HOW MANY HUSBANDS/WIVES???

William Andrew Dillard

 Parson to Person

HOW MANY HUSBANDS/WIVES???
An experience common to modern man is that of occasional wondering just who it is that is staring back at him in the mirror. One preacher said that each time he wants to look into the mirror; some old man beats him there. Once while visiting an old friend in the hospital whom I had not seen in many years, he said, “I know I look different, and some things have changed, but I am still the guy you knew years ago.” Such is the often amazement of the aging process. In response to a question to one man by his wife: “will you love me when I am old and gray,” came the reply, “certainly; I have already loved you through six other colors!” On a more serious note, medical science tells us that with the exception of brain cells, every cell in the human body dies and is replaced every seven years, and it is the oxidation of cells creating imperfect replacements that accounts for the aging process. Hummm, every seven years! No wonder then that my wife has had eight husbands, and I have enjoyed eight wives! But alas, when brain cells die, they are not replaced. Could that mean there is a lot of short-circuiting going on between the ears? We are indeed a changing people in a changing world.
But, hold on, and rejoice! Our Creator/Savior is the same yesterday, today, and forever! So unchangeable also are His promises! The universal laws of sin and death are also unchangeable in the world of men. As the operation of those laws cause the human body to spiral downward into the clutches of death, so do they cause the very planet and all therein to spiral downward. It is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the most provable law of science. But something else is potentially going on. Potentially, that is, to those who may not know the Lord personally in the free pardon of sin, but reality in those who do. In Holy Writ it is so stated: “. . .but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” 2 Cor. 4:16. This is shouting ground! This is the ultimate defiance of the Second Law of Thermodynamics! It is the essence of everlasting life in the here and now that shall continue to be enjoyed in eternity.
It is a blessing to enjoy the multiple spouses all in one person that the aging process produces, but it is an exponentially greater blessing to know the eternal presence of spiritual life in Christ, and the exciting, invigorating hope it produces.