Channel 7 recently launched a new series called, ‘Flash Forward’. It’s a science-fiction-action-romance show that wants to satisfy everyone. In the first episode, the whole world passes out for about 2 minutes, but time keeps on ticking away. So helicopters fly into buildings, there are huge traffic pile-ups on the freeways, and people even miss 2 minutes of television.
But there is a twist. Everyone in their passed out state has a glimpse of their future in about six months time. Some see this—some see that. The main characters become quite distressed. One man has a horrifying sense of future danger whilst investigating the cause of the blackouts. His wife pictures her estrangement and attraction to another man. Another man sees nothing but black and fears that he will be dead in six months time.
If we were to flash forward your life—to flash forward into your future—would you really want to know? The characters in ‘Flash Forward’ are uncertain. They are unsure whether they can change their future. They feel embarrassed and insecure. The future condemns them.
The Bible shares a similar view. The future condemns men and women who remain in their natural state. There is a verse in the Bible that says, ‘man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment’ (Heb 9:27). When we flash forward into the future, our natural state condemns us before a holy and just God.
If this seems harsh, then perhaps you don’t understand your natural self. This is where the reading we heard earlier from the letter to the Ephesian Church is helpful. It’s penetrating honesty brings to the surface our basic instincts and its not a particularly pretty sight. The natural man and woman are described as being dead in their transgressions and sins (v.1), slaves to their corrupt desires and thoughts (v.3), and having a sinful nature which rebels against God (v.3).
That’s a slap in the face! But we cannot avoid the reality of the situation. The natural person is impotent, dead and the object of God’s anger. We were born out of alignment. The natural person deviates from the perpendicular. Our inclinations, our thoughts, our words and our deeds fail to glorify God. In our natural state we are not good enough to enjoy the presence of a holy God. That’s what the passage is saying—in our birth condition we can do no good.
This may surprise you and surely it flies in the face of reality. After all the great humanist dream is that we can evolve ourselves from bad people into good people. Given enough time, we can create our own Utopia. But when the Bible summarises our natural state it doesn’t have a good thing to say. It says that we are dead in our transgressions and sins. We are spiritually dead and there is no life within the natural person. There is no spark of hope that can redeem the human situation. The flame of moral purity is extinguished.
Only God is good, and when we hold ourselves up before God, our claim to goodness is overshadowed by his holiness. And so the conclusion is inescapable: the natural man is dead man. The natural woman is a dead woman. No-one does good, not even one.
How does a worm get inside an apple? Perhaps you think the worm digs its way in from the outside. But scientists have discovered that the worm comes from inside. How does he get in there? It’s simple! An insect lays an egg in the apple while it is still a flower. As the apple grows it encases the egg. Then sometime later, the worm hatches in the heart of the apple and eats his way out. Sin, like the worm, begins in the heart and works itself out through a person’s thoughts, words, and actions. And so the natural man is dead man. The natural woman is a dead woman. No-one does good, not even one.
I’m sorry to say that the diagnosis of the natural person gets even worse. For not only are we dead to goodness, but the natural person mindlessly follows the ways of this world. This is far more than shopping at Woolworths and buying new clothes from Target. The world is a mentality, an outlook, a view of life without God. People shut God out because they prefer to be the organising principle of their life. A natural person is controlled by the world—by its mind, by its outlook, by its mentality. Is this not tragic? But that is people in their sin. The natural person is spiritually dead because he or she can do no good and is controlled by the mind of this world.
Our passage says that the natural person is also held in slavery. People often mock Christians when we they talk about ‘Satan’. They conjure up a devil in a red suit holding a pitch-fork with an evil smile as he stokes the fires of hell while selling BBQ accessories. But it is because Satan is ignored that the world is as it is.
Satan is so subtle that he dominates people and at the same time he persuades them they are not being dominated. Jesus referred to Satan as the ‘prince of this world’. It is he who is dominating this world and he hates God. We are born under the dominion of Satan and his cohorts. Paul says later in Ephesians that ‘our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’ (Eph 6:12).
