Answers
By BGEA Admin • November 22, 2023 • Topics: Bible
Q:
I lead a young adults Bible class and try to address the difficulties they face from a Biblical perspective. The things they deal with are overwhelming, but I believe that the issues confronting them have to do with an unhealthy focus on themselves. They are deceived, believing that life owes them a perfect life, yet their hearts are disenchanted when things don’t go the way they expected. Does the Bible address this darkness that is permeating our culture, even in the church?
A:
From the writings of the Rev. Billy Graham
Only in fairy tales do people live charmed lives. We may think that some people have it all, but if we turn the pages of their lives, we will see the sorrow and burdens they often bear. Sometimes life touches one person with a bouquet and another with a thorn bush. But the first may find a wasp in the flowers, and the second may discover roses among the thorns.
The Bible speaks of deceptions in the last days. “Perilous times will come. [People] will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!” (2 Timothy 3:1–5).
The focus on self has led our society into a fascination with pleasure, emotional and sexual stimulation, and “personal fulfillment.” The compulsion for maximum personhood is evidenced everywhere. The Bible never promised that life would be fair. Christian living that sounds like a magazine cover story may leave us unprepared for a world where Hell does break loose. For the Christian, though, God’s Word tells us that Jesus came that we “may have life, and that [they] may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10, NKJV). We must keep our eyes on Christ and not others.
(This column is based on the words and writings of the late Rev. Billy Graham.)
