The Gospel is the joyous response to the worst news you can possibly have. To really understand how great the good news is, you must first understand just how devastating the bad news is.

The Impossibility of the Law:
From birth we live in constant opposition to God because sin is so ingrained into our very nature (Psalm 51:5). With God being infinitely holy, His perfect justice must demand every sin to be judged and death as payment (Romans 6:23). Since the consequences of sin are this severe and fatal, we cannot afford to be ignorant about what sin actually is.

1 John 3:4 explains it very simply, that sin is lawlessness. God is the only Lawgiver and Judge and when we don’t follow His laws, we sin. Throughout Scripture, God has laid out His perfect laws that governs not just our physical actions, but the hidden motives, thoughts, and desires of our hearts. These laws were not meant to save us from our sins, but to expose our sinfulness and prove our total inability to keep them and save ourselves. The law stands over us being ever present in our lives and relentlessly chasing us down to condemn and kill us.

Consider your own life for a moment: have you ever taken something that wasn’t yours? Then you’re a thief. Have you ever told a little fib? Then you’re a liar. Have you ever lusted after another, even in your thoughts? Then you are an adulterer. James 2:10 says that if we stumble on one point of these laws we have broken the whole law of God.

Sin is our nature, but why are we so helplessly drawn to it? This absolute obsession with sin is exactly why we deserve God’s wrath and can never be accepted into His kingdom.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). In this beginning God created the first man (Adam) and the first woman (Eve) and they lived in a garden called Eden (Genesis 2:8). He gave Adam one restriction; do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17). After some time the serpent, who in Revelation 12:9 was revealed as the devil, came to Eve and deceived her into eating the fruit from this tree. She then gave it to Adam who also ate (Genesis 3:6). Through this disobedience Adam brought sin into this world and through sin came all manners of evil, sickness and death (Romans 5:12). This is our inheritance, our sinful nature.

The Devastating Reality of Sin:
We all know that one day our physical bodies will die and when we take our last breath, we enter eternity. We must all stand before our holy God and be judged against His perfect standard, not on how we compare against each other (Revelation 20:12-13). We deserve His justice and in His justice, there will be no mercy or grace.

God is a good God and Judge (Psalm 7:11) and for this reason justice in the purest sense will be carried out. God has a record of every action we have done and every thought that has gone through our minds from a lifetime of sinning and we will be without excuse (Ecclesiastes 12:14). Because of our sinful ways and our unrepentant heart we are adding God’s wrath to us each day (Romans 2:5). When judgment comes, the severity of the sentence is determined by Who we have offended. Every sin is an act of rebellion against an infinitely holy and eternal God and the only just penalty is an eternal one. We’ll be cast away into hell, a place of darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth and a separation from God’s glory. Only His wrath will constantly be there consuming us (Matthew 10:28) (Revelation 14:10-11) (Psalm 75:8).

The eternal torment is really unfathomable. There will be no breaks from this constant hell. To me, the worst thing is that there will be no hope. In a billion years you are no closer to any relief than from the moment you started. Hope in our lives drives us through the worst of times to continue on. Dreams, aspirations, ambitions and any other hope filled words about our future are forever gone. You are left to be completely immersed in your sinful nature, without conscience or morality. Rage, bitterness and the eternal wrath of God will be your eternal constant.

Our present situation because of sin is that we are enemies of God (Romans 5:10). None of us seek after God because none of us understands the truth. We all, every last one of us, has turned our backs on Him and gladly follow the voice of this world’s ruler, the devil (Romans 3:12) (2 Corinthians 4:4). We are dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), meaning we won’t and can’t reach out to God. Our realm of sin is all we know and are satisfied by what all it has to offer. There is nothing in us that would allow us to follow God, believe in His Word, repent from the sins that we do and to truly love Him (Romans 3:11).

You might want to argue against such a devastating eternal fate by saying; What about the good things I’ve done? I’ve helped people, even rescued children. Don’t those count for something?

No, they don’t and they can’t and here’s why:
These moral good works can’t restore your relationship with God. They don’t allow you to stand before God in perfect righteousness, which is the only way to be found worthy to enter heaven (Matthew 5:48). We are born sinners and enemies of God and we continue to sin against Him every day. Our moral good works are like filthy rags because they can’t reconcile a relationship with God, they can’t pay the debt sin demands and they can’t save you (Isaiah 64:6). Sin is our nature, so naturally everything we do or think is corrupted by sin so no one can, in themselves, do a good work that can please God (Romans 3:12). Therefore the fair and just sentence for our life of sin is everlasting punishment in hell under God’s wrath.

