A BIRD’S-EYE TOUR OF THE BIBLE

Each generation becomes more biblically ignorant.  Few people have scriptural foundation for receiving Christ. To meet this need we invite the reader to approach the gospel through this brief tour of the Bible.  You can give this tract to your neighbor, doctor, mechanic, or friend, saying: ‘If I had thirty minutes to talk to you about spiritual things, this is what I would like to say’.  Tracts don't save souls, but the explanation of biblical truth gives a foundation for the work of the Holy Spirit.

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We have heard of a fellow who took time to read the phone book from cover to cover. Putting it down he said, “It has a great cast but the plot is very weak.”

The average person in our society thinks that way about the Bible. Either he has never read it, or he has read it in such an irregular way that he has failed to see what ties it together. Having followed either course, he comes to the conclusion that the Bible has no plot and that no one could ever understand it.

In this tract we would like to give you a bird’s-eye tour of the Bible. If you will take time to read to the end I believe that you will understand what the Bible is all about. You will see that you can know that you will not be in hell but will be safe in heaven at last. It is my hope that, when you understand these things, you will chose to make a life-changing decision.

As you read these lines, it would be a great help if you would get your Bible. Look up the verses we quote, and make sure we are honestly putting them in context and giving you what the Bible says, not merely what we think. All our quotations are from the King James Version, the oldest English translation in common use. You may follow in some other translation. We think you will see that the slightly different words are saying the same thing.

We will organize our thoughts by dividing the Bible into its commonly recognized divisions: The Law, Old Testament History, Poetry, Old Testament Prophets, The Gospels, New Testament History, The Epistles, and New Testament Prophecy.

Please read these sections in order so that you have a complete understanding of this tour of the Bible.

THE LAW

The first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are called the Law. Look with me at the first verse of the Bible, Genesis 1:1:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

This verse is simple and straightforward. It is the basis for all the rest of the Bible. It establishes God’s claim upon us. God has a right to speak to us because He made us. You may object by saying that you believe in evolution. It is not our purpose to argue with you; but it is our premise that only creation can account for the energy, the matter and the intricate design which we see in our universe and in ourselves.

In Genesis 1 God explains how He set the stage for man by creating everything man needed and other things that only man needed. The crust of our earth is filled with oil, diamonds and the ores of every metal. No creature other than man has ever used these treasures. Obviously, God put them here for man alone to use. Genesis 1:26,27 tell of man’s creation:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

As human beings we are conscious that we are different from other creatures. The most ignorant man towers far above the brightest ape. Why? We were made in the image of God. All of the faculties in which we differ from the animal world are a part of this image. Our thinking abilities, our self-consciousness and our emotions are examples.

Creation remained the way God made it until the fall of the human race in Genesis 3:1-6:

Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

If you ask most folks what happened at the fall of man they will say, “Adam and Eve ate an apple they were not supposed to eat”. That makes sin sound very small. What happened was very large. The progenitors of our human race made a basic choice as to which of the two beings who had spoken to them they would obey. Would they chose to obey the God who put them there and said, in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die or would they choose to obey the being who said,“ye shall not surely die?

Adam and Eve made the wrong choice. They sinned against God for themselves and all of their descendants. As the result of that choice the human race was alienated from God, human nature was corrupted and God’s judgement came upon the race. God’s judgement came on the woman in the words of Genesis 3:16:

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Despite all the progress of medicine, a woman’s pregnancy consists of nine months of assorted trials culminating in a very difficult time.

God’s judgement on the man is described in the words of Genesis 3:17-19:

And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Despite our increased knowledge of agriculture, man must still struggle with the ground for a crop. Despite our many labor saving inventions, man must earn his living by the sweat of his brow. Most of us can quit working only when we are ready to quit eating. The continuation of these judgements to the present time demonstrate that mankind is still under the curse which fell on him in the Garden of Eden.

Suppose that you are eating at your table. Your back door opens and a stranger enters your kitchen. He looks like a refugee from an oily machine shop. Without a word of greeting he pulls out an empty chair at your table, wipes his hands on one of your white linen napkins, pulls the meat platter his way and noisily eats a hearty meal Stretching himself he heads for your guest bedroom where he plops down on the white comforter without even removing his shoes. You are irate. He is treating your home as if he owns it. He has no right to do that. Just so, sinful man operates in God’s world with no recognition of God’s ownership and dominion over the world in general and himself in particular.

