Whispering Eternity #19  

An epiphany is an awakening, a sudden realization or understanding of some great spiritual insight. The doctrine of justification by faith alone without the works of the law was to be my greatest epiphany. I was saved by works, but not my works His! My eternal destiny was in His hands and it had nothing to do with my performance. To be justified by faith was to be counted just-if-I’d never sinned. It was a gift. Over the next few days let me explain this most important biblical doctrine. 

That year (1975), when the wheat sowing was over, and while I waited for the harvest work to begin I got a part-time job filling in for the hospital gardener while he took his long service leave.  Within a one-week handover, I learnt a great amount about gardening and pruning roses. My love and knowledge of roses started there at the Lake Cargelligo Hospital. For the three months of winter, this was my workplace.  

Being a small-town hospital, every day the local doctor would come and do the ward rounds. He would walk to the hospital with his Red Setter dog and would leave the dog on the hospital grounds with me. The dog would bounce around in front of the wheelbarrow and provided good distracting company. On one occasion I noticed that he was chasing a butterfly across the lawn and I thought, “How cute!” But then I saw that he was not chasing the butterfly at all but the shadow on the ground. That struck me as a life lesson. How often do we chase the shadows of life when the reality is above? The shadow will pass away. At this point in time, the shadows seem to have more attraction, but the butterfly of eternity is an infinitely greater prize.  

An ancient philosopher said, “Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless.” Ecclesiastes 1:2. The Hebrew word here used is the word for a soap bubble. A soap bubble looks pretty (like the butterfly). It catches the light with rainbows of colour. But then it bursts and doesn’t even wet the ground, and certainly can’t be recovered. 

Another ancient sage said,” Is there not an appointed time to man upon the earth.” Job 7:1 My life is wind he continued in v7. “for we are but of yesterday and know nothing because our days upon the earth are a shadow.” Job 8:9 “So are the paths of all that forget God.” V13. James said in the NT that our lives are like a mist that appears for a time and then vanishes away. James 4:14. I realized all this long before I was a Christian, and when I finally read them, I found them to be just summing up what had been the long road of frustration for me. 

I find it sad that most people leave eternity out of their reckoning, or as my cousin said to me, “I’ll just wait and see what’s on the other side.” This is the shadow world, but heaven doesn’t just come automatically. The wages of sin is death