Christian Living
Larry Lilly's Letter Thursday August 23, 2007
One of the saddest statements in the Bible is a phrase from Ephesians 2:12, "Having no hope." The phrase refers to the Gentile nations concerning the lack of relationship with the Lord. They were without God in the world, thus without hope. When a person or a people are without God life really has no meaning. We are just here, we live, and we die. The period at the end of the sentence represents all there is, with no more to follow, the end, period. When God is known and accepted, periods are only a pause and life goes on.
Yesterday I pointed out the biblical fact that our best hope concerns life after earthly life, thus teaching that enduring hope is based on eternal truth, rather than the passing things of time. Martin Luther commented on this truth:
"In our sad condition our only consolation is the expectancy of another life. Here below all is incomprehensible."
Without the better hope of eternity, nothing makes any sense, life cannot be understood if the person living the life has no concept of eternity and at least a surface knowledge of the divine promises concerning the heritage preserved in heaven, as Peter stated.
When Paul wrote the paean of praise to the coming resurrection in First Corinthians 15, in verse 32 he alludes to having fought wild beasts at Ephesus and how foolish this action would have been if all hope is vested in this life only. If this life is the depository of all hope, forget decency, responsibility, any thought of heroism and simply "eat and drink for tomorrow we die."
In the educated opinion of many the glaring flaw of modern Christianity is the near absence of any emphasis on heaven. Biblical preaching and teaching on heaven and the promises of God as they relate to eternity are relegated to the back waters and then dismissed as "pie in the sky" having little or no relevance to increasing your influence with your boss, getting a raise and being happy without spending any time with the wife and kids or Jesus. The failure of modern religion to produce stalwart Christians, but instead the mass of a whining and pampered "me first" generation, which seeks only a feel good experience in the NOW, can and should be laid at the feet of the preponderance of teaching and preaching on "this life only" by the clergy. When most emphasis on living life is placed on "more" it leads to a loss of hope, for the history of the world and certainly of America is glaring in its empirical evidence that "more," however defined is not enough.
On hope the Old Russian, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote:
"Hell is hopelessness. It is no accident that above the entrance to Dante’s hell is the inscription: ‘Abandon all hope, you who enter here.'"
Attempting to live without hope is similar to trying to live in hell.
Larry Lilly Copyright © 2007 Use with credit.
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