BEFORE YOU LEAVE - How To Best Use Your Last 3 Seconds!

LIFE HAS ONE CERTAINTY

We used to say that there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. But life has only one certainty – we will all die. The death-rate is still 100%! Yet faced with this absolute certainty, too few people think about it and even fewer people take steps to prepare for it and what lies beyond it. And, as it turns out, not even many people who have become Christians have given much thought either! But I have something to say to those who think religion – and Christianity in particular – is (at best) irrelevant. Please give me just three minutes now – and just three seconds later!

WHY DO PEOPLE CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY? 

Christians have sometimes been accused of promoting a pie-in-the-sky message. But the social research reveals a pretty clear message about why people convert to Christianity. Here are the top three reasons why people become Christians-

1. I was raised in a Christian home.

2. I had a religious experience (answered prayer, dream/vision, etc.)

3.  I had a need that converting to Christianity met (drug/alcohol deliverance, marriage repair, loneliness, poverty relief, etc.)

Conversely, the top three reasons why people reject Christianity are – 

1. Science has now disproven Christianity.
2. Too many doubts about the Bible’s claims.
3. Too many Christians are hypocrites.

WHY AN HOMICIDE DETECTIVE WAS AN ATHEIST!

With all this in mind, why then would a highly successful Homicide Detective who was a comfortable atheist convert to Christianity? He tells people that he didn’t convert to Christianity because he raised in a Christian home – because he wasn’t! He didn’t convert because his friends were Christian. He didn’t convert because he wanted to know God. He didn’t convert because he wanted to go to heaven. He didn’t convert because he needed to change his life – in fact, he writes-

At the age of thirty-five, it seemed like I had everything I could possibly want. I’d graduated at the top of my class in my undergraduate and graduate programs, earned the honor recruit award at the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Academy and was in an incredible job assignment, working as a member of a five man career-criminal surveillance team. I had been with my wife for eighteen years and we had a great family. We just purchased our second home in a community I had admired since childhood. Nothing could have been better. This was the status and condition of my life when I walked into a Christian church for the first time.

I wasn’t looking for answers; I thought I already had all the answers. In fact, most of my friends came to me for advice. I was the guy you came to if you wanted to ask a question about how to work an investigation, how to maintain a good marriage, how to raise your kids. I was happy, content, and full of myself. I definitely wasn’t the kind of person who thought he needed help or needed fixing. My self-confidence had grown into arrogance. I was opinionated, sure of myself and difficult to reason with. I was sure I was right, and my life seemed to confirm this at every turn. I was in control and my decisions seemed to be producing the life I wanted.

This Homicide detective who spent his life gathering evidence and became a Cold-Case specialist who had a perfect prosecution record throughout his entire career (!) states that there was only one reason why he became a Christian  – after having used his detective skills to investigate Christianity’s claims. This hard-nose Cold-Case detective used the same criteria that he had used to investigate an unsolved murder to investigate Christianity: what is the truth?

WHY AN ATHEIST HOMICIDE DETECTIVE BECAME A CHRISTIAN!

James (Jim) Warner Wallace (known as J. Warner Wallace) investigated the claims of Christianity and became convinced that it was true. This is despite the popular opinion that you could never tell which religion was true or not – or even the nonsensical notion that all religions are equally true! 

Religious claims are just like any other truth claims. They can be tested. Since every religion makes claims which are contradictory to each other, they cannot all be true. To determine which one is true may not be important to you now, but, I guarantee you, in your final seconds of life it will matter a lot to you (because dying has a powerful way of rearranging a person’s priorities!)!

	1. CAN THE TRUTH CLAIM BE VERIFIED? All truth claims can be verified in some way – but not necessarily in the same way. For example, historic claims can be verified by eye-witness accounts or even by those who have interrogated eye-witnesses.
	2. DOES THE CLAIM CORRESPOND TO REALITY? Truth claims can be tested as to whether they correspond to what we know intuitively, by experience, or by observation.
	3. CAN THE CLAIM BE TESTED? Truth claims, particularly experiential claims, can be put to the test. For example, when you doctor says, “Take this pill, it will make you feel better!” You can test this claim by taking the pill.

Therefore, when your body suddenly gets cold, your breathing becomes increasingly difficult, you lose your hearing because YOUR HEART IS POUNDING SO HARD, please REMEMBER THESE TWO THINGS:

1.  No matter what wrong you’ve done wrong, GOD offers you forgiveness for it all (because Jesus Christ took your penalty on the Cross).

