Gooding, David: 4 - Life's Final Assessment

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. Our topic this evening is not by any means of the pleasantest. In fact, perhaps it will take quite an effort of our will to concentrate our attention on such a topic for any length of time. Life's failures lie so close to the citadel of our personalities that continued attention upon them tends to depress us. We feel it as a threat against our personality. The happy extrovert will not want his sunshine to be beclouded by being reminded that this world is a place marked by failure and in parts by very dark failure. And the overconscientious introvert will find the subject so depressing that in the end, perhaps he will develop his psychological barriers and protections, and either want to argue that he is not so bad after all, or if he cannot get away with that, will tend to say, well, even if we are, what does it matter? And in addition, many of us have behind us a history, perhaps in our younger days, when life was full of idealism, of having made some serious attempts to cope with our failures and to improve them. And the frustration that we have probably met with, and the sense of failure that has gone with it, will make us perhaps a bit wearied of the topic. That is, in fact, why people at large very often find the topic of religion embarrassing. It raises old ghosts, it puts its fingers into old sores, and is not a little bit painful. Therefore, if we are to consider what Christianity has to say about life's failures, we shall need not a little bit of courage and, uh, perseverance, because Christianity i- insists on absolute realism in this particular sphere, and is bound to bring some ghosts and skeletons out of our cupboards. On the other hand, I would like to make the point right here at once that Christianity, that is true Christianity, is, uh, probably a lot kinder and far more hopeful than many people imagine. Indeed, it is, uh, very safe to say that biblical Christianity is exceedingly much more kind to failing human beings than are the popular versions of Christianity. I find those popular versions so widespread and ingrained in people's thinking that perhaps you'll permit me to, to outline what I conceive is the popular version of Christianity in this respect. Popular Christianity faces men and women and says, now look here, um, you ought, you know, to believe in Jesus Christ, by which it means that you ought to believe that perhaps he's a good man, that even perhaps he was a prophet, uh, perhaps in some sense that he was the son of God, whatever that means. And that leads on to believing that his teachings were exceedingly good teachings, and that we ought to run our lives and rule them by the teachings of Jesus Christ. Summed up, perhaps, for most people, in the golden rule that, um, whatsoever you would that men do to you, you must try and do to them. So runs popular Christianity. It exhorts people to do their best and honestest, to keep the Sermon on the Mount, to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Then, of course, sooner or later, it comes, uh, face to face with the problem that we all, however honest our efforts are, we all fail to keep those teachings as we ought to. And in face of that, it says something like this. It says, well, of course, Jesus Christ did tell us that God is love, and God is kind and full of pity, and that if we sincerely repent of our failures, then God is prepared to, um, forgive us and encourage us to make a new start. So far, so good. But if we then ask of the popular version of Christianity, what hope have we of final attainment? And what hope have we of being certain that when we've done our best in this fashion, we shall be accepted with God? And what hope have we, when the training period of this life is done, that we shall, to put it in a common phrase, qualify to enter God's heaven. Then we begin to find the inadequacies of the popular version, for the popular version turns around and says, but you can't have any certainty. You must go on doing your best. And in face of repeated failure, all you can hope is that God will forgive you up to the present, but you must try your level best and leave it anybody's guess, whether finally you achieve acceptance with God and qualify to enter his heaven. Well, now that version, as you may see at once, is exceedingly depressing. I have no wonder for my own part that many people rebel against Christianity, if that is the Christianity they know. For in the first place, it puts before people an impossible standard. It holds out the teachings of Jesus Christ and God's holy law to people who, uh, by very definition cannot possibly keep those high standards. And then face, uh, faced with repeated failure, it can offer no certainty that se- success will be come at in the end. True Christianity is, of course, vastly different. But, uh, if we're going to see how it works, and if we are going to find it work in our own experience, we must be prepared to let, uh, Christianity in all its, uh, radical realism, first of all, diagnose the trouble. Now, I am not going to repeat here last week's lecture, but Christianity does, in this matter too, start with this basic proposition that the most serious thing about human failure is not that it makes us uncomfortable, or that it feels- fills us with self-loathing, nor even that it hurts the other man and does him, uh, injustice. But