"What's the Buzz?".... continued
Your brain is millions of times more complex than a honey bee’s brain. If you think that your brain is simply 3 pounds of chemicals that got together by chance over billions of years, how can you trust your thoughts and reasoning processes and the conclusions you come to? Maybe there’s a chemical in there backwards!
The evidence is everywhere that there is 1 God, (you can’t have 2 First Causes!), that He is good, and that He made us to reflect His goodness, (God’s rules are a reflection of who He is). The Laws of God are written on the hearts of everyone. Did you ever consider what The Big 10 are all about? They demonstrate that we were made for friendship. God wants us to love and be loved by Him and each other. When you break the commandments you are acting like an enemy not a friend! Think what the world would be like if everyone perfectly obeyed all God’s Laws all the time. There would be no hurt feelings from being lied to, cheated on, or stolen from. There’d be no fear of being raped or murdered. There would be happy families full of people who could always be trusted to say and do good things. There would be world peace, not war. Please take a minute to compare The Law of God in our conscience in light of the written Law of God in The Bible.
All people everywhere, throughout history have believed that it is wrong to lie, which is the 9th commandment. You may try to excuse your own lies, but the fact that you get angry when someone lies to you proves that you believe that lying is wrong. Even people that are in the habit of swearing will usually apologize when they realize that someone present is offended by taking The Name of The Lord God in vain. Did you ever consider why people don’t say,‘Buddha dam you’, or ‘Confucius’, or ‘Mohammed’? It’s always, God or His Son Jesus Christ. Some of those that feel guilty about breaking the 3rd commandment may say ‘cheese and rice’, ‘Gees’ or something similar. You prove that you agree with the 8th commandment if you don’t want your stuff stolen, even if you are a thief! Would it upset you if you knew that someone wanted what you value, to belong to him or her instead of you? That’s the 10th commandment.
Want to know why we all live by the 7-day week? Check out the 4th commandment in Exodus 20. The 24-hour day can be explained by the 24-hour rotation of the planet. It takes about 365 days or 1 year for the world to travel around the sun. But the only reason that we live by the 7-day week is because our Creator made the earth and all that is in it in 6 days and rested on the 7th. Do you feel creepy, violated or used if someone seems to be undressing you with their eyes? Check out the 7th commandment and then read Matt. 5:28! How about the 6th? Would you want justice to be done with a killer who murdered someone that you loved?
Speaking of justice we all believe that people should get what they deserve. We are made in the image of God with a desire for fairness in our hearts. If we do good, we’d like a reward. Of course, if we do bad, we’d like mercy that would prevent us from getting what we deserve. Better yet, we’d like grace giving us a free reward that we didn’t earn and definitely don’t deserve! Even if we try to do our best, we fail to measure up to God’s standard or even our own lower standard.
Think about it. Did you do your best last week? Could you have done better? If there was any room for improvement, then you didn’t do your best! Do you really always do unto others, as you would have them do unto you??? How do you deal with your failure to do what you know is right? Many people are hypocrites trying harder to look good than to be good. (The word hypocrite means pretender.) Others call themselves atheists pretending that God isn’t real. Most of them are either angry with God, or they simply don’t want to recognize His character and authority until they are faced with the probability of sudden death. Then they usually respond with ‘Foxhole Religion’ crying out, “Oh God,get me out of this and I’ll try to live Your way.” Yes, that’s why people fear death. In the bottom of their darkened hearts, they know that they have to face the Holy God on Judgment Day. They know that they are guilty. We have all missed the mark of God’s glory, which is perfect love. Yes, that’s why people fear death.
We all admit, “Nobody’s perfect”. Romans 3:23 says “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Just as with men’s civil law you don’t have to break all 10 commandments to be a lawbreaker. The Bible warns, “For whoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet stumble in 1 point, he is guilty of all.” If you’re hanging over a cliff by a 10-link chain and only one link breaks you will fall just as far and land just as hard as if all 10 links broke. Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
This teaching is the difference between natural religion and the Gospel message in The Bible. Most religions admit that we are not perfect and that perfection is the necessary goal. Most have some method, ritual or tradition to try to help you clean up your life and prepare to meet your Maker. The bad news is that even with the help of religion, counselors or psychologists, we cannot fix our sinfulness….
Think about it. If someone got drunk, broke the speed laws and as a result killed someone that you loved, when he went before the judge should he be charged with breaking the law and reckless homicide even though he had not broken any other laws since his arrest? We can never do enough good deeds to make up for our bad deeds. Since God is good, all good, all the time He must be just. Sin must be punished. Perhaps you think that because God is good, He should ignore your sins. That would make God a hypocrite (pretender).
If you were guilty of terrible crimes in a civil court and said to the judge, "Judge, I am guilty but I believe that you are a good man and will therefore overlook my crimes." The judge would probably respond by saying, "You are right about one thing; I am a good man, and it's because of my goodness that I am going to see that justice is done and that you are punished for your crimes."
The very thing that many are hoping will save them on Judgment Day, 'God's goodness,' will be the very thing that will condemn them. If God is good, He should punish murderers, liars, thieves, etc., and Hell will be their eternal destiny. Take the time to read what Jesus said Hell was like in Mark 9:43-48. If you don't believe what I am saying about the reality of Hell, it means you think God is corrupt (that He doesn't have the moral backbone to seek justice), that Jesus was a liar, that the Apostles were false witnesses, that God's promises are nothing but prefabricated lies, and there is no greater insult to God than to call Him a liar. Imagine if you reject the Savior, die in your sins and find out that what I have told is all true? Then it will be too late. You are guilty of sinning against God Himself and, because you have a conscience, you have sinned "with knowledge." Is it not true that every time you lied, stole, lusted, etc., you did it with the knowledge that it was wrong?
Your only hope is the fact that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, chose to become a man; for 33 years lived righteously; and then paid for your entire sin debt by serving the death sentence that you deserve. Our sin cuts us off from the only source of life and love. Justice was served when Jesus was punished in our place pouring out His lifeblood for your sin and mine. Then He had victory over all sin and death forever when He rose from the grave 3 days later. If you fully trust him as your Savior and Lord you will receive His free gift of eternal life. Romans 10:9-10 says that if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
If you believe that you are a hopeless, helpless sinner for whom Jesus Christ died you will want to tell others about God’s grace by everything you say and do. Read your Bible every day, and you will learn to live God’s way.