Yesterday it was a balmy 80 degrees. It started this morning at 62. That’s quite a change. But to brighten the day – sunny again – there is a bush in the backyard with the prettiest pink flower. I believe it is the Redbud but am not sure. It is just a delight to the eye. God puts such things there, unexpected, but so warmly welcome.
A study of history shows “change and decay in all around I see”, as the hymn reminds us. But the next line is also true, very true, “But Thou who changest not, abide with me”. Civilizations have risen and are no more. Think of Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, once world powers. When was the last time a man from one of these nations worshipped with you? Pretty much all the nations and tribes mentioned in Bible times with Israel are gone. Why did Israel survive? Not only survive, but how did a tribe of desert nomads change the way the world thought and felt?
Surely, it wasn’t power, for much of its history it was a vassal state. Nor was it wealth, it was never a major economic player, nor size, dwarfed by Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia Greece ad Rome.
What did they have? They had a Book. Scrolls written over the centuries that most people, being illiterate, had read to them. These scrolls told them there was One God, not many little tribal gods. One God who created the world. The scrolls showed them the story of life from God’s viewpoint. The story of creation, of the Fall into sin, of the results of that. It showed in detail what happened then, and it predicted that God had a plan to rescue man from his predicament. It also had writing of prophets who told what was to come, and who preached to kings and common people about sin and the punishment that would follow such life style.
We have that Book too. It is the Bible. It has never been so accessible, available, all or in part, in 2,656 languages. People own the Bible – the average household has at least three copies, they give the Bible, they cheer it, but don’t actually read the Bible. 80 percent of Christians believe the phrase, “God helps those who help themselves’ is in the Bible. It is not. (Ben Franklin’s saying).
So the problem is getting people to believe the message of the Bible, truly the message of salvation. The message of the Gospel. God speaks to us, and we must, must, believe what He says. It is, as Moses said, “Your life”.
GPD 2/19/09
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