the Bible has it that the most serious thing about human failure is that it is sin against God. That is why, if you read the Bible, where the Bible comments on these things, you will find a whole, uh, list of terms, uh, that are not so much, uh, uh, synonyms of failure as terms that imply, uh, that our substandard behavior has disrupted our relationship with God. It is a coming short of God's glory, says the Bible. It is a positive transgression of God's law. It is disrespect of God, it is ungodliness, and so on and so forth. And therefore Christianity, when it comes to outline its program of rescue, starts where perhaps people at first sight wouldn't expect it to start. People are normally so anxious with getting on with the practical matter of improving their behavior, that they expect Christianity to come alongside and say, now look here, old fellow, you ought to be doing a bit better than you are. Have a go at doing better. And they're a little bit nonplussed when they find that Christianity doesn't start there, but starts in a realm that seems to them to be sort of, uh, uh, theological and a bit remote. It comes alongside us and says, in fact, that the first thing we must do about our failure is to get our relationship with God put right. But if we put it so, then of course, we shall have to start asking, not, um, with what sort of standards would I myself feel satisfied, but rather with what sort of standards of behavior would God himself feel satisfied? What sort of standards would God, uh, raise, uh, to men and say, now look here, if you were to come up to those standards, we could resume personal fellowship and intercourse. Standards that God asks, of the kind of behavior that would satisfy him, we know perhaps all too well from our reading of the law of Moses in the Old Testament, from our reading of the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament, and a good deal else of the Bible. But I would like to us to ponder it again now, just at this juncture, and see what is the real nature of God's law. God's law, to put it in a nutshell, spells out unbroken perfection. And God is not prepared to accept anything short of unbroken perfection. Now here, perhaps our popular notions do need a little bit of adjusting. We have it, uh, in our thinking, perhaps without ever having deliberately put it there, that God's law is like a university examination. The paper is set, the questions everybody knows are going to be difficult, but so long as we score, what, uh fifty percent, we're almost certain of passing. Indeed, if at Queen's you scored sixty percent, uh, we should say you were very good. If you were to score seventy five percent, we should say you were bordering on genius. And if you scored ninety percent, something would happen because it's never happened before. And we get it into our heads that God's, uh, laws are, are that sort of thing, uh, a, an examination paper in which if we do, why, sixty percent, then God will s- feel very pleased with us. But the realism of the situation is, is vastly different. The realism of the situation is this, if you'll allow me to quote a biblical phrase. The Bible says that if we keep the whole law and offend in one point, we are guilty of all. We have broken perfection. That is sin. Somebody says, but that is an unreasonable, an absolutely unreasonable attitude to take to people that live in a world like ours. Is God so unreasonable? Well, leave that aside for the moment. I'm merely pointing out what the facts are according to the Bible. That But God's God's laws laws. demand one hundred percent. And the next thing I think that we ought to get pretty well into our, our, our heads is that God's law is not just a little kindly advice. Many scholars have indeed suggested that the law of God in its, uh, uh, o- o- original term, as the Hebrew has it, does mean advice, instruction, that God's law is a pointer along the way, uh, that we ought to go, and so indeed it is. And if you like, it is advice in that sense. But God's law i- i- is evidently very much more. God's law is a something that not only, uh, demands certain standards of conduct, but has sanctions added thereto. And we mustn't try and escape that by saying, oh well, of course, the Old Testament, you know, and Moses, they were pretty grim and a little bit primitive. Uh, but surely now Jesus Christ has come along and told us that God is, after all, love, and he's not quite so hard and austere as we used to think he was. For when Christ came to reinterpret the Old Testament law, he had some very solemn and some very hard things to say. He said the man that, um, got angry with his brother and let go with ungoverned temper was in danger of hellfire. And I cannot, of course, as you will perceive, I cannot apologize for that expression. Our Lord was no sentimentalist. Our Lord insisted that God's law has sanctions. The coming short of it brings down those sanctions on our head. Somebody said, well then that's a, that's it's a very gloomy situation indeed. But if we feel that, let's hurry on to the next point. For we should next ask, why did God give that law? And here we come across what I am sure to many people is a completely novel idea, and may well be a novel idea to some of us here this evening. The popular religion and Christianity in the popular version, uh, they have it that God gave us the law, that we should try and keep this law, and so, so to