A Few Good Men

I know a few good men.  In a political year, as most years are these days, one thing we don't like is to hear candidates telling us what we want to hear for the vote's sake.  With their polls, their focus groups, and their moistened political fingers in the wind, they learn what we want and then promise it to us, whether they believe in it or not.  Their promise is like a pie crust; made to be broken.  Their convictions wobble depending on which group they're speaking to at the time.

We don't like that; we like good men of strong conviction.  The old movie westerns were full of such men (think "High Noon" and "Shane").  I know two good men of strong, non-waffling convictions.

Not only do these two possess strong convictions, but what about that rarity of rarities, men who pray?  These two good men are pray-ers.  Not just once at night with a "Now I lay me down to sleep," but throughout the day, these two good men pray.

Every Christmas we watch the movie and hate Ebenezer Scrooge.  We neither like nor admire men whose fists are tight.  These two men I know are givers who not only share money, but also their time and energy.  Building a habitat for humanity?  There they are with hammer, nails, and saws sweating away to get roofs over the heads of the less fortunate.

You want to talk about God?  They'll talk about God and won't be ashamed.  More than that-want to talk about Jesus?  They know about Jesus.  They know that He's a teacher and they like what He says.  They know that God sent Him and even anointed Him with the Holy Spirit.  They know He did miracles.  If we pooled their knowledge, we would see that they knew the story of His baptism and the stories of all the good He did.  They know, like, and admire all those things.

The stark reality about these admirable two?  These two good men are as lost as any heathen anywhere, at any time.  Their names?  Nicodemus and Cornelius, one is a good, but lost Jew; the other, a good, but lost gentile.  Both equally good and equally lost.

Jesus bluntly tells Nicodemus, "You must be born again."  He wasn't born again, but needed to be.  About Cornelius-God blasts Peter out of his "us only" comfort zone and throws him into the wild and wooly world of the gentile evangelism.  Cornelius, good as he is needs to hear the gospel.*

It's not that these two good men needed the gospel in addition to their good works; the gospel pulverizes their (and our) good works into non-meritorious pieces.  Salvation is not our resume stapled to faith in Christ.  Those who staple their resume to faith in Christ will hear some scary words, "Depart from Me; I never knew you."**

We like good men (and good women and children too), but God loves them enough to tell them that He sent His Son to do the work on the cross so that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.  He doesn't want resumes, He desires faith alone in His Son alone.

Nicodemus and Cornelius are long gone and with the Lord.  They didn't take their resumes with them.  They were persuaded that Jesus' promise of everlasting life to all who simply believe Him for it was all they needed.

Nicodemus and Cornelius are gone, but their descendants live on: good, lost people are all around us.
*The careful reader of Acts 10 will note that, as good as Cornelius is, he's not saved until verse 44.
**In Matthew 7:21-23, those to whom Jesus is speaking are good people who have done tremendous works, as they will say, in His name.  They've stapled their resumes to their belief in Christ.  Their problem is that they were never persuaded that salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone.  Our resumes are not salvific.

Dr. Mike Halsey, Pastor
County Line Church