How to be a Christian and Still Sleep at Night

Tim Robinson

"Jesus, I accept you into my heart and I give you my life so that you can make me a new...." Perhaps you have said words like those yourself, or maybe your a "lifer" but either way, you have reason to rejoice, you are a follower of Christ, you have been saved from the doom of sin and are on your way to eternal paradise. How wonderful it is to know that you will not spend eternity suffering. This is such sweet salvation with rewards both here, and in the hereafter. When we consider all that we are saved from it is almost unbelievable that we can thankfully say, "I am saved."

However, and I imagine you have had this experience yourself, one eventually notices those people around them. "I am saved, ok, but what about all these others?" Do you ever ask yourself, when you are in a crowded public area and looking around at all the faces, "How many of them are actually saved?"? There, walking past you, brushing shoulders with you, are people on their way to hell. A neighbour, a co-worker, people you often see, many you don't know at all, but hundreds of faces, who are all, essentially, about to burn. Then, thinking of the world on the grand scale, you realize that there are millions out there, billions even who do not share the same faith that you do. Most of the people on this planet, around 5/6ths, are not Christians, and of that one billion who are, that's only those who "claim" to be Christians. For these 5 billion plus eternal torment awaits.

Now, if you were to really think about eternal torment for a moment, you might end up frightening yourself. We can hardly even fathom the concept of 'eternal,' but even really long torment is horrible enough. So there, in the crowd, you are surrounded by hundreds of people who are completely oblivious to their pending eternal fate. They have no idea, but you do. It's like being the only one on board the Titanic who knew what would happen that night and looking around at everyone sipping their tea.

So as you stand there, with all these people, you remember the call of Christ, to go tell the message to everyone. If you don't, how will they hear? You look at them, they look at you. What do you say? It is your job, your task, your commission, to tell these people the message of Christ's saving power. In response to this, many new Christians go on an evangelistic kick for the first little while, how could they not? The need is so great. But let's look at this in a little more detail then just handing out tracts.

How precious is a life? If one follows through on the Biblical understanding of humanity, though we have fallen, a human is still infinitely precious in the sight of God, and his followers are to see all people in the same way. Christ said that his sheep are so important, that he would leave the ninety nine just to go after the one lost sheep and bring him home. Each one is important as an individual, not just as a part of a crowd. If we actually felt the same way about people as God does, we would feel a deep compassion for the "lost" that are out there waiting to hear the message of the good news that can save them from their doom. Do we?

So here we have this most wonderful message, in perhaps frail jars, but yet we still have it, and it is our duty to proclaim it to the world. What will happen if we don't? "But there are so many, I just have to do my small part" one might rationalize to himself. However, knowing the way most Christians are with regards to evangelism, can we really trust such infinitely valuable souls into the hands of so many apathetic Christians? Can you be sure they will do their part? These are real people, who's lives are in danger. Can we just accept that each has to do his small part?

What if you were actually saving people by pulling them out from the water after a ship sunk. Would you calculate how many rescuers there are and then divide the people amongst them and then just save your requirement trusting the rest to do their job? Or, would you try to save as many as you could, even all of them before giving up? I hope it would be the second one. If they need to be saved, if their life is in peril, can we really sit back and just wait for someone else to pull them out?

Doesn't this, in a sense, put the weight of the whole world on your shoulders? Billions of souls out there, and sure, some will be saved by others, but because of the importance of the matter, you need to save as many as you possibly can. How could you ever be satisfied with a number of them saved? Isn't each soul of infinite worth? Isn't each soul worth all your time and effort you have? So then, even if you saved a million, you still have the charge to go out there and get the message out to the rest. Theoretically, it can't end until the whole world is saved.

So now you have the world on your shoulders. Tough job. People are in danger of not just a simple painful death like drowning, but of eternal torment. This is a big deal; you have been given an insurmountable task. What if you were to ask yourself how you are doing on it right now? How many have you brought to Christ in your lifetime? How many are you working on? How does it reflect your time?