speak, qualify for his acceptance, qualify for entrance into his kingdom, qualify, if you like, to use a popular term, for heaven. Now, it is precisely the opposite of that that the Bible says. The Bible outright says that God did not give us the law so that we should keep it and thereby win his acceptance. Indeed, it says that God gave us that law so that it might prove us guilty. In other words, God gave that law to do for us in the spiritual realm what any good physician would do in the physical realm. That is, he himself would diagnose our case, and in suitable circumstances would tell us what our need was. And if we were not inclined to seek, uh, the necessary cure and treatment, our medic would use his diagnosis to try and make us see how serious our ailment was, and to drive us, if need be, to seek treatment. And precisely that, though somewhat technical terms, I admit, the New Testament says, it says like this, that what things soever the law says, it says to them who are under the law that, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. Now, I suspect you can see already what a tremendous amount of mischief has been done in people's thinking by the popular misuse of God's law. People have taken this thing, which was meant to come alongside us and expose our trouble and get us to see what is the nature of our spiritual disease and how hopeless that disease is. And they have merrily taken this thing and preached it to men and women of all sorts and kinds, offering it to them as a standard that they should try and live up to, and causing them endless despair and frustration as a result. The law is a diagnosis. It's not a cure. It's not the medicine. It's a diagnosis. If you will, God's law is a thermometer, very necessary arrangement. The busy housewife is, uh, running a temperature. She's in for a very good dose of the flu, but being a very, uh, loyal and good housewife, as all good house- as all housewives are, of course, um, she insists on running the house still and keeping around and, and thinks it quite impossible that she could go to bed, whoever else went to bed. All right. The medic is called in and insists on putting the thermometer in her mouth and taking her temperature, One hundred and four point five, He says, but look, my good woman, you have to go to bed, because if you go out, you'll be dead with a temperature like that. And the thermometer has done a very unpalatable job. I know, I know she disagrees most heartily and wishes there were such things as thermometers and wishes that people wouldn't apply such a thing as a thermometer. But in the end, she's persuaded to go to bed. But, um, we all know she doesn't swallow the thermometer in an attempt to get well. God's law was given us to make us, in realistic fashion, face ourselves and discover, if we haven't discovered it before, that we are incurable sinners. To bring us to see that, um, some kind of rescue operation is necessary, but never given us that we should try and keep it in order to deserve God's acceptance. Now that is important, and, uh, I want to dwell just around there a moment, just a moment, because it is important that this sinks in. You see, if you notice, the people that misuse the law and think that they've got to keep God's law to get to heaven, they generally go in one of two ways. If they are very honest and sincere people, they will do their level best to keep it, and in the end they'll turn themselves into slaves, spiritual slaves. Being good, because they feel they have to be good to earn God's favor. They work hard at being good, and they're trying to earn a place in God's heaven and God's approval. They've turned themselves into spiritual slaves. God doesn't want spiritual slaves. God doesn't, uh, propose to sell his friendship. It isn't on the market of good behavior to be bought. Or if people are a little bit blasé, they say, yes, oh yes, you know, I'm Christian, I do my best to to to to lead the Christian life. And by keeping perhaps a a tolerably lengthy arm's length away from the Bible and what it says, managed to persuade themselves that they've achieved this, uh, Christian standard, well, more or less. And of course, it comes as a rude shock and very uncomfortable sort of experience thereafter for anybody to come along and tear away that, uh, misimpression. You will remember, of course, doubtless, the kind of situation that repeated itself hundreds of times when our Lord was here upon earth. In fact, the four gospels are taken up to a great extent with describing these situations. There were, in our Lord's time, some people who were very sincerely of the persuasion that you have to keep God's law in order to qualify for a place in his kingdom, to be accepted with God. And they did their utmost. And in the end, some of them thought that they had more or less attained, you know, they had, uh, more or less kept the law. Remember that one famous incident of a young gentleman that came to the Lord and, uh, said, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And the Lord said, oh, keep this commandment, that commandment, and the other commandment. And instead of seeing the point that he couldn't keep him, the man said with tremendous self-assurance, but yes, master, he said, all those things have I kept. Of course, he'd done no such thing. If you read carefully, uh, uh, our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, so called, you will