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The Three Babies and the Others

THE THREE BABIES AND THE OTHERS
Mike Cunningham
June 22, 2014

To make a point in today’s sermon I’ll be quoting a couple of things from one of my favorite sermons in the “Stories About Heaven” series. I preached it on March 21st of this year. It’s called “The Wailing Chamber” and it features a man and woman named Matt and Jen who were two of my characters in that series. The following is part of a particular conversation they were having:

Jen noticed that Matt seemed to be deep in thought and so she asked,

“What’s troubling you, Matt? Perhaps I can help.”

“At first I thought that I was hearing things with all the excitement of my meeting with Jesus. But now I’m absolutely positive that I wasn’t.”

“What did you hear, Matt?”

“I heard Jesus wailing, but, when I turned around and looked, He was nowhere in sight. But now I’m absolutely positive that I heard Him wailing and weeping. I’m very perplexed.”

“Oh my goodness!”

In a split second…Poof! Matt was standing alone before the Great White Throne. But this time Jesus wasn’t sitting on it. In fact, He was nowhere in sight. Then he heard a man wailing and crying. Looking at the wall on the left side of the Throne Room, Matt noticed that there was a sign on the top of it that said, Stop! No admittance into The Wailing Chamber.

He cautiously approached the closed door. The closer he got to it, the door began to slowly open. The wailing and crying grew increasingly louder. When Matt arrived at the door’s entrance, two dazzling angels suddenly appeared. They were guarding the entrance to the Wailing Chamber with drawn swords. The silent somber looking angels acknowledged Matt’s presence and motioned him to come closer and look into the room.

Matt saw a dark dome shaped room similar to what he had seen in planetariums when he lived on earth. Piercing the darkness, a spotlight shone on Jesus. He was kneeling on the carpeted floor, shaking His head from side to side as He recalled certain things He had said to ancient people a little more than two thousand years ago. Things such as,

Matthew 8:12 (TLB)
12 And many an Israelite—those for whom the Kingdom was prepared—shall be cast into outer darkness, into the place of weeping and torment.”

Matthew 13:40-50 (TLB)
40 “Just as in this story the thistles are separated and burned, so shall it be at the end of the world:
41 I will send my angels, and they will separate out of the Kingdom every temptation and all who are evil,
42 and throw them into the furnace and burn them. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
43 Then the godly shall shine as the sun in their Father’s Kingdom. Let those with ears, listen!

Matt took a moment to ponder those scriptures. Then he looked and saw that Jesus was gazing into the darkened sky that was illuminated here and there with sparkling stars. With tear filled eyes, He shouted, now do you believe that I love all human beings. I wanted to be your friend. You could have been experiencing infinite happiness and joy…forever. But each of you freely chose not to have anything to do with Me. You wanted to be your own god. I assure you that the excruciating agony you doomed yourselves to is infinitely greater than that which I suffered on Mount Calvary. Justice has been served!”

At that point in the story Matt left The Wailing Chamber and returned to Jen who was waiting outside.

(Now I’ll insert the following parenthesis for today’s sermon.)

All of a sudden there was a series of deafening thunderbolts followed by flashes of lightning throughout the darkness. Then Matt and Jesus heard the first voice ask sarcastically,

“Justice has been served? You’re a phony? You’re not the Jesus of the Bible!”

The second one said,“You’re a diabolical fiendish monster! That’s what you are.”

Most remarkable was the fact that these folks all spoke the same language. The reason being is that people living in Hell have as the closest neighbor people who speak different languages. They are clueless as to what everyone else is saying. Can you imagine how awful it would be not being able to have a conversation with anyone? Ever!

Who is the proud bragger going to brag to?And how about the backstabbing gossip? Everything they say in Hell is falling on deaf ears. The slanderer can’t do his or her favorite thing. How about the liar’s and the people who love to throw pity parties? I could go on and on with other examples but it isn’t necessary, is it?

Matt and Jesus listened intently as the accusers continued saying in unison,

“As much as we hate the agony we’re suffering, we would rather be here than spend eternity with someone like you. That would be the worse kind of punishment that we can imagine.”

“How can you folks say such a thing?” asked Jesus.

“It’s simple! For instance, the Jesus of the Bible is the personification of love. Listen carefully to what the Bible says about the real Jesus.

John 13:1 (MSG)
1 Just before the Passover Feast, Jesus knew that the time had come to leave this world to go to the Father. Having loved his dear companions, he continued to love them right to the end.

