NEGLECT THAT PREVENTS SALVATION

Heb. 2:3a ... "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"

      There are three truths of the most fundamental importance and ultimately of eternal consequence, which confront every person who passes through this world. The first of them is revealed in Rom. 3:23, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." The second is proclaimed in II Cor. 5:10, "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad." And the third is presented in Rom. 5:8-9, "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him." Very simply put, (1) every person is a sinner, (2) God will at last judge and punish the sinner, and (3) God offers salvation from sin and its terrible penalty through His Son Jesus.

      The only reasonable response that a person can make when he learns these truths is to accept the salvation God offers him. To learn that you are a sinner and hence doomed for destruction, and turn away from the one avenue of escape God has provided, is foolish. If a wildfire is raging across the countryside, as sometimes happens in the western states during a drought, those who live in its path are immediately alerted and warned to vacate their homes. As the flames draw dangerously near, orders to flee are issued in a stronger, more urgent way. If anyone refuses to leave and perishes in the holocaust, we feel great pity for their fate. And yet, we cannot but consider them foolish to have been warned and then neglected to save themselves. This is analogous to the action of sin in the world, which rages like wildfire through human experience. Christians, speaking from the inspired revelation of God's word, sound the warning of impending destruction to all. In Jude 23 we are thus instructed, "Save others, snatching them out of the fire." There is no one whose life is not in the path of the racing, consuming path of sin. To be warned by fervent, urgent appeals to accept God's route of escape through Christ, and then disregard it, is just as foolish as to stay at home until wildfire engulfs your house with you inside. In fact, it is more foolish, because physical fire ends a human life quickly, after which the anesthesia of death obliterates all pain. But the spiritual fire consequent upon sin is never extinguished, and no relief will ever come to the soul writhing within it, (see Mark 9:47-48).

      Perhaps many who refuse to respond to the gospel of Christ reject its necessity on the basis that, having denied the Biblical concept of sin, they are not sinners. Others who decline to respond to God's offer of salvation have denied the reality of a judgment, as well as the idea that God is an avenger of sin. Such rejections, denials, and refusals indicate a severe lack of faith in the truth of Holy Scripture, which affirms these things as realities. The denial of what exists does not remove its reality, though it may indeed remove one's anxiety over its impact upon his own existence. However, the reality of God and His will for man has been sufficiently confirmed by "signs and wonders and various miracles," (Heb. 2:4), which were recorded by competent observers and preserved for the benefit of all posterity. God does not repeat these verifying phenomena to each generation, but rather accounts this testimony as enough to convince anyone whose mind is open. Therefore, if a person rejects the merciful invitation of God to be saved, how can he escape the wrath of God? Our featured text, Heb. 2:3, does not bother to answer that question, apparently because the answer is so obvious. But the answer is clearly and emphatically given in many places in the Bible. For example, "To those who are selfishly ambitious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness ... (God will will execute) wrath and indignation ... (upon) every soul of man who does evil," (Rom. 2:8-9).

      

OUR RELATION TO GOD'S CREATION

Heb. 1:10 ... "You, Lord, in the beginning did lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your Hands."

      The Bible opens in Gen. 1:1 with the proclamation that God created the universe, ("the heavens and the earth") and spoke into existence the laws by which all the countless systems and parts would be governed. To study the universe, therefore, or any subsystem of it, is to study the handiwork of God. This is the view that was always present in my mind as I taught physics and marvelled at how the laws which operate in nature can be expressed in precise mathematical formulae. The psalmist said, "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands," (Psa. 19:1). When a scientist discovers a law, he is, in reality, finally uncovering to the enlightenment of man what was set in place by God eons ago. Again we read, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host. ... For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast," (Psa. 33:6,9). Science, when it is true to its name, brings the human mind closer to the conviction that the universe was created and that the God of the Bible was its Creator. Sir William Herschel (1738-1822) was a German-born astronomer who did his work in England. He discovered the planet Uranus in 1781, proved that our solar system rotates about a center within our galaxy, and began the great task of methodically cataloging the location and identity of the myriads of stars observable in space. At the height of his illustrious career he wrote: "All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truth contained in the Sacred Scriptures."

      Hebrews 1:10 is one of many statements in the Bible which remind us that God is the Creator of the universe, usually with an exhortation that we respond to His creative act with praise, thanksgiving, and concession to His ownership of what He has made. To be thus reminded should also have an humbling, sobering effect upon us, inducing us to bring our view of reality back into the proper perspective. It should also influence us to re-order our priorities and values. Although God submitted the world to man to occupy and use it, (Gen. 1:28-30), so that it is proper for us to exercise the claim of ownership to local portions of it, we should always be reminded that, in reality, we are never more than caretakers, or stewards, of what belongs to God. In no absolute or immutable sense do we actually "own" anything! Nor do we have any ultimate, superior, or inalienable right to lay such a claim to any portion of this world or its goods. Psalm 24:1 declares that "the earth is the Lord's, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it."

      When we entered the world, none of us brought anything into it to add to what was already here; and when we leave it, none of us will be able to carry out with us one atom of its matter. "For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either," (I Tim. 6:7). The universe was created by God as a closed cosmological system, and no man can either increase or decrease the sum total of its matter and energy. Therefore, no one has any ultimate personal claim to anything in it.

      The clarification of this world view should serve to decrease our lust for material things and the concomitant concepts of ownership and selfish gratification with whatever has come into our hands. Realizing that we are but stewards of what belongs in toto to God, we should find it much easier to use it according to the principles He has revealed to us in the Bible. These principles urge us to allow our relations with material things to be governed by such ideas as non-dependence upon them, the readiness to share our excess with those who have a deficiency, our glad willingness to commit a generous part of them to God's service in His church, and a deep appreciation for these things as manifestations of God's love and concern for us in entrusting them to our continuing use and good management.

