The Most Realistic Movie Ever Made

I found out the other day that an old colleague of mine had died suddenly of a heart attack. She was my age, and had two children the same age as my younger ones.

That reminded me that another colleague from the same place died in her twenties a few years ago in a road accident in tragic circumstances. Both of them had worked in the same small department with me. There were four of us excluding our manager, and now half of us are dead. Death seems to be ticking us off his list one by one.

That started me thinking of all the other people I knew that had died prematurely…

Another colleague from that same company died of cancer a few years ago in her thirties. I worked in another place where one of my bosses died of cancer, and one of my sales colleagues died in a motorcycle crash. I remember speaking to him on the Friday and then hearing after the weekend that he’d been killed in the accident.

I could even think back to school days where two of my classmates died suddenly in different mishaps.

Then I realised that the longer I live the more people I will know who will die prematurely. Eventually if I live to 100 years old practically everyone I know will have died. But that’s because death catches everyone eventually. No one escapes it. Whether it comes at 15, 25, 45 or 105. Whether it’s sudden or after an illness or just because the body gets worn out with age, death will come. It’s the one and only thing you can know about your future with absolute certainty.

That’s why I think the film Final Destination is actually a pretty accurate micro portrait of life.

In the film a group of people cheat death in a plane crash. They leave the plane before it takes off, and watch as it explodes in midair. In the following days several of those people die in sudden and unexpected ways (and gruesome of course!), bringing the group to the belief that death is tracking them down one by one in the order that they should have died. The chilling conclusion is that even if you escape death once around, death will track you down and get you eventually. When your time has come, there is no escape.

I’m not trying to be deliberately morbid in writing about this. I just feel that reflections on these things can be helpful. Think about it. The way you view your death can give a pretty good indication of how you view your life. And how you view your life will affect the way that you live your life.

You could put death out of your mind and try to pretend that you’re immortal. After all worrying about it isn’t going to change what’s going to happen. Might as well carry on and just live your life?

Or I suppose you could face up to the inevitability of death, and your lack of power to stop it, by living your life to the max, drinking in all the experiences that life has to offer because you know that your time may come at any moment.

But deep down I think most of us fear death. The majority of human beings actually like living, and we like the experiences we have in life, even if for periods we suffer pain or hardship. Even some of those who suffer for most of their lives, I venture, are able to find comfort and enjoyment in places, and live in the knowledge that it’s not supposed to be like this. So even they live with at least a grain of hope that they may see better days. Death brings an end to that enjoyment, and an end to all hope. And what is the point of it if it has to end? We don’t want it to end.

And I think that’s because deep down we know that we are not meant to die. We were made for more than to briefly appear on the world stage and then disappear. There’s something that feels very wrong about death, as if it shouldn’t be happening. We know that it comes to everyone eventually, and yet we grieve – sometimes inconsolably – when those we love are taken, and the thought of our own death makes us tetchy and anxious. If death were so normal, then even the death of children should move us to little more than a shoulder-shrug.

According to the Bible we were not made to die. We were made to be perfect, and to experience perfection in God’s eternal presence forever. And yet, because of sin and the consequences of it, under the judgment of God, death is a reality. There is a very real sense in which all death is premature. Just because most people die in their 80s doesn’t make them any less unfortunate. God made human beings as immortal. Death only exists because God had to take immortal earthly life away as a punishment.

The irony is that death is not only God’s punishment on sin – His way of ensuring that those who reject His rule cannot share in His blessings and His goodness forever. Death is also our only hope, because it is also God’s way of giving new life.

First, since the whole of creation was put under a curse because of the sin of human beings, death means that we need not be under this curse for eternity.

Second, God’s rescue plan, His way of pulling human beings out from the curse on sin, involved the death of His Son on a cross. Without death there would be no sacrifice for the Son of God to make, no way of bringing sin to an end with the finality of a punishment taken in our place.

Third, bodily death gives God the way of sweeping everything from this life away and starting again. We can look forward to a New Heavens and New Earth, into which God’s people will be brought with resurrected and perfected bodies. We can be thankful for the hope of that resurrection, but it wouldn’t be possible without death.

