This won’t be the most pleasant
Check-In I have ever written, but as you know I often try to take everyday
experience and find an application to my life in Christ, in hopes that you can
identify with it in some way. “16 Hours from Hell” is a bad title to use, but from about
11:00 p.m. Sunday to 3:00 p.m. Monday I was sicker than I have been in many
years and it felt like the title fit. Vomiting has never been easy for me: it
is truly a gut-wrenching experience. Almost as bad as that is, is the feeling
when you’re lying in bed and your stomach begins to communicate to you, “It’s
time to get up… go at it again…”. I hate that feeling. Staying in bed doesn’t
help. A fever spikes and I start sweating. The only solution is to get to the
bathroom. Each time you think and hope and pray, “Maybe that’s the last time”,
until you wake up again and do it all over. Once an hour for 16 hours truly
sucks the life out of you. And one of the worst parts of such an experience is
in the later stages when you have nothing left to vomit, but you still have to.
I don’t believe I have ever tasted anything quite so bitter and nasty as bile.
The Bible calls it gall. Gall is an
unpleasant word which speaks of that which is produced in the gall bladder of a
human or animal. It is proverbially used when speaking of human experience that
it bitter. Technically it is different from bile in that bile is produced by
the liver and stored in concentrated form in the gall bladder as an aid to
digestion, being discharged into the duodenum when we eat. So it is an aspect
of the way God made us and it is a blessing to us. But in those late stages of
sickness it is one of the most disgusting things you can ever taste.
You may remember that at His
crucifixion Jesus was offered a drink that was a mixture of wine (probably more
like vinegar) and gall (probably derived from an animal). This mixture was
commonly given to criminals to ease their suffering to some degree. The
bitterness bore witness to the poison content of the drink. The Greek word for
“gall” literally means “poison”. Jesus refused it because He did not want the
poison to kill Him or numb His senses while on the cross. He had a different
kind of “bitter cup” to drink from and He wanted nothing to diminish or deflect
Him from it (John 18:11). One of the messianic psalms of David (Psalm 69) speaks
of gall and finds its fulfillment in Christ’s experience on the cross. Being
sick like I was leads me to think of how great Christ’s suffering was.
Physically my trouble was small – even nothing - compared to His. But spiritually,
Christ’s was infinitely greater than my – or any human – suffering. To
literally bear the sins of the world and all the punishment they merited
boggles the mind and staggers the imagination regarding the extent of Christ’s
love for us.
I apologize for my title. Humans
easily describe hardships, suffering, and pain of all types in relation to
hell. “War is hell!”… “We make our own hell here on earth!”… Such expressions
seek to capture the terribleness of something and give it a gravity of meaning that
connects with human experience. As I thought of being as sick as I was for 16
hours, I began to imagine what an existence would be like if one felt that way
for eternity. Just that one thing – what the flu produces in human experience.
Even in my sickness I had God’s presence and grace ministering to me. But in
hell God is not present and ministering grace. I have a hope that goes beyond
this life and the pain it brings. My little flu was nothing compared to the
depths of suffering of many all around the world. Yet it led me to think about
how horrible an eternity of it would be. God’s grace becomes ever so much more
precious when we consider what He has delivered us from and, of course, what He
is delivering us to. May I rightfully and fully praise Him for our hope in
Christ, our strong deliverer, and may I bear faithful witness to Christ so that
others may come to put their hope in Him.
John 18:11 (NIV) Jesus
commanded Peter, "Put your sword away! Shall I not
drink the cup the Father has given me?"
Psalm 69:16-21 (NIV) 16 Answer me, O LORD, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy
turn to me. 17 Do not hide your face from your servant;
answer me quickly, for I am in trouble. 18 Come near
and rescue me; redeem me because of my foes. 19 You
know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed; all my enemies are before you. 20
Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked
for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none. 21 They
put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.
2 Corinthians 4:13-18 (NIV) 13 It is written: "I believed; therefore
I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and
therefore speak, 14 because we know that the one who
raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present
us with you in his presence. 15 All this is for your
benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause
thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. 16 Therefore
we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are
being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and
momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs
them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen,
but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is
eternal.
Isaiah 53:4-5 (NIV) 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and
carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and
afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was
upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
PRAYER: Father, I pray for those who are sick and
suffering. Their misery is a reminder of what sin has done in this world. Lead
them and lead us to the healer – your Son the Lord Jesus. Lead us to a deeper
and truer healing – one that our souls need – where Christ’s suffering and
death is applied to us as an atonement for our sin. We glorify you that such a
thing is possible and that heaven becomes our hope. Remind us in our sickness,
and even our death, that resurrection is coming. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.”
Jesus
Christ is Lord!
Scott
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