Great News for the World

[Resource Manager]

Finding Freedom

 

When I saw clean, affectionate, contented, happy Cleopatra I felt sorry for the wild rats of the sewers. But there was nothing I could do about it. The sewer rats do not know what they are missing, and have no wish to change. It is beyond human power to turn any of them into an­other Cleopatra.

 

God must feel something like that when He looks at the human race. He would like to lift us out of our prison, dean us up, change our habits, train us, and one day give us the perfect happiness that we yearn for.

 

That is just what Jesus offered people - real freedom:

 

‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my dis­ciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’ John 8:31,32.)

 

His listeners bristled. Like the wild rats, they considered they were free already. ‘We... have never been in bondage to anyone!’ they slammed back at him. John 8:33.)

 

Even the Son of God could do nothing with such people. He continued for a while trying to shatter their compla­cency, but it was of no avail. Before long they were threat­ening him with violence. John 8:59.)

 

As Jesus told them, the truth could have made them free. But the truth about themselves was painful. (It nearly always is.) They chose to live in cloud-cuckoo-land and pretend there was nothing wrong with them.

 

So do most of us, most of the time. But unless we can somehow break free of that habit, we shall let slip the most precious thing in the world.

[Resource Manager]

Everlasting Happiness

 

Everlasting life is a subject that is very much misunder­stood. Sometimes people think of it as little more than a continuation of our present tear-stained existence. This often leads them to conclude that perhaps eternal life is not really worth having, after all.

 

Others look upon it as a sort of king-sized Christmas present that God will hand out, one day, to the people who please Him. And since God is good and kind, they often conclude that He will probably give that gift to everybody - or, at any rate, nearly everybody.

 

Both these ideas are terribly wrong. Everlasting life is best thought of as everlasting happiness, or everlasting joy, which is how the Bible describes it. (Isaiah 35:10.) The Bible also tells us that this happiness will be enjoyed in the presence of God. (Revelation 21:3,4.)

 

Now you can only find great happiness in someone’s company if you have grown to love that person. Cleo­patra’s idea of bliss is to be cuddled and tickled by her mistress. But a sewer rat would run a mile rather than submit to human caresses.

 

In the very nature of things, then, everlasting happiness can be enjoyed only by those who have, so to speak, grown to enjoy God’s company. We can only do that by letting Him teach us how to enjoy being with Him. And that means letting Him do a tremendous job with us.

 

To begin with, we must recognise that this world of ours really is a prison, and a very foul one at that, and that because of our disobedience the sentence upon us is just. We must allow Him to lift us out of the filth, wash us, and set us going along a very different path. We must let Him turn the rest of our life into a training course, gradually developing in us the sort of character that really would enjoy living for ever in His presence.

[Resource Manager]

Total Surrender

 

God is a perfectionist. He insists upon giving us a complete cure, and nothing less. And that calls for total surrender on our part. As the Bible puts it:

 

‘I implore you by God’s mercy to offer your very selves to him; a living sacrifice, dedicated and fit for his accept­ance ... Adapt yourselves no longer to the pattern of this present world, but let your minds be remade and your whole nature thus transformed.’ (Romans 12:1,2, NEB.)

 

Those who decide to surrender their lives to God like this are often surprised. It is not the painful process that many of them expected it to be. In many ways it is a delight. But then the Lord Jesus Christ promised that it would be:

 

‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ (Matthew 11:29,30.)

 

Despite this, only a very small minority of mankind has ever been willing to submit. Jesus knew that this would be so:

 

‘The gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.’ (Matthew 7:13,14.)

 

At first sight those are discouraging words. A narrow gate - a hard way - few people finding everlasting life -why, this is indeed a daunting prospect!

 

Don’t despair. This is only one half of a complex pic­ture. Look back a few lines to the previous quotation, and see how the Lord also said that his yoke is easy, and his burden light. In the next two chapters we shall begin to see how the two halves of the picture fit together.

[Resource Manager]

5 - JAILBREAK

 

Commander Henry Macdonald was a naval officer of the old school. Transparently honest, he would no more think of telling a lie than of running his ship aground.

 

‘I go to church because I believe in Christian morality’ he once said to me. ‘But I don’t claim to be a Christian. The very heart of the Christian religion doesn’t make sense to me.’ 

 

‘Why?’ I asked.

 

‘This business of the cross of Christ. How can any intelligent man believe in a God of love, and at the same time say that God needed a human sacrifice to appease His wrath? It just doesn’t add up.’

 

Macdonald’s problem is shared by millions. This is curious, because there is really no problem at all. The difficulty is due to a complete misunderstanding.

 

Jesus did not die to appease an angry God. His sacrifice was the most important event in history, and vitally necessary. But the real reason for it, as given in the Bible, has become distorted in many people’s minds.

