P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

KILLED BY THE FINE PRINT

We have in our midst here at the Voice of Prophecy a person we frankly refer to as the “car-buying shark.”  Our manager, Mr. Lance Liebelt, keeps track of our nickels and dimes for the ministry . . . and we thank God every day for how well he looks after them.  But when it comes to buying cars — sedans, pickup trucks, SUVs, you name it — Lance just knows how to get the very best deal there is.

What’s the best day of the week to go down and hit a car lot?  Lance can tell you.  What time of year?  He knows that too. Can you make a better deal if it’s raining and the salesmen are all discouraged? Is it better to lease or to purchase outright?  How about financing?  What does the Kelley Blue Book say is the residual value of such-and-such model with this-and-this-and-this equipment?  Lance can look it up and give you a number.  Is it possible to be the first person in line at 5:30 a.m. on a Friday morning, just after the weekend car ads have hit the streets, and be the person to get that one really cheap car, the “(quote) loss leader”?  Well, Lance has gotten that one loss leader so many times that Southern California Camry dealers quake in their boots when they see him coming.  With two grown daughters and a wife — and HIMSELF — to car-shop for, it’s a matter of personal survival for him, and he sometimes has four loss leaders at a time parked in his garage.

Of course, all of us who live here in the L.A. area are rather used to the outrageous claims being made by our friends at Ford, GM, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota and all the rest.  Some of us have been seeing those old ads on late-night television most of our adult lives: “Here’s Cal Worthington and his dog Spot!”  He’s the one who promised to stand upon his head if he could get you out of bed and down to one of his four dealership which were always open till midnight.  All these years later, you can check his web site – and the guy’s still standing on his head, right there on the Internet, swearing that he can beat any deal.  A reporter once asked Cal — or maybe one of his cousins in the business — how he could possibly promise on television to sell EVERY SINGLE CAR at $500 below his own invoice?  How could you make a living that way?  And the dealer said very cheerfully: “Well, easy . . . because we deal in such volume.”  Obviously, any dealership that can lose $500 at a time, so many times a day, is going to be just cleaning up!

Well, friend, we didn’t come on the radio this Monday to talk about cars, or to try to sell you one.  But last week as we discussed the issue of salvation — which is a free gift — and then the related topic of obedience — which doesn’t seem NEARLY as free and easy — it almost reminds us of one of the full-page ads you see in the automotive section of the Los Angeles Times.  Because the ads all scream in huge, red headlines: “NO MONEY DOWN!  You can just walk right in with NO MONEY, no checkbook, no credit card, no CREDIT, no NOTHING, in fact, you can come in here NAKED! . . . and drive out with one of our new Lightning Rods!  Wouldn’t you love to find yourself in the driver’s seat of a Lightning Rod, with its power V8 engine, its on-board computer, its 40-way adjustable driver’s seat, its dual-climate controls?  And you CAN — with NO MONEY DOWN!”

Well, why aren’t we all driving these free, no-money-down Lightning Rod cars even as we speak?  Because you know and I know that there’s really no such thing as no money down.  And even if you managed to get out of the dealership in a new car by not paying a single penny in THAT VERY DAY, there soon is going to come a day when you ARE going to be sending a whole trunkload of pennies — or twenty-dollar bills, more likely — down to the Lightning Rod dealership conveniently located at the Cerritos Auto Square, 605 at Southgate.  Because in the fine print of the ad, there’s such a thing as tax, license, and dealer fees extra.  Destination charge.  Extended dealer warranty.  Floor mats extra.  And of course, the monthly payments.

And for the Christian, or would-be Christian, it seems like the same thing.  We feel like God is saying to us: “No money down!  Salvation is free!  Calvary paid it all . . . so come on in!  YOU . . . don’t have to do ANYTHING!  Zero!  Nada!”  As we used as our theme title last week, NOTHING ELSE BEING NECESSARY!  But then right at the end of the radio ad, a very fast voice comes on.  “Yes, salvation is free!  Call today!  (**VERY FAST**:) Offer good for a limited time only, customer must attend church weekly for the rest of his or her natural life, no exceptions, ten percent of income from moment of conversion must be sent directly to Christian Church Dealership of Long Beach, amount to be calculated on GROSS amount, not net, of said customer’s paycheck, subject to annual audit, participant is bound by Ten Commandments of Exodus chapter 20, verses three through 17, Sermon on the Mount, Matthew five, Golden Rule, Matthew seven, customer agrees to forgive trespasses of others as his or her trespasses are forgiven, Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect, wherefore, therefore, forsooth, thee, thy, thou, Gloria Patri, amen.  (**SLOWER**)  Call today!  Offer good for a limited time only.”

Well, friend, as even the car salespeople will confess: “The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away.” And right here we find perhaps the most important question in Christianity:  does the issue of obedience, or good works, or commandment-keeping TAKE AWAY the free gift of salvation?  The Christian community tries very hard to say, and mean it, that our eternal life in heaven is BASED on the free gift, on Calvary.  That was our theme all last week, and really, it’s our theme all 52 weeks of the year.  You don’t have to go any farther than the big “John 3:16” sign somebody’s going to hold up in the Super Bowl just a few weeks from now to get to that all-important pillar of the faith:

“For God so loved the world that He GAVE His only begotten Son, that whoever BELIEVETH on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

There it is.  He GAVE His Son — free gift.  You and I believe — no strings attached.  End of discussion.  And yet this is usually just the BEGINNING of the discussion, because the fine print kicks in so quickly.  Keep the commandments.  Go to church.  Love your neighbor.  Do’s and don’t’s.  Thee’s and thou’s.  And it turns out that “free” ends up running pretty much at the standard dealer’s M.S.R.P.  Not much of a discount.

But how do we fit these extra car payments — sixty months’ worth, or in this case, sixty or seventy YEARS’ worth — into the gospel of grace?  In my own Adventist denomination, which admittedly shines a very clear spotlight on the Ten Commandments at times, we find this marvelous declaration in a book entitled Questions on Doctrine:

“Salvation is not NOW, and NEVER has been, by law or works; salvation is ONLY by the grace of Christ.  Moreover, there never WAS a time in the plan of God when salvation was by human works or effort.  NOTHING men can do, or HAVE done, can in ANY way merit salvation.”

That sounds so wonderful, doesn’t it, and yet we all are pretty sure we can read the fine print at the bottom of the page.  In fact, even gentle Jesus, who fronted the down payment for us at Calvary, who set up the type for the newpaper ad, “Free salvation for all!,” seems to put some fine print in at the bottom, which we can find in RED print in most Bibles, the seventh chapter of Matthew, verse 21:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but ONLY he who DOES THE WILL of My Father who is in heaven.”

And what is the Father’s will?  Well, we’re right back to the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, and cups of cold water given to strangers, etc., etc., etc.  In other words, $449 a month for the rest of your life, plus yearly license and document fees, insurance, gas, oil, and the whole nine yards.  It’s no wonder many people say, “I guess I’ll just keep driving what I’ve got now, thanks anyway.”

Well, friend, I want to tell you as we close, God DOES have a new car for you.  John 3:16 isn’t just true during the Super Bowl; it’s true all the time.  And in BOTH the large print and the small, it turns out to actually be good news right down to the bottom of the page.