Everyone seems to relish a second chance. In fact, its so important to us to have a second chance that we stop, slow-down, redirect our lives to earn one in personal relationships – with our spouse, our kids, our bosses. A second chance in our personal relationships means we hope to get another chance to live up to the expectations of someone we've let down.
So, why is that people have such a hard time living up to the expectations and standards God has given us through His Word? How do you explain the insanity of a dying world rejecting God’s gift of everlasting life? Tough questions indeed.
Do you really care about GOD’s offer of Grace – a second chance? Think about it... we insanely run at Hell as though it were Heaven, and reject Heaven as though it were Hell itself. We long for others to have that same thankfulness we have as Christ followers, but we all to often fail to recognize that unbelievers cannot comprehend God’s Grace [a second chance] until they recognize their guilt.
God’s Grace... “our chance to build a right relationship with Him” cannot be faithfully explained to unbelievers until they begin to comprehend man’s corrupt nature. Not until you realize we are not as “good” as we like to think we are. It is impossible for a person to fully realize his need for God’s Grace until they see how far short they are of living up to God’s standards. Of course it goes without saying... to even get to that mindset, a person has to care about how God views them.
In Romans 5:20, Paul explains the essential need of a benchmark, something that allows us to measure in our minds where we are, our hopeless condition and what God offers. “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.” When sin exists, and it does in all of us, there is still a cure. Grace abounds much more and it’s that “second chance” with God that helps us see ourselves as we really are... sinful creatures that can’t resolve our hopeless situation without a more powerful ingredient... and that would be God’s Grace. God showed His people, the nation of Israel, just how incomplete they were without Him. His Law demonstrated the futility of man’s attempts to make himself righteous. The Law of Moses, showed humanity that nothing really works except God’s love expressed in Grace... our second chance to seize God’s eternal promises.
Look at sin like a wide super freeway where there are few limits and little or no enforcements. The whole world naturally goes with the flow. Who hasn’t had a lustful thought at one time or another? Who in today’s society doesn’t tell the occasional “white” lie? Who hasn’t taken something that belongs to someone else, even if it’s just a little “white collar” misappropriation? They know they are doing wrong, but their security lies in the fact that so many others are just as guilty, if not more so. It seems that God has forgotten all about sin and the Ten Commandments. The sinner “has said in his heart, ‘God has forgotten; He hides His face; He will never see’” (Psalm 10:11). We go on our merry way speeding through life without care or concern for God or His Law.
Then, something happens. maybe a tragic event rocks your world. Maybe someone close to you dies or is stricken with a serious illness with little hope of recovery. At times like this everyone suddenly remember God, and prays or thinks about a miracle to resolve the dilemma touching your life. If you care, if your serious about finding out what God wants from you, such times will bring you face to face with God’s standards. They will be like lights flashing in your mind.
A genuine seeking sinner’s heart will skip a beat. You will begin to contemplate your internal life–speedometer... your conscience. Suddenly, it begins to show him the measure of your guilt in a new light—the light of what God expects, His standards. Ones sense of security, blostered by the flawed argument that there are multitudes doing the same thing becomes irrelevant, because every man will give an account of himself to God (see Romans 14:12). Throughout our lives we are confronted by signposts, or events that grab our attention along to slow down and consider the bigger picture; our mortality; what’s the meaning of life; what happens when I die and on and on.
You see your life path more clearly. Sin not only becomes personal, it seems to “abound.” You begin to quietly acknowledge that you’re a real stinker! The Law shows you that mere lust becomes adultery of the heart (see Matthew 5:27,28); your white lie becomes false witness; your “own way” becomes rebellion and a violation of the First Commandment; your hatred becomes murder in God’s sight (see 1 John 3:15); your “sticky” fingers make you a thief. “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound.”Without the entrance of the Law, sin is neither personal, nor is it a threat: “For without the Law sin is dead [the sense of it is inactive and a lifeless thing]” (Romans 7:8 AMP version) As you begin to understand the seriousness of your sins in God’s eyes, you now see the need for a Savior. In Galatians 3:24 we read... Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. God’s Law serves as a schoolmaster, or tutor, to bring us to Jesus Christ, the “second chance,” so we can be justified through faith in His blood.
The Law of God doesn’t help us; it just leaves us helpless. It doesn’t justify us; it just leaves us guilty before the judgment bar of a holy God.
Given the state of the Church today, its clear that the Law of God, in its capacity to bring the knowledge of sin and drive sinners to Christ, is not a popular way for sinners to respond to the gospel. Modern evangelism chose to attract sinners using the issue of “life enhancement.” The real power of the gospel has degenerated into “Jesus Christ will give you peace, joy, love, fulfillment, and lasting happiness.”
There is no true evangelism without the doctrine of sin. There is no true understanding of the “gospel” without an understanding of what sin is and the hopeless condition humanity is in without coming to terms with what sin means to your future and what it does to your life.
Maybe you know someone who claims to have been born-again... multiple times. Such a person might sound and look something like this: “I got saved when I was six, then again at twelve. I then fell away, got into some bad stuff, and came back to the Lord when I was twenty-three... and again when I was forty-one.”
It’s very apparent that such a person is not a Christian. He or she admits to being a fornicator, liar, and blasphemer, and has no desire for the things of God, but thinks they are saved because they have been “born again.” They are using the grace of our God to cover over their selfish pursuit of the flesh. For them, it’s not a bad thing to trample the blood of Christ underfoot (see Hebrews 10:29). Why? Because they have never been convinced of the disease of sin, the seriousness of sin, and never saw the gospel as their cure.
When we set aside the Law of God and its designed function to convert the soul, we remove the very means by which sinners are able to see their need for God’s forgiveness.
Perhaps you are tempted to say that we should never condemn sinners by using the Law. You might even be among those who discount adherence to the Ten Commandments, as no longer applicable to New Testament Christians.
However, Scripture tells us that humanity is already condemned: “He who does not believe is condemned already” (John 3:18). All the Law does is show us our true state. If you dust a table in your living room and think it is dust-free, try pulling back the curtains and letting in the early morning sunlight. You will more than likely see dust still sitting on the table. The sunlight didn’t create the dust; it merely exposed it. When we take the time to draw back the high and heavy curtains of the Holy of Holies and let the light of God’s Law shine upon the sinner’s heart, the Law merely shows him his true state before God. Proverbs 6:23 tells us, “The commandment is a lamp, and the law a light.”
The Law-less message that “God has a wonderful plan for your life” does not cause sinners to tremble and cry out, “I have sinned against God!” Though they may acknowledge that, like all men, they fall short of the glory of God, it does not show them the serious nature of their personal transgression. Consequently, the depth of their sorrow is in proportion to their shallow understanding of the seriousness of their sin. They do not experience a godly sorrow that is necessary for repentance. However, when we help sinners see the depth of their sin in light of God’s perfect Law, it makes God’s grace – a second chance – truly amazing. Again, anyone confronted with sin, the being of God, his Holiness and the consequences of indifference and rebellion towards Him, has to care about these things, or nothing to convince them to take all of this seriously will matter.
I guess the question to consider today would be... “do you care” about the second chance that God has extended to you? Do you care enough to dig deeper, past the slick promotion of the gospel, to its real gritty depths and see who you really are and how hopeless your situation is without God’s Grace?
