ONLY BELIEVE
What must I do to be saved?
Only believe!
What must I believe?
Believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Believe that Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth. Believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is your Saviour, by virtue of His atoning and substitutionary death on the cross of Calvary, attested to by His resurrection from the grave and ascension to the Father's right hand.
Believe this and you will be saved.
But what does it mean to believe this?
Among other things, it means you are affirming the fact that Jesus the Christ is the long awaited and heralded Messiah of Israel and future King; that Jesus the Son of God is deity, God appearing in human flesh and form; that Jesus the Lord is sovereign with all power and authority in His universe; and that Jesus the Saviour is our heaven-sent Redeemer whose shed blood cleanses from all sin those who believe on Him.
He becomes your Saviour, personally, when you yourself believe on Him.
Will you not believe?
You have nothing to lose -- but your sin and its awful consequences. You have everything to gain -- eternal life with all its blessed benefits.
What may I expect as a result of believing this?
The miracle of the new birth will be wrought in your soul by God, and your life will be changed radically for the better.
"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God."
-- Editor.
**********
Jesus our Lord . . . was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. Romans 4:25
**********
First in a Series
HIS VIRGIN BIRTH
When we speak of the Virgin Birth of Christ we do not mean, as some mistakenly believe, the Immaculate Conception. The Immaculate Conception is a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church and has to do with Mary being born without sin. The Virgin Birth rather has to do with the birth of Christ to the virgin Mary, and of course He was without sin, but she was not. The Virgin Birth also involves the fact that Christ had no earthly father, Joseph merely being His foster father. But more of this later.
There are those who attack the Virgin Birth, thinking this to be the weak point in Christian truth. Some of their arguments are: 1) the Virgin Birth is mentioned by only two New Testament writers and these (so the attackers say) contradict each other; 2) other New Testament writers apparently know nothing about it; 3) there is no practical value to the Virgin Birth: one can either believe or disbelieve it as he wishes; 4) to believe in it involves belief in a biological miracle. So go the arguments of its critics. Throughout these studies we shall set forward from the Holy Scriptures arguments to refute these attacks.
First, consider the Virgin Birth in the Old Testament. This momentous event in history, which in fact changed the whole face of history, was foretold long before in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Way back at the dawn of history, in the Garden of Eden, this event was intimated. God speaking to Satan about Eve said, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he (the woman's seed) shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Genesis 3:15).
Paul referring to this says: "Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled hath fallen into transgression." Then he gives the remedy: "But she shall be saved through her child-bearing (or, the childbearing)" (I Timothy 2:14,15). This could refer to nothing but the Virgin Birth of Christ the Saviour. Thus, through the woman's seed came sin; likewise through the woman's seed came salvation.
In Isaiah 7:14 we read: "The Lord himself will give you a sign: behold, a (or, the) virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." This was spoken to the house of David. It was to be an outstanding sign, or miracle. An ordinary birth of a son to a man and woman of history would be no sign. This must be out of the ordinary.
What birth in history would adequately fulfill this prophecy? Matthew tells us. "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found with Child of the Holy Spirit."
"Now all this is come to pass," continues Matthew, "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (1:18,22-23). So the "sign" was given that fateful day when Jesus was born of the virgin Mary in the stable of Bethlehem.
It was a miracle, such a thing had never happened before in the annals of history. Jeremiah prophesied: "Jehovah hath created a new thing in the earth: a woman shall encompass a man" (Jeremiah 31:22). There has been only one entirely new, out - of - the - ordinary birth since the creation of man: the miraculous Virgin Birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
**********
**********
AN AUTHOR'S FAREWELL
By the late M. R. DeHaan, M.D.