find him engaged in a very delicate operation that consisted in removing, uncomfortable as that might be, removing from people this illusion that they had kept God's law at any rate, uh, uh, near enough. Christ said, for instance, um, the law says thou shalt not murder. And you Pharisees imagine that, uh, just because you haven't actually stuck a knife into somebody, you fulfill the law. But Christ pointed out that God's law is not just a mechanical thing like that. God's law is spiritual. Maybe a man hasn't murdered, but if ever a man has lost his temper with his brother and hated him, Christ says that is just the same as if he had murdered the man. And similarly with adultery, many a Pharisee prided himself that he'd never had illicit relations with his neighbor's wife. But said Christ, that's, that, that's not enough, that's not keeping the law, that's good, but um, the man that has let his imagination dwell on it, though he hasn't done the deed, has at heart broken the law. Understandably, the Pharisees were absolutely furious. It was one of the causes, amongst others, why in the end they hounded this Jesus Christ to the cross. It was so distinctly uncomfortable to have this illusion pulled away, for it left them on the same level as your woman in the streets and as the despised tax collector, bankrupt, spiritually bankrupt. And, uh, painfully so. When they had done their very, very best, they were still coming short of God's standards. They were still bankrupt. Now, I have to go there at length because this has proved for many people down the centuries the turning point in their spiritual pilgrimage. It is, in fact, when a man comes to see what God is saying by his law and discovers that he is, in fact, a spiritual bankrupt, even when he has done his best and his most honest, that makes a man search around for some other way to ask whether God hasn't now some other way then of coping with this matter of life's failures. And of course, there is another way. There is the Christian gospel, and it doesn't run, thou shalt keep the law and do your best. There is another way. It was this, of course, that, uh, was the turning point, for instance, in the spiritual pilgrimage of, um, Saint Paul. He had, I know, that great experience as he was traveling up the road to Damascus, so history tells us, in which he saw the risen Christ. But he had another experience. He was, as you know, brought up in a very religious family and, uh, was good at religion, and, uh, had kept the law, so he can honestly tell us, until, as men would say, the man was above reproach. You couldn't have pointed a finger at him. But, uh, one day, we can't tell exactly when it happened, he came across the commandment in the law, thou shalt not covet. It came home as a shattering revelation, for he found he did covet. He then determined that he would do his very best to stop coveting. He found, to his dismay, that the more he tried, the worse it got. And though it was only one thing, and you may say a very small peccadillo, you see, it shattered the principle on which he had hitherto been living. For if you were going to build up a righteousness by keeping God's law a hundred percent, you only have to pierce it in one place, as the Bible, and you've ruined it. You only need one puncture in a balloon, you know, to let the air out and have the whole thing come down. It shattered, uh, Paul's confidence in any sort of character that he could weave by his own efforts, and brought him to see how glorious, and yet how very different, is Christianity's way of coping with human failure. What is that way? Well, it starts first with this demand on repentance, realism. Not merely repenting that one or two odd sins are wrong, you know, it's wrong to steal, it's wrong to commit adultery, it's wrong to do this and do that. Of course, that's involved. But repentance in that far deeper sense. Um, that we are, when we've done our best, all told, spiritually bankrupt. Then to hunt around for the cause. We tend, you know, to be so occupied with the incidentals. But as in most things, so in this, our Lord had some very illuminating remarks to make. He was commenting at one stage upon that perverse human tendency, you know, that we all of us noticed, that we love to put other people right. We can see other people's faults very clearly, and very often are found engaging in the enterprising business of casting out notes out of other people's eyes when we've got a big beam in our own eye. Why do people do that sort of thing? Well, in part because of this, said Christ, um, let's use an illustration. He said, you wouldn't gather grapes, would you, off a thorn bush? Of course you wouldn't. You'd gather grapes? Uh, on a grapevine, yes. How do grapes come on a vine? Well, by no accident, to be sure. Grapes on a vine are not accidents. Grapes come on a vine not as incidentals. Individual grapes on a vine are indicative of the nature of the tree that bears them. Now we can see that in the world of horticulture. We find it very difficult to see it in the world of human nature, but it is so. My individual failures, my peccadilloes, if I like so to regard them, and my more serious faults, these are not accidents, these are not incidentals. These are not curious exceptions to the rule. Our failures are indicative of a deeper cause. Our failures, if you'll excuse the phrase to be blunt, spring from this, that at bottom, our human nature