Matthew

Judgment Day – books are opened

Originally published on The Electric Gospel on November 15, 2014.

I once was asked to deliver a chapel talk on a college campus concerning Judgment Day.  This was the message I offered.

**************************

Balancing our Books

by David Sellnow

All of us have a natural tendency to be bookkeepers.  We think like accountants, keeping track of things.  We keep track of every sort of statistic for our sports teams.  We use pedometers to log how many steps a day we are walking.  We monitor how many likes we have on Facebook or how many followers we have on Twitter.

You see the bookkeeping tendency already at a young age in children.  They like to keep track of the chores they have accomplished, get check marks on their chore chart or even better, little stickers or stars.  Little bookkeepers like to see their accounts growing.

I see the tendency in college students.  If you’re a college student, you may count up every point you can get on every assignment that you’re assigned.  And if an assignment is graded and the professor didn’t give you as many points as you wanted, you go up after class and talk to him and try to argue for more points.  Or you email the prof and ask, “Did you dock me for such and such?  Because I think I did such and such, or your instructions didn’t specifically tell me I had to do such and such.”  Or maybe you don’t have the nerve to complain to your professors, but you gripe among your friends about the grades you get.  “His grading is so unfair.  I deserve more points.”  Students are eager bookkeepers, wanting a gradebook full of points.

Benjamin Franklin was a bookkeeper.  He kept books to chart his own good deeds each day.

In 1726, at the age of 20, Ben Franklin set this goal for himself:  “I conceiv’d the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish’d to live without committing any fault at any time.”

In order to accomplish his goal, Franklin developed and committed himself to a personal improvement program that consisted of living 13 virtues, things like industriousness and temperance and sincerity and moderation.

In order to keep track of his adherence to his listed virtues, Franklin carried around a small book of 13 charts. The charts consisted of a column for each day of the week and 13 rows marked with the first letter of his 13 virtues. Franklin evaluated himself at the end of each day. He placed a dot next to each virtue each had violated. His goal was to minimize the number of marks, thus indicating a “clean” life free of bad marks in his book.

Franklin admitted he never got the book completely clean.  (He liked beer too much, and flirting with women, and other foibles.)  But he said, “Tho’ I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, … yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been.”

[Information taken from ArtOfManliness.com.]

I don’t know how happy Ben Franklin was at the end of life when it was time for his final accounting before the Lord of all virtues.  But it seems he didn’t rightly understand how the Lord keeps books in eternity.  And while Ben Franklin was more meticulous than most about his bookkeeping, I’d say the way he thought about the bookkeeping process of his life is the way too many people think of the books of their lives.  And that’s a problem.

The Bible section for today is a vision from Revelation that talks about books.  It’s also the section of the Bible that the website Listverse.com, which bills itself as “the original top 10 site” on the web, lists as the #1 Most Horrifying Moment in the Bible.

This is Revelation 20:11-15 …

  • I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.  And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.  The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.  Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.  Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

Being thrown into the lake of fire is indeed a horrifying thought.  But let’s talk about those books.  What are those books?  What’s in those books?  Everyone – whether great or small – has a book.  When Judgment Day comes, “the dead are judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.”  Does that scare you?  Have you done enough for your account book to be in passable condition?

Well, actually, you know what the Bible says about how much you have to do.  You have to have a perfect book, a book that records flawless keeping of all God’s laws, impeccable and constant virtues.  You can be as diligent as Ben Franklin and still your book comes up short of what it needs to be.  So how can anyone be saved?  Those who are saved are those whose names are found written in the book of life.  If your name is in the book of life, the lake of fire poses no threat to you.  Don’t be afraid, Jesus saves you.

You do have an account book with God in heaven.  Think of it as a book that has two columns.  One column is for credits to your account of virtue – all the good deeds you are expected to do in keeping with God’s commandments.  The other column records your debits or sins – every time you have violated God’s commandments.  When the books are opened in heaven, you need a book that has a completely clean record in the sin column – not a single sin standing against your name … and a completely full record in the righteousness column – that every opportunity you ever have in life to do the right thing, do a good deed, fulfill a commandment of God, you have done so.

