Anthrophilus, how do I possibly begin to set in order all the things
concerning Jesus Christ so as to make you believe? I do not have
neither perfect knowledge or understanding. We find ourselves in equal
footing on that regard, both of us saying that we have an answer to
humanity’s problem but both of us can’t possibly be right. Your answer
may be humanity but mine is God.
You equate belief in Thor or some other myths with what I believe and
take great pains to laugh me off. You find snippets from the Bible and
point out how it’s contradictory and at the same time you wouldn’t do
that with your own books on the sciences such as physics versus Quantum
mechanics. I am surprised at the dichotomy.
But I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about what is
obvious to you and to me. The world is screwed up. Forget your claims
that it is because of religion because in all honesty you can’t
establish that point. Men have done horrid things in the name of
religion, this is true, but in all honesty men have done just as bad in
the name of Race, Ideology, Money or Power. Historically you can point
to the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and others to support the
evils in the name of religion. Yet even during the twentieth century,
where mankind is found increasing and peaking in their collective
knowledge and freedoms we find atrocities in Bosnia (200,000 dead),
Nanking (300,000 dead), Rwanda (800,000 dead), Cambodia (2,000,000
dead), the Holocaust (6,000,000 dead), Turkey (1,500,000 dead) and the
Ukraine (7,000,000 dead).
Governments are much like wild animals, lovely to look at but one must
take great care when approaching them for they are without morals…but
this same sort of thinking is engendered in individuals. Is it because
men decide what their own morals are? Do we hear the atrocities of
Aushwitz and say, “it is wrong” because it attacks the survival of the
race?
Yet the same sort of minds that can implement a pogram can just as
easily walk into a school in Columbine and slaughter children. The same
sort of minds that can sit back and wait for 7,000,000 people to die of
starvation can empty a gun into their parents, reload, and carry on.
The same sort of minds that can implement the killing of millions of
Serbs has no problem throwing away millions of lives of unborn
children.
Why is it wrong? It’s merely humanity, reveling in his freedom and
exulting in survival of the strongest. Why not applaud Humanity as he
carries on, dancing in the wake of the madman’s speech, news finally
reaching Humanity’s collective ear that yes, God is dead, these
churches are merely tombstones (Nietzche).
Look at us…the supposed peak of the evolutionary chain and yet we
manage to have absolutely no self-control and wanton disregard for
human life. And for what? To pass into the annals of forgotten history
in the hopes of a jawbone fragment being discovered by a future race?
To leave a small radioactive mark in the face of dusty Earth echoing to
the cosmos that a race once lived here that devoured itself to satisfy
it’s own passions? Look through the grate in Aushwitz and tell those
people ready to face the gas to button up, they served their
purpose…humanity must move forward. Tell the patient dying of cancer
that their life has meaning…maybe one day there will be a cure for
cancer and their studied cadaver might lead to that answer. Look in the
mirror and tell yourself that this screwed up life has meaning.
Oh it does. It’s meaning is not found in humanity or in the fact that
there is life, but it transcends both humanity and life. This meaning
is found in the only One who can put this world to order…but what kind
of God is He who would let this world get to this mess anyway? What
kind of cruel God would allow all these atrocities?
Not cruel. This is the same sort of God that loves humanity so much
that He allows men to decide who they will serve. Allows them to choose
the Good or choose the Wrong. This is a God who is patient, who is
longsuffering, who holds off His judgment of Humanity so that men
aren’t swallowed up in His wrath, but that they may be saved. This is a
God who stood back from a hill outside of Jerusalem as Humanity reveled
in it’s ultimate effrontery, by taking the Creator of the Cosmos and
crucifying Him, joyfully shaking off His rein while letting the
clamor that they have killed God resound through time.
A myth? You don’t believe it? You are adamant against it? Let me tell
you, God can deal with that. Man judged Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
and declared Him a sinner, offering Him up to be crucified. God
overturned that decision. He raised Jesus up from the grave. God. Is.
Not. Dead.
There’s the promise Anthrophilus. God judged in that matter because it
was the ultimate rejection of the only righteous One. Through and
through what we like to do is The Wrong and God, the only one who can
judge humanity stands at His throne waiting to Judge but holding back
that time so that many, maybe you, can be saved. The only one who was
declared “Innocent!” and was raised from the grave currently sits at
the right hand of God waiting for the day to bear witness—and He speaks
to you to believe. He has provided a means that you are not condemned
but can actually survive the future judgment of God.
How? God has made a promise that those who will survive His wrath will
do so by being people who trust Him. You’ve heard of faith, let me tell
you, it’s not a blind jump into the dark. Faith is that deep-rooted
trust which clings to the object of faith knowing what that object can
do. God is able to save.
So the Son of God comes down and is rejected by humanity and pinned to
the Cross. God loves this world so much that He poured His wrath on His
Son so that you can be saved. He looked at His Son as sin, and all our
trespasses, and transgressions were laid on Him…as if He was the one
who broke every single moral code in the universe. Jesus Christ
volunteered for this, God chose Him as the only one able to do this for
He was both perfect God and perfect Man.
Jesus Christ then died on the cross as a death penalty and He says that
He has done this in your place. If you look at your life and
acknowledge that you deserved that death penalty, that you are
completely in the wrong and trust Him, bank your hope on Him, He
promises to save you. So when the day comes where humanity is brought
to answer for all those things done by individuals, you can stand
before God and say “I deserved the death penalty, but Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, died for me. I deserved wrath but I trusted you wouldn’t
punish me because Jesus took all of that punishment for me.”
Man may have been trying to shrug off God’s rule in the death of
Christ, but God meant it as a means to save whoever believes, or
trusts, Him. You have problems with religion you say, but this isn’t
religion. This is the only possible answer to a world that is so
screwed up that it is dying.
I can turn to those eyes in Aushwitz and say that there will be a
judgment. I can look to those kids in Columbine and say that the
balance will be put aright. I can look at those people starving in the
Ukraine and say there will be recompense. Humanity has firstly rejected
Jesus, the Only King, and then compounded their guilt by living with
wanton disregard of all life around them. I can look at that dying
cancer patient and tell her there is one who is able to resurrect as
Christ was resurrected.
So what do you do about this? Do you stand there with the rest of
humanity and shrug it all off, ignoring God’s provision for your
survival? Do you stand there and say that you’re good enough to be
awarded a place before God even though you are a member of this human
race and your mind, and my mind, is the same mind that is found in the
Khmer Roug, Stalin or Hitler. But even in that wickedness, Christ died
for you and leaves the choice in your hands. Who will you serve? Will
you acknowledge your guilt and realize that your hope of survival is
only in Him, pinning your hope and trust to Him or will you turn your
back and walk away?
I can’t convict you, only God can. I don’t have perfect understanding
and I can’t possibly get any nearer to you than the words that I have
written…but God came down and came incredibly near to you…not only on
the cross but in the fact that He places the very words on your heart
and in your mouth: that if you confess Jesus Christ as Lord you will be
saved. Repent. Believe. Be Saved. Will you believe this day while God
is being patient perhaps waiting for your salvation?
If you wish to read some verses on your own you can read the John 3,
John 10, John 11 and 12, John 18 and 19, Romans 2 and 3, Romans 4,
Romans 5:1-11 and Romans 10:1-11. Personally I would suggest reading
the entire book of John.
-r-
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