has gone wrong. It is rotten. Somebody will say, but so you're getting worse and worse and worse now. This is, this is exceedingly depressing. Is there no hoop- hope for humans? There is indeed, there is indeed. Our first realism to face the trouble. And in the end, we shall find it kinder. Well, if we put our se- the question to ourselves like this, what is it that makes everybody sin? Why is it that every mother's fair-haired little boy and blue-eyed little girl invariably and without exception grow up to be sinners? Why does everybody go that way? Why aren't there now again an exception to the rule? The answer comes back, of course, that men and women sin because they were born with a sinful nature. And the Bible adds to this effect that it is not altogether their fault. The drunk you see going down the road, helplessly drunk, the housewife that loses her temper. The teacher that is sarcastic and bitter. Not altogether their fault. In great part to be traced to this, they have failed because they were born with a fallen, a sinful nature. That resulted from the transgression of the forefather of our race. And I, for one, I must say, am exceedingly attracted by, I do unashamedly believe in, incidentally, the Bible account of things that the human race has been tainted at its root by the sin of its first forefather. It's the kindliest doctrine that was ever preached. It doesn't come along a man, side of a man and say, you wretch, you are altogether personally responsible for the mess your life is in. It says, indeed, my good fellow, in some part you are to blame here, you have deliberately gone that way, but in some great part it wasn't your fault to begin with, and you are exceedingly to be pitied. God is a realist. He knows our trouble, that we were born sinners before we started personally to sin. He knows that that much we could not help it was somebody else's fault. And here we may start the happier side of the story. God, who is a realist, doesn't come alongside such a man and say, well, now look, do your best to go right, because that, in the last analysis, is a sheer mockery of the man's position. But God comes alongside and says, look, I have a rescue operation. You became a sinner, you couldn't help it, it was somebody else's fault. Now I'm prepared to save you. Again, not by your personal effort, but by what somebody else has Has done. done. The Bible puts it as number one, first procedure, that if ever we are going to be rescued, it will go not by our effort, but by what God has intervened to do, and that particularly through Jesus Christ. The first job then is to put right this ruptured relationship, to make it possible for God to receive us into his friendship and fellowship and partnership in this business of living. On what terms can God accept us? Not on our effort, if he's going to be realist. But now here comes the story. He can accept us because Christ has died and suffered the sanctions of God's law, so that God can at one and the same time maintain his sanctions, maintain all his value judgments, can maintain that sin is the hideous thing sin is, and yet at the time be perfectly just in receiving men and women who are still sinful. Now here again, I, I want to stay because this is, this is glorious, this, exceedingly glorious. This is where Christianity differs from religion. Religion says try and improve yourself so that God may accept you. Christianity says you'll never do that. But God has found a way of being able to accept you as you are without any improvement. It tells a man that God, knowing the very worst about him, loves him just the same and is prepared to accept him as he is. And can do that in a way that's perfectly consistent with his own standards and the sanctions of his law, because Christ died to bear that man's sin and to bear its consequence and to bear its guilt. You see, the New Testament has it, that Christ's death upon the cross was not merely an example of courage and devotion to God. And it wasn't merely an expression of man's enmity against all that's good and holy. It was that when Christ died, he suffered the sanctions of God's law, the biblical term, he suffered the wrath of God against sin. And that law being upheld and honored by the death of Christ. God can now accept the man who's willing to be accepted, not on the ground of that man's personal attainments, either real or potential, but because of what Christ has done. I want to submit to you that that is obviously right from two good reasons. It's right because it shows God's love for men. In spite of the tremendous standards of his law on holiness, this shows that God still wants men, still loves men, and will go to any lengths to save a man. It shows God's love. At the same time, it shows God's realism. He doesn't ask us first to improve. He doesn't even make his de- his acceptance of us depend upon our improvement. He's prepared to take us as we are. And knowing all we shall be, accept us into his personal friendship and fellowship, because of what Christ has done. That's why Christianity calls itself a gospel and not a religion. There is a heaven of difference. But somebody says, what do you mean then when you say that, uh, God is prepared to accept us because Christ died for us? Yes, we do believe perhaps that Christ did die for our sins. Doesn't the Bible say die for our sins? But, uh, what does that mean? Doesn't that mean that, uh, if a man comes