 

We have seen how human beings are really prisoners, of circumstances and of their own weak human nature. If only we can break out of that prison we can rise to un-dreamed-of heights of fulfilment and happiness. Outside our prison there is God, and only in God’s presence can we find our joyful destiny.

 

The snag is that the prison has us completely in its grip. Our trouble is not so much that the walls are impregnable, as that we have lost all desire to escape. We are set in our ways, we even try to pretend that the prison is really a very fine place, or that we are not really in prison at all.

 

The power of the prison lies in our own apathy and weakness. That is why it is an almost impossible task to get us out. Jesus came - and died - to achieve that near-impossibility. His mission was:

 

‘To open the eyes that are blind,

To bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,

From the prison those who sit in darkness.’ (Isaiah 42:7.)

[Resource Manager]

The Man From Outside

 

The first problem was to wake up the prisoners. They had to be made aware that they really were in prison, that it was a poor place to be in, and that it was worth making every effort to escape to the better world outside.

 

This meant that somebody representing ‘outside’ needed to appear within the prison walls, and let the prisoners know what they were missing. There was only one really convincing way for him to do this. He would have to live an ‘outside’ sort of life inside the prison. Then the prisoners would see for themselves that what he told them about life outside was true.

 

God could, of course, have sent an angel from heaven to live in this world and show us what heavenly life is like. But that would not have been very satisfactory. Men would not have been greatly impressed by the godly behaviour of an angel.

 

‘That’s all very well for him,’ would have been the natural human reaction. ‘But he doesn’t know what it’s like to be human. Angels don’t understand our feelings. They don’t suffer temptation like us. What’s the use of showing us how angels behave? We are not angels, and never can be!’

 

What God actually did was much more appropriate. He arranged for someone very special to be born inside the prison, but who was capable of living like someone from ‘outside’.

 

This was why the Lord Jesus Christ’s mother was a virgin. The virgin birth was not the pointless, unnecessary miracle that some people imagine. It was an absolutely vital part of God’s scheme.

 

To make the necessary impact Jesus had to be an ‘insider’, one of us. He had to be born within the prison of human nature. Physically, he had to be a man, subject to all the weaknesses, the frustrations and temptations that we have to endure. That is why his mother had to be an ordinary woman.

 

But Jesus could never have shown us what the ‘outside’ life was like if he had been an ordinary man, with two human parents. So God worked a great miracle on the young virgin, Mary. He caused her to conceive a child that was, in the full sense of the term, God’s own Son.

 

In this way, so the Bible tells us, the Son of God was born. It is a great pity that some religious teachers think they can improve on the simple language of the Bible. With the best of intentions, but very unwisely, they choose to call the birth of Jesus an ‘incarnation’. They are not content with the Biblical description of Jesus, Son of God, but prefer to think of him as God Almighty in person.

 

Far from helping our understanding, this only creates difficulties. Tanker-loads of ink have been used in attempts to explain how Jesus could be, at one and the same time, both God Himself and God’s Son. But this is like trying to draw a square circle. It can’t be done.

[Resource Manager]

Perfection in Human Form

 

It is far better not to worry about these man-made theological tangles, and to stick to the simple facts of the Bible narrative.

 

Through his mother, Jesus was every inch a man. Speaking literally, he was a member of our race, born inside the same prison.

 

Speaking figuratively, though, he was a ‘man from outside’, for two reasons. Because of his miraculous birth, he had what you might call a heavenly origin (even though, in the literal sense, he did not personally descend from heaven as an angel would have had to do).

 

In addition, Jesus really did live a life of heavenly quality, here on earth. Jesus is described as, ‘the exact likeness of God’s own being’. (Hebrews 1:3, TEV.) Evidently he behaved just as God would have done, if God had come down to earth Himself. So Jesus was able to tell his disciples, ‘He who has seen me has seen the Father.’ John 14:8.)

 

This may sound an extravagant claim. If so, don’t dismiss it too hastily. You will find it well worth while to read all four Gospels carefully before making up your mind about this.

 

You will find that the Gospels do not read like fiction. Somehow they have the ring of truth about them. The Jesus of the Gospels is not the sort of character that first-century writers could possibly have invented. Many a thoughtful unbeliever has reached the same conclusion after studying the Gospels: they read like true history.

 

And the central character of these extraordinary narratives is no ordinary man. Many of his words and deeds were misunderstood; shallow-minded men quickly wrote him off as unimportant. But those who took the trouble to understand him were overwhelmed.

 

‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ was their verdict. (Matthew 16:16.)

 

Those of us who have tried to get to know him today are similarly impressed. The more we study the Gospels, the more we realise that here was the ideal man. The life of Jesus is human life as it was meant to be lived, the kind of life for which we were really created.

