“Why did a Holy God
even give us another thought?
He could have held His breath
and the world have died-
Adam by Eve’s own side.
and that would have been the end.”

I heard a preacher recently thunder the wrath of God.  Actually he was very soft spoken, but His words carried the message of God’s judgment.  I’m not totally against that either.  You’ll find that I talk about these things in many of my posts.  There are biblical truths that have been largely discarded, and the message of God’s holiness, wrath, and judgment is almost completely absent in today’s church.  These are truths that need to be taught again.  Scripture teaches, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”  (Hebrews 10:31)  The NASB version puts it this way:

“It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

I wonder how often you hear that preached today?  It is the truth, and it’s something we need to remember and take very seriously.  Our God is holy and we better be careful to never forget that.  I won’t mention names, but there are some who have appeared and taken up that message, and taken it up very strongly.  You can find their videos on YouTube, their messages on various blogs, and maybe you’ve even gotten an email or two from a friend who’s been shaken by the gravity of what they’ve heard, and it’s caused them to sit up and evaluate their relationship with God.  I think that’s a good thing.  If the bible is telling us that it’s a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God while we go about acting like it’s no big deal to encounter Him, we’ve got a problem!

But I would like to mention another problem:  If we get so focused on the message of God’s judgment and wrath that we forget His mercy, we have an even bigger problem!

“He could have held His breath
and the world have died-
Adam by Eve’s own side.
and that would have been the end.”

God could have ended everything with Adam and Eve.  He could have withheld His breath and their sin would have been the last human sin He ever had to deal with, but He didn’t do that.  What does that tell us about God?  It tells me that His heart of mercy is greater than His desire to send judgment.  It tells me that His love is higher on the ladder than His wrath:  God will find a way to send mercy, and remove judgment, even if it means Him paying the highest price.  He proved that to us by sending His Son as a sacrifice who would bear the penalty for our sins, taking upon Himself the wrath we deserved. 

A return to holiness preaching

Yesterday while listening to a revival preacher in a church we were visiting I heard 1 1/2 hours about God’s judgment, wrath, and displeasure with sin, but God’s answer to our sin problem was never really presented!  I was left with the feeling that God could, and would, smote me for my disobedience and that I “better get right with God”.  The way that I was “to get right with God” was by repenting of my sin.  (More on that later…)  Furthermore, I was told (along with everyone else in the room) that when I stood before Him, if I hadn’t gotten rid of all my “blots and blemishes” I wouldn’t have a prayer in the world of getting into heaven and would be cast straight into hell!  Over and over we were told of our need to be righteous and to live right.  We were reminded that God hates our secret sin.  We were reprimanded for not truly being His disciples if we failed to live correctly, and warned that we would ultimately be found to be fakes and cast out by Jesus with a word:

“Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”

You could hear a pin drop!  And rightly so.  Where do you hear anything like this preached today with any kind of seriousness?  There are tons of places in the bible that warn of self deception, sin and God’s wrath, so why don’t we ever hear any of these things being preached? Many in the church are waking up to the fact that just calling oneself a Christian doesn’t cut it.  Just praying a prayer to “get saved” doesn’t cut it…  So we’re beginning to hear the other side:  God is a holy God and wants us as His children to be holy.  Preaching holiness is scriptural and we need it… but…

Working my way to heaven?

Somewhere during this preacher’s message I began to get concerned however.  Where was Jesus in all this?  The gospel was never really mentioned!  It was all about me “getting right” and I couldn’t help but think, “Man! Without Jesus, I have no righteousness.”  It was all about me repenting, all about me being a disciple, all about me getting rid of my own “blots and blemishes”, all about me “getting my robe clean”.  Hold on!  I thought Jesus was my righteousness.  I thought Jesus clothed me with His robe of righteousness.

“It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.  Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”  (1 Corinthians 1:30-31)

The most serious error of all!

As much as I truly believe there needs to be a return to holiness preaching and “walking as Jesus walked”, we need to be careful that we don’t fall into the most serious error of all:  Forgetting Jesus!  After everything’s said and done, the only way we can stand before a Holy God is to be hidden in Christ.  He alone is our righteousness.  The most serious error of all is to forget that fact.  Like my wife said later as we sat in the parking lot discussing this… “I could scrub and scrub my robe all day long but it still wouldn’t be clean enough.  I would still have so many stains…”  Exactly!  You can’t scrub your robe clean enough to stand before a Holy God.  If you think you can, you still don’t understand just how Holy He is, (or how sinful you are!).

Hearing this “preacher of righteousness” reminded me of a few things:

1. God’s mercy triumphs over judgment.  The fact that the human race continued after Adam and Eve proves that fact!  He could have ended the whole thing right there.  Don’t get so focused on His wrath that you forget His mercy!
2. Even so, we need to preach about God’s wrath and judgment because those things are very real too.  God sent a flood, and He tells us that the present world we live in will be destroyed by fire.  We should be telling people the whole counsel of God, and talking about God’s judgment is part of that.
3. Don’t exchange one error for an even bigger error:  God’s Word tells us over and over again that we are to live holy lives because our God is holy.  Omitting to teach and practice this truth is a serious error.  However, in our zeal to reclaim the truth of holiness we need to be careful that we don’t commit an even more serious error.  Jesus alone is our righteousness, and He alone is the reason we will be able to stand before a Holy God.  If we forget this truth we have made the most serious error of all! 

We are not saved by our works, we better very careful that we don’t give people the impression that we are!

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!  As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!”

