Number Our Days

Preached on 01-13-02

NUMBER OUR DAYS

A Sermon by the Rev. Patrick A. Rose

". . . for numbering our days, make known what is right, that we may put on a heart of wisdom." (Ps. 90:12)

THE BEGINNING OF A NEW YEAR leads us, quite naturally, to reflect upon the inevitable passage of time. And the passage of time is inevitable. The passing of the years might seem relatively slow, but there is no turning back the clock. We grow older, and not only does the world around us change, but so do we . . . and our own bodies grow weaker with the passing years. There is no denying and no fighting the fact that the New Year brings each one of us one big step closer to the eventual and inevitable ending of life in this world.

Now from a natural viewpoint, such a thought might seem gloomy indeed, something to be ignored, rather than faced. Many people have difficulty coping with the thought that one day, without doubt, they will die. The idea scares them.

If we are to be rational, though, we must accept, frankly and honestly, that life in this world is limited. Whether we die during the coming year, or many years from now, there is no avoiding the inevitable. Furthermore, we should accept this -- not fatalistically, as a gloomy conclusion to life we can do nothing about -- but rather as something to work towards.

Death is not the end of life, but the beginning. The only sense in which death is an end, is that it marks the end of our preparation for life. This is what our brief stay in this world is -- a preparation for life in the world to come. It is a fundamental and most wonderful truth that a person, though born into this world, is not born for this world. He is born to live in the spiritual world, and his birth first into the natural world is so that his spirit might be prepared for eternal life.

Wonderful though this truth might be, we should realize that there is a lot of pressure brought to bear upon us to deny or ignore the fundamental doctrine of the resurrection. The devils of hell work in many secret ways to make us forgetful of eternal life.

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ rose from the tomb to testify that death will not overcome us. Our Lord came also as the spirit of truth in the Heavenly Doctrines, to teach the wonders of the spiritual world. Yet, if the devils were to have their way, they would have us forget or overlook what the Lord has revealed about eternal life.

Think for yourself: if you were a devil, how would you go about discouraging people from thinking of eternal life? The most effective way would be to seduce them into thinking of the things of this world as all important. This is what the devils do -- they discourage us from thinking of the spiritual world. The sphere they produce is one of apathy towards the things of spiritual life. This is why we all have a tendency to regard this world as everything, and to ignore the reality of the world to come.

This is the very opposite of what the Lord intends. Our primary purpose in this world should be to prepare for the Kingdom of God. As the Lord says in His Sermon on the Mount: "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness " ( Mt. 6:33). If we allow ourselves to forget this -- if we allow worldly concerns to become all important -- we make a fundamental mistake (Lk. 12:20).

To live just for this world is to deny what is human. It is to live like an animal. It might be a life that appears good on the surface -- there are, after all, gentle animals -- but still it is animal -- it is sub-human -- to be concerned exclusively with worldly things. It is to deny the fact that, unlike animals, we are created for another world.

And so it is vital to remember, above all, that we are going to leave this world. We are going to go to a world where we won't be judged the way others in this world judge us. We won't be judged in the way we often judge ourselves. In that world to which all of us will go, the value of a person will depend upon his humanity. In other words, it will depend upon the degree to which he has, during this life, received the uniquely human qualities of spiritual love and spiritual wisdom.

Yet our tendency is to forget this -- to ignore preparation for the world to come -- and to concentrate solely upon our natural welfare. This is why we need at times to be reminded of our own mortality. We need to remember that we are going to die.

This is the message of our second lesson this morning. We must remember and not forget the simple fact that we may die tomorrow. The rich man had laid up wealth for many years -- natural wealth, that is. Little did he know that that very night his soul was going to be required of him. Well-prepared for life in this world, he was to enter a world for which he was completely unprepared.

Now suppose your soul was to be required of you, and you knew it ahead of time. What would you do? It would be well to make sure all your worldly affairs were in order. What about your spirit, though? What do you think you would do for your spirit if you knew you were going to die during this coming year? Would you read the Word more? Would you pray to the Lord more earnestly? Would you try harder to resist what is evil and harmful?

Now deathbed repentance tends to be shallow and ineffective, because it is usually the result of external fear. And yet a dying man is, nevertheless, able to see, and grasp, the relative insignificance of worldly things. He is confronted by the obvious fact that he must leave this world behind. We should not wait until the end, though, to see this. We already know that we will die, and that each year brings us closer and closer to the beginning of eternal life. We must be getting ready for that life now -- getting ready for a world far more important than this one. One day the Lord will come for us, and, as we read in the Gospel of Luke, "Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching." (Lk. 12:37).

Now it is not the Lord's intention that while preparing for future life we should ignore the present. We are not to live our lives in this world with no concern at all for worldly things, waiting only for the day of our death. Quite the opposite! If we see, as is the case, that life here is but a preparation for eternity, then every day will have greater meaning for us. Simply by realizing that we have only so many days to get ready, we will tend to view each day of our life in this world as a golden opportunity for preparation -- an opportunity not to be wasted. Each day becomes a step along the path towards heaven itself, and we walk this path, deliberately, calmly, and peacefully. And it is indeed a peaceful process, not a frantic one. A person man preparing for heaven has, within himself, a sense of peace, for he receives, within his spirit, the peace of eternal life.