The difference with the New Creation is that only those who are in Christ can be part of it, only those who have turned from the sin that brought the curse, accepted the rule of God’s Christ, and live by faith in Him in this life, those for whom Jesus made atonement.

So finally, death is a reminder to us, a message, if we will listen, confronting us with a deadline. We cannot keep on acting like we are the masters of our own destiny. Death tells us brutally that we’re not. We must face up to our mortality, and accept Jesus Christ as our only way of salvation, before it’s too late. Without Him, after death when there is no way back, we will be shut out from the presence of God, from His blessings and His goodness. We will immortalise our rejection of Him, and He will turn His back on us forever.

Sobering thoughts… at least I hope so.

In Final Destination death always gets the victory. It always wins, and that’s what makes it so scary. But for those who trust in Christ death is not victorious. The Bible says, in speaking about the Resurrection, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). The ultimate victory over death is that God uses death in bringing the hope of eternal life for those who trust in Jesus. So perhaps Final Destination is not all that realistic after all!

The risk of offending people

Whose Rules Rule? - Part Twelve

Should we try to avoid offending people?

This is the last part of this series and I would be surprised if I haven't offended anyone by what I've been saying over the past few months. As I've said throughout the series, talking about morality can be unpopular in a culture that is based on the ultimate final authority of self. A detached discussion is almost impossible, since we are moral beings, when most people see themselves as ultimately in control of what defines right and wrong in their own lives.

And yet this is something that Christians are rightly very sensitive about. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:32, "Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God," meaning give no offense to anyone. Jesus said, "Judge not, that you be not judged." (Matthew 7:1) We know we have good news to share with people, we want to share it, and offending people causes them to shut their ears and refuse to listen to it. We don't want to judge people, because we know that we too are sinners and are only saved through God's grace in Christ. To try to remain at peace with those around us, so that we may have opportunity to share the good news of the grace of God in Christ with them, is a very laudable aim.

So I want to make two points. First, I want both Christians and modern non-religious people to understand that simply talking about morality, saying that something is wrong, immoral, unrighteous, or sinful, is not in itself being judgmental. A judgmental attitude involves portraying ourselves as better than someone else, looking down on them. Romans 14:10 makes this clear: "Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God." Paul equates passing judgment on someone with despising them, and his reason for saying that it's wrong is that we are all equally deserving of judgment. That ties in with something I talked about in parts 7 and 8.

That's why I have spent such a long time trying to get across that the difference between Christian morality and non-religious morality needs to be understood. Non-religious people understand discussions about morality within their own frame of reference, and that is that all morality is relative and guided by our personal preferences. Christian morality, however, does not fit into that. We have an objective basis for our moral code.

So simply saying something is wrong is not being judgmental. Saying something is wrong in a way that despises other sinners and puts ourselves in a superior position is being judgmental, and is not speaking in the way Jesus would want us to. So we need to learn a compassionate way of speaking about morality, one that makes it clear that we are equally under the law and equally sinners, and that the reason for our talking about morality is in order to lead them into the way of salvation. We want to see them saved, we want them to have eternal joy and life, we want them to find true fulfilment. But they will not get that without recognising and repenting of their sin.

And neither can we say we are better because we have repented and turned to Jesus in faith. Faith is itself a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8,9). We are, without the work of God within our hearts, dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-7). Jesus himself said that we must be "born again" (John 3:3) in order to see the kingdom of God - in other words something must happen to us that we cannot initiate ourselves. Our salvation, as Christians, is dependent entirely on God's grace.

If the people we speak to will listen carefully and graciously, then they may at least understand this point, even if they don't come to accept God's authority in all things including morality. On the other hand, it may lead them to take even greater offense.

You see - and this is my second point - even when people see clearly that we don't judge people automatically by making moral statements about right and wrong, the Christian message may still be offensive to them. Paul talks elsewhere about, "the offense of the cross" (Galatians 5:11).

