Message summary: One day we will be transported to our eternal home and we’ll have a new body; one that won’t grow stiff, break down or slow down due to the aging process commonly experienced on this side of heaven!

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"Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16). “For we know that if our earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1).

Driving along Elizabethtown Road through the country the other day I saw a rare sight in Lancaster County, a dilapidated house. Due to high property values and demand for housing you just don't see many properties like this in our area. It probably means there's some type of dispute with the estate.

Look at the photo above. At one time this was an exciting new residence for someone, kind of like a newborn baby. It likely had many years of fruitful use providing housing to families raising children. It was likely maintained until it just wasn't.

Now it is in decay and almost certainly at the point of being demolished. I sure can't imagine anyone fixing it up! It is a demonstration of the law of entropy or 2nd law of thermodynamics. That is "as one goes forward in time, the net entropy (degree of disorder) of any isolated or closed system will always increase." This universal law is a powerful argument against evolution.

In the article "What Is Entropy? A Measure of Just How Little We Really Know" Zack Savitsky wrote, "Life is an anthology of destruction. Everything you build eventually breaks. Everyone you love will die. Any sense of order or stability inevitably crumbles. The entire universe follows a dismal trek toward a dull state of ultimate turmoil."* (Of course he is only writing concerning the natural realm.)

Today let's consider another house that shows evidence of increasing entropy and will eventually be "torn down", our mortal body. David wrote of an indisputable truth concerning age progression, "I have been young, and now am old" (Psalm 37:25).

Now as we are in the experience of older age I seek to healthily see age as an inevitable and blessed consequence of staying alive.

That’s a good verse to hide deep in our hearts. Elsewhere we read: “For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). The Apostle James describes this temporary situation quite graphically: “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14).

When Paul wrote, “For we know that if our earthly tent which is our house is torn down” he was underscoring the decay and temporal state of our present life. One day this old house will be torn down, a euphemism for death. Our physical bodies are examples of increasing entropy!

When this house is torn down our future house is described as “a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens".

The ongoing challenge for each of us is not driving the stakes too deeply in our present “tent”. We must be purposeful in not getting too settled nor should we ceaselessly strive for comfort on this side. That’s particularly true for those of us who live in peace and relative affluence, which can be such a seducing trap.

One day we will be transported to our eternal home and we’ll have a new body; one that won’t grow stiff, break down or slow down due to the aging process commonly experienced on this side of heaven!

Be encouraged today, Hebrews 3:13

Stephen and Brooksyne Weber