HOW CHRISTIANITY WORKS
About the. author. J. V. Melchizedec is 35 and lives in Madras State, South India. His father was a convert from Brahmanism to Christianity, a rare thing in India. In this first-hand account Melchizedec tells how he, like his father, found in Christ "a kind of daybreak, a wondrous dawn and hour of revelation and vision."
How I was Apprehended by Christ
D uring my early age I was brought up in Christian nurture and discipline in the schools of Burma and India. I grew in the knowledge of the Bible as the only Word of God and Christ Jesus as the only way of salvation. But at 22, with a certain amount of education, I began to forsake all the ideas of the Christian religion as crude and illogical in the light of modem science and progressive thought. I had lost all hopes about Christ’s virgin birth and the bodily resurrection of our Lord. There was a growing fancy within me to rely more on the verdict of science than on Biblical revelation. I seemed heading swiftly toward skepticism and life had lost all meaning and purpose. I had considered a creature on earth is ushered into existence apparently to eat, grow and reproduce its kind. After that, its life’s part played out, it is swept off the stage by death. Life was but an “ eternal sport” and I was involved in the game by blind chance. Many critical ideas baffled my mind for solution and I found all my preconceived Chris tian ideas had been destroyed. The world appeared to me to be full of injustice, cruelty, greed, hate and other evils, the existence of which logically led me to a strong disbelief in God. For had He truly existed could anything dark or evil ever have flourished? Doubt upon doubt assailed me like black shadows dogging one’s footsteps. I found my self disinterested in religion. The very word became a synonym in my mind for a clever ruse to delude the credulous of the world. I had a good library of books on various subjects and I used to rummage among them during my leisure times. M y mind was full of different
ideologies such as Theosophism, Philosophic Hinduism and Marxism. But nothing offered me any real solace, peace and inner joy. M y mind took on the aspect of turbulent waters. While I was passing through this stage of mental turbulence a striking phrase came to my attention in an article in one of the Chris tian journals published in England. The phrase was God has answered everything in Christ and Christ is God’s answer. T h is phrase brought a flood of light and wonderful relief within my soul and thus opened to me the gate to eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The famous text in St. John 3:16 became a reality: “ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” I found that I was firmly gripped by the supernatural saving hand of our Lord. I saw what I was and what I was not. The Holy Spirit opened my eyes to apprehend the true nature of my fallen condition. He showed me that nothing could meet the longing of my soul until I had come into personal contact with Christ. Thus I, a sinner by nature and practice, became acquainted with God’s holy Son. New desires took possession of me and I wanted to live for and serve the one who had laid down His life on my behalf. His Spirit entered my heart and operated within me. The experience was so real that it was impossible to account for it apart from divine working and purpose. It is enough to say that Christ is a beacon to me of consolation and courage in this dark and dreary world of illusion, sorrow and suffering.
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