The Lutheran Hour
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"But How About…?"
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Text: Text: 1 Timothy 2:3-4
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Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! The risen Savior shows that He is the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world. His borrowed tomb, open for all to inspect, shows that God would have all men, every sinner, even you and me, to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
This past week when I was searching for a beginning to this sermon, a pastor e-mailed me a story. It fits, I think. The story begins with a lady who died and found herself on the outside of the pearly gates of paradise. Through the bars, she could see a beautiful banquet buffet, and at the banquet table, many of her beloved and believing friends and family members who had gone on before her. When they spotted her standing at the gate, they started waving and shouting words of welcome. Some motioned for her to come on in and have a seat at the table. That was when an angel showed up and said, “Hello Virginia (Virginia was her name), we’ve been waiting for your arrival.”
The lady, somewhat apprehensively inquired, “What do I have to do to gain admittance?” The angelic gatekeeper smiled and said, “The doors will open for you if you can correctly spell one word. Spell love.” Very carefully, for Virginia was a watcher of “Wheel of Fortune,” and she knew much could be lost if you called out the wrong letter, she spelled slowly and carefully: “L-O-V-E.” Although Christians know it is only through the merit and blood of Jesus that we get into heaven, in this story the doors slowly opened and the lady was in.
Although there is no time in heaven, by earth’s chronology, somewhere about three years later this woman was on duty at that same gate through which she herself had entered. She was quite surprised to see her husband show up. Mindful of her doorkeeper’s official duties, she said in as heavenly a manner as she could, “Hello, Dear, I’m surprised to see you! And how have things been going?” He confessed with a pretty big smile, “Well, actually, things have been going famously. Honey, do you recall that attractive nurse who was taking care of you just before you passed on? Can you believe it, we fell in love and got married just a couple of months after you died. My luck got better when I found I was holding the only winning ticket to a $75 million lottery. We sold the dump you and I lived in for all those years and moved into a pretty comfortable mansion. I quit my job at the Post Office, and my new wife and I have had the opportunity to travel all over the globe. As a matter of fact, the last thing I remember is we were skiing in the Swiss Alps and I tried to outrun an avalanche. The fact that I’m standing here makes me believe I didn’t do it.” Getting back to business, the husband asked, “So, how do I get in?” His wife who had been listening carefully said, “To get in, all you need do is spell one word correctly.” “And what’s the word?” She smiled and said, “Czechoslovakia.”
Now, having told that story, there are a number of things I have to say. First, you aren’t getting to heaven by anything you do. The only way to heaven is, as I said, by having faith in Jesus who has redeemed you, bought you back from sin, death, and devil. Only when Jesus is your Savior can you receive access to heaven. I also don’t want you to think that God lets angels or anybody else determine who’s coming into paradise. That power He reserves for Himself. Nor do I want you to think that there is going to be a test when you die. No, the time to be given faith is while you are here on earth. When you breathe your last, there’s not going to be a second chance to make up your mind. When you appear before the Father’s judgment seat, you will be declared innocent because Jesus is your Lord, or guilty if He isn’t.
So with all of those disclaimers, you might rightly ask, “Then why tell the story at all?” Well, there is a point. I wanted you to know that unlike this lady, unlike you and me, “God would have everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” God wants everyone to be saved. The lady wanted to keep her husband out. Most of us, in spite of our own sinfulness, could probably come up with a list of some people we’ve met or heard about, whom we wouldn’t be overly anxious to meet in heaven. I’m not saying it’s right. It isn’t. But it’s probably true. Quite frankly, I’m not as magnanimous and merciful as is the God of grace. My love is not as far reaching and all encompassing as is that of the Lord of life. God would have all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. There are no exceptions to God’s grace. There is no race so unredeemable, no nation so malicious and malevolent, no people so pitiful, no individual so immoral and mean, as to fall outside the loop of the Lord’s love.
