Mark 1:1 This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. It began 2 just as the prophet Isaiah had written: “Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, and he will prepare your way. 3 He is a voice shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the road for him!’
We live in a world where all information is breaking news! A famous actress loses a fake eyelash while diving into a pool. BREAKING NEWS!! A famous singer slips going up a set of steps. BREAKING NEWS!! If everything is breaking news then nothing is breaking news. The real breaking news, the news that will make or break your eternal destiny really IS breaking news. The above scripture is the beginning of Mark's account of Jesus, the Son of God, walking on this earth, and all that entailed. John the Baptist was the messenger sent ahead of the appearance of Jesus on the scene and John proclaimed some really breaking news for all who would listen. The trouble with having too much news is people quit listening after a while because everything big thing is compromised.
Even Christians fall into this trap of compromise and begin to forget the "main thing" for each of us is to be a messenger of the Gospel of Jesus and make disciples as the message is heard and responded to. The message of salvation for a lost and dying world really is BREAKING NEWS!! But it is rarely reported because many have forgotten what this Good News is really all about.
Which brings me to my next point about this Good News. There is one way to heaven and though many are offered, there is only one way. In the late 60's we even came up with a sign using the index finger pointing up to designate "one way to heaven and it is Jesus!" Jesus himself says in John 14: 6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. There is no option 2. When I turn my tv on it defaults to a channel that shows "fails." "Fails" are people shown failing miserably at almost everything. Walking, flipping on the beach, pitching baseballs and getting hit, and many other accidents that cause us to laugh. There is a "Fail Army" that those accidents are put into and shown on a monthly schedule as they get new material. Those "fails" are not very serious fails, but there is a Fail Army you don't want to be enlisted in. The Fail Army that has missed what it means to be born again is an eternal Fail Army. Members of this Fail Army have missed the mark when it comes to eternal life and ignoring what the Word of God says has fooled them into thinking they are secure when they are just religious. The prophet Isaiah spoke to religious people in Isaiah 64:6 6 We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Religion or "being good" will not get you into heaven.
Jesus fine-tuned what actually gets a person into heaven in John 3: 3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again,[a] you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” You may ask "What is born again?" A religious leader named Nicodemus asked the same question and the following scriptures highlight this conversation. John 3: 4 “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?” 5 Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. 7 So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”
What are some signs you are in the Eternal Fail Army?
1. When you think you can live a good enough life to get into heaven. The most religious guy in the room was Nicodemus and he could grasp what Jesus was saying about the Spirit because that did not fit with his religious beliefs. The Law of Moses was very specific about what made a person right with God, but that "being right' could never last and sacrifices had to be made yearly to get a person back right with God. The Law of Moses, or the desire to be good and right with God was built around the Ten Commandments, but not one could keep them and in their failure there was no freedom to actually live life. The rich young ruler found out that he came up short when it came to what really had to be done to follow Jesus in Matthew 19: 16-22. He walked away sad because he was in the "Fail Army" and his way of looking at life was from the perspective of a dead religion.
2. The second way you end up in the Fail Army is by thinking that going to church will get you into heaven. Going to church is a way to fellowship with God's people, be challenged by great preaching, and be a part of worshipping God through music. But, going to church will not get you into heaven. If the church you attend preaches the Gospel then you will have a great opportunity to have a choice to be born again, but just going to a building where Christian folk meet is not enough to get you into heaven. Jesus called the synagogue a House of Prayer and the "meeting place" of His church was a place where God's people met to pray and not let other outside activities and influences of the world be a part of that meeting place. Jesus saw what the church had become and the religious exercises that were taking place in God's house and he cleared the place in anger. What would he do with today's church? Regardless, of what He would do, just attending church will not get you into heaven, but the place where we meet to honor and worship God should have a different look than the world.
Paul wrote these words to the church in Ephesus in Ephesians 2: 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; 9 it is not from works, so no one may boast. We are "saved" or "born-again" when we believe that faith can and will save us from eternity in hell. We are born-again when we believe and we begin a life in the Spirit that continues to grow more and more. That is BREAKING NEWS!!
The Pilgrimage Continues,
David Warren