2.  You can have all of your wrong forgiven forever by asking God to forgive you (because Jesus Christ took your penalty on the Cross).

This is based on what we know of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity. In the Gospel of Luke, we have the account of Christ’s execution along with two capital-crime criminals.  

And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.
Luke 23:33

And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!”
Luke 23:35

But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?
Luke 23:40

And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Luke 23:42

The central claim of Christianity is that every human being is a natural rebel against our Creator, God. Yet God offers us terms of peace if we will surrender to Him and accept the forgiveness He offers because Jesus the Christ, the eternal Son of God, came to earth and was born of a virgin girl some 2,000 years ago, and bore the penalty of our rebellion in His execution at the hands of the Romans. Even if this seems too incredible to you now, in your final few seconds of life on this earth, I guarantee you, your perspective on these things will change! And when it does, and you experience a hyper-awareness of your own rebellion against God, the above story tells us that even then – God can meet people at their death-beds and offer them His forgiveness! 

 

And in that moment, if you have never settled accounts with God, and you find that seconds seem like hours (which I believe is God’s grace toward every human being), I beg of you, receive His forgiveness by praying one simple prayer – “God, please forgive me!” Because how you respond to God in this life determines your standing before Him for eternity in the next!

Pastor Andrew

The Last Day Of A 17 Year Old

The Last Day

¶ So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12

Gary had just turned 17. He did not have the benefit of being raised in a loving home or the advantage of being parented by a mother and father who knew God even though they occasionally ventured into a church. The void in his heart as a result of this lack of security and guidance led him to hang with the wrong crowd. Not surprisingly, he began drinking secretly with his fellow rebels. And as sure as night follows day, it was an easy and predictable step for him to begin smoking pot. He became increasingly bored with life. Friday nights were spent down town in the city mall where he would meet his friends and go off to spend the night drinking and partying. But then Gary had something odd happen to him one Friday night.

¶ A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass.

Isaiah 40:6-7

I got the phone call Saturday morning after that infamous Friday night. Someone had felt God say to them that they needed to go to the Bourke Street Mall in downtown Melbourne and speak to a young man about God. Gary was that young man. As they got the gumption to speak with him he mocked them and looked disinterested. Yet the ache in his heart which he was trying to fill with alcohol, marijuana, and partying, caused him to inwardly crave to have this follower of Christ tell him more. The phone call that Saturday morning described what happened that Friday night and how Gary had prayed to make Jesus his Saviour and Lord. Gary lived nearby me and at that time I was a Youth Pastor in a growing church. I was asked to take Gary under my wing and ensure that he would be discipled. I arranged for another young man in our Youth Group to follow Gary up. 

 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment

Hebrews 9:27

Gary attended our Youth Group and Sunday church services. He had his ups and downs. But then as things seemed to be getting worse for Gary, one Sunday morning he rededicated his life to God and asked God to him. He volunteered for the church choir that same day. After our evening service, we were all heading up to McDonalds for the first stage of a buck’s party for another of our young men, Jason, who was getting married soon. We waited for Gary who was riding his bicycle down from the church service. But Gary never arrived because that was Gary’s last day. Gary died that night, aged just 17.

 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

James 4:14

 The word on the street was that there was some unhappy drug dealers that Gary was no longer a customer and that the hit-and-run accident on the highway may not have been an accident at all. I don’t know whether that was true or not, but this I know for certain: on Gary’s last day, he had readied himself to be right with God. 

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Luke 13:5

Popular American preacher, Francis Chan, says that the reason he talks so much about heaven, hell, eternity and judgment with such urgency and passion is because he’s done an awful lot of funerals (several a week for many years) of people mainly younger than him where most of these people had their lives cut short needlessly, had failed to surrender to God and receive His forgiveness, and would thus spend eternity without their souls being healed of sin’s merciless ache! He pleads with people to repent and to turn to Christ for the healing of their souls. He scolds those who call themselves Christians yet live spiritually lukewarm lives with exactly the same plea because he says Scripture informs him that even worse fate awaits them!

 ¶ “ ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.'”