God would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. God has no trick questions, no hidden clauses, no fine print, nor does He practice any kind of bait and switch. God is straightforward. He wants everybody in heaven. To get everybody there, He sent His only Son into this world to save them. To get everybody there, He sends His Holy Spirit who calls us by the Gospel; who enlightens us with the many gifts God bestows; to get everybody there, He even keeps believers in the true faith. What I’m trying to say is, you can be certain, “God would have all men to be saved.”
So, if God wants everybody to be saved, what’s the problem? There are, as far as I can see, two major obstacles to individuals being given the forgiveness and salvation that Christ won for them upon Calvary’s cross. Both of these obstacles have their origin in our sinful hearts. Both of these obstacles, although they come from two opposing points of view, manage to short-circuit the connection God wishes to make.
The first obstacle is the belief that we’re not so bad. We’re certainly not as bad as the serial slayers and the mass murderers, and the child pornographers and the drug dealers who sell their illegal poison to school children. No, we’re not that bad. Nor are we as bad as the CEO who steals from his stockholders, or the fellow who cheats on his tax returns, or the grafter who swindles money from the poor widow or widower. Sure, we might break the speed limit, just by a few miles an hour, but we’ve all seen folks who blew by us like we were standing still. We’re not that bad. When you get right down to it, we think we’re pretty good, and if truth is really being told, some of us don’t think we need a Savior at all.
You might be surprised to find that Jesus agrees with you. Seriously. In the book of Luke (5:31-32) Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” He continued, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” So, if you are spiritually and mentally fit as a fiddle, you can forget about forgiveness and redemption and a Savior. You don’t need them. If you’ve never said anything evil about another person or about God, if you’ve never hated anyone or wanted to steal something, or envied another person, or lusted, or well… If you were born perfect and haven’t since then, done anything wrong to anybody, you can probably forget listening to this message. I don’t need to tell you that you are a most extraordinary person. In fact the only other Person I know who can lay claim to being as good as you are, was the Son of God. The only Person I know who can plead “not guilty” to having done anything wrong is Jesus. I will however, assume that you are a sinner.
If you are a sinner, you need a Savior. The Lord says, “the soul that sins will die” (Ezekiel 18). The Lord warns, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). So if you’ve goofed up, if you’ve sinned, you really need to set aside your own false self-security and say, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” You need to look to the cross and realize God would have all men, including imperfect, sinful, unclean people like you and me, to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Now, it is possible that you practice a variant of the above mistaken way of thinking. Maybe you feel, “Yes, I’m a sinner, but I’m also a pretty good guy. I think a pretty good God is willing to give a pretty good guy a sly little wink, and bend the bars of heaven’s gate so this pretty good guy can wiggle on through.” That kind of thinking reminds me of a story which was supposed to have taken place in the early 1900s. It speaks of a man who had worked hard all his life, had earned a fortune, had been a good husband, father, employer and friend. He had given generously to charities and treated all men fairly. Living that kind of good life as you might imagine, was most wearying. That’s why one day the man woke up, looked in the mirror and decided, “It’s time for a vacation. I’ve earned it.”
A trip to America seemed like just the ticket. Two days later he was standing on the docks, prepared to board a liner heading for New York. He was ready to go on the trip he had earned through his many acts of selfless sacrifice. Finally he found himself at the front of the line. The cruise company’s representative asked for his ticket. He replied, he had no ticket, had felt no need of a ticket. The representative informed him that without a ticket he couldn’t go aboard. The man listed his many good deeds. It was, as I’ve already said, most impressive. He summed up his position by finally declaring, “I am sailing on this ship. I’ve earned my vacation.” The representative summed up his position with the words, “No ticket, no travel. You may have been good, but nobody’s goodness will let them take this trip.”
Most people understand the position of the ticket taker. They understand a person’s goodness is not going to get them into the movies, the circus, or the theater; they know that an individual’s deeds will not get him a ride in a cab, or an airplane, or a train. They know that a person’s goodness is insufficient in picking up a full tank of gas, or a full meal deal at a fast food joint. This people understand; yet somehow, someway, they expect good deeds and goodness to be good enough to get them into heaven. My friends, you need a ticket, and your goodness won’t buy that ticket. You need a ticket for heaven, and your ticket has been bought and paid for by Jesus. God would have all men to be saved; and because of Jesus, salvation can become reality for you. Of course, God won’t force anybody to take Jesus’ blood-bought ticket to paradise. If you don’t want a ticket because you think you’re pretty good, I think on Judgment Day you’re going to be pretty sad; but you’ve got the right to turn it down.
