I was listening to a Ravi Zacharias message tonight entitled, "Reasons Why I'm Not an Athiest." There were many points that he touched on that would create tangles in the mind of any athiest.
The three main points were:
Without God,
1. There's no moral law
2. No hope.
3. No existential meaning.
If the athiest is wrong, he has no recovery. With God, we have all those.
It was an incredible message, but the biggest thing that stuck out to me were these two poems from different men in different scenarios, and different points of time. One comes from a secular journalist, and the other is from a man in the shell hole during the Vietnam War.
This one is humorous at one end of the spectrum, but very sad at the other. It's a satire of the modern man's way of thinking, and it's funny because it's true, but sad because it's true.
Here is the creed for the modern thinker:
We believe in Marx, Freud, and Darwin. We believe everything is okay as long as you don't hurt anyone, to the best of your definition of hurt, and to the best of your definition of knowledge. We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage. We believe in the therapy of sin. We believe that adultery is fun. We believe that sodomy is okay. We believe that taboos are taboo. We believe everything is getting better, despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence must be investigated, and you can prove anything with evidence. We believe there's something in horoscopes, UFOs, and bent spoons. Jesus was a good man, just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves. He was a good moral teacher, although we think basically his good morals were really bad. We believe that all religions are the same, at least the ones that we read were. They all believe in love and goodness. They only differ on creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation. We believe that after death comes nothing, because when we ask the dead what happens they say nothing. If death is not the end, and if the dead have lied, then it's compulsory heaven for all except perhaps for Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan. We believe in Masters and Johnson, "what's selected is average, what's average is normal, and what's normal is good" We believe in total disarmament, we believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed; Americans should beat their guns into tractors, and the Russians would be sure to follow. We believe that man is essentially good, it's only his behavior that lets him down. This is the fault of society, society is the fault of conditions, and conditions are the fault of society. We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him, and reality will adapt accordingly; the universe will readjust, history will alter. We believe that there is no absolute truth, except the truth that there is no absolute truth. We believe in the rejection of creeds and the flowering of individual thought. If chance be the father of all flesh, disaster is his rainbow in the sky. And when you hear "state of emergency," "sniper kills 10," "troops on rampage," "youths go looting," "bomb blasts school," it is but the sound of man worshipping his maker.
(by Steve Turner )
The final statement of this poem is gut-wrenching, and it goes hand in hand with one of the coolest things I've heard this year, and that was "every man will spend eternity with his God." This carries so much truth with it, and I hope it brings us to our knees in desperation for Jesus.
This is the second poem written by Hardy Shaw after a night in a shell hole where bombs had been dropped. This is a contrast to the previous writing, and is just a beautiful picture of a heart that has been penetrated with Christ.
Lord God, I have never spoken to You,
But now I want to say, "How do You do?"
You see God, they told me you didnt exist
And like a fool I believed all this.
Last night from a shell hole I saw Your sky,
I figured right then they had told me a lie.
Had I taken time to see the things You made,
I'd have known they were not calling a spade a 'spade'
I wonder God, If You'll take my hand
Somehow I fell that You'll understand.
Funny I had to come to this Hellish place
Before I had time to see Your face
Well, I guess there isn't much more to say,
But Im sure glad God, I met You today.
I guess Zero hour will soon be here,
But I'm not afraid since I know You're near.
The signal!...Well God, I'll have to go,
I like You lots... I want You to know.
Look now this will be a horrible fight,
Who knows I may come to Your house tonight.
Though I wasn't friendly to You before,
I wonder God, If You'd wait at Your door?
Look Im crying...Im shedding tears,
I'll have to go now God, goodbye!
Strange now since I met You Im not afraid to die.
The writing of this is elementary, but goes hand in hand with accepting the Gospel like a child. In the final line the poet talks about his fear of death being removed, and it makes me smile because of how truthful it is. When you stand toe to toe with Christ, and He shows you a truth that is immovable, death almost becomes a longing so that you can be literally grasped in His arms. Not only that, but the death of self becomes necessary in order to put on the fullness of His truth.
This illustration is very alive in two books of the Bible, Galatians and Colossians. In Galatians Paul talks about a crucifixion we undergo with Christ, and at the resurrection we are no longer alive, but Jesus becomes our mediator between our heart and this world. Obviously the crucifixion we endure is not physically literal (in most cases), but spiritually literal, and there are times when it does physically feel like Christ is removing certain parts from our lives that will only bring greater glory to Him. Often times this is painful, but when we have to stand in the face of Christ one day, we'll be glad that we dropped those parts of our lives, so that we'll have an open hand to grab ahold of His.
In the books of Colossians Paul talks about it in another way, which involves the process of a circumcision. "In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead." (2:11-12)When I read this a few months ago I actually visualized it as our skin being cut off from around us, and a new skin being put on over our skeletal frame. The circumcision allows for Christ to become our external makeover that goes along with our internal death.
It's strange how contradictory the truth of God is to the ways of our world. The fact that childlike is to know more, that death is life, and that last will be first. As we begin to seek, our lives will change. As Paul Washer says, "If you told me you were late to work because you got hit by a logging truck going 120 miles per hour, I'd say you were either a lunatic, or a liar. But isn't God bigger than a logging truck?" If you've had an encounter with God there will be change. Hunger and thirst for righteousness.Jesus is freedom.
-R.g.
Seek first the Kingdom of God (Matt. 6:33)
If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (John 8:31b-32a)
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