THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY SEARCHER
"Search the scriptures: for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. " (John 5:39)

VOLUME 6, NUMBER 31,  AUGUST 6, 2006

WHAT DO I  SEE ?

            Back in the late 1960’s there was a musical called, You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.  It was a semi-hit as I remember.  It seemed to me that the person who got to play Snoopy had the best part.  In the play there was a song about clouds, and the idea was “What do you see when you look at the clouds?”  Poor old Charlie Brown only saw clouds, but Linus, when he looked at the clouds, saw “all twelve apostles waving at me.”  What a great line!

            Who among us hasn’t, at least as children, looked up into the sky to see what we could see among the clouds?  These recent hot summer days have reminded me of days spent years ago lying on my back on the grass, looking up at the clouds as an afternoon drifted by.  I never saw “all twelve apostles waving at me,” but I saw dinosaurs, horses, dragons, faces, and a host of other things.  I don’t spend much time anymore looking at the clouds, except to see if it is going to rain.  I am not altogether sure that that is such a good thing.

            By this time you are probably asking yourselves, “What does all of this have to do with anything?”  The answer is that while I no longer lay on my back looking at the clouds to see things, I do close my eyes from time to time, and in my mind’s eye see things just as surely and as clearly as I did then.

            I have spent so much time thinking about the death of Jesus, so much time studying the physiological effects of crucifixion, so much time in the gospel accounts of the horrifying death of Jesus, and so much time in the 22^nd Psalm, that when I close me eyes, I can see a crucifixion.  Please don’t misunderstand, I don’t know what Jesus looked like.  The closest that we have of a physical description of the Lord is found in Isaiah 53:2, “For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground; he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.”   However, I can picture, almost clearly see, the image presented in Psalm  22:13 -18, where David wrote, “They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.  I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.  My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.  I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.  They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.”  Undoubtedly the image that I see with my mind’s eye has been influence by the various representations of the crucified Christ that I have seen over the years, but not any more than by the words the Holy Spirit has chosen to use to describe it.    It can take my breath away!  Do you find that happening to you too?

            When I close my eyes, I can see hell, much of it coming from my study of the word “Gehenna” and the image that Jesus was using to describe such a terrible place.  It was a reference to the valley of  Hinnon, the garbage dump of the city of Jerusalem and a place with a terrible history.  So I can picture in my mind’s eye a place of “fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark  9:43 -48).   I have seen fires burning garbage and have both seen and smelled the rotting flesh of various animals and meats that constituted part of that garbage.  Just picture a city like Cincinnati that continues to produce garbage on a daily basis, so much so that Rumpke’s landfill is already the highest spot in Hamilton County and they are looking to make it bigger.  Now just picture all of that garbage burning, but each day the fire does not consume what is already there and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.  Now just picture the fire that never goes out as being fueled by the numberless souls of those who have chosen to turn their backs on Jesus.  Picture the worms that feed on rotting flesh as figuratively feeding on the endless source of food the lost will be – for such will never be consumed.  No Hollywood producer can present an image more frightening than the image Jesus presented with just about 20 words when translated into the English language.

            When I close my eyes I can see heaven, even though I really don’t have any idea of what it will look like.  What I see is my perception of the vision that John saw in the book of Revelation.  I can see the “the holy city, the new Jerusalem” (Rev. 21:2).  I can picture a place of “no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying” a place where there won’t be “any more pain” (Rev. 21:4).  I can picture streets of pure gold, and a place of continuous light.  I can picture in my mind’s eye a place where “there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination” (Rev. 21:27).  I can picture a place without sin.

            I am so thankful to God that He gives us the ability to see things with our minds.  With that ability, it is easy to dread the very thought of going to such a place as hell.  At the same time, it is easy to long to go to such a place as heaven.  

I find myself being able to picture only those things that I have actually seen or read about.  That helps me to understand how important it is to be careful about what I read and about what I allow myself to see.  Sometimes when I close my eyes images appear unbidden, but they are things that I have seen before or have read descriptions of – like a computer, it only puts out what was put in.

                                                Greg Litmer