But as I said, there are two obstacles to people being saved. The second obstacle is far less common than the one we’ve been discussing. It is so uncommon that I hesitate to mention it at all. But since I have, over the years, seen a few instances of it, I am compelled to bring it up. The obstacle I’m talking about is: some people feel they are so bad, have committed a crime so heinous, so horrible that God can’t possibly forgive them. They feel their sin is bigger than God’s love. Although I run the risk of offending you and that is certainly not my desire, I need to tell you that your thinking is even more dangerous than the person who thinks he’s as pure as the driven snow. While that person is minimizing his sinful nature and writing off his transgressions, you are minimizing the grace and love of God. You are writing off the sacrifice of God’s Son, the world’s Savior.
Don’t you do that. If you read Scripture, you will find God called all types of sinful men and women to serve Him. You name the sin, you can probably find it recorded in the Bible. Pick a sin, any sin, and I can show you a Biblical person who was guilty of that sin, and whom God called to forgiveness and faith, repentance and the Redeemer. When that person was called to service, God used Him. The sins of that individual were gone. “As far as the east is from the west…” That’s how far God puts away the sins we have done wrong (Psalm 103:12).
Years ago I was told about a pastor who, in the course of his sermon, said, “There are 732 different sins.” Impressed by his knowledge and the size of the list, as he shook hands with his church members who were leaving worship, over half of them requested a copy of the list. Now, I don’t know if they wanted the list so they could feel good about how many sins they had avoided, or whether they wanted the list because they wanted to start checking off the sins they had committed. All I know is, no matter how many sins there might be, seven, 700, 7,000, seven million, God has the ability to forgive everyone of them. No, that’s wrong. God doesn’t just have the ability; that implies He may or may not forgive. Better to say God, because of Jesus’ sacrifice, forgives the sins of repentant and believing hearts. He will do the same for you, unless you say, “No.”
The person who says, “I have no sin and don’t need God’s forgiveness,” is saying, “No” to God. The person who says, “My sin is too great for God’s grace” is also saying, “No” to God. Don’t do that. God will open the door to your heart unless you keep it bolted shut. God will call you out of your life of sin, into a new existence filled with hope, happiness, and heaven, unless you cover your ears. God will take your hand and lead you, someday through the valley of the shadow of death, unless you pull your hand away. God would have all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. He wants you to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
And what is the knowledge which saves? The knowledge that God sent His Son to live for you, to suffer for you, to bleed for you, to die for you, to rise for you. God sent His Son to carry your sins to the cross and on Resurrection Sunday showed that that sacrifice of the Christ had been accepted. For you. Did you hear that? For you! There, as Jesus declared, “It is finished”; it truly was finished. Your sins were finished. Your guilt, finished. Satan’s condemnation, finished. All were finished, so God could bring you into the light; so God could remold you, reshape you, recycle you into someone far different than you would have ever been if you had been left to yourself. For you. All was finished so you could, on Judgment Day, appear before the Lord as one of His children.
So there you have it. Except for those of you who stopped listening during the first paragraphs of this message, you know, when I talked about God being more magnanimous than I am. Well, it’s true. Long ago I heard a quote from a famous preacher. He said something like, “There are three things which will surprise me when I get to heaven. First, I will be surprised at the people who aren’t there that I thought would be. Second, I will be surprised by the people who are there, that I didn’t think would be. Third, I will be surprised that I, myself, am there.” Yes, it will be a wonderfully blessed surprise that I, like all the rest of the forgiven sinners who acknowledge Jesus as Savior, will be there. I would like to see you there, too. If you’d like to know more about this Savior, please take the time to call the number we will give before the end of this broadcast.
