On a very warm, summer’s night on July 12, 1973 in northern St. Louis, Missouri a number of guards were making their rounds at the National Personnel Records. Housed in these six floors of this enormous building are military records—enlistment, discharge, medical, personnel, etc.—for every service member from around 1912 to current. While making his rounds on the sixth floor, a guard lightly snuffed out his cigarette on a metal shelf and carelessly walked away. In less than 1 hour, 16-18 million service records would be burned and lost forever, including records of my family’s service (It took considerable work and cost to acquire my grandfather’s DD-214 in time for his funeral as all of his records were permanently destroyed in the fire. We have no documentation or records for anything else for his service time during the Korean War.). Today, 50-years later, the loss is still very present to families who keep hitting a brick wall (metaphorically speaking) when attempting to find their relative’s service records to be told by the government, sorry it was destroyed in 1973. That single fire went down in history as one of the worst manmade disasters with irrecoverable loss to not only burned records, but exposed records destroyed by water and mold due to the high summer heat and humidity after the fire. Is all lost?
Another graphic scene took place a few thousand years ago when the prophet Ezekiel was taken by God to survey the landscape of an ancient battle that occurred. It was such a horrific setting that even God said (in Ezekiel 37:11) to Ezekiel, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’” God echoed—to speak even beyond the grave—of the death, hopelessness, and a disastrous battle that took place where victory cannot be found. This barren and desolate landscape was even absent of the smallest sign of beauty or flowers. Even the ravens have long-since abandoned this site for a meal. There is no sign of life, hope, or change. Is all lost?
Unless one lives under a rock, our world—as was prophesied by Jesus and recorded in Matthew 24:12—is a runaway freight train barreling its way to hell. Whether it is the dividing fronts in churches over extremes of liberal and secularization of scripture to dismissing scripture as truth and to accept philosophies that are no better than choosing ideologies from man, to ultra-conservative who are so rules-oriented that they would rather kick people out of church over trivial offenses than to live out the commandments of Jesus. Truth—in and out of church—has been blurred so much that no one can give a clear answer, just lots of opinion preached as truth. Christians were to be separate from the world in lifestyle, choices, Calling, righteousness, etc. But now either we want to smoke a joint and drink a cold one, we want to divorce from our spouses as much as the world does, tolerate abortion to stand against a celebrity running for president again, we get politically motivated rather than Bible motivated, and every flavor of compromise in between. A clarion call for truth and to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10), is now sacrificed or compromised that to be a Christian is no longer a desire or an escape from hell. Hell now looks more appealing…or at least it is while masked with every pleasantry, ease, soothing doctrines, and compromise imaginable. And numbers don’t lie. 11% of born-again Christians do not believe in Hell. 72% of Christians believe in heaven—even to the extreme belief of a place absent from strife even if not biblically accurate. That means 28% don’t believe that heaven exists. An oft-quoted line from the antagonist in a Christian movie Late One Night said, If Christians really believed in hell, then they would do everything in their power to stop us from going there…But if Christians really don’t believe in hell, why should we. Is there no answer? Is there no hope for change? Is all lost?
And out of the fiery and smokey edges of hell, there is a voice: a singular voice from a remnant (or group of believers). C.T. Studd (one of my favorite missionaries and a missionary to China), declared, “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop, within a yard of hell.” In modern words, some want to only go to church for worship and a nice message, I want to go to whatever extremes and far-flung places in the world to save people going to heaven, even if they willfully choose to do so. And from this remnant of true believers and livers of His Word, I hear, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:16-17, Jesus speaking). Peter picks up on this to say (2 Peter 3:9), “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” Jesus, the only name given unto man that man can be saved (Acts 4:12), stepped out of eternity to stepped into our finite, falling apart, and hopeless world. He didn’t come before or after that time He came because man would get the credit. As the angel said unto Mary in Luke 1:37 and picked back up Matthew 19:26, with man it is impossible but with God all things are possible. Jesus came at the perfect time. And the time for you and I is right now (2 Corinthians 6:2). Is all still lost?
So are God’s words of hope drowned out by the many other voices? Is His voice just the same as any motivational speaker? Is what we have to look forward to just pie in the sky? Two final passages declare not just salvation, but a future and a hope expanded beyond just what is found in Jeremiah 29:11 (keep in mind the word remnant) and these are the words from God, “’But now I will not treat the remnant of this people as in the former days,’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘For the seed shall be prosperous, the vine shall give its fruit, the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew—I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these. And it shall come to pass that just as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you shall be a blessing. Do not fear, let your hands be strong.’” (Zechariah 8:11-13). That seed, vine, and ground means both literal seed—or in our modern time, money and work—and posterity (generational blessing by our righteous choice to accept God at His word and to live to Him). The second promise takes us right back to the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37 (Ezekiel 37:12-14, and again God is speaking and His people and you are the remnant), “Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken it and performed it,” says the LORD.’” Those graves are the rewards and results of sin, compromise, and failure. But God desires to reach down into our graves to pull us out. We are not just forgiven, but restored and made whole. His Calling will come to pass.
We may be, “hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). But God hasn’t put the final period at the end of the sentence and put His pen down. There is HOPE. There is TIME. There is HEALING. There is BLESSING. Yesterday was yesterday. Today is today, but tomorrow available. Make the most of it. Declare His Word both in speech and in action and let our faith in God never waver. All is NOT lost.