Hardly prophetic and rarely profound! That is the best description of most “famous last words.”  We tend to give “last words” more credence because of the finality of their utterance, but they are often clouded by pain or confusion.   We expect them to be a benediction breathed out in the final moments of someone’s life, like dramatic portrayals in literature and film.  Yet often “famous last words” are uninspiring. 

A cursory review of the top Google results of the most memorable “famous last words” of notable notables is remarkably unnoteworthy.  While some, like those of Reformer Hugh Latimer, burned at the stake with fellow reformer, Nicholas Ridley, are galvanizing. “Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”  Others like those of Karl Marx, who said, “Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough,” breathe out contempt and cynicism.

“Famous last words” are so infamous that the phrase has become an English idiom meaning “to make a statement that is shown very soon, and often in an embarrassing way, to be wrong.”  Yet we are ever optimistic that last words will be the last word, an apt conclusion and bring all the words that went before into focus. 

And while this is occasionally true of men’s words, it is always true of God’s Word.   God who was the first to speak always has the last word.  And time and time again in the Scriptures when he speaks of sin, righteousness, and judgement His last word is always ‘grace.’   Even though God’s people provoke Him time and time again, God’s famous last words are always ‘grace.’

Leviticus, with all its law and ceremony, brims with the grace of God.  Hardly a primer on empty, outward religion, it’s types and shadows “prefigure Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits.”  It repeatedly answers the question, “how can unholy people dwell with a Holy God?” 

And it ends by pronouncing the blessings for those who trust in God’s grace, the curses experienced by those who reject it, and the promise to all that God will be gracious to those who turn to Him.   Far from espousing a meritocracy, Leviticus 26, points to the “grace upon grace” believers are offered in Christ (John 1:16)

What about you?  Have you heard all the Bible’s words of sin, righteousness, and judgement, but failed to hear the famous last word of grace?  Are you seeking God’s approval by relying on works of the law?  This is not only impossible, but it is accursed as Paul noted. 

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.  Galatians 3:10-13

When the Lord speaks the best, last word, the word of grace, will you let that be the last word?  As God concludes the Mosaic administration of the Covenant of Grace with the people of Israel, he concludes it with the blessings of grace received, the curses for grace rejected, and the abiding promise of grace extended.   Join us as we examine Leviticus 26 and consider God’s gracious last words from the Mosaic covenant.  We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship. Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

Nothing disorients like a long, late afternoon nap.  Wakening at twilight is unsettling.  Is it nighttime or morning?  What day is it?  What did we miss?  Where is everyone?  When the normal markers of time are out of place, we are easily untethered.  This is why every hospital room has a clock and a whiteboard with date, day of the week, and the names of current staff placed in front of the patient’s bed.  Without this, life as a patient has no rhythm to distinguish one day from another.

We are made for eternity.  But birthed in time.  The Teacher of Ecclesiastes noted that God has “set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”  In creation, God made not only the physical world, but in a sense, he created time.  Though light is spoken into being on the first day of creation, it is on the fourth day the Lord said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years…”

Throughout history time has been reckoned in celestial terms.  The movement of the sun, moon, and stars and the seasons created by these movements have become the rhythm of life.  Yet nothing governs this rhythm more than the one unit of time that has no celestial analog, the week.  The concept of the week arises purely from the example and command of our God.  And includes one day in seven set aside for rest, worship, and fellowship.   Following that paradigm, we are reminded that all our times and seasons should point us to the goodness, mercy, and grace of our God, who though eternal is the only true Lord of Time.

The rhythm of weeks, days, months, years, and seasons are all indexed to God’s providence.  And their repetition and, as we get older, their apparent acceleration, awakens in the believers heart an increasing longing for the eternal.  Scripture commands us to, “redeem the times, because the days are evil” and to pray that the Lord would “teach us to number our days aright that we may get a heart of wisdom.”  And yet it calls us to long for that “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance kept in heaven for those who are guarded by faith.” 

Pastor Phillip Doddridge expressed this longing well.

Your earthly Sabbaths, Lord, we love,
but there’s a nobler rest above;
to that our lab’ring souls aspire
with ardent hope and strong desire.

In thy blest kingdom we shall be
from ev’ry mortal trouble free;
no sighs shall mingle with the songs
Resounding from immortal tongues;

No rude alarms of raging foes;
no cares to break the long repose;
no midnight shade, no waning moon,
but sacred, high, eternal noon.

O long-expected day, begin,
dawn on these realms of woe and sin!
Break, morn of God, upon our eyes;
and let the world’s true Sun arise!

Time is not our tyrant.  It should be, for the believer, the great reminder of God’s abiding faithfulness and of all his gracious promises.   This is why when the people of Israel are brought out of the “iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance,” God establishes a cycle of weekly, monthly, and yearly sacred feasts.  He does this to imprint on every year reminders of his abiding faithfulness and point them through faith to the fulfillment of all his gracious promises in Christ.

In Leviticus 23 we encounter this calendar which includes the Sabbath, the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Firstfruits, Pentecost, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Booths.  Feasts that both remember and anticipate God’s redemptive faithfulness and promises.  Feasts which are to become the loom on which the fabric of daily life in Israel is to be woven.  Feasts to be repeated as types and shadows, year by year, to instruct the people to have faith in the Christ who will come to fulfill them.

And so, while we have the realities of Christ’s finished work and no longer keep these feasts as types and shadows, the manner in which the people are told to celebrate is, as Paul notes, “written for our instruction” and is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and training in righteousness.”  For indeed, if the people are called to joy and celebration in the Christ to come, how much more are we to rejoice and celebrate his finished work and promised return.

Is time a tyrant for you?  Or a joyful reminder of the grace of God?   Does the fleeting nature of time and the repetition of weeks, days, months, years and seasons make you anxious or expectant?   This week we examine Leviticus 23 and consider how the Lord’s appointed Feasts call God’s people to remember God’s abiding faithfulness and live in expectation of all his gracious promises in Christ. We meet on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.