Still Growing: An Autobiography (28 page)

Have you ever stolen anything? The value of the item is irrelevant. If you have, then you are a thief.

Have you ever used God’s name in vain? If you have, then you have taken the name of the God who gave you life and used it as a filth word to express disgust. That’s called blasphemy, and it’s understandably a very serious offense in His sight. (We don’t even use the name of Hitler, who killed six million innocent people, as a curse word.) The Bible says that God will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain (see Exod. 20:7).

Jesus said, “Everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27-28). Have you ever looked with lust at someone other than your spouse? This includes sex outside of marriage.

If you have violated these four Laws, then by your own admission, you are a lying, thieving, blasphemous adulterer at heart, and you have to face God on Judgment Day. And that’s only four of the Ten Commandments.

Let’s quickly look at the other six.

Is God first in your life, above all else? He should be. He’s given you your life and everything that is dear to you. Do you love Him with
all
of your heart, soul, mind and strength? That’s the requirement of the First Commandment.

Or have you broken the Second Commandment by making a god in your mind that you’re comfortable with—you say, “My god is a loving and merciful god who would never send anyone to hell”? That god doesn’t exist; he’s a figment of your imagination. To create a god in your mind (your own image of God) is something the Bible calls idolatry. Idolaters will not enter heaven.

Have you always honored your parents absolutely, and kept the Sabbath holy? If not, you have broken the Fourth and Fifth Commandments.

Have you ever hated someone? The Bible says that “everyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15). Have you coveted (jealously desired) other people’s things? This is a violation of the Tenth Commandment.

Here is the crucial question: If God judges you by the moral Law on Judgment Day, will you be found innocent or guilty of breaking this Law?
Think before you answer
. Will you go to heaven or to hell?

Perhaps the thought of going to hell doesn’t alarm you, because you don’t believe in it. That may be your belief, but if hell exists, your lack of belief won’t make it go away. Standing on a freeway and saying, “I don’t believe in trucks” won’t make the 18-wheeler disappear.

According to recent polls, the majority of Americans
do
believe in a literal place called hell.
²
Most people think that it’s a fitting place for Hitler and other mass murderers—and they’re right. Because God is
good, He will make sure that murderers get what’s coming to them. That makes sense.

But God is not only good, He’s
perfect
, and His justice is going to be very thorough. God will also punish rapists, adulterers, pedophiles, fornicators, blasphemers, hypocrites, thieves and liars. We are told in the Bible that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire (see Rev. 21:8), and thieves and adulterers will not inherit the kingdom of heaven (see 1 Cor. 6:9). Think about it: If God’s standards are that high, that leaves us all in big trouble.

But that’s not all. God also sees our
thought
-
life
, and He will judge us for the hidden sins of the heart: for lust, hatred, rebellion, greed, unclean imaginations, ingratitude, selfishness, jealousy, pride, envy, deceit, and so on. Jesus warned, “But I tell you that
every careless word
that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36, emphasis added). The Bible says that God’s wrath abides on each of us (see John 3:36) and that every time we sin, we’re storing up wrath that will be revealed on Judgment Day (see Rom. 2:5).

Does that concern you? Is your conscience speaking to you? Is it accusing you of being guilty?

Thank you for your patience and honesty with this section—it is a difficult subject to consider. Hopefully your conscience has been awakened. You should now recognize the danger of your predicament. The just penalty of sin—breaking even one Law—is death, and eternity in hell. But you haven’t broken just one Law. Like the rest of us, you’ve no doubt broken all of these laws, countless times each. What kind of anger do you think a judge is justified in having toward a criminal guilty of breaking the Law
thousands of times
?

So what should you do? Turn to religion? But there are so many—which one should you choose? Next we’ll look at the answer to this crucial question.

Blaise Pascal said, “There are only two kinds of men: the righteous, who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners, who believe themselves righteous.”

Let’s say you are convinced God exists, and you realize you will have to face Him on Judgment Day. But you are not sure which religion to follow to be right with God. Each religion has a different teaching about God, so while they can all be wrong, they can’t all be right. Let me show you why Christianity is unique among religions.
³

Imagine I offered you a choice of four gifts:

1. The original
Mona Lisa

2. The keys to a brand-new Lamborghini

3. $10 million in cash

4. A parachute

You can pick only one. Which will you choose? Before you decide, here’s some information that will help you make the wisest choice:
You have to jump 10,000 feet out of an airplane
.

Does that help you to connect the dots? It should, because you
need
the parachute. It’s the only one of the four gifts that will help with your dilemma. The others have some value, but they are useless when it comes to facing the law of gravity and a 10,000-foot fall. The knowledge that you will have to jump should produce a healthy fear in you—and that kind of fear is good, because it can save your life. Remember that.

Now consider four major religions/philosophies:

1. Hinduism

2. Buddhism

3. Islam

4. Christianity

Which one should you choose? Before you decide, here’s some information that will help you determine which one is the wisest choice:
All of humanity stands on the edge of eternity
. We are
all
going to die. We will all have to pass through the door of death. It could happen to us in 20 years or in six months . . . or today. For most of humanity, death is a huge and terrifying plummet into the unknown. So what should you do?

