P.O. Box 53055    
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LOVE ME OR DIE!

It was on a dark Thursday night that the unlimited power of grace finally met its match. The King of the universe knelt before a man, and welling up in His heart of divine sympathy was unlimited grace. He loved this lost man so much. He loved him with a love that reached infinity. His desire to forgive the man was equally infinite. He was willing to wipe away all sins: small ones, large ones. Sins of thievery. Sins of pride. Sins of betrayal.

And the Man with unlimited grace radiating from His quiet eyes and His gentle touch – as He washed the other man’s feet – also possessed unlimited power. By a single word, lepers were healed, and dead men walked out of their tombs. By a single word, He could create worlds.

But now, in the shadows of an upper room, with the murky faces of eleven other disciples watching the unspoken drama, unlimited grace, and unlimited love, and unlimited power . . . all reached the borders of their effectiveness. Despite it all, Judas Iscariot stayed out of Christ’s kingdom of grace. He experienced the love of Jesus. He knew about the grace of Jesus. He had witnessed the infinite power of Jesus. And yet, he turned on his heel and went out into the darkness of damnation. Unlimited grace did have its limits . . . because of free will.

If you’re a theater buff, maybe you’ve attended the classic musical, Phantom of the Opera. Right at the end of the story, the heroine, Miss Christine Daae is down in the lair of the Phantom. She’s been haunted and tutored by his incomparable music – you know, “The Music of the Night.” But of course, the masked man, desperately in love with her, realizes that she can never return that love.

“That fate which condemns me to wallow in blood,” he sings, “has also denied me the joys of the flesh . . . this face – the infection which poisons our love – this face which earned a mother’s fear and loathing, a mask, my first unfeeling scrap of clothing.” And he comes toward her: “Pity comes too late – turn around and face your fate: an eternity of THIS before your eyes!”

And just then, the man SHE really loves, Raoul Vicomte de Chagne, enters the scene.

“Free her!” he begs the Phantom. “Do what you like, only free her! Have you no pity?”

And the desperate creature with the disfigured face and the mask gets the infamous “Punjab lasso,” the deadly rope, around Raoul’s neck . . . then puts a choice before the beautiful soprano.

“Nothing can save you now,” he says to Raoul, “except perhaps Christine.” And here is his invitation: “Start a new life with me – Buy his freedom with your love! Refuse me, and you send your lover to his death! This is the choice – This is the point of no return! . . . Do you end your days with me, or do you send him to his grave?”

Raoul: “Why make her lie to you, to save me?”

Phantom: “His life is now the prize which you must earn!”

And finally, at the very end, Christine comes toward the Phantom and very gently says to him:

“Pitiful creature of darkness . . . What kind of life have you known? God give me courage to show you, you are not alone.”

And the Phantom, in his last anguishing moments of life, realizes that a love which is forced is not a love at all. There’s no grace in putting a gun or a rope to a person’s head and saying, “I insist that you love me. Give me your heart, or I’ll kill you.”

And here at the edge of the ocean, friend, the mighty, vast Atlantic reservoir of God’s amazing grace, the hard truth is that grace is limited by the gift of free will. Judas Iscariot would not be compelled by it, and the humble Savior wearing a servant’s towel would not compel him. The Bible says so grandly, “Whosoever will . . . may come.” But you and I must will TO come. And therein is the limit of grace.

I mentioned on Friday a wonderful article in a recent Adventist Review, written by Pastor John Fowler, longtime Christian worker in India. After suggesting that grace truly is “unlimited and free,” absolute in its power, he then proceeds to acknowledge that there are actually several limits which do exist.

And this one from behind the tragic theater curtain of Phantom of the Opera is first and foremost.

“The very fact that salvation is intertwined in God’s love,” he writes, “shows that the first limitation of God’s grace is our human response to that grace. ‘God is love’ (I John 4:8), and love cannot force allegiance. All that God does – His plan of creation, providence, redemption, relationship, restoration, and judgment – proceeds from love. While he does not ‘drive away’ any sinner who may come to Him (that’s John 6:37), He cannot force anyone to come to Him against that person’s will.”

We said on an earlier broadcast in this series that grace can only be effective if it’s accepted, just like a presidential pardon. If grace could be thrust upon us against our will, then God could have done that back in Eden, or even up in the courts of heaven when Lucifer rebelled. God could have told him, “You’re not leaving here; no way. I don’t want to discuss it again.” And killed Satan the next time he looked up at his Maker cross-eyed. But that would be the kind of legislated love the Phantom of the Opera was wanting from Miss Daae. And this Pastor Fowler concludes:

“[Forced allegiance] would not be an act of a loving God, but the desperate measure of a super tyrant – something totally different from the very character of God. Hence God’s abundant, free, and all-powerful grace cannot save a sinner unwilling to come to Him and accept through faith the redemption that God has provided in Jesus. Our freedom of choice can effectively limit the working of grace.”

Are there other limitations which keep the “sideways eight” infinity of grace from happening? Pastor Fowler shares a second one.

“Another limitation to God’s grace comes from human pride,” he suggests, “that one can save oneself by one’s own works.”

Going clear back to the pathetic tower of Babel described in Genesis chapter 11, man has been trying to save himself. To earn salvation. To please God by good deeds. And every time we lapse into that kind of thinking, the ocean of free grace languishes as an unexperienced oasis next to the desert of legalism. This John Fowler suggests that “philanthropy, ethics and lifestyle, humanism and moral uprightness, social justice and social gospel, universal meditation, and even obedience to the Ten Commandments” are among the “shapes and forms” of this false gospel which renders grace null and void. The Apostle Paul passionately exhorted his new Christian friends living in Galatia to stay clear of the slippery slope of renewed legalism. “How can you go back to that?” he entreated them.

“Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?” he asked.

And Fowler concludes:
“Legalism can never be the good news of salvation. It is indeed the sad news of adding to the burden a sinner already bears. The antidote to the Galatian heresy must ever be to keep before the Christian the finality of the cross.”

Now, friend, having said that, it’s very interesting what this same good writer puts as the third possible limitation to grace. Legalism is a huge barrier . . . but ironically, so is disobedience! The Bible is as clear as clear can be on this point, going right to the seven clarion words:
“If you love Me, keep My commandments.”

And the Word of God – along with excellent contemporary Christian writers of all persuasions – is eloquent in reminding God’s people that true faith is an obedient faith! Obedience is the fruit of salvation, not the root, but it is still there on the tree! And if a person think, “All I have to do is say these magic words and get myself wet in the pool; I don’t have to proceed on and make Jesus Christ the Lord of my life, my Master and Guide,” friend, that person will not experience grace at all. This same writer, Paul, who kind of barked at his friends in Galatia, says to his other friends living in Rome:

“Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! (“God forbid!” says the King James.) “How can we who died to sin still live in it? . . . We were buried therefore with [Christ] by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too MIGHT WALK IN NEWNESS OF LIFE.”

Finally, grace does have one more limitation to it, and I’m thankful that it does. There are no locks on heaven’s doors. Friend, God won’t force us into His kingdom, and He won’t force us to stay. I do resonate with a sermon by a friend of mine, Pastor Morris Venden, who proclaimed: “I believe in once saved, ALMOST always saved!” But along with Martin Luther, I believe that a person who comes to Jesus Christ and is accepted by heaven does retain within them the free-will opportunity to stay for eternity, or depart if they choose. Free and generous love could have it be no other way. And this writer, John Fowler, joyfully concludes:

“As long as we abide in that grace, bearing fruit, living a love relationship with Christ, we need not fear any limitation on the workings of God’s grace. He is able to save us to the uttermost.”