Book 3 of Musings An Expendable World

The things and circumstances of the present world are expendable; they are not to be grasped or worshiped.

All the things and circumstances we experience are for the purpose of seeing how we will behave when we are given the riches of the eternal world that is to come. Make no mistake, we are determining our eternal destiny today.

The present world has been established for the purpose of bringing forth brothers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ and His brothers are coheirs and together will govern the creation. The Lord Jesus is the Head of this great company of holy ones.

I told the church the other night that when they pray it's like David in the eighteenth Psalm. God shakes mountains and arranges the world for their benefit. When Joshua asked the Lord for more daylight in which to finish the battle, the Lord either stopped the earth from rotating on its axis, or else God caused the sun to move to keep up with the earth. That is a powerful Divine act on the part of one warrior.

This world exists for the purpose of bringing forth the brothers of Christ.

And we know in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:28-29)

So in these terms we might think of the world as being expendable. Notice what God says:

For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life. (Isaiah 43:3-4)

This isn't very democratic, is it?

How are we to react to the fact that God chooses people and then orders the circumstances of the world so they will be conformed to the likeness of His Son?

We are to react by not grasping or worshiping the things and circumstances of the present world. We do not rejoice when the world is hilarious. We do not fear when the world is afraid. We do not worship the gods of the world, such as lust and material wealth.

Why do we not worship the gods of the world? Because we understand they will soon pass away. All that will remain is the character that has been formed in us as a result of the activities and circumstances of the world we have reacted to.

Philosophers have claimed, and they probably are correct, that our physical world is but a shadowy reflection of the real, spirit world. The burdens, sufferings, and temptations we experience have been designed to develop character in us.

This is one reason we are not to fret about the wickedness in the world. Jesus Christ remains in perfect control of all people and situations.

We are not going to take anything with us into the next world except the character that has been formed in us. The true riches, of which the Lord Jesus spoke, are in the age to come, not in the present world.

When we follow the appetites of our flesh, we lose our soul. Our soul is our will, our ability to make moral choices. If we choose to cooperate with the Holy Spirit we receive eternal life in our soul. If we keep yielding to the demands of our sinful flesh, we lose our soul. This means we no longer are able to make moral choices. We are being driven by our sinful nature.

In the world to come the sons of God will exercise enormous authority and power. In His wisdom, God has put us first in a humbled state, in an animal body created from the dust of the ground, to see what we will do under pressure; how we will react to temptation.

If we are so foolish as to regard the present world as having true significance, something to be grasped, we have made the greatest mistake possible. We have mistaken the shadow for the reality. We have grasped that which is vanishing even as it is being used. When we die we bring before God a character that has been warped by the moral filth of the present world.

We are determining our eternal destiny today. This is the significance of the things and situations of the present. Our present life in the world may be the only opportunity we will have in all of eternity to demonstrate our love for God; our faithfulness to our Creator; our integrity and truthfulness; our courage; our love of righteousness and hatred of wickedness. Just think! Our lifetime on the earth may prove to be the only opportunity we will have in all of eternity to show what kind of a person we really are.

Some teach that God knows everything, past, present, and future. He knows what we are going to do in advance.

This may be true. God is greater than any of us know.

However, there are verses in the Bible that lead us to believe God tests us to find out what is in our heart.

I lean toward this idea of God testing us in order to know what we really are like. How this fits with the idea that God knows everything in advance I cannot explain, unless God can move ahead of us in time and look back to see what we did.

If this is not the case, if our behavior is inevitable, having been known to God from the beginning, then we might as well relax. What is going to happen will happen.

I am not comfortable with this point of view. I think we are determining our eternal destiny today and we are making genuine decisions.

I think God is disappointed because of the behavior of some for whom God had held high hopes. If God can be disappointed, this means the individual had the opportunity to make good or bad choices.

I think God is pleased when one of His servants, such as Abraham, passes an extremely difficult text.

"Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." (Genesis 22:12)

Do you get a sense that God had put Abraham through this dreadful experience hoping Abraham would justify God's faith in him?

"Now I know you fear God." Doesn't it sound as though God believed Abraham feared God, but now was certain because of Abraham's obedience?

If this is the case, then the decisions we make are not the working out of an inevitable experience of life but genuine revelations of our character-revelations that will determine our eternal destiny.

I do not say the present world is not important. Indeed it is important. However its importance is not due to its own worth. It is important because it is the great obstacle course, the proving ground that the Spirit of God can use to change us into the image of Christ.

As I said previously, we make the greatest of all possible mistakes when we clutch the present world and strive for security and pleasure. None of the things, circumstances, or relationships of the present are important in themselves. Rather they are devices by which the Lord is able to predict how we will behave when we are given the true riches of the coming age.

Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 8:1-3)