This is the most important question that anyone could ever ask.
The simple fact is that everyone will die one day. None of us know how much time we have left on this earth. Regardless if you believe in heaven or hell, on judgment day you will stand before a righteous and holy God that will stand in judgment of you. You may not agree with this or even believe it but please read on to get the full explanation.
In the beginning God created a perfect world. There was no death or sickness because there was no sin in His perfect creation. God created man and woman to inhabit the earth, Garden of Eden, and gave them dominion over all things. When Adam and Eve were in the garden they walked and talked with God. They were in perfect relationship with Him. However, they disobeyed God (sinned) and they were cast out of the garden and their penalty was death. As a result of their sin all humanity would never be in perfect relationship with God. This was not just a blame it all on Adam and Eve event...we have sinned as well. The Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God (Romans 3:23). You may think...I don't feel like I have sinned. Let me explain further. God brought forth Ten Commandments that were moral laws and humankind was told to live within these laws. The Ten Commandments are:
1. You shall have no other God before me.
2. You shall not bow down to any graven image.
3. You shall not take the Lord's name in vain.
4. Remember and keep the Sabbath day holy.
5. Honor your mother and father.
6. You shall not kill.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not lie.
10. You shall not covet.
Here is the news....we have broken all of these commandments. You may say, "I have never killed anyone or committed adultery". Jesus said that if you have hated your brother then you have committed murder in your heart. He also said that if you look upon a woman to lust after her then you are guilty of committing adultery in your heart. Jesus clarified the law by making it a matter of the conscience rather than only of deed.
The simple fact is that if you have ever lied, God sees you as a liar. If you have ever stolen anything (regardless of value) God sees you as a thief. If you have ever looked upon anyone in lust then God sees you as an adulterer. On Judgment Day you will be found guilty in the sight of a Righteous, Holy, and Just God and he is fair and just in sending you to hell.
You may think that you will be able to beg for forgiveness on that day. Let's apply what we know about justice to this idea. Suppose you are brought before a judge in a court of law and you are guilty of raping and murdering someone. The evidence against you is rock solid. Somehow you were caught on video tape committing the act and on top of that there is DNA evidence to substantiate the charge. You are guilty. What if you beg the judge for forgiveness? Maybe you could say, "Judge I know I raped and murdered that person but that was a long time ago. Since then I have become a very good person and I donate time and money to charitable causes". Will the judge let you go? No, he will not let you go because he is a just judge and the law must be satisfied. You do the crime, you serve the time. God, the Holy Creator of the universe is infinitely more Just and fair than an earthly judge. Because He is fair and just He must punish sin. Not only must He...He will. God's punishment is Hell.
Right now you may be thinking.....I have no hope. Let me give you the Good News.
2000 years ago God sent His Son, Jesus, who lived a perfect and sinless life, to be a sacrifice for you and me. Jesus was the propitiation, the satisfaction if you will, for our sins. Jesus died on a cross and the wrath of God was unleashed upon Him. Jesus died a brutal, shameful, and humiliating death. Three days later Jesus defeated death and rose from the dead and ascended to be seated at the right hand of the Father. If youRepent of your sins and Trust in Jesus as your Savior you will not see the wrath of God on Judgment Day. You are free from the Judgment only if you repent and trust because Jesus' sacrifice delivered you from the law of sin and death. You will have eternal life with God! God will forgive you of your sin and you will become born again. God will place new desires in your heart. You will become a new creation in Christ.
God sacrificed His Son in order to restore the relationship that mankind destroyed with God. You hear all sorts of talk today about God's "purpose" for your life......I have just told you God's purpose and wonderful plan for your life. Repent and trust in Jesus today. You do not know how much time you have left on this earth. The latest statistics report that 150,000 people die every day. What if today is your last day?
If you are not sure exactly how to repent and trust read Psalm 51 and use that as your model. You can also refer to the "Repentance" tab on the left side of this page for more information.
Thanks to Repent and Trust
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
27 comments:
I used to attach my own personal effort to my salvation, meaning I thought I needed to be good for God to approve of me and welcome me into Heaven. The greatest and most wonderful point that can be made about Christ and salvation is that you don't have to do anything but receive it. Recognize that you do sin. Recognize that God can and wants to make you better. Recognize that God won't force that on you, but offers it to you. Receive it by believing that He sent His son to be punished for your sin. Then watch as God transforms your desires and your life.
