We live today in a paradoxical civilization. On the one hand our generation is very sensitive to the necessity for correct beliefs in the fields of science, international politics, social economics, and. it would seem, ever other phase of human endeavor. But, on the other hand, when we approach the subject of our religious beliefs, men become indifferent. God’s prerogatives and commandments are altered or ignored. A man may believe anything or nothing, and it is assumed that God will be pleased as long as he does his best to live a moral life, or conceive or establish for himself a code of morality. This is a very simple, but highly dangerous philosophy.
It is not reasonable, nor is it scriptural, as we shall see.
The writer to the Hebrews says : “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Someone has said that “faith is belief for a reason.” This seems to state our basic problem clearly. If we only think that a certain course may be the correct one, we are on dangerous ground.
Faith in something which is not certain or sure, and for which we have no substantial proof, is not faith at all, but rather it is simply credulity. If a man says, “Give me a five dollar bill today, and next week I will return a ten dollar bill to you,” I may believe him and give him the money. But, if I do not know the man well, know of his sincerity and honesty, if I don’t have same tangible evidence that he has in the past done what he has said he would do, then I am acting, not on the basis of faith, but on the foundation of the shifting sand of my credulous fancy.
God does not operate that way. He has given us a very definite pattern of correct belief, statements of truths which we should believe, and of things we must do if we would merit His favor. But, He has not stopped there. He has given us good reason to have faith or confidence in His Word by a clear demonstration of fulfilled promises or prophecies. If we put these promises to the test of history, and find that He has never failed to do what He has said He would do, we may conclude that it is wholly reasonable to discard modern whims and to utilize every mental function to determine what He has stated to be correct belief, and to marshal every moral power to live in harmony with that belief. Any other course is deliberate suicide.
What would we think of a man living in Meriden, Connecticut, who had an important business engagement in New York on a certain day at 10 a.m., if this man depended on the opinion of a friend who thought there was a train from Meriden at 7:30 a.m. which would reach New York in ample time ? We would probably esteem him highly foolish if he did not consult a timetable or call the station agent for exact information.
And we would be correct in our estimation of him. Yet the majority of people today, careful though they may be in daily business, adopt this ridiculous philosophy in connection with the most important facts pertaining to our eternal well being.
Surely you have heard someone say perhaps you have said it yourself, “It doesn’t matter what we believe. We are all going to the same place. We are only taking different roads.” But, is it wise to assume the roads will all reach the same destination? Would it not be wiser to carefully check God’s road-map, the Bible, to make sure we are on the right road ?
There is only one sensible answer to that question.
When God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden, we are informed in the account in Genesis that God gave him one simple commandment to keep. “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it ; for in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.”
Adam and Eve were well aware of the implications of this law, for when the serpent questioned them, Eve replied : “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ‘Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.’ ” Wisdom should have insisted upon obedience to God’s law. Yet, when the serpent suggested, “Ye shall not surely die,” and then went on to tempt them with the thought that they would be as gods after partaking of this forbidden fruit, they were lifted up in pride, and transgressed the commandment of God.
We know the result. They were expelled from the garden; the law of sin and death became operative in them; the effects of their sin were transmitted to all their descendants. In the smugness of our 20th century complacency we can criticize their lack of wisdom. But, are we wiser than they if we insist that it doesn’t matter what we believe? Did it make any difference to Adam and Eve whether or not they believed and obeyed the commandment of God ?
Let us look at another Biblical character who had to undergo a similar test of faith and obedience. Noah lived in an age not much different from our own. “All flesh had corrupted His way upon the earth.” Noah alone merited God’s favor.
God told Noah that He purposed to bring upon the earth a flood of waters which would destroy the wicked from the face of the earth. Noah was instructed to build a huge boat in which he might find refuge and safety in the midst of God’s judgments upon that generation. In spite of the fact that it is probable that rain was unknown at that time, and that the building of such a boat on dry land seemed a ridiculous waste of time and energy, Noah believed the word of God and began to work.
The enormity of the task can best be judged by the fact that about one hundred and twenty years were required to complete the work. During this time Noah built his boat and preached righteousness to the scoffers of his day, who undoubtedly mocked and ridiculed his labor.
We can almost hear their jibes today. “Why obey such a foolish commandment? Don’t be silly enough to believe there will ever be a flood of water. There never has been, and there never will be. Look at the fun you are missing. Eat, drink, and be merry. Life is too short to waste any part of it.”
This all sounded very plausible, but Noah refused to be swayed from his purpose. Then, one day, after the ark was completed and provisions had been loaded aboard, Noah’s friends were amazed to see a procession of animals in pairs making their way toward we ark and entering into it. Last of all, Noah and his family entered, and God shut the door upon them.
