Everybody in this physical universe, locked in time and place, is affected by the past, present, and future. Large groups of people, like nations, are affected so. You cannot comprehensively describe Australia today without speaking of the origins of the people and the infrastructure, that is its past, and of course, the nation, not standing still, but moving on to its destiny. Individuals are no different – we come into the world but its not long before we discover others were here before us, like Grandfathers and Grandmothers, and that while we live today we have our eyes on tomorrow as well.
The gospel is God’s remedy for man’s problems, at least those problems that cannot be solved by human ingenuity which God left us to solve as part of the challenge of life. It can be called a Timeless Gospel for it has a focus on the past, present, and future. God has commanded that it be preached in all the world (Mk. 16:15), and it has been preached, along with a lot of twisted and perverted ones, for 2000 years now. So it is perceived that it is somewhat behind our age, but God has bidden us to remind men of things they ought not to have lost.
God told Israel through Jeremiah (6:16) to seek the old paths wherein is the good way. Christianity is not a speculation, a creation of the spirit of the age. This is not to say that all old things are good – there were bad old ways too. But to suggest that it the latest saint who finds the way of truth is to suggest that God has done nothing right in the past! Israel was always directed back to Moses and we must look all the way back to Christ who is the Way (John 14:6). True religion is not to be despised because it is old. The desire for novelty has to be overcome (“old is bad and new is good”). The truth, when carefully studied and spiritually realized is ever new, but any doctrine that is altogether true is not true. We must not look back to the Puritans, The Reformers, the medieval church, the church Fathers, but passing many errors and corruptions that have emerged over the years, we must go back to the source – (cf. Jude 3). Religious confusion abounds and some use this to justify indifference, but to the enquiring mind it proves that apostacy and error abounds – that tares have been planted as well as wheat.
But to preach an old Gospel seems, to many a modern mind, like holding progress back. As the famous (or infamous) American atheist, Robert Ingersol, said, The church for a thousand years has extinguished the torch of progress in the blood of Christ. Benjamin Underwood observed, To many liberals, Christianity appears an unmitigated evil, a superstition which although it had its origin in innocent ignorance and credulity, has been the greatest obstacle to human progress that mankind has had to encounter – like going forward but looking over the shoulder. It’s true that’s how we go forward. We look back to Jesus Christ in order to go forward – otherwise where do we end up? Who has come down the pike in the last 2000 years who can compare with Christ? The agnostic historian, Arnold Toynbee, wrote, As I stand and gaze with my eyes on that faraway shore, a simple figure rises from the flood and straightway fills the whole horizon and it is Jesus. The atheist, H.G. Wells said something similar. Who was there before Christ who compares with Him? We measure things by a past measurement – by what has gone before for that which the future holds hasn’t come yet. We find an Abraham, a Moses, an Elijah – but these men did not hold a candle to Jesus Christ. Everything before Christ pointed forward (from Gen. 3:15; Gal. 3:8; Isa 53 etc.) Even in the Gentile world there was this yearning for a Saviour to come and so many Gentiles became proselytes to the Jewish faith – this nation that was to produce the Messiah. Now, everything looks back and rightly so. We are in no expectation of another saviour and neither do we need to be.
Day after day volume after volume issues from printing presses expounding some new idea and purporting to overthrow old ideas. But almost as soon as they come they are replaced by a new fad. Science and secularism and superstition between them should have by now destroyed the good old way were it not for the fact that God has so firmly constructed it that these powers are not adequate for the task – Jesus said, My word shall never pass away (Matt.24:35).
So we speak of old things but they pass us by as old-fashioned. We are current sometimes. God has bidden us be critics of the age in which we live. Consider the work of the prophets of old. Their work was more forth-telling than foretelling (they weren’t killed for foretelling!). Christianity is relevant – therefore we have something to say on life and how it is to be lived. What are our problems? There is nothing new under the sun and so our problems are the problems of the ancients:- family problems; economic problems; behavoural problems; relational problems; personal problems. Man with his modern gadgets is still man. Are not our problems just the old problems that in the end boil down to SIN! Is there a word from the Lord? Yes, verily, there is no problem that modern man faces but that the Bible cannot provide guidance and direction. But the problem is like that expressed by the ancient Roman politician Livy: We cannot endure our vices nor their cures. Some of the most perplexing medical problems, such as V.D. and AIDS could be stopped in a generation or two by the application of Biblical safe sex. God invented safe sex! The very first piece of information the Bible would supply to an incredulous world would be that these things are a moral problem, not a medical, and their cure is a moral one, not a medical one.
