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[ o u t r e a c h ]
THE CHRISTIAN
MESSAGE IS SO NARROW…
This objection is heard very frequently from
people of all ages and every possible background. People say,
'How can we possibly take Christianity seriously? It is such a
narrow belief. To be a Christian I'd have to be very naive. The
Christian message is so narrow and cramped that its followers
have to become like that -- limited in their experience, and
naive about life'
What an image for the Christian faith to
have in the 1990s! But this is a widespread and very tightly held
opinion.
Some say that only people with a certain
kind of personality become Christians; people with dependent
gullible personalities -- the kind of people who can shut out
reality and believe almost anything.
Before answering the objection a word of
warning is necessary. The Bible does not go on the defensive when
countering this point of view. In fact, it gives the non-believer
a fairly rough ride, going straight into the attack.
The Bible turns the objection right round
and says that it is the non-Christian who is narrow and gullible,
and will believe anything. It is the non-Christian who is
imprisoned within a confined and unreal world.
The great apostle Paul, for example, said, if
our message is hidden, it is hidden to those who are lost. In
other words, he said, 'It is not the Christian who has blinkers
on: it is the non-Christian. He cannot understand our message. In
fact he does not even to begin to know what life is about because
he is completely lost. The non-Christian has no idea where he is
or where he is going.'
According to the Bible, the meaning and
purpose of life, matters of life and death, Heaven and hell --
all these things are hidden away from the non-Christian. What
would we think of someone who refused to believe that a 747 could
take to the air, simply because he could not understand the
technology behind it? What would we think if that person looked
up at one and said, 'It isn't there; it hasn’t taken off; it
can't; it's just a myth; such thing don't exist.'
Yet this is how we so often behave about
the Christian message. We are lost! We have no idea or awareness
of what life is for. We do not understand spiritual things, and
so what do we do? We simply turn our backs on them.
Is this so broad-minded? Are we really so
full of intellectual liberty? Is it, after all, Christians who
are narrow and limited in outlook -- or is it non-believers?
The crucial thing to remember is that a
Christian is someone who used to be a non-Christian.
He was once a non-believer and a worldling. True
Christians are therefore people who know two lives, not one. They
were once people who put their trust entirely in the things of this
world; all their hopes were here.
But then something happened. They became
anxious seekers after the Lord, and found Him. They were
converted to God, and they received another life. Now they taste
and experience spiritual life, and they sense and know and walk
with their God. They also know what it is like to receive the
help and blessing of God day by day.
Who is
chained?
Christians are people who know very well
what it is to be worldlings, but they also know what it is to be
Christians. They know what it is to explore this world and to
live for it; and they know what it is to seek and find the Lord.
Who then, of Christians and non-Christians, have the greater
experience?
Many Christians before their conversion
tried to derive satisfaction from many different things in life,
and found them empty and vain. Some Christians have tried every
path of pleasure, culture, power and ambition which was open to
them. Others have fallen as low as any person can possibly fall.
But subsequently they have come to feel their great need of
pardon, and have yield to the Lord to experience the transforming
of their lives.
What kind of logic makes the Christian the
inexperienced, limited, narrow person? The life of anyone who has
never been converted is a life rigidly limited to the things of
flesh and time. Such a person cannot reach outside these things,
no matter what he or she may do.
The life of the non-believer is chained to
bodily, physical, material things. Only these things can be understood
and enjoyed -- things which may be tasted, seen, heard and
touched. Only these things may be possessed -- materials
things, such as houses, cars, clothes, and so no.
You have to
be so gullible…
Certainly there are inner emotions, but
these can only be activated and excited by earthly things. The
non-believer can only experience and enjoy or look
forward to material things, and these will one day fade away.
We must all be carried along by the ageing process, and the time
will quickly come when our faculties will run down and we shall
lose the power to enjoy the things we have spent our youth and
perhaps our whole lives to obtain.
As non-Christians our only resources are
earthly resources, together with our own health, strength, and
power of mind. If we are non-Christians, we fall victim to this
cramped, limited, material realm, and we have nothing apart from
this.
Truly converted Christians, on the other
hand, have so much more. They certainly do not deserve anything
more, for it is solely by God's mercy that any repentant sinner
receives the benefits of conversion. Nevertheless, they have
immensely rich benefits from God. What do they have? Converted
Christians have a clear experience and understanding of spiritual
things. They understand the meaning of life, the message of the
Bible which is God's Word, and the Lord's purposes and plans.
They possess spiritual life, so they
experience, taste and feel, spiritual pleasures. They can pray
and be strengthened and blessed by God. They are guided in their
lives by the Lord, and they feel and know the evidence of His
presence with them along life's pathway. God overrules in their
affairs, often in a most significant manner, intervening in
answers to prayers.
They are very real experiences to
Christians. When people are converted, something very profound
happens in their lives. God takes hold of them and a radical
change takes place within them -- a change far greater than any
human surgery, such as a heart transplant, can achieve. It is as
though the dead soul is brought to live. God, when He converts
souls, puts a living spirit within them. As a result, Christians
have their tastes and characters completely renewed.