Why would the wooden cross that was used to kill the Lord Jesus Christ be offensive? Because it demonstrates the justice of God, the kind of wrath He pours out on disobedience. It demonstrates that no one can see themselves as automatically "in" with Him, but they must go through His Son, Jesus Christ. The cross demands repentance, it demands we put our faith in someone who is genuinely better than us, genuinely greater than us. He is perfect, and yet He suffered death for our sake. But we don't want to be told what to do, who to have faith in. We don't want to submit to anyone. We love our sins, our sinful personal preferences. Repentance is an utterly repugnant idea to us.

We hope that people will accept our message, but we should not expect everyone to do so. Paul said of his own ministry, "For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life." (2 Corinthians 2:15-16) In other words, if God is working light and life within a person, He will use our words to save them. But if not, our words will be to them an offensive, deathly stench that will only push them further away.

Therefore, we should not tone down our message simply because people are offended. When people are offended we need to understand that they are feeling threatened by the very core truth of the gospel - that we are responsible to God and we have failed Him and deserve His wrath. That is actually a good thing. Without seeing that, no one would be able to understand the need for faith and repentance.

To put it another way, following the parable I gave last time, if I were to offend people by warning them that they are going the wrong way on a countryside walk, and are heading towards a cliff edge and towards certain doom, what should concern me most? The fact that those people are annoyed with me? Or the fact that they are continuing towards the edge of the cliff? What would I do? Stop talking about the fact they're going the wrong way, because they want me to shut up? Or keep talking, finding any way possible to get them to realise that they are in danger?

So I hope we are all, by now, challenged to keep talking about morality, to base our moral statements/arguments firmly on what is in God's Word, to use the opportunity to expose the bankruptcy of non-religious foundations of thinking, to recognise where the offense we cause is because of the truth, and to love the gospel and love our Saviour all the more.

To Jesus Christ be all the glory. Amen.

All may come! All may be saved!

Whose Rules Rule? - Part Nine

We learnt last time that the equality of human beings within a Christian worldview involves not only being created as special by God, in His image, but certain other things that are universally true of human beings. As human beings we are universally tainted by sin - we have a sinful nature. Our natural inclination is to sin and to be self-centred, rather than God-centred. And as universally sinful we are all headed towards a Judgment Day that will not go well for us, and we would all be sent to Hell without some intervention. The fact that we all die is one sign of that truth. Physical death in human beings would not have happened except as a consequence of sin. But we face the prospect of something much worse than death.

The good news is that Jesus Christ, God's own Son visible 2,000 years ago as a human being, died to take away sin and take away wrath. His death was the punishment for the sins of all those who believe in Him. He took our place. He suffered not just the physical agony of the crucifixion, preceded by the beatings, lashings, ridicule and betrayal. He suffered the separation from God that we deserve - on the cross He cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46) That was a reference to a psalm of the old scriptures, but it reflected what He was going through on the cross. He was put out of God's presence, away from everything good. In a very real way, He suffered hell for us.

But He didn't suffer hell forever, as we would. He rose from the dead, with a perfected body, to show that He has conquered sin and death and Hell. Instead of those bad things, we can look forward to also rising from the dead and having a perfected body. And on that day we will also see a perfected creation, what the Bible calls "the New Heaven and New Earth" (Revelation 21; see also 2 Peter 3:13).

And Jesus did that all for us, for whoever will put their trust in Him.

The offer is universal, to every single human being on the planet. We are all equally graciously offered eternal life, forgiveness of our sins, renewed access to God (the source of all good) forever.

Going back to Romans chapter 5, verses 6-11, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

"Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."

And later in verses 18-19, "just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous."

We are all sinners, we all deserve God's wrath, and we are all offered forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus Christ. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

The way that we get access to this free gift of eternal life is simply through repentance and faith (see Acts 3:19 and 16:31, for example).

Faith is believing not just the facts about Jesus, not just believing that the Bible is true. Faith is trusting in the person, Jesus Christ, that He has done the necessary work so that you can look forward to receiving the promised forgiveness and eternal life.

Repentance means you stop doing sinful things. It means you stop acting like you are the final authority, and you acknowledge that God is the final authority and you submit to His authority. You stop doing things because of your self-centred desires, and start doing things because you want to do what God wants.

