Word of Salvation – Vol. 15 No.36 - September 1969
A Passing World
Sermon by Rev. Jac. Jonker, B.D. 1Cor.7: 29-31
SCRIPTURE READING: Luke 14: 15-24.
Psalter Hymnal: 235:3,5; 311:3; 449; 188:1,7
Congregation of Jesus Christ,
From day to day we are interested in NEWS.
The various radio stations bring it every hour on the hour, and some of them even during the hours of the night. We have news commentators pouring out their views, and there are even NEWSMAKERS on the air.
It looks as if we expect that something quite shocking may happen anytime. The air is vibrant with expectancy, and we are keyed up to a much higher extent than we realize. Some people are downright restless when they miss out on their usual news broadcast.
In an even different way, we are also captivated by what is new. Just listen to your teenagers when a new model car is to be released, or when their favourite pop groups brings a new record on the market! Our attention is directed to new discoveries when old cities are being excavated. Hot discussions are being held about new trends in fashions between young girls and their bewildered mothers. We in Australia and New Zealand even have a new kind of money, replacing the centuries-old pounds shillings and pence!
The latest discoveries of science have presented us with new sources of power by the harnessing of the old atom. The latest ships and submarines are propelled by nuclear power plants. All over the world nuclear power stations are built or planned to generate enough electricity for our ever exacting industrial needs.
Perhaps even more stupendous are the computers that enable us to do calculations in the fraction of a second that only some years ago took hours and days of painstaking work for fully qualified mathematicians.
Not the least of all this is brought home to us when we realise that we live in the days of Apollo flights to the moon! That was a new thing indeed when man set foot for the first time on the surface of a planet thousands of miles out of the atmosphere of safe mother earth.
It is a fact that there is an urge in man's life as there has never been before.
The easy way of travelling, and the everywhere present link of communications have opened up the hidden corners of the earth, and pulled the peoples living there right into the sphere of the highly-developed peoples of the West. There is hardly a kampong in Indonesia where no transistor radio gives voice to what is going on in the West. Just as we in early morning are wakened up by an alarm-clock, so the bombs of the last war and the screech of transistor radios have shaken the peoples of Africa and Asia to an uneasy awakening. In all continents of our world nations are throwing off the ties of old customs and the shackles of traditional religions. In the midst of this glamorous and clamouring new world of awaking peoples, the church of Jesus Christ is looking around with startled eyes – and in its hand nothing but the old Bible.
It is no wonder that everywhere churches and theologians are asking each other: brothers, what shall we do? What is our task at the moment, and how can we be faithful to Christ and helpful to people. What should our message be... and what is there to do for our hands? For nobody can deny that hosts of people in the old Christian countries have forgotten all about Jesus Christ, while even more millions of the new peoples have never even heard about Him. Perhaps they know something about so-called "Christianity," and then they look at the old colonial masters and do not like that so very much. But that there is a God full of mercy to His creatures, who gave His Son to save them, and that He provided a wonderful message about it in a book, the Bible... all of that is unknown, or what they have heard about it was warped in a caricature of western supremacy and is deeply despised by them.
Is it still worthwhile in our days to accept what the Bible says for truth? Does it still make real sense to direct our thoughts and lives along the lines of the ruling that the Bible gives? When questions like these disturb our peace of mind and make us cranky and uneasy, it pays to have a good look at what Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ, has to say in our text. Verse 29 reads: "I mean, brethren, the appointed time has grown very short; from now on...!” and verse 31: "For the form of this world is passing away."
We may render the meaning of these lines in a way somewhat easier to understand when we say it like this: The time meant for the history of this world is grown short; we might even say it is "abbreviated", compressed. All that has to happen before the end has been compressed into a shorter span of time. We must at any price try to get the right meaning there and perhaps the following example may be helpful:
If a housewife as a rule prepares a meal in one hour, she may when she is in a real hurry slap it together in twenty minutes... but then she has to rush it!
In the same way, the course of events that has to run to bring about the completion of mankind's history can no longer go at the slow and easy pace of the past. To get everything ready before Jesus Christ returns on the clouds, the tempo has to be accelerated. Things have to follow each other without delay; the total course of events has to be shortened.
Well, if that is so, we are putting this question: Why is this? What is the reason for it? According to Paul, it is because God's plan of salvation for the world is now nearly finished. It is nearing its ultimate goal. At the dawn of mankind's history, after man had betrayed his God by disobedience, God had promised that He would send a helper born of man's own descendants, the seed of woman.
It is one of the exciting functions of the Old Testament of our Bible to tell us about the lengthy and circuitous way in which this promised Saviour was brought to us. We hear about Abraham, to whom it was promised that this coming son would be a blessing to all nations of the earth. We see how His work was depicted in the sacrifices and symbols of Israel's religion. Then, at the end of the work of Israel's prophets, there is silence. After Zechariah no promise is heard. A hush goes over the world for four hundred years, and then Gabriel is sent to Mary and Zacharias to tell them that at last the day of delivery is near.
