You are all
sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the
darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us
be alert and self-controlled. 1
Thessalonians 5:5-6
We of the Christian faith need not go on
the defensive, for it is the modern man of the world who is the dreamer, not
the Christian believer!
The sinner can never be quite himself. All
his life he must pretend. He must act as if he were never going to die, and yet
he knows too well that he is. He must act as if he had not sinned, when in his
deep heart he knows very well that he has. He must act unconcerned about God
and judgment and the future life, and all the time his heart is deeply
disturbed about his precarious condition. He must keep up a front of
nonchalance while shrinking from facts and wincing under the lash of
conscience. All his adult life he must dodge and hide and conceal. When he
finally drops the act he either loses his mind or tries suicide.
If realism is the recognition of things as
they actually are, the Christian is of all persons the most realistic. He of
all intelligent thinkers is the one most concerned with reality. He pares
things down to their stark essentials and squeezes out of his mind everything
that inflates his thinking. He demands to know the whole truth about God, sin,
life, death, moral accountability and the world to come. He wants to know the
worst about himself in order that he may do something about it. He takes into account
the undeniable fact that he has sinned. He recognizes the shortness of time and
the certainty of death. These he does not try to avoid or alter to his own
liking. They are facts and he faces them full on.
The believer is a realist—his expectations
are valid and his faith well grounded!
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