Will God Let You off?

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 6
 
I asked a policeman the other day, "If you saw a man in the act of stealing, would you let him off?"
"No, I would try my best to take him," he replied.
"Well," I said, "You have done many things you ought not, which only God has seen. Can He let you off?"
"Yes," he said, if I ask Him,."
"No, He cannot! If a thief asked you to let him off, could you?"
The policeman did not like standing in the same position with God as a detected thief would be with him. Finally he said he might let the man off, but admitted that, if found out, he would lose his character.
Can God let you off?
Perhaps you think: "Yes, if I ask Him;" yet He says, "Thine iniquity is marked before Me." Jeremiah 2:2222For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God. (Jeremiah 2:22). And, "Be sure your sin will find you out." Numbers 32:2323But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out. (Numbers 32:23). How can He let you off, or allow your sin to go unpunished even if you ask Him?
I have good news for you―God loves you. He is love. Love is His very nature. He has revealed Himself in two characters: light and love. The law has only one character; it is righteous, and lets off no offender against it. It does not and cannot love.
God hates sin, but loves sinners and has manifested His love toward us by sending "His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him." 1 John 4:99In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. (1 John 4:9).
He came to seek and to save the lost, and so yielded Himself up into the hands of wicked men and allowed them to lift Him up from the earth on a cross of wood, and pierce His hands and feet with nails.
What a tremendous price He paid! "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger." Lamentations 1:1212Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. (Lamentations 1:12).
If the price of pardon is so great, how awful must the character of sin be in God's thoughts. Yet men make light of it, going on in danger of death, forgetting their sins, passing the Savior by, and thinking that at any time it suits their convenience God will let them off if they ask Him.
God giving His Son to die is not letting you off, and unless you come to Christ as a guilty sinner, disowning yourself and your ways, and believe on Him unto life everlasting, you will have to bear your own judgment forever in the lake of fire, where God will never let you off.