 

His sort of life is the life that brings an infinite sense of fulfilment. No matter how hard we try, we cannot live up to his standards. But the closer we come to his example, the closer we are to finding peace, love and happiness.

 

His life certainly achieved its purpose. It showed very clearly that life inside the prison of our fallen nature is only a travesty, a poor shadow of the glorious life outside. Every man and woman who carefully looks at Jesus is likely to develop the same intense conviction. They will probably conclude:

 

‘This prison is a far worse place than I realised. The free world outside is better than my wildest dreams. I want to become like Jesus. I want to be free!’

[Resource Manager]

The Great Victory

 

Historians often enthuse about the world’s most decisive battles, like Thermopylae, Waterloo and the Battle of Britain, when the whole course of human history balanced on a knife edge.

 

But they generally overlook the most important battle of all. Compared with this one the battles on their list were mere playground scuffles.

 

This battle was so decisive that the destiny of the whole human race revolved around it. Yet it was fought within the mind and the body of one man, Jesus the Son of God.

 

In him the strength of God and the weakness of human nature met, and were locked in mortal combat for a few suspense-packed years. Like Waterloo, it was a close-run battle of giants. Human nature was not defeated until the body of Jesus hung lifeless from the cross.

 

We see the battle approaching its climax a few hours before Jesus was crucified. There was still one last opportunity for him to run away. Should he take it? Or should he think only of his followers, and for their sake go forward to a horrible death?

 

‘He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, “Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will but thine, be done.”

 

‘And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.’ (Luke 22:41-44.)

 

Shortly after, his enemies approached through the darkness of the garden. His decision made, he went forward to meet them and gave himself up. It was for a very good reason that he had chosen the horrors of crucifixion.

 

The hideous torture that he suffered was not in vain. It was his way - and God’s way - of bursting open our prison wall.

[Resource Manager]

Three Reasons for the Cross

 

Many things were accomplished by his willing death. There is space here to mention only three of them.

 

In the first place, his battle against human weakness would not have been complete without it. The Bible explains that he was made perfect by his sufferings (Hebrews 2:10). We are told that he ‘was tempted in every way that we are but did not sin.’ (Hebrews 4:15, TEV.) Torture, unhappily, is a not-uncommon feature of life. A complete man simply has to be acquainted with it.

 

Whenever followers of Jesus have been tortured, the temptation for them to escape by renouncing their faith has been enormous. But they have always been able to grit their teeth and say, ‘He suffered torture willingly for my sake. Now I must try and stick it out for his sake. And since he has been through it himself and knows what it is like, he is sure to answer my prayers for help.’

 

As the apostle Peter wrote to the early Christians when they were being persecuted:

 

‘If you endure suffering even when you have done right, God will bless you for it. It was to this that God called you; because Christ himself suffered for you and left you an example, so that you would follow in his steps.’ (1 Peter 2:20,21, TEV.)

[Resource Manager]

Sin is Serious

 

The second reason for the crucifixion can only be explained by using an old-fashioned word: sin. There is a (double wall around our prison. The inner wall is labelled ‘sin’, and the outer one, ‘death’. The two are linked together with an unbreakable law, ‘The wages of sin is death.’ (Romans 6:23.)

 

‘Sin’ is a word with several shades of meaning. Any single act of disobedience to God is a sin. But sin is also a Bible name for the weakness and perversity of human nature.

 

We are like drug addicts, completely hooked on sin. We can’t stop sinning however hard we try. That is why the inner wall of our prison is called sin.

 

Since we can’t conquer it ourselves we are utterly dependent upon God to cure us of our addiction to sin. If we co-operate with Him, God is willing to forgive us our sin as a first step towards freeing us from it. But the act of forgiveness carries with it a great danger, as the following story shows.

 

My friend Ralph owns a small business. A few years ago he was almost ruined by an unscrupulous employee. This man was in a position of trust, which he used to steal thousands of pounds from his employer.

 

When Ralph at last discovered what was happening the employee begged for mercy. He said he had yielded to temptation, but now he was terribly sorry and would make amends if only he could be given another chance.

 

With remarkable generosity Ralph forgave the man, and allowed him to keep his job. The result was disastrous. Within a year he was caught stealing from his em¬ployer again in a big way. And, sad to say, he blamed Ralph for this second lapse.

 

‘He shouldn’t have forgiven me so readily the first time,’ he complained. ‘Ralph made me feel that I hadn’t really done him much harm, and so it didn’t seem to matter very much if I twisted him again.’

 

The Bible reveals a wonderful understanding of human psychology. This is one of the many lines of evidence that the Bible is what it claims to be - a message from the all-wise Creator of man’s body and mind.