In addition, if our life is short here, and eternity so long, how then would we be able to justify one idle second where we were not desperately trying save these precious souls all around us? With most of the world going to an eternal hell, how could we ever put our feet up, just for a second? In the light of the wondrous gospel that has been given to you, who are you to sit content with it when your neighbour is in need? Millions of people die every day and it is too late for them. Have you ever had the experience of losing an unsaved loved one and realizing that you never told them the message, or that you never tried your absolute hardest to convince them of such great news? Because of your apathy, they burn.

How then does a Christian sleep at night? With the weight of the world on your shoulders and with precious souls all around you who so desperately need what you have, you only squander it by keeping it to yourself. It is not my intention to load on the guilt, in fact, I imagine that you have already thought about this a great deal. It seems there are two responses to this, one can either become frantic, taking every opportunity they can desperately proclaiming the gospel all day long, running out into the streets in trying to tell everyone they can just as if you were the only person who knew that there was a bomb that was about to go off in the city. Or, you can rationalize it away. Humans have an interesting ability to adhere to an idea, accept it as true, but live their lives in contradiction to it. Life can become so much easier if we do not think about it, we "keep the hungry out of sight," so to speak. It's hard to find a middle area between frantic and apathetic. Due to the great need, even if you found a middle area, it would still feel like you are on the apathetic side. Does saving a million souls justify not telling just one more and letting them suffer torment?

However, when one lives on the apathetic side of the fence, they have to deal with something called guilt. It's there, and the only ways to deal with it are either to change, or just not think about it. Put your mind to other things, don't get involved in serious thought that would lead you to where you know you already are. You are more content to believe your own lies and to think that everything is ok. You can't go frantic, that's just crazy. But which is more crazy, to sit around as those millions drown, or to take up arms and help them. Ah, it's too much, it is so much easier to pull that soft down comforter of apathy over yourself and close your eyes to the need.

Let's look at this another way now. What if you were to live a good Christian life and actively evangelized as much as you could, and saw a great amount of fruit from your efforts? Imagine finally arriving in heaven, in paradise. It's so beautiful and perfect, so rewarding and wonderful. You are so elated that you finally arrived; you ran the race, and you made it home for your reward. It's so much more then you could have ever imagined, everything around you fills you with love and compassion. All the virtues, that were a struggle on earth, come flooding into you now that you are void of sin. You have a new body and it is free of all the old pains that you once had. It also works a little better then your last, and perhaps even your memory is a little more intact. Because of the pure compassion that is in your heart and your ability to remember, you begin to think of all the happy moments on earth, all your loved ones, and the good times you had. But then it occurs to you that some of those loved ones are on their way, or are already in hell. With all the clarity of thought and of compassion you become aware of all those unsaved people that you knew, and you didn't lead to Christ. Sure, you may have lead many, and had a profound impact on many lives, but all that doesn't help at all compared to the thought of just one of them suffering forever in hell. You are then reminded of all the countless opportunities you had, all the times when the conversation so easily could have swung around to the greatest story on earth, but you were worried about what they would think of you. Worried about losing their friendship, you would rather have them "see the change in your life," then tell them the great story they so desperately needed to hear. Now it's too late. They didn't read your life, but they could have read Christ's, if you had only pointed to him.

It seems that the more beautiful heaven is, the more enjoyment you feel, the more happiness and rewards you have, or the more wonderful it is, means the more painful it is, because you know that they are missing out. It's like holding onto a trophy that you only won because you stabbed a friend in the back. Maybe there are no tears in heaven, but you sure feel like crying, perhaps even tearing your heart out to stop the pain. "If only I would have saved one more... just one more!" All you want to do is run to hell to escape the horrible torment of heaven. Heaven has become for you, your own hell. In heaven you receive pleasure and rewards for doing nothing but betraying everyone you ever knew. At least in hell you can be comforted by the fact that you too bear the pain with them, that you received no better then they. "The mind", as Milton describes, "is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven hell, a hell of heaven." How could heaven, which is full of compassion, be bearable with the knowledge of what you didn't do, when each soul is infinitely valuable? According to Jesus' ethics, it seems the best thing to do would be to lay down your life, your spot in heaven, so at least one person could take your place. But of course, you can't do that. You're stuck there, in that hellish heaven for an eternity.

