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Temporary Things
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Mentone Seventh-day Adventist Church, California, USA
Delivery: 2006-04-08 23:36Z
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2006-04-08 23:36Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/ser/kir-tthings.php
We are gathered here for communion service. That is, we are gathered here to share a temporary observance. After the Second Coming, we will feast with Jesus in the New Jerusalem and He Himself will drink grape juice with us.
We forget that the present service is not only a privilege, but a temporary one. Life surrounds us, busy-ness busies us, and we are caught up in the choke of daily life. Unless we exercise care, we will begin to blame God for many things that He is not to blame for. Rather, in most cases, He is the Ameliorator; His gentle interaction in this world softens the impact of evil, but does not remove it. There are lessons to be learned, and sometimes we don’t learn them until we pay a price for our impatience.
Our vision sees only a tiny dot in the long great measure of time. Depending on your perspective, the temporary may seem enduring or the enduring, temporary. If we want to see straight, we have to pause sometimes and realize afresh that so much that shapes our experience, actually has to do with temporary things. Therefore today, we consider three “I’s” that are temporary.
Injustice
The first “I” we consider is “injustice.” What do we learn from God’s Word? “He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). Somewhere today on planet earth lives its most godly person, and somewhere, its most ungodly. Both are granted air to breath. The sun rose this morning for both of them. It may have rained on both of their gardens, moistening the soil.
And yet, this is a moral universe. While righteousness is eternal, injustice is temporary. It is one of the temporary things.
The worldling views justice as mere perception. Right and wrong are constructs, ideas only, of the hazed, evolved brain. The worldling supposes he will get away with whatever he does until he dies. Whatever “payback” he avoids until then will never come. That is, in such a view, some of those who act unjustly don’t get away with it, some do. The way to beat the game is to get away with your injustice; outsmart an indifferent fate. But since you do not know when you will breath your last, this is all a gamble. You are not master of your own end or payback. If you are right, that there is nothing beyond this life, then you can try to get away with what you can. But if there is any kind of judgment (Western religion) or karmic balancing (Eastern religion), you may not be able to make your equation work. Your only “hope” (used with irony) is that you are right and there is no God and no eternity for you.
But from the Christian perspective, injustice is temporary. Those who seek to live by the golden rule (“All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12)), will in the end find that their God was right. A person reaps what he sows (Proverbs 22:8; 2 Corinthians 9:6; Galatians 6:7, 8). There is a day of judgment, and if judgment does not immediately manifest in this life (as it often does. 1 Timothy 5:24, 25), it surely will in God’s great assize (Hebrews 9:27).
The Christian knows that God is a Rewarder of the believer (Hebrews 11:6). He knows that
The judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God (Romans 2:2-11).
Patient continuance in well-doing, working good, has a predetermined outcome. We may not be saved by our works, but our works are evidence whose service we have chosen. Yes. Injustice is temporary. The Christian knows it. And keeps it in mind when he is treated unjustly. God is on His throne still.
Infancy
The second “I” we consider is “infancy.” Human infancy is temporary. Today we see through a glass darkly. We do not know as we are known. Life contains many mysteries, providence seems inscrutable. But this will not always be so.
Then that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known (1 Corinthians 13:10-12).
In the life to come, we will see these days as days of childhood. Our understanding of the things of God and of why things came out as they did will be much greater. We will see how our actions and attitudes colored our behavior and so often told a misleading story about God.
After all, here we are, formed in His image, yet so frequently acting in a way that misrepresents His kingdom. We will have shed those behaviors, but we will see the price that God and that His universe paid to get past that. We will have an appreciation for the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and our Father, that we do not presently possess.
When you look into the eyes of an infant, you realize that infancy is temporary. God made a wonderful thing. He made little human people. We have fostered six children over the past year, five of them infants. All seem fascinated by the many books stacked in the bookshelf. So much knowledge beckons and new minds wait to be filled; but doubtless it is the shapes and sizes and colors that fascinate. Each and every child has been distinct, different, a little painting in God’s image waiting to be painted into an echo of the unselfish God or of the selfish demon. In their infancy, you do at least some of that painting, some preparing of the canvas.
Ultimately, they will wield their own paintbrush. Yes. Infancy is temporary. Look into the eyes and see a clock ticking. And then realize that just 43 years past, my eyes were like those eyes. Innocent. With a desperately disordered nature, with a built-in bent to evil, yes. But now, after my own painting that mussed the outlines of the divine image and almost obliterated it, Jesus and I are going back over the lines.
A child puts away childish things and slowly becomes a man. In the Investigative Judgment Heaven will check the finished product. And my Jesus will stand behind a Masterwork if I will only let Him retrace the divine image. God’s purpose today is to help the race move from infancy to maturity, from the destructive inheritance of its youth, to the gentle maturity of the conscientious, reasoning, sympathizing adult. Eternity calls for a tested race, and that can only be if they will receive Jesus as character Carpenter.
Iniquity
The last “I” we consider is “iniquity.” Sin in all its forms is temporary. God will cleanse His people, His sanctuary, His universe, of iniquity. Jesus bore the sin of the race and brought within reach the righteousness of God.
Under “injustice” we spoke of the certainty of judgment. Under “infancy,” the certainty of finally ripened character. Here, under “iniquity,” we speak of a perfected answer to Satan’s attempt to redraw moral boundaries. In effect, in disputing God’s description of purity, he disputed the perfection of God’s character. In offering a different pattern he accused God of being less right, less moral than himself. In order to receive divine worship to himself, he was willing to lobby for some of the glory that legitimately belonged to Christ to be shifted to himself.
Yes, iniquity is temporary because the conflict between good and evil will be resolved and God’s character will be vindicated at last. Iniquity will be found to be groundless, built upon nothing more than the assertion of a being gone astray after his own kinky reflection in the mirror. Satan came to view his character as preferable to that of the Creator. He did some of his own painting. Make up? Lucifer, the son of the morning, did a make-over and became Satan, the Adversary.
He developed a sense of entitlement. He was worthy of worship he thought; he should be worshipped too. He was entitled. Listen friends, there are God-given rights and there are rights that are nothing more than imagined. Satan imagined that he was as good as God. We read it in Isaiah 14:9-20 where although he aspires to be worshipped and even to sit on God’s throne, instead he is found to be “weak, like one of us,” and weaker, for Satan receives not even the dignity of burial. Instead, he is burned to nothingness (Ezekiel 28:17-19). He who walked up and down upon the stones of fire (Ezekiel 28:13, 14) is at last burned to nothingness by fire. God’s purity consumes him at the last (Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29).
The race is becoming crazier and crazier; we do not know our place. We think we are owed a whole list of things but all we are owed is the dignity accruing those made in God’s image. Nothing more. When we sin we affirm the image of God that is in us by exercising moral choice while we deny the image of God that is in us, voting against what we are. We choose to claim a right to rebellion. We may rebel, God gives us that. But we may not indefinitely impose our chosen selfishness upon others in God’s universe.
Keep in mind that to choose selfishness is not to choose to isolate oneself in the corner somewhere and only be selfish to oneself. Inwrought in selfishness is the idea of supremacy. What I want is more important than what you want. The selfish person may be wrapped up in himself but the nature of his selfishness is such that it must manifest itself outside of itself. Selfishness cannot be contained. It will seek out and remove from others, not necessarily of that which it takes away, but purely from the motive of denying another. It is the nature of selfishness to engulf and consume not only itself, but everything within its reach. It is fundamentally incompatible with the character of God.
In contrast stands the character of Jesus. Satan insisted that God would not practice self-denial. But Jesus in the last supper before His crucifixion showed that the truth was otherwise.
And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is My body. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom (Matthew 26:26-29).
Jesus said He would begin a fast that would last until we were safely resident in His Father’s house. And He has so fasted for almost two thousand years. In contrast, today we partake in remembrance of Him. For now. At least until He come (1 Corinthians 11:26).
Iniquity is temporary but Christ’s character is permanent. Sin is temporary, but righteousness will endure for eternity. Old things pass away, old expectations, old clamorings for our imagined rights. But Jesus is working still. He is laboring in communion with His Father and with the Holy Spirit to change a broken race, redeem from the edge of destruction, restore the good name of God, and demonstrate through His followers that God’s goodness can change even the most desperate and degenerate who will only turn to Him.
But why will remain the nail-scarred hands? Why offer in those hands in that pure age to come a monument to sin? The scars in Christ’s hands will not be memorials to sin. They will be reminders of Jesus’ unselfishness, of a time when He offered His life by faith for a race of rebels; of the dark, dark time when He showed He was willing to be separated from the communion He had always known with our Father, so that a race, not one of which could bring to bear a character even remotely measuring in righteousness as His own, and still for those pitiful creatures He would die and give His life in return. Unselfishness stood face to face with selfishness and demonstrated what love was.
Let us today therefore participate with humility and joy in the service as Jesus delivered it to us. We call to mind that injustice, infancy, and iniquity all are but temporary, but the love of our Father in heaven (John 16:27), of our Mediator the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5), and our Intercessor the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26) is eternal. And Jesus Himself took our human flesh to die as one of us (Hebrews 2:14) blazing for us the way to His Father’s house. The marriage of the Lamb will be accomplished and the bride will be made ready (Revelation 19:7, 8) and she will call with the groom and with the Spirit (Revelation 22:17; Matthew 25:1-13) to our Father’s house. If we will trust in Him, cooperate with Him, soon we will see Him in glory. Soon His fast will be ended, and He Himself will sup with us. Let us rejoice and move toward that time. GCO
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