John 15:9-15 (MSG)
9 “I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love.
10 If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.
11 “I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature.
12 This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you.
13 This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.
14 You are my friends when you do the things I command you.
15 I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.

Romans 8:35-39 (TLB)
35 Who then can ever keep Christ’s love from us? When we have trouble or calamity, when we are hunted down or destroyed, is it because he doesn’t love us anymore? And if we are hungry or penniless or in danger or threatened with death, has God deserted us?
36 No, for the Scriptures tell us that for his sake we must be ready to face death at every moment of the day—we are like sheep awaiting slaughter;
37 but despite all this, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us enough to die for us.
38 For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow,
39 or where we are—high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean—nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (TLB)
14 Whatever we do, it is certainly not for our own profit but because Christ’s love controls us now. Since we believe that Christ died for all of us, we should also believe that we have died to the old life we used to live.
15 He died for all so that all who live—having received eternal life from him—might live no longer for themselves, to please themselves, but to spend their lives pleasing Christ who died and rose again for them.

Galatians 2:20 (TLB)
20 I have been crucified with Christ: and I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the real life I now have within this body is a result of my trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Ephesians 5:2 (MSG)
2 Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

1 John 3:15-16 (TLB)
15 Anyone who hates his Christian brother is really a murderer at heart; and you know that no one wanting to murder has eternal life within.
16 We know what real love is from Christ’s example in dying for us. And so we also ought to lay down our lives for our Christian brothers.

Mark 15:34 (MSG)
34 The darkness lasted three hours. At three o’clock, Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

Luke 22:44 (ESV)
44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Hebrews 2:10 (TLB)
10 And it was right and proper that God, who made everything for his own glory, should allow Jesus to suffer, for in doing this he was bringing vast multitudes of God’s people to heaven; for his suffering made Jesus a perfect Leader, one fit to bring them into their salvation.

Hebrews 13:12 (TLB)
12 That is why Jesus suffered and died outside the city, where his blood washed our sins away.

1 Peter 3:18 (TLB)
18 Christ also suffered. He died once for the sins of all us guilty sinners although he himself was innocent of any sin at any time, that he might bring us safely home to God. But though his body died, his spirit lived on,

John 3:1-2 (TLB)
1 After dark one night a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus, a member of the sect of the Pharisees, came for an interview with Jesus. “Sir,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miracles are proof enough of this.”

John 3:3-17 (TLB)
3 Jesus replied, “With all the earnestness I possess I tell you this: Unless you are born again, you can never get into the Kingdom of God.”
4 “Born again!” exclaimed Nicodemus. “What do you mean? How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”
5 Jesus replied, “What I am telling you so earnestly is this: Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
6 Men can only reproduce human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven;
7 so don’t be surprised at my statement that you must be born again!
8 Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it will go next, so it is with the Spirit. We do not know on whom he will next bestow this life from heaven.”
9 “What do you mean?” Nicodemus asked.
10 Jesus replied, “You, a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things?
11 I am telling you what I know and have seen—and yet you won’t believe me.
12 But if you don’t even believe me when I tell you about such things as these that happen here among men, how can you possibly believe if I tell you what is going on in heaven?
13 For only I, the Messiah, have come to earth and will return to heaven again.
14 And as Moses in the wilderness lifted up the bronze image of a serpent on a pole, even so I must be lifted up upon a pole,
15 so that anyone who believes in me will have eternal life.
16 For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.

John 14:1-6 (ESV)
1 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
4 And you know the way to where I am going.”
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

“That’s the Jesus we wish we had known before we left the earth and entered eternity. But it was impossible! Some of us were killed in our mother’s womb. Others died as the result of a miscarriage.Others had our lives snuffed out when we were mere babies. And a countless number of us were afflicted with severe Downs Syndrome and Cerebral Palsy. We never even had a chance to know about or believe in Jesus. That’s all we’re going to say to you, you imposter. Goodbye!”

That’s the end of the parenthesis in my story and Matt’s wide awake nightmare. That’s all it was- a nightmare. And that’s all I intend to say about wether or not Jesus loves all people. It’s been my prayer filled hope that this final message in this series concerning the doctrines of election and predestination and the sovereignty of God in salvation has been helpful to each of you folks and especially to my Granddaughter Amanda.

Lord willing, next week….

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June 22, 2014 Posted by Categories: Uncategorized 3 comments

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