[b]A Letter From An Atheist
Eye Opening Insights
"You are really convinced that you've got all the answers. You've really got yourself tricked into believing that you're 100% right. Well, let me tell you just one thing. Do you consider yourself to be compassionate of other humans? If you're right, as you say you are, and you believe that, then how can you sleep at night? When you speak with me, you are speaking with someone who you believe is walking directly into eternal damnation, into an endless onslaught of horrendous pain which your 'loving' god created, yet you stand by and do nothing.
If you believed one bit that thousands every day were falling into an eternal and unchangeable fate, you should be running the streets mad with rage at their blindness. That's equivalent to standing on a street corner and watching every person that passes you walk blindly directly into the path of a bus and die, yet you stand idly by and do nothing. You're just twiddling your thumbs, happy in the knowledge that one day that 'walk' signal will shine your way across the road.
Think about it. Imagine the horrors Hell must have in store if the Bible is true. You're just going to allow that to happen and not care about saving anyone but yourself? If you're right then you're an uncaring, unemotional and purely selfish (expletive) that has no right to talk about subjects such as love and caring."
Life Changing Incident For C.T. Studd
One of the turning points in the life of Studd, diverting him to a life of missionary leadership from athletic fame and financial ease, was a brief tract. An atheist wrote the lines: “Did I firmly believe, as millions say they do, that the knowledge and practice of religion in this life influences destiny in another, religion would mean everything to me. I would cast away earthly enjoyments as dross, earthly cares as follies, and earthly thoughts and feelings as vanity. Religion would be my first waking thought and my last image before sleep sank me into unconsciousness. I should labour in its cause alone. I would take thought for the morrow of Eternity alone. I would esteem one soul gained for heaven worth a life of suffering. Earthly consequences should never stay my hand nor seal my lips. Earth—its joys and its griefs—would occupy no moment of my thoughts. I would strive to look upon Eternity alone and on the immortal souls around me soon to be everlastingly happy or everlastingly miserable. I would go forth to the world and preach to it in season and out of season, and my text would be, ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?’“
Whether or not this was composed in mockery of the church, we do know that Studd, who captained the cricket team of Cambridge in his last year (1883), ranks as one of the greatest athletes that England has ever known. With his two brothers he established a record never yet matched at the University of Cambridge, each of them serving as captain of the cricket team in successive years. And with six other distinguished young men, C. T. Studd formed the well-known “Cambridge Seven” that went out to China on missionary service. Ten years afterwards Studd was touring the American universities at the start of the famous Student Volunteer movement of this land. In 1910 once again he commanded attention by starting to evangelize the largest unreached mission field of Africa. And to think that an atheist helped to point the way! “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light,” our Lord said.
Does the present generation of believers need the same kind of awakening as Studd? In the opinion of many, Satan is lulling the church into a sense of contentment and relaxation today, so far as the great essentials of the Faith are concerned, hiding from vision, for example, the primary task to reach the ends of the earth with Christ’s message. The Evil One knows by long experience how to circumscribe thought, so that all our concern focuses on the local congregation and denomination as if the church was needing our support rather than lending us all our support in virtue of its own inherent strength, born of God. In some cases today, too, the Enemy sidetracks conservative Christians by promoting useless controversy (whether with true or false brethren, it really makes little difference in the end). He can even halt the progress of world evangelization by getting us occupied with church union, since that often amounts to no more than far-fetched, impractical plans for organization and administration. It is not difficult to bury oneself under statistics and the burden of committee meetings, harmonizing activities of one sort or another. Not that all of this is uncalled for, but simply that basic things may not be kept foremost, putting first what Christ Himself placed first.
To be sure, our own house must be put in order before those outside can be proffered aid. But let it never be forgotten that a worldwide ministry will prove a blessing in the meantime, as a definite means to the end that the church at home be revived. Experience will testify to this. Outside interest, so far from weakening the home church, will divert into other channels what otherwise might be a rising tide of selfishness with its attendant bickering.