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KNOCKING ON HEAVEN'S
DOOR #2
BIGGER THAN THE GRAND CANYON
Have you ever noticed how much spiritual truth there
is in the funny papers? Now, I confess that we don't turn to the Sunday
comics as our FIRST source of inspiration! But it's amazing, the insights
that are sometimes included in the doings of Drabble and Dagwood and the
prehistoric figures on B.C. Johnny Hart, the creator of B.C., is actually
a very born-again Christian, and has come under some fire on occasion
for the evangelical zeal of his cartoon strips.
Well, an old cartoon from many years ago raises the question for today.
Dennis the Menace is the lead character in our Tuesday study. And March
14, 2002, just happens to be Hank Ketcham's 82nd birthday. On one particular
Sunday morning, as Dennis and his folks — you remember the Mitchells,
of course — are coming out of church, Dennis asks them: "How am I
going to get to heaven if I don't get my wings until I get there?"
Thinking, apparently, that he's going to flap his own way clear up to
the Pearly Gates.
Unfortunately, cartoonist Hank Ketcham poses the question . . . but doesn't
answer it. FORTUNATELY, as we discussed yesterday, the Word of God DOES
give a plain and simple answer. Jesus tells His followers very clearly:
"I am the Door." If a person has a faith relationship with Jesus
Christ, that man or woman WILL be saved. They WILL inherit eternal life,
and WILL make it — with wings or without isn't important — to a heavenly
home.
How do we interpret these many statements by Jesus Christ along the lines
of: "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life"? Or when He says:
"NO MAN comes to the Father except through Me"?
Well, friend, this in a nutshell is what Christians everywhere call the
Gospel message. I've studied this all my life; perhaps you have as well.
And yet those four words — "I am the Door" — are worthy of our
continued, ongoing study. We need to think about this all the time. And
if we decide it's true, then we have a moral responsibility to tell this
good news anywhere and everywhere we go.
There are a number of powerful, clearly described ways of understanding
this simple Gospel message. A book by Pastor Bill Hybels, entitled Becoming
a Contagious Christian, contains a very simple presentation he uses, and
he gives credit to the wonderful Christian group, "The Navigators."
They have a 1981 publication called "The Bridge," and you'll
see why it has that title as we go along. Interestingly, another book
we like here at the office, entitled More Stories From the Heart, has
the same essential Gospel outline in the back of the book. Also four steps,
this time entitled "Steps to Peace With God."
So today, and if this takes several days, that's all right, I'd like to
simply paint for you this picture of how Jesus Christ is the Door to salvation.
If you're where you have a pencil and paper nearby, you might want to
jot down just a few of these most important Bible verses, because this
right here is the essence of the most important message in the Christian
faith. I would do well to memorize MORE these key verses, and I guess
that's true for all of us.
Here's Principle #1. And you've heard this on the Voice of Prophecy radio
broadcast many, many times, I'm glad to say. Friend, God loves you and
me very, very much. That's not a cliché, that's not a convenient
radio line, it's not a Hallmark platitude. God loves me and He loves you.
Of course, if you need a verse, John 3:16 is obviously the one:
"For God so loved the world, that He gave
His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,
but have everlasting life."
And you know, from Genesis right through to Revelation,
the Bible portrays the ideal: where God and His Creation live TOGETHER
in peace and happiness. God looked down on Eden and said over and over:
"That's very good." Genesis chapter three describes God Himself
walking in the Garden, going to BE with Adam and Eve. And Revelation 21
is a glorious description of reunion, of Eden restored:
"Now the dwelling of God is with men, and
He will LIVE with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will
be with them and be their God."
So this is the original blueprint. God loving us. Us
loving Him. All of us living together in a perfect celebration of love
and joy and peace. This one four-step blueprint we looked at listed Step
One this way: "God's Purpose: Peace and Life." And they quoted
from Romans 5:1:
"We have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ."
When Bill Hybels shares this with a new friend, maybe
sitting in a restaurant or out by the boat docks where he and his non-Christian
buddies go sailing, he draws it on a cocktail napkin: "God"
. . . and "Us." And he says: "We matter to God. He made
us, and He wants to have a relationship with us."
Well, what went wrong. Step Two, or however you want to list these, is
the bad news. Step Two is sin, and Step Two is separation, and Step Two
is death.
One of these outlines begins to discuss Step Two by pointing out that
God always intended that we should enjoy what the Word of God calls "the
abundant life." A good life, a full life. Maybe you remember this
verse, found in John 10:10:
"I have come that they might have life,
and that they may have it more abundantly."
And again I remind you that the Genesis picture of
Creation was that God made many, many incredibly wonderful things . .
. and all for us. He made Eden for US. He created the universe for us
to enjoy. But one more thing He did in creating us to be "abundant"
creatures is that He gave us freedom of choice. All of us are born with
a divinely created gift: liberty of conscience. We can love — or hate.
Obey — or disobey. Cooperate — or rebel. Be holy beings — or sin.
"He did not make us as robots to automatically
love and obey Him, but gave us a will and a freedom to choose" —
is how one of these four-step diagrams puts it.
We have a couple of new laptop computers here at the
office just now, and the rest of us are looking on with a bit of envy
at those bigger-than-ever hard drives. And as you log onto the Internet,
the computer actually has a woman's voice embedded in there, which says
very nicely: "Welcome to CompuServe." And when you disconnect,
eight or nine hours later, the same voice again: "THANK YOU for using
CompuServe." Now, do we feel complimented by that disembodied voice?
Is a relationship building up there? Of course not. Because it's just
a digital phantom. Nobody REALLY cares if we log on. Nobody on the other
end is REALLY connecting up emotionally with us as we surf the Net. In
a chat room, maybe, but not that mechanical voice saying hello and goodbye.
But beginning with the angels, and going right down to the babies that
will be born in this world today, February 12, 2002, we have the power
to choose good or evil. We can return God's love or reject it. And what
an amazing thing to discover that He deliberately MADE us that way. God
actually created Lucifer, that highest of all angel beings, and knew as
He did so that this perfect, beautiful angel could rebel if He chose to.
Well, the tragedy is that this is exactly what happened. Lucifer rebelled.
Many others went with him. And in that beautiful Garden of Eden, designed
to be a place of abundant life and fellowship, our first parents made
the same choice. They chose to sin and rebel against God.
And the bottom-line truth is this: once they chose sin, separation and
death came WITH that choice. We could spend many, many programs — let
me amend that; we could spend many MONTHS of programs — discussing the
"why" of sin causing separation and death. WHY does the Bible
clearly say:
"For the wages of sin is death"?
WHY does the Bible say, in Genesis 3:23, that right
after sin entered, the Lord did this?
"So the Lord God BANISHED him [Adam] from the Garden of Eden to work
the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he
placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword
flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life."
There's a little vignette in Exodus 33 where Moses,
a man who was very, very close to the heart of God, said to God: "Can
I see You? Will You show me Your glory?" And God says in reply: "I'll
let My goodness pass before you. BUT . . . you cannot see My FACE, for
NO ONE may see Me and live."
Why? Because sin is a natural separator. Sinful people simply CANNOT be
in the presence of a holy God and survive. The theology of that is beyond
a ten-minute radio discussion. But suffice it to say: You and I are, at
this very moment, separated from God. On Bill Hybels' napkin, he would
show a diagram: "God" . . . and "Us" . . . and a huge
chasm between the two. There's a Grand Canyon called "sin" and
"death" and we're on the opposite bank from that heavenly Father.
So what's a loving Dad to do?
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