THE PROFITABLE SERVANT

Philemon 11 ... "(Onesimus) formerly was useless to you, but now is useful both to you and to me."

      Onesimus was a slave who belonged to Philemon, a Christian in the church at Colossae in Asia Minor. Deserting his master, he escaped and made his way the considerable distance to Rome. There, in some way, he became acquainted with the apostle Paul who taught him the gospel and converted him to Christ. It then became Paul's duty to return the runaway slave to his owner, even as it also became the duty of Onesimus, now that he had committed himself to the way of righteousness, to return willingly to Philemon. Only now he would return not just as a slave, inferior according to the human institution of servitude, but rather much more as a "beloved brother ... in the Lord," (v.16). 

      The name Onesimus came from the Greek word meaning profitable. Paul picks up on this and uses it to persuade the master not to deal harshly with his returning slave. Before this he had failed to live up to his name, having fled his owner after perhaps being rebellious, resentful, and irresponsible. But now he is returning as a Christian, ready to serve Philemon according to the letter and spirit of Col. 3:22-25, a passage which Philemon had doubtless read.

      This story of conversion and reconciliation shows us that the gospel is able to turn anyone from a worthless sinner into a profitable worker in the kingdom of God. In another passage that Philemon had surely read or heard, Col. 1:21-22, Paul emphasized this transforming power of the gospel: "Although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He (Christ) has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him (God) holy and blameless and beyond reproach." In the beginning, the Colossians had been living "engaged in evil deeds," the common state of unregenerate human activity, which is unprofitable to God and also ultimately unprofitable to the people themselves. But having been exposed to the teaching of the gospel, which they had believed and obeyed, they were reconciled to God by virtue of Jesus' death for their sins, and they also were regenerated to become God's own possession. In this new condition of Christian sanctity they were profitable to God as members of His holy family. This conversion from the useless and unprofitable to the useful and worthy is the great benefit of the Christian gospel that comes to all who will accept it in faith and subject themselves to its instruction.

      Peter expressed it in his First Epistle in these words: "You have tasted the kindness of the Lord. And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ," (2:3-5). During His earthly experience Jesus was rejected by men as worthless and cast aside, but God then made Him to be the chief cornerstone in His eternal spiritual house. The same God can take men and women who are indeed worthless in their sins and make them to be "living stones" in the further erection of this great "spiritual house" when they respond to His call to them through the gospel. Those who formerly were of no use to Him are then not only vital parts of His house, but also even priests who "offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God." It is a very encouraging and exciting revelation that God has given us this wonderful opportunity to be changed from worthless parasites, who feed by our sin upon the vitality of society, into profitable workers whose lives uplift, support, and nurture the general community of mankind.

READY FOR EVERY GOOD DEED

Tit. 3:1 ... "Remind them ... to be ready for every good deed."

      An opportunity combines three basic factors: an act to be done, a person to perform that act, and a time that is favorable for the act to be done. Within the context of Christian service there is so much to be done that continually awaits those who are able and will seize any available time to do it. Jesus once called attention to the great amount of work to be done and the urgency of doing it with the statement, "Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest," (John 4:35). The opportunity is always present for any Christian to perform some valuable service for the Lord, but too often it is wasted because of inattention, lack of preparation, and weak motivation. Using Jesus' analogy, the grain is allowed to remain in the field until it falls ungathered to the ground to be eaten by birds and rodents. Paul's words to Titus in 3:1 urged him to exhort the disciples in Crete to watch for any opportunity to serve, to prepare for the moment, and be ready when the time arrived. This exhortation is as applicable to Christians now as it was to those so long ago.

      The works we must do come not upon us as something expansive, vague, or categorical, but rather as distinct, specific things. We don't just "teach"; we teach individuals! And we don't just "comfort"; we go to specific individuals at definite places and personally help them carry their burdens. The Lord appointed His disciples to be those who perform these deeds of Christian service. This assignment is emphasized in the statement of Eph. 2:10, "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." These works, it should be noticed, are not divinely imposed upon "the church" or "the brotherhood" as such. "The church" cannot teach a class of Third Graders the lesson conveyed in the account of Jesus' visit to Jerusalem when He was 12 years old. And "the brotherhood" cannot visit the home of a widowed mother to console her and offer her assistance as she faces the great task of rearing her children alone. But the individual Christian can and must do these things and innumerable other such deeds like them.

      An act of Christian service can only be performed by a disciple within the framework of a suitable time. You cannot comfort a cancer patient in his physical and mental anguish after he has died. It is quite too late to try to instill convictions of purity, chastity, and respect for motherhood to a young woman after she has already conceived a child out of wedlock. That effort should have been underway before she ever reached puberty. To return to Jesus' analogy in John 4:35, these illustrations represent grain we try to gather after it has fallen to the ground and been damaged or destroyed.

      To be able to perform a good deed at the right time to the glory of the Lord, some preparation is necessary. First, you must be able to recognize the opportunity when it occurs. This requires keen perception and mental alertness, both of which are developed by diligent study of  God's word and prayer. Second, you must train yourself to have the strength, motivation, and skill to perform the deed. The maxim that "one learns by doing" certainly applies here. No matter how informed someone might be about an activity, only experience can translate this knowledge into an effective skill, and that experience comes only through sustained effort. Third, you must have the sense of urgency to arouse yourself to perform the deed during the time span in which it can be done. If Christians would truly "be ready for every good deed," we would make an astounding impression for the Lord upon our decadent and infidel society.