Ticking of the Tell-Tale Heart

The clock is ticking. I hear every tick. I'm nearly deaf. My sense of hearing is no longer acute but I still hear the ticking. Poe heard it too! 

"For many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead... I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct: --It continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness --until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears... -It is the beating of his hideous heart!"

A man had been killed and buried beneath the floor. The police came. Poe was afraid that they heard what he heard - the sound of the still beating heart beneath the floor. He felt his own heart beating and the anxiety got to him. He admitted the deed; he was guilty and his own tell-tale heart gave him away! So the story goes but although fiction for Poe, our own beating hearts are stilled at death.

Psalm 4:4 Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.

We can hear our heart, It's beating means that we are alive! However, we are only conscious of its thump thump thump if we're quiet. It beats in unison to the tick tock tick tock of the clock. Time measures our life. Time is for us. There is no need for a divine clock because in the Kingdom of God time is infinite. Why measure something which never ends, That is fruitless. Time is to mark the end. The end of mortal life is death. Time for us ends with the cessation of tick tock tick tock. 

At the end, we know that we are dead! The mind is still alive but the flesh is no longer alive. Death marks a transition of the flesh. It is transformed from esteemed and loved to useless dust. When time ceases, the flesh will no longer demand pleasure. There will be no need to appease our idol. Our god is toppled at death. Those who have died in Christ, crucify themselves to appease God. Our crucifixion is painless. We submit as we look at the Savior on his tree. Our submission is our crucifixion. It is easy to bear for the burden is light!

Submission rewinds the clock. The heart is circumcised of its dead weight. When the thump thump thump stops, time does as well. Suddenly as the tick tock ceases a miracle occurs. Our soul dispenses with the flesh. When it is glorified the flesh is no longer an obstacle. Our idol, like the Philistine god Dagon, falls to the ground. There it returns to the dust. The thumping is gone. The clock quits ticking for us. We are at that moment on Daylight Savings Time. Glory is the light, and Jesus saves. At death, that is the time!

Before the beating stops, the time approaches:

Rom 13:11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

With each thump, the time gets nearer. Seventy-times seven chances God has offered His forgiveness. Repentance makes the soul safe. The thumping ceases. It's there but we no longer hear it nor fear its cessation. That is peace. It's the silence we hear when we're still!  

Repentance quiets the heart. What if the thumping fails to awaken us from our sleep? But it will! The thumping will thump harder, louder, and more quickly. Guilt speeds the heart and quickens the time. God can hear the thumping of the beating heart. He could still it; stillness is of the heart. Those who sleep through the noise when wakened hear it louder. Perhaps God does as well!

The noise is not within my ears... -It is the beating of my hideous heart! to paraphrase Poe. God hears the pounding of the heart. Submission stills the heart and quiets the vexation. Ah, but the guilty one still sleeps. His soul hears the beat but his conscience is asleep. The clock stops for a second as perhaps a different transformation happens.

He is dead but yet is alive. His flesh is not transformed in nature but made eternal. No time will measure the agony for eternity is timeless. The living dead is exchanged for the forever dying, and that clock too is rewound. The timer starts but the seconds are divine millennia. One tick is forever and more ticks are longer. Spiritual death takes forever to end but the end never comes. The skin burns but is never consumed. It is corrupted but at the same time incorruptible because forever it will be.

There is a choice. Only we can make our choice. Shall it be forever dying, or shall it be living forever? The heart reveals itself. God knows the heart - the tell-tale heart reveals us!