There can be no news coming from this world that could ever be as bad as this reality. Really think about your justice being carried out and deserving the unimaginable horrors that will consume you forever. There is absolutely nothing you can do to change it and no way of making your situation right with God (Luke 18:27). This is our reality and this truth should put more fear into you than anything else possibly could.

The Good News of Jesus Christ

God, out of His own good will and based on nothing we have done or ever could do made a way to save us from His wrath and bring us into eternal life with Him! He accomplished this without compromising His justice in the slightest and with His righteous wrath being fully satisfied. But how is this possible? How can God perfectly uphold His holy character and still welcome guilty sinners into heaven?

In the Old Testament we learn about the Messiah, the Anointed One, that through Him our salvation would come. There are many, many prophecies about the Messiah in the Old Testament so we would recognize Him when He did come. God wanted us to know without a doubt that if someone claimed to be the Savior, we would know. For any one person to fulfill just half of these prophecies would be utterly impossible. To complete all of them, there would be no question that it would have to be of God.

One man did this! He fulfilled all the prophecies of the Old Testament and is the long awaited Messiah and His name is Jesus of Nazareth. The only One through whose life, works, death and resurrection a person will be saved!

Jesus claimed the old prophecies had been fulfilled through Him (Luke 4:14-21) in the temple of His hometown at the beginning of His ministry. Jesus preached the truth to the world and He preached in a way the people had never heard. He had power and authority in His words and even the evil spirits obeyed His commands (Mark 1:27).

Jesus preached what the character of those who will follow God should be and led by example (1 Peter 2:21). He preached against false religions and false teachers and taught more than anyone the ways to hell and hell itself. Jesus performed miracles of healing, feeding multitudes with very little food and displayed power over nature and the supernatural. He showed compassion, mercy, and love, and He taught the way to salvation. This is the good news, the Gospel, the only way we can be saved from God’s wrath in hell and live with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit forever!

The Great Exchange:
Jesus, who is God the Son, came down from heaven and became man, setting aside His heavenly glory and perfectly submitting His will to do the will of God the Father (John 6:38). Jesus was fully man and fully God (Colossians 2:9) and He walked this earth without sin. The only One who ever has or ever will be able to do this, keeping all the laws of the Father perfectly. He willingly laid down His life on the cross for us while we were still sinners and enemies of God (John 10:18) (Romans 5:8). He did not deserve the penalty that sin demands, which is the mighty wrath of God and death. He was the innocent lamb and His blood is what His people are purchased with (1 Peter 1:19). On the cross all sins of His people were placed on Him and He became sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). He took the full wrath of God to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10), meaning He satisfied the wrath of God for the sins of the believer for us to be reconciled to the Father.

On that day we were crucified with Jesus and died with Him, so the body of sin is done away and we are no longer slaves to sin (Romans 6:6). Jesus took our sins on Himself, paid the debt we owed and accredited to us His perfect, sinless life so we can be justified before God and pass from death to life (John 5:24). When we die, we’ll have the righteousness of Jesus Christ and meet God’s perfect standard, not stand before His justice where there is no mercy.

The Invitation of the Gospel:
Jesus said that He came for sinners, not those who believe themselves self-righteous (Luke 5:32). No matter what you have done or how far you have gone with your sins, if you still have breath in you, you can be saved (Luke 23:42-43). Those who believe their actions and traditions earn them salvation have been misled. A sad fact is, if they die believing this way, they will enter into hell instead of heaven.

It’s you who He came for, the wretched sinner, the completely broken. He saves to the uttermost. The ones who believe themselves unworthy of God’s grace because of the depths of sin you freely dove into. Sinner, God and He alone is the One who has chosen His people to be saved and to inherit the kingdom of God. Jesus says in John 6:44 that no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. The Holy Spirit regenerates you, making you a new creature where you can respond to the Father’s drawing (2 Corinthians 5:17) (Titus 3:5). The Spirit also gives the gifts of faith and repentance, necessary gifts for salvation that we need (Ephesians 2:8-9) (Acts 11:18) (2 Timothy 2:25).

To those who truly seek after Jesus Christ for their salvation and Him alone, they will find Him (Matthew 7:7-8). This is a promise, because no one would seek Jesus without the Father’s drawing and all that the Father gives Jesus will come to Him, and whoever comes to Jesus, He will never send away (John 6:37). If you truly have love for Jesus Christ of the Bible and believe and have love for all the brothers and sisters in Christ, you truly are saved (1 John 4:21).

If you are finding an interest and hope in God’s Word or heard sermons, from biblical preachers, that are having new meaning to you; this could be your drawing. Pray to the Father for belief and true repentance (a turning away from sin). Pray for salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ.