Things Undone – by Desmond Ford

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Nov 7, 2015 1719

In the parables on the last day of his public ministry, our Lord did a shocking thing. He said that huge number of his professed followers who go to church regularly would be shut out of the kingdom, not because of anything they have done. Now that is a shocker! How could huge numbers of his followers to be shut out not because of anything they have done?

Do you remember the three stories in Matthew 25? Here are the 10 virgins pure in white, all with wonderful lights, but five are shut out. It does not say they committed adultery or lying or murdering; they had just neglected the greatest gift since the cross – the indwelling of the third member of the Godhead. To neglect that indwelling is to sin blasphemously against him who died on the cross that that gift might be ours, that we should never be alone, never feel inadequate, never work fruitlessly in our own weakness. That is why the virgins were shut out.

And then in the second story, remember the parable of the talents? Here is the man who gets into trouble who has not done anything. Jesus could have said he had not done anything wrong, but in fact but he has not done anything. He says, “I have buried the talent in the earth; I wanted to look after it for you, Lord.” The Master says to him, “You wicked and slothful servant.” He misses out not because of something flagrantly done but because of what he has not done.

This scares me. I don’t have the courage to murder somebody I dislike. I will not use bad language because I want to keep my friends. Many of the open sins just don’t appeal to me. But it is so easy to leave things undone, so easy. Think of our memories, memories of guilt, failures, lost joy, hopeless grief because of things undone to son or daughter, husband or wife, father or mother, neighbour – things undone.

And in all those stories, Jesus says that these people are shut out because of things left undone. “In as much as you did it not,” it says in the third story, “you did it not unto me.” How scary that is! Thousands of times I have “done it not.”

That is why the gospel says to us, for all of our things undone, that God has the answer, because against all of these things Christ writes, “Done, done, done!”

– Des Ford. Rom 8:27–32. Adapted from, “The News That Shook The World – Part 2.”