A Second Opinion

A young man I know developed a cough for which his doctor  prescribed medicine.  The cough persisted in spite of a second stronger medicine, and eventually an x-ray was done, revealing a shadowy spot on one lung.  And the doctor's diagnosis?  Scar tissue!

The cough, accompanied by night sweats and weakness, persisted, leading him to seek a second opinion. It was cancer.  Now, after a bone marrow transplant, he appears to be cured, after having almost died as a result of the wrong diagnosis of a doctor he trusted implicitly.

Millions have equally firm, but misplaced trust in their spiritual advisors, and tragically, only a very few discover their mistake in time.

A sophisticated society which scrutinizes carefully the qualifications of its doctors, insisting often on a second opinion, relative to a body which one day must die anyway, displays almost total indifference relative to the qualifications of those who minister to the needs of the soul that will exist for ever.

That indifference is the more inexplicable because society possesses the text book upon which the spiritual advisor claims to base his opinion - AND IN MANY CASES IT CONTRADICTS HIM.

For example, does your minister or priest guarantee heaven to all who are church members, moral, kind, generous, his explanation being that God is too loving to send anyone to hell; or that, in fact, there is a heaven, but not a hell?

Then let me quote from the text book, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," John 3:3.  "By grace are ye saved through faith ... not of works, lest any man should boast," Ephesians 2:8-9.  "Fear him (God) who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell," Matthew 10:28.

The only way to be saved from hell and fitted for heaven is to

(1) admit that you have no righteousness, and

(2) believe that when Jesus Christ died on the cross it was in your stead, as your Representative, for your sins.

You may be religious, moral, kind, etc., but apart from confession of total unrighteousness, and faith in Christ as your personal Savior, you are on the road to hell, no matter what assurances your spiritual mentor gives to the contrary.

What if like my young friend's doctor, your mentor should be wrong?  It is your soul that will be first in hell, and then eternally in torment in the lake of fire.

by Jim Melough