This afternoon, I finished a letter that I was writing to a colonel in the USMC, who I had the opportunity to talk to on May 3rd. We didn't have a lot of time. We started talking about the gospel, but came nowhere close to finishing. I wrote this letter to him, and I plan on giving it to my friend Dwayne this Sunday. I've prayed about every word on every page of this letter. I've asked God to use it, specifically for the Word of God to be used by the Holy Spirit to pierce this man's heart. Will you pray with me? Maybe when he reads this letter, despite any and all shortcomings within it, just maybe this will be the defining moment of his life, when God stops the god of the world from blinding his mind and when God exercises the same power that he exercised at creation so that the light of the gospel will shine forth in his heart.
_____
May 15, 2013
Dear Colonel:
I wanted to take a moment and write you this short letter. I attended the retirement ceremony for Maj. David D. Lancaster on the campus of North Carolina State University May 3rd, 2013. Following the ceremony, we were able to speak for a few minutes. Because everyone was waiting to speak with you, I didn’t want to take too much of your time. The subject of our conversation was important; in fact, I believe it is the single most important topic that two people can discuss. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to finish talking, so I wanted to take a moment to share this letter with you.
First, I want to thank you again, Colonel, for your service to our country. I’ll never forget as a young man going to the airport with my dad. A soldier had just arrived in Raleigh-Durham. My father and I were waiting for someone else who was flying in on another flight. But when my father saw this young man, who was dressed in green fatigues, come down the escalator, he did something that I will never forget. He walked up to this young man, shook his hand, and told him thank you for everything that he has been doing on behalf of his family, his community, and his entire country. I want to tell you the same thing. Your sacrifice, as well as the sacrifice of thousands and thousands of other U.S. soldiers, is something that we should not take for granted, even though we often do. The truth is we can never say anything that adequately captures the gratitude that we should have for those like you who willingly lay down their lives so that others can be the recipients of freedom, safety, and every other blessing that is part of being a citizen of the United States of America. Thank you.
Colonel, do you remember the questions that I asked you on Friday, May 3rd? I don’t remember the exact words, but it was something like, “Do you know what is going to happen to you after you die?” When someone’s answer is “Heaven,” I always ask a follow-up question—“On the basis of what will you go to heaven?” (Or, “Why/How will you go to heaven?”). I’ve asked those questions to a lot of people over the last thirteen years in different parts of the world—neighbors, friends, coworkers, etc. I’ve asked it to musicians like Willie Nelson and his best friend Paul English, Chris Thomas King, Dan Tyminski, Ralph Stanley, and others. I’ve even asked it to our 42nd President, Bill Clinton. Friday, May 3rd was the first time I ever asked a Colonel in the United States Marine Corp.
I’ve heard the answers you gave me many times before. In fact, I think the number one answer that I hear to the second question is something like “Because I’m a good person.” I wished we would have had more time to talk on May 3rd, but I understood you had many people that wanted to express their gratitude to you for your words regarding Dwayne. The reason I wanted to write you this letter is because I wanted to share with you what the Bible says about how someone can be forgiven of their sins and go to heaven when they die.
The first thing I want to share with you is the Bible says that we all sin (i.e., break or violate God’s law). Please read the following two verses:
“[B]oth Jews and Gentiles are all under sin; as it is written, ‘There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understand, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one” (Romans 3:9-12).
“[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
The Bible tells us that there is no one alive who is good enough to go to heaven. Everyone breaks God’s law. The Bible also gives a really strong description of someone who has not been forgiven of their sins by God. The description I am referring to is found in Ephesians 2:1-3. There Paul says:
“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world…[we] formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:1-3).
Basically, God describes men and women who have not yet been forgiven of their sins as spiritually dead. Even though we are alive physically, because of our sin we are spiritually dead in God’s eyes. When the Bible says no one is good, it does not mean that no one does good things. What it means is no one is entirely good—that no one has lived a perfect life without breaking any of God’s law. Even the person who does huge acts of kindness and good in this world is not “good enough” to go to heaven. That’s the reason why everyone who lives dies. Death is the direct result of sin. We all die because we all sin. And sin came into the world for the first time through the first man and woman God created. They chose not to obey what God said, exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and because of that sin spread to the entire human race, to all of their descendants.
The second thing I want to share with you is what the Bible says God did so that we can be forgiven of our sin. Just like any human court that is just and upright, when someone breaks the law there is an appropriate penalty. As I previously pointed out, the penalty for breaking God’s law is death. But please read what God says about eternal life:
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
Even though the penalty for breaking God’s law is death, which is not just physical death but also spiritual and eternal death, God has chosen to demonstrate his goodness and love toward all of humanity by offering them a free gift—the forgiveness of their sins through Jesus Christ. What does Jesus Christ have to do with how someone can be forgiven of their sins? The answer is amazing. God the Father sent Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to die on the cross. On the cross, the Father poured out all of the punishment for the sin of the world on his Son. This is how the Bible describes it:
“When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us of our transgressions, having cancelled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).
