Once we have gathered the courage to look at the face of evil and realize that we are looking in the mirror, we are ready for some more bad news.

Ok, you weren’t expecting that, were you?

The thing is that Christianity is a very dangerous idea. If it is true, we are all in a lot of trouble. This can trip us up if we aren’t careful.

Walking in the truth of the existence of sin and evil and recognizing that it has to do with our broken relationship with God, is going to get a lot of pushback from other people (as well as our own hearts). It is not an easy thing to accept.

Many people talk about death as if it were like turning off the TV. There is nothing. You are no longer conscious and therefore no longer in pain or worry (or love and happiness or anything else for that matter). You are simply gone.

Other religions talk about reincarnation, some sort of afterlife with 70 virgins and the like. But Christianity says that it has been decreed that we will die once and then face judgment.

What? What’s that all about?

Yes, Christianity is dangerous. Not only will we face the judgment but we will all “fall down.” None of us can stand. None of us will pass the mustard. We live in a just universe and there is a good and just God in charge of it.

To make morality (and perfect love) the heart of the matter is a dangerous proposition for humans because we all know (or should know) that we can't live up to that standard. That is the heart of the human condition.

We simply do not love enough. We know something about love. God has not left himself without a testimony but when Jesus says that we are to love our enemies as ourselves, well, we know we are out of our depth.

Who will save us from this dangerous situation?

We can’t blame God for being so “good and just” can we?

Why should perfect love be the standard? Why not something more realistic? Something more doable?

We know that our complaints are just plain silly. You can’t reduce perfect love to something imperfect without sacrificing the whole idea of being “good and just” obviously.

But it is true that we live in that kind of world with half-hearted love and lukewarm loyalty and manipulation, heartbreak, and divorce on every side.

God allows this uneasy truce of sorts where we live in a purgatory – an in-between place – where we are sustained in our imperfect love with all of its problems and pain and destroyed relationships.

No doubt.

But God sustains it and delays judgment in order to give us time to make a decision and come to salvation. But we have gotten used to living with a snake in our bosom and think it is normal. It is anything but.

Perhaps it is time to pick ourselves up and start walking in faith on this Roman Road of Salvation with the awareness that we are not only broken but that we are broken through our own fault. We have broken off our relationship with the Father.

But the only reason that we can start walking again is because we already have some sense of the good news that is coming. The solution that God has undertaken at great cost to himself. His efforts to restore that relationship, heal us from our sin and evil, and bring us back into his holy family.

That hope picks us up and gets us walking once more.

Outline

Introduction

Chapter One – Evil is its Own Punishment

Chapter Two – The Revelation of Wrath

Chapter Three – But for the Grace of God

Chapter Four – I’m a Good Guy (story)

Chapter Five – The Sin of Jonah

Chapter Six – Reality is the Ultimate Judge

Chapter Seven – Obedience is the Ultimate Goal

Chapter Eight – The Heart is the Ultimate Standard

Chapter Nine – Blasphemer or True Heart

Chapter Ten – Dr. House. Brilliant. Idiot. (story)

Conclusion