(You might say, as some do, that perhaps your memory is erased when you go to heaven. But if that happens, and you lose everything you ever learned or gained, all the good memories, all those things that shaped you, and made you who you are. If those are gone, will it still really be you, or just your form (hardly even that), with a new body and a new soul installed? You would be gone).

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Let me, with an illustration, give you something else to think about. Imagine a friend comes to you and informs you of a person who is giving out free movie tickets. Perhaps it is a promotion, or he doesn't need them, but whatever the case may be, they are free. This fellow, who is a stranger to you, is standing on the other side of the room as this friend of yours explains to you that all you have to do is ask the man and he will give you a free ticket, that's all; you just have to ask him. Surely you would thank the man for giving you the ticket, but the question is, who would you thank more, the man, or the friend who told you about the tickets? The man was just standing there but it was the friend who came to you, who sought you out and told you about them. You would never have got the tickets at all if it weren't for them. Furthermore, your friend knows you, and in their kindness they thought that you would like one of those tickets and made an active effort to make sure that you, specifically, didn't miss out. The man providing the tickets may have been nice enough to give them out, but he doesn't know you and is completely indifferent as to whether you received the ticket or someone else. So, who would you thank more?

Of course this analogy is applied to salvation. Who is really saving you? Is it Christ who provides the salvation, or is it the person who tells you about it? Is Christ handing out tickets to heaven to whoever approaches him and asks, like the man with the movie tickets? If you were to tell your friend about Christ and salvation, it is the same as above, is it not? You were the active participant who sought them out, while Christ stood their providing it, but indifferent to whoever came and received. How could you say that it was 100% Christ's saving act, if they would have never learned of Christ if someone had not told them? So then, just as with the movie tickets, you will have to accept that some of the thanks needs to go to the messenger, or the evangelist if you will. Perhaps even 10 messenger, 90 Christ, but still, some of that salvation did not come from Christ, it came from the friend. Christ provided salvation, but someone else provided the means to that salvation. Someone else helped saved them. Perhaps it would be better argued that it would be 90 :10.

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There is something wrong with our understanding of salvation. Has the world really been put on our shoulders? Have we really been given the task to save the world? Do we really save people ourselves? No. Though we have been given the great commission to go proclaim the message, we have not been given the commission to save people. Only Christ can do that. It is the task of the Christian to communicate the great story, but it is Christ that saves. How can they know if they have not been told? This is true, they do need to be told. But somehow, in a way that I cannot entirely explain, no thanks really goes to the message bearer, salvation is Christ's alone.

Each person on this planet has the responsibility to work out their salvation. Every individual is in a cosmic boxing match with God. God is not willing that any should perish, he fights for every soul, and the only thing fighting back are those who he is trying to save. Though our apathy may be a sin, it may displease God, but no one is going to suffer eternally on account of someone else's actions. It's them and God in that ring, no one else. God uses people to communicate, but salvation does not rest on the messenger's shoulders. God put the weight of the world on Christ's shoulders as he hung on a cross, not on our shoulders as we tell the message. We are not to desperately or frantically scream out the message to a world that will die if we do not. We are to with rejoicing proclaim the gospel to the world. In fact, in the great commission in Matthew, the Greek tense of the word "go" is a participle, which basically means "while going". Not "go and make disciples", but rather, "while you are going, make disciples." It is assuming that you are going, 'but while you go, while you live, wherever you are, proclaim the gospel all throughout your lives.' This isn't a job commitment, it's a lifestyle. Nor is this the idea that you just communicate through how you live and hope someone will look at you. This is a nice idea, but it doesn't work. No one looks at a nice person and thinks, "Wow, they have such joy and kindness, I feel like giving my life to Jesus Christ." Though it may help, it doesn't cut it on its own. They still need to hear the great story and Matthew tells us to proclaim this story as we are going, all throughout our lives.