 

There is no excuse for a Bible-reader making the same mistake as Ralph’s dishonest employee. The Bible leaves us in no doubt whatever that sin is a very, very nasty business - even though God is willing to forgive it. The Bible tells us:

 

‘By the death of Christ we are set free, and our sins are forgiven.’ (Ephesians 1:7, TEV.)

 

So God is loving and merciful. He sets us free, and forgives us all our sins. Nevertheless, He has made it very plain that our sins are not just unimportant little slips. It was no light matter for God to free us and forgive us, since it cost Him the death of His only Son.

 

Clearly, this sinfulness of ours, from which God is willing to deliver us, must be a very terrible thing. If Christ died for this purpose, surely the least we can do is to fight tooth and nail against our own weaknesses in the future.

 

That is the second lesson of the cross. If we learn it. Christ will not have died in vain.

[Resource Manager]

Freedom from Death

 

When Jesus smashed the inner wall of the prison, sin, then sooner or later the outer wall, death, was bound to go down also. As Peter said:

 

‘God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.’ (Acts 2:24.)

 

That is the third great reason for the crucifixion. Jesus died so that death could be conquered.

 

To put it another way, his crucifixion tells the world that human nature deserves death; his resurrection from the dead is a proclamation that obedience to God leads to everlasting life.

 

Don’t make the mistake of underrating the evidence for Christ’s resurrection. One scholar has described it as the best attested fact in history. This may be a slight over-Statement, but there really is a great deal of evidence that this miracle actually took place.

 

We now possess copies of the Gospels, or at least portions of them, written during the second century. Scholars agree that the originals of the Gospels must have been written during the first century, whilst eye-witnesses of the crucifixion were still alive.

 

If the resurrection stories had been false, those eye¬witnesses would have refuted them. But they didn’t. Why not? Surely because they knew them to be true.

 

The very existence of the Christian faith is difficult to account for, unless Christ rose from the dead. The first-century Christians who set the world ablaze with their message were highly unpopular. First the Jews tried to suppress them. Then, as the church began to grow, the Romans savagely opposed them.

 

But the early disciples sacrificed their lives to overcome this fierce opposition. Why? Their own explanation is this: they were eyewitnesses not only to a crucifixion, but to a miraculous resurrection, too.

 

These men were not fools. The circumstances they describe were such as to rule out all possibility of hallucination on their part. They were at first highly sceptical of the resurrection, until eventually they were convinced by ‘many proofs’ that the Lord really was alive again. (Acts 1:3.)

 

Those early witnesses of Christ’s resurrection knew what they were talking about. It makes sense to believe them.

[Resource Manager]

Through the Broken Wall

 

This, then, is more Great News for the World. One human being has burst out of the prison. He conquered sin, and because of that he conquered death as well. Then he ascended to heaven, to wait until the time was ripe for his second coming.

 

Meanwhile there is hope for our imprisoned race. Where he led, we can follow if we wish. The path through the breach in the prison wall is not easy, but we do not have to tread it on our own. He assures us:

 

‘Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.’ (Matthew 28:20.)

[Resource Manager]

6 - THE DOTTED LINE

 

A contract between two people is always treated as a very serious matter.

 

In some countries contracts are still made by the ancient method, in which the two parties make solemn declarations in the presence of witnesses: ‘I promise to let Abdul graze his sheep on my land for the next 12 months.’ ‘And in return I promise to give Hassan the fruit of my three best palm trees at the next harvest.’

 

In the modern world contracts are usually made in writing, by signing on the dotted line. Yet almost everywhere the old method still lingers on, in connection with the most solemn contract that any two human beings can make together: ‘I, John Doe, take thee, Rachel Roe, to be my lawful wedded wife.’

 

The importance of this decision to bind oneself for life to another human being cannot be overrated. But even so there is one decision that is more important still: the decision to follow Christ.

 

In the early days of Christianity this was not a decision to be rushed or made lightly. People knew then that becoming a Christian was the most vital and far-reaching decision that any person could possibly make.

 

It inevitably meant big changes in a person’s life-style. It often meant unpopularity and financial loss, and could easily lead to suffering, imprisonment, or even death - just as it can today in some totalitarian countries. And it was not just a lifelong matter; it was concerned with eternity.

 

In those days a man first weighed up the consequences very carefully indeed, and then he made his solemn contract with God. That is why the New Testament some-times calls the Christian faith the ‘covenant’¹ - an old word for contract.

[Resource Manager]

Making the Contract

 

The Bible shows us very clearly how those early converts sealed their contract with God. For instance, the apostle Peter spoke of:

 

‘... baptism, which now saves you, not by washing off bodily dirt, but by the promise made to God from a good conscience.’ (1 Peter 3:21, TEV.)

