It's the Greatest Question in all of history that most people ignore until it's too late:
How can I be right with God?
In order to understand why it is imperative for you to be born again to receive eternal salvation (John 3:3), you must first understand what you are--not just what you do, or who or what you think you are, but what you truly are. It is also necessary to get a clearer, bigger picture of who God truly is.
Now, I want to inform you of this: The good news of Jesus Christ is only good news once you understand the bad news first. The true gospel is offensive, but please know that God Himself said that it would be: I Peter 2:7-8: For it stands in Scripture: "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and "A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” God tells us very clearly that the gospel of Jesus Christ, in its entirety, is offensive, but it is also the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16). It is often difficult to come to grips with the truth about ourselves, but keep in mind that the people who only flatter others do so for personal gain, but those who truly love others, will tell them the truth as directly and as clearly as possible.
First and foremost, everything starts and ends with God. He created the universe for His glory, and that includes you and me. You may say, 'Oh, I don't like that. That makes God sound selfish.' No, it means that because God created us to glorify Himself through a relationship with us, He is the most loving, caring, compassionate, being imaginable. Why? Because God is the greatest thing imaginable. He is the most wonderful, loving, glorious, joyful, awesome being for all eternity. For us to draw life from any other source would not be life at all. However, most people settle for things that are not Him because they would rather have the worldly pleasures of this age than submit to an all-powerful God and obey Him.
Colossians 1:16: "All things were created by him and for him.”
Romans 11:36: "For from him and through him and to him are all things.”
Isaiah 43:7: “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
We must understand that God's glory is truly at the center of all things and this is because He is so great.
Most people do not truly believe:
1. God is Perfect and Holy
2. His Kingdom is Perfect and Holy
3. God is Just
When we see these three things clearly, we begin to get a better understanding of who God truly is. Yes, He is loving, but He is also Holy and perfect and just. Notice in the book of Isaiah, when the prophet got a glimpse of God, he could see and hear the angels that surround Him, and they never stop saying God is "Holy, Holy, Holy," over and over again; notice it's not 'love, love, love.' We must remember that God is Holy above everything else. When Isaiah, who was about as moral and strict as you could get, who followed the rules as the best he could, just got a small glimpse of God, he cried out, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Only when we get a glimpse of His greatness and majesty, can we then begin to gain some understanding of His amazing love and mercy.
When we understand that God is truly Holy and Righteous and Perfect and His Kingdom is perfect, we can then understand the unfathomable eternal separation between us and God. There is an enormous chasm between man and God that we cannot bridge. In fact, if you are not in Christ, you are a sinful and wretched human being in God's eyes. I know that is difficult to hear, but it would not do you any good whatsoever if I veiled the truth from you and only told you what you really want to hear.
Ask yourself:
"Have I ever lied?" ...that makes you a liar. There's not a certain number of lies you reach and a bell goes off saying you're a liar. If you've lied, you're a liar; just like if you've murdered one time, you're a murderer. Lying is very serious in God's eyes.
"Have I ever used God's name in vain?" ...that's called blasphemy, which is also extremely serious.
"Have you ever looked with lust?" ...that makes you and adulterer at heart. Jesus said in Matthew 5:27-28, "You have heard that it was said,'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
So by your own admission already, you're a liar, you're a blasphemer, and an adulterer at heart. And that's only a few commandments! So if God judged you right now, would you be innocent or guilty in His eyes? Absolutely guilty. Revelation 21:8 tells us that all liars, the faithless, and the sexually immoral will all partake in the Lake of Fire that burns forever and ever. Turning away from the Fountain of Life is not a light matter.
Yes, God has compassion and a love for his enemies, but you have to realize that you are sinful, which means you are wicked, and you are God's enemy.
God has wonderful compassion on his enemies, BUT if you are not in Christ, God has a very strong hatred for you as well. Don't believe it? That's because it has become a saying in our culture that "God hates the sin but loves the sinner," but you will not find that anywhere in scripture. It looks very nice on the back of a T-shirt, but it is not biblical. There are over thirty verses referring to God's hatred, and over twenty of them are not about God's hatred for sin, but His hatred for the sinner. And that is you if you are apart from Christ Jesus.
"We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and we all deserve death--Romans 6:23: "The wages of sin is death.”
Romans 3:10-12: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
James 2:10: "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.”
Isaiah 64:6: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”
Clearly, this is EVERYONE. This is something you cannot wiggle your way out of. If you are a human being, you have sinned, you have fallen, you have no good merit or virtue of your own, and you deserve nothing but the wrath of God to be poured out on you for all eternity.
