Five Tremendous Truths
I Peter 3:15-18
PASTOR BILL AND HIS WIFE HAD JUST FINISHED A DAY OF SAILING and were about to leave the dock area when they got involved in a conversation with another couple that had also been sailing. After a pleasant exchange they were invited to join this couple aboard their boat for a party. They accepted and got into their little dingy and went on over to the other craft. They had a nice time and when one of their new friends asked what Bill did for a living, he didn’t even seem taken aback by the fact that Bill was a minister.
Well, after a while Pastor Bill and his wife decided to leave. As they were climbing into their dingy, the host asked Bill, “Say, I’ve always wanted to ask a Christian something. How is it that one becomes a Christian? Could you take a few moments to tell all of us?”
It was right at this point the Pastor Bill thought of I Peter 3:15: “Always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope you possess.”
Tell me, what would you have said? I know that at least part of giving an answer is to make it as clear and simple as possible. In seminary I was taught that when you are declaring God’s truth you must strive for one thing above all others: CLARITY! Keep your message simple enough for anyone to understand.
Let me share some actual quotes taken from insurance-accident forms. These are the actual words of people who tried to summarize their encounters with trouble.
- “Coming home, I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don’t have.”
- “I thought my window was down, but I found it was up when I put my hand through it.”
- “A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.”
- “In an attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.”
- “My car was legally parked as it backed into the other vehicle.”
- “To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front, I struck the pedestrian.”
- “I told the police that I was not injured, but removing my hat, I found that I had a fracture.”
- “I was thrown from my car when it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by some stray cows.”
- “The guy was all over the road; I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.”
All kidding aside, we need to be careful as believers that we do not send out a confusing message---that those who hear our message are not confused.
I once attended a seminar for pastors. When I left, I looked at my note pad. It had only 4 words on it. I asked myself, “What was his point? What exactly did he say that I could take with me?” Then I asked a fellow student and he felt the same way.
It is good discipline for preachers to occasionally share their sermon thoughts with someone to check for clarification. I make use of my wife for this purpose.
The Christian message is simple---straight-forward, and easy to grasp if presented properly. God does not want us to be confused about His love and plan for us. Let me share the Gospel with you in five simple statements.
1. Life Is Short
James 4:14: “Life is like a vapor.” It disappears quickly.
I Chronicles 29:15: “Life is like a shadow.”
Job 7:6: “Life is like a swift messenger.”
In other words, life is uncertain, fragile---here today, gone tomorrow!
Psalm 139 tells us that our days on this planet are determined by God while we are still in our mother’s womb. Only He knows how long we will live---two weeks, two years, 40 years, 80 years.
A minister was visiting on of his members in the hospital one Saturday. The patient was sitting up in a chair. He said to his pastor, “I’ve not gelt this good in a long time. In fact, the doctor is going to release me tomorrow.” But he never left the hospital. He died that very night. Life is short!
I received a call one night to go see a man who was in critical condition in the hospital. I was told that he was asking for me. By the time I arrived, he was dead. Life is short!
I had a pastor friend who suddenly became very ill. He was only 31. Within just a few short weeks he was dead, despite all that modern medicine could do. Life is short!
We read about people living into their late 90’s and even 100 and we say, “That’s a long time to live.” But listen, Methuselah lived to be 969 years old. Yet even that is a short time compared to eternity. Some of us that are in our “senior years: often say “Where have the years gone? I was young yesterday.” Life is short!
2. Eternity is long
Suppose that a sparrow took a drop of water in its beak from the Atlantic ocean, then flew across the U.S. and deposited it into the Pacific. Then suppose he kept repeating this process until he had emptied the Atlantic into the Pacific. And when he had completed this, eternity would only have just begun.
The Bible tells us that the souls of men and women will spend eternity in either heaven or hell. The description of heaven found in the Bible is wonderful. The picture of hell is absolutely horrible. God has provided a way for us to be sure that we spend eternity with Him in heaven. That way is through faith in His one and only precious Son.
3. Sin Is Black
This world is full of sin and it has entered your heart and mine. Ever since Adam and Eve allowed sin into their lives, everyone has been contaminated with it. Psalm 51:5 says that we are born in sin and conceived in iniquity.
