Further Explanation...

So, with all this talk about salvation, I thought I might better explain some more. I went back into my archives and brought out this one from about 4 years ago. I have tweaked it a little bit here and there. (I never stop editing!) Here goes...

OK, as promised I am going to take a little bit of time and try to explain how to enter the Kingdom of God. I guess that sounds a little churchy. Let me try to put it a different way. The object of this post is to help you understand how you can become a Christian. I will try to highlight some of the benefits of Christianity and also make clear what our obligations are. Fair enough? I'll also try to do all of that without using "Christianese." So here we go.

The first thing that an individual has to understand before the Good News will make sense is that there is actually some bad news that I have to tell you. The bad news is that we are born into this world in a state that is separated from God. It all goes back to the Garden of Eden when Adam (not Eve) chose to disobey God's only command to him. Ever since then Adam and his descendants have pretty well not been able to avoid disobeying God. This was the case even before God gave His law to Moses. The general idea was that if you wanted to be acceptable before God you would have to obey every law that God had given through Moses PERFECTLY. The chances are that you broke one of those laws before you were even old enough to understand them all. I doubt that I have to convince you that you are not perfect, most people that I know are all too aware of their shortcomings, but just in case you aren't let me run down the Top Ten laws of God. Here they are:

1) Never make anything at all more important than God. Anything.
2) Never worship anything besides God. (That includes Muhammed, Krishna, Allah, Buddah, Zeus, Moroni, BMWs, sex, food... in short, ANYTHING. He REALLY hates second place.)
3) Never use His name irreverently and don't claim to be His follower if you aren't.
4) Never work more than 6 days a week. And set aside the seventh day to rest and worship God.
5) Respect, honor, and obey your parents. (Probably got you on that one.)
6) Don't murder people. (This includes hating people and not forgiving them.)
7) Don't engage in unauthorized sexual behavior. (Don't even look at someone lustfully or you have blown it.)
8) Don't steal. (Not even pens from work.)
9) Don't lie. (Not even little white ones.)
10) Don't be greedy. Don't be consumed by things that you do not or cannot have.

That's a pretty tough list in and of itself. I am pretty sure that I have broken all of them in their most strict interpretation. However, if you managed those, have you ever eaten pork, shrimp, catfish, or rare steak? If so, you have blown it. If you are male are you circumcised? Have you been to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the festivals of Passover, First Fruits, and Rosh Hashana? If not, you have already blown your chance to receive God's favor by your good deeds.

I think that is largely the point of the part of the Bible that we call the Old Testament. It gives us a set of laws and shows us how nobody back then managed to live them out perfectly. The point is that we can't make it on our own. Left to our own devices we will blow it every single time. The Bible tells us that the result of our imperfection is death. I don't have to tell you how true that is. Life is largely futile. There are spots of joy along the way. Every once in a while there is some happiness, but largely everything on this Earth is in a state of decay. We see it all around us.

There is even more bad news. When our bodies finally die that isn't the end. Left in our imperfect state there is additional torment awaiting for us after we die.

To help us get a grasp on what the torment of hell will be like I have brought in an expert on the horrors of hell, Dr. Jonathan Edwards.

Dr. Edwards, can you help us to understand what hell is really all about?

"I sure can, Jonathan. We often read of the fury of God; as in Isaiah 59:18, "According to what they have done, so will He repay wrath to His enemies and retribution to His foes." So Isaiah 66:15, "See, the LORD is coming with fire, and His chariots are like a whirlwind; He will bring down His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire." And in many other places. So, Revelation 19:15, we read of "the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty." The words are exceedingly terrible. If it had only been said, "the wrath of God," the words would have implied that which is infinitely dreadful: but it is the "fury of the wrath of God." The fury of God! the fierceness of Jehovah! O how dreadful that must be! Who can utter or conceive what such expressions carry in them?"

Whoa. That is pretty serious stuff. I can hardly imagine.

"You're right. But unfortunately there is more. Consider this, you that are here, that yet remain in an unregenerate state. That God will execute the fury of His anger, implies, that He will inflict wrath without any pity. When God looks upon the inexpressible circumstances of your case, and sees your torment to be so vastly disproportioned to your strength, and sees how your poor soul is crushed, and sinks down, as it were, into an infinite gloom; He will have no compassion upon you, He will not withhold the executions of His wrath, or in the least lighten His hand; there shall be no moderation or mercy, nor will God stop His destroying wind; be will have no regard to your welfare, nor be at all careful for fear that you should suffer too much in any other sense, than only that you shall 'not suffer beyond what strict justice requires.' Thus it will be with you that are in an unconverted state, if you continue in it; the infinite might, and majesty, and terribleness of the omnipotent God shall be magnified upon you, in the inexpressible strength of your torments."

That is pretty severe, Dr. Edwards.

