On this Easter morning, I was reading the Gospel accounts of both Marys visiting the empty tomb, and of Jesus' appearance to His disciples. Two verses from these gospels struck me when considering the excuses one commonly hears from non-believers when defending their reasons for not believing, and receiving Jesus as their Lord and Savior. One was from John 20: 29, which says, with reference to Thomas' saying to the disciples who first saw the risen Jesus, though he was not among them at the time, that he would not believe unless he touched the nail scars, and put his hand in the wound in Jesus' side. When Jesus appeared a second time and let Thomas feel His scars He said to him, "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." That, obviously means us, and any who have come to faith since Jesus spoke those words.
When we as believers consider how easy it is to believe, and the glorious consequences for us in doing so, verses the horrible consequences for refusing to believe, for whatever reason one may choose to rationalize, it is mind-boggling to think that anyone should be able to hear the Gospel preached, and turn and walk away as a belligerent skeptic, even as some of us did while we stubbornly wrestled with the witness of the Holy Spirit, and digested the message of the Gospel, before eventually submitting to faith at a later date. People around the world are trying so desperately to do some kind of service for their concept of "God", or trying so hard to be "good enough" to earn their way into Heaven, or whatever concept of the after-life they may hold to. Yet it is so desperately sad to realize that God Himself has already done all the work for us, in sending Jesus to die in our place, that we might be forgiven and be granted eternal life, for the ridiculously simple price of simply believing that it is true! And to think that that in itself is a stumbling block for those who prefer to struggle with some great task, or concept, and are offended at the simplicity of the way God has chosen to avail us of our opportunity to be saved through His undeserved Grace! Truly God must think to Himself in the face of such stubborn blindness, something like, "What more could I have done to make My salvation easier to be accepted by everyone who will come?" Therefore, we are all completely without excuse when we walk away from our opportunity to be saved through faith. Yet we still hear such lame protests from belligerent skeptics as, "How could a "loving God", etc....? The tragic answer to these questions is in the other scripture verse that struck me this morning, in Mark's account of Jesus' proclaiming the "Great Commission", in Mark 16: 15,& 16 when He said, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." The ultimate of all horrible consequences, an eternity of suffering the pain of endlessly burning in the "Lake of Fire", for the cause of choosing our own foolish pride, and vanity in thinking that we are too brilliant to be swayed by such a simple concept as faith in Jesus' crucifixion, death, and resurrection as the only hope of our eternal salvation. It's so simple to believe, and equally simple to not believe! That's exactly how God planned it, so that no one can hear the Gospel, and afterward complain that his damnation was not fair. Nothing could be simpler, and the consequences more fair, whichever way we choose!
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