PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “MAKING THE MOST OF THAT SHORT STAY BEFORE THE LONG TOMORROW”.
By: Ron Woodrum
Recently CBS news reported a poll that stated that 2/3 of Americans believed in life after death. That did not surprise me. But what they said nex did! They said their basis of such a beflief was based on their knowledge of artists’ paintings, musicisians songs, movies, and poets’ poems. That surprised me! And yet I think we spend so few minutes thinking about our”Long Tomorrow”. Life doesn’t allow us the luxury to do that. T.S. Eliot, in his poem, Choruses from the Rock pointed that out. He said, :
“Oh perpetual revolution of configured stars,
Oh perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
Oh world of spring and autumn, birth and drying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
brings knowledge of motion, bkut not of stillness;
knowledge of speech, but not silence
knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All of our knowledge brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death, no nearer to God.
Where is the life we have lost in the living?”
That phrase, “the life we have lost in the living” defines our 21st century. We have all the modern conveniences, all the inventions that science can invent. We have cars, planes, computers, microwaves, treadmills that let us climb the Alps, right in our living room. But no nearer to God. But still closer to death.
Imagine we were astronauts on our way to Mars. There has been much discussion about a manned-flight to Mars. There has ever been a movie about it. Do you think if that trip was ever scheduled that there would be much preparation? Imagine a couple of astronauts in the capsule of the rocket, experiencing lift off, and saying to one another-“I wonder what Mars will be like?” The other saying, “I really don’t have a clue”. I guess we will find out when we get there! No never! They know the conditions of Mars; have mapped the planet; project where they would land. All things necessary for a journey to the Red Planet. Yet you and I are on our way to eternity. Thoughts about death, are sometimes taken to extreme. Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, we are told, instructed a slave to remind him everyday that he was going to die. The Bible does tell us in Psalm 90:12 “Teach us to number our days”. That is keep an inventory of where we are on the life line, all the while realizing that we could enter eternity at any second, as David said, “There is one step between me and death”. (I Sam. 20:3). If 3 people die each second; and 180 die each minute; and 11,000 die every hour, and 250,000 people die daily, it is indeed worthy of contemplation. Yet many people are like Louis 14th, King of France. He issued a decree that death was not to be uttered in his presence by anyone! Even the genius Einstein contemplated life and death. He said, “Our situation on this earth seems strange. Everyone here appears involuntarily and uninvited for a short stay. without knowing the whys and the wherefores”
The great Methodist preacher John Wesley hit the nail on the head. He said, “I am a creature passing through life like an arrow over a great gulf of into an unchangeable eternity. I want to know the way to heaven. I want to land safe on its shore. I am told God wrote the way down in a Book. Oh give me that Book!…at any price give me that Book!”. There is where we find our facts and foresight about heaven! C.S. Lewis said, “aim at heaven, you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth you will get neither!” I want to close the perspective with one of the greatest quotes I have ever heard about eternity. It is by A.W. Tozer. He said, “Let no one apologize for the powerful emphasis Christianity lays upon the doctrine of the world to come. Right there lies its immense superiority to everything else and the whole sphere of human thought or experience. When Christ arose from death and ascended into heaven He established forever three important facts; namely, that this world has been condemned to ultimate dissolution, that the human spirit persists beyond the grave, and that there is indeed a world to come…the Church is constantly being tempted to accept this world as her home, and sometimes she has listened to the blandishments of those who would woo her away and use her for their own ends. But if she is wise she will consider that she stands in the valley between the mountain peeks of eternity past and eternity to come. The past is gone forever and the present is passing as swift as the shadow on the sundaial of Ahaz. Even if the earth should continue a millions years, not one of us could stay to enjoy it. WE DO WELL TO THINK ABOUT OUR LONG TOMORROW.” We would do well to contemplate about our impact here, during our “short stay” while we prepare for our “long tomorrow”!