hroughout this book we have taken a journey through human history. Space has not allowed for a discussion on the development of other cultures which were not mentioned here, but rather I have confined myself to those cultures which have had direct contact with the story of salvation. That story shows us a God who chose the history we have as this was the best history to fulfill His plans for humanity. He chose to allow us to experience the freedom of choice, and the freedom to commit evil, for without this freedom we could never have the freedom to choose to love. God counted the cost before He created the world, and although we may think the cost was too great, He set our history in motion.
If God knew our future does this mean that He is responsible for our actions? God did not predestine the actions of human beings; He simply looked into our futures and witnessed the actions we chose. He could have chosen any number of possible futures, any number of ways of beginning history, however, I believe that He chose the one we have because the greatest number of human beings would come to know and love Him. He also chose to become a part of our history. God of course knew we would sin, He knew we would accept the offer to have autonomy, and He knew the disgusting things we would do to each other with our autonomy. He also knew the disgusting things that we humans would do to Him when He came to live among us and pay the penalty for sin. He entered into our suffering so that we could enter into His paradise. The holiness of God could not leave sin unpunished, but God chose to punish Himself in the person of Jesus, for the sins of His creations.
From the beginning of creation to the birth of Christ, God revealed Himself and His plan to us. Satan tried many times and in various ways to stop the coming of Christ, but He failed. The world was changed through the great flood, the different peoples spread throughout the world, and God chose to reveal Himself to the world through a particular nation. Our salvation story centered on the Jewish nation because it was through these people that God revealed Himself through history, and came to live among us.
Jesus Christ revealed the character and purpose of God to us. God made it extremely clear through hundreds of prophecies who the Messiah would be. People misunderstood because they were blinded by human agendas, and many remain that way in our generation. For the past two thousand years great numbers of people have come to know Him through the experience of being born again. Satan has also been busy, perverting the truth, adding human traditions which distort and conceal the simple path to experiencing Christ.1 Satan knows his time is short, for the Lord will return to judge this world. In that sense the story of salvation is not over yet.
The last book of the Bible known as Revelationtestifies to events which are yet to happen. Many theologians believe that these events are unfolding before our eyes and that the end of the world as we know it will be in the not too distant future. Jesus spoke of signs in the weather and the stars, and there are few who would deny that global climate change has become a major agenda since the 1990’s. Experts in biblical prophecy, of whom I am not one, point to
the events which have been fulfilled in recent history. The re-establishment of Israel as a nation in 1948, the bringing down of the Berlin Wall in the eighties and other events such as the establishment of the United Nations and the European Union are all considered to be revealed throughout the Bible.
And it is not only Christians who are anticipating apocalyptic events. In a recent book about the future forecasts of Nostradamus we can read about comets which will hit the earth and the rising of an Antichrist figure around the year 2012. The Mayan calendar is said to finish in this year and some also believe that planetary alignments in 2012 will affect the world’s climate and magnetic fields. Doom and gloom is a prominent topic and even Hollywood is getting in on the act with movies in apocalyptic genres. Is all of this simply twenty first century paranoia, or are human beings as a whole becoming aware of something which is unfolding around us?
The Bible teaches that there are some extremely violent and frightening events still to come upon this planet which will affect the lives of every human being, and unlike other sources of future information, the Bible is always 100% accurate. If the weather changes we are seeing globally, and the political events which seem to coincide which biblical prophecies are those which are spoken about by Jesus and throughout the Bible, then the reality is that time is indeed short. Jesus spoke of famines and everywhere we are beginning to see food shortages because of climate change. He spoke of earthquakes and floods and every other week we hear of weather records being broken. He spoke of wars and rumors of wars, and for all our mass communication, social progress and institutions which are supposed to initiate diplomacy, there are wars, revolutions, dictatorships and political turmoil in places all over the world.
We live in perilous times. For those who consider this life to be the ultimate existence, there is little to hope for in the future. Some people choose to ignore the catastrophic problems we are facing globally, hoping that scientists will find a magical cure for all of the world’s problems. Jesus simply told us to be ready, and the Bible tells us that the universe as we know it, including our planet, will be totally destroyed.2
If you are reading this and you have experienced what Jesus called being born again, then you surely have peace about the future and the Spirit of God who lives inside of you leads you each day. If you have fears and uncertainty you need to receive the peace of God that only He can give. God wants you to know Him. The story of salvation is for every person who will come to God in faith and receive forgiveness for their sins, accepting that Jesus has paid for their sins on the cross, and submitting their future into His hands.
