Without Dad, It's Just a Cone

“Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.” (Da 9:24 AV)

We often forget the purpose of all that God does is to reconcile His erring creation back to Himself and bring it to a condition in which it exists in His perfect will.  To put it more plainly, we forget the purpose of God’s divine plan is to so away with our sin and enable us to live righteously.  We get fixated on heaven as though heaven itself is the ultimate objective.  Heaven would merely be a nice place if a relationship with God wasn’t possible.  We see our salvation and daily struggle as nothing more than a trip to a ‘better place’ when in reality, salvation is far more than that.  For those unfamiliar with the term of seventy weeks, it is a time frame from when Daniel wrote his book to the coming of the Messiah.  The seventieth week would be the tribulation.  Each week equals seven years.  The point of the seventy weeks is to give Daniel and understanding of the events leading up to the coming of the Messiah.  The end of all this is His kingdom wherein sin will be resolved and righteousness will reign.

One of my dad’s traditions was getting an ice cream cone.  He loved ice cream.  When we came home from a weekend or week of camping, he would treat the family to an ice cream cone.  He would find some stand somewhere and we would all pile out and get some ice cream.  When there were special times shared between father and child, many times it involved an ice cream cone.  There was a summer when my father and I worked on the staff of a summer camp.  He was the maintenance guy and I was the office clerk.  The next summer, he was still the summer guy and I ran the trading post.  In those two summers of working on the same staff, my father would often take me into the town of Geneva for an ice cream cone.  Saturday nights would often be for eating a cone on the shores of Seneca lake, watching the sailboats or fishermen as the sun set behind us.  One of the only things to disrupt this tradition was my behavior.  Or, in the case of the family being treated to ice cream if the family as a whole was not all that well behaved, would write off those ice cream cones.  The thing about sitting at the edge of Seneca lake with an ice cream cone is that without my father there with me, it wouldn’t mean nearly as much as it did.  The sunset would still be there.  The sound of the water lapping up on the rocks would still be a calming sound to a weary soul.  But my father wouldn’t be there.  The warmth of the summer night, the stars as they came out, the sound of crickets when returning to camp, and the stillness of the summer night would all be there.  But my father, because of my misbehavior, would not be there.  All that went into making that memory would have been meaningless without my father being there.

As a preacher, I see an alarming trend in the content of our ministry.  We are getting into the bad habit of stressing freedom from sin and walking with God.  The sheep want their problems solved or their trials ended.  What they do not seem to want is reconciliation to a holy God by the rejection of sin.  Righteousness is a goal.  But it is not the highest goal.  What seems to be the highest goal is the lack of problems, trouble, trials, etc.  We have bought into the temptations that come with prosperity.  Personal comfort is the highest goal.  We grab onto every faddish product that promises a higher quality of life.  Saints seem to be the greatest consumer market for these kinds of products.  What we do not seem to see is a passion to rid the life of iniquity, which has more to do with our quality of life than any single other influence.  What we see above is the LORD’s priority.  His priority is our freedom from iniquity unto a life of righteousness.  He isn’t content with a mere ice cream cone, a sunset, a tranquil evening, or the sound of waves hitting the rocks.  What He wants is fellowship with us AND ALL THESE THINGS.  What He wants is heaven with Himself as the most important experience of the saint.  What He wants is the eradication of all sin and righteousness of the soul so that He can have perfect fellowship with us!