My wife, Dee, knows me as a Christian with a nearly incurable positive outlook associated with my Christian beliefs. For example: My Bible is filled with yellow highlighted positive parts of scripture—no negative parts. I also usually try to focus on positive topics about evangelism in my Soulwinnersr.us videos. Occasionally, however, I come across a topic that I deem very important that is not so positive. Today is one of those days.
The title of my post today is “‘The Walking Dead’ To ‘The Walking Living’!” It’s based on a Bible verse that—I’ll be honest, startled me, that I had either never seen, or never noticed. It’s found in John 3, which is a very well-known Bible chapter with some very familiar verses like the following:
The first one in John 3:3, is where Jesus told Nicodemus he must be “born again”.
Another one is found in John 3:14-15 where Jesus said like the snake Moses “lifted up in the wilderness”, that he too “must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”.
Then almost everyone has heard John 3:16 where Jesus said the very familiar, “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
But the verse that startled me is found in John 3:36. Here it is:
“The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.”
So, in other words, people that don’t believe in Jesus, have God’s wrath on them. So, picture it. The thing that was startling to me—was that people all over—family members, coworkers, people that you see in the store, that you see on the streets—everywhere. If they don’t have Jesus—they are walking around with the wrath of God on them. That’s why I term them “the walking dead”. Only these walking dead aren’t zombies. They’re real live persons around us every day.
John 3:17-18 explains it more explicitly. Here it is:
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, cause he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.”
This is a terrible outcome for our loved ones and friends. What drastic actions do we as Christians need to take about the “walking dead” people in our lives?
The first step is to pray like never before—like our very own lives depended on it!
The second step is to depend like never before on God’s great and mighty Holy Spirit to open up doors for us to share with our loved ones and friends how very much God loves them, and how much we love them.
Step three is to trust God from the bottom of our hearts that He knows everything in the heart of a person and will use any means possible to get that person, the subject of our prayers, to repent and give their hearts and lives to Jesus.
Only then will many of “the walking dead”—switch ranks to “the walking living”.
I’m very excited today to share my last Roman Road tract post because in it, we’re going to conclude with the ultimate goal of all Christians! I think I loved sharing these posts more than any other posts I've ever done--because they were about the essence of the Gospel that is so near and dear to my heart. OK, here we go. My last post, "Climbing the Roman Road Step 5 & 6 (The Response/A Restored Heart),” was about the response a person makes when he comes to the end of his rope. He then needs help from someone much bigger than himself, so he calls out for help from God. His prayer is one of desperation and urgency. God always responds to this call, and he gives that person a restored heart, free from sin. What’s next for the person who called out to God and has a restored heart? Steps 7 & 8(Living Sacrifice/Heaven With Jesus!) give us a serious mandate, then a wonderful outcome. The serious mandate, Step 7, is found in Romans 12:1, where Paul wrote,
"I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”
It’s a mandate to, instead of being a dead sacrifice, be a living one. This means that after we become Christians, we obey God’s calling for us to act as Jesus did, to do good works. No amount of good works will get us into heaven--but as Christians, good works are a response of gratitude for what He has done for us. Our good works for Jesus, in a sense, bring a little bit of heaven down here to earth.
Step 8 isn’t depicted in The Roman Road picture in the tract, but I just had to add Step 8. What is Step 8 of the Roman Road tract? It's the ultimate goal of every born-again Christian. It's eternal life with Jesus in heaven. Paul explained it in Romans 5:21:
“. . .so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
It would have been difficult for The Roman Road artist to add a Step 8, “heaven”, onto the top of the picture, but I simply couldn’t leave out the final outcome or scene of the Christian story. My wife, Dee, will confirm that I love happy endings of stories like what happens in ALL Hallmark movies. I cry at most of them, and I even cry for joy at the end of action stories like Westerns when the hero wins the conflict and rides off into the sunset with the heroine. But what is the happiest ending of all time? It's when we enter the New Heavens, the New Earth, and the New Jerusalem with its streets of gold—and we live with Jesus there for the rest of eternity!