Christians sin too, but they desire something more meaningful than filling their life with possessions, power, money, sex, and fame. Do they desire these things naturally? No. God transforms their hearts so that they begin to desire meaningful virtues and attributes that reflect God's character, such as love, justice, peace, goodwill, joy, sacrifice, and selflessness.
I can't be good enough to go to Heaven, whether I'm saved or not. God transforms me because I can't transform myself. I can make strides at good behavior, but God cares about our heart and our motives, and only He can make those changes if we are willing to receive that from Him.
Amen!
Thanks Jonathan -
Wayne,
How do you know all this to be true?
Personal experience.
Wayne,
"Personal experience".
Wow, you personally experienced;
- the creation of the world
- the creation of Adam and Eve
- original sin
- the writing of the 10 Commandments
- the way God perceives human actions
- Jesus' sinless life
- the crucifixion
- the resurrection
- the ascension
- judgment day
You personally experienced all of these things? Or did you read about them in a book?
Regards,
I thought you were refering to the post "What must I do to be saved?"
I am, that's all in there. How do you know those things to be true?
I know I'm getting sucked in here, but to oblige...aside from simple faith, surely you're aware of the absurd amount of physical evidence from Christian AND secular sources (which I won't quote or provide right now) verifying the biblical events. Start with the book The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel.
Hi Jonathan,
I have read "The Case For Christ". I encourage you to check out the following google search:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=case+for+christ+rebuttal&aq=f&aqi=g-m1&oq=&fp=59681ffd38a8e39f
I especially recommend the following page:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/strobel.html
Anyways, Spider-Man comics also reference locations (e.g., New York City, Los Angeles) and events (e.g., 9/11, both wars in Iraq) that have happened, but that doesn't mean that Spider-Man exists.
When supernatural biblical events are verified, then I'll pay more attention.
I'm curious, Jonathan.
Do you think you could provide at least one piece of good evidence for each item on my list?
If you can, I'd love to read them.
Cheers,
ExPatMatt and Nohm,
I started out with faith. The evidence I've come across in my lifetime has been at random moments of internet research, conferences, school studies, conversations with others, etc. I haven't committed them to memory nor catalogued them because it's never been that important to me as a believer.
It's out there if you really want to find it. It's easy to say it's not, then avoid looking for it or turning a blind eye when it's sitting in front of you. If you really want to know start by reading the book I pointed you to. It's not perfect, but nothing I offer will be. You can sharp-shoot people all day, but in the end the responsibility is yours.
As I stated, Jonathan, I have read the book.
I not only did not find it persuasive, but I found it particularly dispersuasive.
And I read it back when I was a believer.
You state that you found your information throughout the years, and that you don't have a list; I can understand that. What I ask is that, once that information came to you, did you thoroughly look for other points of view on those subjects? That's what I do. I wouldn't be at this blog if I didn't do that.
Jonathan, if you have a rebuttal to Jeffrey Lowder's rebuttal (that I posted a link for above), I'd be more than happy to read it.
Click here for Jeffrey Lowder's rebuttal to "The Case For Christ" by Lee Strobel, the False Convert atheist. ;-)
I once did a teaching on being made "white as snow." The analogies to our lives in Christ and the way snowflakes are formed are uncanny. Only God could create a metaphor like that, hide it in nature like a a game of hide and seek, and then wait for a doofus like me to find it. I think I'll post it as Christmas gets nearer.
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise." Psalm 51:17
I love that verse.
Thanks, Wayne. :)
Strobel's material is introductory. There are better writings on the subject.
There's really no use in pointing that out, though, I think.
I think that the problem a lot of people, especially non-believers, have with Strobel is that he claims to be a non-believer during the time of the interviews, but he asks questions that non-believers tend to associate with believers.
In short, he doesn't ask the kinds of questions that non-believers tend to ask, but he asks the kinds of questions that a believer-who-wants-to-support-his-belief would ask.
That's just the way it seems to me, and many other non-believers whose opinions I've read on this subject.
I have no question that there are far better writings on this subject, as Joe A has stated.
No one can DO anything at all to "be saved".
Only Christ can save...and He does so through the hearing of His Word.
No one, absolutely no one chooses to become a Christian.
We are called..and chosen through the Word.
That is what the Bible says, and I believe it.
I believe that we can choose. God gave us our own free will. He never forces us to follow Him. The bible also says that God does not will that anyone would perish. But many do, because they do not choose to receive the free gift of salvation. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." We have the choice to believe or not believe. That is not a work, it is simply accepting that what Jesus said about Himself is true: that He is the Messiah; that He is the Son of God; that He is God; that He came to die for our sins; that we can choose to allow His death to pay for our sins..or not.
