5 Now God[a] did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. 6 But someone has testified somewhere, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them,[b] or mortals, that you care for them?[c] 7 You have made them for a little while lower[d] than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor,[e] 8subjecting all things under their feet.” Now in subjecting all things to them, God[f] left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, 9 but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower[g] than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God[h] he might taste death for everyone.” Hebrews 2:5-9

What would you do with a 19-year-old Christian young man, who wrote in his diary, “9. Resolved, To think much, on all occasions, of my dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death”? As you read through his 70 resolutions, you encounter things like, “7. Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.” “17. Resolved, That I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.” If that young man lived in a modern evangelical home, his parents would probably be looking for a good Christian psychologist to get this kid’s focus off of such morbid subjects. Maybe a prescription for Prozac would help!

That young man was Jonathan Edwards, who went on to become the great revivalist preacher of the First Great Awakening. His writings are still immensely helpful to believers, 300 years later. Lest you think that he was a gloomy, depressive type, I should point out that his first resolution was, in part, “1. Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence.” Edwards realized, even as a teenager, that to live for God’s glory in light of death and eternity was to live for the greatest personal good, profit, and pleasure.

It seems to me that modern evangelical Christians are far too focused on the here and now. We’ve lost the central focus that Edwards had, even as a teenager, of living each day in view of death and eternity. The modern view is, “Heaven is a nice thought, but I want the good life now. If Jesus can help me succeed in my family, in business, and in my personal emotional life, that’s what I want! I’ll think about heaven when I’m in my eighties.” As a result of our shortsightedness, we don’t handle trials well. It is unknown how we might handle persecution, should such arise against the church, but it probably would free up a few seats on Sunday mornings.” (Our Glorious Destiny in Christ, bible.org, Steven J. Cole, 2003)

We do not handle trials well, do we? We are so quick to bail out of most things when we do not get our way, do not see immediate success, and do not sense immediate change. If it seems the diet is losing instead of us losing weight after a week, we try something else. If someone looks at us the wrong way, we immediately think they are an idiot. Why do humans think we are entitled to things — that life owes us something? G-d has placed humans, at least according to the writer of Hebrews, G-d has placed humans lower than the angels so that we learn from the trials of life — and that we learn to live as if this might be the last hour of our life. We need to appreciate the blessings we have today — not expect that we deserve the blessings to which someone else has been blessed.

The trials of today teach us the wisdom we need for tomorrow so that we can appreciate the suffering and death of Jesus — from which comes life for all people.

Pastor Dave