How to Save the World

I think you would agree that the world is in a bad state. Death, disease, disaster, war, animosity, poverty, and the like ravage our planet with no end in sight. Theft and cheating and greed and the like are ever-present. What is the rescue from such a situation?

With all the world’s wisdom and knowledge, it cannot come up with its own way of salvation. Human wisdom cannot fix man’s sin or provide ultimate rescue from the horrid condition of death and devastation on the face of our planet. Education cannot solve the world’s problems. Money doesn’t fix it. Authoritarianism doesn’t solve it. Reform doesn’t improve it. Psychology cannot repair it. Medicine cannot heal it. Welfare only disguises the problem. All the world’s works-based religions don’t provide victory over rebellion against God. Multiplying legislation provides no hope either, for it only serves to add more sin to the sin we already have.

In fact, not only does the world’s wisdom not fix the human condition, it often makes it worse. Consider the wisdom of the world in its approach to over-population and unwanted people: murdering unborn babies. Billions of them. Or, how about the wisdom of the world in constructing a utopian society: communism. The death toll from that in the last century or so is 100 million. How about the misery under such a governmental system? It takes a resource-rich nation like Venezuela and impoverishes it within a few years. How did fascism work out? This ideology directly led to the deaths of millions in concentration camps and the Second World War. How about secular education? Pushing God out means that worldly educators have to cast about for some fiction to tell their students—like evolution. When you turn away from the true answers and throw God out of the system, all that is left is made up stuff, which is not much different than worshipping a golden calf. It cannot move or speak or do anything.

Where the problem of human wisdom is most acute is in the realm of spiritual/religious matters. The seemingly diverse results of human wisdom have created the world’s hundreds of religious systems. Yet in their supposed diversity, they produce a broadly similar approach to God in which man is sovereign and makes the ultimate decisions about his soul, usually by good works to achieve merit.

Through worldly wisdom, you cannot be saved, you cannot be forgiven, you cannot know God, the world’s problems cannot be fixed—all these are impossible on the strength of human intellect. Human smarts and “righteous” works are but filthy rags before God when it comes to relating to Him. They have their place—but not in boasting. Their proper place is in service to God.

Salvation in all its aspects is available in Christ, despite how the world sees Him and His work. This is to the glory of God in Christ.