Some signs can be difficult to interpret

We seem surrounded by signs wherever we go these days. The shops are full of them, guiding us to all the bargains they want us to buy. Go to a park or garden and signs will tell you all the things you can’t do.

Don’t park here. Don’t leave your car unlocked. Don’t walk on the grass. Don’t pick the flowers.

And so on. There must be good business for those who make signs.

The most confusing type seem to be saved up for our roads. It is all-important to take the right turns at the right places when you are travelling, and while the signs are often there, they can still be confusing. Out in the wide open spaces you may have time to consult the map and think about the forks in the road, but it is harder when travelling on fast urban roads to be sure you are in the right lane and ready to exit at the right place.

Even more serious
Finding your way through life is made more difficult by all the signs that surround us. Communication has never been more widespread and effective, making the propagation of ideas more prolific. How can anyone make sense of all the claims made by humanists, religionists, cultists, trendies, greenies... and on and on it goes.

I have a great deal of sympathy for young people growing up with all these signs and sounds around them. They wonder “Who is right?” “How can I find my way through this maze?” Of course, today we have made tolerance the highest virtue. The test is not ‘Is it true or false?’ but whether you can live with all the contradictions that abound and say nothing about them.

Does anything stand out?
Those who push ideas are sure they are on the right track. As we look on, we either say that no-one has the truth, or that all have some kind of truth. Logically, where contradictions exist, either someone has the truth or no-one does. We can’t just ignore the fact that ideas collide head-on, revealing that someone is wrong.

Sceptics ask triumphantly ‘Which God do you suggest I worship?’ feeling they have you in a corner. There can only be one Supreme Being. Imagine someone introducing two or more world championship holders in the same sport. Surely there can be only one. And Almighty God cannot have any rivals.

He stands out
I will conform to the idea of a level playing field of ideas when it can be shown that Jesus was just another man. No-one can explain Jesus satisfactorily and keep him as a faulty human being like the rest of us. See the way His life was predicted centuries before it happened. See the kind of life He lived, the words He spoke, the death He died and the crowning resurrection. See today the fulfilling of the things He forecast for the end times. Note that He was never mistaken in anything he said.

The way is open
Don’t be concerned by all the divisions in the Christian church. Nor by the erring of many who claim to be followers of Christ. Come to Him on His terms and receive His amazing grace that forgives and eternally embraces. There is no other way. He said so: “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me” (John chapter 14, verse 6).