How can a sinner by nature who loves their sin and hates God....choose Him? Our "free-will" is very limited!
Ah...because God reveals Himself to us..and we see our desperate need for Him. I remember in the weeks before I was saved, my mind unexplainably kept veering toward the fact that I was going to die someday. And when I did die, where would I go? I was in my 20's and that had previously been the last thing on my mind. Unbeknownst to me, a Christian had been praying for me for about a year. God drew me to that Christian's church one Sunday, I felt the power of God's love for me in that place, and I received Christ. His loving-kindness toward me that day brought me to repentance of my sin. And I knew I didn't have to wonder where I'd go when I died anymore.
Dorci and Steve....
Thanks for the comments concerning salvation.
I have not been able to get to my blog or emails until today.
Can I lay out concrete and irrefutable proof at this very moment? No. Can I lead you to soe evidence worth considering? Yes. What does evolution say about the duck-billed platypus? And, if water can't travel uphill, why is the beginning of the grand canyon surface lower than the surface at the end of the canyon? The river could not have formed it.
Am I willing to fight on these issues? No. But they are worth considering, along with much of "science" and the "laws" that people quote but aren't really laws, just theories, someone's best guess . In the end Christianity is a matter of faith. Romans 1 says that all men are without excuse because God has made himself known to you in some manner.
So that's a no, then?
Jonathan, have you done any research into what evolutionary biologists say about the duck-billed platypus?
Jonathan, have you done any research into what geologists say about the grand canyon (pleeease tell me that you didn't get that info from "Dr. Dino" Kent Hovind)?
You say, "the river could not have formed it." What is your exact, detailed reasoning for this? How is it that you are able to know this better than the vast majority of working geologists?
Because these are both pretty well-explained issues, but you seem to present them as something that's supposed to make me stop and think, unless I misunderstood you.
Also, you said the following:
...the "laws" that people quote but aren't really laws, just theories, someone's best guess.
Jonathan, all you've done with this statement is to make it abundantly clear, with all due respect, that you have no idea at all what the words "law" or "theory" mean within the context of scientific nomenclature... which is the context that you appear to be using them in.
If you research anything, I would encourage you to start with the scientific definitions (i.e., the definition in the nomenclature) of those two words, along with "hypothesis".
Theories do not become laws; theories explain laws. Theories are not "someone's best guess"; they have to be testable, falsifiable, make predictions, and so on.
Nohm,
I have heard some of the arguments on both sides for the platypus and the grand canyon. Is it possible I haven't heard or read what you know? Yes. But we could do this all day about every topic.
Someone always has a different theory. As far as my use of the words theory and law, your point is well taken, and was actually my point. The majority of the population; students, teachers, media, and even school textbooks will often mix up those terms. That was my point. They use them as I pointed out, not as they're meant to be used. Some will quote the law of gravity, others the theory of gravity, neither will get it right.
Every earnest cause has some virtue, even if I don't agree with the cause, I can appreciate the search for knowledge. Every theory will be debated, and every faith will be derided (Christians do it to other faiths). My attempt in this dialogue isn't to prove you wrong Nohm, but to highlight that every belief, proven or unproven, will have its detractors. I used to be enjoy verbal fencing, but now I find it a waste of time. People hold onto their "beliefs" if they determine to not let go, despite the "evidence." I pray that God will not only open your eyes to truth, but my eyes as well. I pray that every day.
Jonathan,
If you're implying that there are Global Flood based explanations for the Grand Canyon that fit the evidence then you are sorely mistaken. Sorry, but that's just not the way water works.
You also said;
"That was my point. They use them as I pointed out, not as they're meant to be used".
No, you said; "just theories, someone's best guess".
That's why Nohm called you on your poor science terminology.
Cheers,
Jonathan, until I can talk with all of those other people, I have no control over the fact that many people use the words "law" and "theory" incorrectly.
But, I am talking with *you*. Therefore, when I see *you* use the words incorrectly, I feel the need to bring it up.
Lastly, Jonathan, I fully accept that I can be wrong about any and all subjects I talk about. So I don't take offense when someone is trying to "prove me wrong".
Beyond "I think, therefore I am", and some extreme examples (usually dealing with committing a violent crime), I can pretty much be argued out of any of my "beliefs"; I don't hold on to any so strongly that I can't change my mind.
Btw, gravity has laws, *and* has a theory. The theory of gravity, though, is far weaker than the theory of evolution.
Post a Comment