3-17-23

I just heard Alistair Begg tell this story. So short, yet so profound.

“When I get to heaven I want to find the guy on the cross and ask him, “How did you get here?”  Just think for a minute about how the angel comes up to him and says, “so how did you get here.” The man answers “I don’t know”, The angel says “One minute you are cussing the guy out with your friend, you’ve never been to Bible Study, you’ve never been in a Sunday School class, you don’t know anything about church membership and yet you MADE it!!” I need to call my supervisor angel. So, the supervisor angel says, “Just a few questions. 1st, Are you clear on the doctrine of justification by faith?”  The guy says, “never heard of it!” The angel says, “let’s just go straight to the doctrine of scripture.” Of course, the man had no idea what he was talking about. In frustration the angel said, “Ok, on what basis are you here?” To which the man replied, “The man on the middle cross said I can come.” That is the ONLY answer!

The only answer indeed! We are approaching Easter. Easter is truly the most remarkable event in history. This incredible man who was born in a stable, grew up in a “normal” home and worked as a carpenter, THIS man, who gave himself up for us, walked that long journey to the cross, HE did that so that he could tell us we could come to heaven too.

Things are different today than when I grew up. (Only people over 50 say things like that!)  But they are. Every day we see the “signs” of Revelation. We see the words of the prophets being played out in front of our eyes. There is a deeper chasm between good and evil, but evil isn’t hiding any more. It isn’t always sneaky. It often looks you in the eye and says, “I’m here, I’m bad for everyone, but what are you going to do about it?” You can almost hear the snicker.

The things we grew up knowing were bad, are so acceptable now. That’s how evil works. It starts out taking away things like prayer in the schools, and we said, “it’s ok, you cannot take away silent prayer”. And that IS true, But it’s the beginning of the end. Do I think the lack of prayer in school was the downfall of our country? NO, not alone! I taught Sunday School years ago and one year I had the pastor’s 12 year old daughter in it. We talked about hell. At the very beginning, she said, “I do not believe in hell”. So, we talked about that, the fact that it is in the Bible and so on. The next day I told the pastor my concern (and surprise was, “we let our kids make up their own minds about these things.”. Everything inside me screamed, “NOT ABOUT HELL!!!” It’s just too important! 

Right NOW, today, we need to be talking to our young people EVERY chance we get about God’s love, about heaven and about hell! We are so surrounded by the other voice that we cannot afford to let it go. We have to be fighting for our young people every day.

Don Davidson, after reading the statistics on how the world is fighting for our kids, decided to continue teaching another year. God Bless the strong men of faith like Don. 

Deutoronomy 6:6-8 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

I think God made that pretty clear, TEACH your children (and your childrens’ children) about God, because there truly is not one thing more important than hearing them say, “the man on the middle cross said I could come.”

Amen!

Shirlene Peterson