Clear as a Bell

“They (the words that God’s speaks) are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge.”  Proverbs 8:9

How many folks use the excuse for not reading the Bible because they don’t understand it.  I will admit that there are some passages that are difficult to decipher such as the book of Revelation, some of Daniel’s writings, and even some of the things that Paul writes I have trouble understanding in the KJV because the terms and customs were different than today.  I like the KJV because that is what I grew up with, and I use the verses from it in my blogs because it is not copyrighted, thus permission is not required to use it in print.  Of course, there are many other versions of scripture, but I have found a few errors in one version in particular.  Even so, in all versions, overall, the Bible’s message is “clear as a bell”.  (I don’t know from where that phrase originated, but when one hears that sound, there is no doubt that it is a bell.)

When one reads scripture, there is no doubt that God wrote it, unless one is a skeptic, an atheist, or an agnostic who refuse to acknowledge that there is a God who created the world and every living thing in it.  The clear message of the Bible is that man is a sinner whose sin separates him from a righteous and holy God, but he can be made perfect in God’s eyes by the blood of Christ who died to pay man’s sin debt and rose again to justify man before God.  The blood is applied to a sinner’s heart, covering over his or her sin, when he or she repents of sin and places faith in Christ.  It doesn’t get any plainer than that.  But here is the dilemma for many folks:  they do not want to admit that they are sinners.  Their pride tells them that they are just as good as the one who professes to be a Christian.  The thing is, morally speaking, they may behave as well or maybe better than the average Christian.  Years ago, when my son had his landscape business, his best and most generous customer claimed to be an atheist.  However, being a good and generous person is not the criteria for heaven.

It is not the world’s standard of goodness, fairness, generosity, and doing good deeds by which all men and women will be held to account; it is God’s standard, which is perfection.  The only way to meet that standard of perfection is to come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  He is perfect.  His righteousness is imputed to all those who believe in and are committed to Him.  Because of Christ’s blood that was shed on the cross to pay the penalty for the sins of men and women, boys and girls, God cannot see the sin of those who are covered spiritually by His blood.  Blood is opaque, which means it can’t be seen through.  I remember when the movie by Mel Gibson came out several years ago, “The Passion of the Christ”, a Hollywood celebrity was asked about it, and she said it was disgusting to portray all that blood.  Hollywood certainly doesn’t have any problem portraying lots of blood in its violent movies, but Jesus’ blood is different.  There is power in His blood as the old gospel song says, wonder-working power.

The words of scripture which tell us about the blood of Jesus, His sacrifice, His resurrection, and the reason for His death are the very words that can pardon, redeem, justify, and immeasurably bless a person, but they are also the words that many do not want to hear.  I think it’s not so much that sinners do not understand scripture, but that they do.