At first the scoffers were undoubtedly worried by this strange drama. Had they been wrong! But then, as clay succeeded day, they would revert to their scoffing and proceed with their normal, wicked ways. But, on the seventh day. as the rain began to fall, their fears revived. As the rain continued, the water continued to rise. They sought safety on the highest hills, but here, too, they were soon surrounded by water. Their pleas for mercy and help went unheeded. At last their cries were silenced.
“All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.’ But Noah survived the flood because he possessed a faith based upon correct belief. We might ask a question here.
“Did it make a difference to Noah whether his beliefs were correct ? Did it make a difference to his neighbors that they chose to believe the wrong things?”
Now, all this has a very important bearing on you and me. Jesus warned His disciples that the days preceding His coming and the end of this age of lawlessness would be similar to the days in which Noah lived. Let us listen to those words that we may catch this significance for us.
“But as the days of Noah were, so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the blood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the son of man be.
Jesus is giving us a very clear picture or the materialistic, pleasure-mad generation in which we live. Their eyes are shut to the wings that are happening about them, and their ears are closed to the words or warning that are being preached to them, that they might find refuge in our Ark, even Jesus, before it is too late. they want no God and no religion that would interfere with their pursuit of sensual pleasures. And so they mock and scott at the promise or God, and ridicule those who believe God and live in harmony with that beliefs.
The apostle Peter foresaw these present-day conditions and wrote of them in his second epistle, the third chapter : “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming for or since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water ; whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished ; but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”
The solemn import of these words should not be lost on a generation which has experienced in but a small measure the awesome and devastating power of the atomic and hydrogen bombs. It does not tax our imagination to comprehend that before the “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness’ can become a reality, the subversive, lawless generation of scoffers and unbelievers must be swept out of the way.
God will accomplish this largely through the greed, stupidity, and lust for power of the nations. A conflict is coming, and coming soon, whose outcome is so terrible that Jesus says concerning it : “Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved ; but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”
Where do we wish to stand in that day of fiery judgment, on the Lord’s side or in the company of the scoffer? It is going to make a tremendous difference to us in that day whether our beliefs have been correct. Now is the time to make sure that we believe the things God has spoken.
But, one may say, “There is so much confusion in the religious world today. With more than three hundred Christian sects all differing more or less in their basic doctrines or creeds, how can I know which one is the correct faith ?”
The answer is simple. You may take someone’s word for it, the writer’s or another’s. This is the easy, but extremely dangerous way. For how can you be sure your chosen leader is not a blind leader of equally blind followers ?
The sure way is more difficult, but it is far safer. But, if it be more difficult, the reward to which we aspire is far beyond the cost in time and energy expended. The only sure way is to make the Bible your daily study, praying continually that God will guide you into a correct understanding of His will and purpose. Then you will be able to bring every man’s beliefs to the great touchstone of truth.
The writer of Proverbs says: “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the way of death.”
We certainly do not want that which only seems right, but rather that which is right. We can believe the right things and live eternally, or we can believe the wrong things and perish eternally. It is as simple as that.
If God says, “The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein forever” ; if Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth” ; if the redeemed sing a new song in which they say, “Thou hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth” ; then it is correct to believe that God’s reward for faithful service is right here on the earth. It would be wrong to believe that our reward is somewhere beyond the bounds of time and space, for by our wrong belief we should be denying God’s Word, making Him a liar, a position which is dangerously close to blasphemy
If God says, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” ; if Paul says, “This mortal must put on immortality”; then it is correct to believe that man is mortal or dying because of sin, and that the gift of God is eternal life ; immortality is a future prize, not a present possession. It would be wrong to believe that man now possesses an immortal soul, for this would contradict the plain teaching of the Scriptures
It would be still more wrong to persist in such a wrong belief if we, by study of the Scriptures, discovered that the phrases “immortal soul” or “immortality of the soul” are not to be found anywhere in God’s Word from Genesis to Revelation. Belief in this pagan doctrine would put us in conflict with God’s revealed Word.
So we might proceed from one belief to another until we have established, through the inspired Word of God, which beliefs are correct. Unless our beliefs are correct, we cannot live as God would have us live. Jesus said : “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Obviously we must know what God wants us to do before we can do it ; we must understand what God has promised to do before we can anticipate its fulfillment. Correct belief, then, is of the utmost importance to everyone.
Nevertheless, important as correct belief is, it will never save anyone. It is only the keeping of the commandments of Christ in faith and love that can bring immortality within our grasp. But, because doing that which is right is the result of correct beliefs about that which God has spoken, we realize that here is the source from whence springs the life reflecting the image of Him who loved us, who Himself always did the things which He knew pleased His Father.
Let us always be ready to challenge our own beliefs, as well as those of others, in the light of the inspired Word of God. Let us be “diligent that we may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.” To this end may we “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One