To come into God’s presence, then, means to arrive with a soul that understands the weight of who God is. Light and casual approaches miss that our Lord is a consuming fire, and so we enter with reverence (Heb. 12:28). We want eternity’s solemnity to fill our worship with earnestness and awe, knowing that we aren’t promised another Lord’s Day. Knowing heaven and hell hang in the balance fuels urgency and vitality in our adoration, confession, and supplication.

Robert Murray M’Cheyne lay on his sickbed in January 1839. Illness had punctuated much of his life and would eventually claim him at the tender age of twenty-nine. Eternity was ever before him in such seasons. Thus, on January 12, 1839, he wrote to a ministerial friend: “May your mind be solemnized, my dear friend, by the thought that we are ministers but for a time, that the Master may summon us to retire into silence. . . . Make all your services tell for eternity.”

Worship is the main theme in the symphony that is the Christian life. Lord’s Day meetings are the center of our experience, for it’s in gathered worship that we encounter the triune God through His Word, sacraments, and prayer.
When the saints gather on Sunday, eternity kisses the earth.
Worship that Understands the Reality of Eternity
What might happen to our services if they told for eternity? At least four things would be true.
I. We would enjoy God’s presence. One great mystery of the Christian’s experience is that we live already as citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20). The Lord has raised us with Christ and has seated us next to Him in the heavenly places (Eph. 2:6). Thus, the author to the Hebrews explains, we have “come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all” (Heb. 12:22–23). To gather in worship is to gather before God.
Francis Schaeffer once asked, “What difference would it make if God’s presence left the evangelical church today?” He wrote, “The simple tragic fact is that in much of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ—the evangelical church—there would be no difference whatsoever.” The indictment surely rings true decades later. May it not be said of us, however. Let us join Moses, the man of God who knew that if God left His people, their existence would be pointless (Ex. 33:15). When God’s people gather to worship, God is there. And nothing is sweeter or more satisfying than His presence (Ps. 17:15).
II. We would encounter God’s power. Worshiping in God’s presence means experiencing God’s power through His ordinary means of grace. In the reading and preaching of God’s Word, Christ confronts our conscience and soothes our soul (Eph. 2:17). The sacraments tangibly hold forth Christ’s blessings and benefits (1 Cor 11:26).

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Wherever you may be in December 2021, this is not your final destination. As believers, our hope is more exciting than the anticipation I experienced as child, unable to fall asleep on Christmas Eve. Back then I couldn’t wait to open presents in the morning. But the gift that awaits those who trust in Jesus Christ is not worth to be compared with any material possession. Now, I can’t wait for the day when our faith shall be sight and we will see God face to face, and He will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

I wasn’t eavesdropping, but while waiting in line for coffee this week I overheard two separate conversations between two different sets of friends say essentially the following: “This is the best! I love this time of year and I can’t wait for all the festivities with my family” and then not 5 minutes later I heard another person say, “It’s only December 1 and I already am ready for the holidays to be over. This time of year is the worst”
Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I think we can all agree that this time of year can bring out the best and the worst, not just in our culture around us, but even within ourselves and our  families. Like those individuals in the coffee shop, for some the holiday season is truly wonderful. It’s a time of giving, of gathering with loved ones and friends, and a time of celebration of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. But for others, this time of year can be stressful, lonely, and a bombardment of hyper-commercialized, unbiblical sentimentality.  Our Westminster Confession of Faith teaches us that God alone is lord of the conscience, and so I don’t intend this article to give any recommendations or suggestions as to how or why a believer should navigate the 31 days in December, but I do wish to offer 3 reminders that I believe can help keep the holidays in perspective, and hopefully encourage us as Christians amidst the hustle and bustle.
You are not alone.  “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” Matthew 28:20b
The Holidays can be the hardest on those who are missing someone around their table this year. The loss of a spouse, parent, child, or even just the physical distance and separation of family across a country (or for missionaries a whole continent!)  can present a host of pain and heartache. Not to mention everything we’ve been forced to endure the last two years with a  global pandemic. In the age of social media, when seemingly everyone is posting or sharing photos of great gatherings of loved ones together, it’s not hard to dwell in loss and loneliness. But as our Lord reminds us, take heart! God promises He is with us. That’s not an idle or empty promise. God sees us, even in our struggles and heartaches, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are truly not alone. Regardless of our marriage status, or if we have multiple children or are childless, we have Christ and His bride, the church.
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The only way one will savingly turn to receive the resurrected and ascended Christ is if the Holy Spirit grants increase to the work of the cross as explicated in the context of God’s revealed remedy for man’s dire dilemma. Accordingly, we need an apologetic methodology that upholds the self-attesting word of God so that we might skillfully undress the deceitfulness of sin and defend the righteous demands of God through the hope of the gospel. After exposing the futility of unbelief, our desire for the unbeliever is that he might attend and submit to the claims of Christ as it comes to us from the very voice of God in Scripture.

