While working as a state probation and parole counselor, a young man I had tried to help in the past asked me to come and visit him in jail. I was glad for the opportunity to talk with him and tell him again about the love of God for him. As we visited he told me that it was too late for him, for he was a criminal and was heading for prison. I tried to tell him that it is never too late to come to God while we are still alive, but he could not be convinced. He had decided that he was too bad and could not be helped. That was the last time I saw him.
This young man was looking inside himself for assurance that he was good enough to be saved, but he could only see there his sin, his helplessness and his failure. He was unable or unwilling to look to Jesus the Savior and away from himself.
I knew his history. His family had failed him, and he would not believe that anyone could or would help him. So in his bitterness he turned to rough friends and lived recklessly and foolishly. He could not lift himself above his past and would not believe in God’s love for him. He did not know that “when my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up” (Psa. 27:1010When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. (Psalm 27:10)), for he did not know his God.
Let me illustrate this. Not long ago my mother died of pneumonia at age 92. When she couldn’t overcome congestion from a cold, we took her to the hospital. The doctor gave her medication, but he said the real test was whether or not she could throw off the congestion in her lungs. For three days we watched her fade away, as she struggled to breathe in an oxygen tent. Finally, like the young man, unable to overcome her condition, she left this life to enter eternity.
My mother’s condition is like sin in our lives. If we are unable to remove it, though we fight it all our days, it will overcome us and bear us down to hell. The young man I visited was one who had given up fighting it and decided there was no hope for him. But God has good news for us. He says there is a remedy for us.
God tells us that “when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:66For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)). Thankfully, “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:88But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)). If we receive God’s remedy, Christ the Savior, we will go to heaven with a full pardon, for Christ died, “the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”
No one is good enough to work a way into heaven. No one is so bad that God cannot save them. You and I and the young man need to stand upon the promise of God: “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:3737All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37)).