The Gospel – The most important message you will ever hear

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May 20, 2016

 

This message is extremely important this may be the most important thing you have ever heard in your entire life.  The reason this message is so important is because of the simple reality 160,000 people die every day that sounds like a lot two people every single second go into eternity.  In the short time that we have together listening to this message thousands of people will enter into eternity.  That might seem like a real downer it may seem like a really harsh thing to say.

Let me ask you a question if they were to types of doctors, and you had cancer, which of these two doctors would you go to.  Doctor number one, is a doctor, who knows you have cancer they know that the treatment is 100% curable, but the problem is that they do not think you are going to actually go through all of the treatments.  Step-by-step the way it is prescribed and therefore they feel it just be better to tell you to go home and try to get better and to enjoy as much as you can.

Doctor number two, tells you that you have cancer it is a very serious cancer and will kill you within six months time.  However, he has got a cure.  It is a very rigorous process and you must follow it exactly.  But he has a way they can be 100% cured of this cancer.  Which doctor would you rather go?  I am unsure if you are like me you would rather go to a doctor who is going to tell you some bad news something you do not really want to hear, because he has got some good news to follow it.

The good news is only as good when we hear how bad the bad news is.  If the doctor just told you did what the prescription was without telling you that you had cancer.  You would have followed.  That is why this message, that you are listening to is so vitally important.  It is vitally important because I want to be that second doctor for you.  I want to be that doctor who unfortunately has to share some bad news with you, so that you can understand the good news.

What is the bad news?  The bad news is that we all have to face the ultimate statistic, ten out of ten people die.  It is the one thing we can avoid knowing that two people die every single second of every single day, we know that we cannot avoid death.  Knowing that we cannot avoid death, the question of where we would spend eternity is a very important question.

God’s Existence

Now some will say that they do not believe God exists and they would argue that the non-existence of God is proven by science.  Let us take a good look that, let us look to see if they is good evidence for the existence of God.  If I was to show you a picture of my home and told you that it was formed by millions of years of hurricanes and earthquakes and different natural disasters that knocked down trees and assembled everything.  You would look in his if I was crazy and rightfully so, because it would be crazy to believe that.  When you look at a building and you see the building, you know it had a builder because you see the design, you see the complexity, you see the structure.  Just as you can look at a building, you can know there is a builder.  You can look at a painting and see the organization and see how it is put together and see that someone put it together.  Someone painted it.  It is the same thing with creation.  We look at creation itself, we can know there is a Creator; because the creation provides the evidence that is needed to know that there is a Creator.

Evolution

Some may argue that evolution is a fact or that evolution proves that there is no God.  Remembering that evolution is only a theory, it is not a fact.  Part of it being something we do see naturally and some of it is a theory and some of it we do not see.  What do we see?  We do see things like adaptation.  Many people think that believers in Christ do not belief in certain parts of what some call evolution, but the idea that there is adaptation — change within a species, but the one thing we do not see is the changing of one kind to another.

It would be like that story, maybe your mom read to you when you were little, of the princess who kisses the frog and it becomes a prince.  Evolution believes in that story it is just that they add millions of years between the kiss.  Evolution has been disproven by that organization I talked about in the painting.  When we look at called DNA, we see an amazing amount of structure and information.  We actually see a language.  One of the things that we know is that language comes only from an organized , intelligent mind.  When you look at DNA, it is an extremely complex language.  It has taken humans a very long time to try to figure out parts of that language.

The one thing that that language has taught us is that we cannot gain information.  We cannot have more information added into a kind or species and that runs exactly counter to evolution.  Evolution teaches that we become more and more complex over time and the humans are the most complex.  However, the one thing the DNA shows us is that what we used to call a simple cell, the simplest of cells, has the same DNA, that most complex DNA that makes us who we are, is the same.

People argue that were so similar in DNA to a chimpanzee and that is true.  However, we are not that far different from other animals.  The closest animal that our organs are actually tied to would be a pig.  No one ever teaches that we have evolved from a pig, yet pig organs are used in humans.  The most important thing that DNA reveals is that DNA there is facts and laws.  The thing that DNA shows us is that we cannot gain information, we can only lose it.  There can be mutations that deform it but we end up losing information.

