A San Francisco psychiatrist once made an interesting observation about the young ladies who followed Charles Manson, the convicted orchestrator of the murder of Sharon Tate. He said, “Most of Charlie’s girls were hysteric, wishful thinkers, seeking after some absolute.”
I think much of the turmoil and confusion of our age is due to the fact that people seem to have no absolutes. They have nothing to believe in. Skepticism has come like a frost upon our age. A person without some absolutes is like a ship without an anchor—at the mercy of every prevailing wind. That person will either be driven ashore to be wrecked or out to the open seas to be lost.
People who don’t believe in anything—God, parents, their country, right or wrong—are as apt to follow a Charles Manson as not. In this skeptical, confused world, what can we anchor to? What can a person believe? You can believe in Jesus Christ. He is absolutely trustworthy. Jesus Christ is not just the hero of some fairy tale or nursery rhyme. He is the most important person who ever lived. His universal magnetism, his impact on history, and reliable historical records all declare that he is trustworthy.
A well-known atheist in France honestly confessed a deep-seated urge within himself: “I have in myself a great need of permanence,” he said. “I mean a need of believing that there are products not subject to decay and degradation, works on which temporal changes have no influence.”
That’s what we all need, and we find it in Jesus Christ.