The first eleven chapters of the Bible are universal. They deal with the whole human race. However, at Genesis 12 the story of the Old Testament begins to follow the Jewish race. We meet a man called Abram, later renamed Abraham. Genesis 12:1-3 tells us:

Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

The remainder of the Book of Genesis tells us the development of the family of Abraham and the rest of the Old Testament is the history of the Jewish nation. Gentiles pass through its pages but the record follows the Jews. Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, has twelve sons and these sons are the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel. The key to understanding the importance of Abraham is the truth given in Genesis 15:6:

And he believed in the Lord: and he counted it to him for righteousness.

That text tells us that Abraham received righteousness from God in response to his faith. That truth, repeated about Abraham several times, is one of the key points of Scripture. Righteousness is obtained by faith. Remember that. We will come back to it.

When it comes to the Book of Exodus the descendants of Abraham are in Egypt. They began their time in Egypt as welcomed guests but ended it four hundred years later as despised slaves. Exodus is the record of how God raised up Moses as a deliverer and led the Israelites out of Egypt.

God promised to lead the nation back to Canaan where Abraham had lived. That was not far away. However, before heading for Palestine, God led them into the rocky wilderness of the Sinai peninsula and gave them His law. These were slave people with no concept of the government of themselves or their new nation. From Exodus 20 through the Book of Leviticus we have the law given, and in Deuteronomy we have it reviewed.

It will help you in reading the Old Testament law to realize that there are three kinds of law. First, there is moral law. This is what is found in passages like Exodus 20 where the ten commandments are given. Take Exodus 20:3-4 and 13-16 as a sample:

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

The moral law is permanent because it is an expression of the character of God. Our current generation considers moral law to be only a convenience of society which may be changed by consensus. God, however, will hold every man guilty for violation of His moral law.

The moral law is the will of a holy God. The New Testament in Romans 7:12 remarks that “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” We are not dealing with a human law code but with the word of a holy God. Exodus 15:11 states that God is “glorious in holiness”. 

Perhaps you have driven down the road and said to your spouse, “Isn’t this a glorious day!” By that you mean that the day is just as perfect as a day can be. That is what it means when the Bible says that god is “glorious in holiness”. God is perfectly holy – just as holy as it is possible to be. We are not dealing with a God who accepts “not bad”, “good enough”, or “that will do”. God’s holiness requires moral perfection. Nothing else will do.

Second, there is the civil law. Israel had no experience of government so God gave them practical laws by which to regulate themselves. A good example is Exodus 21:28-29:

If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.

The civil law was temporary but embodied permanent principles. The idea that a man is more responsible if he knows that his animal is dangerous is still a part of jurisprudence today.

Third, there is ceremonial law. This is what the Book of Leviticus is all about. It is the most difficult kind of law for our society to understand. Let’s take Leviticus 1:2-5 for a sample:

Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD. And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

When a man desired to approach God about the forgiveness of a sin he had to bring a blood sacrifice. This showed the truth that the wage of sin is always death. The fact that his sacrifice had to be without blemish was pointing to the fact that God’s ultimate sacrifice for sin would be perfect. The man had to identify himself with his offering by putting his hand on its head. This was foreshadowing the fact that man’s salvation was to be arranged through a substitute. The ceremonial law was deliberately temporary. It was a teaching tool to point men to the cross of Christ. We are not expected to keep the ceremonial law today.

The five books of the law end with Israel poised at the brink of the promised land. Moses dies and his understudy Joshua takes his place.

OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY

After the law we come to twelve books of history. They run from Joshua through Esther. They give us the history of the Jewish nation from Moses to the end of the Old Testament.

Joshua tells us how the promised land was conquered and divided to the tribes. Judges records how the land was governed with a system of judges whom God raised up when the people were godly. In I Samuel we learn how Israel changed from judges to a monarchy. The Books of II Samuel, I and II Kings and I and II Chronicles record the history of Israel’s days under monarchy. Actually, there were two monarchies for the nation split into two kingdoms known in history as Israel and Judah.

Let us take time to note four things which happened during the period of the Jewish kingdoms. First, God raised up the dynasty of David and promised that it would continue. God made a promise to David in II Samuel 7:16 which reads as follows:

And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.

Whenever the Kingdom of Judah had a legitimate king he was a descendent of David. That promise leads us to Jesus Christ who is the ultimate king of David’s line.

Second, lambs and other animals continued to be killed for the sins of men. The sacrifices which we sketched back in Leviticus continued to be offered over the period of this history.

