High Noon

The movie, "High Noon" was the first adult western. (The definition of an "adult western" is one in which the cowboy is smarter than his horse.) "High Noon" is the story of a marshal who decides to break his promise to his bride and stay in town to face Frank Miller (whom he'd earlier sent to prison) and his gang. Frank Miller is on the train headed for town and revenge at high noon.

As the plot progresses, the marshal finds that, although he's breaking his promise to his wife and thereby keeping his promise to the town to protect them, no one in town is willing to help, so things begin to get complicated as the train is getting closer.

The movie straps us into an emotional roller coaster as we witness the marshal's self-doubts and fears, as we watch the citizens refuse, one after the other, to help, as we listen to the local minister who has nothing to say except a wishy-washy platitude that says nothing, as we calculate the overwhelming odds coming against the marshal. The plot, the music, and the ticking clock inexorably heading toward high noon, all combine for an emotional bath for the viewer. High noon comes, and with it, the climax.

In a way, a free grace gospel presentation in a church service (or out of it) is like "High Noon" in that a person is confronted with a highly-charged issue, one from which it's impossible to be emotionally distant or disinterested because of the very nature of the faith alone in Christ alone gospel.

What we ask is that a person believe that Jesus guarantees everlasting life to all who simply believe Him for it. That one sentence crackles with emotion. (Not "emotionalism;" there's a difference. We're not calling for church services to become exercises in which people are manipulated by their emotions through sad stories or manipulative music.)

It's impossible to be emotionally distant from the faith-alone-in-Christ-alone presentation of the gospel. What it means is that we're asking a person to believe in Someone else for his eternal destiny, and that Someone Else (Christ) is a Person he's never seen, a person no one living has ever seen, and whose life, death, resurrection, words and deeds are recorded in a book which has been under attack for thousands of years and they're in a book few believe. We're asking him to be persuaded of something that few in human history will believe (Matt. 7:14).

We're asking that person to be persuaded that his assumptions are wrong and have always been wrong. He's assumed that there is no heaven or hell, based on his own preferences in the matter. Or, he's assumed that heaven is for those who are good or try to be. He's assumed that heaven is for those who believe in Jesus and do good works.

Everything he's assumed about eternal issues is false. He's assumed that, no matter what his ideas and beliefs are, as long as he's sincere, he's in. He's assumed that all religious roads are pavement to God. (But they're a pavement laid down by man.) He's assumed the logic of his position (a logic God calls "foolish," I Cor. 1:20). But to him, his assumptions sound good, air tight.

He's assumed everything but the truth-that Christ is capable of saving all who simply believe Him for everlasting life. Such is the mind of fallen man, filled with false assumptions, a mind lashed tightly to the mast of II Corinthians 4:4.

That's why every gospel presentation has an emotional component-the stakes are high, a secured destiny calls, as eternal life binds itself to that Someone Else and Him alone. No one is emotionally detached at the moment of gaining such an eternal salvation.

There is a high noon built into every such church service, a high noon more serious than the movie. It's that climactic high noon built on the greatest of eternal issues: Are you persuaded that Christ is capable of saving all those who simply believe in Him?

Dr. Mike Halsey,
Pastor, County Line Church

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