So evolution really has been disproven.  We can see that from the lack of fossil evidence.  Consider this thought, if evolution was true, when we had male and female of the species or a kind come into existence, just having a male or female astronomical number, even evolutionist agree of that change from one species to another; one kind to another.  The issue is that for evolution to be true, not only do we have to have that astronomical number for one change, but you have to have the exact change to occur in both male and female so that they can reproduce has to be that amazing number.  Not only in once but twice at the same place at the same time so that those two male-female having perfectly been formed so that it proper organs to be able to reduce life.  With the millions and billions of times it would have failed we would have seen all those failures in the fossil record and yet we have no fossil evidence for it.

Evolution and the theory of everything coming from nothing, has many holes in it and problems in it that evolutionists do not often mention.  The proponents of evolution do not want to talk about it, but there are many problems with it.  There is much less problems and much better evidence we look at the intelligence, we look at the creation, we know Someone put it there.

Even Richard Dawkins in the movie “Expelled”, the documentary put on by Ben Stein, had to admit when he looked at DNA that there must have been intelligence behind it.  He would just rather believe in aliens.  Why?  Why would geneticists, like Michael Behe, who now realize, as in his book “Darwin’s Black Box”, written by non-Christian, realize evolution cannot be true, because Darwin did not understanding DNA.  They refuse to accept the possibility of a God.

Atheism

To say you are an atheist, as many people say, the first thing you have to understand is you have to know all things, because if there is anything you do not know in that little bit that you do not know, there could be the existence of God.  So we really do not have atheists in the world, we have agnostics, people who do not know that there is a God.  Why is that?  Why do people want to refuse to accept that there is a God?

Well some would say a good and loving God cannot exist because there is evil in the world.  They have just created a God that does not exist, because there is no God who loves by their definition of preventing any harmful thing.  If you are a parent, you know that sometimes you have to punish your child and you do not enjoy it and you do not want to have to do it, but it is to teach them a very valuable lesson.  The most loving thing you can do is to punish them, so that they can learn.  Some will say that God will never send anyone to hell, but that God does not exist.  The God of the Bible does allow evil in the world and the question is why?

God allowed angels and men to have a choice and we have chosen wrongly.  The purpose of that is in that evil God’s goodness and glory can shine all the brighter.  We can see God’s attributes because of the fact that he has allowed the evil.  It is the fact that we cannot see His love, His grace, His mercy, His longsuffering, His kindness and many other attributes, if it were not for the fact that he allowed us to sin and then made a payment for that.

The Reality

The reason that most people do not want to believe that there is a God is because they do not want to be accountable to Him.  They want to be able to live their life any way they want.  In fact, they really just want to be in control.  The question is that if there is a God and if we were one of those 160,000 people that will die today, we no guarantee that we will not die today, today could be our day and one day guaranteed will be our day, where will you spend eternity.

The most important question, you can ever ask is where will you spend eternity.  I have a quick test that might help to answer that for you.  It would help you to see where you may spend eternity.  We call it the good person test.  Most people will tell me that they think they are to go to heaven because they are a good person.  I would challenge a person to see how good they are with this simple test.  It is the 10 Commandments.  It is what God provided as a test.  Let us look to the 10 Commandments and you will evaluate how well you would do.

Commandment 1: Have Not Other Gods

Exodus 20:3; Deuteronomy 5:7

The first Commandment is “you shall have no other gods before me”.  How many decisions to you make every day, since the moment you woke up?  Think of all the decision to get out of bed, how to brush your teeth, what cloths to wear, etc., how many have you made?  Out of the tens of thousands of decisions that you make every single day how any of those decisions do you make thinking I am doing this completely because I love God, because I do not want to set myself as god and put myself as being in control or above God in the decisions I make.  How many of all those decisions can say you say you make looking to please God and not self.  If you are like me, you may please God maybe a couple hundred decision out of the whole day.  Most of decisions we make, we make for selfish reasons, seeking comfort, ease or pleasure.  We usually set ourselves up as god.  We usually want to be the ones in control.  How would you fare with the first commandment?  Do you put God first in all your decisions?

