AN INDICTMENT OF THE HUMAN RACE

By Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.

     The vanity of human sophistication, the shallowness of human pride and the stupidity and ignorance of celebrated human accomplishment, without giving thanks and praise to Almighty God, is in itself an indictment of the Human Race!

   The callousness, crassness and deviousness of the pinheads in academia, politics, philosophy, business and religion have certainly gone over the top in their rebellion against common sense, moral values, godly ethics and Christ's Gospel! 

     How sad that the creature rebels against the Creator, the dying against the life Giver, the impure against the Holy, the sick against the Healer and the weak against the Strong!

BLAISE PASCAL was a French mathematician, inventor, philosopher and theologian (1623-1662). His amazing insights into God, creation, man, life and death found in his book Pensees are some of the most honest, profound and politically incorrect written by human hand.

    The Encyclopedia Britannica states that, “Blaise Pascal believed man's wretchedness is explicable only as an effect of the Fall and that for Pascal as for St. Paul, Jesus Christ is the second Adam inconceivable without the first.” Pascal believed that the events described in the Book of Genesis were actual historical events!

                               BLAISE PASCAL'S BELIEF IN CHRIST!

     Pascal stated: “For after all, what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity. All in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinity far from understanding either...There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator made known through Christ.”

    “The two principals of truth, Reason and Senses, are not only both not genuine, but are engaged in mutual deception. The Senses deceive Reason through false appearances and the senses.”

   Regarding FAITH, Pascal wrote: “The heart has its reasons which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which experiences God and not Reason. This then is Faith: God felt by the heart, not by Reason.”

    The Scientific Premium Company wrote: “After days of bickering, Ben Franklin told the First Congress that no nation has ever existed without the approval of God. If God builds the house, it will stand; if not, it will fall. Therefore every session should be opened with prayer, and we should have a sermon every 4^th. of July. George Washington agreed. First Congress agreed. They then had ORDER instead of CHAOS. This nation is still standing because GOD built the house.” Our, schoolhouses too, must be restored to God.

    King Solomon prayed, “O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth! Who hast set Thy glory above the heavens. When I consider Thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained;

    “What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that Thou visitest him? For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and has crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands: Thou has put all things under his feet. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!” (Psalms 8: 1; 3-6,9)

   JOHN WESLEY, the Founder of the Methodist Church, stated: “I am a creation of a day, passing through life, as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God: Just hovering over the great gulf; till a few moments hence, I am no more seen I drop into an unchangeable eternity.

   “I want to know one thing, the way to Heaven: How to land safely on that Happy Shore. God Himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end, He came from Heaven. He has written it down in a BOOK! Oh, give me that Book! At any price, give me the Book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me a man of one BOOK.”

CHRIST'S BLOOD: MANKIND'S ONLY HOPE!

    ST. PAUL STATED: “|For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

   “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews, and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” (1 Cor.1:17,18, 23,24)

For many years the Christian Church has presented the claims of Jesus Christ to be able to save lost souls, heal the sick and liberate the suffering and wounded, granting Eternal Life on the basis of His shed blood, vicarious death and glorious resurrection.

   In his book, 'The Cruciality of the Cross', DR. HENRY MABIE writes: “The Greek word used by Paul in 1 Cor.1:8 is Logos... “not preaching but” the subject matter of preaching; with the very essence of that which was to be preached; with the Logos of the Cross, which constitutes a rational, its Divine Reason which he declares to be the Wisdom of God.

     This Logos of the Cross is conceived by Paul to be the Key which Unlocks the Riddle of the Universe, Solves all Mysteries and Reconciles all things. A subject Matter so magnanimous: The sacrificial death of the incarnated (God in human flesh) Son of God to redeem the world, is a subject matter so powerful, so magnanimous and so incomprehensible that mortal man can only stand in Holy Awe at it immensity, enormity and grandiose love that we are left speechless!”

    The Blood of Jesus Christ which He freely gave for sinful, rebellious and guilty hell-bound sinners, purges our conscience from all guilt, delivers us from the power of sin and liberates us from Satan and his evil Kingdom for time and eternity.
    The BIBLE states emphatically that Jesus of Nazareth was God the Son, Who created the universe and that He died as God's Paschal Lamb to save us. The Cross solves all the mysteries of God, and who we are, why we are here and our immense worth to Him. It solves the problems of dying without hope for eternity. 
    The vicarious death and glorious resurrection of Christ reconciles God and man creating a blessed harmony between us. It also reconciles man with his fellows, as the blood of Christ forgives sinners and the Holy Spirit brings a divine love into our hearts for one another!

    As Dr. Henry Mabie states, “The Lagos of the Cross is conceived by Paul to be the key which unlocks the riddle of the universe, solves all mysteries and reconciles all things.” I agree one hundred per cent with that analysis and community which is the greatest I have ever heard, but it still does not go far enough!

    It doesn't begin to cover the eternal consequences of the Incarnation, Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ Jesus our Lord, Creator and God. St. Paul came closer when he wrote, “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” (1 Cor.2: 9)

THE GOSPEL IS THE GOOD NEWS

    Just before His ascension to Heaven, our Lord gave the Church His work plan, orders and His promises to His followers. He said: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

    “And these SIGNS shall follow them that believe: In My name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay their hands upon the sick and they shall recover.” (Mark 16:15-18)

   The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the glad tidings that Light is come into a world of Darkness, that Peace is come into a world of Turmoil; that Healing has come into a world of Sickness, that Love has come into a world of Hate; that forgiveness has come into a world of Sin and Life has come into a world of Death!

    And that Freedom has come into a world of Bondage and Slaves are made Free through Jesus Christ, the Liberator of the human race. And that Light, Peace, Healing, Love, Forgiveness, Life Freedom, Liberty and Eternal Life is none other than JESUS CHRIST Himself, the Eternal Son of the Living God, crucified for us, risen from the dead and soon to Return for us. Amen.