What Must I do to be Saved?

 

In my last entry I spoke about how it is utterly wise to fear the Holy God and how I saw similarities between God and nuclear energy to the point that those who didn’t give the necessary regard to God faced a similar fate with those who didn’t give the necessary respect to the critical levels of plutonium.

 

The holiness of God is mankind’s great terror because we realize that we will one day have to stand before God and give an account for our lives.  Eternal Life and Eternal Death are both in His hands and He will give us what is justly due to us.  Anyone who knows his life and has realized how often he has sinned will understand that Hell awaits him and this should be the scariest thought that we have.

 

We attempt to diminish this fear by trivializing Hell.  We tell people after we went through a difficult time in baggage claim that we “went through hell” trying to get our luggage.  We read comic books where the hero is “Hellboy” and even joke about how all the unbelievers will finally all be together so that we can throw a big party in Hell.

 

But the Bible describes Hell very differently.  Below is how Scripture describes Hell:

 

1)     A place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12)

2)     A Furnace of Fire (Matthew 13:42, Matthew 18:8, Mark 9:43)

3)     A place of torment (Matthew 18:34-35, Luke 16:24)

4)     A place where there are worms that don’t die and fires that aren’t quenched (Mark 9:48)

5)     A place that you can’t ever escape (Luke 16:26)

6)     A place of deep darkness (Matthew 25:30, Jude 1:13)

 

Try to imagine it.  This is a place with lots of fire, very dark at points and is compared to a prison.  There will never be any escape from this place and there will be much regret for all who go there.  Deep pain and torment will be elements of it as well – some of which will be like being burned by fire and others of which will be like being eaten by worms.  Will you be around other people – or will it be an isolated prison of dark loneliness?  Will you tarry on forever or will your soul eventually be destroyed by the worm and the fire? Some of these things are up in the air but to be sure Hell is not a place that anyone will want to be and all who go there will deeply regret it.

 

If you are reading this you may wonder how you should respond.  Is this a commendation to be a good person?  Should we devote ourselves to helping the downtrodden and poor?  You may also have objections.  The most common one I hear when I talk about the heavy things of our future reality is when people say “I don’t believe in a God who would send people to Hell.”

 

I understand that objection because I possess it myself – at least to a certain degree.  I most certainly believe in God.  And my belief is in the God of the Bible – who will in fact send people to Hell.  But I understand the objection because so much inside of me wants to avoid a reality where my actions weigh so heavily on my future.  I want to not believe in Hell, because simply put I’m terrified by it.

 

But the man who says he doesn’t believe in a world that is so harsh as to allow a common chemical reaction - that is comprised largely of common gases such as oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen - to have the ability to consume his flesh if he got near it, is not in any way immune to being burned by fire.  He can believe whatever he wants to about fire but if he touches the flame he will be burned.  In the same way your rejection of God because of Hell in no way makes you immune to this future.  Whether you accept or reject Him you will one day stand before Him and there will be no escaping the ruling that He doles out to you.

 

So, then what should we do?  Is it time to join the Peace Corps and stack up our good deeds in hopes that the good will outweigh the bad before we stand before Almighty God?  May it never be said of me that I discouraged people from doing good deeds but this alone will not save us from the Wrath of God.  

 

Ezekiel 18:4 says that the “soul that sins shall die”.  Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and Romans 3:19 says that every person is under God’s Law and has no excuse.  Every mouth is “closed and all the world accountable to God.”

 

In short no amount of good that we could do would atone for the wrong that we have already done.  We are separated from God an unable to be reconciled to Him.

 

Not the most uplifting stuff I know – I tell you that your future is incredibly bleak because of your sin.  The natural inclination is to try to do good to perhaps tilt the scale in your favor and I tell you that this won’t work.  You are stuck in quicksand.  There’s nothing you can do to wiggle yourself out.

 

So what then?

 

Well I guess it depends on if your willing to bend your ear to hear about a little story that has been told for 2000 years on every corner of the globe.  A story that starts in a manger, where God’s Son – Jesus Christ became a man.  A story that continues with this Jesus living a perfect sinless life.  Going around doing miracles, gathering a following and teaching people how to live in a way that pleases God.  A Man, who is at the same time and in a way that we cannot understand also God, lived without sin.  This Man gets unjustly accused of crime and is then executed in the most barbaric way imaginable.  A perfect, sinless Man treated worse than any of the most renowned murderers of His day.

 

You may ask – why are you telling me this?  What does this have to do with my sin being forgiven?  Its great that Jesus lived a life without sin and its sad that He died a gruesome, unjust death but what does that have to do with me?

 

Well Jesus was no ordinary Man, and He died no ordinary death. When He died all sorts of strange things happened.  For starters there was an earthquake when He passed.  The veil of the temple – which had for centuries been a barrier between man and the Presence of God, a symbol of our separation from Him due to our sin – was torn in two.

 

But what is more amazing is that He didn’t stay dead.  He rose from the dead.  After being dead for 3 days He came back up.  And whats so significant about this is that Romans 4:25 says that “He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, was raised because of our justification.”  In other words Jesus died for our sins but was raised from the dead as a sign of the forgiveness of our sins and our justification in the eyes of God.

 

Ever since then it has been that any man, woman or child who puts his faith in the Son of God will be forgiven his sins and will have peace with God (Romans 5:1).

 

He – though He lived a perfect life – got what we deserved for our sin by suffering and dying on the Cross.  So that we could get what He deserved – which is justification and peace with God.

 

So what must you do to be saved my friend?  Put your faith in Jesus Christ and His Work on the Cross and though your sins be as scarlet they shall be made white as snow.