I have just returned from a 5,000-mile trip across America and back, during which I was impressed anew with the beauty and variety of this land of ours. I was also reminded of a line in an old hymn, “Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.”
A trip along our highways offers a good illustration of the journey of life. The sources of information—whether official highway signs or advertisements—are for the one purpose of guiding the traveler. There is a great abundance of offers of hotels and motels, restaurants, and various products and services for the traveler’s comfort and enjoyment.
There are also continual provisions for safety and warnings of danger ahead, instructions regarding the right speed for that particular part of the highway and clear statements about the requirements of the law and the punishment for violations. And at stated distances along the superhighways one sees signs promising a “Rest Area” ahead.
Official highway signs are not capricious; they are for the good of all travelers. They are prophetic in that they give notice of what to expect ahead, and they are instructive in that they tell the driver what to do right then.
All across the pages of history God has offered man the information he must have to live aright and die aright. And the past and the present offer abundant evidence that man has refused to heed the Creator’s warnings and obey his laws.
Only the fact of spiritual blindness can explain this ignoring of the evidences of God’s glory all around us. A beautiful passage in Psalm 19 tells of these evidences: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”
Men see God’s handiwork all about them and in their own earthly wisdom say these things just “happened”—ruling God out of his creation and devising explanations that change from one generation to another.
Centuries after David wrote of the witness of God in creation, the Apostle Paul spoke of this same truth: “What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:19, 20). Because of God’s revelation of himself in creation, in his Son, and in his written Word, man is without excuse if he continues in his blind folly.
In the Old Testament we read of men and nations who disobeyed God and suffered the consequences, and we are inclined to say that they deserved all they got. But we cannot thus dismiss these warnings of the past. The Apostle Paul tells us, “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that by steadfastness and the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4).
In no generation does God leave himself without a witness. Not only does he make plain man’s predicament (he is sinful, estranged, and needy), but he also offers the way out in the Cross of Jesus Christ. For those who will pay attention, God offers information, guidance, and warnings. And he does much more than that: he has made available the solution of a problem that is humanly insoluble.
Through the Prophet Jeremiah, God spoke of those who willfully ignore the warnings he has given: “From the days your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day; yet, they did not listen to me, or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers” (Jer. 7:25, 26).
One day our Lord told about two men, one a beggar who died and went to glory, the other a rich man who died and went to the place of torment. The rich man interceded with Abraham, asking that the beggar be sent to warn his brothers. “But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if some one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ [Abraham] said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead’ ” (Luke 16:29–31).
One did rise from the dead!
The resurrected and living Christ is for all the world both a sign of hope and a warning. There is much tawdry sentiment and unworthy commercialization of Easter, and there are those within the Church who “spiritualize” its meaning. Nevertheless, the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the best attested facts of all history and also the very keystone of our hope of immortality.
Throughout America the traveler sees many tragic indications that our people have failed to heed God’s warnings. The young people whom one sees trying to thumb rides along the highways, living in communes, estranged from their families, in revolt against society—these young rebels are in many cases the elongated shadows of a people who have refused to hear God’s voice. We have not sought first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. We have ignored the truth of cause and effect in the Bible’s message—“the wages of sin is death.” We have rejected the invitation to come to Jesus Christ, the Lord of time and eternity, and find his “rest.”
The law-making bodies across America seem to be vying with one another in striving to legalize sin in various forms, as a concession to a people who willfully reject their Redeemer.
We are rightfully concerned about the effect of polluted air and water on national health, but we seem blind to the unspeakable pollution of mind and spirit that spews from the printed page and the screens.
We not only have history as a warning of the folly of rejecting God and his holy laws; we can also see before our eyes today the effect of sin in the lives of individuals and society as a whole. Truly “we are without excuse.”
Thank God, he is still willing to deal with us on the basis of his love, mercy, and grace. The way to repentance and forgiveness is still open. The day of God’s ultimate reckoning is delayed by his forbearance, for he is “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).
At some point along the highway of time, men find themselves in desperate peril. There is the blinding flash, the realization that they have ignored the warnings and that their lives are wrecked on the inexorable truths of God’s law. How true that men do not break the Ten Commandments—the Commandments break them. But equally true is this promise: “The free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).
To repent is to turn around and go in the opposite direction. Christ will do it all for us if we permit him to take the wheel. Repentance and forgiveness of sin is the central message of the Gospel.