Third, men wrote of their spiritual experiences in Books such as Psalms and Proverbs. David wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”. Psalm 23:1. Solomon wrote, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding”. Proverbs 3:5.

Fourth, the prophets wrote what God revealed to them. Sometimes they spoke to Israel and Judah and warned them of their impending doom. At other times they strung together a chain of predictions, like a string of pearls. Many of those predictions were about a coming person, the Messiah, who would be the answer to Israel’s needs and those of all men.

In the course of history both Jewish kingdoms forsook the God who made them great and ended in captivity. The ten tribes of Israel were captured by the Assyrians and so scattered that the people never got back to their homeland. The two tribes of Judah fell to the Babylonians. Some of them did get back to Palestine after seventy years. That story is told in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

OLD TESTAMENT POETRY

Following the history books we have the five books of poetry. Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon don’t look like poetry to us because they lack the rhyme and meter so common to English poetry. In these books godly men wrote of the things God had taught them in the experiences of life. They complain, they reason, and most of all they praise God. This section is filled with things which speak to our hearts because they were the outcry of other men’s hearts in circumstances similar to our own. Whatever your situation is you can find it in these books.

OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS

The Old Testament concludes with seventeen books of the prophets. The first five are usually called the major Prophets and the last twelve are termed the Minor Prophets. The prophesying of the prophets took place during the time period of the history books. When you reach the end of the twelve history books you have had all of the history. The poetic books and the prophetic books come after the history section in the Bible but all of the poets and prophets lived in the days of the history books. For example, David’s Psalms were written during the the time period of of I and II Samuel. Isaiah lived in the time period of II Kings and Daniel lived at the end of II Chronicles.

We mentioned before that the prophets strung a necklace of pearl-like promises about the coming Messiah. Let us consider three examples. First, look at Isaiah 7:14:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

About seven hundred years before it happened, Isaiah predicted that a virgin (we know her as Mary) would conceive and bear a son. He would fulfill the strange name of Immanuel which means, “God with us.” Many unbelievers have tried to remove the word “virgin” from the verse but it cannot be done if a translator is true to the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts.

Second, let us look at a prediction from one of the Minor Prophets in Micah 5:2:

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose going forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

That promise predicted that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. This was the promise that the Jewish scholars quoted to Herod when he inquired where Christ (Messiah) was to be born. The promise made it clear that the Messiah would be an eternal person, “whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting”.

Third, take a look at Isaiah 53. This chapter is the most extensive prediction in the prophets of the substitutionary suffering and death of Jesus Christ. Read the words of Isaiah 53:5-6:

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

The essence of this prediction is the substitutionary nature of Christ’s sacrifice. The transgressions, the iniquities, the deserved chastisement and stripes were all ours; but He bore them. We, like wandering sheep, went astray but the guilt was laid upon Him. Back in Leviticus, as we thought about the ceremonial law, we saw the picture of the lamb in the sacrifice with it’s master’s sin laid upon it. The picture is expanded here as Isaiah looked forward to Christ.

So ends our bird’s-eye glimpse of the Old Testament. We have ignored many things; but we have noted those threads which are most vital.

THE GOSPELS

Skipping about four hundred years of silence which lie between the testaments we enter the New Testament and meet Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They give us four independent narratives of the life of Jesus Christ.

Though independent, they are in agreement as to the facts of history. Christ was born at Bethlehem, as Micah said. After about thirty years He came into His ministry. His forerunner, John the Baptist, who was about six months older than He, proclaimed that Jesus was coming. When John the Baptist saw Jesus approaching him he introduced Him with a significant statement in John 1:29:

         The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

John, trained in the Jewish law, was thinking of that chain of sacrificial lambs whose blood stained the sands of the Old Testament. He saw that those lambs predicted this Lamb who would fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy of finally suffering for sin. Men call Jesus the great physician, the master teacher, and the prince of peace; but John saw that his great purpose was to be the Lamb of God Who would take away the sin of the world.

The four Gospels begin their stories in different ways. Matthew and Luke give birth narratives of Christ. Mark and John do not. However, all four narratives end in the same way, with the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The crucifixion and the resurrection are the core and climax of the way of salvation God provided for man. Christ came to be the Lamb of God who would die on the cross bearing the penalty for our sin. Isaiah predicted it. John the Baptist understood it. The Gospels bear testimony to the fact that Christ accomplished what He came to do. The resurrection was the ultimate stamp of God’s approval on the finished work of Christ.

