Hear the words of The Collect for Advent Sunday:

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which Thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when He shall come again in His glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal.

May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be alway acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer. We pray in the name of The Father, and of The Son, and of The Holy Ghost. Amen.

This being Advent Sunday it would be natural to preach on one of the four last things alluded to in this prayer, which are Heaven, Hell, Life, and Death. Yet, today, I would like to speak in a different tone than is expected in a penitential season. I want to talk about them all at once and how they were applied to my life experiences. In this process I want to express my thanks for God’s Grace and His many blessings upon me, my family, and our Church.

Fifty odd years ago I walked away from the Church and from God. The Church had begun to preach a message that basically patted me upon the head and said, “Whatever you do does not matter, for God loves you no matter what you do all will forgive all your sins even as you keep doing them and never repent of them.” Well I took them at their word and began to do just that. It was during that time that I died, not physically, but spiritually. My heart was as dead as a rock and just as unfeeling. Love only meant sex and everyone else’s feelings be damned, because I was the only one that counted.

After twenty years of being a heathen, and a very good one I might add, I found my life empty. All that I had sought had been lost or destroyed, through my own actions and decisions when you get to the truth of it. And that is a story for another time. This period it was blackest in my life. Satan had taken to tormenting me through irrational fears. These are the most terrifying because they are not bound by reason, physical reality, or even possibility. I can certainly say that I have spent time in Hell and I want no more to do with it.

This experience taught me that it is possible to die within before one dies without. Saint John the Divine talks about the “second death” in Revelation 20:14:

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

So if this is what God calls the “second death,” then I had found a third way of dying, which was in my heart and spirit. Or, it may not be a third way at all, but the “second death” described here is only an eternal confirmation of what has already happened within a person.

The oddest thing about this time in my life was that it made me realize that my only defense was Jesus Christ. God sent me this ray of hope in the midst of these terrifying experiences. I began to realize that if Satan were real and tormenting me, which he was indeed doing, then God was real as well, for you cannot have one without the other. I had begun by discarding God and goodness, so in the process I had discarded evil and Satan. If goodness is not real then neither is evil. Yet Satan’s activities proved to me that he existed and conversely that God existed as well.

You may think me somewhat crazy, or deranged, for believing that Satan tormented me, but the reality of my experiences is not something that I may easily dismiss. I have been attacked by demons and been tormented for so long and suffered so much, that I believe that Satan’s intention was intended to drive me crazy. Had he succeeded I would not be here today.

I admit that in the beginning I turned to God only as a protection from evil. However, what began because of fear has turned into service out of love, service to my loving Creator, The Father, to my redeeming Savior Jesus Christ, to my Comforter The Holy Ghost, and for His Church and its people.

The reality of God’s love for me transformed my life and made me alive again. All that you see in me today is there by the grace of God, His love for me, and my love for Him. Love has redeemed what hate sought to destroy.

I wish I could say that the war has been won, but it has not. The battles within me continue to this day. The temptations, even today, are real and varied. As I said before, Satan does not care by what sin I fall, just so long as I do fall. He knows that if I fall I will take many others with me. It is only by God’s Grace and the assistance of The Holy Ghost that I continue in the path of service to His Church.

This is my daily reminder that I should be thankful for The Father creating me, Jesus Christ redeeming me, and The Holy Ghost assisting me continuously. For me, every day is a giving of thanks day.

I thank God The Father, God The Son, and God The Holy Ghost for all that they have done for me and given to me. I freely offer it all back to Him who first gave to me my very existence and all that I am today.

In this brief recounting of my spiritual journey I have touched on three of the Final Four Things: death, hell, and life. After these things I look forward to the fourth, Heaven and being in the Presence of my Lord Jesus Christ who saved me from the folly of my own making. All that I can say is that is love indeed for this poor sinner.

My story proves that no one is beyond the love of God if only we will accept Him and the salvation He so freely offers to us all, by allowing Him to hold sway in our lives instead of our passions.

Amen,

The Rev. Canon John Jacobs