It was with a great deal of anticipation that I began many months ago the preparation of material for my latest volume, Portraits of Christ in Genesis. I had no idea of the wealth of material that would be uncovered, or even the inability to begin to deal with the important matters superficially. As I finished the writing of the last chapter I experienced a certain sense of utter frustration and failure at not having been able to go more thoroughly into some of the depths of the marvelous revelation in this unique and unusual book of the Old Testament. After all my years of Bible study I was utterly amazed at the amount of material and the wealth of revelation found in this Book, of which in past studies I had caught glimpses, but never fully realized. And even with this increased knowledge of the Word of God in Genesis, I recognize the fact that we have merely dipped our toes into the vast expanse of the infinite ocean of the revelation of God. The Bible is a Book of the progressive revelation of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Recently Genesis has been under special attack by the enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not hard to understand when we realize that probably nowhere do we find more clear, definite, unmistakable pictures of the Person of Christ, than we do in the Book of Genesis, and so the attack upon the book is really an attack upon the Person, in an effort to destroy Him and His authority.
I want to make a few practical applications which I have personally experienced through these studies, and which have been a blessing to my own heart. First of all, I have appreciated more than ever before the greatness of the God with whom we have to do. In the Book of Genesis we find clearly delineated the five basic attributes of the Person of God, which set Him apart as the One God, and beside whom there is no other. These five attributes of God which must "be true if He is God", are:
1. The Sovereignty of God.
2. The Omniscience of God.
3. The Omnipotence of God.
4. The Omnipresence of God.
5. The Omnirighteousness or justice of Almighty God.
Each of these attributes is absolutely indispensable and essential if we are to have a God in whom we can trust, and in whom we can place the eternal destiny of our souls.
First of all, God must be sovereign in all that He does; for if He be not sovereign, then there could be someone higher than He, and this would leave us always in doubt as to His ability to see us through completely unto the end. The Bible begins with the statement of the sovereignty of God. No other book could possibly begin in this way: "In the beginning God." This is the peculiar, unique method with which God introduces the revelation concerning Himself. He makes no excuses; He makes no explanation; He does not stoop to the credulity of man in order to give a reason for what He is doing but makes the categorical statement, "In the beginning God created." There it is. You can take it, or you can leave it. And upon the acceptance or rejection of this original opening statement concerning the sovereignty of God depends everything which follows. Once we accept this statement, "In the beginning God created," there is nothing which follows in the entire Book which we cannot accept by faith. The One who was able to create out of nothing a universe, the vastness of which we are just beginning to appreciate today, certainly would not be limited in anything that He did as far as having a fish swallow a man, or walking on the water, or healing the sick, or raising the dead, or cleansing a leper. These are mere trivialities compared with the tremendous statement with which the Bible opens, "In the beginning God created."
I would like to place great emphasis upon this point, for once we have accepted by faith the dictum that in the beginning an All-wise, All-sovereign God created the heavens and the earth, and was not responsible to explain to His creature how or why He did it, we have the secret to faith in anything else which God may say. The miracles recorded in the Bible as performed by God through men, or through Jesus Christ, or through the Apostles, are mere, trivial incidentals as compared with the stupendous miracle of being able to create out of nothing a universe as vast as we are beginning to appreciate now. I therefore would make the bold statement that perhaps the most important verse in the entire Bible is Genesis 1:1, because everything depends upon this. Once we accept "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," nothing is impossible any more. We can accept anything from there on. However, if we reject this statement that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, we cannot place any confidence or faith in any other statement which follows in the Word of God. It is in this verse, Genesis 1:1, where faith begins, and infidelity stumbles. It is the key verse for the study of the entire Word of God. If we do not accept the sovereignty of God, we have no God who is worthy of trust and confidence, and we are left in a maze of uncertainty and doubt.
The second attribute which is absolutely essential to our proper faith in God, and which is clearly revealed in the Word of God is the attribute of omniscience. By omniscience we merely mean that God knows everything from the beginning to the end. He marks the sparrow's fall. The hairs of our head are numbered, and there is not a single thing that happens in the world, not a leaf that stirs, not a blade of grass that falls, which is not known by Him, and not only known by Him, but known beforehand, and planned by Him as well. Now it is impossible for us to comprehend a statement of that kind, and we are not expected to, but we are expected to believe it, just as we accepted the sovereignty of God, and His power in creation. It is essential that we not only believe in a sovereign God, but that we believe in an omniscient God; for if God does not know everything beforehand, He might be taken by surprise, and something might occur of which He was not cognizant, and we might be left without a proper and reliable guide. Omniscience, therefore, a perfect knowledge of God concerning all of our life, past, present and future, is absolutely essential if we are to put our faith and trust for a timeless eternity in such a God.