in sincere repentance to Christ, uh, uh, uh, uh, and confesses his sins, now God, um, accepts that man up to the present, so to speak. Wipes clean the sheet of the past, and, uh, then gives the man another chance to, to, to have another go. But of course, uh, now he has another chance to have another go. He's still on the same alternative. He's got to do his best now. Of course, he's been forgiven so far, but everything will now depend on how well he does in the future. So indeed, popular Christianity runs. That is not true. As you can at once see, of course, if acceptance with God for the man who believes in Christ meant that God acts, uh, forgives him up to the present and then says, now, old fellow, you've been forgiven, don't do it again, do the very best you can after here, and I will decide at the end whether you pass. You will put the man back under that same old principle. It will after all only depend on him and his behavior, and you might know from the start that he would never come up to the standard. No, acceptance with Christ, uh, with God because of what Christ has done is a far more radical thing than that. It is acceptance first and last. It is acceptance now and forever. It must be so. The principle of acceptance with God on the ground of our attainment is out forever. It must be by the realism of the situation. A man that therefore is prepared to receive Christ on these terms and to come to God solely through what Christ has done, that man God receives not only now, but guarantees to the man that he will never cast him out. The Bible is exceedingly strong on this, unless you, in case you should think I've run away with enthusiasm or something, let me quote you what the Bible actually says. It says to those people, to use the technical term, that are in Christ, the people that have put their faith in him and only him, and have abandoned hope in their own endeavor, for them there is no condemnation. Or to take another phrase from the Bible, they shall never come into condemnation. Not merely their past forgiven, but their whole self, past, present, and future as a unit of human personality accepted with God forever. I told you Christianity is kinder than some people make out. You say, but how can it be? Well, very simply indeed. The Bible tells us that God does not hold court on a man's life every day of the week. It says there is only one judgment. That comes after death. Now, just as there is only one judgment, and it's in the future for all of us, it's it's not every day of the week, it's not your life up to here is judged, and now a clean sheet today and go on and see what happens next. But the judgment is after death. Just as there is one judgment, so Christ has once been offered to bear the sins of many. And God is exceedingly frank, he keeps nothing up his sleeve. God has the courage to tell a man and woman that if he will abandon trust in his own effort and put all his faith in what Christ has done, then Christ's death upon the cross already happened, has already cleared the page of God's judgment book. God tells the man that. And gives the man exceeding great peace of conscience towards God. And makes the man feel and know he's accepted with God. And never will be otherwise. But of course, I hear your objections. You can think now tremendous objections. And the commonest of all is this, but that cannot be true. I mean, if a man was sure that he is accepted with God, sure that he would enter God's heaven and never be cast out wide tomorrow, he would go and do as he likes. Surely somebody says, in the name of good religion and getting people to behave properly, you've got to keep them on their toes. You can't tell them too much. You've got to keep them uncertain, surely. Else if they were certain of acceptance, they would just do as they liked. And now, of course, the objection is not valid, but it's a very interesting one because you'll find that objection in the New Testament. You'll find Paul saying that that is precisely what people objected to him. They said, you know, Paul was preaching something terribly wrong. He's telling people they can be sure of acceptance with God. Uh, Paul, you're, you're, you're just playing into the hands of sin. You are, you are encouraging people to live just how they like. And the very fact that people brought that up against Paul, and uh, many people, perhaps even you, would bring that up against me, shows, doesn't it, if I might be so uh, humble as to say, that I got the right end of the stick. At least I got the g- gospel that Paul preached. Nobody ever objected to the popular Christianity, you know, it all depends on you sort of thing. Nobody ever objected to that, that that would encourage anybody to sin. I'm in the right camp. But the actual fact is, of course, that the objection is not valid for a number of reasons. When a man comes to put his faith in Christ, in all the reality of the situation he knows he's a bankrupt sinner and will remain a sinner in that sense. He will never be perfect here on earth. And learns to see that God has done something about it, and that God is prepared to accept him, knowing what he is and what he will be. Accept him because of what Christ has done. It sets loose within that man a tremendous stream of gratitude to God. Do you remember the story of the woman that came into Simon's dinner party and, uh, couched down beside Christ and began to weep and wipe