The Ending Always Comes At Last

In 1973, Art Garfunkel marked his debut as a solo artist separate from his longtime partner, Paul Simon, with a song titled "All I Know" that included these haunting lyrics:

"But the ending always comes at last, Endings always come too fast, They come too fast, But they pass too slow"

For everyone of us, there is an ending coming. Not the end of the year, of a job or career, a relationship. An ultimate ending. And none of us ever wants to talk about it. Very few of us even want to think of it much. But we will all face that ultimate ending to our lives.

I am going to ask you to just take a moment to be morbid. Think about the people that mean the most in your life. Your family: parents, spouses, children and more. Your very best friends. The people that you count on to be there for you through your worst times. They will all be gone one day. The only real question is, who will go first, you, or them?

It has been said that there are no atheists in a foxhole. The implication being that if you are truly faced with death, the very real possibility of it, perhaps even the likelihood of it, then you will abandon your atheism or agnosticism for an outreach to a God that to that point you shunned.

This article isn't about morbidity. It is not about negativity. It is not about giving up. It is not about hopelessness. It is about the truth of this life.

The Substance and Evidence That is True Faith

What is faith? A direct answer has been provided for us in the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews. This one book of the Bible provides in its forty relatively short verses an exact meaning, and some definitive examples of this often misunderstood and often undervalued spiritual principle.

Hebrews begins with the definition, that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It does not leave us there with no direction as to where this quality originated, or with no practical examples that highlight the simple definition of faith.

It is the 'substance' of things hoped, their very essence or foundation. Without a solid foundation, a structure or a system, or a person, will crumble.

Faith is the substance of every good thing that we wish for ourselves and those we love. With faith, the achievement of all our dreams and goals is made possible.

It is the 'evidence' of things not seen. We cannot 'see' the being of God. We cannot look into His eyes. His arms do not wrap around us in a hug that we can feel. But when we have faith, we are actually aware of His loving presence in our daily lives.

During our best of good times, our most difficult periods of challenge, and during our most awful of tragedies we experience that we are never alone.

The Greatest Question Ever Asked

About a half century ago, literally on the other side of the world, the Reverend Billy Graham was delivering one of his typical fire and brimstone sermons 'Down Under' in Australia.

The theme of his sermon that day revolved around what he called "the greatest question ever asked by any man."

That questioner to whom he was referring was a bit notorious. It was Pontius Pilate, the first century Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea who has become legend for having condemned Jesus Christ to death by crucifixion.

While being questioned by Pilate, Jesus stated "...for this I came into the world, to testify to the Truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."

Pilate responded with his simple question that has resounded through history as that greatest ever to be asked: "What is truth?"

However, Pilate asks his question dismissively of Christ. As he asks the question, he waves Jesus off and walks away, as if to say 'yeah, right' or 'gimme a break'.

It is not as if Jesus Christ had never answered this question, for he had done so on numerous occasions previously, and none more famously than is presented in the Gospel of John.

The Philosophic Problem of Moral Disagreement

There is little doubt that there is disagreement on many moral issues among individuals and groups of people. This includes nations and political parties within nations.

In the book “Whatever Happened to Good and Evil”, Russ Shafer-Landau puts forth that despite these disagreements, there is subjective morality.

In examining my own personal belief system, I find that he and I are in agreement on that issue. There is indeed subjective morality, despite the existence of moral disagreements among intelligent, educated people.

The 'Argument from Moral Disagreement' basically states that if two open-minded, intelligent persons continually disagree about an issue, then there must be no objective truth to that issue.

The basic philosophic problem is the falsity of the premise itself - that simple informed disagreement equates to a lack of basic truth.

Shafer-Landau’s book “Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?” gives an example from the physical sciences: in areas such as physics, chemistry, and geology, scientists may frequently disagree on some basic premise.

Yet those scientists remain committed to their being an objective truth to the issue being studied and disagreed upon. If this is so for non-moral areas, such as the physical sciences, why should it not be so for ethics?

Also, in it’s 'Synopsis of the Major Arguments' section, the book points out that ethics is related to philosophy: “ethical disagreement is a species of philosophical disagreement.”

Although there is disagreement in philosophy, this does not mean there is no objective truth to questions such as those regarding free will, good and evil, and even the very existence of God.

Choose

Making a choice is not always an easy thing to do, and when it comes to the most important things in life the choices you make will affect not only you, but those around you. Your friends, family, community.

Sometimes your choices can ultimately affect the entire world. One such decision, perhaps the most important one that any of us will ever make, is one that I have recently been contemplating.

The choice to accept Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior.

There, I said it. In some ways, it’s not an easy choice to make. Christ Himself said “You will be hated by all because of my name.” But I will put it to you here that it is the only rational choice that you can make, the only choice that makes any sense, and the only choice that will ultimately get you what we all search for – peace, love, happiness.

When there is a choice to be made, it is usually between at least two, and often many different things. There is nothing different about the choice to welcome Jesus Christ into your life. You can choose to do so, or you can choose evil, or you can choose ambivalence, or you can choose to delay your ultimate choice…but choose we all shall.

In my own life, it has taken far too long to come to this point. What will be your choice?

Truth, and the Truthful Truth-tellers Who Tell It

Former Saturday Night Live funnyman Al Franken has in recent years taken his comedic and writing talents to the task of pushing his typically Hollywood-styled ultra-liberal political agenda with his own radio program on the disastrously failed liberal Air America radio network.

He has also penned his liberal thinking in a pair of poor-selling books: “Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them” and the recently released followup “The Truth”.

Judging by the titles, these might seem to be topics worthy of the effort. Only problem is that in “Lies”, Franken tells many himself, both of omission and commission, and in “Truth”, he tells very little of it.

Instead, Franken chooses to slant particular stories and comments of his targets, almost exclusively President Bush and his Republican allies, to suit his desired result. Great examples are highlighted at the website frankenlies.com.

For instance, in attacking Fox News pundit and my 2005 website American of the Year Bill O’Reilly in “Lies”, Franken claims that O’Reilly lies when he continually makes statements of being proud to have been raised in Levittown, Long Island, New York. Franken states that O’Reilly is not from Levittown, but from the “affluent suburb of Westbury”, which he further states as being “several miles apart” from Levittown.

O’Reilly, always the actual purveyor of truth, responded on his own Fox program “The O’Reilly Factor” in April of 2004 by showing his parents actual deed from the home, in which his mother still lived, clearly showing the Levittown designation.

When Franken brought on to his radio program a Hofstra professor and Levittown expert, Barbara Kelly, he was told there was no lie to uncover, that O’Reilly had indeed grown up in Levittown.

Truth – 1, Franken – 0

The fact is, this is a small matter, but it highlights a theme that runs throughout both of the books.