The End Times.3

"If you had only known, in this your day of salvation, the eternal peace so near at hand! 

But now it is hidden from your eyes." 

-- Jesus

When our boys were small 3-D stereoscopic pictures were all the rage.  One son, Danny, could never see the 3-D effect of the pictures.  The trouble was that he could not

Image from Imgur.com

cross his eyes to get the effect.  We never really considered this much of a problem save for his not enjoying the sensation of the interesting images seemingly floating in space.  However, after attending a vision seminar and having Dan's vision tested we learned that inflexibility of the muscles in his eyes had a direct correlation to his difficulty in comprehending and retaining information when he read. A few recommended eye exercises resolved the problem we didn't even know he had!

Not seeing special effects may be disappointing; not comprehending can be downright debilitating. But never acknowledging the problem and finding restoration? Most tragic of all.

Is there anything more tragic for an individual or the race than to be oblivious both to our condition and the cure?

To the best of my knowledge, there is not yet an app for peace.  All the technology in the world will never repair the wrongness in us that disrupts what should be an adventure-filled, collaborative care-taking and awe-inspired harmony with the Creator and His world.

 The real cause of human-kind's trouble is a something many have not recognized even exists, not yet acquainted with its true nature. However absurd the statement may seem to one who has not yet discovered the fact for himself, 

the cause of every man's discomfort, 

his lack of peace, 

is evil, 

MORAL EVIL.

First of all, 

• evil in himself, 
• his own sin, 
• his own wrongness, 
• his own unrightness

and then, evil in those he loves...

Eternal peace can never be achieved by something outside of ourselves: 

• changing our address or social status
• changing jobs
• changing roommates
• changing wardrobes
• changing spouses
• changing diets
• changing doctors
• changing channels
• changing teams
• changing political parties
• changing names
• changing the world

How ever many ways we promote world-change, even if it were possible, we still fail to grasp that we would be out of tune with the thing we've created when we fail to grasp the truth of our own disharmony with our Maker & Master.

To free a man from suffering, his lack of peace, he must be set right, put in health ; and the health at the root of man's being, his rightness, is to be free from wrongness, that is, from sin. A man is right when there is no wrong in him. The wrong, the evil is in him.

He must be set free from it. 

To this end, the Perfect Son of the Perfect Father was born to our eyes.  To be sure, the suffering is causative of the cure for how else can our eyes be opened to the remedy?  The cure is to be made free from the evil in us.  Only the Eternal Prince of Peace paid the price for our freedom.

It is the indwelling badness, ready to produce bad actions, that we need to be delivered from. Against this badness if a man will not strive, he is left to commit evil and reap the consequences. To be saved from these consequences, would be no deliverance ; it would be an immediate, ever deepening damnation. It is the evil in our being — no essential part of it, thank God ! — the miserable fact that the very child of God does not care for his father and will not obey him, causing us to desire wrongly, act wrongly, or, where we try not to act wrongly, yet making it impossible for us not to feel wrongly — this is what he came to deliver us from ; — not the things we have done, but the possibility of doing such things anymore.

For as long as a man continues on loving the darkness in him will he continue to have his eyes hidden to the Eternal Peace ever close at hand.  Open our eyes to see that cure in one man is the beginning of the cure for the whole race!

(adapted from Hope Of The Gospel, Salvation From Sin, by George MacDonald.)