Revelation 3:15 

Gary’s funeral was held in the hall at Werribee High School. It jolted many of the youth of our city. But only for a moment. I guess when you’re a teenager it feels like you’ve got eternity on earth still yet to come. But as these young people realised, even if it was only for a moment, most of our eternity will not be spent on earth, and what we do in this life determines where and how we spend our eternity beyond our all too brief time on earth. It seems to me that God opens the eyes of some teenagers so that they ‘get it’. These teens become aware of just how serious God, life, heaven, hell, eternity, and divine judgment is – and as a result, their lives are marked by a ‘gravitas’ (an urgent seriousness). 

 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Matthew 12:36-37

I would have been around 17 or so when I heard a New Zealand preacher, Rob Wheeler, who explained about the ‘books of God’ (mentioned in Revelation 20:12, And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done). As I realised that God was recording every detail of my life – my words, my actions, my prayers, my intents, it hit me that God takes His gift of my life to me extremely seriously. From around that moment, I began living life a holy gravitas. 

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

John 6:40

Jesus spoke a bit about the last day. On this day, God’s “books” will be open. On that day, there will be millions of 17 year olds standing before God awaiting their eternal judgment. It is my hope that as many of these teens in our community as possible realise that the ache in their soul cannot be cured by a bottle, a needle, a pill, or a joint, but only by the Eternal Healer who gave His life to heal them and place them in His Church so that they too might dispense this Eternal Cure.

Amen.

The Morality of Hell

 
By Dr Andrew Corbett

Heaven and Hell are commonly presented as either the benefit or the consequence of how a person responds to God. It's as if people think that the whole point of religion is to get people into Heaven and to keep them out of Hell. From this "religious" perspective, Heaven is Ultimate Bliss, Paradise, Perfect Beauty - while Hell is Fire, Eternal Punishment, Anguish, Torment, and The Devil's Domain.

In recent times there has come a lot of push-back regarding the very notion of Hell as it perceived by many. Among Christians who have rejected the classical view of Hell are several well-respected writers including John R.W. Stott, and George MacDonald. Responding to the resurgence of this idea, Dr Tony Campolo, in his last Evangelical work, "Speaking My Mind", argued that he was very emotionally drawn to accept the non-existence of Hell if it wasn't for the Scriptures!

In a recent YouTube exchange of viewer comments about one of my videos (not about this topic) the viewer was rather hostile to the notion of a God who would send anyone to Hell. But his comments went far beyond what is normally discussed around this issue. Most of the discussion about Hell has been about whether it exists and therefore whether Scripture actually teaches it. Those who propose that Hell does not exist fall into two general categories: (i) Annihilationists - those who do not go to Heaven simply cease to exist; and (ii) Universalists - everyone goes to Heaven. But this viewer was neither of these. He had read parts of the Bible and seen that it discusses Hell, eternal Judgment, and everlasting damnation for some. His objection then was not over Hell's existence but over the morality of a God who would sendanyone there. He argued that this made God worse than Stalin, Hitler and Pot combined. After all, he stated, how could a God who send someone to Hell to burn, be tormented, and be punished for eternity for a sin that took no time at all, be considered a loving, kind, worship-worthy God? Like a lot of 'debates' which are highly emotive, this YouTube exchange didn't produce an acceptable outcome for my viewer, but now that the digital dust has settled a little, I might be about to present a balanced case for the Biblical teaching on Hell which is hopefully less emotive...[read the full article]

God is...

God is... How would you complete this sentence? On what basis would you know how to complete this sentence? How would others who do not really know God answer this question?

The other day I was contacted by an emailer who challenged my belief in the Biblical God. He intimated that the God of the Bible is a cruel and harsh God. He asked me why this God of the Bible would send "billions of [innocent] people to be tormented in Hell for eternity"? When I hear a question like this, I have to wonder where did this person get this idea from? Not only does the Bible present God as all-wise, all-loving, all-powerful, all-present, but I have come to experience enough of these attributes of God to know them to be true. While we live on this earth we are all candidates for God's mercy and forgiveness. Added to this, God ensures that every person receives sufficient revelation of who He is to begin a relationship with Him (Romans 1).

Romans 1:20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

But we know that God is a just and fair God. He will not violate a person's right to exist (since they are created in the image of God) thus, the choices a person makes in this life will be be validated for eternity. The stern warning of Jesus Christ to the world was that unless a person repents, they will "perish" for eternity (Lk. 13:1ff). Rather than obstinately telling God that this is "unfair", we should instead be thanking God that He has made it possible for any one of us to be forgiven of our sin and to be adopted into His family as a joint-heir with Christ!