 

Thus it was in the act of Christian baptism that men and women made their solemn promise to follow Christ. They knew what this act meant; after baptism their whole lives would be bound to change. As Paul put it:

 

‘By our baptism, then, we were buried with him (Christ) and shared his death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from death by the glorious power of the Father, so also we might live a new life.’ (Romans 6:4, TEV.)

 

There is much to be learnt from that verse. To begin with, note that baptism was described as a kind of ‘burial’. This, of course, stems from the fact that only one form of baptism was known in those days. People being baptized were placed for an instant beneath the surface of a body of water. It was like being buried in water, just for a brief moment

 

There was a good reason for this. The form that baptism took was full of meaning. Look back at the verse quoted above. It shows that the person being baptized was expected to say to himself something like this:

 

‘Christ willingly gave up his life. God then rewarded him; He raised him up to a new kind of life, a far more wonderful kind of life - everlasting life. In a smaller way, this applies to me, too. If I willingly surrender my life to God, He will give me a far better life, one day.

 

‘So what I am going to do now is to demonstrate these facts, by acting out a sort of parable. As I go under the water the old me is going to die and be buried. But as I rise out of the water a new ME is going to be born. From now on the Lord Jesus Christ will help me to make my life more like his.’

[Resource Manager]

Belief and Repentance

 

It stands to reason that you cannot make a contract with God unless you believe in Him. You also need to understand the terms of the contract, and to believe in them. So it is not surprising that the early Christians all had to reach a firm conviction before they could be baptized, as the following incidents show.

 

‘When they (the Samaritan converts) believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.’ (Acts 8:12.)

 

‘They (Paul and Silas) spoke the word of the Lord to him (the Philippian jailer) and to all that were in his house ... he was baptized at once, with all his family ... and he rejoiced with all his household that he had believed in God.’ (Acts 16:32,34.)

 

But believing is not much use unless it leads to action. This is why belief has to be accompanied by what the Bible calls repentance, before a person can be baptized. Peter’s words to the men and women of Jerusalem show this:

 

‘When they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you for the forgiveness of your sins.”’ (Acts 2:37,38.)

 

These people obviously believed what Peter had been teaching, or they would not have been ‘cut to the heart’ by it. But that was not enough. Action was called for on their part. They were told first to repent and then to be baptized.

 

The word ‘repent’ means ‘be sorry’. Not just feel sorry, but really be sorry. In other words, accept responsibility for the wrong that one has done in the past, and determine to do better in the future.

 

In the early church nobody was baptized until they showed clear signs of belief and repentance.

[Resource Manager]

Forgiveness and Salvation

 

It takes two to make a contract. Each party to the contract makes a promise, or several promises, to the other party.

 

It is like this with baptism. We make our promises to turn away from the old self-centred way of life and start a new Christ-centred life. At the same time God makes two promises to us.

 

The first of these God fulfils immediately. He grants a blessing so wonderful that it brings an indescribable sense of relief. At the very moment of baptism He forgives all our past sins, so that we can start our new life in Christ with a clean sheet.

 

‘Repent and be baptized every one of you for the forgiveness of your sins.’ (Acts 2:38.)

 

‘Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins.’ (Acts 22:16.)

 

God’s second promise starts to take effect at once, but it takes much longer to work out completely. He promises to watch over us night and day, to take charge of our lives, to help us grow more and more like His Son, and at last to give us everlasting life.

 

The Bible calls this continuing process ‘salvation’. Because it begins at baptism Peter says ‘baptism now saves you’ (1 Peter 3:21), while Jesus promises that ‘he who believes and is baptized will be saved.’ (Mark 16:16.)

 

But the process of salvation cannot be completed until, Christ comes again, when he will give everlasting life to those who have grown fit for it. Hence the New Testament also speaks of salvation as something we must wait for.

 

‘Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time ... to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.’ (Hebrews 9:28.)

[Resource Manager]

Religious Inflation

 

We are all familiar with inflation. Governments keep printing more and more money. Workers receive more and more money in their pay packets. At the same time the real value of money keeps falling, and so nobody is any better off. Everyone agrees that inflation is a bad thing.

 

Something very much like that has happened in connection with Christianity. In New Testament times there was only a small number of Christians. But they all knew what Christianity really meant; they believed in it, they had shown repentance and been baptized. They were few in number, but their quality was high.

 

Today the reference books state that there are hundreds of millions of Christians in the world. This does not mean that all those people follow Christ. Far from it. All it means is that they were christened when they were babies.

 

In many Catholic countries, like Spain and Argentina, nearly all the babies born each year are christened. Even in Protestant countries such as Britain and America a great many babies are still christened, often when their parents are not even churchgoers.

 

This certainly keeps the numbers up, but at a frightful price. It is like the action of governments that keep printing extra banknotes. The result is religious inflation. It leads to a gain in quantity, but only at the expense of quality.