Elsewhere the Bible says this:
“He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are forgiven. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the sin of us all to be put on Him” (Isaiah 53:3-6).
"But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died in our place as our substitution” (Romans 5:8).
If we were there the day Jesus Christ was crucified on that cross in Jerusalem, we would have seen someone brutally beaten by the Roman authorities. We would have seen someone being mocked by passer-bys and onlookers. We would have seen Jesus crucified alongside two unknown thieves. There were things that happened that day that signaled to everyone present that Jesus’ crucifixion was entirely different than the crucifixion of those two thieves. For example, the sky turned dark during the middle of the day for three hours (Luke 23:44). But something was taking place that day which no one could visibly see. There was something occurring on the cross that went unnoticed to almost everyone present. The punishment for our sin was being paid by God’s only Son. The debt-statement, similar to a loan statement from a bank or a credit card statement today, that contained a record of all our debts to God incurred by every infraction of God’s law—that statement was nailed to the cross. What do you think it said? I bet it said something like “Paid in Full.”
Colonel, the final thing I would like to share with you concerns what your responsibility is to this message. The price Jesus paid on the cross for our sins is sufficient. What he paid on the cross covers it all. But I’d like to give you a little analogy to illustrate what I’m writing about.
Imagine a restaurant. Every person in the restaurant is incurring a debt. Every person upon finishing their meal is expected to pay the price for everything they ordered in the meal. Imagine a man walks into that restaurant at the busiest hour of operation. The restaurant is full. Everyone is eating, ordering sweet-teas, milk-shakes, large entrees, etc. Now imagine the man walks into that restaurant and pays the bill for every single person in the restaurant. What would we think of the person who, when it came time to pay for their bill, said, “I don’t want him to pay my bill. I’ll pay it myself”?
The gift of God is similar to this. We have to accept what God has done, the provision he has made for us, when it comes to eternal life. Our response, to use the restaurant analogy, should be one of humility, gratitude, and thankfulness. Now think about the good news about what Jesus Christ did on the cross. When He died on the cross for our sins, he did something infinitely greater than paying a restaurant bill. He paid a bill that we absolutely could not have paid on our own. No one could have paid the price that Jesus paid for our sins. And, Jesus Christ did not just die on the cross. After he was buried and laid in a tomb for three days, God proved that Jesus is the way to be forgiven of our sins by raising Jesus from the dead.
Colonel, this is what God says to us:
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believers in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believers in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God” (John 3:16-18).
So what does it mean to “believe in Him?” The Bible tells us that when we hear the good news of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin, we should do three things:
- Trust that Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is the way we receive the forgiveness of our sins. In other words, we stop thinking that we can be good enough to go to heaven. We start recognizing our sinfulness and the need we have for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
- Turn from our sins and begin to place our life under the lordship of Jesus Christ. In other words, we turn from and stop the sin that God convicts us of when we hear the gospel message. We begin to ask God to show us how to live in a way that honors and pleases him. He becomes the authority over our life, and His ways become our ways. This doesn’t mean we never sin again. It means that we surrender our life to him and follow him by God’s grace for the rest of our lives.
- Tell others about the decision you’ve made. Tell others that you believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins. Tell others how thankful you are that God saved you from hell and eternal punishment. Tell others how it is a free gift and that it was nothing you did, but all because of what Jesus did for you on the cross.
This is by far the most important message you will ever hear. The most important decision you will ever make in your life is this, namely giving your life to Jesus, asking for the forgiveness of your sins, and receiving eternal life. No decision in this life has anywhere close to the eternal significance of this one, Colonel. The question is this, “On the basis of what will you go to heaven?” No one goes to heaven because they are good enough. No one can be forgiven of their sins any other way. So, I’m begging you. Please give this your greatest consideration. I believe you are a man who prays. Ask God to show you if this is the only way to heaven, or just a foolish story. It is my prayer that you will give your life to Christ and follow him for the rest of your life.
Sincerely,
Thomas W. Hudgins
Jesus + Nothing = Everything
For Christmas I presented a copy of David Alan Black's Will You Join the Cause of Global Missions? to our Life Group in Apex Baptist. I was excited to hear an update from my brother Nathan on what the Lord taught him through reading this tiny (yet content-rich) book. You can read a summary of the book here and here. And you can read a little bit about how our Life Group has been using the book here. 
