Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [174]
“I have good news for you, Mr. Darby, but I don’t want to sound glib about it. You bring up some interesting things, particularly about how God has never shown that He loves you.”
“Would you do me a favor and call me Brady?”
“Honored. And you may call me—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t feel comfortable calling you anything but Reverend Carey, if that’s all right.”
“Whatever you wish, Brady. You sound like you don’t want to argue or get into a long discussion. You just want it to make sense that God is supposed to love you and yet you never saw evidence of that, right up until the time you were sent here.”
“Exactly.”
“Let me just ask you, Brady, what did you ever do to deserve God’s love?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“Then why should He love you?”
“He shouldn’t.”
“Whom should He love?”
“People like you. People like my aunt and uncle. People who love Him.”
“But the Bible says we love Him because He first loved us. What do you make of that?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know what to make of any of this.”
“You want to know what I believe?”
“That’s why I’m here, Reverend.”
“I believe only what is in the Bible. Everything else is just someone’s opinion.”
“But isn’t the Bible just someone’s opinion too?”
“I hope not, Brady. I believe it is God’s Word, His love letter to mankind.”
“There you go with the love again.”
“God loves us because He made us, and He proved it too, whether or not you felt it or were aware of it. Here’s what the Bible says about that. Ready? I want you to imagine yourself as the object, the target of this. You with me?”
“I’m listening.”
“And I’m quoting: ‘When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.’”
Brady shook his head as if it was too much to grasp. “I’d like to read that for myself a few times, you know, to try to follow it.”
“I’ve got a Bible for you and a list of verses you can look up.”
“I’m not promising I’m going to buy into any of this stuff, but I heard all about Jesus dying on the cross for us when I was a kid. But now haven’t I screwed all that up? He can’t accept murderers into heaven. Who’s going to hell if I’m not?”
“I would have, and I never murdered anyone.”
“You?”
“Everyone, Brady. Like I told you. We’re all sinners, only some of us are believers who have been forgiven.”
“God can’t forgive me.”
“Like I told you, I believe the Bible. You want to know what He says in there about that? ‘I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.’”
“Yeah, but—”
“‘I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.’”
“But I—”
“‘I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.’”
“But—”
“There are no buts, Brady. Here’s more: ‘Since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, He will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of His Son while we were still His enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of His Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.’
“Catch that? Isn’t that what you’ve been saying is scaring you? Eternal punishment? Listen: ‘So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God—all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God.’”
Brady looked away. “You telling me this even goes for people like me?”
“If not for you, who? Ever hear about the thief dying on the cross next to Jesus—the one Jesus said would join Him that very day in paradise?”
“Yeah.”
“If him, why not you?”
“It just seems like—”
“‘I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.’”
Thomas sat watching as it appeared Brady was thinking deeply. Finally the young man said, “I don’t get it. It’s like this was what I wanted