We must never think of God as that man in the corner handing out movie tickets. God is not passively seeking out the salvation of humanity, he is taking the world by force. Some people love to think of the calm painting of a pretty Jesus with a frail fist lightly knocking on that door with no outside knob. This isn't the case at all. True, there may not be a knob on the outside, but Jesus isn't knocking. He has the massive cross up over his shoulders, and is ramming it into the door again and again! When the hound of heaven comes, you can't just send him away. It's them and God, in the ring and somehow, paradoxically, when salvation occurs, the two wills come together in that ring. God chose them and they chose God, both, not one or the other.

But most importantly, Christ alone saved them. It was not the work of the messenger, it was Christ's. If you didn't do your job, something else would. No soul is going to be on someone else's shoulders. They are all in the tension between their own will, and God's. God will not let them go because you messed up.

"But why bother with missions at all then?" someone might ask. This questions shows a misunderstanding of the proclamation. Firstly, we proclaim because we are told to, plain and simple. Those who are God's children, do his will. He still uses people to communicate his story, even if the hearer's fate is not on their heads. So it is our responsibility to preach the word, but their souls are not our responsibility, but again, it's them and God, dukeing it out. Secondly, the Christian life is about so much more then just salvation from hell. The word salvation in both Greek and Hebrew is synonymous with "healing." Christ isn't so much saving us from hell, as he is from ourselves. This is such a wonderful story that should burst out in our lives. We should want to tell it, to share it with people, not thinking about the eternal results of doing so, but because we have found something so wonderful and fulfilling here in this life, and we want to tell others about it.

Heaven will not be made into hell because of your own guilt and God never intended to put all the weight of the world on our shoulders. Gesthemene showed how the world was placed on Christ's shoulders as he sweat blood. This cup has not been given to us. Each person has the responsibility of their own soul. In heaven you will not be able to feel guilt that you could have saved someone. That's between them and God. The analogy of the sinking ship doesn't work in this case. It isn't you trying to save people and watching them drown because you didn't try hard enough or gave up. It's Christ that saves them, him alone. If they drown, they do so because they do so of their own decision.

Furthermore, and perhaps the most controversial of these issues, is the question of opportunity. I believe the best position to settle on is that of reserved judgment in this area. We don't know what happens to all those who do not hear, and let us not pretend we do. I believe that the work of God, in smashing his cross against the door of every heart will not go unheeded by so many as it seems. God seeks that all will be saved, and for certain, he is not sitting idly by watching his followers do the work for him. He is seeking to save the lost, and is not willing that one would perish, not even one. Ask yourself, who do you think would win in the boxing match with God and humanity? God's grace abounds, though he gives us a will, he is patient and not quick to wrath. I believe it is best to err on the side of grace; God won't give up on people.

Also, I believe that somehow the story is not over at death. I don't know how, or what this really means, but the Word of God does not return void, which means to me, that in the end, he gets his man. The will of man will not defeat the will of God. The great story of God's infinite grace does not end with God settling with a mere handful of humanity while the rest are being tortured for eternity. God doesn't give up that easily. He gave his life for all of humanity so that someday every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess. Though someone may fend off God's pounding for as long as they can, maybe even forever, he is still smashing that wondrous cross into their door while they are inside with their hands over their ears in a hell that they have created for themselves.

This is the greatest story of all time, the story of God saving humanity. It is this story that we proclaim to the world all throughout our lives. "Jesus saves!", not me. The Christian life is not about excess guilt from not evangelizing, but it is rejoicing of what God has done. And it is out of this rejoicing that should lead us to spread the word, and to tell the story of what God has done. With this in mind then, the Christian can sleep at night, and with a smile.