Meditation 1122
A Sign of Despair?
by: John Tyrrell
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The local Seventh Day Adventist Church has had the message "Because he lives! I can face tomorrow"* up on its sign for the past little while. My thought each time I drive by it is the degree of despair it conveys. Perhaps the members of the church see it as a sign of joy. However, as far as I am concerned, you have to be in pretty desperate straits if you can only manage to face the future through believing that a man still lives today in spite of the fact he (supposedly) lived 2,000 years ago and was "crucified, dead and buried."
Can life really be that bad?
The majority of people living today seem to manage quite well in facing tomorrow without believing that Jesus is still somehow alive.
The Seventh Day Adventist Church is an End Times Church. It was founded out of the failure of the prophecy of William Miller that the Second Coming would be in 1843. And since its founding, it has clung steadfastly to the belief that the End Times is upon us. Learning from Miller's failure, they have generally refrained from setting a date again, but for 170 years they have claimed the Second Coming is "soon." Maybe next year, maybe the year after. And for 170 years, they have been, like William Miller, wrong.
But I mention their End Times belief because part of that entire scenario is that Jesus will oversee the deaths of several billion people, and sentence them to eternal torment in hell.
And believing Jesus is alive and is going to kill billions enables them to face tomorrow?
What empty lives they must have to see this as better than any alternative!
* Through googling, I found this (without the exclamation mark) is from a popular gospel song which thankfully I have never heard.
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