He qualifies (does he?)

I had to rent a car today. I gave the gentleman a Michael Jackson Bill Tract, that he appreciated very much.

“What do you think happens after someone dies?”, I asked. He replied, “I am from Poland and our Catholic tradition says we go to Paradise.”

He said that not everybody will go there but only good people; and he is one of them. He hasn’t done anything terrible and always tries to be a good person. So, in his own eyes, he qualifies.

I exposed him to the 9th Commandment but he had a hard time in accepting that one lie makes you a liar. He hasn’t killed (6th Commandment) anyone but hated people, thus he is a murderer at heart. He then said that lust (adultery in the heart, 7th Commandment) is natural, same as lying. He justified himself all the time and hid himself behind the fact that ‘everybody’ has broken the Law, he said.

Exactly! We then have a problem! I told him that we all have broken His Law and if we die in our sins, we wouldn’t measure up to the perfect holiness that God demands. At that moment, a patrol parked right in front of us and I said, if this policeman starts shooting at a criminal and by mistake he shoots you right now, you would face God and He will find you guilty of breaking His Law, therefore you will spend eternity in Hell!

He was carefully listening now.

I asked him for a couple of minutes so I can explain what the Bible says and then his comments. He listened carefully as I explained that we have all sinned and there isn’t anything we can do to earn Paradise. If there was something, Jesus wouldn’t have come to suffer and die. But God in His mercy provided the sacrifice to atone for our sins, the Judge can set us free because Someone in between us has paid the fine for the Law we daily break. Free gift from God, out of ourselves, by grace thru faith alone. I explained repentance (turn 180 degrees) and to trust in the Savior and in Him only.

“Please transfer the trust you have in your own goodness to Jesus,” I said.

The conversation finished and we shook hands. He thanked me because what I had just shared was very important. “There is nothing more important than your eternal destination,” I said.

He took me to my rental car, we shook hands again and he left.

Please pray for this gentleman, that his self-righteousness will be converted into imputed-righteousness.