And you say, "Why? Why so harsh? Why so long? Why eternal?" I'll tell you why. For sinning against an ETERNALLY and infinitely Good God. Every vile sin that you commit each and every day, at the root, has the same attitude, which is this: "I don't really think God can satisfy me, so I'm going to go somewhere else to get what I want." Essentially, you continue to flip God off and tell the omniscient, omnipresent, loving, eternal God who created you that you know better than Him and you don't care whatsoever about what He has to say or do with you.That's why you are an enemy of God if you are not in Christ. Here are just two of the many scriptures of God's attitude towards you: Psalm 5:4-6: "You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong. You destroy those who tell lies; bloodthirsty and deceitful men the LORD abhors.” Psalm 7:11: "God is a just judge, And God is angry with the wicked every day.” God is too good to overlook sin. It's not because He is mean, but it's because He is so good. Imagine if I'm reading the newspaper, and I see an article about a pedophile who just molested a bunch of little kids. And I look over to you laughing and smiling, and say, "Hey, get a load of this. Check out what this guy did." You are going to say, "What's wrong with you?! That's horrible! How could you be so immoral?!" If you expect some kind of morality from your fellow man, what would you expect from an infinitely good God who sees the crimes you commit against Him every single day? God must do what is right, and He does not show any favoritism.
Ephesians 2:3 clearly tells us that we "are by nature children of wrath.”
The fact is, what you are apart from Christ is an enemy of God.
Please know I am telling you this in total love. If you don't realize that this is true, how can you do anything about it? If a doctor knew that his patient had a terrible tumor that could be removed but never informed the patient or did anything about it, what kind of doctor would he be? If your child was about to walk straight into a fire, would you tell him to STOP, or would you let him continue in that direction and die?
I was an enemy of God for eighteen years, but I did not understand this until someone told me. And now, in love, I am telling you the truth. There is no other reason for me doing this. What benefit would I have by making you angry?? I am sharing this with you because it is true and I sincerely care about you.
If you still have doubts about your own lack of righteousness, it is only because you want to think of yourself as being righteous and having value and merit of your own. Proverbs 16:25: "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end their ways lead to death.” Please understand that I am telling you this in deep concern for your eternal destiny, but you have no worth of your own. You have zero righteousness of your own to bring to the table. None whatsoever. But there is One who does...
Now, if God is a just judge who must do what is right, what is He going to do with you? If He is just, he cannot simply forgive you. He cannot. Why? Because God is just. Because by His law you deserve eternal torment, He cannot give you anything else...unless His perfect justice can be satisfied...How can this happen? His violent, eternal wrath had to poured out on someone who is perfect. Watch this:
So, how was God's wrath poured out? It was poured out completely on Jesus Christ at Calvary 2,000 years ago. It was foretold by the prophet Isaiah over 700 years before it happened! Isaiah wrote this in about 725 BC:
CHAPTER 53
"Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was stricken.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
11 After the suffering of his soul,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.”
Now we can see clearly why Jesus Christ is so glorious and magnificent! This is why Christians live and die for Jesus! He took on the entire punishment that every man deserves, and He is Almighty God in complete perfection. This is the good news! He is the promised Messiah who bore the eternal wrath of God.
When He was on the cross, all the wrath and anger of God the Father was poured out on the Son. II Corinthians 5:21: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus, God the Son, was treated as though He was the wretched sinner that we all are, although He never committed a single sin. He lived a perfect life, 33 years, without a hint of sin. Now, God's justice can be satisfied since His wrath was poured out. In the instant that we are born again, the most beautiful yet horrific transaction takes place: The Son of God says 'I'll take your punishment," which satisfies God's justice in punishment, but if that were all that took place, we would still not be worthy of eternity with God. We would simply be innocent, but not righteous. Not only does He graciously take our punishment, but in exchange, He gives us His righteousness so we may be worthy to dwell with the Lord for all of eternity. That is amazing grace! That is love! R.C. Sproul explains this very clearly--watch this:
This perfect justification takes place when you are born again. So, you say 'How does this happen? What do I have to do?' Well, there is nothing I, or anyone can tell you to DO to earn it, but you must trust completely in what Christ HAS DONE through His life and death on the cross. But to truly trust in Christ is not a work of your own strength.
