Growth as much as life itself is shot through with paradox. Though it wasn't always that way. The universe itself once used to be quite right. It was good. Very good. And so were we. But something terrible happened, that no one can quite understand, long, long ago. This is not legend, but a fact of our existence.
In a perfect universe, paradox would not be necessary, aside from being something which would exemplify beauty. But then something happened we call "fall."
This was an event in which humanity became polluted with evil, that which is contrary to what is right and true. And being polluted, humanity was quarantined.
The universe became broken, by the command of God, if we're honest. The evil generated within the human heart, the desire to supplant god, and play god, and redefine good and evil to fit our emotions and pleasures became central to human consciousness and perception of reality.
In our minds, good became bad and bad became good, in many ways, though not all. We became desirous to create our own utopia, apart from God. We became desirous to prove God wrong, and to smirk in the face of God, and to sneer toward any mention of God. It became our base programming.
Now this choice in the heart of our ancestors, then seems to have been magnified outside of them, and onto the world around them. That's just how central humanity is to the creation, the creation was created to house humanity, thus humanity's choice affected it completely.
Reality became fallen. Space became vast and lifeless. How was it before? Who could say? Perfect I imagine. Seasons became shattered. Conditions became difficult. The various creatures and animals having once been harmonious and peaceful, became vicious, and prone to consume one another.
All of reality was struck through with paradoxes. Paradoxes, paradoxes, and more paradoxes. Just like two colliding storm fronts produce tornadoes, so the collision of humanity with God's objective truth created numerous paradoxes.
Energy became limited. The human mind became debased. Earthquakes, meteors, storms, and such began to occur. Humanity knew shame and grief, and lostness and isolation from God.
All this came about due to a choice that was made. It began with a choice made by a servant of God, named Lucifer. He apparently became prideful, and chose that path, and then attempted a rebellion against the Creator. This rebellion failed. But somehow in this situation, lucifer managed to get humanity in on the destruction. He managed to trick us into rebellion against God.
Now, every human born on the broken, tangent Earth is born in a default mode of rebellion toward God. As much as we're born with the handprint of God on us, with eternal longings, we're also born with the handprint of Satan on us, defaulting toward rebellion, selfishness, and a deference for darkness. We cling to it, grasp onto it, it becomes us, and it matches us so well. We're like the horrid creatures in H.G. Well's The Time Machine in the far future, that live underground in dark tunnels, and love every minute of it. That's the horrendous realization of our situation, we're the chief problem. And we don't often look intently at that angle because nothing in us wants it to be true. But it is true. And I can't help but stare at it. It's terrible, but it's there and maybe if I can stare at it long enough, the Lord can defeat it in me.
That's what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid that this fallen nature, this reprobate mind, this stamp of rebellion upon me will destroy me. Even as a Christian, deeply in love with God, and following Him, I sometimes fear I will veer off course, because many times I'm so tempted, and many times, I feel the rebellion in me, and it's sway is strong. But growing weaker and weaker as Christ works on me. But I think it's wise to have a good fear of falling away. Of course some would shout "you can't lose it!" And to those I would say, read the New Testament more, and listen to less sermons with catch phrases like that. Read John chapter 15. We're called to live holy and pure in Christ. Many Christians in our lukewarm era don't want to admit that. They refuse to believe that they can lose their position through endless sinning, but they can. And if they persist in it, they will. And something inside them tells them that, but they've been fed the catch phrases of popular evangelicalism too many times. And they've read too little of the New Testament.
I'm so tired of hearing the lie of "once saved always saved." The preachers who teach this will one day have to stand before God and explain to God the Father why they taught endless millions of people that they could never lose their salvation, no matter how much they sinned. And they will have to explain why they taught endless millions of people why they must always continue sinning, and will never stop sinning, so you might as well go on sinning. They'll have to explain why they removed every impetus not to sin by telling millions of people they could never lose it, all for some theological ideology created by a man, long ago, who is long dead. But Jesus lives.