 

The christening of babies is sometimes referred to as baptism. In fact it is nothing of the kind. Infant christening has very little connection with the ceremony called baptism in the New Testament, which was only for grown-up, repentant believers.

 

I have found it painful to write these strongly critical words about a widespread custom. But I have felt obliged to do so because many of the people who read this book will have been christened as babies. If you are one of them, may I give you some friendly advice?

 

Look at the New Testament to see what it says about the christening of babies. You will see that it says precisely nothing. It treats infant christening as if it did not exist.

 

And that, if you are wise, is how you will regard your own christening. Disregard it completely. It is not part of God’s religion, but just a man-made substitute.

 

You still need to make your own personal contract with Jesus, to sign on the dotted line, so to speak, in the water of baptism.

[Resource Manager]

Faith

 

So far in this chapter the word faith has not appeared. Instead you will find the word ‘believe’, which occurs in several Bible verses telling us we must believe and be baptized.

 

In the English language we make a distinction between ‘faith’ and ‘belief. Sometimes you might even hear somebody say, ‘I don’t believe that such-and-such Christian belief is really true. I suppose I shall just have to accept it on faith.’

 

If you were to translate that statement into Greek, the language of the New Testament, it would read like a piece of nonsense. This is because, in Greek, there is only one word which means both ‘belief and ‘faith’. To the early Christians, faith and belief were exactly the same thing.

 

So there can be no question of having faith in something you don’t really believe. Faith is belief. Faith consists of believing that there is a God, that He has made some wonderful promises centred in His Son Jesus Christ, and that He will certainly keep them. As the Bible says:

 

‘To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.’ (Hebrews 11:1, TEV.)

 

One other thing. Faith involves hanging on to your convictions through thick and thin.

 

It may be easy to believe when the sun is shining and you have just had a pay rise. But God asks you to keep on believing when your husband has pneumonia and your child has just been run over. That’s what faith means.

 

Here is an example of real faith. The apostle Paul wrote the following passage when he was a prisoner in chains:

 

‘How great is the joy I have in my life in the Lord! ... I have learned to be satisfied with what I have. I know what it is to be in need, and what it is to have more than enough. ... I have the strength to face all conditions by the power that Christ gives me.’ (Philippians 4:10-13, TEV.)

[Resource Manager]

How to Develop Faith

 

It is easy to admire Paul’s wonderful faith. Trying to show the same kind of faith ourselves when the going is rough is a very different matter.

 

But don’t be downhearted. Faith develops slowly, just like muscles and intelligence. Rome was not built in a day, and neither was Paul’s attitude to his Roman prison. It was the outcome of a whole lifetime spent in faith-developing activities. There are three of these: praying, reading and doing.

 

They are all very important. Do not settle for only one or two of them. If you want to grow strong in faith you should aim at practising all three, every day.

[Resource Manager]

Prayer

 

The ability to pray is one of God’s great gifts to man. It is one thing that distinguishes man from the animals. Never say, ‘I can’t pray.’ You can. You were made in God’s own image. Your prayer-power may have become rusty for want of use, but it is still there. With patience you will find you can get it going again.

 

People often say, ‘But how can I pray if I have no faith?’ But that is looking at the problem from the wrong end. It is better to ask, ‘How can I expect to have faith if I do not pray?’

 

Perhaps you would like to pray but feel you can’t, because you do not believe in God. Then take a good look into your own mind. Are you absolutely certain that there is no God? Because, if so, then you are a very unusual person!

 

Much more probably you would say, ‘I really don’t know if there is a God or not’, or, ‘No, I don’t think there is a God - but, of course, you can’t be sure.’

 

Either way, it means that your unbelief is not total. There is, so to speak, a mixture of unbelief and belief within you. At the very least there are a few shreds of belief - or faith - deep down in your unbelieving mind.

 

So it is clear what you need to do. Summon up whatever scraps of faith you may have, and just for a moment push the great waves of unbelief into the back of your mind. Then use your little bit of faith to utter a prayer. Be like the man who came to Jesus and said, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’ (Mark 9:24.)

 

That man realized that belief and unbelief were fighting for possession of his mind. He acted wisely. He used such belief as he possessed to ask the Lord Jesus for help.

 

If you have only a tiny crumb of faith as big as a grain of seed, that’s enough to start with, says Jesus. (Luke 17:6.) God makes small seeds grow into great plants, and He will make your faith grow if you ask Him.

[Resource Manager]

Bible Reading

 

No doubt you know at least one person who loves talking. He (or she) just goes on and on and on, always talking, never letting anyone else get a word in edgeways.

 

He doesn’t care whether you have anything to say. He is interested only in himself. In short, he is a bore.