Lutheran Hour Mailbox (Questions & Answers) for October 3, 2004
Topic: Unrepented SinANNOUNCER: And now Pastor Ken Klaus answers questions from listeners. I’m Mark Eischer. Pastor Klaus, what happens if a person dies while they are committing a sin? Or maybe I could express it this way – what happens if a person dies having not repented of a sin? Will that person be saved?
KLAUS: I’m really glad to deal with that question, Mark. It isn’t, for most people, a big one in the scheme of things. But for certain folks it can become almost all consuming for them.
ANNOUNCER: Why?
KLAUS: Usually, from my parish experience, this kind of question arises when someone, usually a good friend or a family member, dies in the midst of having done something wrong. Those close to the deceased are left wondering what’s happened to their loved one? They want to know – did they go up or down, did they go to heaven or hell?
ANNOUNCER: And then you have those people on the outside looking in who have very definite opinions about that person’s eternal destiny.
KLAUS: Indeed. Usually they end up saying things like, “Well, you know, he was always getting drunk. I’m not surprised he died that way. We all know where he went.” And of course, the assumption is that the person did not go up to heaven.
ANNOUNCER: But what can we say about a person who dies while committing a sin or dies with a sin for which he has not repented?
KLAUS: Like I said, I’m looking forward to answering this question because I’m going to ask you a question. I’m going to turn the tables.
ANNOUNCER: I usually don’t like it when you do that.
KLAUS: This time bear with me. First I’d like you to list all the sins that you’ve committed yesterday.
ANNOUNCER: Now I’m sure I don’t like this, especially when you think of all that is implied or included within the Ten Commandments. It covers not only those bad things God forbids, but also our failure to do all those good things He commands.
KLAUS: Rather than making it too embarrassing, let’s try making it a little bit easier. Mark, do you think you could, with confidence, list for me every single sin, big and small, that you committed yesterday? And remember this, upon the accuracy of your listing depends upon whether you’re going to spend eternity in heaven or hell. Please, take all the time you need.
ANNOUNCER: That’s a scary proposition. I’m sure I’d forget at least one.
KLAUS: And that sin you forgot about, would you have repented of that sin?
ANNOUNCER: Of course not. You can’t repent of a sin you can’t remember.
KLAUS: That’s why in the confessions to the Lord, we ask His forgiveness for everything that we’ve done wrong in thought, word, and deed.
ANNOUNCER: And we know that in Christ, God has forgiven our sins, even those we don’t remember.
KLAUS: Exactly. Now let me ask, “Do we receive forgiveness because of our confession, or did we have forgiveness before we made our admission of guilt?”
ANNOUNCER: We receive forgiveness through the blood of Christ.
KLAUS: Are we forgiven of every sin?
ANNOUNCER: Christ forgives every sin.
KLAUS: You were forgiven because you are one of God’s baptized redeemed children. You are covered by Christ’s sacrifice. You live in God’s grace; and the Holy Spirit gives you a heart which is repentant, even of those sins you don’t know about or can’t remember.
ANNOUNCER: But what if I die while committing a sin? Will God forgive me then?
KLAUS: When does God forgive us? Does it come before we sin, while we’re sinning, or after we sin?
ANNOUNCER: God’s forgiveness is based in a historical fact – Jesus paid for the sins of the world when He died on that cross on a Friday afternoon 2,000 years ago. And when He rose from the dead three days later, it meant that the payment for those sins had been accepted. So I suppose in one sense, the answer is “God’s forgiveness comes before, during, and after our sin.”
KLAUS: Good. God’s forgiveness is there all the time. But God’s general forgiveness of the world becomes real, it becomes personal when an individual is made a Christian through the gift of faith in Christ. It does not become real and personal because that person has done something to earn forgiveness, like repent. Without wishing to be sacrilegious, and I say that seriously, the best comparison I can make is to say that the Lord Jesus has “scotchguard-ed” our souls. The stain of sin can’t stick to us any longer, not because of what we’ve done, but because of what Christ has done for us.
ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Pastor Klaus. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.