In the third place, a God whom we can respect and rely upon completely must not only be sovereign and omniscient, but He must be omnipotent. This is the theological term for all-powerful. If God be not all-powerful, then it stands to reason that there could be someone who is more powerful than He, and then when we put our reliance in Him, we might come to the place where He Himself suffers defeat, and we would be defeated with Him. God must be all-powerful. This of course is implied in His sovereignty in the very first verse of the Bible. We have all of the attributes of God already suggested. Certainly we see sovereignty in the first verse, "In the beginning God created." We also see omniscience, for only God could plan a universe as great as this in which we live and have it all perfect as it came from His hand. After God had created the universe, He did not have to wait until some of the "bugs" were taken out, some corrections were made. It was not a matter of trial and error; it was not a matter of improvement or gradually developing the universe, but everything was absolutely perfect from the time that He created it, so that there had to be no alterations or changes or additions, either in the materials or in the laws which govern the universe today. When we look at man's efforts, we see the difference. Think, for instance, back fifty years, of the original, old automobiles which we drove in those days, and then the things in which we are driving about today. We see how man has to profit by his mistakes, and gradually gather new knowledge, and make changes and alterations, and then never reach perfection. But not so with God, for He is not only sovereign and omniscient, knowing all things beforehand, but omnipotent. So He could create a universe in the beginning; and the moment it came forth from His hand it was complete and perfect, never to need any alterations, additions or subtractions.
The fourth attribute of God which we feel must be true, or we cannot trust Him completely, is His omnipresence, by which we merely mean that He is everywhere present. He fills all the universe and beyond, and "whither shall I flee from His presence?" The psalmist enumerates all the places where he might possibly be hidden from the all-seeing eye of God, and finally he comes to the conclusion that no matter where he might hide, God would be able to find him. How foolish man is that he tries to hide from God, and by various and devious means seeks to fool God, as though the Lord would not be able to find him. What a comfort it is to our hearts to know that He is omnipresent! When we find ourselves in a difficult situation, He is right there at hand, for even the Lord Jesus Christ who is God, had promised us, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." If we were to find ourselves in a difficult situation, and then would have to wait for God to arrive from some other place, even at great speed, it might jeopardize our very safety. So the omnipresence of God becomes an absolute necessity for our faith.
Finally, we have coined the term, the "omnirighteousness of God." God must be just, He must be righteous in all of His doings, or we cannot trust Him. Unless God be honest and righteous and just in everything that He does, He cannot be worthy of our trust and of our confidence.
And so we have enumerated these five attributes of God, all of which are clearly illustrated in the first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis.
Before we close this discussion we want to make one further practical application, and that is that in the providence of God and in the omniscience of God, it is His rule that suffering leads to victory, and there is nothing worth-while attaining in life which does not have some price attached to it. While salvation is full and free, for the believer there is a price tag for every blessing which he expects to receive from the hand of God. This is following in the footsteps of the Master Sufferer Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, who Himself was not made perfect without sufferings.
As I lay my pen aside, and I do so with absolute and full and complete confidence in the sovereignty, the omniscience, the omnipotence, and the omnirighteousness of a holy God, I dare to commit to Him the keeping of my soul without fear. I do not feel that I need to defend One who is sovereign and omnipotent. I do not feel that I need to present any proof for the existence of One who is already omniscient and all-wise and all-righteous. He only needs to be preached. In these days in which we are living, there is a tendency and a temptation, I must admit, that we shall be drawn away by attempts to defend the Word of God against the vicious attacks of the enemy on every hand, and yet we have only one commission: preach the Word. It is not our business to go out to prove the Bible to be the Word of God, or to defend an almighty and omnipotent God. We have but one commission which is entrusted to our care, and that is to declare the revelation of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. For this reason we have published the volume, Portraits of Christ in Genesis, and trust it will be used of the Lord for His glory and for the profit of His children.
(In Portraits of Christ in Genesis, copyright 1966 by Radio Bible Class, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by special permission.)