Before we leave the Gospels let me say a word about heaven and hell. On the night before His death Jesus spoke to his disciples about heaven by saying,

         In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:2-3 KJV)

He taught that heaven is a place in God’s universe, just as your hometown is a place. He taught that it is the place where God dwells, the place from which He came, and the place where He now resides. The New Testament speaks of heaven as a place prepared for those who have trusted Christ’s work. It is a place of rest, of perfect spiritual knowledge, of the presence of God, of light, of worship, and of service. Unrighteousness, pain, sorrow, and tears are absent from it.

The opposite side of the coin is that hell is also a place. Jesus Christ taught that too. It exists because of the wrath of a holy God upon sin. You may not like to think of God’s wrath; but, John 3:36, the last verse of that chapter in which Jesus declared that, “God so loved the world”, says:

         He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

According to Christ’s instruction hell is a place of eternal darkness, of pain and sorrow, of fire and brimestone and of separation from God. Man would like to eliminate that thought from the future, but Jesus said in Luke 12:4:

         And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY

We had that title for twelve books in the Old Testament. In the New Testament it covers a single book, the Book of Acts. Acts gives us the history of what happened after Christ had been crucified, resurrected and ascended to heaven. God sent the gift of the Holy Spirit on the believers as Christ had promised.

Empowered in that way, the previously timid disciples began to preach the Gospel to a lost world. As they preached men believed in Jesus Christ. Those who believed associated in local groups called churches with a government by their own elders.

One of the most notable converts was Saul of Tarsus. After his conversion he became known as Paul and was the great missionary to the Gentiles. His ministry left churches in places like Galatia, Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth and Ephesus. Those key cities of the Roman Empire became centers from which the message of salvation radiated over the countryside. Much of the Book of Acts is devoted to Paul’s ministry.

THE EPISTLES

The largest section of the New Testament consists of twenty one epistles. Epistle is a fancy word for a letter. At least thirteen of these letters were written by Paul, with others by Peter, John, James and Jude. Most of them were written to first century churches like Rome, Corinth or Thessalonica. Others were written to men like Timothy and Titus who were pastoring churches. Some were written specifically to Hebrew Christians.

In the epistles we find the doctrine and practice of Christianity laid out in finished form for the guidance of the infant churches. Truth is given and error is corrected. I would like to comment on two passages from the epistles because they clear up two modern problems that folks have with Christianity.

First, read the words of I Corinthians 15:1-4:

         Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved,   if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in   vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rse again the third day according to the scriptures”.

If you were to ask many people today (even preachers), “What is the gospel?” they would give a wrong answer. They might say, “The gospel is loving your neighbor and doing good”. Such a vague definition is not from Scripture. These verses make it very plain that the gospel is the message that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, was buried and rose from the grave. Modernism has dishonestly redefined the gospel as a message of toleration, integration and socialization. That is false. The gospel is a message of salvation for men who are guilty before a holy God.

Second, consider a list which is given in Galatians 5:19-21:

         Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery,           fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of   God.

The title of this list is, “the works of the flesh.” You may read the list and say, “I haven’t done all those things.” We hope you haven’t; but that list describes our flesh. It tells the sin of which we are capable if we let ourselves go. It is a lurid description of our sinful nature. A holy God cannot defile heaven with such people.

Now look at the following verses in Galatians 5:22-23:

         But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

The title of this list is, “the fruit of the Spirit.” Spirit is correctly capitalized as it is talking about the Holy Spirit whom God places in a man’s heart when he is saved. You will notice that these good things are not the things we do but the good fruit which the Spirit produces when He is in us.

A number of years ago a preacher presented the gospel to two wealthy women who had attended his church. He went through the plan of salvation with them. Both saw that they were guilty before God. Both understood that Christ died for them; but neither of them were ready to receive Christ as Savior. One of the women gave the reason. She explained that, in their niche in society, there was a lot of drinking and sinful conduct which followed. She confessed that she liked that part of her life. She did not want to give that up. The preacher’s advice to her was unusual. He advised her to come to Christ and then to drink as much as she wanted. Both ladies cast themselves on Christ that day. A week later the speaker of the two called the preacher and told him that she wanted him to know that she had been saved a whole week and had not had a single drink. The preacher opined that she was not following his advice. Whereupon she replied, “Since I have been a Christian I have lost my taste for all that stuff”. Then she added, “You knew that would happen”.

