Dear readers, whoever you are.
This isn’t exactly what one usually would consider when they think of defending the Christian faith; the statement, “You will die.” It’s not pretty. It’s not nice. We try not to think about it. We try to push death out of our minds. That’s why they call them casualties and not deaths! That’s why they call them viruses, or the bird flu, or the swine flu, and not plagues! (Paraphrasing Henry Rollins) We don’t want to think about death!
To quote the Black Sabbath song, “After Forever,” “When you think about death do you keep your cool?”
Well to quote the song more, “I’ll be prepared when you’re lonely and scared at the end of our days.” The answer in that song by Black Sabbath of course is “Jesus Christ is the only way to love.”
I know a pastor who sets up shop at university campuses. He shares the good news of salvation with people. However, if a person rejects the news. If they are complacent, if they are ambivalent, he challenges them to consider the alternatives… what if there is no God, then you die and you are in the ground. What if there is a God? And you have rejected him? What if that God is Jesus? What then? Are you so sure… do you keep your cool when you think about death?
He told one student, “Well, just remember you are going to die.” And the student left the conversation at that, but came back to him a month later and said, “Do you remember the last thing you said to me?” The pastor did not. The student said it had troubled him ever sense talking to him. He finally came face to face with his own personal death, and was he so sure… was he so certain that he would be reincarnated as his faith taught. The pastor shared, “Jesus will save you from that death. He paid for all of your sins.”
Part of apologetics is just properly explaining the Christian faith, and God’s Word can be divided into two camps, Law, and Gospel. God’s Law shows us that we are sinners, that God’s wrath is upon us and that we justly deserve his eternal punishment. God’s Gospel shows us our savior. To learn more about Law and Gospel, click here.
So, you will die. Worried? Well, maybe you shouldn’t be complacent? Don’t put off considering what lies beyond this life. To be fair, I’ll say look to all religions, but I’d recommend looking to Christianity first, and I say this because it is objective, read 1 Corinthians 15 to know what I mean. That passage will show you the center of the Christian faith. It will tell you where the Christian faith stands or falls. It will show you that you are a sinner and that you will die for those sins, yet it also will show you the good news that Jesus died for sins, was buried, and on the third day rose from the grave as according to the Scriptures.
For more on sharing the Gospel on a college campus using a table-top evangelism style approach, listen to Reconnect Episode 6: Contradict – Campus Evangelism.
>>>Order Andy Wrasman’s book, Contradict- They Can’t All Be True.<<<
Andy Wrasman 