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UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER — UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE #4

"WHO ARE THOSE GUYS?"

Have you ever thought about this question? "What is the BASIS of surrender?" What are the EVENTS, the FRAMEWORK, within which we find surrender happening?

That's kind of deep, isn't it? But it's such an appropriate question, so very real in our lives — because surrender is part-and-parcel of the Christian message. We have to DO it; we have to UNDERSTAND it. And we have to renew it every day and every hour.

From OUR side of the battlefield, the basis of surrender is very simple. We got beat! We're on the losing side and we just plain are out of options. And really, that's ALWAYS the basis of surrender. You surrender when that's all you can do. Put up the white flag . . . or DIE.

Do you remember an old scene from the comedy western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? Robert Redford and Paul Newman are outlaws and they're trapped. They're up on a craggy mountain top and the posse is coming for them. There's no way down and the sheriff and his boys are moving into position.

Butch Cassidy, the more chicken-hearted of the two, begins to wonder out loud what their options are. "We could fight them," he says, "in which case we'll get killed. OR we can surrender." He scratches his head. "Is there anything else?"

Sundance kind of grimaces into the camera and then dead-pans: "THEY could surrender to US . . . but I wouldn't count on that."

So we could say, as would-be Christians, that the basis of our surrender is very simple: we have nothing else we can do. We can't succeed on our own. Sin has got us beat. If we STAY with sin, we're going to die. We either turn to God and TOTALLY surrender, UNCONDITIONALLY surrender — or accept the fact that we're not going to live. We're going to go down in the flames.

However, it's almost more important to consider the BASIS of surrender from the point of view of the victor. What does the winning side DO with those who have surrendered to them?

In terms of warfare, there are often moral and even legal implications to the concept of surrender. An army surrenders — and then sometimes there are sanctions or punishments to be meted out. Many times in history, even when a person surrendered, it was determined that their war crimes were so heinous, so vile, that death was deserved anyway . . . and they were executed. Judgment at Nuremberg and similar wrenching tales.

Many of you Voice of Prophecy listeners have read the thrilling World War II story, Flee the Captor, about Dutch hero John Weidner, the brave Seventh-day Adventist patriot who helped so many Jews and refugees and Allied airmen escape from the Nazis. At the conclusion of the story, some of the worst collaborators who had helped the Gestapo commit their atrocities — were found guilty and executed . . . even after surrendering. From the perspective of the victors, that was deemed to be the appropriate response, the moral choice. These crimes deserved death.

Friend, this is exactly God's position. Even if we surrender, an execution is in order. From a legal perspective, from the righteous point of view of a watching universe, our eternal death is the only appropriate response for God to take. For Him to accept us would be wrong; for Him to UNCONDITIONALLY accept us would be a universal travesty!

"The wages of sin . . . IS . . . DEATH."
Every holy being in the universe has got a Bible, and they all know what Romans 6:23 says. According to those six words, even if we wave the white flag and lay down our pathetic little weapons, we've got to be executed. That's the framework this universe operates under, isn't it?

Except for one thing. That one thing is the cross of Calvary. Calvary is the BASIS for God's unconditional acceptance of us.

The second half of Romans 6:23 is wonderful news. Listen:

"The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Friend, that's great news! When we surrender unconditionally, we get the GIFT of eternal life. But now, ON WHAT BASIS? It's not MORAL, it's not right, for the winning side to simply sweep away the war crimes of those who lost. That would be an obscenity, a monstrous miscarriage of justice, except for one thing: CALVARY. Let me say again, CALVARY is the basis for God's unconditional acceptance of you and me today.

All through the pages of Romans we find described this glorious truth that Calvary is the BASIS for God's acceptance of us. Romans 3:24:

"We are justified freely by God's grace THROUGH THE REDEMPTION THAT CAME BY CHRIST JESUS."
My NIV text notes for that verse say this:
"This legal declaration is VALID because Christ died to pay the penalty for our sin and lived a life of perfect righteousness that can in turn be imputed to us."
Now, that's enough deep thoughts right there to last us a year here on The Voice of Prophecy. Suffice it to say that Calvary provides God with a moral BASIS so that He can RIGHTEOUSLY and HONESTLY and OPENLY accept us in front of a watching universe — a universe that approves of His actions.