John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

This is the God we are coming to know. A God who has revealed himself in the Book of nature and the Sacred Book of Scripture. It is this God who sent His eternal Son to the world to reveal to us the most complete image of God we will have in this lifetime. Once a person experiences this God through revelation (Eph. 1:18), prayerful communion, a community of grace, and the living Word of God they can confidently say that they know who God is.

Father, we want to know you more. Help us to know you. Help us to make you known. Teach us Your ways and give us the grace to follow You.
Amen

Damned Universalism?

UNIVERSALISM

Romans 5:18 ¶ Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

"Universalism" is the idea that all people are saved irregardless of their religion, beviour, lifestyle, or even their response to the Gospel. This is because, they claim, the Bible teaches that Christ died for all mankind and that His death has sufficiently atoned for the sins of all mankind. The idea of "hell" is repulsive to Universalists. How, they argue, could a good/loving/forgiving God send anyone to hell to be tortured for eternity in damnable flames for simply not adopting a set of man-made beliefs? The best a person can do to please God, is to be (in the words of now President, Obama) "true to your own values", or as anoher Universalist put it: "live sincerely". Thus, Universalism naturally leads to moral and religious relativism.

But perhaps you're wondering about those Bible passages that speak both of the need to respond to the Gospel, God's commitment to judge the world, and the many predictive statements about only a few accepting God's offer of salvation? And I am too! Amazingly, Universalists often respond by dismissing these Bible passages as "later additions to the New Testament by Constantinian Church of 312AD".

This is a bewildering response for those who understand how the New Testament Canon (recognition of those writings divinely inspired by God) occured.

My major assignment during my undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies was about the formation of the New Testament Canon and its subsequent transmission (how it was copied) and translations down through the centuries. I discovered that the 27 books of the New Testament were completed by no later than 70AD (not 300AD!).

There is growing evidence that the Canon of the New Testament was widely recognised by the early second century. To claim that it was the Roman Catholic Church that manipulated the New Testament for its own controlling ends and then invented the Canon of the New Testament so that only those books they wanted in the Bible became the Canon is just not supported by the historical evidence- despite what Dan Brown's DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons asserts!!!

First of all, the Canon was recognised before Emperor Constantine came on the scene. In fact, it was on the basis of a recognised New Testament Canon during the 2nd Century that many Christians were martyred for not giving up their copies of the New Testament. (Google "Traditores" and you can read all about this period).

Secondly, it was not until the Council of Trent around 1550 that the Roman Catholic Church officially recognised the 27 books of the New Testament! This occured so late because there was no need to do so since the New Testament Canon was so obvious from the earliest moments of Chruch history. It appears that the Holy Spirit oversaw the formation of the Canon as well the original inspiration of the text itself.

But Universalists are forced to deny the authority of Scripture and dismiss its claims that all people must turn to Christ in repentance and faith - because the New Testament clearly does not teach Universalism. Even the few verses which they curiously appeal to, when read in context, do not say what they think they say. For example, Romans 5:18 says that Christ died for "all". Taken on its own, this verse seems to be saying that all people are automatically saved by virtue of Christ's death. But, if we read on to the next verse, we learn what is meant by "all" -

Romans 5:19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many [not "all"] will be made righteous.

One of those leading the charge against orthodox Christianity, the Bible, and the validity of the Church, is Professor Bart Erhman of the University of Northern Carolina. He has attacked the Bible and Christianity in books, lectures and TV appearances. He claims that the Bible contains over 5,000 textual errors. On closer examination, this claim is found to be without merit as most of these "errors" are very minor spelling differences which have no bearing on the content of the text.

Prof. Erhman also claims that the Bible is full of contradictions. He claims that one of the biggest contradictions is found in Genesis 1 compared to Genesis 2. But upon examination of these two texts, there is no contradiction at all. Genesis 1 is about the overview of creation while Genesis 2 focusses on God planting the Garden of Eden (see my video response to this attack by Prof. Ehrman).