John 3:5-8: "Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” Salvation (being born again) is a supernatural work of God that can take place upon hearing the gospel, which is the good news of Jesus Christ in its entirety. I cannot and you cannot cause yourself to be born again. I pray that upon reading the gospel on this page today, God would give you the grace to be born again. I pray that He would graciously pursue your heart today and grant you new birth in Him. And you say, "How will I know when this happens?" The greatest evidence that you've been born again is that now, after hearing the gospel, how you respond to this question: Do you now hate and have a strong desire to turn from the sin that you once loved? If you say, "Oh I don't really have much sin to turn from" or "I'm really no that evil," you definitely have not been born again. If you are not broken over you're sin, you're not led you to immense sorrow that you have blasphemed the God on a daily basis that is willing to die for you, you have certainly not been born again. When you've been born again by the Spirit of the Living God, you will desire to repent (which means turn) from your sin, and turn to Jesus Christ. This is what your whole life will be about on a daily basis.
Luke 9:23: "And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
If you don't have a new relationship with sin, you don't have a new relationship with God.
If you do not continue to repent and trust in Christ, this does not mean that you lost your salvation--it means you were never born again to begin with. It means that you just had an emotional experience, and may have even been somewhat sincere, but you were not born again. When you are in Christ, you are sealed with the Holy Spirit, and you will continue to grow in faith and repentance for the the rest of your life. "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”(Philippians 1:6).
In the moment of the new birth, when justification takes place, you are given God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit, in which He will use in you to carry out His purposes in you, and you are really transformed into a new person. II Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” The Holy Spirit will be active in you as you read His Word and spend time in prayer. He is so caring. He does not leave you on your own. God commands when you are born again that you grow and become more like Jesus, but He gives you His own Spirit to help you, and the Lord God will never leave you nor forsake you. Three days after being brutally murdered under God's wrath, Christ rose from the grave victoriously, proving that He is indeed God, and has supreme power over everything, even death. He has all authority in heaven and on earth, and His Kingdom is an everlasting kingdom which will never end. He showed Himself first to His twelve disciples, then to over 500 credible witnesses, many of whom witnessed His horrible death. Forty days later, He ascended right before the disciples eyes into heaven (Acts 1). And He is now seated at the right hand of God the Father.
He graciously stepped down to earth to save sinful humans like you and me!
God is so amazing to even think about doing such a thing for rebellious people. His grace stretches as far as the east is from the west. His love is so deep. Run into His love today.
Romans 5:8: "But God demonstrates his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
There is nothing in the world you can do--no good deed, no great act--absolutely no action of you own can make you right with God, but the greatest news you will ever hear is that the work has already been done perfectly by Christ, and you can receive His righteousness.
Galatians 2:21: "I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” Don't think for a second that you could ever earn God's grace...please turn (repent) from your own ways and trust in Christ.
Does it seem too unimaginable that Jesus really is the only way to be made right with God? Well, He told us it would be this way in His Word because He knew many would have doubts. He tells us in Matthew 7:13-14: "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."
Jesus said, "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved" (John 10:9).
Acts 4:12 could not be any clearer: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”--Romans 6:23
"For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son." -- Romans 5:10
CRY OUT TO THE LORD IN FAITH AND REPENTANCE! TURN FROM YOUR OWN WAYS AND TRUST IN CHRIST ALONE FOR YOUR ETERNAL SALVATION. HE IS MIGHTY TO SAVE!
If you're weeping over the goodness and grace of God, and He has truly regenerated your heart today, it is now your great privilege to be God's ambassador until you die or until He returns to establish His Kingdom here on earth. It is now your turn to go and preach the gospel so that others may trust in Christ for salvation. Share this message with anybody that you care about--friends, family, co-workers, and even strangers. Jesus said in Mark 16:15, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”This is the Great Commission from Christ for every Christian. Matthew 28:19: "go and make disciples of all nations.”
Check out these videos and the attachments at the bottom:
You can also read or listen to these great sermons on why we must be born again by Dr. John Piper:
desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/BySeries/83/2531
desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2007/2539/
You can read Jonathan Edward's writings here: www.biblebb.com/files/edwards
"For the Lord loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. They will be protected forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off; the righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever." -Psalm 37:28-29
More information regarding the Mark of the Beast and why you must NOT take it: The Mark of the Beast
A detailed explanation of the 7 trumpets of Revelation and why 2 billion people will soon die in a nuclear war: The 7 Trumpets
Revealing of the identity of the four horsemen (first 4 seals) which are affecting you right now: The 7 Seals
Identifying Mystery Babylon-The Great Harlot of Revelation: Mystery Babylon-Who is it?
Understand how/why the Holy Roman Empire is being revived: The Holy Roman Empire-Revived
The most recent news stories fulfilling prophecies in your Bible: In the NEWS