“RELIGION is all right for those who cannot live straight without it.” So we have been told on more than one occasion. Voltaire thought that the mob needed a religion to keep down their evil passions through fear. Without religion the lower classes could not be controlled, and would break out into insurrection. And he was careful not to allow Atheism to be talked about in the hearing of his servants, because, as he said, he did not want to be murdered.
But what about those who can live straight without a religion? Well, they are the very ones who need the gospel of Jesus Christ. We may live straight as between man and man, but the best of us is but a sinner before God. The gospel of Christ, we repeat, not any human religion, however well patronized by the world of respectable people, is needed by ALL.
The Lord Jesus said to a very upright, influential, cultured, and, above all, religious man, “Ye must be born again.” What Nicodemus needed was not any of the world’s religion; he had quite enough of that already, and it did not satisfy him; he needed a new life, eternal life, to be obtained by receiving Him who was, and still is, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
Unsaved, but respectable, and perchance religious reader, if Nicodemus needed Christ, so do you. Religion is not Christ. Respectability will not save you. Good conduct will not blot out past disobedience. An upright life in the eyes of men will not obtain the forgiveness of a single sin. By reason of temperament, education, and surroundings you may appear better morally than multitudes who have lacked these advantages, but as to your guiltiness before God there is no difference.
A single sin is sufficient to bring us in guilty before God. Until we trust in Christ for a present and personal salvation we are continuing under God’s displeasure. “He that believeth not is condemned already.” What we need is Christ. If we make a Christ of our morality we will eternally perish, as surely as if we were trusting to our very sins for salvation. Your decency is damning you while it is keeping you from the Saviour. You may be able to live straight without religion, but you are on the road to hell if you are without Christ. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” (John 3:3636He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:36).)
E. A.