The Dilemma

Many intelligent men are convinced that something is wrong with the world. It is full of tension, crisis, suffering, death and fear. Most of us do not need to look outside our own lives to find tension, fear and discord.

What is wrong with the world? Some are looking to politics and government for the solution. After centuries of every conceivable form of government, it is clear that no government, no matter how adequate it may be in other respects, claims to have found the answer, for no government can be stronger than its people. Many injustices can be remedied by law, but law cannot change human nature.

Others have felt that the answer is education. If this were the only trouble, and if education were the complete answer, we would expect that the centers of higher learning would be places of greatest dedication to the common good, of the greatest unselfishness, morality, and happiness. But no person who spends time in such centers today can believe that this is true of them.

Some have felt that the trouble is that some have too much and that others have too little, that true economics alone can provide an answer. It is a tragic fact that many have far too little and only a few have too much. But if economics were the key, we should see that those who had the most money and comfort were the happiest and most unselfish people. But again we know that they are not.

What is wrong with the world? To find the answer, we need to turn - not to politics, economics or education, but to the Bible. The Bible teaches that God created man and gave him authority over every living creature. But when God gave man this authority, He demanded that man in turn should accept the authority of God. Man has rebelled against this law and rejected His control. In doing so, he has cut himself off from the only source of peace, God Himself. The tensions and conflicts that are within society are only the result of the tensions and conflicts that are within the heart of man himself. The Bible tells us, "Your iniquities have made a separation between you and God." God is good. Man is sinful, and therefore there is a great separation between God and man - so great that man cannot bridge it.

But the Bible does not merely tell us what is the trouble; it also points us to the solution. God's answer is not a plan - it is a Person.

The Bible teaches that God is a God of love, but that He is also so holy that He is unable to ignore the sin of man. The holiness of God cannot overlook sin; the love of God is anxious to rescue man from his sin and to bring him back to friendship with God. How can these two factors in the nature of God be reconciled?

The Bible tells us that God sent His Son from heaven. Through birth into the human race He took on our flesh but He was completely without sin. God took the sin of the human race and laid it upon Jesus Christ. He suffered the punishment that we should suffer; He died the death that we should die; and He bore the guilt that we should bear

The message of the Bible does not end with the death of the Son of God for our sins, for a dead Saviour would have little power to help us in this life. The distinctive message of the Holy Scriptures is that God used His unlimited power to raise Jesus from the dead. When Christ arose from the grave, it demonstrated that He had won a victory over death, sin and fear. Soon after, Jesus went back to Heaven.

Jesus is the bridge by which a man can cross the separation between Himself and God. There is no other way. Jesus said of Himself, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by Me." Because of this, any one who admits that he has sinned and accepts Jesus Christ as the One Who died to save him from sin, can become a child of God by asking God to take control over his life - thereby accepting the complete authority of God. God then actually enters the personality of the one who, because he is then sharing the very nature of God, is called a child of God. Because God is living in him, God gives to him holiness in place of sin, love in place of hate, peace in place of restlessness and tension.

You may become a child of God by telling Him (1) that you need Him, (2) that you know that you have sinned (3) that Jesus Christ died to bear your guilt and punishment (4) that you want God to completely control your life from now on.

God's pledge to each one of us is found in the Bible. It says, "To all who received Jesus Christ, who believed in His Name, He gave power to become the children of God," and they shall never perish. Jesus Himself gives us this promise: "Him who comes to Me, I will not cast out."