So here we have a summary of the natural man and the natural woman: dead, blindly following the mentality of this world, and a slave to spiritual forces. When we flash forward to judgment day the natural person will be visited by God’s anger and it will forever remain with him. The Teacher in the Book of Ecclesiastes teases this out. In this situation, ‘Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labour under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom’ (Ecc 9:9-10).
Now if this were the end of the story, it would be very sad indeed. But today is a happy occasion and so we can’t end with this diagnosis of the human heart. And so we baptised Bob as a sign that God is not prepared to leave us floundering in our natural condition. Baptism is a sign that God washes away our natural self and he gives us a new self. This is not something forced on us. We can choose to remain in our natural state and until death do us part.
But Bob and Joy, and others here today, have accepted the offer of new life. This happened when they admitted to God that sin had overpowered them and that the only possible solution was a supernatural solution. If we go back to Eph 2:4, we read these words, ‘But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved’.
Grace’ is the sweetest word in Christian vocabulary. ‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me’. We all know these words and we often sing them at funerals. You may have even seen the movie. But do we understand what this word means?
When a person acts with grace, they choose to do something which they are not compelled to do. Jim Packer defines God’s grace as, ‘God showing goodness to persons who deserve only severity’ (Packer, Knowing God, chapter 13). We deserve severity because by nature we severe ourselves from God. But grace is the reason why God acts to repair this tragedy. He simply chooses to do so without any compelling reason. The result is mercy. Verse 4 speaks about ‘God who is rich in mercy’ toward men and women in their natural, sinful state.
The story is told of a politician who, after receiving the proofs of a portrait, was very angry with the photographer. He stormed back to the photographer and arrived with these angry words, ‘This picture does not do me justice!’ The photographer replied, ‘Sir, with a face like yours, you don’t need justice, you need mercy!’
Napoleon was moved by a mother’s plea, ‘please pardon my son’. However, the emperor said it was the second offense and justice demanded death. ‘I do not ask for justice’, begged the mother, ‘I plead for mercy’. ‘But’, said the emperor, ‘he does not deserve mercy’. ‘Sire’, cried the mother, ‘it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for’. The compassion and clarity of the mother’s logic prompted Napoleon to respond, ‘Well, then, I will have mercy’.
In our natural condition, we do not deserve mercy. But God who is rich in mercy, acts in a way which we do not deserve. Remember that by nature we are dead, we are slaves to this world and to the spiritual world around us. We deserve to be left in this condition for eternity. The punishment is a continuance of the crime.
On the cross, Jesus paid the penalty for sin, justice was done so God allows the sinner to go free. God delights in setting free spiritually dead, lifeless people and raising them to new life. Verse 5 puts it this way, ‘God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ’. Are you alive? Has God put this principle of life in you? The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it. When God raises us from the dead, then our life begins.
The only qualification for receiving this gift of life is being dead. You don’t have to be smart. You don’t have to be good. You don’t have to be attractive. You don’t have to be wise. You don’t have to be wonderful. You don’t have to be anything. You just have to be dead. That’s it!
In my line of work I get to see the odd corpse of two. And I can tell you, when the spark of life is gone, there is no motion, no twitches, no personality, only an eerie stillness. And in our natural state, we are dead. But you can be brought back to life. The grace of God—the mercy of God—the love of God conspires to bring dead people back to life and make them alive in Christ.
Now there is one thing you must do. You must put your trust in Jesus. And, as verse 10 says, you never think of doing this unless God prompts you to do so. ‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God’ (Eph 2:8). Put your trust in Jesus. This is the beginning of the Christian life and this is the engine room of the Christian life.
Put your trust in the death of Jesus. For only his death can satisfy God’s anger directed at our sinful heart. Nail your sins to the cross and leave them there. Plunge yourself into the baptismal waters where your life of sin is put death. Rise out of these waters with a new nature which participates in the resurrection life. No longer live for self, but live with Jesus as King.
I have nothing to fear if my life was fast forwarded to judgement day. I will see my loving Heavenly Father welcoming me into his eternal presence. I will see a new heaven and a new earth. I will hear these words, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away’.
