in that way…when we’re in our 90’s. Somehow dying at 54 years-old seems, well…un-natural. No doubt the warning, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come”, is just as applicable to our life on earth as it is to the Second Coming. (Matt 22:42 NIV)
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Gail;
-----I have always believed the Bible spoke a relevant message to every person throughout the ages. Yet His warning to “…watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come…” would seem irrelevant to those who lived beside Him and to everyone who has died between then and now. Certainly the Lord has neither come on the clouds nor come on a white horse leading His innumerable army. And does the fact that He did not even know the hour of His coming mean that when He spoke this He himself may not of known whether His coming would be a week later, a month, a year, a century, a millennium, or two? Or did He know it was far off and this warning would have a slightly different meaning to all His followers except a few?
-----Whatever. It has had a slightly different meaning. Not in that the warning to watch was different, but in that the manner of His coming has proven to be different to everyone who has died thus far. As the Pharisees were about to stone Stephen, he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:56). And Jesus said to the repentant thief who died beside Him, “…today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43). And stories abound of brethren exclaiming the sight of Jesus with their dying breath. I don’t know if Jesus actually comes to receive every soul of those who die in Him, but I believe the effect is all the same. I believe the significance of the effect is less in how one comes to behold Jesus on that day, and more in the certainty that it is that day in which the “total key” is struck upon your life, summing up all your doings. It is the very thing that will happen at His actual return.
-----The relevant message to everyone who has heard or read these words of Jesus is that on a particular, unknown day God is going to strike your total key. He is going to turn the lights out on your party. Therefore, you must live your life generating a just and even number, not a number that will be odd to Him. The cake and ice-cream of your party, the foil hats, confetti, and whistling party favors must not have been about your own glory, but about His, when the lights go out.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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