What can you really count on?
But first — If a Gospel tract led you to this site, and you would like to talk (or correspond) about what it means to become a Christian . . .
Or . . . if you see yourself as a Christian, but you’re not doing anything for the Lord, or your church experience is too passive or lacks substance, etc., send me an email:
drdave@truthreallymatters.com
I’ll try to be helpful, offer some suggestions and, at least, be an encouragement to you.
Carshalton Also — Check out our website featuring our new tract designs . . . ThinkTracts.com
What?!? You’re a Christian and you don’t pass out Gospel tracts? Check out our tracts essay to change your mind.
This month’s essay (May, 2025) follows below . . .
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I subscribe to First Things, a monthly conservative journal with essays, book reviews, and even poetry on a wide variety of topics in politics, culture, and history. Authors and editors include those in the Roman Catholic faith, Orthodox, Jews, Protestants, and evangelicals. On balance, though, the perspective is predominantly Catholic, and consistently ecumenical. Everyone within Christendom is viewed as ‘Christian.’ This is, at times, annoying to me, albeit instructive. It is interesting to see the way conservative co-belligerents view the issues of the day, yet miss a properly biblical outlook.
Personally, I am decidedly non-ecumenical, embracing the principle often espoused by Cornelius Van Til, in that there are fundamentally only two distinct worldviews, belief and unbelief. Unbelief comes in many sub-varieties such as atheism, Hinduism, Islam, Roman Catholicism, Jehovah’s Witness-ism, Mormonism, etc. Namely, the big distinction in worldview is between those born again by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and those who are not, regardless of whether they claim to be part of Christendom. A consequence of this is that I can’t really see conservative Catholics, etc., as part of ‘my team.’ We may vote similarly, and be rooting for and against the same policies, but ultimately, you’re either with the Lord Jesus or against Him. It’s binary – that’s what Jesus said.
One column I enjoy each month is “The Back Page,” by Ephraim Radner. Radner is a theologian, author, and professor at Wycliffe College (University of Toronto). His March, 2025 offering is “Don’t Count On It,” which speaks to life’s uncertain path no matter how diligently or cleverly we plan. He discusses, for example, how friends drift apart over the years as things change – marriage, children, career, losses, locales, experiences – we become different people over time and a gulf may develop between friends.
I would point to James 4:13-17 . . . Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
Scripture clearly teaches that the believer’s trust must be in the Lord, who knows the future and holds each of our body’s atoms in His hand. The last verse above (17), emphasizes the primacy of doing right in the present moment, which is the only moment in which we live.
Radner asserts: “We cannot plan our lives and we do not create our futures.” He notes that Catholics and Protestants alike tend to use pious language about trusting in God, but their intent is for God to fulfill their own hopes and dreams, citing the promise in Psalm 37:4 . . . “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. I think Radner misses the best interpretation of this promise. It is not that we start with our desires and seek the Lord so He will fulfill them. Rather, it is that if we follow Jesus, He will fill our heart with godly desires! Verse 5 supports this . . . Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.
After all, are we not to follow Jesus, rather than expecting Him to follow us, as if He should clear the path that we have defined? How much wiser would it be to fix our eyes on Jesus and let Him define the path? Proverbs 9:10 . . . The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. It should be obvious that holiness does not spring naturally from our own natural desires. We must first be reborn and then grow in accord with Scriptural principles and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
That point is what led me to write a letter to the editor of First Things, commenting on Radner’s piece. I don’t know if they will publish it, but I hope, at least, that Ephraim reads it. All of his advice about putting our trust in the Lord for all the exigencies of life, apparently offered to the journal’s readers – who inhabit mere Christendom – are irrelevant (or worse) to those who have not been born again. Worse, perhaps, in that a professing Christian, who has not been born again, may embrace religious-sounding exhortations without self-examination. The first challenge to the religious lost man must be that made by Jesus to Nicodemus – one of the most religious Jews in Israel at that time – Ye must be born again.
Now, I have no idea what the spiritual condition of Ephraim Radner is, but that is the question I would ask if I met him. “Ephraim, I enjoyed your column. You spoke much Scriptural truth. So tell me, Have you been born again? Have you passed from death to life, have you repented from sins that you would admit that condemn you, have you trusted Christ, and shown evidence in your life that you are a new creature?”
And so we should challenge the multitude around us. Or at least give out a zillion Gospel tracts each week to those who won’t take the time to chat.
Below is the letter I sent to First Things:
Letter to the Editor:
Ephraim Radner assures us what we can wholeheartedly count on in “Don’t Count On It,” (March, 2025): God’s faithfulness to us, if we are part of His family. The conditional if is implicit in Radner’s references, such as Prov. 9:10, wherein wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord, and life’s practical understanding is tied to holiness – a way of life directly against culture’s flow, but a necessary fruit of the born again child of God. Also Phil. 4:13 where Paul declares that he can do “all things” through Christ, which certainly implies Paul is in Christ, and Christ is in him. What “all things”? The apostle had just detailed his bonds, afflictions, sufferings – all to preach the Gospel to the lost and to build up new converts in their faith.
As Radner observes, the “modern twist” is to attach this ‘can do’ promise to building a business, acquiring fame, and getting any little thing our small heart desires. Ps. 37:4, then, also gets twisted. It’s not that God provides worldly pleasures wished by our carnal heart; rather, that God provides us with new desires appropriate to our Spirit-filled heart, as implied by our commitment in verse 5.
Radner observes that we cannot cockily plan our lives, yet God will build His house out of the bits and pieces we offer, especially if the bits are in obedience to the Great Commission given us by the Lord Jesus – the single theme He reiterated during the forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension. What is eternally precious if not a soul? Who is to share, if not a forgiven, redeemed sinner, namely any Christian? Not all will engage verbally, but multitudes will accept a simple Gospel tract. Fyi, I’ve attached one of the tracts I’ve designed and distribute by the thousands. Make your days count – Ps. 90:10-12.
Dave Stone
WALKER, LOUISIANA
- drdave@truthreallymatters.com
Sample tract, printed on 3×5 card stock . . .