i haven’t shared this one for a while so i thort i’d repost it cos it really helps explain the concept really well for me:
So i often hear the question ‘how good do i need to be to get to heaven’ or else the question can be phrased in a different way – ‘how is it that you (followers of Jesus) say that if a serial killer repents and becomes a follower of Christ on his deathbed that he will go to heaven, but that my gran who has never hurt anyone in her life and in fact has been a really good person, but is not a follower of Jesus, is doomed to hell and eternal destruction?’ That doesn’t seem fair…
Well an analogy i heard or made up (can’t remember actually cos have used it so much last few years, think God gave it to me actually) is the one of the beep beep machine which for me explains it well in terms of how the Bible (which i see as the Word of God to man) sees it.
Two Scenes:
In the first you are fast asleep in bed, your alarm goes off and you wake up and get dressed in your suit of armour, put in all thirty eight of your piercings (ears, eyes, nose, throat etc), grab R200 in R5 and R2 and R1 coins, your eleven bunches of keys (house, car, locker, post box etc) and your friend arrives in a van and somehow manages to get you outside and into it. She drives you to the airport and pushes you into a trolley and gets you all the way to the beep beep machine (could never remember what it was called, think it’s metal detector but prefer beep beep machine) and you stumble through it – What happens? BEEP BEEP (or maybe the machine explodes)
In the second scene, you are fast asleep in bed, your alarm goes off and you wake up and put on your satin dressing gown and your fluffy bunny slippers, you remove all of your piercings, leave your money on the desk and with just your air ticket you climb into your friend’s car and she drives you to the airport and you walk to the beep beep machine and walk through. [only thing i forgot to tell you is that when you were 3 you had a tragic tricycling accident and you had to have a 1cm by 1cm metal pin inserted into your left pinkie] What happens? BEEP BEEP
You see the Beep Beep machine is built to recognise the presence of metal – and it doesn’t matter if you have 100kg or 1cm of metal – the machine goes off.
Now for me as i understand the Bible, that is the story of Jesus. One day each of us will stand before God on judgement day (not the Terminator one) and He will examine us to see if we have sin in our lives (anything we do that goes against God and who He is, or anything we fail to do that He would have wanted us to do like look after the sick and poor and needy for example – the least of these) – and whether there is 100kg of sin or 1cm of sin, the Bible says it is enough to keep us out of heaven. So the question is not ‘how much good are you?’ – the question is ‘has your sin been dealt with?’
What happens in the airport scenario for you to walk through the beep beep machine without it going off? You take your metal and you give it to the guard and he puts it in the plastic container, in short he deals with your metal for you so that you can go through without problem.
And that’s Jesus. Through Him dying on the cross for our sins, He was a replacement sacrifice (reminiscent of the Old Testament and Jewish culture) – He dealt with our sin and the penalty for sin (death) so that we would not have to and so that we can walk straight through into heaven/eternity with God/paradise – when God looks at us He doesn’t see our sin (if we have confessed and repented and accepted the free gift of Jesus carrying it for us) but the sacrifice and the blood of His Son which made access to Him possible.
So not how good do i need to be to make it, but has my sin been dealt with?
Mine has – how about yours?
John 3.16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him will not die but have everlasting life.”
very cool post dude. sorry this is not an intense reply… just a heads up… to say.. “go you” God says cool stuff through you… 🙂
Okay you gotta at least let me make one post a day. I just want to say I disagree with your parable. When you get to the machine you are allowed to take out your coins and go through. If you don’t listen then you are not allowed in. Maybe the same in heaven. I think you must post my comment also as you are not the only word of God. God looks if you have a good heart and if so you are let in. If you dud small sins then you won’t just go to he’ll. So don’t delete this as it’s important otherwise people will be too worried and live a life in fear. If I drink beer and die from too much beer before I repent, doesn’t mean I will go hell. So please put this on. Your beep beep is not accurate.
Are you saying if someone is a serial killer who is evil-minded that they wil get same treatment as a kid who stole a sweet from a shop? No way man I don’t think so. The kid wil go to heaven. But the murderer wil also if he repented. What is your answer?
