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KNOCKING ON HEAVEN'S DOOR #3

EAT MY BROWNIES, AND THAT'S AN ORDER!

There was a cute anecdote in the "Humor In Uniform" section of the Reader's Digest, back in the November 1998 issue. An Elizabeth Raddatz writes in with this:

"At Fort Reilly, Kansas, the soldiers' wives were asked to bake treats for a party. My brownies did not turn out well, and I told my husband I would be embarrassed if no one ate them. As a group of soldiers filed in, however, I noticed they had bypassed other goodies in favor of mine. I was flattered until I heard one soldier ask my husband, ‘Hey, Sarge, are these the brownies you told us we better eat, or else?'"

Well, I imagine we've all had a few of those brownies, haven't we? We've eaten something because we didn't have a whole lot of choice. Easier and wiser to eat three bad brownies than to end up in Divorce Court. It's like the wife who says to her husband, "Do you think I look fat?" And he replies: "Do you think I look stupid?" In other words, there's really only one safe answer to some questions.

In a way, this takes us back to the issue we were discussing yesterday. As we think about the biblical principle that "Jesus is the door" to salvation, we were making our way through the rather common Gospel presentation of mankind's dilemma. You remember that Concept #1 had to do with God's love for us, and His desire to live with us and be with us. He created us to be happy, joy-filled, FUL-filled men and women who enjoyed being in His company forever.

However, along with all of the abundant things He created for us to enjoy, He also created us with free will. We're not FORCED to eat His brownies; we're not required to live in His kingdom. We can obey or disobey, love Him or turn against Him. And of course, turn against Him is what Lucifer did. And Adam. And Eve. Which, because we're their descendants, meant that we, too, ended up in the rebellion of the human race. One of the foundation Bible verses in this Gospel study is found in Romans 3:23:

"For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

We left off yesterday pointing to the plain reality that sin has created a great chasm between us and God. We can't live WITH Him when we're sinners; His holiness, the Bible says, is like a consuming fire. As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Why? Was God a vindictive dad sending naughty kids to their rooms? Not at all. It's just REALITY — the way things ARE — that sin is a separating agent between man and God.

And really, we've all felt this down here on the human level. Haven't you had an argument with someone you loved? Or been involved in lying to someone . . . or knowing they had lied to you? And until things were fixed up, until an apology came along, you found yourself in isolation, didn't you? You and that loved one suffered silently in your separate corners until reconciliation took place. Well, the same is true here, only magnified to an infinite degree, because God is infinitely holy.

Romans 6:23 puts an even grimmer face on our dilemma:

"For the wages of sin is death."

And again, we could paint God as a harsh, arbitrary executioner, just waiting with a guillotine or a lethal injection needle and a cotton swab. But the Bible plainly says that God doesn't WANT us to die. "Turn from your sins," He pleads. "For why will you die?" He's not interested in killing people. It's His will, we read in II Peter 3:9, that NONE of us should perish. But the inescapable reality is that, apart from God, we're eventually going to die. Sin separates, and separation kills. Even God cannot and will not operate a fictional kind of universe which ignores those obvious links.

So let me draw for you, here in our invisible radio classroom, a diagram. You and I and all our relatives are on one side of the Great Divide. God is on the other. Now, you can make it a huge ditch in-between, or a Grand Canyon, or a black hole, or a 200-foot-high fence. But the bottom line is that we're separated from Him.

One of the diagrams we were studying before coming on the air made this point about that chasm.

"Through the years," they wrote, "individuals have tried in many ways to bridge this gap . . . without success."

Some of those ways are right in the Bible. The ancient Tower of Babel, for example, which you can read about in Genesis chapter 11. Cults and all sorts of legalistic religions have been methods we've used to somehow get back on God's good side. In my view, the New Age movement we have all around us is an attempt by the human race to somehow link up with the divine again, to bridge the gap caused by sin.

And the Word of God does comment very frankly about our human efforts to build a bridge across that divide. Notice this from Proverbs 14:12:

"There is a way that SEEMS right to man, but in the end it leads to death."

Listen, friend — and let me talk in my own ear right here as well — if you're tempted to think that you can chart your own path in life, or that you can somehow get back on God's good side by obeying all the rules, or by donating a lot of money to charity, or by building a skyscraper that reaches into the heavens . . . those efforts are doomed. MY efforts are doomed if I go down those avenues. We simply CANNOT build a bridge across the barrier created by our sins . . . FROM OUR SIDE. We cannot rescue ourselves. We can't save ourselves from our own sins.

You might remember this verse, back in Isaiah 59:

"But your INIQUITIES have separated you from God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear."

It's risky to read such verses quickly, because we might get the wrong idea that God in heaven has His hands over His ears, refusing to listen to anyone who's committed sins. God hears all prayers; and He gladly and immediately responds to prayers of repentance, even from the worst sinner on this planet. The Bible says that many, many times. What He CAN'T do is respond to any effort, or any expression on our part, where we want to link back up with Him, or build our own bridge back to Him, apart from the way He's said we can.

And of course, this is our focus. "I am the door," Jesus tells us. "There IS a way back, and I am that way."

Friend, there are a couple of points we should note right here before going a single step further on our journey. Have you felt the despair of separation from God? Felt the loneliness of being apart from Him? I have too. But here's the reality: GOD hates that separation FAR more than we do! It's agony to Him! It breaks His heart! He misses us desperately! The day He showed Adam and Eve to the door of Eden and sent them away had to be one of the blackest in His universe. Notice that IMMEDIATELY, right there in Genesis chapter three, He already shares a plan to win them back. He already begins to hint, in Genesis 3:15, about the "Door" that will give them reentry to His kingdom and His heart.

I said it yesterday: God loves me and He loves you. AND . . . He misses us. He hates that chasm created by sin. He grieves over our absence. And knowing full well that you and I can never build a bridge back to Him, through Towers of Babel or New Age doctrines, He eagerly takes it upon Himself to bridge the gulf and win us back.

One final point. You might well protest: "I didn't have freedom of choice! Adam and Eve did, but not me! I was born into sin; Scripture says so." Friend, you're absolutely right. We were born in iniquity, conceived in it. We were born sinners. We couldn't help which side of the chasm we were born on, OR for the fact that in our own human power, we can't find our own way across to safety.

And it's good news that God doesn't blame us for this. At this very moment, God does NOT hate you or blame you for the fact that you were born to a sinful mother and a sinful father and that you, yourself, are a sinner too. In fact, because it was GOD who created a universe where Lucifer and our original parents in Eden had the power to choose one side or the other, God sees that chasm and actually takes upon Himself the responsibility to do something about it. He didn't create the mess, but because He craved a love relationship freely given — because He wanted us to "(quote) eat His brownies" only if we loved the brownies AND HIM — He created a universe where an ENEMY could, if he chose, create the mess. And yet it's God who quietly begins to explain to anyone who will listen, His plan for a bridge.

The greatest Bridge ever constructed.