THE gospel, as the reader doubtless knows, is God’s good news concerning Christ. And yet to how few is the message of the Cross really glad tidings. In spite of the civilization and progress, which are the boast of the age, men are everywhere still crying out, “Who will show us any good?”
Multitudes go stumbling through life vaguely conscious of some great need. They have proved that the things of the world cannot satisfy. They refuse to be blinded by the jaunty optimism, which is so popular with those who think it a virtue to live in a fool’s paradise. They have everything, so far as outward things go, to make life pleasant, yet they are desperately unhappy. Their health may even suffer, for an uneasy conscience is often responsible for weariness of mind and sickness of body.
There are others whose every hope in this world is ruined. Evil surroundings drag them down. Their life is a long-drawn-out misery, and the future beyond the grave is dark as the frown of God. They are tired of earth, yet not fit for heaven; weary of life, but afraid to die.
And yet these men will turn away from the very One who alone can meet their need. What they need is the forgiveness of their sins, and “sin forgiven is dawn of heaven.” But they will go to anyone sooner than to the Lord Jesus Christ, and try anything sooner than His glorious gospel. How strange! Does it not prove that “if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost” (2 Cor. 4:33But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: (2 Corinthians 4:3)), to the unbelievers whose minds have been blinded by the god of this age so as to shut out the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ?
We were made by God and for God, and yet men will persist in remaining away from Him through an evil heart of unbelief that revolts from the living God. They know from the experience of others that the gospel when truly received gives rest to the mind, peace to the conscience, and satisfaction to the heart; they have tried in vain a thousand things to quench their soul’s thirst; why don’t they try the gospel? WHY DON’T THEY BELIEVE GOD’S GOOD NEWS?
E. A.