A person walking the path to heaven is not really focussing on the future, but on the eternal. He is indeed preparing for his future entrance into heaven, but in so doing, his focus is upon things which, in essence, have nothing whatsoever to do with time. To put it another way, in his day-to-day life he strives after certain qualities which are timeless or eternal, because they come directly from the eternal God Himself. Our tendency is to think of eternity as an infinity of time, as time which goes on forever and ever, but the truth is that eternity is something completely independent of time; it is something within and above time.

Take as an example the truth that it is good to love the neighbor. This is an eternal truth. No matter when one lives, whether thousands of years in the past, or thousands -- perhaps even millions -- of years in the future, this truth is always true. It would be meaningless to ask when it is good to love the neighbor, for a truth such as this is always true. The truth that charity is good has nothing to do with time. It is an eternal truth, having its origin in the Lord Himself -- the Lord who is completely unchanging and completely above what is of time. As we read in the 90th Psalm: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God." (Ps. 90:2).

We do, of course, live in a world of time. Within ourselves, however, we can still seek from the Lord what is eternal. We can seek after those inner qualities of love and wisdom which will endure forever. It is possible for us to do this because, even though our external lives are governed by time, our spirits are already in a realm above time. There is no worldly time in the internal mind of man.

Externally, our minds are of course immersed in time. Living in the natural world, we are keenly aware of the passing days, hours and years. We can, however, sense that the deeper degrees of our minds are above natural time from the circumstance that our inner states so often bear no relation to chronological time. When deeply absorbed in thought, many hours can seem like nothing. When in deep emotional pain and anguish, a few minutes can seem like an eternity. The reason for this is that the progressions of the internal man, progressions which the Writings call states (AC 4850), are governed not by natural, but by spiritual time. These states of the mind are above the realm of worldly time.

Because spiritual states are timeless, they therefore last forever. Everything a person has ever thought or felt within himself remains. Every evil thought or feeling, even the most insignificant, will be with him to all eternity. So too will every good thought and feeling (see AC 561). All of these things remain forever.

This, then, is why life on earth is so important. In preparing for heaven we are not so much preparing for the future as for the eternal. We are endeavoring to invite within ourselves various good and true states which, by their very nature, are devoid of time and so will remain to eternity.

All of life takes on a completely different perspective when we realize that the states within our minds will last forever. Just think . . . 2001 is not over. It will last forever, for the states through which we passed last year will remain to all eternity.

This might seem a horrifying thought. Don't forget, though, that these states, though they remain, are nevertheless modified by the Lord. Evil we have intended or done indeed remains with us forever, but through the path of repentance this evil is gradually laid to sleep. It becomes like a scar which gradually fades to all eternity. Thus, in His mercy, the Lord arranges our states, casting to the side those we have rejected through repentance -- arranging them so that they are at the edges of our spirits.

It is this work of arranging our many past states which is meant in the Word by numbering our days. We are all familiar with the words: " So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Certainly in view of the fact that each instant of our earthly life remains forever, we must indeed number our days -- that is, treat seriously the life that we live. Strictly speaking, though, it is not we ourselves, but the Lord who numbers our days. A different translation of the Hebrew makes this clear: "For numbering our days, make known what is right, that we might put on a heart of wisdom." In other words, we pray that the Lord will teach us what is right, and that He will give us a love of wisdom, so that He can then order our states in the form of heaven. It is the Lord alone who numbers our days, orders our states, and He does this to the degree that we learn and do what is right.

When we count or number things, we arrange them in order and account for each one. When the Lord numbers our days, or states, He arranges each one in its proper place. If we have, by our life in this world, put on a heart of wisdom, that is, developed a love for what is good and true, then all the good states we have experienced in this world, and all the hidden things within these states as well, are arranged around this heavenly love. What is evil and unpleasant is then laid to rest at the edges. This, though, can only happen if we put on a heart of wisdom -- and we must do this, not in a future world, but now, right here, while we live on earth.

Heaven, and hell, do not begin in the future. They begin now. Quite apart from whether we might happen to die soon, or live many years into the future, we are already face to face with eternity. Each state we undergo is preserved to eternity, and is arranged by the Lord in its own particular place when we become an angel or devil. And if we are to become angels, we must turn to the Lord, learn from His Word what is right, obey His teachings, and so put on what the 90th Psalm calls a heart of wisdom . . . a love for what is good and true -- a love which will never die, never grow feeble, never falter. This heart of wisdom is that eternal heart which beats forever within the breast of each and every angel. It is an eternal state of love, a state of love which comes directly from the eternal God Himself. " . . . For numbering our days, make known what is right, that we may put on a heart of wisdom."

Amen.

Lessons: Ps. 90:1-12; Lk. 12:16-21; DP 59.