Sometimes I feel like we ought to be specific occasionally. So, for instance, repentance means that if you are an abortionist, you give up your job killing babies. If you are a prostitute, you stop selling sex. If you engage in homosexual sex, you do so no longer. If you are sleeping with a person you are not married to, you stop. If you are violently aggressive, you become peaceful. If you are involved in fraud, you stop and be honest. If you are greedy and selfish, you start to be selfless and open. And I could go on…

Repentance means acknowledging the sins of the past as sins, and resolving never to return to them.

But it's also much more than specific lists of dos and don'ts. Repentance is about recognising that God is above all, and we should obey Him, and trust Him, and if that means giving up something that He says is sinful then we do it happily. Repentance means we no longer usurp God's authority in our own lives. We no longer act as if we are the final authority when it comes to right and wrong in our thoughts, words and deeds. We acknowledge God's final authority. And that is a fundamental shift in worldview. I hope that has become clear over the nine parts of this series so far.

Hence when Christians speak about morality, calling for purity and repentance, we do so from a standpoint of equality, not supposed superiority. We are not only equally created, but equally sinners, equally wrath-deserving and equally called to repentance and faith, equally offered forgiveness and eternal life.

Our view of ourselves should give us a humble attitude when we stand for God's morality, and maintain that abortion is wrong, pornography is wrong, etc, because we know that we are not superior in God's sight.

It is Jesus Christ alone who makes the difference.

The road to hell is wide

Whose Rules Rule? - Part Eight

To recap, I've been talking for a few months about morality and it's place in Christian thought. I've compared Christian rational foundations with non-religious foundations. Non-religious philosophies, I've argued, have no rational basis for morality. They want to say some things are right and some things are wrong. They even sometimes treat Christians as if we are evil because we transgress their rule that no-one is allowed to question their authority! But because they have only themselves to turn to for authority, because their fundamental belief is that humans are no more special than rocks, apes, dolphins or roses, because they can't define anything objectively, their rules reduce to arbitrary preferences that they try to enforce on everyone else.

In the last couple of articles I've tried to show the foundations that Christians have for morality in more detail. Our responsibility is to God, because He created human beings to have a special relationship with Him. We are created equal. But because of the sin of Adam and Eve, the first human beings, every descendent has been tainted with self-centred, God-rejecting, sinfulness. And out of that sinful, self-centred heart comes immorality and sin. Human beings are equally sinners.

The consequences for sin are the same for every human being too.

Since all sin is an expression of a rejection of God's authority, He is perfectly justified to be filled with wrath and anger and indignation. The Bible warns us that we will all one day face God's judgment, and our sinful rejection of God's authority will be punished forever. Frankly, we deserve Hell.

People baulk at the idea of Hell, but if we only understood the nature and perfection of God we would see that it is the only punishment possible. God is perfect, and the source of everything good - love, joy, peace, perfection. To be cut off from God is to be cut off from the source of everything good, and therefore to suffer everything bad for the rest of eternity. Those who reject God's authority, because they would rather go their own way, want to enjoy the good things that come from God - beauty, love, joy, peace, power - but they refuse to submit to Him. God only allows that situation temporarily in "this life" - up to 80 years or so nowadays. When the Judgment Day comes, those who reject God's authority, evidenced by their sin (using the good things God has made and given to them for their own selfish ends, rather than for the purpose He gave them), will be given what their actions deserve - to be cut off from God forever, and therefore sent to an eternity without access to anything good, sent to Hell.

"It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment…" (Hebrews 9:27)

"For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience." (Ephesians 5:5-6)

"… following the course of this world… among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind..." (Ephesians 2:2-4)

We may not all be equally sinful, but we are equally sinners and therefore equally deserve God's wrath and the eternal punishment in Hell that comes with that.

I'm going to publish the next chapter soon, but I do want to give you chance to dwell on this for a little while. In fact, if you are reading this retrospectively (in other words, you are picking up the series after the series has been completely published) then I'd encourage you to pause here and reflect.

This is not popular stuff, but it is reality. It's not just idle talk, it's not simply for lecture theatres, pulpits and blogs. It's not simply "very interesting stuff". It's about our eternal destiny. It's what will really happen in history because of what our real actions have been based on. And that's why it's important, as Christians, that we don't shirk from talking about it, unpleasant though it is.

