Chapter 9 - With or Against?
Jesus made an unusual claim after being accused of being in league with the devil when He freed a mute-blind man from being demon-oppressed. From this story, we learn about how a house divided against itself cannot stand and hear about the analogy of binding up a strong man before plundering his house. While still talking to the Pharisees, Jesus then clearly states, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (Matthew 12:30, ESV) While we might view this as being somewhat unfair, since in our view of the world there are many things we might consider being in various shades of gray, the truth is simple, either we are with Jesus or we are against Him. Now, before you get angry with me for saying this, let’s take a closer look at what Jesus is saying here. This is Jesus, our Lord, our Savior, our King and of course, God. We can either accept these to be true or ignore Him and treat His story as a fable.
So, to begin our investigation, let’s first explore what it means to ignore Him and treat His plan of salvation as a myth. We can start by rejecting His claim to be God, or for that fact, any claim there is a God. That would make all of mankind the result of some form of freak accident and it is only by chance that we are here. So necessarily so, we will make up our own rules, and since there is no higher authority we will only be accountable to ourselves. We can describe this using an old cliché, “everyman for themselves,” so to speak. Do you see where this is heading? Speaking of direction, let’s map the direction of our priorities at this point. That would be easy, since our priorities would obviously be to ourselves, pointing in, or at best to our loved ones, pointing horizontally out, but certainly not towards Jesus or some other supposed ‘deity’.
If, however, we do believe in God and that Jesus is His Son, then we could map our priorities towards Him, pointing up. Since “moral compasses” can only point in one direction at a time, and if we are not looking to Him for everything, then we are looking in the wrong direction. Anything that takes our eyes or heart away from Jesus could thus be considered wrong or perhaps even evil.
As sinners, we have two options open to us, accept Jesus’ free plan of salvation or not. The problem of sin is so big that everything and everyone is affected. It is so big that mankind has become either arrogant, ignorant or apathetic to see just how serious it is, therefore ignoring Jesus. Why is that? If sin is as serious a problem as we understand it to be, why do people choose to reject Jesus? One reason is that they don’t want to be accountable to someone, especially if they think in doing so means that they will be restricted from doing the things that they want to say or do.
Even though the truth is that we are set free from our slavery to sin by Jesus (John 8:34-35; Romans 6:16-20; Titus 3:3; 2 Peter 2:19), many people view that in reverse. They think that by accepting Jesus we are slaves to Him. Now Paul did say he was a slave (or more accurately, a bondservant) of Christ (Romans 1:1; Galatians 1:10) and that all Christians are ‘slaves’ to Jesus (1 Corinthians 7:22), as we do belong to Him (1 Corinthians 7:23), while that is true, all Christians have a choice and most choose to serve Him willingly.
The devil, the world’s chief misinformation officer, wants all unbelievers to think that there is no fun in being a Christian and that there are rules and more rules to follow. He wants the world to think just the opposite of the truth and as a result, the world sees only rules and regulations when they look at the Bible, they miss entirely the love story of God sending His Son to suffer and die on their behalf. They miss the fact that the Creator of all things and the almighty God wants us to know Him better so that we can understand that we matter to Him. Don’t miss the most important part of the Bible, God wants to have a relationship with you!
Gamblers have a saying, “I’m all in,” meaning they are offering everything they have available to them in the next play. Christians are also to be “all in” with their commitment to Jesus, no partial or minimal offering will work as being a Christian is not something ‘tried’ or ‘given a chance’, it is a real relationship with Jesus. While gambling is probably not the best concept to model Christianity with, as wagering for one’s eternal life is risky at best. However, Blaise Pascal, the famous French philosopher, theologian, mathematician, and physicist of the seventeenth century would like you to consider a different wager. He proposed a simple matrix known as Pascal’s Wager. The matrix has two premises:
1) Does God exist? and
2) Do you believe in Jesus?
Having two premises with two potential answers per premise gives us a total of four potential outcomes:
-If God does exist and you believe in Jesus then you will enjoy eternal salvation.
-If God exists and you don’t believe in Jesus then you will be eternally condemned.
-If God does not exist and you believe in Jesus then you will only have wasted time and effort.
-If God does not exist and you don’t believe in Jesus, then nothing is affected.
Pascal is saying that if a person wagers that Jesus’ offer is real, a person would only risk a finite period of time, considered a minor loss, versus gaining eternal life.
So, are you all in?
Are you for that or against that?
Be wise and choose Jesus! Not sure? We can pray right now and be sure.
"Dear Lord Jesus, I accept your invitation, I know that I am a sinner. I believe You died for my sins. I now confess and turn from my sins as my heart desires only You as my Lord and Savior. Thank You for saving me. Amen."