Continuing on Ted Dekker’s The Slumber of Christianity.
The hope of eternity is what should drive us. The hope for something beyond this… something other than, in a world better than. Solomon says, in Eccl. 3:11, that “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they can not fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Dekker says that while we are here on earth we should be happy, because happiness is a gift from God. When we lose the focus of eternity, we lose true happiness. “Eternity has indeed been branded on our hearts, but we have been lulled into a numbing slumber, and we no longer feel the hot brand of heaven that once seared our hearts. The results have been devastating.”
Hope is far more than a flimsy notion. It’s the engine of life.
It’s a slippery slope into slumber, he says, because we start off so well. We come to faith, and we are excited and passionate. We have been reborn! I Peter 1:3 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Seeing the word hope often may make us scratch our heads a little. Hope? That doesn’t sound very strong. Dekker puts it this way, “It conjures notions of something less than concrete, sitting in the mind like a small light, connected to reality by a thread. Hope is far more than a flimsy notion. It’s the engine of life. Peter’s hope is a living hope, residing in the mind, yes but not in an insignificant way. His hope is the source of all happiness.” The word hope means: to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment, to look forward to something with confidence or expectation, to expect and desire. And that is exactly what we have when we first become new Christians. Oh how excited we are. I remember so many conversations with zealous new believers, and loving being around them because they are just so raw and new and full of joy and overflowing love for Jesus. I love how he puts it: “Have we forgotten our own salvation? For most of us who believe, that first unveiling of truth was once staggering. We may have wept for joy. We glowed with inexpressible peace that we were desperate for. Once we were lost, but then we were found, and we wanted to shout it out from the rooftops. In fact, we did. Even if you can’t immediately recall feeling like this, you can certainly think of otherss who do today. You can’t possibly miss them. They are the new Christians. They’re the ones bouncing off the walls in their enthusiasm while the rest of the church looks on with patient grins. Isn’t that quaint, we all think. Just give them time. No! Don’t give them time! Stop new believers in their tracks and dig deep into their souls and uncover this mad passion that has them doing things they had never dared to do before.” He goes on to share that knows what’s on their mind … it’s hope. Hope, hope and more hope. Saved, saved, wonderfully saved, like the old gospel song goes… It’s a song that has a hope of walking with Jesus in heaven, seeing His wonderful face…because I am wonderfully saved. Saved from bondage. Saved from addiction. Saved from separation with God. Life is new. Dekker says it’s like when you you look around and the flowers are more vibrant and the sun is shining brighter, and the music sounds more sweet. “Nothing could stop you, because you were a joint heir with Christ, a bride awaiting the great unveiling of that heavenly wedding with anticipation. Christianity had delivered into bliss. Nothing could stop you…Nothing except Christianity itself.”
The struggles began after we get saved. Slowly we find ourselves talking less about the hope of heaven and the promises of rewards and treasure there. Our focus shifts to the here and now and we talk about prosperity and blessings in this life. That becomes our focus. We talk more about our struggles and say that they are attacks from the enemy and we never have victory over them. “The more we struggle to become happy, the more we fail to do so, and the more energy we pour into finding the key to happiness.” Go to any Christian bookstore and you will certainly see a shelf of books on this very issue. How to be happy, how to fix your marriage, how to fix your finances, how to fix your kids, and the list goes on. We are, “no longer content to rest on the great inheritance that once awed [us]. The new and living hope for eternity began to slip into a slumber.”
There are two groups – one that doesn’t really think much about the afterlife, but focuses on the benefits of this life. Dekker states that this group is often populated by pastors, missionaries, and people in ministry who have become so focused on “widening the path to salvation and being sensitive to the seeker’s tastes that they have forgotten where the path leads and what the seeker’s need really is. In reality the path is narrow, but it leads to a bliss hardly comprehensible. This gospel has gone missing.” The second group are those who are losing their faith. Often in their twenties and teens, they are bored. Rebellious. Lethargic. Talking about our inheritance in heaven is rewarded with blank stares, Dekker says. “It’s a Christianity more enamored with a good time on road trips and summer missions…It’s a Christianity that likes to grind to Christian music and wear Christian labels and repent for yesterday’s wrongs rather than meditate on the ecstasy to come. It’s a Christianity that rolls at an altar at the beginning of the service and rolls a joint at the end….At the end it’s a Christianity that culminates in disillusionment, lethargy, boredom and unbelief.” The reality is that this applies as much to the adults as to the young people.
“No form of Christianity stripped of hope can satisfy…Worldly Christianity is simply heavenless Christianity. It’s a form of godliness stripped of the power of hope…The machine of life is destined to lie in darkness unless fueled by the pearl of great hope. But powered by that fuel, the great machine will awaken with a thunder and fill the heart with an inexhaustible awe.”
What falls asleep can be awakened. This is the hope held out to all those who have lost that first love.
More to come. This book is challenging me. Go buy it!