WALKING WITH GOD IN A WORLDWALKING AWAY FROM HIM

It has been said by highly intelligent people, some in fact are Christians, that historic Christianity is no longer relevant to 21st century man, that it has nothing meaningful to say.  Modern man has been defined as someone whose understanding of Christian claims has become meaningless.

I know of the most respected Christian spokesman who discussed with British university students this issue.  They said to him, “Our problem is not ‘Is Christianity true?’  Our problem is, ‘Is that relevant to our world today?’”  They were saying, “How does one take what you believe and show us it’s important for the 21st century?”

So then, we cannot shrug our shoulders and turn our backs with the attitude, “This is foolish, it’s not worth my time!”  For that only makes it worse and, as has been said, “kicks the can down the road.”  And, to make it more simple, the issue boils down to this:  whether it is possible for us to remain a devoted Christian in a world full of indifference and doubt.

In the book Who Trusts God? the author criticizes conservative Christians for withdrawing into a religious ghetto.  “… Christianity is all too comfortably domesticated in societies it does not deeply affect.”  He is hitting at an attitude of noninvolvement with the real world.  He is saying we are running from the ugly world about us because, in reality, we are “unbelieving believers.”

Let me quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died at the end of a Nazi rope in Berlin, “God is being increasingly edged out …”  So he said we must reenter the arena, “The Christian … belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes.  There is his commission, his work.”

So that, our challenge is twofold, it seems to me:  Do we really believe, ourselves, in a world of amazing scientific challenges and knotty personal problems to Biblical faith; and, second, can we show today’s world that Christianity authentically makes sense and that everyone needs it?

Immediately we are helped by someone who is not at all a Biblical Christian, Karl Jung, who spearheaded psychiatry.  He said, “I have never been able to effect a lasting cure in any of my patients until the patient has discovered a living and creative faith in God.”  So, while a psychoanalyst may untangle a person’s problems of their twisted life, it cannot reweave a life back together in a beautiful pattern—only God can do that.  The world has no answers.  Remember this:  secretly all people inside are upside-down without God and only He can put them right side up!  We don’t need to compromise or adjust to the world, we need to change it.  Do not doubt it, people without God are out of joint but don’t know it!

Yet, we have to start with ourselves—do we really wholeheartedly believe what we say we believe?  And let’s admit some of the most famous Christians had times of dark doubt.  John Knox, the Scottish reformer, made Mary, Queen of the Scots, often tremble.  He was a man of conviction and courage, yet he admitted there was a period in his life when he knew “anger, wrath and indignation, which it conceives against God, calling all his promises in doubt.”  And, this was after his conversion and he had started preaching!  Martin Luther is another.  We might think he had no doubts, yet consider this:  “For more than a week,” he wrote, “Christ was lost, I was shaken by desperation and blasphemy against God.”  And in most recent times, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the famous Catholic nun, is an example.  Going through her writings after she died, she had written of her dark moment of real doubt when she questioned everything.  It sometimes happens.

Are you now struggling with doubt and unbelief?  Then come to a place that you doubt your doubts!  We all look like people who fully believe.  We seem reverent as we sing our songs of faith and listen to the preacher preach and do things in our church.  But I ask you—are there secret doubts, questions, skepticism, and worrying uncertainties?  Then address it with this prayer, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)  Lay any doubts out before the Lord and ask Him to do for you what this father with a sick son did over two thousand years ago.  Deal with it and learn how to doubt your doubts.

I know of someone whose doubts produced a strong faith because his faith grew to overcome his doubts.  That person is the one writing these words!  At one time I thought, “My faith is an accident of Bible-Belt culture.  Do I now believe what I have preached?”  What did I do?  I carried my doubts through to a conclusion.  I heard Jesus say, “Will you also go away?” (John 6:67) and I answered with Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”  Go where, and what’s better—tell me, what’s better?”  But that conflict with doubt made me stronger in my faith and even more sure.  If that is your problem, settle it and walk with Him wholeheartedly!

Settle it and declare that there may be times when Jesus cannot be touched, but there was never a time when He could not be trusted!  Let us learn to fully trust God even when we cannot make all the pieces fit!  Godly people who have been through the storms of life tell us, very often the Lord fully reveals Himself to those of His that went through a dark, deep night.  John Calvin called it a time “when even hell itself seems open to swallow us up.”  Have you had such struggles—maybe even now!

But, having passed that point, let’s face the world that is now having a field day.  Their voice echoes—“The kingdom of God on earth—what a foolish dream you Christians have!”

Once, in a newspaper a prize was offered to the very best definition of life.  Here are three responses:  “Life is a prison sentence which we get for being born,” another, “Life is a bad disease for which the only remedy is death,” and another, “Life is a bad, bad joke which makes nobody laugh.”  That’s the mood, not just about the Christian claims, but about everything!  And as European and British thinkers have indicated, that is the point often reached in a world without faith and without God.  It’s meaningless.

So we need to stand up and say—“You say you doubt, you have that right, so what is better?  Should not you doubt your doubts about what the Bible says?”  We should say in humility, “Walk away from God?  If I were to walk with you, where would you take me and where would we end up?”

One man, a respected newspaper editor of a Harrisburg newspaper, made a fool of himself.  (Harrisburg is thirty-five miles from the Gettysburg battlefield where Lincoln gave his now famous speech.)  The other speaker before him spoke for over one hour, Lincoln for less than twenty minutes.  The editor wrote, “We pass over the silly remarks of the President.  For the credit of the nation …”  “We pass over …”  You, sir, stood there and heard the greatest speech ever made by an American President, and you scoffed at it?  Your disbelief was blind foolishness!

And here is our confidence—the world-at-large has made even a greater mistake with Jesus.  Our role is to calmly and convincingly explain their mistake.  After all, hearing their argument, we can confidently say, “So, please explain Jesus; His death and resurrection and why two thousand years later He has more followers than any other person in history!”  And even H. G. Wells, the great historian who was not a Christ follower, said, “Christ is the most unique person in history. No man can write a history of the human race without giving first and foremost place to the penniless teacher of Nazareth.” Furthermore, Napoleon Bonaparte said, “Between Jesus and whomever else in the world, there is no possible comparison.”

So that, Jesus Christ cannot be explained using terms of evaluating human greatness—He is in a category all to Himself alone!  And today He is changing lives and taking people whose lives were without direction and purpose and helping them experience a full and meaningful life. — So, no, it’s not so hard to change the world; if one person turns wholeheartedly to Christ, their world has changed.  There we plan to change the world one life at a time, one by one, by lifting up Jesus with confidence!

“There is a crying need for Christians not to stay in the religious ghettos but to get out into the places where decisions are made and get involved.  Jesus did!” Michael Green Church of England Evangelist and Professor of Evangelism