the basic message # E62
John 3:14-15
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
Webster’s offers a definition of the word “eternal”, saying, “having infinite duration”. Infinite duration to me means a long, long, long time. What does it mean to you? In the passage above, Jesus is promising eternity in Heaven with him. If there is eternity in Heaven, is there eternity in Hell?
Galatians 1:9
As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
Eternal life up above, and eternal condemnation down below seems pretty easy to follow. Does the average person accept this? My job is in sales. Any salesperson knows that before you sell a product, you must establish either a need or a desire for the product. I live in the deep south of the United States, and we don’t get much cool weather. Imagine if I went out next week and started a sales campaign to sell snow-blowers. I could show the heavy steel frame, the super-grip tires, the high-discharge snow chute, and the easy-start engine, but how many can I sell? I must establish a need or desire in a prospective customer that hasn’t seen a total of a foot of snow in 30 years.
Why am I hammering this point? Simple. We, in our evangelistic zeal, are telling people they need to accept Jesus Christ as their savior. Why do they need a savior? To take their sins away. Why do they need their sins taken away? So they can spend eternity in Heaven instead of Hell. STOP RIGHT THERE! Here’s where we haven’t done our “sales job”. Does the person we’re trying to convert understand and accept the concept of eternity? If they don’t, then why do they need forgiveness for their sins? Stay with me here. If they believe that they die and become worm-dirt, then why should they need a savior?
Some folks might think that we must first get the person to accept Christ and then hope that they begin to understand eternity. If I use that logic, I’ll need to think that if I sell the snow blower where there is no snow, then that will cause it to snow. Other folks might say that we need to convince people that Jesus can “fix” their broken lives. How can we begin to tell people about Jesus without very quickly telling them that Jesus will cleanse them of their sins, therefore giving them eternal life? If we fail to emphasize that point, aren’t we short-circuiting the Gospel? A non-believer would be more likely to think that “being a good person” is the way to a quality life, so what additional benefit would Jesus bring to the equation?
We’ve been talking about non-believers, but what about Christians who don’t believe in eternity? How can this be? If we don’t think there is a major reason to become a Christian, why do it? May I shock some of you by saying that if I didn’t believe in eternity, I probably wouldn’t be a Christian. Oh, I’d live by many Christian principles, but without the glory of Heaven and the fear of Hell, why bother? I don’t own a snow-blower, but I do believe in eternity. Do you?