Seventeen82

  Of the many things which separate us from the animals the one that causes us the most anguish is the lingering knowledge that all of this will end some day. You will cease to breathe. There will be a funeral service and you will take up residence in a graveyard somewhere. There is no escaping it. No matter how hard you try, and no matter how much science attempts to find a solution, it will all fail. The only way any of us will not experience death is if the return of the Lord Jesus Christ is what comes next. So why do we spend so much time and energy either acting like it won’t happen to us, or living in such fear of death that we can hardly do anything else? Well, in this short essay for 1782 we are going to explore that a little bit. At the outset it is important to lay out this point. Christians must set an example for the world to see that the faith which we confess is more than just a blind hope in a get-out-of-hell-free card. For all men and women struggle with the fear ...

In a Bible Study last fall, our congregation had a lively discussion as we studied Westminster Shorter Catechism Question #20, which asks, “Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?” The answer is: “God having, out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer.” Our teacher, Buzzy Elder, did a good job unpacking the answer in three parts – God’s motivation for his salvation, the subjects of his salvation, and his method of salvation. We were encouraged to hear that God chooses to save his people (us) from their (our) sin and its effects out of his own pleasure and that he accomplished this salvation through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. As Buzzy prepared to move on to Question #21, someone asked the question, “Well, who is actually saved?” I thought, ...