Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Do you want a sign from God?

This is an excerpt from an article I read recently by Ray Comfort, the rest is here.


Tony sat patiently on the “red-eye” flight, and passed the long hours of the night by reading a Bible that his wife had given to him a few hours earlier. She had convinced him that he had sinned against God by violating the Ten Commandments. What she said was true. Tony had broken the Commandments. He had lied and stolen, and he knew that if he stood before God on Judgment Day he was in big trouble. The words of Jesus echoed in his mind: “Whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery already with her in his heart.”

The opened pages brought back a flood of childhood memories from his days at Sunday school. He remembered a number of Bible stories. Of course, there was the one was about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, and rising on the third day. Then there was the story that put the fear of God in Tony as a child. It was the narrative of the man who ignored the things of God and instead stored up treasures on earth. God said to him, “You fool. Tonight your soul shall be required of you.” Others stories such as Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, Moses and the Red Sea, and Daniel and the Lion’s den came to mind as well.

His wife had also insisted that he needed the Savior. She warned, “If you die without Jesus Christ, you will face the Law that you have broken, and it will be harsher than the law of gravity. You must repent, and trust Jesus…like you would trust a parachute to save you.”
Tony had a dilemma. How could he know if the Bible was true? Who wrote it? Was it written by God or by men? Could he trust its words? He glanced at two gospel tracts his wife had put into the Bible. One was titled, “Scientific Facts in the Bible.” It listed about a dozen scientific facts that were written in the Scriptures thousands of years before man discovered them. That didn’t impress Tony at all. He wanted concrete evidence. The other publication was called “The Bible is Full of Mistakes.” Despite the title, the tract actually listed biblical “signs” of the end of the age. These signs were said to be earthquakes, famines, violence, diseases, lawlessness, wars, occult interest, the increase in travel and in knowledge, and a number of other things. As he glanced over the “signs,” Tony mumbled, “These have always been around.”

There was one prophecy that did impress him though. It was the one about the Jews obtaining Jerusalem. In 1967, the Jews regained Jerusalem for the first time in 2,000 years. This was an event that Jesus said would take place as a sign of the end of the age. It was interesting, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to know who actually wrote the Bible and whether or not he could trust it. Was it indeed “written by God” as it so often claimed to be, or was it simply written by men?

Another thought that his wife had mentioned was that God had deliberately filled the Bible with stories that would be offensive to anyone with a proud heart. His purpose in doing this was so that all who came to Him for salvation would have to come through the lowly door of humility; God “resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble.” As Tony sat contemplating these thoughts, he admitted that that was a common thread throughout the Bible, from Adam and Eve, to David and Goliath, to Jonah and the whale, to Daniel and the lion’s den, to Noah and the Ark, to Sampson and Delilah, to Jesus being born in a stable, and walking on water. Anyone with any intellectual dignity would never stoop to believe such trite fairy tales. “Stoop” was the operative word. To believe in the Bible one would certainly have to come down a notch or two. If that was indeed what God had done, the words of Jesus did then make sense: “I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes” (Matthew 12:25, italics added).

All these thoughts and reading made Tony’s eyes suddenly feel heavy. He closed them momentarily. As he signed deeply, he heard a sober male voice over the speaker system. It was the captain warning that the plane had serious engine trouble, and that it was about to crash! He then informed the passengers that there was parachute under their seats, and after reading the instruction booklet that was in the seat pocket in front of them, they were to immediately put on the parachute.

As Tony took hold of the publication, he read the bold print on the cover:
“Important! Emergency Parachute Instructions…your life depends on your understanding of these instructions.”

He opened it further and saw step-by-step directives. It spoke of the importance of strap adjustment. It also said how to avoid being sucked into the jet engines, where to locate the rip cord, when to pull it, how to make sure the parachute didn’t become twisted, and how to land without serious injury.

As he looks at its words, he wondered who authored the publication. Was it the parachute manufacturer, the airline, or did someone else pen it? Another even more urgent warning came over the speaker system. The sober voice said that the aircraft door was about to open, and that cabin pressure would suddenly drop. It said that it would be too late to put on the parachute once the door was opened. The voice said, “Put it on now!”

Tony ignored the warning. His mind was absorbed with other thoughts. “Who was it that wrote the instruction booklet? Was it some weirdo? Or was it authored by the airline? What was their purpose in writing it? Perhaps it was written by the parachute manufacturer, or then again, it may have been...”

His thoughts were stopped mid-sentence by a deafening roar. The aircraft door had been opened. Cabin pressure dropped. In a split second, air was sucked from Tony’s lungs. His eyes filled with terror as he gasped for precious air. Suddenly, he was ripped from his seat and pulled towards the open door. With all his strength, he held onto a seatback as the irresistible vacuum pulled him closer to the opening. His fingers weaken. In an instant, he was gone...sucked into the blackness of the night.
As he plummeted in unspeakable terror towards the unforgiving earth, ten words echo in his mind, “You fool. Tonight your soul shall be required of you.”

Suddenly Tony awoke. The open Bible was still on his lap. His hands were dripping with sweat. His breathing was fast and heavy. It was a nightmare. His wide eyes fell onto a passage of scripture:
“For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent...For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness…” (1 Corinthians 1:19, 22—23).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

yo man, that was a nice story. I'm glad to hear youre safe, bro. Happy thanksgiving. PS I love your blogs they are so entertaining