Seat belts (and Jesus) save lives

I'm a big proponent of seat belts.

As a former reporter, I heard many stories from police and fellow reporters of traffic fatalities that could have been prevented by simply wearing the strap.  I've seen gruesome pictures of the results of not wearing a seat belt.  To me, the inconvenience of wearing one far outweighs the consequences of not wearing one.

However, make no mistake about it.  In a fatal traffic accident, people do not suffer injury from a lack of a seat belt.  They suffer injury from blunt force trauma.  If a human body impacts a solid object hard enough, it can be overwhelmed and shut down.

A seat belt, then, is simply a choice.  It can save your life, but it won't kill you. 

The same can be said about Jesus and sin.  We make the mistake of believing people experience eternal death because they reject the Gospel.  Scripture is clear:  people experience eternal death because they sin.  Romans 3:23 states "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."  Romans 6:23 tells us "The wages of sin is death."

We are separated from a loving, perfect God by our sin.  We have violated God's standard.  As a result, we cannot be in his presence for eternity.  Our sin is not compatible with His holiness.  Because of our sin, we are doomed to an eternal death called Hell.

Everyone on planet earth - past, present and future - is guilty of sin.  As a result, we don't meet God's standard and will die as a result of sin. 

The rest of Romans 6:23, though, gives us the good news.  "The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Sin kills us.  Jesus saves us.  We can choose to follow Christ or we can ignore him and face our consequences.  Jesus is our seat belt.  We can put it on or we can leave it off.  But make no mistake, our sin earns us death, not our rejection of Jesus.  Our rejection of Jesus keeps us from the gift of life God offers us. 

Our students posed a question a few weeks ago:  What about people who have never heard the Gospel?  Do they go to Hell?  They had a hard time wrapping their minds around this concept.  Those people, who never heard of Jesus, are sinners.  Our sin earns us death.

In the seat belt analogy, if someone drives a car without any seat belts, it doesn't change the impact of a car accident.  Just because they've never heard of or had access to seat belts doesn't mean they get to avoid the perils of an accident. 

Similarly, just because someone has never heard of Jesus doesn't make them exempt from the effects of sin.  Sin leads to death.  We are all sinners.  Without a saving relationship with Jesus - whether you are aware of it or not - sin leads to death.  Period.

That's why it's on us - as believers in Christ - to share the good news about Jesus.  It's on us to find people who have never heard the Gospel and tell them about Jesus. 

In fact, their lives depend on it.

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