Isaiah tells us that “All have sinned and that we like sheep, have gone astray.”
What is sin? It is rebellion against God. It is breaking God’s law. It is unbelief. Unbelief is the worst kind of sin---it is that which damns souls to an everlasting hell.
If we could journey through the halls of hell and could talk to its inhabitants, we would find all kinds of people there---thieves, murderers, rapists, good people, moral people, respectable people---people who always obeyed the law. What are they doing there? Well, if we could ask them, they would say, “We are here because we did not repent and receive Christ into our lives. To ignore Christ is to choose the devil.
The penalty of sin is severe. Ezekiel 18:20 says that “the soul that sins shall die.” Romans 6:23 tells us that “the wages of sin is separation from God.”
The remedy for sin is found in the atoning blood of Jesus. I John 1:7 says, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Chicago World’s Fair: Congress on Religion:
- Islam: Beauties of Religion
- Buddhism: Virtues of Life
- Confucianism: Great Teaching
- Christianity: Pardon for sin
Yes, sin is black but there is a remedy for it. Jesus paid it all. All to Him we owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. God the Son provided us a way out of the dilemma of sin—as escape from its awful consequences. Praise His Name!
4. Hell is Certain
Some years ago a man was preaching a revival in a large city church. A man in the church was a reporter and he would take sermon notes and then have them published each day in the paper. One night the sermon topic was on hell. When this was published, his pastor received a scathing letter in which a man wrote, “Don’t you know that only backwoods fools would believe in hell? Don’t you know that thinking, educated believe don’t believe in it anymore? Even theologians don’t believe in hell.”
The pastor wrote him back and said, “Yes, I know about what people say about hell. But I also know that they haven’t destroyed the place. Its fires are as hot as ever!”
Jesus warned us about its awful reality. The Bible speaks more about hell than it does about heaven.
Why is that? I believe its because God loves us and wants to warn us so that we can find a way to avoid it.
Yes, hell is certain and there is no escape except through faith in the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
6. Heaven Can Be Yours
A wealthy American made a trip to London. He was all taken up with Buckingham Palace, where the king lived. So one morning he went to the gates, expecting to go right in, but two soldiers stuck out their bayonets and stopped him. They said, “Where do you think you’re going?” So he took out a $1,000 bill and said to them, “Take this money; I can pay my way in.” But they said, “You can’t buy your way into the king’s palace. You have to be invited. If the king invites you, you can go in free!”
Friends, it’s the same way with heaven. You can’t buy your way in, or work your way in. There’s only one way in---by receiving the invitation of Christ. There’s only one condition: a willingness to turn from a sinful life. His palace (heaven) is open to all who will trust Him for salvation.
What’s so great about heaven, you say?
- Jesus is there
- Loved ones are there
- Bible characters are there
- Angels are there
- The devil isn’t there
- Sin isn’t there
- Pain, suffering, disease, and death aren’t there
- Hospitals aren’t there
- Prisons aren’t there
My friends, let me remind you of these 5 things that make up the simple Gospel.
1. Life is short
2. Eternity is long
3. Sin is black
4. Hell is real
5. Heaven can be yours
Over in England, every day at noon a man by the name of Jim went to the church, sat down on the front row for 5 minutes, then slipped out. One day his pastor asked why he did this. Jim answered, “The world wears me down, and so I sit here in church and bow my head and say, ‘Jesus, this is Jim. I need your help today.’ And He always pours new strength into me.” One day Jim’s pastor was called to the hospital. Jim was dying. When the pastor went into the room, Jim asked everyone else to go out. Then he said, “Pastor, when they brought me here, they thought I was unconscious, but I heard them say that I was going to die. They left me alone for a few minutes but I felt the presence of Someone else in the room. I looked around but didn’t see anyone. Then I heard a sweet voice saying, ‘Jim, this is Jesus. I’ve come to take you home with Me. Don’t be afraid. I’ll go through the dark valley with you.’” Then Jim said to his pastor, “I’m not afraid. I’m ready to go and within minutes his soul departed.
Wouldn’t you like to live like that? Wouldn’t you like to have that same sense of Christ’s presence and be able to say along with the apostle Paul, “Whether I live, I am the Lord’s; whether I die, I am the Lord’s; so, whether I live or die, I am the Lord’s.”
