Have you ever wondered why God doesn’t just forgive everyone and let everyone into Heaven? Why do we need to be saved from sin?To help us understand, let’s think of an imaginary situation.  Suppose a man shot his neighbor. Someone called the police  and in due process he was brought before the judge.

“Did you shoot that man?”  the judge asked the murderer.

“Yes, I did,” he admitted.  “I never did like him and I was tired of looking at him, so I just got rid of him.”

What if the judge said, “Well, I’m in an especially good mood today, so we’ll just overlook it.  You go on home and we’ll just act like it never happened.”

Would you say, “Oh, what a good judge.  He was so kind and forgiving!”

No, you would say, “What a rotten judge! He let that guy get by with murder. He’s not fair!”

You probably never shot anyone, but you are still guilty.  I am, too. The Bible says that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).That means that none of us are good enough for God.  God is holy.  He has never done wrong – and can’t bear to have the filthiness of sin around Him.

We might think, “Oh, I’ve only done little things wrong.  I’ve never murdered anyone or anything really bad.”

To God every sin is a big sin.  The Bible says that if we do even one thing wrong, we deserve to be punished forever in hell.If God just said, “That’s okay, you can come on up into Heaven anyway,” He would be just like that unjust judge.  He would be unfair.  We deserve to be punished, and if God didn’t give out our punishment, He would be as guilty as we are. I’m glad that’s not the end of the story, though!  I’m glad that God loved us enough to make a way for us to be forgiven.

One day a man named Nicodemus came to Jesus and asked him about how to be right with God.  Jesus told him a story from the Old Testament to help him understand. You see, God’s people, the Israelites, had been disobedient.  They  complained against God and demanded their own way.  They were so wicked that God sent poisonous snakes to bite them.  The people who were bitten by snakes became sick and many of them died.

“Ask God to forgive us,” the sick people begged Moses, their leader.  “Ask Him to take away the snakes and make us well again.”

Moses did ask God to forgive the foolish people.  God told Moses to make a brass snake and put it up on a tall pole.

“Tell the people that if they want to be well, they must look up at the pole,” God told Moses.

Moses did as God said.

Can you imagine how surprised the Israelites must have been?  Look up at a brass snake!  What good would that do?  Some of them may have thought, “I’m too sick to go out and look at a snake on a pole.  I better just take care of this snakebite the best way I can.”

Others may have tried snake bit remedies.  Maybe they cut the place where the snake bit them and tried to suck out the poison. Those who didn’t believe God and tried to take care of their sickness themselves all died.  Those who trusted God and went out to look at the snake on the pole were made well.

“Just like that snake was lifted up on a pole in the wilderness,” Jesus told Nicodemus.  “So the Son of Man must be lifted up.”

He was saying that  Nicodemus  – and all of us, too – have a spiritual snake-bite.  We are all poisoned with sin.  If we try to cure our sinful nature ourselves, we’re in for trouble.

Some people try to heal their sin by giving money to the poor.  Others think that baptism and church membership will save them.  They are all doomed to fail – because there is nothing we can do to get rid of our sins.

I’m glad that God did something to take care of them.  All sin must be punished.  God sent his own son, Jesus, to earth.  He lived a perfect life – without one single sin.  Then, He allowed wicked men to put Him to death on the cross.  That’s what He meant when He said, “The Son of Man must be lifted up.”

Can you imagine how painful that must have been?  First the Romans soldiers beat him with whips  that had glass embedded in them so that his back was torn to ribbons.  They put a crown of sharp thorns on his head and spit on him and pulled out his beard.Then they stripped him naked and drove huge spikes through his hands and feet onto the heavy wooden cross.When they turned the cross upright,  all his weight hung from his hands and feet.  The pain must have been horrible.

The pain wasn’t the worst part, though.  The worst part was that while He was there on the cross, God put the shame and guilt  we deserved on Jesus.  All sin must be punished by an eternity in hell.  God poured out His wrath on Jesus and He paid that punishment His people had earned.

The holy God can’t bear to look on sin,  so He had to turn His back on His own Son.  Jesus hung there on the cross, alone, bearing our sins.  In a way, He went to hell in our place.

Is just knowing about Jesus’ sacrifice enough to save us?  Was it enough for the wicked Israelites to know that the snake was up on the pole?No, the Israelites had to go out and look up at the snake.  They had to believe God and do what He said.

We aren’t saved by just knowing that Jesus died on the cross.  We must believe Him and look to Him.  We must give up our own attempts to manage our lives, and surrender to Him in faith, trusting in what He did for us to save us.

Check it Out

It’s always best to check out everything you read and hear with the Bible to see if it is so.  Look at these verses and check out the Bible study you’ve just read.

1.  The story of Jesus and Nicodemus is in John 3:1-21.

What did Jesus say would happen to people who believe in Him? (verse 15)

Why did God send His Son to die? (verse 16)

2. The story of the serpent in the wilderness is in Numbers 21:4-9.

What did the Israelites do wrong? (verse 5)

What did God do to the Israelites? (verse 6)

What did God tell Moses to do after the Israelites were sorry for their sin? (verse 8)

What happened to those who looked at the serpent? (verse 9)

3. Romans 3 tells about why we all need to be saved.

Look at Romans 3:23.  Who is a sinner?

Does “all” include you?

A “wage” is something you earn.  If you work , you have a paycheck coming to you. You earned it. According to Romans

6:23, what wage does sin earn?

A gift is something you don’t deserve. What is the “gift” of God? (Romans 6:23)

Do you understand now why not everyone is headed for Heaven?

Are you ready for Heaven?