 

Very few people seem to realize that God probably dis­likes bores as much as we do. Millions of people who never read the Bible pray to God every day. They expect God to listen to them, but they act as if they could not care less, about the things God has to say to them.

 

This is not good enough. God has established two-way communication between heaven and earth, and He expects us to use it. He wants us to talk to Him and to listen, to pray and also to read His Word, the Bible.

 

Ignoring the Bible is so obviously a discourtesy to God. But that is less than half the trouble. By not reading the Bible we are depriving ourselves of a tremendous aid to

faith. Consider these two sayings of Paul:

 

‘Faith is awakened by the message, and the message that awakens it comes through the word of Christ.’ (Romans 10:17, NEB.)

 

‘You have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.’ (2 Timothy 3:15, TEV.)

 

‘The message.’ - The word of Christ. - ‘The Holy Scrip­tures.’ These - which today we should call, ‘The Bible” - are what will give us faith, says Paul.

 

This is just plain commonsense. Faith is belief, and belief is based on knowledge, and the knowledge of God’s ways comes from reading the Bible. Of course Bible read­ing will help us to develop faith.

 

Try it for yourself. To begin with, read just one chapter a day - every day.² Read it carefully and thoughtfully, praying that God will help you to understand and to remember its message.

 

After a few months of this you will probably marvel at the difference it has made to you.

[Resource Manager]

Doing God’s Will

 

There is no substitute for practice. You will never be any good as a footballer, a musician, a swimmer, a dressmaker, an artist, or anything else you can think of, unless you are prepared to work at it.

 

This goes for developing faith, too. Jesus said:

 

‘Whoever is willing to do what God wants will know whether what I teach comes from God or whether I speak on my own authority.’ John 7:17, TEV.)

 

Look closely at that promise. It applies to anyone who is ‘willing to do what God wants’. How does a man show his willingness? Obviously by making an honest attempt at doing it.

 

The last part of the verse tells us what those willing doers can expect to receive. They will be given a clear answer to the question, ‘Is Jesus the Son of God? Or is he an impostor?’

 

The advice of Jesus amounts to this. If you doubt whether Christianity is true, the best thing to do is to give it a trial. Try acting like one of Christ’s disciples for a while - praying, reading, giving, helping, and being honest and upright in all your dealings.

 

Soon you will find what you are looking for: the con­viction that you ought to be a follower of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

 

And by that time it will be a joy to you to become one.

[Resource Manager]

7 - INTO THE UNKNOWN

 

I grew up between the two world wars in the wheat-grow­ing area of East Anglia. To us schoolboys one of the high-spots in the calendar was the day when Farmer Bennet threshed his corn.

 

It was before the days of combine harvesters, so the wheat was cut by a reaping machine and left lying in bundles about the field. When it was reasonably dry these were made into large stacks, to await the day when Farmer Bennet could hire a steam-driven threshing machine.

 

Then the fun began. As the farmer’s men steadily dis­mantled the stack, a ring of boys and dogs waited ex­pectantly. Every so often a rat would break out of the stack and dash for cover, with wildly excited boys and yelping dogs in hot pursuit.

 

Meanwhile the threshing machine banged away at the sheaves of corn. A steady stream of grain poured into the waiting sacks, whilst another part of the machine disgorged a second stream. This was the useless part of the ears of the corn, called chaff. A bonfire was kept burning all day long to get rid of it.

 

Scenes something like this, but with an ox’s hooves and a winnowing tool doing the work instead of a machine, were common in the days of Jesus Christ. Some of his parables were based upon such events. So were the words of John the Baptist, who said about Jesus:

 

‘He has his winnowing-shovel with him, to thresh out all the grain; he will gather his wheat into his barn, but burn the chaff in a fire that never goes out!’ (Matthew 3:12, TEV.)

[Resource Manager]

A Leap into the Darkness

 

For many people death is a terrifying leap into the un­known. Even in this unbelieving age a great many people believe there must be some sort of conscious existence after death, but few of them have any clear idea of what to expect.

 

This uncertainty is quite unnecessary, since the Bible tells us all the essential facts about life and death. Unfor­tunately many people refuse to face the most basic fact of all, because the Bible’s teaching on this point is highly unpalatable. It tells us that life after death is only for those who earnestly follow Christ. Everybody else will be wiped out of existence. They are like the chaff in the passage quoted above; the chaff is useless and the farmer does not want it cluttering up his farmyard, so he burns it to get it out of the way.

 

People who have not learned to enjoy walking in God’s ways are misfits in God’s world. They are physically in­capable of finding everlasting happiness in God’s presence. The kindest thing God can do to them is to let them cease to exist, just as men destroy chaff, and weeds, and wrecked cars.

