Afraid to Believe

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 29, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 38.

Afraid to Believe

DISBELIEF does not alter facts, tho we try our best to make it do so. It is a fact that sin brings an assured and terrible penalty; few of us like to believe this, and so we say that we do not believe it—as we let ourselves indulge in this or that variation from the highest standard. Evangelist Biederwolf struck home with many a listener when he asserted, “What a man is most afraid of he says he doesn’t believe in.”

A thoughtful man once said to a friend with vehemence, “If I had to believe in everlasting punishment, I could not believe in God.” Some time later he said to that same friend, “If you ever know of my being so sick that I am sure to die, I hope you will tell me that I can not recover, so that I may have a chance to make my peace with God before I go.” He did believe in future punishment; it was the thing that he was most afraid of; therefore, he tried to make himself think that he did not believe in it. But he was ready to minimize the possible danger by an eleventh-hour peacemaking with God, if he got the chance.

The manlier way is to face the facts and live by them in surrender to God. When God is our accepted master, there are no facts that we fear.—Sunday School Times.