Induction, the basis for all scientific inference, presupposes the uniformity of nature, which is to say it operates under the expectation that the future will be like the past. From a Christian perspective, it is ordinary providence that explains how the scientific method is possible. Therefore, to argue for the miracle of the resurrection according to evidence and human experience is foolishness (Proverbs 26:4). Resurrection is a phenomenon that contemplates an exchange of ordinary providence for the miraculous, which pertains to God working without, above, or against the ordinary (WCF 5.3).
The resurrection of Christ from the dead is contra-uniform. It does not comport with experience. Our experience is that people die and are not raised three days later. Also, we have all met plenty of liars and those deceived into embracing false beliefs (even dying for false beliefs!) but nobody living has ever observed a single resurrection of the body. Given the uniformity of nature coupled with personal experience without remainder, a more probable explanation for the empty tomb is a hoax put on by liars rather than a miracle put on by God. (The same reasoning applies to the virgin birth.)
Since scientific inference consists of making generalizations based upon specific observations, the principle of induction isn’t terribly useful in trying to draw rational inferences about the miraculous. That is why we do not come to know the Savior lives by examining evidence according to an alleged neutral posture, for the un-exegeted facts do not lead us to the conclusion that Christ is risen. So, at the very least, Christians should not argue evidentially for the resurrection lest we deceive the lost by implying that we ourselves know Christ lives based upon evidence upon which our saving faith does not rest. Besides, even if one were to become persuaded that Jesus probably rose from the dead, saving faith entails believing what is revealed in the Word based upon the authority of God himself speaking therein (WCF 14.2). Moreover, on what authority should one embrace not just the resurrection of Christ but, also, its soteriological significance coupled with the gospel truths that Jesus is both Christ and Lord? In a word, when does God’s voice in Scripture become authoritative in biblically informed evangelism?
True believers have heard from God. As it is written:
[Jesus] said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven”  Matthew 16:15-17
An improper (yet popular) use of evidence:
In that misogynistic culture, women were regarded as second-rate eyewitnesses. If the Gospels are pious fiction, why would the narrators invent inferior witnesses rather than more culturally credible witnesses?
That argument gets a bit of traction around Easter. One rejoinder is the narrators weren’t clever enough to recognize that they were inventing inferior witnesses. Another is that the narrators were extremely clever and did recognize that they were inventing inferior witnesses! After calculating the risk of using seemingly inferior witnesses, the narrators concluded that there is significant persuasive force in using such witnesses. The logic being, if inferior witnesses would not likely be invented intentionally, then people might naturally conclude the inferior witnesses were not invented and, therefore, are all the more credible. (I’m sure I must have seen such reverse psychology on a Columbo episode.)
Law-Gospel – the KISS method for fellow sinners:
When well-meaning Christians remove the extraordinary claim of the resurrection from its salvific context, the resurrection is anything but credible. Yet, the resurrection is sufficiently explanatory within the context of things we know by nature and are awakened to by the Holy Spirit working in conjunction with Scripture. Namely, God’s wrath abides upon all men and God is patient, merciful and loving toward sinners. In the context of man’s plight and God’s character, the preaching of the cross can be apprehended as not just credible but the very wisdom of God. Only the gospel can reconcile mercy, grace and love with alienation, justice and wrath. Revelation, not autonomous reason, is profound!
Our full persuasion of the resurrection unto knowledge of the truth is revelatory and law-gospel centric. The good news of John 3:16 is intelligible only in the context of the bad news of Romans 1:18-20 and Romans 3:10-20. The former presupposes the latter. Sinners come to know their Savior lives not by being offered a savior who might have come back from the dead. Rather, sinners come to a saving knowledge of Christ when awakened to the unmistakably authoritative gospel reality of God’s remedy for uncleanness and unrighteousness.
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