Whatever the purposes and temporal blessings were in sacrificing animals in the Old Testament....the primary purpose in cutting those throats was to point to what later transpired on the cross at Calvary. We do know that do we not? I purposely use words like...."cutting the throats"....to get the attention of this ice cream social that we have made of church.
God knew before Adam was created that he would fall. He foresaw every person that would ever be born from Adam's loins. He choose some to bestow mercy and blessing upon....all of this beforehand. I could if I wanted....go up to the Walmart and buy an egg of Silly Putty. I'm sure they sell them today. If you are older than dirt then you remember the fun we had with them. I particularly liked to squash them over the Sunday color comics....where there was a perfect imprint....and then I would stretch them to even more comical figures. Well I could get one now and fashion it into form of a man. I would be the potter....and I could do whatever I wanted with it.....stomp on it....or put it on a mantle.So what right do we have to say to the Potter what He must or must not do to the clay? He gave us the good news of the gospel....a wonderfully redundant term! If we do not fully understand the implications of what the gospel entails....then it might very well not seem that great of news....heaven (?)....yeah that's cool.....not as cool maybe as a retirement home in Palm Beach....but cool! As for hell....well we never think too much about that at all.
I don't hear preachers bringing this up much....if even at all actually.....maybe I'm just wrong....but it seems to me to be a major stumbling block. We look at eternity in linear terms. If that were the case then I would have trouble with a person rejecting God for twenty years....and then suffering in hell for ten thousand times ten thousand times ten thousand years! Time has to be created! We have no idea....and no genius science fiction writer can come with any concept of how eternity is constructed....but we should know this....for although God has not specifically defined eternity in terms of segments....or hell....he made it very plain that the soul that goes to be with Him in heaven will be singing praises upon praises for such joy....and the soul that is not going there....with be gnashing their teeth! That I can understand.
So salvation is going from gnashing your teeth....something that all of us deserve....to....for nothing we do or could even possibly do....to praising God.....and rejoicing....and adoring Him.....forever....whatever that may be!
One more key point....and I'm going to use the concept....'a name written in the Lamb's Book of Life.' It's simple logic here folks. A name is either written in that book or it is not. God's Word tells us that no one comes into this world with their name written in that book. So there has to be a time....a moment....and the angels even rejoice at this....when a name is written down.....a soul going from gnashing teeth to.... rejoicing....a regenerate heart....eyes that can now see....and ears that can hear....and the Blessed Holy Spirit living smack dab within us to keep us! That is one description of becoming a Christian. So you tell me....how....under that circumstance....How can we possibly not thank God every day of their lives?
We in the church have lost the truth of what being born again is. And since we do not understand it....we cannot apply it to our loved ones or anyone else! That's why proclaiming the glory of Jesus Christ and His gospel is not on our minds all the time. This just came to my mind....honestly....Spurgeon has a sermon titled...."The Great Sin of Doing Nothing." (you can easily Google it) I listened to it a few times over the past few weeks. He gave this sermon on a Thursday evening....August 5, 1886....as the evangelical church in England was collapsing. I could feel the pain in his words.....and the pleading to wake up. Spurgeon's sermons later in his ministry....this was five and a half years before he went to glory himself....were as the First Officer of the Titanic who was just told that ship had little time left. There is a time to scrub the decks....and to practice with the lifeboat davits....and there is a time to start loading the boats. This is that time!
