Time
For Change
by Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.
Another year has come and gone. The old calendar has
been replaced with a new one. All of us are one year older! And for
some, there is sadness because loved ones or friends are gone,
leaving emptiness, pain and grief!
These
are realities we cannot change since we live in an imperfect world.
We are saddled with the unyielding ‘Second Law of
Thermodynamics’ (aging), and the harsh cycle of birth, life and
death! Each one has an allotted time here, and then we are forced to
move on. Some go submissively and others leave kicking and
screaming! But, all must go!
IT
WASN’T ALWAYS THAT WAY!
The
human story is one of tragedy, because that was not in the original
plan. Adam and Eve were made in the Creator’s image and likeness.
Like the Triune God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - we are spirit,
soul and body! God’s original plan - before we messed up - was that
mankind would live forever in a state of innocence, purity and
immortality. And in fellowship with our Maker!
Satan and Sin had changed all that!
Adam and Eve’s rebellion, disobedience and their
damning decision to believe Satan’s lies, plunged the human race
into a downward spiral. Gone were the innocence, purity and sense of
belonging. Their communion with our Heavenly Father was destroyed,
as God’s laws of ‘sin and death’
brought instant judgment!
Man
became a vagabond in league with Satan, the ‘cosmic liar’!
Too late, Adam and Eve realized their tragic mistake. They had
blown it. They were guilty. The die had been cast. The crushing
reality was immediately recognized!
Everything had
radically changed! Paradise was lost. Eternal life was now only a
memory. The seeds of rebellion had brought an instant harvest of sin,
torment, lust, hatred, greed, fear and death?
Our
first parents were driven out. A cherubim - an angelic being - stood
at the entrance of the Garden of Eden, with a flaming sword to keep
them from the tree of life, lest they eat from it and live forever in
their sins!
God
had warned Adam and Eve: “Of every tree of the garden thou
mayest freely eat. But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die”. (Gen. 2:16-17)
The
literal Hebrew states: “in dying thou shalt die”,
meaning: “The process of dying will immediately begin, causing
eventual death”! And since that day, every baby has been born with
the ‘process of death’ in its body!
WHAT
A SAD COMMENTARY!
But
wait, all is not lost! God in His great wisdom and mercy had
already devised a plan to redeem the human race. He would send a
‘Deliverer’ to rescue us all! He would send His
own Son to redeem us by meeting the 'Demands of Divine Justice'
and save us from the devil’s evil grasp!
The
first to hear of His holy plan was ‘the deceiver himself’.
Addressing Satan, the Almighty decreed: “And I will put enmity
between thee and the woman (Eve), and between thy seed
(Satan’s people) and HER SEED (Christ), it shall bruise thy
head.
The
Messiah would Conquor Satan - through His death for our
sins - thereby Satan could only “bruise His heel”, because Jesus
rose from the dead with great power!
All
through the Bible we read of fathers begetting sons. Here we read of
the “seed of the woman”, not the seed of the man! Why is
this? Jesus was begotten of the Holy Spirit, without the aid of a
human father! A young Jewess named Mary (heb. Miryam) bore
the Messiah, Who would die for the sins of the world!
Seven
hundred years earlier, Isaiah prophesied, “Therefore the Lord
Himself shall give you a sign; Behold a virgin shall
conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel - God
with us”. (Isaiah 7:14) St. Paul - the learned Jew - inspired by
the Holy Spirit writes: “Therefore if any man be
in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold
all things become new”. (2 Cor. 5:17)
If
anyone should know, it was St. Paul. He was a radical Pharisee who
believed it was God’s will to kill Christians. He was responsible
for the imprisonment and murder of ‘maaminims’ -
believers in Jesus, including Stephen!
When
Jesus Christ appeared to him - in a blinding light - on the ‘Damascus
Road’, he was gloriously converted and BORN AGAIN! Our Lord Jesus
declared, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee: Except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”. (John 3:3, 7)
CAN
THIS HAPPEN TO ME?
The Bible says: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved”. (Acts 16:1): “And this is the
record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in
His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the
Son of God hath not life”.
Please make this vital decision, NOW.
Receive Jesus Christ and you will then “pass from death unto
life”. (1 John 3:14; 5: 11-12). You will become a child of God.
(Rom.8: 14-17).
You may say, “Are you absolutely sure of this?” Yes,
we have the Word of God on it. Here it is: “For when we were yet
without strength (hopeless),
in due time Christ died for the ungodly. But God commendeth His love
to us, in that, while we were yet SINNERS,
Christ died for us.
Much more then, being now justified by His BLOOD,
we shall be saved from wrath through Him. “For if, when we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much
more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His LIFE.”
(Rom.5: 6,8-10). Amen.