We don’t retell this incident to tell a happy story. Rather, we tell it to point out that salvation is not remaking yourself by dealing with your sinful habits. No, it is accepting God’s sacrifice for your sin, receiving the Holy Spirit, and allowing Him to deal with your sinful life and to produce in you the fruit of the Spirit.

NEW TESTAMENT PROPHECY

This is the final division of the New Testament. In the Old Testament there were seventeen books of prophecy. Here there is only one, Revelation. It is not our purpose to study Revelation here. Revelation brings us to the end of all things in God’s program. After a time of great tribulation unleashed by a one-world government presided over by the Antichrist, we have the rapture of the saints with the resurrection of their bodies at the triumphant return of Jesus Christ to rule and reign a millennial kingdom set up by Him, and ushering in “a new heaven and a new earth” where God Himself will reign forever and ever.

Conclusion

We have tried to give you a bird’s-eye tour of the Bible. We hope you see that it has been more than a book review. We have sought to show you that the great theme of the Bible is the perfect salvation which God has provided for man through Jesus Christ who came into this world in human flesh to be the lamb of God who would die for our sins. We hope you see that truth. However, just seeing the truth will not save you. You need to make a life changing decision.

An insurance salesman coming into your home would try to show you that you needed insurance. Then he would seek to persuade you that he had the policy you needed. However, if you were convinced of both things you still would not be insured. Knowledge alone will not insure you. Likewise, knowledge alone will not save you.

God has made provision so that your sins can be forgiven, your life can be changed, and your soul can be delivered from hell. You can have a sure hope of heaven. How can you appropriate for yourself what God has provided? When the Bible talks about becoming a Christian, it uses one of two concepts. Look at the words of John 1:12:

        But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.

The first concept here is the picture of receiving Christ. If we were to knock on your door and ask to enter your home you would have a choice as to whether or not to receive us. Receiving us would be as simple as saying, “Yes, I would like you to come in”. Receiving Christ is quite similar. If you are convinced that you are a lost sinner; if you are ready to repent of that sin; if you realize that Christ died for you; then you are ready to say with an honest heart, “Lord Jesus, come into my heart and save my soul”. These are not magic words. Rather, they are an eternal, legal transaction with the Savior who died for your sin.

The second concept in John 1:12 is the idea of believing on Jesus Christ. In our culture we use the word “believe” in a light way. If you ask almost anyone whether they believe in Jesus Christ they will give a positive reply; yet it is obvious that most are not saved. What is the difference?

We hesitate to use the following illustration. Since we first heard the story we have heard differing versions, and we are not sure of its accuracy. Whether or not the incident is perfectly accurate, the truth it teaches is. 

Charles Blondin was once the greatest tightwire artist in the world. A plaque down the river from Niagara Falls memorializes his feat of crossing the gorge with his manager on his back. One morning he was performing in London. His wire was stretched between two tall buildings. It had been announced that he would cook breakfast on the wire. At the appointed time he appeared with a small wheelbarrow. Wheeling it to the center of the wire he suspended it, lighted a kerosene stove, fried an egg and made coffee. When he had finished he put his dishes in the wheelbarrow and proceeded to the other building. It seemed as if all the boys in London were assembled there to talk to him. Picking out their spokesman Blondin asked if he had been afraid when the artist was out on the wire. The boy assured him that he had not been afraid. He never doubted the acrobat’s ability. Blondin pushed the conversation further by asking if the boy believed he could put a man in his wheelbarrow and take him to the other side. The boy replied that he believed that and would not be afraid to see it done. Then, Blondin challenged the small talker by saying, “Get in my wheelbarrow and I will take you over”. At that point the confident boy disappeared as if he evaporated. He believed -or so he thought-but he was not about to try it. 

Likewise, saving faith is more than saying, “I believe”. It is putting yourself in Christ’s wheelbarrow and trusting Him to forgive your sin, to change your life and to get you safely all the way from earth to glory.

We have said little in these pages about repentance. It is not the way of salvation, but it is something necessary to it. God does not save sinners who wish to continue in their sin. God saves men and women who are sick of their sin and want to be delivered from it. You will not be saved until you recognize your sin, admit it, and desire God’s deliverance from it with all of your heart.

Friend, if you desire that deliverance with all of your heart, find a quiet place and pour out your soul to God. Confess to Him that you are a lost sinner and are sick of your sin. Tell Him that you realize that Jesus Christ died to pay the penalty for you. Ask Him to save your soul. Trust Him with all your heart. If you do so you will have all eternity to be thankful.