By Rob Rohrbough
Text from James 5:19-20
19 My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back,
20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
How important is the proper study of the Bible and the Great Commission? For those of you who know me well, you know I am a fan of Christian apologetics. My favorite is Dr. John Lennox. Dr. Lennox has the charm of a Northern Irish leprechaun! There is no one on Earth he won’t take on in a debate about the validity and value of Christianity. Besides being a fellow mathematician, I love his kindness and compassion for those with whom he debates.
One example is Christopher Hitchens. Dr. Lennox has expressed genuine concern and affection for Dr. Hitchens. Another prominent Christian apologist, Dr. Frank Turek, and Dr. Hitchens frequently debated and often toured together. Dr. Turek related such a concern when they were on a layover at an airport. Hitchens, who at the time was dying from lung cancer, purchased cigarettes. Turek gently chided his friend, and as they talked about the relationship between smoking and cancer, Hitchens finally declared, “If I’d only known”!
Isn’t that the way it is for Christian apologetics? I was a big fan of Dr. Stephen Hawking’s A Short History of Time. As some of you may know, Dr. Hawking suffered from and eventually died of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). His brilliant mind could not forgive God for allowing him to suffer from that disease. In so doing, he lost his wife and family and spent the rest of his life relentlessly pursuing his scientific work.
What a pity! One of the fundamental tenets of the Bible is that faith in God does not take away your trials. It strengthens you to meet them. What if someone had informed Dr. Hawking of this truth?
Dr. Lennox once was confronted with a quote from Dr. Hawking that said, “Christianity is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” Upon being asked to respond, Dr. Lennox promptly answered, “Atheism is a fairy story for people afraid of the light!”
What a different perspective! Was Dr. Hawking thinking only of life on this planet and not of the next life in his disappointment with God? What if he had engaged in what Thomas Sowell calls “Stage 2 thinking”? That is, thinking about the eternal life after this one. How important, then, is that Great Commission along with the proper understanding of the Bible? Perhaps the answer lies in one last question:
How many people stand at the gates of Hell exclaiming, “If I’d only known!”