When the Pharisees, in an attempt to disparage Him, accused Him of associating with sinners, He replied that "they who are whole need not a physician". He had the power to make men whole. He touched those with leprosy and they were cleansed of the dreadful malady that made them outcasts from society. This dreadful contagion of the flesh had become a synonym of that sin that made man an outcast from God. It was a hated word, a thorn in the flesh to all who heard it or were conscious of its unhappy consequences. When Jesus forgave sins for which the Law demanded punishments and sacrifices, his critics were quick to question His authority. To tell a man his sins were forgiven was even worse than opening blind eyes or healing the sick on the Sabbath day! He saw them as both sinned against and sinning, the blind leading the blind, walking in darkness, beset by rampaging foes which destroyed the wholesome vigour which might have been theirs.

He pitied them in their rejection of His remedy of love, for He had come to seek and to save that which had been lost. Sadly He watched them turn away. "You will not turn to me that you might have life." When Paul the Apostle was reaching the end of his mission to the Gentiles he wrote to Timothy "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." (1 Tim.1.15). Sin, its vicious consequences and its removal by Christ were much to the fore in his writings. Perhaps his insistence that sin and death entered the world by man has rendered his doctrine unpalatable to those who look on the fall of man as a myth, who by elevating him to the stars, hope that he has found his salvation through a more scientific way than that of the sacrificial lamb of God on the cross at Calvary. The sad truth is that while science and the engineers have provided the power to send man soaring into the skies his moral path does not correspond with his lofty ambitions. Sin and sensuality pull him down as the thorns and thistles spring in his footsteps, vexing his heart and blighting his best endeavours. It is a common experience to do and say the wrong thing while the good deed and the right word at the right time seem elusive, defeated by emotional conflict to become so many lost opportunities.

The search-light of heavenly wisdom, turned upon the struggling mass of mankind tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, heaving with discontent, reeling under the weight of its own intoxicating self-indulgence, reveals it as lost, stupefied and dying. These are afflictions for which the most skilful have no remedy. Only those who have been warmed by the Divine ray, moved by the spirit of God to turn in His direction, have received the healing touch. They are alive as those risen from the dead.

"Awake you that sleep and arise from the dead: and Christ will give you light" (Eph. 5.14). This is the confident cry of hope, the stirring voice, the loud ringing of the bell that arouses the sleeper, sets him on his feet and turns his face toward the risen Sun of Righteousness. His warming, healing beams will yet thaw the whole race out of the frozen torpor of its unbelief giving it the living light of day in exchange for its night of sin and death.

Change is the great unwritten law of the universe. All things change and are changed. The earth itself is the product of change, and there are others yet to come before it is complete, a fitting home for a changed and nobler race who will match its beauty and peace. Old things pass away. Reconstruction and renewal follow disintegration and decay. The end of the twentieth century saw a moral world change for the worse, seduced, deceiving and deceived. A failing faith, worn out systems that have outlived their usefulness, threats to end all life by the use of modern weapons are indisputable evidence that the present civilisation has reached a perilous period in its history.

The time is ripe for a removal of much that is evil, for a shaking of everything that can be shaken, for a throwing down and a casting out of a great deal that spoils the planet. These oppress the spirit of discerning people with a sense of failure, tragedy, fear and future disaster. Some see it as an ebbing tide, others as a gathering storm. By whatever picture events present themselves, to the serious minded, they indicate change of a hitherto unknown nature, both turbulent and drastic. Nature is the living parable of change with her Winters of death and her Springs of renewal. As a poet exclaimed, "Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" If the old ways die off in a winter of great tribulation can the Spring of renewal, of restoration, of rejuvenation be far behind? The new heavens and the renewed earth under a new rule of righteousness, where evil will not prosper because the sacred law of God will be at last in full operation. This is looking ahead with hope, but the Word of God sees the end from the beginning. It is full of hope. Those who have discarded its testimony as myth, who have changed the truth of God into a lie, who are without God and without hope, must either be very frightened people or utterly indifferent to their own fate or that of the millions who occupy the earth. In plain words, by metaphor, parables and by living pictures the Bible declares that God by His knowledge and use of powerful forces created all things. He formed the earth to be inhabited by the race of man whom He made at the beginning of a new epoch which seems to have run its course.

When Paul spoke to the men of Athens about the Unknown God and His determination for mankind, most were sceptical and some mocked. There have always been mockers of God and goodness. The ribald and the irreverent were at the cross of Calvary mocking the Saviour who would not come down and save himself, who endured their jeers in silence. The modern world has its scoffers who treat lightly the subject of sin and death, who can without a blush of shame turn the life of Christ, the life of man and the authority of God into impudent farce. For them and for all who are ready to scorn virtue and exalt evil, the Apostle's warning to the Galatians is still timely: "Be not deceived: God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap" (Gal. 6.7). Defied or ignored it is still a law which will not be repealed until the day of reckoning when all will be forced to reap the harvest of their words and deeds. After two thousand years of religious strife there is a critical spirit abroad which questions the need and purpose of religion. God is being ousted from His place in the earth, in the minds of men, women and children by what is called "the beauty and truth of science". Salvation has become an outmoded and meaningless word to many. Science with its power over the atom, its raising of man from the swamps to the stars, is the new miracle-worker which excites the wonder of a generation which knows not God. Jesus had no illusions about the reception of His message, neither had the apostles who were commissioned to carry it to all nations. They spoke of tares among the wheat, of wolves in the fold and of strong delusions. Paul in his letter to Timothy advised him to "avoid profane babbling and opposition of science, falsely so called" that even in those early days, "some professing have erred concerning the faith." (1 Tim. 6.20-24). He also warned of deceptions, of a great falling away from the faith before the Man of Sin, the mystery of iniquity that would usurp the place of God in the Temple of worship. The world has not been won for Christ. The present state of man is as far removed from the ideal state of Christian love as ever it was in the days of its paganism. Christian influence is unlikely to set the world on fire at this late hour to bring it to repentance or save it from its fierce hatred and burning animosities.

The Church of God is but a handful of faithful hearts out of all earth's teeming millions, holding fast to their trust; a wavering light in a world of darkness whose peoples still walk in sin and the shadow of death. Even that small light is being assailed by the winds of doubt blown in by clever intellectuals who think they can create a new and better world without God. A society raised upon a denial of God is a monstrous deception long foreseen. Warnings have been given in plenty and it is up to those who received the faith, who have the sacred flame of the love of God and Christ in their hearts, to guard it well, it is a precious heritage, handed on at great cost from one generation to another. During the centuries God has been selecting living stones out of all nations, kindred and tongues, to build one Church, one Temple, whose chief foundation stone is Christ. Such have been few, a 'little flock'. Christ said "my kingdom is not of this world". While it is true that nothing can happen without His knowledge or permission, the kingdoms of this world are not in His hands.

The present system is evil, ruled by the prince of darkness whose deceptions blind the minds of men to the gospel of Christ, to the character of God and his ultimate purpose to refashion man into His own image. There is a force of evil at work in the earth, a mystery of iniquity, which is set to deny and thwart every good thing. The god of this world is not the God of Heaven, the living, holy Divine Being who created and upholds all things by the Word of His power, who watches and cares for His own but allows the rest to go their own way until He calls a halt of "thus far and no further".

(to be concluded)

FAS