Commandment 2: Make No Idols

Exodus 20:4-6; Deuteronomy 5:8-10

The second commandment is “you shall not make for yourselves any idol”.  Do you make an idol of anything in your life?  Are you one of those people who say, “My god would not send anyone to hell”.  Well you are right, because that god does not exist.  If you create a God of your own liking you have created an idol.  Do you imagine a god that was created in your own mind?  Have you created a god that you want to exist, not the God of the Bible?  Would you only accept the God of the Bible? How would you fare with the second commandment?  Do you put things before God?

Commandment 3: Do Not Take the Lord’s Name in Vain

Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11

The third commandment is “you shall not take the name of the Lord God in vain”.  It is called blaspheme and it is very serious.  Do you ever use the name of Jesus Christ or God is a curse word or in a meaningless manner.  Maybe you hurt yourself and instead of cursing you use the name of your Creator, God.  Think of someone that you love very much, maybe your mother, father, husband or wife.  Find someone that you truly love and ask yourself, would you go and pay to see a movie where instead of cursing they purposely use that loved one’s name as a curse word throughout the movie.  Would you support that?  Of course you would not!   That would be insulting to the person you love.  How much more to the God of the universe, who gives you life and breath in your lung and such goodness and good things?  There is evil in world, but He gives you a lot of good things that we often overlook.  The fact that we can enjoy so many different things we can see, smell and taste, and yet we use His name in a derogatory way.  You would anyone do that with someone that you do not like.  Do you hear anyone use Hitler’s name that way?  Yet you do that with God!  How would you fare with the third commandment?  Have you ever taking God’s name in vain?  God would see you as a blasphemer!

Commandment 4: Keep the Sabbath Day

Exodus 20:8-11; Deuteronomy 5:12-15

The fourth commandment is “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy”.  Have you given one day out of the week, one day out of seven, to devote to God for the purpose of worshiping Him?  How would you fare with the fourth commandment?  Do you devote one day a week to God?

Commandment 5: Honor Your Father and Mother

Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16

The fifth Amendment is “honor your father and mother”.  Have you always honored and respected your parents?  Have you always obeyed them out of this respect?  Have your parents ever had to ask you to clean your room or had to repeat an instruction to you?  Have you always done everything to be pleasing in their sight and seeking to be honoring and obedient to them?  If you are like the rest of us, you have to answer, “No”. How would you fare with the fifth commandment?  Have you always honored your father and your mother?

Commandment 6: Do not Murder

Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17; c.f. Matthew 5:21-26

The sixth amendment is “you shall not murder”.  Many of us would think they were okay on this one.  We think that we have not murdered anyone.  However, God says:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’  But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. (Matthew 5:21–22)

If you are even angry with someone, God says that you have committed murder in your heart.  God has a very high standard, His standard is far above our.  God judges our hearts, our motives not just our actions.  Many people think that they have a good heart, with good intentions.  Many people tell me that they think they will go to Heaven because God will judge their hearts.  God will judge your heart and He will find you guilty.   How would you fare with the sixth commandment?  Have you ever been angry with someone?  God would see you as a murderer at heart!

Commandment 7: Do Not Commit Adultery

Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18; c.f. Matthew 5:27-30

The seventh Commandment is “you shall not commit adultery”.  Maybe you think you are safe because you are not married or not had sex outside of marriage.  Again God will judge our heart.  Jesus said:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27–28)

If you even look at someone with lust, had a sexual thought about someone, then you have committed adultery in your heart.  Remember that God judges our heart not just our actions.  If you ever looked at someone with lust, had any sexual thought, God would see you as an adulterer at heart?  How would you fare with the seventh commandment?  Have you ever looked at someone with sexually, lustful thoughts?  God would see you as an adulterer at heart!