They are given new pleasures and new
desires. They look forward to being used by God throughout life's
journey, and then to being with Him in Heaven for all eternity,
and they feel these things. No wonder the converted
slave-trader John Newton said so long ago in his hymn --
Fading is the worldling's
pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show;
Solid joys and lasting treasure
None but Zion's children know.
Who then is the narrow, limited person, the
Christian or the non-Christian? 'Even so,' someone will say, 'I
still think Christians have to be naive. They have to shut their
eyes to so much that goes on in the world to believe in God.' The
fact is that Christians are not naive about life at all; on the
contrary Christians are probably the only true realists.
Let me remind you of some of the things
which we all have to believe when we are non-Christians. We must
believe the following things, otherwise life would be unbearable
and void of all hope. We have to believe in the essential
goodness of human nature. We have to believe in this
world, and we have to believe that it is getting better.
We have to believe that everything will be
all right in the end, and that national and international
problems will eventually be solved. We have to believe that our
politicians are reasonably capable and sincere. We have to
believe that wars can be ended, and that the last world war was
the last major war.
We have to believe in luck and good
fortune. We certainly have to believe in ourselves, and our
capacity to surmount misfortunes and discover lasting happiness.
We have to believe that education will
solve our social problems; that the bomb will never be used; that
as we educate society and do away with poverty we will build a
better world.
A leading expert on marital problems once
asserted that if qualified psychologists were installed in all
our schools to provide completely frank sex education and
counselling, there would be a great reduction in marriage
breakdowns. This expert seriously believed that the only cause of
disharmony in marriage was a lack of knowledge. Provide the
knowledge -- he said -- and nothing would go wrong. Human
selfishness, bad behaviour and promiscuity would evaporate!
Realists or
ostriches?
Let me emphasise that Bible-believing
Christians never say such things, because Christians are much
more realistic about human nature. Unlike non-believers,
Christians certainly do not believe in the essentials goodness
of human nature. Those who think that Christians live like
ostriches with their heads in the sand imagining that everything
and everyone is good, are utterly wrong. The very opposite is the
case!
Christian believers are people who have had
their eyes opened to see that all people are weak and sinful. A
Christian believes that the human race has rebelled against God
so that man is inherently selfish and unable to improve without
the help of God.
A Christian believes in the Fall of
man. It is the non-Christian, however educated or intelligent,
who forces himself to be gullible and to believe naively in human
nature, and in this world, and that it is possible to be
fulfilled and happy without God.
…and
naive about life
An old jibe against the Christian
faith goes like this: 'Christianity has been around for two
thousand years and the world is still no better.' Of course it is
no better. It is the non-Christian who expects the world to get
better. The Christian believes the Bible and the Bible is most
pessimistic about the human race and the progress of human
history.
The apostle Paul says plainly that, All
have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. The Lord
Jesus Christ said of human history -- Ye shall hear of wars
and rumours of wars…for all things must come to
pass…nations shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and
earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of
sorrows.
The Bible teaches that the world is not
going to get better. This world is a doomed world, because
of human rebellion against God. God's plan for this world is to
maintain it -- for a time -- as a kind of entrance-hall to
eternity.
The world is the place from which God is
gathering out men, women and young people, saving their souls and
bringing them to know Him and to walk with Him, so that they may
live the rest of their lives for Him and then be with Him for all
eternity.
The world itself, however, is a doomed
world. It is just a phase in God's timetable, and one day God
will roll it up like a piece of clothing, to use an expression
found in the Bible. While non-Christians must pin all their hopes
on this world, Christians are those who have found another life,
and are 'passing through' this world to something far better.
They will do all they can to improve things while they are here,
but they know that the world cannot be greatly improved because
it is a world cut off from God and disdainful of His help and
blessing.
Christians are people who have realised
that they are single rebels, wandering far from the Lord.
Burdened with their past rejection of God, troubled by their
selfishness and sin, aware that their souls are cut off from God,
they have gone to Jesus Christ, the Saviour, in prayer. They have
prayed earnestly to Him as the One Who died on Calvary's cross to
bear the punishment due to sinful people. They have asked for
pardon and yielded their lives, and they have felt the hand of
God upon them, answering their prayer and changing their lives.
As the result, they have come to know the Lord and live for Him.
The great
pretence
Do we hope to find happiness and fulfilment
in this life when we have discarded our Creator? Are we shutting
ourselves into a box of time, of material experience only? Are we
pretending that the entire spiritual realm is just not there;
that there is no God, or that God is some kind of benevolent
grandfather Who does not really mind what we do?
Do we imagine that when we reach the last
day of life, that 'benevolent old grandfather' in the heavens
will overlook everything we have done, and all our indifference
in Him? Are we counting on that?
May I appeal to readers to see the
offensiveness of such attitudes to Almighty God. See how greatly
you are insulting God, the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the
Holy Spirit. Why make the Lord Jesus your eternal enemy, when He
would be your Saviour, Guide, and your greatest Friend? Grasp the
seriousness of all your sins. But also, see what you are doing to
your own life.
Desire true liberty; pine for real
conversion; long for pardon, and say like the prodigal son, I
will arise and go to my Father and will say, 'Father, I have
sinned.' The Saviour is still receiving seeking sinners.
Begin to seek Him as a matter of urgency, and make it the most
serious search of your life.
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