When Jesus is born, the choirs of angels give their first performance and sing of God's glory in the wonderful peace for Mankind. Now the tempo begins to quicken. Jesus grows up and says that the coming kingdom has come at last. The terrifying fulfilment of Old Testament shadows is enacted as Jesus is crucified through the unbelief of his own people.
God's steps in history now become audible as Jesus is raised from the dead, and ascends into heaven in glory and sovereignty. When He sends His spirit on the day of Pentecost and the disciples finally get an insight into the meaning of the sacrifice of their Master, the world-old theme is taken up and the attack on the peoples of the earth can start. Good tidings may be brought to every tongue and nation to tell them, that the God who created heaven and earth is not their enemy but their merciful Father. The prodigal son is awaited by his father even before he is in view? Of all the revealed acts of God, only one – the coming of Jesus Christ in judgment still has to happen. The train has nearly finished its long journey, and is now pushing on towards its final destination.
There you have the CAUSE for the acceleration of our history! God is nearly ready, and so we have to hurry up! Nothing has to happen in this world but only what we, mankind, have to do! The gospel has to enter into the life of all the nations; the leaven has to enrich all the rolls of dough.
Now we are enabled to see how this works! The world is changing in all its aspects. The form, that we were so comfortably used to, is passing away.
We do see it don't we? The age of the romantic sailing ships is gone. Even their successors, the steamships, are on the scrapheap. A wonder of technical skill such as the Queen Elizabeth of world war fame is subject to all kinds of barter. Now we travel by air. Even our fastest jets are superseded as soon as they undergo their maiden tests. We travel faster than Paul ever did. Faster too than our grandparents. What took many of you five days of travel when you came to Australia is now done within two days. And how we communicate! Paul's letters were delivered by hand, and took more than one winter to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Our airmail only takes a couple of days. And when we ask international telephone exchange for a number in Holland, the switchgirl says, often matter-of-factly: HOLD THE LINE PLEASE!
When we read about the new emerging nations, we discover that nations that were obscure tribal conglomerations before the last world-war, are now dominating the United Nations in New York! What they demand is complete freedom even to annihilate part of their own population! Red Cross planes bringing medical supplies are crowded out of the air. They demand education and medical care, food for their teeming millions while they build multi-story flats in the midst of primeval forests.
Their indigenous religions no longer satisfy, and too often their only spiritual food is the Red Book with the thoughts of Mao Tse-tung. In the countries that since Columbus and Benjamin Franklin, have been living by the gospel of Grace, the Christian faith is forgotten or scorned, and the new religion of sex and sport and drugs is dragging culture down to the bestial level of the disintegrating Roman Empire, making of their belly a god.
And we, when we want to live with open eyes in the midst of this form of the world that is passing away, what should we do? “...From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning.”
We feel as if we have to say to Paul: "I beg your pardon?" Is not marriage about the first and best gift of God? Paul clearly means that even marriage is not of such prime importance as we used to think! And that, even though marriage is nothing less than the means ordained by God to perpetuate the human race and thereby the continuous link in the chain of human history. So it has been since God's promise to Eve in Paradise. Marriage is a MUST and it is God's wonderful GIFT.
But now we should accept the fact that marriage should no longer DETERMINE our life completely, as if there was nothing of greater importance. But do we realise for how many of us marriage still is so all-important? How some others slave to give their daughters a wedding in splendour and glory? Is not marriage and a boyfriend the one topic among girls?
Next to the important place marriage has in society, as it brings new life when babies are born, we are faced with that other fact: DEATH – it’s our constant companion!
If there is no death in a family and no mourning, there always will come the hour when death takes its toll. How terrible this blow can be when one who is nearest to us is taken away! We try to steel ourselves when it is a mother or daddy... we try to live on when it is a wife or husband that has left us... and when it is a child torn from our heart we cannot stop mourning, and nothing is left but a daily, hourly cry for help to God. It can feel like the end of the world!
Yes, so it is... but this is sure: it IS NOT the end of the world! Even mourning should not be the major factor in our life: we should live as though we were not mourning. It should not determine our life and our lookout, says Paul.
All this is also true for those who rejoice! The greatest joy should never absorb all our attention! Life is more than marriage and more than the loss of a loved one, also more than the joy of a day or a career!
Just so, life is more than doing business in buying and dealing...! When we listen in to many a conversation we find out how the hearts and heads are overfilled with blocks of land, lucky deals and shares on the market – with money in the bank.
But when this is the reality of our life, when we have to work and to plan, what actually is wrong with it?