Commandment 8: Do Not Steal

Exodus 20:15; Deuteronomy 5:19

The eighth commandment is “you shall not steal”.  Have you ever taken something, regardless how long ago, regardless of its value, that did not belong to you without permission? The value does not matter.  If I reach into your wallet and take a dollar, it does not matter that it is only one dollar, I would be a thief.  Have you ever illegally downloaded music or software off the internet?  Have you ever cheated on a test in school, that is taking an answer that does not belong to you?  Have you ever taking a pen or paper from work?  Have you ever charging for time not worked, in other words, not working the full eight hours of the day that you are getting paid for like talking to coworkers not during break time.  How you ever taking credit for someone else’s work?  If you ever took credit for someone that God has done for you in your life, that would be rob God of His glory.  If you done any of those things, God would see you as a thief?  How would you fare with the eighth commandment?  Have you ever stolen anything?  God would see you as a thief!

Commandment 9: Do Not Lie

Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 5:20

The ninth commandment is “you shall not lie”.  Lying is very serious.  God says,

But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8) (emphasis added)

All lairs shall have their part in the Lake of Fire, that covers all of us.  One lie is so severe that it can punish us to an eternity in a lake of fire.  How many lies have you told in your lifetime?  Many of us excuse our lies to make it sound good.  We say that we only lie to protect other people.  However, if we exam it, we lie to protect our own selfishness.  It is not that we care so much about the other person as much as we care about ourselves.  How would you fare with the ninth commandment?  Have you ever told a lie?  God would look you as a liar!

Commandment 10: Do Not Covert

Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21

The tenth commandment is “you shall not covet”.  Have you ever wanted something that was not yours?  Maybe looked at a magazine or looked in a store, saw something and just wished you could have it?   Maybe it was a new car or a new house or a new dress, whatever it maybe, have you ever coveted? Have you wanted something that you neighbor, co-worker or friend has.  Did you mediated on it wishing you could have one?  How would you fare with the ninth commandment?  Have you ever coveted?  God would see you as a coveter!

Final Examination

How did you fare on this test?  Would you be innocent or guilty?  A tougher question for you, do you think you would deserve Heaven or Hell.  Many say Heaven, because they still think that they are a “good person”.  Some say, “Yes, I have lied and stolen and committed murder in my heart, but it did not seem so bad”.  The real question is not how bad they are to you but how bad they are to God.

The simple reality is that if you were to threaten my life.  The police would probably tell you just to stay away from me.  However, if you threaten the President of the United State’s life, you are going away to jail for a very long time.  What made the difference?  It was the same threat.  The difference was who you offended.  The president of the United States is seen as being much more important than me.   Therefore, it carries a much more severe consequence.

The God of the universe is much greater than the President of the United States.  He is infinite, and it is because of He is infinite that a crime against Him has an infinite consequence.  God says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).  That is the consequence of a single act of breaking God’s law.  That is the payment of sin against a holy God.

Russian Roulette

If I was to ask you, would you be willing to play a game of Russian Roulette, which is game where someone puts one bullet into a revolver, spins the chamber, put a gun to their head and pulls the trigger, would you play?   Most people say, “No, I would never do such a thing”.  Why? Because life is precious to you and you do not want to lose your life.  The reality is most people are playing spiritual Russian Roulette and they do not even know it.  Are you playing spiritual Russian Roulette?  Are you taking a risk but not with your physical life but your eternal life?

The reality is that there are only two religions in the entire world.  Every world religion, whether it is Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah Witness, Judaism, etc. all of them will teach you that you can be a good person, that you can do good works to earn heaven. However, the other religion, the religion of the Bible, states that we there is nothing we can do to earn heaven.

 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;  There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.  They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”  “Their feet are swift to shed blood;  Destruction and misery are in their ways;  And the way of peace they have not known.”  “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10–18)

 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23)

We are not righteous, we cannot be righteous.  We have all fallen short of the glory of God, and it is because of this that our sin has such a severe consequence.  The consequence is so severe that only God can make the payment for sin.  Sin is such a great offense to God that only God can be the payment for it.  Our breaking of God’s law has an eternal consequence, an eternity in the Lake of Fire.  The only Being that can make the payment for us has to be an eternal Being.  We cannot pay for ourselves.  I will never stop paying for my first lie to begin paying for my second lie.