You also continue to sin in many ways but if you ignorant then is it okay? Also you delete my posts so it stops Gods message as well.
yeah brits, what i am saying is a serial murderer and a kid who stole one sweet are both headed towards hell and both need the saving grace of Jesus – the point of the analogy is it is not up to us and what we think is fair or ok – God has a standard and everyone falls short of that standard and so we are all headed towards hell – but at the same time God is Love and so He has made a way for everyone but ONLY THOSE WHO ACCEPT WHAT HE FREELY OFFERS will receive the free gift of salvation and make it… and so if the murderer genuinely repents and accepts Jesus as his Lord and Saviour and the kid doesn’t, then it is the murderer who will be saved – and when we are saved by accepting what Jesus did on the cross for us then our sins are washed away and God views us as if we have not sinned – that is the message of the Bible whether you like it or not…
I see your point but most kids don’t understand all this Christian stuff and even more kids find church very boring. So if they have stolen a sweet then fall out of a tree or crash their bicycle, without going the Christian route even if they were just bored and wanted to play instead of church then surely they would be allows into heaven? Then there are good people in other cultures like Muslims, and if they are good and hardly sin and maybe heard about Jesus once or twice in passing, then would they go to devil? I think God is analog, not digital or yes, no. He looks at your heart. Everyone is made different and some are blind so can never read, some are deaf and can’t hear, some are too young to care about boring church meetings. I am saying boring from their view. So it is not so digital. There is no beep beep machine, God takes many things into account. So I am trying to make more serious postings. We must have more debate and liven up this blog as it’s too quiet.
I have another question. What if a Christian who accepts Jesus and has their sins taken away, gets angry and murders someone. Just say he dies of a heart attack or is shot during the time of his murdering spree. He has not asked forgiveness for his sin which is now his latest and dies. Now what?
If he was a good Christian he would not be running around murdering. But just say his wife were killed by a hijacker, the husband grabs the gun and chases the hijacker and shoots him. Do it is not any more self defense but meditated killing.
I think in this case what we do is what we do. It dependent on our anger, testosterone, and adrenaline. So maybe we judged according to lots of things.
But a kid who has stolen a sweet or called another kid a name would go to heaven. And if that is do, then at what age must a person do the Jesus repenting thing? Is it 5, 10, 15, 20? I think each is judged according to their situation that they in.
What do you think? It can’t just be a beep machine and if you fail you sit in he’ll for all-time with the devil and get tortured in hot lava and flames. Just for being a kid and doing what you do as a kid.
Then also is the matter of sins. What is a sin? We know the 10 commandments sins. People tell me drinking to get drunk is a sin. People drink both beer and sine. People drink wine, even a glass makes you a bit relaxed or some say a little drunk. So maybe 10 commandments also if it’s a bad thought or if we have bad intentions.
One more question. What if by commuting murder, you stir up a hornest nest in another person, say you killed a mans wife and ge then loses it and becomes a killer of gangsters. You repent and up to heaven you go. The other guy is now a murderer.
Also many Christians steal and go get forgiven on Sunday. The victims of their theft must then may become thieves, stealing bread or pies to survive. Now who is the real sinner there? Can you keep getting forgiven and carry on sinning? What about s those you cause to sin? Do you carry their sins also?