Professor Ehrman also dismisses the New Testament's Gospel message as cruel and hardly representative of a kind, forgiving and loving God. How could this God of the Bible condemn innocent, deceased newborn babies to hell? Surely, this makes God sound harsh, ridiculous, and vindictive. Or, what about the natives who live in extremely isolated mountainous jungles who have never heard about God, let alone the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Firstly, there is a compelling case to be made from Scripture that God certainly does not automatically condemn newborn babies to Hell. But in any case, the Biblical picture of God is that He is infinitely just and only ever does what is right. Secondly, according to Romans 1 and 2 no one is without excuse when it comes to the existence and requirements of God. Based on Romans 2, God has given every person enough light to know what is right and wrong and to seek God.

Romans 2:12-15 ¶ If you sin without knowing what you’re doing, God takes that into account. But if you sin knowing full well what you’re doing, that’s a different story entirely. When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong. [The Message]

I read one theologian's summary of Universalism's claims where he said that an after-life where everybody went to Heaven, nobody went to Hell, was emotionally very appealing. The only slight problem he had in accepting this view was: the Bible. The Bible, he reminded his readers, simply does not teach Universalism. On the contrary, the Bible presents that Christ has made a way for people to be saved from their sins and the eternal punishment it brings, if they will respond to God's offer by accepting His forgiveness. This is done by calling upon His name (Romans 10:9). As Paul the apostle told the Athenians, it is possible to call upon the Lord because God has put within each one of us a desire to know Him-

Acts 17:24-27 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,

Don Richardson is a Missiologist (he studies the work and history of missions). He has written many books about how God had revealed Himself to people and cultures before missionaries arrived with the Gospel. In his ground-breaking book, Eternity In Their Hearts, he gives example after example which show that God had revealed many aspects of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to cultures in preparation for the arrival of missionaries. He shows how many of these cultures actively sought the Lord and instantly recognised the truth of the Missionaries' Gospel when they heard it.

So how does God deal with people who have not yet had an opportunity to hear and receive the Gospel? Paul told the Athenians that God overlooks ignorance and will judge people based on the light of His revelation that they had received-

Acts 17:30-31 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

But we shouldn't be romantic about what this means. Mankind is so selfish that it takes a miracle for this self-worship to be overcome in a human heart. Mankind, in our most natural state, fundamentally hates God.

John 3:19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. John 3:20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

John 15:18 ¶ “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

It's hard to miss this point when reading Paul's Epistle to the Romans: we are all sinners who love our sin and hate God and despise His laws. The opening chapter of Romans makes this abundantly clear and the rest of the Epistle explores this problem and God's gracious solution. If we understand that God has reached out to His "enemies" -

Romans 5:10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

In what sounds like almost vulgar language at first, is the assessment by Hank Hannegraaf (President of the Christian Research Institute) of the claims of Universalism. He sums up the "God of Universalism" as "the worst possible cosmic rapist". A rapist imposes himself upon a hapless victim. For God to save those who do not want to be saved, would be to act like a rapist and impose His will upon them by divine force. Although Universalism's goal is make God sound more loving and forgiving, it actually unwittingly does the opposite!

CS Lewis once said that for many people their statement on earth to God is one of defiance- "My will be done", will hear God respond to them on Judgment Day- "Thy will be done". God will then do for them the most loving thing anyone can do for another and validate their free will, and thus give them what they want: to be banished from God for eternity.

As Christians this should leave us bewildered as to why anyone would willingly reject the Most Beautiful Being In The Universe. But this is largely because we have had our "eyes" opened, our stoney hearts replaced with hearts of flesh, and our darkened depraved minds washed and renewed to purity. When we ponder what has had to happen to us in order for us to become Christians, we soon realise that we are saved because God has been extremely gracious to us. Understanding the grace of God as undeserved favour from God cancels out the demand many make upon God that if He is going to be gracious to some, He sould be gracious toward all. But this is illogical. It completely misunderstands grace not to mention justice.

Rather than thinking that all people have been saved by default of the Cross of Christ, the clear testimony of Scripture is that most people hate God and His laws and even His offer of salvation. They, therefore, brashly reject God's unique offer of salvation and have the temerity to tell God that they will be saved regardless of what God requires of them. But the New Testament reveals to us that salvation requires acceptance, leads to a Christ-like character, and we take this formed character with us into eternity. This is why it is an act of love to share the Gospel with others so that they can have the opportunity to turn from idolatry to the Living God and develop a character changing relationship with Christ that will bless them for eternity.

Rev. 20:15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Amen.