Earthworms, The End-Times, & Eternity

A couple of weeks ago my wife’s aunt passed away.  While her uncle and family were at the funeral home for visitation someone broke into their home and stole several valuable items.

Obviously the thief/thieves knew the situation and what time the family would be at the funeral home.  The break-in becomes even more despicable because the malefactors were, in all probability, familiar to the family and their situation.  In all likelihood a supposed friend or neighbor.

It used to be said derogatorily about someone void of any moral fiber that they “would steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes”.  Whoever stole from this family nuances that saying to its blackest form.

The disciples came to Jesus and asked for “signs” of His “coming and the end of the world”  (Matthew 24:.3).  One of the indicators He gave them was that because  “iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (verse 12).  The New American Standard translates His Words like this, “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.”  Surely this heinous act of cowardice is evidence of “increasing lawlessness”.

The Apostle Paul states in 2 Timothy 3 that in the “last days perilous times shall come” and that “evil men and impostors will proceed {from bad} to worse”.  Can’t get much worse than stealing from a grieving family.

This person/these persons may escape justice in this world but they won’t in the next.  The Bible is explicit in who is and is not going to heaven:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.  (1 Corinthians 9-10)

Please excuse my language, but if you ain’t going to heaven then there’s only one other place to end up:

And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.  (Revelation 20:15)

There’s an hymn written by Isaac Watts that Christians have sung for years:  At The Cross.  The first verse goes like this:

Alas, and did my Savior bleed, and did my Sovereign die?

Would He devote that sacred head for sinners such as I?

The older songbooks had a variation:

Would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?

It used to upset me that the wording had been changed in the newer hymnals.  I imagined an editor somewhere “watering-down” our fallen state.

But then I got to thinking.  Worms aren’t sinners.  Why bring them down.  They did nothing to make Jesus bleed and die.  But we have.

Thank God, however, that in spite of what we have done there’s still redemption.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  (Romans 5:8)

Even for stealing pennies.