THE BAD NEWS FOR THE WORLD

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:7-10

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

There’s a real mistruth that is pervasive in our world today. This is the belief that all you need to do to get to heaven is to be a good person. Jesus isn’t a part of that belief.

Within this sad misconception is that people get to judge who is worthy of some better eternal life and who isn’t. If someone commits some terrible offense against another person, then they will “burn in Hell”, a statement which is used liberally. Anyone else will be “in a better place” while “up there” and will be “looking down on us”. I’m sure you have heard these phrases used by people with no true concept of what salvation really means and why it’s important to every single person, not just those who are the vilest offenders of the world’s laws,

So how do we change this? How do we get people to gain a proper and correct understanding of God’s amazing plan of redemption, a plan where there is only one way for one to be saved?

I believe the answer is found in openly sharing the bad news with people before we share the good. It’s the only way anyone can fully understand where they stand through the lens of the God who made them and the extent of what He was willing to do in order to offer them the opportunity to be saved.   

One place where we find bad news shared in the scriptures is here in the sixth chapter of 1 Corinthians. You’ll remember the Apostle Paul had just admonished the Christians in Corinth for taking each other to court outside of the church. The issue at hand is that instead of trusting the Lord to help them settle their trivial squabbles, they were airing their grievances before judges who were ungodly before an audience of unbelievers.

In our passage, we see Paul trying to get the Corinthian church to see that the real problem was within each and every person there. There would be no wrongs committed, one unto the other, if each person would place their focus on Jesus. After all, that’s what a Christian church and its members are supposed to do.

When this doesn’t happen, bad things come and that leads to bad news like what Paul shares next:

“Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” Vv. 9-10

Here we find Paul debunk the belief that good people go to Heaven with one statement.

“Wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?”

Who is the wrongdoer?

The answer is found in another letter written by Paul.

“...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23

Everyone is a wrongdoer because everyone has sinned and therefore everyone falls short of God’s glory and won’t inherit the kingdom of God aka Heaven.

That’s the bad news for the world.

No one has earned their way to Heaven. Everyone is on the road to Hell. Period.

It’s not a pretty picture but it is the grim reality of life. There isn’t one person who isn’t on the road to eternal damnation and torment but to look at our world, you wouldn’t know it. Satan has done a masterful job of convincing people all is well and offered up a bounty of worldly pleasures to support it. This buffet table of enticements along with an anything goes approach to living life and you can see where this world could seem like paradise. But it’s more like a paradise lost as people go on day after day living in sin without hope of Heaven.

Thank goodness that this isn’t the whole story of things. For God didn’t want everyone to perish in their sins. He wanted to make a way for a person to take an off ramp from the road to Hell and head to a new and better destination, the real road that leads to Heaven. To illustrate this pathway, I offer you four different passages from the Gospels, all statements from Jesus:

1. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

2. “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6

3. “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:13-14

4. “Very truly I tell you, I am the Gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the Gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:7-10

Here we find good news for a world in need of it and as you can see, this good news comes in one way and one way only, through Jesus who is the Way.

Through the first of these proclamations from Jesus, we learn how it all started with God. All things start with Him and because He was first before anything else. The very first verse of the Bible reminds us that “In the beginning, God” (Genesis 1:1). Everything we know started with Him, except sin, of course. That was a man-made construct, a willful decision to follow our own desires and violate God’s will.

God made the world and everything in it. He was fully aware of the sin problem that stemmed from the disobedience of the first couple, Adam and Eve, and He knew that no one had hope to be with Him forever unless the sin problem was resolved. In order for this to happen, an epic act of atonement was needed, an act of atonement that would perpetually serve to pardon sinners and make them appear blameless at God’s final judgment.

Enter Jesus.

A perfect, sinless Lamb was needed for sacrifice, one last shedding of blood to cleanse sinners from the stains of their transgressions. That Lamb was Jesus who John proclaimed as such, the Lamb of God who was sent to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Jesus’ death and resurrection paved the way for others to follow. All they were required to do was to believe in Jesus, the Way and the Truth and the Life.

This was the only way a person could be saved from their sins. There was no other way to God the Father except by way of Jesus, His Son, the One who is the narrow Gate by which one can pass to gain safe pasture from God’s judgment and an eternal hope that no one can take away.  

It was true in New Testament times.

It’s true today.

And it will remain true until Jesus returns.

If a person today has not believed in Jesus, they are destined for an eternity in Hell. That’s the bad news but the news doesn’t need to remain that way. God has made the way so a better outcome can be gained. That’s the good news for the world and we’ll look more at that in tomorrow’s message.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com