FOOLISHNESS TO THEM THAT PERISH
By Elder Harold Hunt, Maryville, TN.
I asked someone recently to summarize for me what he understood the gospel to teach. He thought about it for a long time, and he finally said, “Christ came into this world to suffer and die in order that people could be saved. And anybody can be saved, if they will only repent and believe the gospel, and live according to its precepts.” I wrote his statement out on a scrap of paper and asked him if he thought that was an accurate statement of what it took for a person to live in heaven someday. He said he did.
I asked him if he should take that little paper and show it to his pastor, and what his pastor would think of it. Would he think it was reasonable or foolish? He allowed his pastor to think it was reasonable. I asked him if he showed his statement to a thousand ministers of various denominations (and I listed a string of them for him), what would they think about it? He said that some of them might want to add “enduring to the end” or “water baptism,” etc., to the formula, but that, in general, they would all agree with the statement.
I asked him if he took that paper to one hundred of the meanest men in town, what would they think of it? What would the gambler, the bootlegger, the drunkard, and the thief think about it? He allowed that the meanest man in town would have to agree with that statement. He said, “The meanest man in town does not want to be saved, but he would agree that when he gets ready to be saved, that’s what it will take.” He could not think of anybody who would challenge the statement.
I said, “Do you realize that you have just proved that that statement is not the gospel?”
“What do you mean?”
“That statement could not be the gospel. TOO MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE IT.” If that statement were the gospel, this old, wicked world would reject it. You will never find such a ready market as that for the gospel. This old world has no use for the gospel. Let me read something to you. “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” 1 Cor. 1:18. When preachers and gamblers, deacons and thieves agree about what the gospel is, you can count on it, “the blind are leading the blind.”
Then I turned the paper over and wrote this statement. “Before a person is born again, he is not in such dreadful condition that he cannot repent of sin, he cannot have faith, he cannot please God, he cannot even want to please God. If God waits for the sinner to repent of sin and have faith in him before he saves him, there will never be the first sinner saved.” I showed him the statement and asked him what he thought of it. Was it reasonable or foolish? He said it was foolish. I asked him what his pastor would think of it. What would a thousand preachers, chosen at random, think of it? What would the meanest man in town think of it? He was sure that just about anybody he asked would think the statement was foolish.
Paul was right. I never doubted it for a minute. “The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.” The contrary system could not be the truth. Too many people believe it. The contrary system is too much at peace with the world.—Harold Hunt