God’s ways are best – for our good always – and yet man cherishes the right to sin and doesn’t want to be held accountable for it. It reminds me of a young preacher who preached in a rural congregation against smoking and drinking, when many of the members grew tobacco for the cigarette companies and corn for the distillers. He was told to preach against “them heathen witch-doctors, there ain’t one of them around here for a thousand miles!” Jer. 6:14 tells of the false prophets before the Babylonian conquest of Judaea who healed my people slightly, saying there was peace when there was no peace. The Bible doesn’t have the impact on the world it could and should have because it is watered down – preachers soft-soap! A preacher and a soap manufacturer were walking down the street one day when they walked by a drunk in the gutter. The soap-manufacturer said, “The Bible doesn’t do much good for society”. The preacher bided his time and it wasn’t long before they passed by a dirty street urchin at which time he said “You soap doesn’t do much good”. The soap-manufacturer objected and said, “Fair go, soap has to be applied”. “Just so”, said the preacher, “and the Bible won’t do any good unless it is applied either”.
Why get upset over something outdated? Why worry about a bit of harmless Bible-bashing by superstitious folk? Why stone the prophets? Why kill an iterant preacher named Jesus? Why stone Stephen? Because the Gospel is not only founded in the past, it has something to say about how men live presently, but they pass us by because we annoy them by showing up their faults.
We are ahead of our time. God has bidden us speak of the future and changes to come. Who knows the future? Some people are afraid of it, but most are fascinated by it. Government analysts would love to know the future, as would town planners, military strategists, financial investors – so would gamblers! An increasing number are fascinated by horoscopes and fortune tellers. Individuals would love to know but who knows? God knows and He has told us to speak of the future. We know the past history of the world but where is the history of the world headed? People are predicting all sorts of catastrophes such as global warming from flatulence (amongst other things) and wonderful adventures such as going to another planet to live.
The fact of the matter is God is a faithful Creator (1 Pet. 4:19). He made the world to be inhabited (Isa. 45:18), and when He made cows with four stomachs He knew they would have a problem with flatulence – if indeed it be a problem. And the only thing Jesus expressed concern about was whether on His return there would be faith on the earth. He knew that when He comes back life would be going on as normal – men would be eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, but would men be ready to meet Him? He was not concerned about what specific things would unfold in the history of men on the earth. He gave a simple yet profound assurance in Matt.28:20 – I will be with you always, even to the end of the age. He would be sufficient for whatever eventualities came to pass. The book of Revelation in its portrayal of the conflict between the early church and that great ungodly superpower of the day which was Rome, declares that there is nothing that the church will face in the future that she hasn’t faced in the past and overcome. Matt.16:18 is true – the church will never die. If you’re going to worry about things in the future worry about things other than the future of the church!
What does the future hold for the world? There will be nations that rise and fall, catastrophes that come and go, and the various challenges each generation faces in their time. Just what the specifics are is of no real consequence – what is important and what is part of the gospel is the fact Jesus is coming back. There is going to be that day when He returns and the dead will be resurrected. The world is going to end and the past is the key to the future (2 Pet. 3:3-10). When God flooded the world of Noah He demonstrated that man is answerable to God for the life that he lives, individually and collectively. But the world of Noah’s day smiled benignly at Noah and his preaching of a coming flood. But the rest is history and men today, willingly ignorant of the flood and willingly ignorant of the promised end of the universe smile benignly at our impractical talk and call us foolish dreamers.
But the day will come when in the twinkling of an eye men will look up and see, not Buddha, not Krishna, not Mohammed, but Christ coming in the clouds of heaven. His second coming is as sure as the first. But perhaps more immediate is the truth of Heb.9:27. It contains two significant thoughts: the first is generally known and accepted because the past is the key to the future – it is appointed to each of us to die! The second is not as well-known and not as generally accepted – there is a judgment! Are you ready?