Do you remember how it was your knowledge of the law of gravity that produced that healthy fear, and that fear helped you to make the best choice among the four gifts offered above? You know what the law of gravity can do to you from a height of 10,000 feet. In the same way, your knowledge of the moral Law will hopefully help you make the best choice with life’s greatest issue: what happens when you die.

The Bible tells us that when we take that “unknown” leap and pass through the door of death, we have to face “the law of sin and death”—the Ten Commandments (see Rom. 8:2; Heb. 9:27). As we have seen, we are without excuse when we stand before God because He gave us our conscience to know right from wrong. Each time we lie, steal, commit adultery, and so on, we know deep inside that what we are doing is wrong.

As we have looked at this subject, you may have developed a sense of fear. Remember to let that fear work for your good. The fear of God is the healthiest fear you can have. The Bible calls it “the beginning of wisdom” (see Ps. 111:10).

Let’s look now at those four major religions to see which one, if any, can help you with your predicament.

Hinduism

The religion of Hinduism says that if you’ve been bad, you may come back as a rat or some other animal.
⁴
If you’ve been good, you might come back as a prince. But that’s like someone saying, “When you jump out of the plane, you’ll get sucked back in as another passenger. If you’ve been bad, you go down to the Economy Class; if you’ve been good, you go up to First Class.” It’s an interesting concept, but it doesn’t deal with your real problem of having sinned against God and the reality of hell. And there is no factual evidence for the truthfulness of this belief. (How do you know your great-grandmother came back as a cat?)

Buddhism

Amazingly, some forms of Buddhism deny that God even exists. They declare that life and death are sort of an illusion.
⁵
That’s like standing at the door of the plane and saying, “I’m not really here, and there’s no such thing as the law of gravity, and no ground that I’m going to hit.”
That may temporarily help you deal with your fears, but it doesn’t square with reality. And it doesn’t deal with your real problem of having sinned against God and the reality of hell.

Islam

Interestingly, Islam acknowledges the reality of sin and hell, as well as the justice of God, but the hope it offers is that you can escape God’s justice if you do religious works. God will see these good works,
and because of them
, hopefully He will show mercy—but you can’t know for sure.
⁶
According to this religion, each person’s works will be weighed on the Day of Judgment and it will then be decided who is saved and who is not, based on whether or not they followed Islam, were sincere in repentance and performed enough righteous deeds to outweigh their sins.

Islam believes that you can earn God’s mercy by your own efforts. But that’s like jumping out of the plane and believing that by flapping your arms, you can overcome the law of gravity and save yourself from a 10,000-foot drop.

And there’s something else to consider: The Law of God (the Ten Commandments) shows us that even the best of us is nothing more than a guilty criminal, standing guilty and without excuse before the throne of a perfect and holy Judge. When that is understood, then our “righteous deeds” can actually be seen as an attempt to bribe the Judge of the Universe. The Bible says that because of our guilt, anything we offer God for our justification (to get ourselves off the hook) is an abomination to Him (see Prov. 15:8). Islam, like other works-based religions, cannot save you from the consequences of sinning against God.

Christianity

So why is Christianity different? Aren’t all religions the same? Let’s see.

In Christianity, God Himself provides a “parachute” for us. The Bible says to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14). Just as a parachute solved your dilemma with the law of gravity and its consequences, so the Savior perfectly solves your dilemma with the Law of God and its consequences! It is the missing puzzle piece that you need.

How does God solve our dilemma? He satisfied His wrath by becoming a human being and taking our punishment upon Himself. The Scriptures tell us that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself (see 2 Cor. 5:19). Christianity provides the only parachute to save us from the consequences of the Law we have broken.

In looking at the four major religions to see if they can help us in our dilemma, we find that Christianity fits the bill perfectly. To illustrate this more clearly, let’s go back to that plane for a moment.

You are standing on the edge of a 10,000-foot drop. You have to jump. Your heart is thumping in your chest. Why? Because you know that the law of gravity will kill you when you jump.

Someone offers you the original Mona Lisa. You push it aside.

Another person passes you the keys to a brand-new Lamborghini. You let them drop to the floor.

Someone else tries to put $10 million into your hands. You push the hand away, and stand there in horror at your impending fate.

Suddenly, you hear a voice say, “Here’s a parachute!”

Which one of those four people is going to hold the most credibility in your eyes? It’s the one who held up the parachute! Again, it is your knowledge of the law of gravity and your fear of the jump that turns you toward the good news of the parachute.

In the same way, knowledge of what God’s moral Law will do to you on the Day of Judgment produces a fear that makes the gospel unspeakably good news! It solves your predicament of God’s wrath. God became a sinless human being in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The Savior died an excruciating death on the cross, taking your punishment (the death penalty) upon Himself, and the demands of eternal justice were satisfied the moment He cried, “It is finished!” The Bible tells us, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13). We broke the Law, but God became a man to pay our penalty with His own life’s blood.

Then He rose from the dead, defeating death. This means that God can forgive every sin you have ever committed and cancel your death sentence. When you repent (turn from your sins) and place your faith in Jesus Christ, you can say with the apostle Paul: “For the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Rom. 8:2).

You no longer need to be afraid of death, and you don’t need to look any further for ways to make peace between you and God. The Savior is God’s gift to you. He is truly good news! Now God Himself can “justify” you. He can wash you clean and give you the “righteousness” of Christ. He can save you from death and hell, and grant you everlasting life—something that you could never earn or deserve.