 

So the Bible warns us again and again that, unless we allow God to make us fit for everlasting happiness, He will have to destroy us.

 

‘The Lord preserves all who love Him, but all the wicked will He destroy.’ (Psalm 145:20.)

 

‘He who despises the word brings destruction upon himself, but he who respects the commandment will be rewarded.’ (Proverbs 13:13.)

 

‘Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.’ (Matthew 7:13,14.)

 

‘Those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus ... shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints.’ (2 Thessalonians 1:9,10.)

 

In each of those four quotations there is a picture of mankind sorting itself into two classes. There are those who learn to co-operate with God; they will ultimately find everlasting life in his presence. The rest of mankind - the great majority - are unsuitable for God’s eternal pur­poses; the only appropriate fate for them is destruction.

[Resource Manager]

The Real Hell Fire

 

Jesus loved to speak in parables, using familiar scenes as vivid illustrations of the things he taught.

 

One of those he used was a gruesome scene. Just outside the old city of Jerusalem was the municipal rubbish dump, in the bottom of a valley called Gehenna. It was a most revolting place. Not only was the city’s rubbish and sewage tipped there, but the bodies of executed crimi­nals were denied a decent burial; they were flung into Gehenna like so much human rubbish, to rot and breed maggots, or perhaps to be burnt along with the other rubbish.

 

Jesus spoke of Gehenna several times. Unfortunately his meaning is distorted in most English Bibles, since transla­tors usually put the English word ‘hell’ instead of the Greek place-name ‘Gehenna’.¹ Some translations, such as the Revised Standard Version, supply a footnote explain­ing that Jesus actually said ‘Gehenna’, not ‘hell’. Here is one such passage.

 

‘If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ (Mark 9:45-48.)

 

Here we have undoubtedly the language of parable. Those who sacrifice a foot or an eye for Jesus will not literally enter everlasting life with only one foot or one eye, as this passage suggests! Nor will all those who dis­obey Jesus have their bodies literally thrown into Gehen­na, to be eaten by worms (maggots) or destroyed by fire. What Jesus is really saying, in effect, is something like this:

 

‘You know what men do with criminals that are not fit to live: they put them to death and then throw their bodies into Gehenna to be destroyed by worms or by fire. Well, that is an illustration of what God will do to all the people who are not fit to live for ever in His kingdom. He will destroy them as completely as we destroy the bodies of criminals. To avoid such a fate it is worth making great sacrifices.’

[Resource Manager]

The Meaning of the Soul

 

There are two opposite ways of reacting to this teaching of Jesus. One - the right way - is to say, ‘The situation is very serious. It looks as if I am on the easy road leading to destruction, to the total extinction of my life. I must do something about it, so as to cross over to the narrow road that leads to everlasting happiness.’

 

Unhappily, that healthy reaction is decidedly un­common. There is a deep-rooted human instinct to defend one’s present position, and a reluctance to admit that a change is necessary. People will go to almost any length to convince themselves that they are really all right: that death is not going to mean an abrupt end for themselves.

 

The favourite escape route is by juggling with the word ‘soul’. There is a very common belief that we have inside us something called a soul, which goes on living when the body dies. This belief is popular because it is comforting. But it is the very opposite of what the Bible teaches.

 

In the Bible the word ‘soul’ is never used in that way.² Instead, it is used to mean ‘person’, or ‘self, or ‘life’. We still find it used in this way in everyday English, in ex­pressions such as, ‘Poor old soul (person)’, ‘Put your heart and soul (self) into the game’, and ‘SOS - save our souls³ (lives)’.

 

The word ‘soul’ is used in many places in the King James Version of the Bible (published 1611) where more modern translations give us the real meaning. Here are three examples from the King James Version, with the words used in the Revised Standard Version (published 1952) in brackets.

 

‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (being).’ (Genesis 2:7.)

 

‘The Lord delivered Lachish into the hand of Israel, which ... smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls (persons) that were therein.’ (Joshua 10:32.)

 

‘The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness ... “Thou hast in love to my soul (life) delivered it from the pit of corruption.”’ (Isaiah 38:9,17.)

 

‘Being’, ‘person’, ‘life’. This is how modern versions of the Bible often translate the Hebrew and Greek words for ‘soul’. Here is one passage where modern translations usually stick to the old word, soul.

 

‘The soul that sins shall die.’ (Ezekiel 18:20.) 

 

The meaning of all this is unmistakable. In the Bible, ‘soul’ does not refer to some sort of immortal spirit inside a person. The soul is the person himself.

 

And because the person - the soul - is sinful, the person dies. There is no ‘inner man’ left to live on when the body dies. Death really is the end of life, as the Bible clearly states in the following words:

 

‘The dead know nothing... Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished.’ (Ecclesiastes 9:5,6.)