Sunday,
March 31st 1957 was a life-changing day for my wife. She
accompanied me to a Gospel meeting at Selbourne Hall Luton, where we heard a
visiting preacher named Mr King of Walthamstow, London. He preached from
Revelation chapter five and it was not until the last five minutes of his message that
he got my wife’s interest. In those few minutes the Holy Spirit convicted
her of her sin and showed her that to
be safe she must repent and place her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. How
lovely it was for me (I had been saved a month) to kneel with her and two
other believers and hear her ask the Lord to save her. That moment she was born
again! Up until then she had been dead in sin, spiritually dead, but then in a
moment of time she was quickened, made alive. What a wonderful miracle of grace
took place that night. The next day was ‘All Fools Day’, and I said to her that
she was no longer fooled by the devil into thinking that she did not need salvation.
Wisdom prevailed, and her faith in Christ secured eternal salvation for her
soul. “The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord”, Romans 6:23.
April 1st.
is known in many countries as All Fools Day and is associated with playing
pranks and practical jokes on people. Wikipedia has some humorous examples of
happenings in newspapers and radio stations. One such quote was as
follows:-
During an interview on
BBC Radio 2, on the morning of 1 April 1976, the British astronomer Patrick
Moore announced that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was
going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The
planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational
alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told
his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment this planetary
alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When
9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners
claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her
eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room. Moore's
announcement (which, of course, was a joke) was inspired by a pseudoscientific
astronomical theory that had recently been promoted in a book called The
Jupiter Effect, alleging that a rare alignment of the planets was going to
cause massive earthquakes and the destruction of Los Angeles in 1982.
The majority of these
pranks can be harmless fun but others carry serious consequences, so caution
should be the rule so that one is not taken in by a deception. None of us like
to appear gullible, and yet scientists and natural history folk, who promote
evolutionary theories as fact, deceive many people. The more millions of years
that they ascribe to the universe ‘big-bang’ theory, the more credible it
sounds, but it is a lie!
In 2 Samuel ch.3 we
read, “And when Joab was come out from David, he sent messengers after
Abner, which brought him again from the well of Sirah: but David knew it not.
And when Abner was returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside in the gate to speak
with him quietly, and smote him there under the fifth rib, that he died, for
the blood of Asahel his brother……And king David himself followed the bier. And
they buried Abner in Hebron: and the king lifted up his voice, and wept at the
grave of Abner; and all the people wept. And the king lamented over Abner, and
said, Died Abner as a fool dieth?” Joab wanted to revenge
his brother Asahel’s death, at the hand of Abner, so he lured him back to the
gate of Hebron and slew him there. Hebron was one of the six cities of refuge
for a manslayer to flee to, to be safe from the avenger of blood. Abner was in
the gate of the city of Hebron, just a step from safety but Joab deceived him
by feigning to speak quietly with him but instead killed him. King David was
appalled with Joab’s actions and mourned Abner’s death as unnecessary and
foolish. It could have been and should have been so different. Abner perished
because he did not see the danger that he was in and ignored the security that
Hebron offered. He died a foolish man. Similarly, there are people today who do
not see that their soul is in danger of perishing in Hell and they ignore the
provision that God has made for them to be saved by trusting and receiving
Christ as their Saviour.
Jesus
told a parable about a wise man and a foolish man. The wise man built his house
on the rock and when the storms came and the wind blew, the house on the rock
stood firm. The foolish man built his house on the sand and when the storms
came and the wind blew the house on the sand fell flat. The Saviour said, “Therefore whosoever
heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise
man, which built his house upon a rock.” The sayings of Christ are rock like, dependable
and trustworthy whereas the atheistic teachings of evolution are like the
shifting sands and will let you down.
The foundational truths
of the gospel, of the death and resurrection of Christ are brought to our
attention at Easter time, bringing us close to the gate of salvation. Jesus
said, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.”
Don’t be like Abner who missed his opportunity to be saved, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and be saved, to do otherwise would be the height of folly.
A year before my wife
and I became Christians an American Missionary named Jim Elliot (see Wikipedia)
was killed with four other evangelists in Ecuador. A memorable quote of his was
this, "He is no fool
who gives what he cannot keep
to gain that which he cannot lose.” I say “AMEN” to that. God bless.
Posted by a Guest Blogger for FTMP