Does anyone have a book like that?  One person does.  Only one person.  One person who stood in our place and lived the life we ought to live, constantly and consistently obeying the Father’s will.  One person who was “tempted in every way just as we are—yet he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15). One person has a record book with a completely clean, unstained column in regard to sin, not a single sin to list.  One person has a record book with a completely perfect, full account of good deeds in the column marked for righteousness.  Jesus Christ is the one person with a perfect book.  But when we become connected to Jesus, when the Spirit of God, through the Word of God, brings us to trust in Jesus by faith, our names are written in the book of life.  And for those whose names are written in the book of life, the book of Jesus’ life is credited to us also as the book of our lives – even though we didn’t do it, even though we didn’t deserve it, even though we haven’t lived it.  We are granted all the credit of Jesus—all the goodness and righteousness of his life.  We are forgiven of all the sins we have committed, on account of all that Jesus suffered in our place—even death on the cross under God’s horrible judgment.  As one of Christ’s apostles summed it up for us:  “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).  And so when our books are opened, they reveal these sorts of things:  Jesus will say to us, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me” (Matthew 25:35,36).  We will wonder when we did all those things.  But all that Jesus did will be already credited on our account.  And on top of that, Jesus will say to those whose names are written in the book of life, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

So don’t fear the lake of fire.  And don’t fear that when your book is opened on Judgment Day, you won’t have enough in it. You won’t need to beg the Father in heaven to give you more points because you didn’t fulfill his assignments well enough.  You won’t be arguing that you didn’t understand his expectations and can he please just give you another chance.  Believing in Jesus Christ, your name is written in the book of life.  Believing in Jesus Christ, the book of your life that God opens on judgment day will show what Jesus has done for you and what you have done in Jesus.  And all will be well.

Don’t be afraid.  Jesus saves you.

Posted by kyriesellnow

God hears your prayers — even those that aren’t expressed in words

Originally published on The Electric Gospel on March 31, 2016

Sometimes in classes I taught, a little assignment that expects a brief response (such as an online discussion) yielded deep and thoughtful responses from some persons.  The thoughts shared below happened like that.  Lizzie Kogler offered some heartfelt musings about the prayers of our hearts.

Thoughts concerning prayer

by Lizzie Kogler

Think back to a time when everything in your life seemed to be going completely wrong.  You lay awake at night thinking about how full your plate was, but how empty your stomach was, or about how many duties and obligations you had, but how little energy you had. When there was nowhere left to turn, did you close your eyes and pray?

For me, this is the kind of pray-er I have become. I have become someone who keeps trudging through the muddy streets of life, gradually slowing down, until I fall face-first into the stinky goo. Then and only then are my prayers passionate, a pleading cry for help.

Do you ever fall into this same trap of holding out until prayer is your last resort? It’s not like I think that God isn’t powerful enough or present enough to save me. It is more my sinful nature of wanting to think that I by myself am enough to get through life. And then, time and time again, I fall down on my knees looking upwards toward the cross, still stained in red.

So this leads me to a question concerning prayer.

In the Large Catechism, Martin Luther wrote, “Let people learn to value prayer as something great and precious and to make a proper distinction between babbling and praying for something.”  I don’t disagree with Luther … but I also wonder.  Are there ever times that our babbling (or what might seem like babbling) indeed is prayer?

Certainly there is a difference between mere babbling and true prayer.  According to the Oxford Dictionary of English, “Babbling is talking rapidly and continuously in a foolish, excited, or incomprehensible way” … whereas prayer was defined by Jesus this way:  “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others … But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen … And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:5-8).

Are there times where we are foolish, excited, or hard to understand? Absolutely, we are human. But this does not mean that we should not come to the Lord in prayer, for fear of the sin of babbling. Jesus encourages us to cast all our anxieties on him, because he cares for us (cf. 1 Peter 5:7).  This means coming to Jesus with an open heart, ready to hear his forgiveness, peace, and comfort.

I will admit that sometimes I am afraid to pray. I am not worried about whether God is going to give me or not give me what I am asking for. I do not feel nervous about his plan for my life. It is more that I feel guilty for not praying as much as I could or should.  But then I remind myself that God is gracious and hears my prayers.   He hears your prayers too – even those that aren’t fully or perfectly formed into clear words.

Passages for prayerful encouragement:

In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help.   From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.
Psalm 18:6

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
James 1:6

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. 
Hebrews 4:16

The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
Romans 8:26

Posted by Electric Gospel