Pity Me!

I used to love this line of evangelism. “If you’re wrong and I’m right, wouldn’t you want to know? Your being wrong lands you in hell! But if you’re right and I’m wrong, what does it matter? I’ve lived a good life, been blessed... so why not error on the safe side?” It’s a good, solid, easy-to-understand, common sense approach, don’t you agree?

But there’s only one problem with it, and I’m still working through this so bear with me here.

Should we be able to say it like that? With that kind of nonchalance? I mean, read between the lines here. Let me paraphrase.

“If you’re right and I’m wrong, what does it matter? I’ve got all I need, I don’t have to give up anything, I’m not missing out, I’m doing everything I want and nothing I don’t, so what would I change?”

When writing to the Corinthian church, the apostle Paul dealt with the debate of the dead being raised at the second coming and a life beyond this physical death. He said, “For if the dead are not raised then not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised your faith is worthless! You are still in your sins! And those who have died believing in Christ have truly perished. If we have hoped in Christ just for this life, we are of all men most to be pitied!”

Think of what the early church endured for the sake of their belief in Christ. Torture, imprisonment, disdain, discrimination, exile... hardships that we, as modern American Christians have only read about in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. That kind of Christian faith makes sense of Paul’s exclamation that “we are of all men most to be pitied!” No one willingly endured such a life for no reason. If these were beliefs built on falsehoods they wanted to know. They weren’t going to go through all of that nonsense if this God was a fake! It was truth they were seeking; truth would get their utmost devotion and nothing else could vie for it at all.

They were not settling for a ‘good life’ filled with ‘blessings’, but I’m afraid that I am. The fact that that so-called evangelism line now bothers me is, I hope, a good sign. But the question remains... how would I live were I to find out that my faith was built entirely on falsehoods and I was able to come to grips with that reality. Please, fellow Christians take this question in theory! Obviously, with the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence we know that our nature is being transformed and, depending on how much you have grown in Him, the habits He has worked so hard to form in you would be hard to break. But would you spend your money differently if you knew that there wasn’t a God who cared about your fellow man? Would you do something else with your time if you came to the realization that there wasn’t a coming kingdom you were trying to advance? Would there be things you would or would not do, places you would or would not go, words you would or would not say if you knew that there wasn’t an all-seeing, all-knowing judge whom you would one day have to face? We who have been enlightened understand that God’s ways are best... but if there is no God, then the ways we learned to be best are just ways... why not try someone else’s idea of ‘good’?

So the challenge for us is this... can we say, with Paul, “If wrong, then I am of all men most to be pitied! I’d never live like this if I didn’t believe for sure that God is real and this is His will!” I think our answer would be a good indication of our relationship status with our Creator.