We like to comfort ourselves in our sins, especially in the west. We don't want to have to deal with them. When Jesus tells the woman caught in adultery to "Go and sin no more" we cry out at Jesus, "How can you say that!?" We're so caught in our sins. We love them. We want Jesus, we want Christianity, but we want to keep our little sins too. We don't want them to affect our faith in Christ, but they do. And they threaten our relationship with Christ. If you're reading these words, repent before it's too late. Let those dead things go. To him who overcomes, will be given the crown, so it says in Revelation.
These are the sort of paradoxes we see in the fallen creation. We can't see God here, but we believe in Him. We are best friends with Jesus, yet we've never met Him face to face. We're fallen yet redeemed. We bring honor for ourselves in the next life by serving others in this one. We defeat evil not by striking back at it, but by overcoming evil with good. We defeat our enemies by forgiving them, loving them, and praying for them. We achieve victory through surrender to God. We find peace in constant trouble. We grow by constantly suffering through trials and difficulties. We are often poor and needy in this world, yet rich beyond imagining in the world to come. We are constantly in controversy as Christians, yet these controversies somehow bring others to know Christ. We find ourselves by losing ourselves. We come to know Christ by realizing our desperate lostness and brokenness. It is a world shot through with paradox.
There is a ticking clock on this reality, on this universe, on this planet, on this solar system, on every galaxy, nebula, planet, and person. In the old movie Donnie Darko, Donnie is visited by a rabbit who tells him the world will end in 28 days. Donnie has found himself in a tangent universe that will destroy itself after 28 days and his only way out is to realize that he must return to the prime universe. With horror I realized once I'd became a Christian that though this film was fiction, it is reality for me and for every other person in existence.
We all stand before a ticking clock, and we must somehow come to find Jesus, and come to faith in Christ, and repent of sin, and live for Jesus, before the clock runs out. Otherwise we will perish with the tangent universe when it is destroyed and replaced with the new universe. We find ourselves in a desperately dangerous situation. Because those who do not come to Jesus will be judged before God according to their lives, which is a very dangerous thing, without Christ, no sins are forgiven, and then those sins they committed will have to be punished. And the punishment is eternal torment in hell. How terrifying! But if they have Christ as their savior and have lived for Christ, they will escape the broken universe, and be restored to the prime universe, when the new heavens and new earth are brought about by God the Father.
That's the goal. To wake up from the fallen Earth nightmare before time runs out. And we can only do that through Christ. But if we do, we will escape the fall, we will escape the dumb rebellion of Satan, and be restored fully to right relationship with God. In fact that is our proper destiny, to be restored to God. That is what humans were designed for, to love and be loved by God, in a perfect universe. That is the goal, the return to paradise. And it's quite real. It's quite a solid thing. It's not going anywhere. It will be real. Many will go to hell, and they won't quite be able to believe they are there. But they will be. And there will be no escape.
I don't fully understand why it's like that. It seems quite disturbing to me. But I don't make the rules. And from what I'd read and heard from near death experiences, which I've studied extensively, in that court room, when God shows the true evil of sin to us, in the end, after the review, we 100% agree with God when he gives us the sentence of "hell." Like, we see what we did, we see the penalty, and we end up nodding in agreement that this punish is 100% just. So I've read and heard from near death experiences. At last those who had never seen eye to eye with God will, at their court date, when the sentence is read, of hell, be in 100% agreement, because they'll see their sins and wrongdoings and the punishment given from God's perspective and realize that it is completely and totally just. Wow. And I do believe that's true.
I'm sure it's also true that many will attend to heaven, the New Jerusalem, the perfect reality believing that they were not quite worthy. But in fact they were, because of Jesus Christ, and what he had done for them. So it may be surprising for many of us. But beautiful, and truth will reign.
But you realize then, that this whole fallen reality is simply a last chance for humanity to turn to God. Our ancestors joined with the rebellion against God, with Lucifer and the others. They chose to shake their fist in the face of God. So this is really just a last chance for us. We can slide down into darkness with the rest, or we can climb up the ladder, the stairway to heaven, which is Jesus. It's that simple. This entire broken universe, this broken planet, is simply God giving us a last chance to turn to Him before time runs out. And time is quickly running out. We're approaching the conclusion of this reality. So you better make that choice and put it into practice sooner than later.