Good News

The reality is our sin has an eternal consequence and that sound bad.  That is the bad news.  However, there is some good news.  Here is the good news, God made a provision for you to have eternal life.  The payment was made for you.  It would be like being in a courtroom, where the judge sentenced you to $10 million or life in prison and you have no way of paying it.  If some complete stranger was to walk up to you and write you check, and you believe it is a real check, you can take that check, and put your full faith in it, hand it to the judge and you would be free to go.

You have to do three things to go free.  First, you have to believe that check is real.  Second, you have to take possession of it, trusting it.  You have to put your faith in it.  Lastly, you have to apply that check by giving it to judge.  You give the check to the judge and he says you are free to go.  Yes you did the crime, but someone else paid the fine.   That is exactly what God did for you.  God paid the fine for us.

Here how severe our sin is before God, it is so serious that God, Himself, had to pay for it.  God had to leave heaven.  If you think that is something small, ask yourself, would you do that for someone?   Would you be willing to leave heaven where all the angels are proclaiming your name, where everyone is singing praises to you, there is no sin, no suffering, no hunger, no sickness, etc.  Would you leave a place like that to come to Earth explicitly to be mocked, beaten, pierced and hung on a cross by your own creation, so that you can be the punishment for them? God, Himself paid the penalty for you sin.

The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ

God became a Man, the Man, Jesus the Christ.  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).  Jesus is the only way.  The reason He is the unique means of eternal life is because He is the only One Who is eternal.  He is 100% fully God.  He also was fully man.  He is 100% fully Man.  He is the God-Man.

I cannot go to the judge when sentenced with prison and say take my dog, he will pay my fine for me.  The judge will say sorry it does not work that way.  However, you can pay a fine of another person.  I can pay the fine for someone else.  I have to be human. Jesus had to be human, that is why he came to Earth and became a Man.  Jesus alone is the only One that can be both fully God and fully Man in order to make that payment for us.

That is the good news!  If we would repent, we can be saved.  Repent means to turn around or do a 180 degree turn.  We must turn from trusting ourselves as a good person and turn to trusting God and God alone as the means of our eternal life.  We turn from living a life for self and pleasure and turn to living a life for God.

Paul wrote:

that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)

You can be saved when you believe and confess.  What must believe?  You must confess that Jesus Christ is God and that he made that payment for you that you could never repay.  You must believe He died and rose again, which is to say that He is who He said He was, God Almighty.

The simple reality is, Jesus is the only way because He is the only one that can pay the fine for us.  If we recognize our sinfulness before a holy God, we would cry to Him, confessing our sinfulness to Him and asking Him to forgive us.  It is for that reason that we should be so thankful.  If we truly believe that we are sinners and we deserve that eternity in the Lake of Fire, like that courtroom scene with the check, we believe that and we put our full faith in Christ as the only solution, and then applying that faith by repenting and turning from trusting ourselves as a good person and turning to God, knowing that we do not deserve eternal life but He provides it anyway, if we stop living a life of pleasure for ourselves, that is the application, stopped living a life of pleasure and comfort and start living for God.  God will give us a new life when we repent, we becoming a new creation.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

People so I do not want to give up all the fun in life.  You have to give up anything to become a Christian.  When you become a Christian and understand what God did for you.  You will want to give up those things that displease Him.  This will be how you can know that you have become a new creation.

Warning

There are many people who would be called a false convert.  Many people who think that they are already Christians but if you have not come to understand serious your sin is, ask yourself, am I really a Christian.  The Bible gives a string warning,

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’  And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (Matthew 7:21–23)

Many will come to the Lord in that Day of Judgment and profession their knowledge of Him but He will proclaim that He never knew them.  Even if you think you are a Christian and say “I have always gone to church”, but if your life does not match that of which Scripture says it should, if in the privacy of your own home, when no one else is watching, if you truly love your sin more than loving God, then you may not be a Christian.

This is a very important message and I thank you for taking the time to read this and I want to encourage you, before this day is out, in quietness of your own heart.  Go to God, confess the sins that you have done wrong before Him, repent and trust the Savior.  I would encourage you to get a Bible reading it every day and do everything It says.  Find a church, a fellowship of true believers.  Seek to grow in you new knowledge of God

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