Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Is it difficult to believe good news? Frankly, it seems like it is. According to the Bible, the root problem of mankind is that we have gotten into the rut of believing bad news so that unbelief is natural for us. Since God has nothing for us but good news, it is obvious that our proclivity for bad news (says Paul) is the result of our being both "alienated from God and ... enemies," so that our "sinful mind is hostile to God" (Col. 1:21; Rom. 8:7, NIV). And none of us are naturallyexempt, for the apostle adds that we are all "like the rest" "in our natural condition" (Eph. 2:3, NEB). Until we have met the Lord Jesus and become acquainted with Him, this alienation results in "having the understanding darkened ... through ... ignorance ... because of ... blindness (Eph. 4:18).
The main problem is that this alienation for mankind in general is the result of a wrong conception of the character of God. The history of paganism demonstrates how multitudes have entertained the feeling that God is an enemy to be feared and placate in order to propitiate His mercy. Even some so-called Christian groups have had much the same idea. A mediator or mediatrix is needed to shield us from the "wrath" of an offended Deity. For sure, having such a "God" standing over you breathing hot wrath down your neck is the worst possible kind of bad news.
Today we say that we are safely past this global state of adolescence, and it is even popular in some circles to discard all ideas of a personal God. But still the innate fear of bad news keeps surfacing, and all our modern comforts and inventions seem powerless to assuage our dark forebodings.
The "Peanuts" cartoon strip is one of many efforts to recognize this substratum of fear. We may laugh at ourselves for being so much like Charlie Brown, but the fact is that bad news has us all pretty well hyped. Modern science has not assuaged our fear of cancer, of death, of accidents, or of personal failure.
The devil is the ultimate source of all bad news. When it comes to salvation, bad news is actually a lie the devil delights to repeat. We are told that "he is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44). He wants us to believe bad news, like a stalking cobra paralyzes its fear-crazed, hypnotized victim into standing still until the serpent strikes. Bad news paralyzes the human soul, so that one can't do anything constructive toward solving the problem that appears so unsolvable.
Truth is invariably good news, for the reason that there is no such thing as truth except "in love" (Eph. 4:15), and love is always good news. Truth comes from God. He never gives a person a message of hopeless despair.
--Robert J. Wieland
From Signs of the Times, "The Good News Is Better Than You Think," May 1986.
Copyright © 2013 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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