I don’t have to tell you about all of the political feuding in America. You need no more updates. You don’t need to hear anything else from me on that subject, so I won’t go there.
I found it fascinating that President Trump’s tweet – in which he remarked that James Comey had “better hope that there are no tapes” of their conversations – grabbed so much national (and even international) attention. If you’re unfamiliar with the context, in the wake of Comey’s firing, it was all about Comey assuring the President that he wasn’t under FBI investigation.
Here’s what kept coming to my mind as the news kept trending in the direction of the “tapes.” There are tapes. Maybe that’s why people across the globe get so rattled by even the thought of it. There are tapes, friends.
“And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done” (Revelation 20:12). Sounds a lot like tapes to me. Except a bit more revealing, perhaps. Written transcripts. All the details. Hard evidence. You get my point.
Jesus didn’t soften the blow. Not one bit. “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:36-37). And in Luke 8:17 Christ warns us that “nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.”
Likewise, the Apostle Paul (Second Corinthians 5:10): “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
God certainly doesn’t ignore wrongdoing. He not only records it, but He takes it so seriously that he sent His only Son to die for our sins – in our place. It would have been much less costly for God to pretend that our sins weren’t real (or that they weren’t a big deal). But that would contradict the righteousness of God’s own nature. God pays close attention to our sin in fact. He confronts us with our sin. He holds us accountable for our sin. The wages of sin is still death.
So that we might be cleansed and set free from all our sin, Christ has saved us, that we might sin no more! In the end, God chooses even to forget our sins (Jeremiah 31:34). But that’s not the same as pretending that they never happened. The “forgetting” of grace happens only after God has dealt with sin through the new covenant secured by the blood of Jesus. You and I experience that grace when we repent and put our trust in Christ.
What good news! Let’s get out there and make it known, that many may find hope in Christ. We pray for our President. We pray for all of those who are in authority over us. We pray for our nation. And we recognize, with gratitude, that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36).
No place to hide? Well, there is One.
Pastor Charles
BRAVO. So relevant.