I remember a sermon I heard years ago the point of which was, ‘the enemy will keep you in sin longer than you wanted to stay at a price higher than you wanted to pay’.
Hindsight, being better than 20 / 20, informs me of the literal years wasted playing the game of life on the enemy’s terms. Opportunities to be a witness for Christ gone. The chance that I might do or say something that might have steered a lost soul to the well-lit pathway of righteousness and salvation have vanished like the face of the young man that once looked back at me in the mirror.
In 1988 we were invited to minister on TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) during their Friday evening presentation titled “Praise the Lord”. This was a 3-hour broadcast that started at 7:00PM Pacific time. The special guests included another Christian broadcaster and C. M. Ward. For those who have never heard of him, C. M. Ward started the ABC syndicated ‘Revivaltime’ radio broadcast in 1953. The broadcast would become one of the top religious programs on radio for the next 25-years.
The encounter with Ward would become one of the most memorable from my years in full-time ministry.
As was their custom, TBN sent a car to the hotel where we were staying to pick up guests for that night’s Praise the Lord telecast. Pick-up time was 5:00PM sharp due to rehearsal, make-up and program details, including music to be performed, order of appearance and topic of conversations to be held on-air.
Our ministry team was 5-minutes early and C. M. Ward was already in the car. 5:00PM comes and goes, but the final guest still had not made it down from her room to the car. Out of nowhere comes this loud proclamation by Ward, “Well bless God, you can steal a man’s money and repay it, but when you steal a man’s time you can never repay that!”. Another few minutes goes by before the missing guest made her way to the car and we proceeded to the station.
I have often laughed at that encounter with Ward, but the truth of his remark never left me. You can take many things that might be restored at a future date, but you can never reclaim the time. And is that not the very thing that the enemy wants; your time?
We are the unfortunate members of a caste that is subject to the ravages of time in ways that much of God’s creation seems to be immune. Stars have the potential to exist for millions or even billions of years. Certain life forms can live for hundreds of years. But not us. In universal terms our lifetime is a quickly dissipating vapor even for those who live into the 90’s or longer. Our presence in this physical universe is quenched almost as soon as it comes into existence.
One of the most remarkable things about humanity is how we act given our mortal nature. When we are young, we behave as if we will live forever. Our youth is wasted on vain pleasures, the pursuit of what we deem important and youthful passions that condemn their elder generations. In the arrogance of our young adult years we declare our knowledge, understanding and wisdom to be superior to those “old people” who know nothing, when in fact it is the very nature of youth to know nothing in total absentia of the self-realization that one knows nothing. The old adage, ‘youth is wasted on the young’ is a harsh truth.
We stumble blindly along the path of young adulthood to our middle-age where some build lives constructed from a long chain of disastrous decisions. There are some who seemingly drift aimlessly taking life as it comes until it comes to an end. There are those who build empires and temples to self. And there are those who have sold their souls in pursuit of wealth, fame and power. These are bound with chains forged in the furnace of ambition. Compromise is cheap and the rewards are great, but their lives are as tenuous as all others. There are multitudes living under the illusion that they have done no wrong. Among these are the purchased souls who accumulate a debt to him who has granted them fame, made them popular, prospered their evil schemes or given them great political, social and cultural influence.
We fail to understand that our lives are often spent building a prison in which we dwell for many wasted years. One brick at a time, one day at a time, our prison house is designed and built by our refusal to live in the light of God’s Word. The bars are made from our own minds, which like a steel trap sequester us behind ideas, ideologies, philosophies, doctrines and dogma. We silently scream at the top of our lungs, “Don’t confuse me with the facts… I already know what I believe!”.
I can personally testify, as can many older folks, that as you proceed into your senior years you look back at your life choices. You regret your worst sins, only to realize that there are no opportunities to do it over again. Those notions are fantasy at best; useful only as a plot instrument in a sci-fi novel. In reality, you sift through ashes of the bridges you burned, you reflect on the people you loved but hurt deeply, you contemplate the countless times when you might have been a witness for Christ. But mostly, you begin to see life for the vapor that it is, wondering how it passed so quickly.
It is only by the LORD God’s grace and mercy that a few will gaze into the mirror of self-reflection recognizing our failure to do right when the opportunity to do right was right then and right there. The LORD God’s salvation is such that by repentance we gain ground, we take back what was lost or stolen and begin to live our lives as He intended from the beginning. But the time… the time is gone… irrevocably passed into a history that cannot be revised.
This is written as a word of warning to the mortgaged souls of the rich, famous and powerful, who meet their fate as do all others. Many prominent personalities have recently died. In 50, 60 or a 100 years all will be gone; almost all of them forgotten. Seriously, how many remember who won the Oscar for best actress in 1937? Among these departed spirits are those with defiant gestures, hardened faces and rebellious hearts, who paid homage to the prince of this world. Some ended life chained by the shackles of perversion that defined their public persona. Others have died with riches impossible to spend even if they had a hundred lifetimes to do so. None took a penny with them into eternity. Each had a brief moment in the reality we call life. Each impenitent soul has slipped into eternity… their accumulated debt unpaid with interest owed… their sins unredeemed. They have met the merciless debt collector. Kicking and screaming, “I didn’t do anything wrong! I was a GOOD person!”, they descend into eternal hell and separation from the LORD God.
The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is the exact opposite. He has paid the debt we all owe. By His own shed blood on the cross, He has redeemed our souls from that pitiless adversary. He has been resurrected from the grave and sits at the right-hand of the LORD God, our heavenly Father. NOW, while you still have a heartbeat, breath in your lungs, and a mind to speak, utter this prayer. “Oh Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. Wash me in Your blood and cleanse me from my sins. Redeem me righteous Father. By Your loving kindness, and Your mercies that endure forever and ever, grant me Your great salvation that I might live in Your holy Presence for all eternity”.
In that first moment of surrender, your debt is paid forever. You have taken the first step. Now keep walking.
The best news you will ever hear comes the split-second your spirit leaves your body… Jesus Christ has paid the price to deliver you from that ruthless, self-serving, eternally condemned entity I call, The Debt Collector.