In his letter to the Roman Christians the apostle Paul outlines the problem of the human condition and tells us what is required to be born again. The first thing is to recognize our imperfection, to be honest about our desire for sin and the fact that we have chosen to do what we knew was wrong. The second thing is to desire to change, to desire to turn around and walk away from the slavery we have to our sinful desires, and to want to live God’s way. If we have this desire then we need only to seek His truth with all our hearts and we will find Him. Half-hearted desires will only produce half-hearted attempts and God is not found by such people. God is the all and everything God. He calls us to seek with all our hearts3 and to be willing to lose everything in order to have His salvation.4
Start from wherever you are with God. If you don’t have a desire to seek just ask for it. If you are not certain that you’re a sinner, simply ask God to reveal your sin to you. He will meet you in whatever condition you are in. God will lead you along a path of revelation until you are ready to give your life to Him. He will not demand that you surrender to Him without knowledge of what you are doing. If you seek Him, you will come to a point where you understand that there is nothing that any human being can do to be saved. Only the perfect Son of God can give salvation to the imperfect. We are saved by the gracious act of God, and that act of grace is not one of obligation to us who seek Him, but a Father’s love reaching out to His lost children.
We seek because He reveals that we need to seek, we understand we are sinners because He shows us our sin, we surrender our wills to His will because we come to know that our wills will lead us to eternal destruction, whereas His will is for us to have eternal life. God lights the path and calls, but we must place our feet on the next step. We do not earn salvation by walking towards Him, we simply receive the revelation needed to surrender to His gracious offer. We have all willingly sinned and in that sense God has the right to punish us. He has chosen to punish Himself for the sins of His children and to offer them salvation by accepting what He has done without seeing the proof with their own eyes. This is what is meant by the word faith.
The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God.5 It is an issue of trust. God promises to save us and fill us with His Holy Spirit if we sincerely ask forgiveness for our sins, and surrender our wills to Him. These promises are found in His word the Bible, however, we also feel this promise in our hearts when we seek Him, that thing Christians call a conviction. This is the voice of God and this voice never contradicts the Bible. We cannot see or experience this salvation until we have believed that we will receive it. Just as when He commanded the people of Israel to trust Him without knowing the outcome, so He does the same with us. Faith is revealed knowledge which we act upon. Faith is not some presumptuous leap into the dark without prior knowledge. In Hebrews 11 we are given many examples of faith. Noah, when He was warned by God built the ark. Abraham, when he was called by God obeyed. Noah did not wake up one morning and decide to build a boat on the presumption that God might bring a flood one day. That would have been rather stupid. He acted on a prior revelation as do all who act by faith.
Our revelation is the word of God in the Bible, and the voice of God in our hearts. Our part is to obey through our action. Our action is to humbly ask forgiveness, humbly surrender our will to Christ as our Lord, and then to show our sincerity through public baptism. Jesus commanded that we be baptized because firstly it shows publicly that we have chosen to become His disciples, and secondly, because it is a physical symbol of what has happened to us spiritually. The water represents a grave. We go down into the grave, and we rise up again. We bury our old life and are resurrected into a new life with Christ living within us.6
Finally. It is my prayer and hope that this book has helped you to see and understand the story of salvation through history. Perhaps you still have many questions. I have tried to anticipate questions, however, no doubt there are many left unanswered for some readers. I challenge you to take your questions to God. I have met people who have endless questions simply because they have endless excuses for holding onto their sinful life and autonomy as if it was the greatest prize. I have met others with genuine questions which no person can answer. God may not answer every question; however, He will give you enough revelation to make an informed decision to act by faith. We are to use our intellects to consider the truth, however, it is within our hearts that we will find the decision to be born again.
Our Creator loves you. He desires that you come to know the truth, for He is Truth. He has a purpose for your short life here in this world that only you can fulfill, and an eternity of experiences filled with love waiting for you when this life is over, or when He returns and closes this chapter of the story of salvation.