**********
KEEP YOUR EYES ON HIM
By Henry G. Bosch
Looking unto Jesus . . . . Hebrews 12:2
There was a great artist who kept a number of beautiful gems on his easel. The sparkling colors of these sapphires, emeralds, and rubies always caught the eye of his patrons. When asked the reason for storing the jewels in such an odd place, he replied that there was a danger of his paints becoming faded by usage, and his eye getting toned down so that the tints on his canvases would lose their brilliance. Therefore, he kept his eyesight keen and perceptive by constantly referring to the original colors of the jewels, for they never fade.
There is a lesson for all of us in this story. We too are in danger of toning down our spiritual perception by looking at earthly things -- things which fade. How important it is, therefore, to keep our eyes on Jesus. Let us gaze often into His face. The brilliance of the crucified, ever-living Christ will then heighten our spiritual insight and stimulate our heart and life. This will help us to "walk even as He walked." Let us never allow the eyes of our soul to grow dim. When we look at human frailty and earthly trial, it is so easy to "cast away our confidence," but if we look to Jesus our spiritual perception will be elevated and our faith strengthened.
It is said that when Blondin, the great tight-rope walker, crossed the Niagara Falls on a thin cable, he always had a star fixed on the opposite side to which he "glued" his eye. Had he looked down at the roaring cataract, fear might have crept into his heart, resulting in catastrophe; but by fixing his attention on the object at the end of the wire he found no difficulty in walking safely across the narrow cable. We, too, are not to look at circumstances but keep our eyes on Jesus. If we do, we will have no difficulty in walking the "narrow way."
Oh, look away to Jesus, when sorrow presses sore,
And when temptations gather thick, keep looking all the more.
'Tis looking unto Jesus turns the darkness into light,
Looking unto Jesus makes it right, all right.
-- C.J.C.
Look at self and you will have doubts; look at circumstances and you will be discouraged; but look to Jesus and you will always be safe, satisfied, and blessed!
(In Our Daily Bread, copyright 1967 by Radio Bible Class, Grand Rapids MI. Used by special permission.)
**********
**********
FAITH IN GOD
By Richard A. Bardo
There may be a number of people who think they have faith, and yet are not relieved of their handicap. They begin to think that God doesn't love them enough to help them, and so turn their back on Him. We first must agree that only His will is best. That is part of faith. We are God's children, and He makes us the way we are for a reason. That reason we may never know till we see Him.
Our bodies are not the all-important things. It is our souls that make us whole. If we are not saved and believe in Him, we are in worse shape than anything else that may befall us. If our souls are clean and whole, how can we be handicapped? We may still be confined to our wheelchairs, crutches, or beds, but we have the promise of Everlasting Life. When we reach our Heavenly Home, we won't have these bodies any more. We won't know pain or any other kind of discomfort. Then we will truly be made whole.
God may have given us these afflictions, to see if we would really be true to our faith in Him. That not only has to do with our own faith, but the faith of others as well. We have a much greater opportunity to witness for Him than others. I read somewhere that you can preach a better sermon with your life than you can with lips. The handicapped person's life should be so full of Jesus Christ, that people can see it and feel it around us. If we are mean and nasty and show in a general way that we do not have Christ in our life, people will think we have a right to be bitter and they will get that way themselves. Then again if we live a testimony to His glory, people will want to know of the hope that is within us! You may be an instrument to bring a soul to the Lord -- what could be better?
I have had people ask me how I can still have faith in God and love Him after what He has done to me. I have lived in a chair all my life, but I still cannot see where people get the idea God did something bad to me. God gave me life, so I could live for Him. If that's bad, I don't see it. How can I not have faith? Look around at the trees, grass, flowers, who made these things? Man only planted them. God must provide the rain, the sun, and the seasons, and the life of the plant. How can I not have faith?
With faith in God our lives can be stronger than any other power. John 1:12 tells us, that as many as receive Christ, are given the power to become sons of God! He is the all-powerful One. We have access to this power through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the faith and trust that we have in Him. I know my faith in Him has led me over a lot of rough places, and has given me the courage when I needed it most.
May God's blessings be upon each of you.
(In Conquest, official bulletin for the Buffalo Chapter of the Christian League for the Handicapped.)
**********
