GOSPEL LIGHT #761

How does a sinner come to trust in Christ?

 * It’s so easy to convince a person to board a plane if he is already convinced that he can’t fly from here to there on his own.

* It’s so easy to convince a person to get on a boat if he realizes he can’t swim from here to Switzerland.

* It’s so easy to convince a sinner to trust in Christ and His work on the cross once he is convicted that he can’t save himself.

How does a sinner come to trust in Christ? He has to realize that he can't trust himself for salvation.

GOSPEL LIGHT #760

When God Became Our Relative

"...one of his blood relatives from his family may redeem him..."  Lev 25:49

The story of the kinsman redeemer in Leviticus 25:49 highlights God's provision for a close relative to restore a family member’s freedom symbolizing God’s plan for redemption.

Only a near relative has the right to redeem someone who becomes enslaved. This right, however, is not a binding obligation. A near relative may choose whether or not to act on it, as redemption is not mandatory but voluntary. Rights can be exercised or declined, leaving the choice with the potential redeemer.

We, too, are enslaved—enslaved to sin. We are bound by its power, unable to break free on our own. The Lord Jesus had no obligation to redeem us. Nonetheless, He came down and became a Man. As Man, He is our near relative. 

The idea of a kinsman having the exclusive right to redeem an enslaved relative is the very reason why there is no redemption for angels. Unlike humans, angels were not created as relatives.

In reality, all humans are relatives; we share a common ancestry through our first parents—Adam and Eve. Angels, on the other hand, do not have this shared lineage. They were created as distinct spiritual beings, as individuals, there is no birth among angels.

Because of this, no member of the Trinity could identify with angels through birth, as angels were created as individual beings, not as part of a family line. This relational connection is key to the concept of kinsman redemption, which is why it applies uniquely to humans.

Christmas or the Incarnation is God stooping down to become our near relative because only a near relative has the right to redeem an enslaved relative.

My friend, you can trust in a relative, can you? Trust in Christ, our Kinsman-Redeemer, the only One who can truly set you free.

GOSPEL LIGHT #759

I want to tell you a true story which happened in the middle of the 1800s in Webster City, Iowa, USA. 
Prairie fires were the most fearsome of all calamities that frequently struck this place. A prairie is a large, flat and treeless grassland.

When a prairie fire is ignited neither man nor horse could outrun it. Prairie fires could leap over rivers and roads; the fire's embers could easily travel across them, starting new fires on the other side. The fires could spread rapidly, racing across the land at speeds of up to 97 kilometers per hour. Imagine an angry and raging fire coming at you at 97 kilometers per hour. The fastest speed ever recorded by a human being was achieved by Olympic champion Usain Bolt who peaked at 45 kilometers per hour.

When a farmer named John saw all this happening from afar, quickly, he ran and told his wife to get all the blankets she could get and instructed her to soak them in the well. Then he proceeded to burn his own farm land. This was the only way to save themselves. There was simply no other way. His own field glowing with golden grains were all turned to black ash. Then John and his family gathered around in the middle of their burnt field and covered themselves with blankets and waited for the fire.

They could hear the fire as it closely approached them. But, when it came to their field, it went around them and they were saved simply because they stood were the fire had been. 

You know, a far more terrible quote unquote "prairie fire" is about to come and burn everything up. It's the prairie fires of God's judgment. But, God, in order to save us, started a fire at Calvary in the middle of this big field called the world and blanketed it, so to speak, with darkness for three hours. 

Now, God calls upon us to come to Calvary and stand where His fire has burned. He guarantees that for those who do, the fires of judgment will simply go around them and not harm them.

GOSPEL LIGHT #758

An Infinite Payment For An Infinite Debt Imagine being in debt to a tune of 1 trillion dollars. When do you think you would be able to pay it back? Or would you ever be able to repay it? Let’s say you were given a lifetime to labor and work to earn that amount—do you think you could make it?

Let me break this down to you in a detailed manner so that you will see how gargantuan and staggering this is:

• 1 trillion dollars is 1,000 billion dollars.
• Even if you earned 1 million dollars every single day, it would take you 1 million days—or over 2,739 years—to pay it off.

Applying this to our spiritual debt, we are heavily in debt far more than this. All the money in the world could not discharge it. Our debt is infinite.

This is how helpless we are spiritually speaking. Every sinner stands spiritually bankrupt before God, unable to pay the infinite debt of sin. No amount of effort or good works can ever clear this debt and be saved—it is beyond human capability.

The only way for this debt to be paid is for Someone to come and redeem us. Someone who is Himself infinite, capable of making an infinite sacrifice of infinite value. That Someone is the Lord Jesus Christ. He made a provisional payment for all our sins. Ours is to avail of it through faith in Him.