"It certainly is. And even worse is this: There will be no end to this extreme horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long forever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite. Oh who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; it is inexpressible and inconceivable: for "who knows the power of God's anger?"

That is certainly bad news for anyone who isn't a Christian. Even with your description it is hard to wrap your mind around the magnitude of the punishment. Thanks for being with us today, Dr. Edwards.

"It's been my pleasure."

As you have just heard being condemned to hell is to find oneself in a terrible state. But without a doubt it is the state that all of us are in until something is done about it. Now let's get to the good news part.

Now we know some things about God. He is all powerful. He is all knowing. He is everywhere. He is love. He is just. He is merciful. He is GOOD.

God made us to be good in the very beginning too. In fact, He liked us so much that He made us the spitting image of Himself. He made us so that we could hang out with Him and enjoy each other's company. It was a great arrangement. However, Adam's disobedience changed all of that. Let's consider why for a moment.

The Bible describes God as light and says that in Him is no darkness. Before Adam sinned, He had no problem at all being in God's presence, but the moment that he disobeyed, his first thought was to hide himself from God's presence. Imperfect people cannot tolerate a perfect God. This was a problem and God set Himself to fix it. He did that because He is loving. God could not simply ignore man's shortcoming. It was the shortcoming that was keeping man from God. The disobedience also demanded punishment. Because God was both merciful and just He allowed man to cover his sins by letting him use the physical death of an animal as a proxy to satisfy God's justice. This prevented God from inflicting the sentence of death as a punishment for man's sin. However, God was still not satisfied because the death of sheep and bulls and goats still didn't fix man's problem.

God had a greater plan. This plan is pretty shocking when you think about it. I cannot fathom why He did it. The only thing that I can figure is that He loves you and me deeper than I have ever loved anything. What God did was take the form of a man and live among us. He lived His life perfectly and never once broke His own law. Then He let us sacrifice Him. This, of course, killed Him. They buried Him and three days later He rose from the grave! His name is Jesus.

Because Jesus was willing to die as our proxy and because He was sinless, God has allowed anyone who would ask Him to let His sacrifice pay for their sins be made right with Him. Absolutely amazing. The good news doesn't end there. Jesus also promised us that if we believe in Him we never have to die. Granted, our body may die one day, but like Jesus, we will also be raised from the dead, get a brand new perfect body, and go to live with Him one day.

There's more too! Because we belong to Him, He begins the process of cleansing us from our old sinful and disobedient patterns and he begins repairing all of the damage that our disobedience did to our lives. He heals our emotional wounds. He gives us joy. He gives us hope. He provides for our needs. He gives us courage. And He makes us good. That is why I can contemplate the worst that the world has to offer and have a confidence that it is going to be OK.

And it even gets better than that. Springboarding off of Dr. Edwards' description of the duration of hell imagine its converse - not the eternal exertion of the wrath of God upon us, but the eternal exertion of His love and goodness lavished upon us:

It would be blissful to experience this fierceness of love and pleasure of Almighty God one second; but you shall delight in it for all of eternity. There will be no end to this extreme glorious ecstasy. When you look forward, you shall see a long forever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will be absolutely astounded by the certainty that there shall be no end, no mitigation, no cessation at all. You will know certainly that you must expend long ages, millions of millions of ages in absorbing and basking in this almighty limitless adoration; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains.

Now, what does He say that He wants from us?

First of all, we have to realize that we can't make ourselves good enough for Him. We have to recognize that we absolutely must rely on Him to make us good enough to be with Him. That's where we ask Him to save us from our lifestyle that is leading us to death.

Secondly we have to ask Him to be our King. Here in America, we don't really understand Kings. We think we have a vote, but with Kings there is no vote. You do exactly what they tell you to do. I can understand why this might be difficult for some folks. See, we were all serving another king when we first found out about God's offer. That other king is the devil. He is the one who has been doing his best to destroy us. So our only experience with an absolute ruler has been a bad one. Let me assure you that God is a good and benevolent King. He wants what is best for you at all times. There may be times when it doesn't feel that way, but trust me, it is all for your good.

Finally, we have to believe that God raised Himself from the grave. I have grown up hearing this since I was a child, so belief in it wasn't too bad for me, but if this is new to you it may take some processing to actually believe it. That's OK. He understands how hard that could be to believe, and if you will be honest with Him, He will be very patient with you and will help you to believe it for yourself.

If you do those three things your life will be unmistakably changed for the best, and you will wonder how on earth you ever made it before you found out about the plan that God has for your good! It isn't always an easy road. It is a road that is full of adventure and danger and excitement. There are many difficult challenges along the way, but it is absolutely worth it.

I hope that this post has helped you to understand what I have been talking about. If anything isn't clear, please post a comment, and I'll attempt to clarify. Also, if you are already a Christian and you see that I have forgotten something please feel free to post those comments too.