Are You Holding Fast Your Confidence?
THE Bible throughout its pages breathes the spirit of confidence. Confidence in the existence of the Creator, Jehovah God; confidence in the truthfulness of his Word, the Bible; confidence in God’s ability to fulfill that which he has promised. Yes, and also God’s confidence in the ability of some of his creatures to keep integrity.
In view of all this there certainly is no valid excuse whatever for our not holding fast our confidence in God and in what he has promised us, no logical reason for our not remaining constant in our faith and service to him. Yet such is not an easy thing to do, and especially so in view of the perilous times in which we are now living—the days Jesus foretold when the love of many would grow cold because of the increase of lawlessness, when the wisdom of this world musters all its weapons to destroy faith in Jehovah’s Word, and when Satan is enraged as never before.—2 Tim. 3:1-6; Rev. 12:12.
More timely than ever before, then, is Paul’s admonition that “we make fast our hold on the confidence we had at the beginning firm to the end.” (Heb. 3:14, NW) How shall we go about doing this? Take a course at some theological seminary? No, for even some of the world’s foremost theologians fail to hold fast their confidence. Note, for example, William Ralph Inge, K.C.V.O., F.B.A., D.D., who was considered one of England’s most influential clerics between World Wars I and II, for twenty-three years the dean of St. Paul’s cathedral in London and the author of twenty-five books on religion. In November, 1953, at the age of ninety-three, he was interviewed by a reporter for the London Express and from that interview we give the following representative quotations:
“If I could live my life over again I don’t think I should be a clergyman. I have never been happy about the Church of England. I do not love the human race. I have loved just a few of them. The rest are a pretty mixed lot. I hope I haven’t entirely wasted my life. But I don’t think the world is a better place for having had me in it. The world is no better and probably no worse. It is the same as it always has been and, no doubt, always will be.
“All my life I have struggled to find the purpose of living. I have tried to answer three problems which always seemed to me to be fundamental: The problem of eternity, the problem of human personality, and the problem of evil. I have failed. I have solved none of them and I know no more now than when I started. And I believe no one ever will solve them.
“I know as much about the after-life as you—nothing. I don’t even know there is one—in the sense in which the church teaches it. I have no vision of ‘heaven’ or a ‘welcoming God.’ I do not know what I shall find. I must wait and see.”
He also confessed that he had enough of life and was tired of waiting to die.
What a confession of failure, of loss of confidence for a professed Christian minister to make! How unlike the example set by Christ Jesus! He, on the night of his betrayal, stated in his prayer to his heavenly Father that he had completed the work for which he had been sent to earth. Jesus felt no regrets. There was no question in his mind as to what God’s purpose for him was. As he told Pilate the following day: “For this purpose I have been born and for this purpose I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.” He left a model for us that we must follow closely. He commanded his followers to “make disciples of people of all the nations.” Yes, THE work of Christians is to “‘declare abroad the excellencies’ of the one that called [them] out of darkness into his wonderful light.”—John 17:4; 18:37; Matt. 28:19; 1 Pet. 2:9, NW.
There is no reason for a Christian to be perplexed over the problem of eternity. He knows that his finite mind cannot comprehend the infinities of space and time and so by faith he also accepts the fact of Jehovah God’s infinity. (Ps. 90:2) Nor is the Christian disturbed over the permission of evil, for as Jehovah plainly told Pharaoh, who served as a representation of the Devil even as Moses served as a representation of Christ: “For this cause I have kept you in existence, for the sake of showing you my power and in order to have my name declared in all the earth.”—Ex. 9:16, NW.
Nor need the Christian minister pessimistically opine that this old world will always continue as it is, for Jesus, in telling us to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is done in heaven, clearly indicated that some day a new world would replace this old one, a new heavens and a new earth that Jehovah long ago promised, even as the apostle Peter reminds us.—Matt. 6:10; Isa. 65:17; 2 Pet. 3:9, 13, NW.
A theologian may not know what to expect in the after-death, but Christ Jesus knew, and so did the apostle Paul. For that matter, so did all God’s faithful servants in both Christian and pre-Christian times and they stressed the hope of the resurrection time and again.—John 5:28, 29.
Why should these simple and plain truths be beyond the reach of learned theologians? Could it be because of pride and selfishness? Yes, is it not the height of conceit to say: ‘I don’t know; you don’t know; no one will ever know,’ as does Inge? And what selfishness in his words: “I do not love the human race. I have loved just a few of them. The rest are a pretty mixed lot”! How different the pattern Jesus set: “On seeing the crowds he felt tender affection for them, because they were skinned and knocked about like sheep without a shepherd.”—Matt. 9:36, NW.
There is every reason for us to hold fast our confidence in God firm to the end of this old system of things, for “not one word has failed of all his good promise.” (1 Ki. 8:56, RS) And we can hold fast our confidence, not by going to some theological seminary, but by going to the Bible in the spirit of humility, willing to accept the help God provides, and then showing love for our neighbor by telling him about the things we have learned. Are you holding fast to your confidence?
The name of Jehovah is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.—Prov. 18:10, AS.