WHY ARE YOU STILL READING....I TOLD YOU THAT THERE WAS NOTHING HERE FOR YOU!
It was April of 1981 at the Louvre in Paris....in the hall that only had one painting....the Mona Lisa. My wife and I were on a tour that began in London....crossed the channel on a ferry....and transported us by bus through a number of countries winding up in Paris. The hall was packed....almost elbow to elbow....and we were about....I'm trying visualize it....twenty feet or so from the famous painting. I remember that I was not impressed. I think that I posted sometime in the past how I said that I had four paintings hanging in our home better than the Mona Lisa....and one had LED lights all through it.
The silence was broken as my wife blurted out...."Special Dog....It's Natalie Wood!" She had bumped into her. The actress looked at us and smiled. She had curly or frizzy hair as I remember. Next to her was her husband Robert Wagner. He was wearing a short black leather jacket....very expensive looking. I remember what I was wearing.....an American-style long sleeve tee-shirt....with two football jersey type stripes across the shoulders. I wonder what happened to that shirt. My wife probably threw it out. It would only be forty-two years old today!
We were thrilled I'm sure....my wife showed it....but I calmly returned to the oil painting. I would much rather look at Natalie Wood but there was something about giving people their privacy. I remember taking a bus to downtown Pittsburgh at seventeen years old to see Robert Wagner's new film....Banning....about golf and probably sex. I was more interested in Robert Wagner....my favorite actor. I remember one scene where he was at a bar....smoking cigarettes....Larks....do you remember them...the ones with the charcoal filter. I went home and took up smoking cigarettes.....Larks of course. I probably smoked ten packs of cigarettes in my life....and five of them would have been Larks. Needless to say....I wasn't that smart back then.....no comments please.
We were on vacation two weeks ago....Hilton Head....and on the way down....I spoke up to my wife.....with this profound fact. It went something like this...."Wifey.....(I call her 'wifey' at times because that's what Spurgeon called Susannah)...."Wifey....look at your watch....see that second hand moving? Nothing stops time. Lord willing....before you know it we will be on the other side of the highway....heading back home." (I figured this out after forty-six years of going on vacations). It was a philosophical statement....intended to start an intellectual conversation about the meaning of life. She said...."My Apple Watch doesn't have a second hand." Oh....well I guess that maybe we'll be there forever then?
God is not confined to time. Whatever it is in heaven....it won't be time as we have lived it. Whatever it is....it will be perfect....yet that conundrum is what so many people use as an excuse. They refuse to accept that not believing in Jesus....trusting in Him and His words to us in these few years here on earth....will result in an eternity of punishment.
Natalie Wood died seven months after we saw her in the Louvre. She hadn't completed her last picture....Brainstorm....which was about some new science breakthrough where the sensory feelings upon death could be recorded and played back later to be experienced by others.
What does God's Word say about death? "....it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment." (Hebrews 9:27)
I picked up a birthday card at the store the other day. I don't know anyone who has a birthday coming up but the card was just too good not to buy. The front said....'Happy Birthday....there's nothing inside for you." You open the card and it says....'What are you looking here for? I told you there is nothing inside for you." There is a door to open....you open it and....'I said....there is nothing inside for you!" This goes on a few more times with smaller and smaller doors. Finally you close the card....and turn it over....and...."I can't believe it! You're even looking here!'
Folks....are you looking to the world for answers? They are not there....they are not in riches or fame or experiences of any kind. Yet we keep looking....UFOs....not there....near-death experiences....(NDEs).....not there....virtual reality....not there either. I'll end this post with a little bit about Charles Spurgeon....and then the first paragraph of the first chapter of John Bunyan's....The Pilgrim's Progress.
I am amazed anew literally every day as I continue to listen to sermons from the man who was rightfully known as....The Prince of Preachers....Charles Spurgeon....1834-1892. Just today I listened to a sermon delivered in 1887....in which he was so honest in describing the churches of the day where they were seeing very few conversions. He told his listeners that this was not the fault of the Holy Spirit....but of the people who no longer desired His work. It was so similar to today! The title of this sermon if you are interested is....The Holy Spirit, The Need Of The Age.
In that sermon Spurgeon asked....where are the Whitefields and the Bunyans and The Calvins of the age? Where are the men who will preach a warning of what the church had become? Of course Spurgeon himself was one of those men.
By his own admission Spurgeon read The Pilgrim's Progress 100 times in his life. I want to leave you with that first paragraph of that great book....which I had read and listened to dozens of times so far....and of which our son was raised on. Maybe this will stir you to read Bunyan's book?
"As I was walking through the wilderness of this world, I came to a place where there was a cave. I laid down in that place to sleep, and as I slept I had a dream in which I saw a man dressed in rags standing in a certain place and facing away from his own house. He had a Book in his hand and a great burden on his back. As I looked, I saw him open the Book and read out of it, and as he read he wept and trembled. Unable to contain himself any longer, he broke out with a sorrowful cry, saying, 'What shall I do'?"
Folks....there is your answer....that is the Book....God's Word....that unlike the birthday card....beckons you to open and read...for within it is your salvation....and glories forevermore!
Addendum: I wanted to add this because I think that it is a major stumbling block for most people. We live in a created realm that we call time. When the unbeliever thinks of hell they think of millions of years of punishment. It it something that they cannot come to grips with....and thus can never get over enough to consider the gospel....but God does not live in this created realm of time....for as His Word tells us....to Him....."one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day"....(2 Peter 3:8). We are here showing absolutely no trust in God....for the moment that we pass over this life and stand before Jesus....we will understand eternal punishment....that will be ours....and eternal joy....that will not....because we could never trust in God's Word.
