Thoughts from The Bible: – 03/18/20

Thoughts from the Bible

Tuesday, 17 March 2020 12:58

“Jesus is the answer to our troubled world!”
by Terry Broome

Hardly a day passes without the gloom and doom headlines and television reports of killing, and stealing, and crime everywhere – man’s inhumanity to man – the “apparent” hopelessness of our human race! Poverty and war threaten the dreams and hopes of countless millions. We are very much aware of the horrible conditions in many parts of the world which cause so many people to be pessimistic about their futures. More than pessimistic, it appears to be more a sense of hopelessness. One author wrote that “Today, even the survival of humanity is a utopian hope.”

I remember the depressing words of a song of the 70s, “Is That All There Is?” The artist describes having faced various “let downs,” and “bad trips,” – visualize: her house burning, her father dying, all with the sad refrain: “Is that all there is? If that’s all there is, then let’s keep dancing. Let’s bring out the booze and have a ball, if that’s all.” She feared the ultimate emptiness of not being able to commit suicide, afraid she would have to say on her last breath, “Is that all there is?” This song was one of utter pessimism and hopelessness, and was a sad commentary on the emptiness and hopeless pessimism that pervaded many of that generation. We wonder if it’s any different today.

In every generation there have been those for whom it seemed this life is all that there is, and there is no hope beyond the grave. Robert Ingersol, the noted agnostic, is reported to have said facing his own death: “Oh God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul, from the pit of hell, if there be a hell.” How helpless and hopeless!

There are a few voices of optimism – dreamers – politicians – who tell us it will get better. It seems they may be a minority, however. Against this background of pessimism, Jesus Christ offers real hope. In fact, without Christ, there is no hope. There are many senses in which the birth of Jesus was in “the fulness of time” (Gal. 4:4), but one of them certainly is that man had ample opportunity and experience by then to know that he could not save himself nor his world. The world needed a Savior!!!

Today’s “wise ones” are still searching where they cannot find for the answer to man’s inhumanity to man, to heartache, to dying – stress – disease. They’ve tried human philosophies: New Age with its mind over matter and so-called “out of body” experiences, transcendental meditation, humanism, existentialism, astrology, evolution, the drug culture, and numerous cultic approaches to defining man’s needs and the fulfillment of them.

From the Fantasy world of Camelot with King Arthur’s dream of a utopian order, to the real-world dream of the United Nations as a peace keeper over the earth, men are longing and searching for remedies to their hopeless despair. Such movements have come and gone, but only one has brought hope. Only one has any hope of enduring: “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). The world has had far too many FALSE hopes, FALSE promises; however, Jesus is the real thing! CHRISTIANITY OFFERS A REAL HOPE TO THOSE WHO WILL ACCEPT JESUS WHO SAID: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

The author can be reached for comments at 256-574-2489