Nothing but this: that these things of today are liable to absorb all our attention. They are bound up with what is in the PRESENT... they are part of the momentary form of this world, and the form of the world is passing away! They make us forget what was in the past, and make us blind to what is in the process of coming!
This is what the gospel wants to make us see: that there are ONLY THREE things that are steady and do NOT PASS away; three things that do NOT CHANGE!
That is...
- Jesus Christ, the son of God,
who wanted to die for us and who rose from the dead......
- Jesus Christ, who now prays for us to God in heaven... and...
- Jesus Christ who is in haste, preparing his return.
It is Jesus Christ who is changing the world! He directs all things, for all authority is given to Him by the Father.
Let us not make this too easy – by accepting it in a way forgetting it again, as we think that this happens through a supernatural act that escapes our observation and understanding. For this is only partly true! The Lord Jesus Christ reigns through His Spirit and Word. That means that we are fully included in it. His Spirit is poured out on us and His Word is given to us with the command that we should go out with it, in the world to the nations! The rider on the white horse conquers the world by the sword of his mouth! There are more riders obeying Him, but the white horse goes in front of them all. Here we get a vision of the task and importance of the church that goes forward with the good news of God, who is reconciling the world to Himself through Jesus Christ. Do we Christians realise where all the changes in life and history hail from?
What has been the renewing power, that after many centuries of simmering processes, brought this world to the boil?
That has been nothing but the gospel of good tidings! Thereby the peoples have been delivered from the deadly fear of supernatural powers and spirits who were hostile to the living and had to be appeased by sacrifices – even of maidens and children. The gospel has broken the paralysing shackles of magic, that clouded a real understanding of the processes of created life.
It is again the gospel that urged man to care for the ailing and sick, the needy and lost, making life again liveable for the victims of ignorance and sin. The fear of illness has given rise to a thirst for knowledge and quest for ways to heal as often the unconscious followers of the Christ, who healed the sick and cleansed the unclean lepers. The amazing successes of medical science are closely connected with this triumph of the gospel. Only now are the facts and secrets of creation researched without the obscuring and distorting effects of superstition only now are they open for the mind of man created after God's image. Jesus Christ and the reverence for God are the fountain head of all science.
It was the Saviour who approached his disciples after his resurrection with his triumphant greeting: Peace be with you!
Peace was the song of the angels, peace is the message of Jesus, peace in all its blessing is the outcome of Christ's sacrifice to God. The war is wiped out between God and man, between man and all God's creation.
This peace was what the apostles had to proclaim in the world. And history shows us how, one after the other there had been a toppling down of all the fences that had imprisoned man's mind and life since he believed the lie about God, in the serpent's perfidious suggestion that God might not like man to know good and evil.
Research and science began to implement the promise of Jesus that the blind shall see and the lame shall walk.
Just look at the schools where kids are taught how to read and count; where they learn about the peoples of the earth and the stars of the sky. Where they should hear about the Father in heaven who created all that glory.
Look at the grid of hospitals that covers the countries, and reaches helping hands to mankind in need.
The glory of creation was discovered and the forces of nature were set free to fight the curse of sin and death.
It is easy to see how people everywhere are glad to receive all those gifts. But, we ask, do they also acknowledge the GIVER: GOD?
Where in our hurrying world is the praise of Jesus Christ?
They are all the time occupied with wives and marriage or what they make of it, as they are changing even the fundamentals of human life. And there has never been so much mourning as now, when they even mourn about what they fear for the future. While people are starving by the wayside in India, the most privileged of all men are rioting on the campuses of the universities. Others are dealing with this world and paralyse the millions of a nation because they want to have a Saturday morning off. And, as far as buying goes, what is behind so much of our troubles but the murderous race to lay hands on the raw materials for industry? How many crimes are committed to get oil and gold, uranium and atomic secrets?
The world is changing in feverish haste... it escapes our grasp, even when we concentrate all our energies on it. What we see today will be gone tomorrow, tossed aside as a moth-eaten coat.
WE won't see the end, presumably, but we will certainly reach our end as grass that withers away. History is indeed coming into its final stride, until the last trumpet will sound and Jesus Christ will say: IT IS FINISHED. For He and He alone is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
That is why Christians should not be imprisoned in the ups and down of the present.
Do not lose yourself in the joy that God gives as a blessing. And do not be dragged down in your mourning as if there were no hope. Do not even be completely wrapped up in money and business, the things your hand finds to do.
When you receive the wonderful boon of a lasting love and a happy marriage, do not let it come between your God and your heart.
What is waiting for us, in God's peace that passes all understanding, is the glorious wedding of Jesus who loves us, and His bride, all who have learned to love Him.
In that peace there will be God wiping the tears from our eyes, nobody will say "I am sick." For God has started a new life in peace and you. He has washed us clean from all our sins, and He has covered us with the white robe of righteousness.
That will not pass away, for that is eternal life.
Amen.