his, uh, wash his feet for her tears and wipe them with the hair of her head? Remember how old Simon objected strongly? Simon was a very good religious Pharisee. He didn't like this display of evangelical emotion, as you'll see. Our Lord had to point out what the significance of it was. He said, do you know what all that emotion means? Do you know what all that personal gratitude to me means? That means, you know, that the woman has been forgiven, just like a man who had two debtors. They couldn't pay anything, got nothing to pay with anyway. The man forgave them, and the result was, of course, they felt grateful to the, the creditor, and they, they loved him because he had forgiven them. Now you see that woman's affection to me, says Christ, it springs from this that she knows she has been forgiven and that I have accepted her. Now, he said, Simon, old boy, you're exceedingly religious. I came here, of course, you gave me a courteous welcome of a sort, but I've not seen that personal affection in your heart towards me that I've seen in that woman's heart, Simon. And he left Simon to work out the reason why. The reason why, of course, was that Simon was full of doing the best he could to obtain approval of God, but Simon was quite a stranger to the emotion of gratitude to God for forgiveness. And in the second place, of course, the man that thus comes to Christ, eh, he finds himself not only accepted, but then he comes across what is the second great thing in Christianity. A relationship with God restored because of Christ's sacrifice. And secondly, Christ, being a living personality, imparts to that man his Holy Spirit. In a sense, you see, Christ being God, is able to join himself to that man. This is not mysticism, this is reality. And the man receives a new power that begins him on the road of Christian discipline. And God tells the man straight, there'll be a lot of discipline. There will be a lot of lessons to be faced. There will be mistakes made. The process of facing sin and repenting of individual sins and habits and so on will go on all through life, and the path may be hard indeed. But you see, uh, while that kind of Christian discipline then goes on and develops the man's character. The basis of his acceptance with God is never called in question. It doesn't depend on his progress, it depends on what Christ has done. So far from that leading a man to license, it does the opposite. The man being now secure that he will never ca- be cast out is not afraid to turn round and look at himself in a realist fashion. He's free now of that natural tendency to try and turn Nelson's blind eye to our faults. There's no need to be content with shoddy standards. He can actually face himself, and yet not sort of dither on the edge of a nervous breakdown, but know that though, uh, he discovers sin in himself, he is still accepted with God. In that acceptance because of what Christ has done, the man finds the courage to look at himself realistically and begin the work of Christian discipline. And secondly, he learns now to please God for the right motive. He's no longer trying to be good for what he gets out of it, you see. He's no longer trying to be good in order to earn a place in heaven. I find a lot of my agnostic friends object strongly to Christianity. They say, why should I, uh, be good just to get a place in heaven? Object to being good for that motive. It's nothing more than cupboard love. Well, of course it is so. Popular Christianity is merely a form of cupboard love. Earning a place in heaven, being good for what you get out of it. True Christianity that receives a man because of what Christ has done, now has the man being good, not for what he gets out of it, not to earn heaven or acceptance with God. That's simply to please God, because being good is worth the while, because it is being good. You say, of course, but I know, you say, I know that there are a lot of people who claim that they were saved or some such talk, and I've seen them in business. Doubtless you have. I've seen them elsewhere. Our Lord said you would see quite a lot of those type of people. Tears, he called them, among the wheat. But the fact that there are tears does not make the farmer plow up his field of wheat and disbelieve wheat. And the fact that there are people who claim Christian salvation, and then go on to show that they are utter hypocrites, have no experience of God at all, should not make any of us be so silly as to throw away the genuine salvation that Christ offers. My last word is that this all is not some involved theological puzzle. It is the basis, after all, of a personal relation, for God is a person. There is an obvious difference between the person who comes to God and says, God, I'm doing my best, will you accept me on those terms? He's always trying to do his best to be accepted with God. And the person who comes along and says, God, I have already done my best. Sometimes, there have been a lot of times, of course, when I haven't done anything of the sort. I now see that I'm a spiritual bankrupt. And in all sincerity, I own the seriousness of having broken your law. I accept your offer that Christ died for me, knowing what I am, have done, and will yet do. For I want fellowship with God. I need salvation. There is a tremendous difference. If you were going to sum it up in brief technical terms, it is, ladies and gentlemen, the difference between heaven and hell.