Notice as well, friend, that this solution is one God Himself creates. Romans 5:8 says this — mark it down:

"God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Christ died for us because God His Father GAVE Him! And not only does God create by His own gift the basis on which He can accept us unconditionally . . . He then actively comes looking for us one by one, person by person, case by case — so that He can announce that gift, that acceptance.

I read a beautiful story recently in Max Lucado's priceless book, No Wonder They Call Him the Savior. In a short little chapter entitled "Come Home," Max tells of a mother in Brazil named Maria, who, all by herself, raises her little girl Christina. But Christina, as she grows up, is bored just staying with Mama. She's a pretty girl; people are interested in her. She wants to go to the big city and sample the bright lights and the neon and the excitement. And one day she's suddenly gone.

And Maria, that poor, brokenhearted mother, knows in her aching heart that there's only one way Christina can really make a living. She knows that somewhere in the big city, her girl is lost. Spiritually lost. Earning her survival the same way so many lost, runaway girls do. Mama knows.

And what does she do, friend? She leaves her home and goes to the big city. But first she stops off at a drugstore, sits down in one of those photograph booths, closes the curtain, and spends all the money she has on little black-and-white pictures. Then in Rio de Janeiro, she begins her painful trek from bar to bar, nightclub to nightclub. Hotels and brothels and street corners — with tears in her eyes Maria visits them all. And she tapes those little black-and-white photos everywhere: on mirrors, on hotel bulletin boards, in phone booths. With a handwritten note on the back of every single picture.

And then, when she's finally out of photos and out of money and maybe almost out of tears, Maria goes home.

Three weeks later, Christina comes down the stairs of a hotel. She's been with a thousand men, slept in a thousand beds . . . and now she thinks about her own plain pallet back at home with Mama. And all of a sudden, on the lobby mirror, is a picture of her own mother. And on the back she reads this: "Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn't matter. Please come home."

And she did.

And then Max Lucado reminds us of Matthew 11:28, where Jesus Himself says:

"Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
Friend, Calvary is the basis of that invitation. Jesus would have no right to offer us rest . . . except for Calvary. No way to promise us salvation . . . except for Calvary. No way to flash down from heaven to earth the words you find in John 3:16 . . . except for Calvary.

Right now on this Thursday, I want to say two words to you right from the heart of your friend Lonnie Melashenko. DON'T WAIT! There is just no good reason to wait. Unconditional acceptance can be yours right now; unconditional surrender can happen to you right now too.

Maybe you feel like that Christina or her cousin, the long-lost prodigal son. "I can't surrender; I don't DESERVE to surrender!" Listen. Nobody deserves to surrender; deserving to surrender would be the oxymoron of all eternity. It's because you DON'T deserve to that you have to come to Jesus right now, today, Thursday, just as you are.

One of the great classic little Christian books in my denomination has such a simple title. Here it is: Steps to Christ. Let me close today with one of its greatest paragraphs:

"If you see your sinfulness, do not wait to make yourself better. How many there are who think they are not good enough to come to Christ. . . . There is help for us only in God. We must not wait for stronger persuasions, for better opportunities, or for holier tempers. We can do nothing of ourselves. We must come to Christ JUST AS WE ARE."

I mentioned our old friends Butch Cassidy and Sundance a few moments ago. That posse just kept coming after them, just kept pursuing them. They couldn't get away. And Butch Cassidy kept saying, "Who are those guys?"

Now, that posse was coming with guns and a rope, but, friend, there's Someone who's coming looking for you too. Not with a gun or a rope, but with a cross and a pair of nail-scarred hands. He's not going to quit; day and night He's just going to keep tracking you, searching down every alley until He finds you.

"Who is that Guy?" His name . . . is Jesus.