One day we went hiking and exploring in the Blue Mountains a couple hours east of Sydney. Since they are upside down, it’s more like west if you’re reading this in the U.S. and trying to picture it in your mind. Because of the densely wooded area we were in, the darkness descended upon us quicker than Stevie Wonder can say "clap off." There are numerous hiking paths at a very high altitude to provide breathtaking views, but it’s scary when you can’t quite see where you are walking. When I realized we were lost, my heart thumped quicker than Ringo Starr’s foot while playing "Help" with a speed metal band.
We had no flashlight but I could tell the paths had divided, so I picked a fork and proceeded cautiously. Suddenly, without warning, my feet were sliding out from under me . . . and my body, attempting to be a good Christian and obey all applicable laws of gravity, followed suit. I clutching wildly for anything to grab as I lost my balance. I was now falling faster than the stock market after receiving conformation that Ozzy Osbourne will be our next President. For one moment, I was actually weightless in free fall and then simultaneously hit and grabbed a broken tree limb protruding from the side of the mountain. As I hung onto the limb with all my might, my life flashed before me quicker than Nostradamus on speed.
Since it was pitch black and I couldn’t hold on very long, I hoped there might be a ledge below me. Maybe I could let go and drop to safety, or maybe I would plunge . . . to . . . my . . . death. Then a dim light came on below me and I heard the voice of Crocodile Dundee or Russell Crowe or that crocodile hunter guy or Nicole Kidman (all those Australian accents sound alike to me). He said, "Let go mate - there’s a little landing below that will cushion your fall." Well, every Australian we had met was extremely friendly and I could see no reason why he would lie, even though I could neither confirm nor deny his statement. I could hear his voice, but I couldn’t see him. I could try to climb out of this predicament myself, but the strength was sapped from my arms - and besides, I've never been very good at climbing vertically up the sides of sheer cliffs. Hey, I'm not Spiderman (at least, that's what I'm telling everyone to protect my secret identity).
What would you have done? I started to make some parallels with that leap of faith that is involved in Christianity. It is not a blind leap with no evidence, merely psychologically wishing it could be true. For me to simply hope there was a ledge and jump with no evidence would have been "blind faith." As the scholar Ravi Zacharias concludes, "A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God."
The Aussie mate sounded confident, trustworthy and just below me. I could have further verified his words by dropping a coin out of my pocket in hopes of hearing it hit just below me (more evidence in what I could not see), but I didn’t quite have a free hand. The truth is that my life depended on this decision and in faith I had to go where the most evidence was.
But as genius Blaise Pascal said, the stakes are much higher when we consider the eternal destiny of our souls. We all must make an eternal wager on beliefs that none of us can prove. I challenge you to seriously weigh the evidence . . . your life depends on it. If you wager on God and Jesus Christ being truth, give your life to Him, and then find out at death that it is not true, you have lost nothing eternally. Rather you have lived a life with meaning and peace in the midst of this painful unpredictable world. On the other hand, if you wager against Jesus (the one who said in John 14:6 "no one comes to the Father but by me"), and you are wrong, then you have lost everything. Even if the odds were merely 50/50, it would make sense to wager your life on Jesus. And so I challenge you to search for him with all your heart as well as all your mind. YOU WILL FIND HIM!
I have been reading a book by a former atheist, with a Masters Law degree from Yale who was the legal editor for the Chicago Tribune, named Lee Strobel. The book is "The Case for Faith." Sometimes we feel like our faith is weak if we have doubts. I want to let you know it is OK to have doubts. It is part of being human. Pastor-turned-atheist Dan Barker claims, "Underneath (Christian’s) profession of faith, is a sleeping giant of doubt . . . In my experience the best way to conquer doubt is to yield to it." In contrast, Madeleine L’Engle says, "Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart . . . without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God and not in God Himself."
God has decided to set the whole world up so that we must have faith, which is trusting in the evidence for things that we can not see (Heb. 11:1). We can not see the wind but we have evidence that it is exists. The same is true of God.
"Only in a world where faith is difficult, can faith exist. I don’t have faith in 2 plus 2 equals 4 or in the noonday sun. Those are beyond question. But scripture describes God as a hidden God. You have to make an effort of faith to find Him. There are clues you can follow. If we had absolute proof instead of clues, then you could no more deny God than you could deny the sun. But he gives us choice. If we had no evidence at all, you could never get there. God gives us just enough evidence so that those who want Him can have Him. The Bible says seek and you will find" (Peter Kreeft - author and philosophy professor). Jeremiah. 29:13 confirms, "You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart."
I can make you lose your faith quite easily. Let’s say I hold an object behind my back that you can’t see and you have no idea what it is. If you guess what it is without evidence, that is blind faith. If I reach into my pocket, pull something out in my closed hand and tell you I have a quarter, you still don’t know for sure, but you now have some evidence (my word) that it is a quarter. That is faith. If I open my hand and you see the quarter, it is no longer faith because you know without any doubt that it is a quarter.
The pastor of our church, Ron Shepard, stated yesterday that people will argue to support an opinion, but will die for a conviction. I thought of the early followers of Jesus who fled and deserted when Jesus was arrested. They feared for their lives. They had the opinion that Jesus was who He said He was. However, something drastically changed a few days later as they were suddenly willing to die for their faith in Jesus. Their opinion changed to conviction because they actually saw Jesus alive from the dead. From that point on, all but one of them did die for that conviction. Their renewed faith and the way the early church thrived in the midst of persecution - like being thrown to the lions - is strong evidence for the validity of Jesus Christ. People don’t die for a cause that they know to be untrue.
Those early Christians knew Jesus was the way, the truth, and life itself; He verified His claims by obviously dying and obviously raising from the dead. Thomas doubted (hence, "a doubting Thomas") until he saw with his own eyes and touched Jesus. Then Jesus said these powerful words, "Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe" (John 20:29). That is you today in the 21st century if you have been honest enough to really check out the evidence, seen how convincing it is, and in spite of any doubts that may hit you from time to time, still decided to wager your life on Jesus. He loves you passionately and wants what is best for you . . . so take that leap of faith!
I know what some of you’re thinking now. . . "Are you ever going to get to the end of the story? Did you make it, Larry? Did you live? . . . Talk about a cliffhanger." Well, my family and friends can testify that I did survive , though they may tell you I lost my mind since it did NOT happen that way when we were hiking in the Blue Mountains. Actually, I wanted to illustrate a point by trying my hand at suspense Christian fiction writing. Don’t worry, if I'm never mistaken for John Grisham, I can always fall back on my day job as a traveling musician/comedian/speaker! I did say comedian, didn't I? Hello, is this thing on?