March 22, 2000
LIFE & WORK SERIES:
Only the blood of Jesus
saves from judgment
___Revelation 20:1-15
___By Debra Hochgraber
___Women's Evangelism Consultant, BGCT, Dallas
___Our daughter Dori gave permission to share this story to illustrate this week's lesson:
___Through circumstances which included miscommunications, my husband, Dennis, and I found ourselves in an interesting situation with Dori. Instead of her taking a defensive-driving class, we were attending the first of four classes for juveniles and their parents.
___The teens introduced themselves and told how they had broken the law. We were quite surprised as the dialogue moved around the room. These youth told about repeated shoplifting offenses, breaking and entering, car theft, attacking a classmate with a weapon,sexual assault in a school parking lot.
___When Dori shared that she had driven 11 miles over the speed limit, you could see the surprised looks on the faces around the room.
___This was a program for juvenile repeat offenders. The purpose was to assist youth in making good choices through strengthening the communication and understanding between the parents, law enforcement officers and teenagers, as well as to present the real possibility of prison if patterns did not change.
___Our judicial system usually rates how severely someone breaks the law and places value on which laws are broken. Dori's offense was obviously not as severe as the rest of those in the class. Why was she being treated the same?
___Many believe God's judgment will be similar to our societal system, our sentence being determined by how bad or how good we are. "A loving God will not let good people go to hell. Only really evil people will go there." These are lies of the devil.
___We were in a situation where the severity of the offense made no difference. Dori had missed the mark of what the law required, thus she was judged as all others who had missed the mark. Herein lies the truth. "All have sinned. The wages of sin is death" (Romans 3:23a, 6:23a). The severity of the offense makes no difference. Good people miss the mark of what God requires and are judged as all others who miss that mark.
___"I saw a great white throne, ... And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:11a, 15). This judgment is real and carries an eternal sentence. Whose names are written in that book? We can conclude from numerous Scripture passages that this is a list of those who have accepted Christ as Savior. Sin would have blotted my name out of the book, but Jesus stands before his Father, letting him know that my sin debt has been paid. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8b).
___We must tell people the truth. In my silence, am I thinking that all the nice people I know probably are believers? Does my prayerlessness mean that I have decided those who are evil do not deserve to hear the truth?
___Lord, help me tell others that although judgment is real, their sentence can be marked "paid in full."
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