brits, you’re asking some better questions so we can have more decent conversation but i think you really need to read the post again and see what i am actually saying – the beep beep machine is just an analogy which makes a point (any analogy is only as strong as the point it is making) – the point being that it is not the amount of sin or how bad we might think it is that condemns us to hell – according to God (in the Bible) everyone has sinned and it is even the smallest amount of sin that condemns us to hell because it makes us offensive in God’s sight – sin is everything that goes against who God is – so it is the bad stuff we do but it is also the good stuff we fail to do – so the point of the bible is that none of us are good enough to make it – without God we are screwed…
then the good news is that Jesus came to die in place of us and take on the punishment of sin – if the kid who steals the sweet never acknowledges Jesus as Lord and God as king then he doesn’t make it into heaven – if the murderer gets to a point where he realises what he has done and truly repents (not just says a quick sorry to “make it” into heaven – God knows his heart and it must be genuine but Jesus even saves the murderer who was crucified alongside him because his repenting was genuine) then God will forgive him – so christians who go to church and “repent” every week and then go out and don’t live differently – they have not truly repented and God will judge them one day
also ultimately it is God who is going to be doing the judging – He knows mens hearts and who has truly repented and who is generally following Him so He will make the call which i am truly grateful for – if people judged me i’d probly be in trouble
and the second thing which is hugely important is that christianity is not only for one day to get into heaven when we die – Jesus said to His followers ‘the thief (devil) comes to steal and kill and destroy, i have come that you may have life and have it to the full’ – so Christianity is (or should be) about living better here on earth and the greatest command Jesus gave was love God with everything and love your neighbour in the same way – also He spoke hugely about looking after the poor and needy and defenceless and widows and orphans and so those are huge things on His heart…
and you can’t be responsible for someone else’s sin – if you kill my wife that is your sin but if i seek vengeance instead of allowing God to deal with it and judge then that is my sin and i will be held accountable for it one day.
oh and your question about a christian sinning and then dying before they repent – well when you are saved your slate is washed clean by God and He views you as if you haven’t sinned – any sin after that breaks relationship with God and must be confessed so that you can restore relationship but it doesn’t kill the relationship completely (unless i believe if you walk away from God and turn your back on Him so deliberastely walking in the opposite direction) – so all my sin has been forgiven, even that which i havet committed yet, as i said when i sin i need to confess and put it right with God and need to make restoration where it has hurt people but it no longer has the power of sending me to hell because it was paid for on the cross…
Where in the Bible does it say that you will sit burning in Hell being roasted like a marshmallow if you don’t believe or havent yet gotten round to doing the Jesus repenting thing? It says you will go to Heaven if you believe in Jesus, but does it say you will go to Hell if you don’t? What I am saying is that if you do believe it makes it easier to get in, but if you dont does it specifically say that you will go to hell? I am not so into versus and all in the Bible as you are, so maybe you know the answer according to versus.
Maybe it is only a sin if you know it is a sin? An oke born on an island then his parents who are missionaries die when he is one yr old and he is raised by chimpanzes like tarzan. He cannot be a sinner? How would this work? He lives his life and picks coconut and dies without knowing about Jesus. Surely then he goes to heaven? This is the first insistance. What if others people come with guns to kill his group and he fights off the killers and kills them by throwing stones at them? He would have sinned if you go by normal defining it, but he would be acting normally for himself and he would not think of himself as sinner. Would he go to Heaven? Maybe he sees a christian pamphlet float past one day, sees all the stuff on there but as he cant read, he just keeps it as a decoration as its pretty colors.
So many degrees of if we have a choice or not. Then more less obvious like each person is different and maybe one preacher like yourself makes a better case for Jesus than another like a commercial priest with money? Then some are more suspicious of the Bible and if its true as other people in the days of old wrote it out and all. Popes had a say in the past, and popes also had war and were into politics.
So maybe God looks at your heart. In His infinite wisdom he knows and is the only one who can judge it. But it helps to believe in Jesus I agree and it will most likely get you into Heaven if you do as He did. But if you never heard of Jesus or you’re a kid who was hyper and just wanted to play and leave Church then you would be judged differently.
Also some believe more than others amongst Christians. Like I also believe but I sometimes have doubts, but also maybe sin too much by getting drunk or whatever. But I do know what my sin is. Lost of people sin but dont realize it. If you buy shoes made by child labor then it is a sin, but you dont know where it came from so is it still a sin? Same with tarzan – he doesnt know what he does is a sin or not.
I’ve decided to not drink beer for January because of the sin involved and also its is expensive to keep buying pants to fit.
dude, what happened to one comment per day? good decision about beer in january though. everyone should wear pants that fit. go and read John chapter 3 and John 14.6 and the whole of Matthew 7. even talks about some people who think they are christians who won’t be saved because they don’t know God – we can only get to God through Jesus according to the Bible. for tarzan God will make a call on that but the point is you are not Tarzan and so you need to decide on what you have heard and if you choose not to follow God then you will reap those consequences. if you choose to follow God and live for Him your life will be transformed completely and you will never be the same again (in a good way)