God does not give you a road map, and I’m glad He doesn’t because if He did, it would be boring, and it would take all of the romance out of it. God doesn’t do that. The will of God is not a road map.
While on an airplane...I said to this lawyer, “Man has only three problems: sin, sorrow, and death.”
He said, “No, there are more problems than that.”
I said, “All right, think about it and tell me a fourth problem.”
He thought for a while, and then he said, “Man has only three problems.”
Every other problem in the world is indeed just a subset of sin, sorrow, death, and the Bible is the only book on earth that has the answer to all three conditions.
I believe the greatest enemy of the Bible is the so-called Christian who simply ignores the Bible or disregards it. He gives only lip service to it.
“These hath God married and no man shall part:
Dust in the Bible and drought in the heart.”
It is much better to be a shouting Christian than a doubting Christian. We ought not walk around like a question mark with our heads bent over but like an exclamation mark. We should not be saying, “I hope I am saved,” or, “I think I am saved,” but, “Praise God, I know that I know that I am saved.”
I’ve heard this illustration used by those who believe in works plus grace: If you were rowing across a stream in a rowboat and pulled on one oar—we will call that “works”—you go around in a circle. But if you pull on the other oar—we will call that “faith”—you go around in a circle in the opposite direction. But then with a wise look on their face, they say both oars—faith and works—will get you across the stream. That may sound like a good illustration, but it has a fatal flaw: we are not going to heaven in a rowboat! We are going to heaven by the grace of God. It is not of self, and it is not of works.
Those early sailors did not have global positioning satellites and radio signals to guide them, yet they sailed over the trackless seas. In doing that they sailed by the stars. They kept their eye on the heavens, and they called that “keeping the stars.”
Keeping the stars is much like keeping the commandments. Any sailor could occasionally get blown off course, get distracted and waver this way or that. Yet he is keeping the stars.
When we keep the commandments, we steer by them. That does not speak of sinless perfection because none is perfect except Jesus Christ. But it does mean that our heart’s desire is to keep the Word of God.
Excerpt From: Adrian Rogers & Steve Rogers. “What Every Christian Ought to Know.”
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