I once talked to one of my housemates at university about the gospel, and tried to do so as sensitively as possible. At one stage, though, he asked me outright, "so you believe I'm heading to hell?" I said quietly, "Yes, I do." And he walked out of the room, and didn't speak to me again… ever. He avoided me until the end of the summer term, and that was his final year. I have not seen him or heard from him since that day in 1991.

In the film The Day After Tomorrow, one scene always strikes me. The film is a disaster movie, about how a particular combination of weather events conspire to bring about extreme weather across the whole world, leaving half the USA under snow and ice. Dennis Quaid plays the heroic scientist (Jack Hall) who predicts the events, and then has to go and find his son, Sam, who is trapped in the ice in New York. Having managed a brief conversation on the phone with his father, Sam knows that the best chance for the group of survivors he is huddled with in the New York Public Library is to stay indoors. If they go outside they may get caught in the huge freezing cyclones that are moving over the world, and they will freeze to death in seconds. At one stage the survivors in the library get impatient and talk of moving on to find better shelter. Sam pleads with them not to, telling them what his father has told him. He knows that by going outside they will die, and he tries to warn them. Some of the group simply ignore Sam, some argue with him and tell him to be quiet. Even when he explains that his dad is a climatologist and knows what is happening, and that he has just spoken to him, they still refuse to listen. All except a couple of the group go outside. Jack discovers their frozen bodies as he treks north through the snow to try to rescue Sam and his friends.

It strikes me that this is like the way Christians are treated when we try to warn about hell, eternal punishment. What we are doing is warning, because we have been told by our Father, that a big storm is coming - a Day of Judgment. Yet we are ignored, marginalised, mocked and sometimes shouted down for doing so.

The worst outcome can be avoided by listening to the Son. Jesus.

If you are not a Christian, don't, whatever you do, exit this series at this point. There is good news to come.

Reflections on What it Will Be Like Meeting God on Judgment Day

When we think about dying and meeting God we should be afraid, afraid enough to think how we can prepare for that day. We will all die one day, and when we do we will meet our Maker! An atheist may say they don't believe they will have any conscious experience after death, and therefore they have nothing to be afraid of. But God has told us that we will all face Him after the end of our life in this world. We can choose whether we believe that or not, but that will not affect the truth of the situation. And the prospect of meeting the Creator, the Lawmaker, the Judge, the All-Powerful, the Ruler of Everything, should make us nervous.

I had an experience recently that made me think about this. It's not an experience I really wanted to talk about. I would rather forget about it, to be honest. But for the sake of a helpful illustration I will share! If someone finds this helpful then perhaps it will make a bad experience a bit more bearable!!

I had a claim for "Jobseekers Allowance" (a UK state benefit for the unemployed) turned down in 2009 when I had been out of work for eight months. I thought that was jolly unfair and so I appealed against the decision. I thought nothing more of it, since I finally found an interim management contract, and then fell ill. It was not worth chasing. But then a few of months ago I got a letter acknowledging my appeal and inviting me to a tribunal to hear the case. The hearing was several weeks ago, at the end of 2010.

I went along to the hearing having done a little preparation, but not armed with enough evidence to back up my case. I completely underestimated the formality and seriousness of the occasion. And I was utterly humiliated!

The case was heard by a "judge". Ok, not a real judge, but an independent lawyer with authority to judge in the tribunal. I walked into the room alone and sat at a desk facing the judge's bench, which was raised up on a platform. He spoke with a confident, posh accent - like the judges in the TV courtroom dramas.

He chided me for not bringing enough evidence, made me feel very small and reduced all my arguments to mumbling. I had set up my affairs in a particular way, and had not ordered them correctly in a way that would allow me to claim benefits. The fact that I had reached the point of selling a car, cashing in mortgage endowment policies and maxing out credit cards was of no interest. The fact that I had not asked advice from someone who could have given me good advice was of no consequence (even though I had asked advice from the Citizens Advice Bureau!). I had tripped over the letter of the law, I should have known better and my appeal was a waste of everyone's time. And since I had earned a fair amount of money before my lengthy spell out of work I was made to feel bad for even applying for benefits in the first place.

