Claims of Bible - The arguements

I have been thinking how do we make Chinese New year relevant to us in the church today. Chinese New year, like most other festivals, calls for a time of celebration. Celebrate the new and discard the old.

Then I thought about what Alison shared with us a couple of month ago. If you still remember, she said that the God we worship is Chinese because like our parents, he provides for us everything (1 Tim 6;17). In most Chinese families, the parents pay for our living expenses, school fees and we can stay with them even after we got married. Alison is right and as Asians, we are aware of the close knit family that we all are. Not only the Chinese, even the Indian also practice the same principle of all living together and that the parents take care of all.
If this notion of a father who is the head of the family and take care of all affairs is not new to Asians. Then why is this God of the Bible who supplies all our needs is kind of alien to a lot of Asians? Why is it that it is difficult for us to relate this great God of ours to many other friends and relatives around us. While tradition and cultural barriers may be part of the reasons, most people reject the gospel because they think it is not important and salvation can wait.

The phone ring and the little boy answers. The caller recognizes the boyish voice and asks
“Can I speak to your dad?”
“No!”
“OK Can I speak to your mum then?”
“No”
“Why not? and why are you whispering?”
“I am inside the closet.”
“Why are you inside the closet”
“I am hiding inside the closet and they can’t find me. They are all looking for me. He He He. They even call the police and Bomba. They are all here looking for me”

You may be like the little boy thinking it is so much fun to play hide and seek. In this case, playing hide and seek with God. While all effort is out there to look for you, you think it is fun that no one can find you. But, Just one caution, time may run out on you.

There are two things that is 100% certain and you cannot avoid. These are death and income tax. You may be able to cheat on your tax but you will not be able to cheat death.

The Niagara fall stands at 170 feet high and many people performed amazing stunt by walking across on tight rope or plunge down the fall in barrel or similar device. In 1911. Bobby Leach, although not the first person, successfully plunged down the mighty fall in a steel barrel. He survived the stunt although his knee caps were damaged. Many years later, while on his daily walk in Christchurch, New Zealand, he slipped on an orange peel. He was hospitalized. His fractured leg became infected and had to be amputated. 2 months later he died. Even the greatest dare devil cannot escape death.

So the question is where will you be in eternity? The Bible has many claims. And many big claims. Jesus Christ himself had made several audacious claims. Among them are he is the only way to heaven and no one can come to the Father except through him. Jesus Christ also claimed that he will prepare a place in God’s house for those belong to Him. And then there is this awful news that all sinners will have to face God one day and be judged. The Bible is very clear that whoever believe in God’s son, Jesus Christ will be saved and spared from the punishment of sin. In short, Believe in Jesus and you will avoid hell and enjoy heaven. A serious consequence indeed. But what if this worst scenario is not true? seems like an important question to figure out what will happen to me eventually. This is probably why the question is still being debate today. But today we are not going to look into whether the claim is true or not. Instead, we will look into the argument whether we should act regardless of the claim. An argument that both the pro or anti Christian can agree on.

When faced with uncertainty about the future, it becomes useful to look at all the different possibilities in order to compare them side by side. So here we are, there are two possibilities with the claim. One is False and the other is true. But since you believe that no one in either camp is able to say for sure if the claim is true of false but let’s agree that both is a possibility.

The next thing we are to look into is on what action we are to take with the claim. We have two columns for taking action and taking no action. This gives us a grid with 4 boxes and each box gives us a scenario for the future.

The first box is wasted money, wasted time and wasted resources. You are conned but you still enjoy peace, love and you live moral life. You still enjoy life but you missed out the pleasure of sinful life.

The second box turns out to be a right choice. No action needed since the claim is false. Nothing lose. You are no different from a orang utan or a mosquito. No real purpose in life. Eat, climb to your tree top, sleep and wait to die.

The third box still involves cost and resources. But it turn out to be effort well spent. Because there is believe, you live a life fulfilled, happy, content and purposeful. Because it turn out to be true, you know you will be in heaven for eternity.

The fourth box is the worst case possible. You were wrong. The end result is you have no salvation. You live a life like the Orang utan as in the second choice above. No only you lack purpose in life, you were at lost for every struggle and worst of all, despite all your effort, you end up in Hell, the last place where Christianity warned about.

The argument can be broken down into row or column thinking. Your future roughly fall into 1 of the boxes. While the claim may or may not be real, we cannot tell which row our future holds, but we can know for certain what our future will be because we control our action in each column. So it is like buying a lottery ticket and waiting for the jackpot to fall.

From the above, we see that take no action when the claim is false and take action and the claim is true turn out to be the correct choice.

But there is a consequence when we take action when the claim is false as well as take no action when the claim is real. But it is clear that the cost of taking no action has a very serious consequence because its effect is far more significant than if you take action but the claim happen to be false.

So it is clear that the cost of not doing outnumber the cost of doing. It is your inaction that has far greater significant.

At this point you may ask “How could a loving God send people to hell?” Max Lucado clears the misconception.
No. 1 God does not send people to hell. He simply honors their choice. In fac if you think about it, hell is the ultimate expression of God’s high regard for the dignity of man. CS Lewis said : “There are only two people of people in the end: those who say to God “Thy will be done” and those to whom God says “ Thy will be done.” You choose hell, hell you go. No, God does not send people to hell.

The second misconception is that God does not send people to hell. People do not go to hell. Sinners do. It is the rebellious, the self centered sinners. So, how could a loving God send people to hell? He doesn’t. He simply honors the choice of sinners.

Make this Chinese New year special. Celebrate with a purpose. Start taking action by making the right decision because the choice is in your hand and you control your own future.