Looking Good, Going Nowhere

When my wife, Karen and I are driving somewhere, we don't lose any time when she drives. In fact, we've set some records, so it's alright if she drives. Once when we were on a trip and I was preparing for the meetings we were going to, she was driving down this four lane, divided highway, and I was looking down. All of a sudden, I looked up, and I saw orange plastic cones on the middle line that divides the two lanes on our side. Now, I wasn't clear which lane we were supposed to be driving in, because I hadn't been looking up, and as I looked, every vehicle but one was moving into the left lane, to the left of the cones. I said everyone but one, and that was us. Karen continued in the right lane, and I said, "Honey, what are you doing? It looks like this lane is closing." She said, "Just watch." Well, we passed a line of cars on our left, with a big truck at the head of it. See, that truck had moved into the left lane, and all the other cars said, "Oh, that must be the lane to be in," and all the other cars followed it. The problem was that the truck they were following was taking equipment to a big tar truck parked in the left lane, so we waved as we zipped by all those cars as they were headed for an unpleasant surprise. I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I'd like to have a Word With You today about looking good, going nowhere.

Our word from the Word of God comes from Proverbs 14:12. It's short, but it's hard-hitting. "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end, it leads to death." Well, the Bible is pretty clear here. A lot of people are on a road that looks good, but it's going nowhere. Well, actually, it's going to death. Jesus talked about that in Matthew 7:13-14, when he said, "Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it; but small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." See, lots of people are wrong about the one thing you can't afford to be wrong about...God, and how to get to him. If you're wrong about God, it is eternally fatal. Now, maybe you're someone who might be on a sincere road that seems very right, but that ends far away from God forever, instead of with Him forever. The Bible says many are on that kind of road. It's like those cars following that truck. Almost everybody chose that lane. It seemed like the best one, but it led to an unpleasant end.

Now, only God can tell us how to get to Him, and He does in John 14:6. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Me." In 1 John 5:11 & 12, it says, "There is life in God's Son, and he that has the Son has life. He that does not have the Son of God does not have life." Do you have the Son of God in your heart? Now, this bothers a lot of people that Jesus is the only way. You say, "Well, I believe in tolerance. As long as we're sincere..." Well, if you're trapped in a burning building, and a firefighter risks his life to bring you out, I don't think you say, "Hey, wait, you mean there's only one way out of here?" No, you grab that rescuer, and you say, "Thank God there is a way out."

Well, thank God there is one way. There wasn't any until one Savior came and paid the price for our sin. Sin has a death penalty. The Bible says, "The wages of sin is death", and someone has to die for my sin. No good works, not Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or anybody's good works can pay that death penalty, Romans 5:8 says, "God proved His love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." If you haven't pinned all your hopes on Jesus the rescuer, you're still on the road that leads to death. There are a lot of wrong ideas about the right way to God, but there's only one way to get there. That's why everything, for now and forever, depends on what you do with God's Son, Jesus. Only one lane gets you to God and gets you to Heaven. It's the road that goes by the cross where Jesus died to pay for your sin. Meet Him there today.

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Last Update: 03/09/1997

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