Continuing the Gospel Rally message by Dn Edwin D’Mello on The Lord’s Day, 7 August 2011

 

Jesus the Life giver

But there is also a Good News. You know God is  a merciful God. He is just and also loving. It was in love that He created man. God loved His unique creation, Adam and Eve. So when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, He was deeply grieved. Because of His sense of justice, He had to punish Adam and his descendants and cause them to suffer in hell for ever. But God in His divine wisdom, made a way by which both His justice and His mercy could be reconciled. So out of His great love for Adam and his descendants He took the punishment for the sins of man upon Himself. And this God did by Himself becoming a Man.

Now according to the Bible God shows Himself as three persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. God the Son came down as a Man, to live on earth, about 2000 years ago. His name is Jesus. Jesus the Son of God was born of a virgin and He was born without sin. He lived a completely sinless life. There was not a single fault in Him. He was full of love and compassion. He never lied, never cheated. He never did anything for selfish reasons. He only went about doing good. He only sought to glorify God the Father. He lived in a way that God wanted Adam and His descendants to live, a perfect human life fully submissive to God, a life of complete obedience and dedication to God.

Jesus worked thousands of miracles, while He lived on this earth. He healed all the sick people who came to Him. Whatever sicknesses that they were suffering from, he healed them from it. He gave sight to the blind, he made the lame to walk, caused the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, cured people of paralysis instantly. He cast out demons from people who were demon-possesed. He also raised dead people back to life again. In one instance, it is recorded in the Bible that He raised a person who had already been buried in the tomb for four days, back to life again. Nobody ever did such type of miracles and nobody will ever do the type of miracles that Jesus did.

However Jesus does a much greater miracle now than all the spectacular miracles that He did while on earth. And this miracle is the miracle of giving people a new life, an abundant life, which is eternal.

In the Bible in the Gospel of John, Jesus said to the people - I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good Shepherd and the good Shepherd gives His life for His sheep.

That is exactly what Jesus did. He gave His Life to deliver those who were heading for eternal destruction.

Jesus the sinless Son of God died for your sins and my sins. He suffered under the hands of cruel and wicked persons who then nailed Him on the cross. He hung on the cross for six gruelling hours. And as He hung on the cross, he bore the weight of the sins of every human being who was born into the world and who would ever be born in this world. And because the sins of the whole world were put on Jesus Christ, Jesus experienced a spiritual death in which He was separated from God the Father. And so in His anguish He cried out with a loud voice - "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The sinless Son of God who from all Eternity was always united with God the Father, at that moment on the cross, was separated from His Father, as He bore the wrath of God for the sins of man. And after all of God's wrath was poured upon him, He died physically, willingly. He willingly gave up His Life.

However His death was not the end. Jesus rose again from the dead after being buried in the tomb for three days. He appeared to many of His disciples who testified that He rose again. After He rose again, He ascended back to heaven to sit down at the right hand of God the Father, having successfully accomplished His rescue mission here on earth.

So dear friends, because Jesus paid the penalty for our sins we can obtain forgiveness of our sins if we repent of our sins and believe in Jesus that He died for our sins. And since we obtain forgiveness of our sins, we shall not be judged and condemned to hell. But rather we will have eternal life and live forever with God.

This is stated in the Gospel of John in John 5:24.  Here Jesus says - "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." 

So if you listen to Jesus' words and believe that He was sent by God to die for your sins, you will have eternal life. You will not be judged and condemned to hell for the sins that you have committed, rather you will pass from death, straight to heaven to live forever with God.

Here is another beautiful verse from the Bible, which is in John 3:16.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Make your choice now

So dear friend, I have told you what the Bible says about what happens after a person dies. If the person has not believed in Jesus, then after he dies he will have to pay for all his sins in hell. He will be forever tormented in the fires of hell.

But if the person has believed in Jesus Christ and he repents of his sins and asks for forgiveness believing that Jesus paid the penalty for his sins, then after he dies he shall be forever with God in heaven.

You know, nothing that a person does on earth will be able to save him from going to hell if he does not trust in Jesus Christ. No amount of good works or penance or sacrifices or any religious rituals that a person performs can save him from his sins, because the only penalty for sin is death.

The Bible says in the Book of Romans in chapter 6 vs 23, that the wages of sin is death. Sin is basically missing the the mark - falling short of God's standard, it is disobedience to God's Holy laws. Every person who is born in this world is a sinner and will sin, and will never be able to atone for his sin and so please God. God was only pleased by the perfect sacrifice that Jesus offered. He offered his own sinless life by dying on the cross to pay the price for sinful man. Jesus, the righteous person, died for the unrighteous so that he might us bring us to God.

So now you have to decide for yourself as to the choice you want to make. You can either continue to live the way you wish, thinking everything is ok or you decide to change, to acknowledge that you are a sinner and turn to Jesus Christ for forgiveness of your sins.

So you can either choose to suffer in hell for your sins or accept the pardon that God grants by believing in Jesus and so live forever with Him in Heaven

Finally I want to bring back to your attention what I said in the beginning, about what your life is. Your life on earth is nothing compared to eternity. Life on earth is very short. Death can come anytime taking away with it all your dreams and ambitions and all the plans that you  make and all the goods that you may have accumulated. One day you may be healthy and then all of a sudden you may fall sick. That happened to me before. Many years ago I was a strong and healthy person. But I had to go for a minor operation and because of some problem, things got complicated and I was struggling between life and death. By God's grace I survived but it took a long time for me to recover. I had to give up my job and then start life all over again.

So we never know what can happen. Our lives are so unpredictable. So I urge you to think on what you have read. The Bible says that now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation. So dear friend do not delay. Make your choice now to receive Jesus Christ as your Saviour and make Him the Lord of your life.

 

Dn Edwin D’Mello

 

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