(Galatians 1:6-9)

There’s one thing worse than not preaching holiness… it’s failing to preach that ultimately Jesus alone is that holiness for us.  No matter how hard we try, no matter how holy we get, if we don’t realize that Jesus alone is the only way to stand before a holy God, we’ve made the most serious error of all!

“But Peter said, Silver and gold I have not; but what I have, this give I to thee…”  Acts 3:6

If anyone was capable of sharing the gospel I was… I’d spent years traveling to churches singing and preaching the praises of Jesus.  You could often find me at the beach handing out tracts, or at the mall hanging out in the astrology section of the bookstore witnessing to whoever I found there.  How then did I fail in the opportunity God was giving me to talk to my own stepfather about Jesus…

I was living in Ft Lauderdale that August day, doing my usual thing.  Only later did I understand that God was trying to get my attention.  It started the morning my amp blew up.  “Oh great!  That’s just GREAT!”  I’m sure I probably said it out loud.  The repair was going to be expensive and I didn’t have the money.  (God had always provided for me, and I had no complaints… but my possessions were a suitcase full of clothes, my sound system, and my car; spare cash was NOT one of my possessions!)

I wish I could say I was really spiritual and full of faith, but I wasn’t.  I did pray, but I also fretted all the way up to the repair shop!  So I dropped off the amp, grabbed my claim check, and left wondering how I was ever going to pay for the repair.  Who knew a mile down the road my amp would be an after thought?  As I headed back down the highway, a driver in front of me made a sudden stop.  My car began to spin and my life began to “flash before my eyes” as I jumped the median into oncoming traffic!  I narrowly missed 3 cars, thought for a second I was going to make it to the roadside unscathed when, “Bam!”, I had a head on collision.

Fortunately, no was hurt.  Unfortunately, my car was now totaled!  It was too old to merit carrying collision insurance, so there I was, a traveling singer without a sound system AND without a car!  “Oh great!  Lord, this is JUST great…”

Over the next few days I contemplated the whole thing and wondered how I was ever going to pay for a new car and get my amp fixed.  I alternated between faith and fretting. All I could think about was how was I going to get this “stuff” fixed, when I heard God say to me, “It’s not about the stuff!  It’s not about the amp.  It’s not about the car!”  I didn’t get it.  What WAS it about?  I just had no clue.  Meanwhile, I took public transportation and prayed about it.  (The truth is, for me it was STILL about the stuff!  I wanted a car!)

During this time my sister called and offered to help me find a new car.  She was insistent though that I come back to Wisconsin to do it.  While I really appreciated her offer, it made no sense to me: I didn’t even have enough money to pay for a car and an amp, let alone plane tickets to go to Wisconsin!  I’d think, “Why is she being so insistent for me to go all the way back there?”  I kept trying to think of another way!  And I heard God say again, “I told you, it’s NOT about the stuff!  It’s NOT about the car!”

I was beside myself; I just didn’t get it!  I was also starting to realize I was between a rock and a hard place… it was like God had hemmed me in!  So, I went to Wisconsin to get help.  Everyday while I was there I would take a walk and pray, and most days I would feel God telling me, “Don’t worry about the car.  It’s not about the car.  I can get you a car, it’s NOT about that.”  (And you know, it wasn’t about the car.  God took care of that almost right away with the help of my family.)

“So what was it about?”, I began to ask myself more and more.  As I continued my daily prayer walks another phrase kept coming to me… “Silver and gold have I not, but what I have I give you.”  I knew exactly what it meant to me.  I felt God was telling me to share the gospel with my stepdad.  (My stepdad had given me so much through the years, but what did I have to give him?  I was broke!)  And day after day I would hear God tell me, “Silver and gold have I not, but what I have I give you.”  I didn’t have any worldly thing to my name, but I did have this one treasure; God wanted me to tell my stepdad about Jesus.

I was in Wisconsin for about a month, and every day I thought about it.  I don’t believe there was a day that went by that I didn’t hear that verse in my head, “Silver and gold have I not…”.  If I ever knew God was speaking to me, this was it.  But I kept putting it off.  It never seemed to be the right time.  We were busy doing things together… my brother was home from Michigan, my sister lived in town, the whole family was together having fun… it never seemed to be the right moment.  As the time drew nearer for me to leave, God’s voice grew louder, “but what I have I give you”.  It was constantly in the back of my mind and I couldn’t stop thinking about what I needed to do.

Finally, the day came for me to go back to Florida.  As I shook my stepdad’s hand to say goodbye, I heard the words one last time, “Silver and gold have I not, but what I have I give you”.  But it seemed especially awkward now; I was about to leave and everybody was saying goodbye.  As I drove away I comforted myself that I would talk to him about it soon.  But soon never came; I was back to Florida for just a day when I got the phone call.  It was from my sister… my stepfather had just died.  

It wasn’t about the car; it wasn’t about the stuff.  God had worked through my circumstances to get me back to Wisconsin so I could share the gospel with my stepdad.

Today is the day of salvation

I had shared the gospel with my stepdad years before, but he wasn’t open to it.  After his death I learned that others had also shared Jesus with him.  Had he ever called out to the Lord?  I will never know until I leave this world.  All I know is God spoke to me every day for a month to talk to him about Jesus.  I should have listened and obeyed; wishing I had won’t change a thing… that moment is forever gone.

We all have our reasons and excuses for not sharing the gospel, but I learned the hard way that when God says, “TODAY is the day of salvation”, He means TODAY… there may not be a tomorrow.