I wished I had taken the whole thing more seriously, but it was too late. I wished I had been better prepared, but it was too late. I wished I had brought an advisor or a representative with me, but it was too late. (Actually, to be perfectly honest, I wished that I had just given up on the claim in 2009 and not bothered with the appeal!)

My point is not the rights or wrongs of my case. My point is that the experience of sitting in front of an unsympathetic judge, on my own, with no advocate, no advisor, in a quiet room on a grey Tuesday afternoon, and receiving what I felt was a "telling off", was extremely unpleasant. I would rather forget about it.

Without Christ, when we face God, the Judge of all People, we too would go before Him alone. We would feel exposed. We would realise how unprepared we are. We would kick ourselves because it would be too late to do anything about it. We would kick ourselves for not taking this court more seriously. All our arguments and complaints against Him would be reduced to mumbling. We would not be able to exonerate ourselves. God's courtroom would be infinitely more forbidding and scary than the mini-courtroom I sat in. God would not have to say very much before our arguments would crumble, and we would realise that we should have known. And instead of being free to walk out of the hearing into the bleak streets of Reading, with only an ear-bashing and a failed appeal, we would go straight to face eternal punishment.

Many of us know this deep within ourselves, and we fear it. How will God, who sees everything, look upon our impurities, our selfishness, our greed, our sins? Can we really comfort ourselves with not being as bad as the worst? We're not Myra Hindley, Saddam Hussain or Adolf Hitler, but is that good enough? Everyone does things that are wrong, but is that a good enough excuse? Who will help us after we die to make our case before God, the Creator, the Judge? 

If we dwell long enough on the subject of our death, we realise that it will be a lonely journey. Can we really believe it will be a journey into darkness and nothing? Or will it be a lonely journey into the presence of the One whom we have spent our lives trying to avoid? And if we have spent our lives trying to avoid Him, how angry will He be? Who will help us then?

There is only one person who can help us. And only one way we can avoid this humiliation. That is Jesus Christ.

The Bible says that, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 1:8-2:2) (NB. "Propitiation" is where God's judgment upon us because of our sin is turned aside by Jesus standing in our place, taking our punishment upon himself.)

Jesus is our advocate with God the Father. Jesus stands for us in the courtroom of God if we have faith in Him and repent of our sins. He speaks in our defence. God could justly punish every human being with eternal damnation for our rejection of His rule in our lives. And yet because Jesus, the perfect Son of God, came as a human being on earth, and took the punishment that should have been handed to His people, by dying on the cross and suffering separation from His Father, God can look at us in that courtroom and acquit us. And we will be acquitted, not because God simply sweeps our sins and wrongdoing under the carpet, but because His justice has already been satisfied by Jesus' death. All the wrath of God that we deserve was brought down on the head of the Son of God.

And God, through Christ, offers that forgiveness, to everyone if they will only turn, acknowledging their sin against Him, trusting in Jesus.

The bad news of life without Christ is death without Christ - a lonely journey to a courtroom where wrath with be full, wrath will be forever and wrath will be just.

The good news of life with Christ is eternal life after death with Christ - a life accompanied by the best friend and advocate anyone ever had, freedom to enjoy the new perfect creation that God will bring in to replace this passing universe at the end of time, a life never having to come in to the courtroom of God because Jesus has been there on our behalf.

Some more verses:

"The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23)

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:6-8)

"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him." (John 3:36)

If you are not a Christian, understand that this is serious and true, and this is the reason why your Christian friends want to convert you so much!! Your urgent attention will not be wasted for all eternity.

For Christians these thoughts should fill us again with gratitude and worship, that we should be forgiven and redeemed even though we deserve wrath. And we should be filled with compassion and concern for our friends and family members who don't yet believe the good news, leading us to urgent prayer and taking every opportunity, with humility and grace, to share this salvation with them.

May none of us have to face the courtroom of God, but instead, through Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world, may we look forward to eternal life and friendship with God.