[Note—This editorial has been awarded a second-place prize by the Freedoms Foundation of Valley Forge.]
The world is intrigued by the scientific progress made in outer space, with an assault on the moon a very real possibility. In almost every realm of human endeavor new discoveries and their exploitation open up vistas for the future, limited solely by the boldness of imagination and the willingness to explore.
To minimize present achievements or to question their ultimate dwarfing by those of the future is utterly foolish. In the writer’s own specialty (surgery), the advances of the last dozen years have opened up fields which at one time were thought to be beyond the realm of successful approach. As an illustration—that which is being done in the area of cardiac, vascular and neurosurgery is so startling and successful that the public is but vaguely aware of it. For all of this we should thank God and take courage in the knowledge he has given us.
But it is imperative that we shall not have our perspective warped either by that which has been accomplished, or by that which yet lies in store for the future.
It is desperately important that we arrive at and keep a proper perspective as we think of man and of God, the Sovereign of this universe.
Man has never discovered, nor can he, anything which the Creator has not himself made and placed in his own creation. Because of this it is vital that God be accorded his rightful place in his own universe.
That he is so often ignored or relegated to the shadows by the assertiveness and blindness of man is but a reflection of man’s sinfulness and need of redemption in Jesus Christ.
What shall it profit if we successfully conquer outer space, set up a station on the moon, and even attain a domination of these hitherto unattainable areas of the universe, if at the same time we do not learn of him through whom alone the inner reaches of the soul are cleansed and disciplined?
For a generation we have worked to establish the highest living standards the world has ever known. Gracious living has become a reality for millions. Compared with the rest of the world we in America wallow in material prosperity. But what shall it profit us should we lose our national soul in the process?
No amount of religiosity, pious affirmations or participation in church programs can compensate for the lust, selfishness, and pride which are gnawing at the vitals of our moral and spiritual lives.
Enamoured with the achievements of today, and the promise of yet more ease of living for tomorrow, we need to stop before it is too late and ask ourselves the question: “What does all of this profit if Christ is left outside the door?” How bleak and hopeless the future without Christ! And yet, our desires seem so largely centered on the present and on the material.
We are concerned about the problems of education. We are frantically trying to recoup our lost supremacy in the realm of science. We recognize the very real danger of becoming a second-rate power from a military standpoint. These and many other problems rightly deserve our concern and should enlist our support of every legitimate and fruitful effort to improve the situation.
But while we do this let us also remember that a nation’s strength is to be found primarily in the character of its people, for it is righteousness which exalteth a nation, and sin which drags it down. The trend in America, so far as moral and spiritual standards are concerned, is down and not up, of the flesh and not of the Spirit.
Because of this it is of vital importance that the Church shall maintain her spiritual vision and discharge her rightful functions. We have no fault to find with those who would have the Church exercise upon the contemporary social order her influence for righteousness, provided there shall be a comparable zeal to maintain the personal message of redemption for sinners.
The Holy Scriptures leave neither to the imagination nor the interpretation of men the content of the Gospel message, and in the forefront of that message is the fact that out of Christ men are lost sinners in need of his cleansing and redeeming salvation; and that the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord to all who will believe.
It is the dilution, the evasion of, or the substitution of something else for the message of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come which is the most ominous sign on the horizon of contemporary Christianity. We are rightly concerned about a Christian view to race relations, about a just social order, and about a concept of brotherhood which recognizes the needs and aspirations of the less fortunate. We long for a just and durable peace, and sanction a multitude of humanitarian activities, all of which are good and for which we should strive. But what shall the attaining of all of these things profit us, or those for whom we are concerned, unless at the same time Jesus Christ is received as Saviour from sin and made the Lord of our lives?
The primary task of the Church is to preach Christ crucified, risen and coming in triumph. What shall it profit men if the Church neglect this task or dilute the content of the message while helping to usher in a new world order still in the clutches of the devil?
We are in the gravest danger of continuing to treat world symptoms while we neglect the cause of those symptoms—sin in the human heart for which there is but one remedy, the preaching of which we alone are responsible.
Looking through the astigmatic lenses of immediate problems we are in danger of losing sight of those things which are ultimate and eternal. The Apostle Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians that he had put first things first: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” It is because this is no longer the primary message of so many pulpits across America that we as a people, and the Church as the Church, stand in jeopardy. God will not be mocked. The salvation he wrought out in the counsels of eternity and brought into effect on the Cross of Calvary is God’s way, and there is no other means whereby men may be saved.
In every activity and emphasis the individual Christian and the Church should ask the sobering question: “What shall it profit if I carry this through to a successful conclusion only to lose my own soul and the souls of those who need the message that Christ died for our sins?”
What shall it profit?
