The Most Important Question
by
R. A. Torrey
(1856-1928)
"What shall I do, then,
with Jesus who is called Christ?" Matthew 27:22
If
I should put to this audience tonight the question, What is the most important
question of the day, I presume I would get a great variety of answers. Some of
you would say that the disarmament question or the Four Power Treaty question
was the most important question of the day. Some would say that the labor
question was the most important question of the day. And still others would say
that the Prohibition question was the most important question of the day, and
so on. But all these answers would be wrong. There is another question of
vastly more importance than any one of these, a question of the right decision
on which immeasurably more depends than on the decision of any of these
questions. That question is this, "What shall I do, then, with Jesus who
is called Christ?"
It
is not a new question. Pontius Pilate asked it nearly nineteen hundred years
ago, and answered it wrong, and his earthly life went out in darkness, and his
eternity was endless torment. Thousands on thousands have asked it since. A
right decision to that question hangs everything that is really worth having
for time and for eternity for each one of us. If you do the right thing with
Jesus, the Christ of God, you will get everything that is really worth having
for time as well as for eternity, whether a right decision is given on these
various other questions or not. If you do the wrong thing with Jesus, the Christ
of God, you will lose everything that is worth having for time as well as for
eternity, even though all these other questions are answered correctly.
I. What We Will Get if We Do the Right Thing with Jesus Christ
Let us look at some of the things that we will get if we
do the right thing with Jesus Christ.
1. In the first place, if you do
the right thing with Jesus you will get the forgiveness of all your sins. Peter
says in Acts 10:43, "All the prophets testify about him that everyone who
believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." Now this
statement is as plain as day, and in it God's inspired apostle declares that
"everyone who believes in" Jesus Christ "receives forgiveness of
[his] sins." If the vilest sinner on earth would come in here tonight and
would put his trust in Jesus Christ, the moment he did it all his sins would be
forgiven, blotted out.
The forgiveness of our sins depends solely on what
we do with Jesus Christ. It does not depend on our prayers or on our penances
or on our good works. If you do the right thing with Jesus Christ you get
forgiveness of all your sins, whatever else you may do or not do. If you do the
wrong thing with Jesus Christ you will not get forgiveness of sins, whatever
else you may do or not do. The same truth is put in a different way in John
3:18, "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not
believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of
God's one and only Son."
What an unspeakable blessing the forgiveness of all
your sins is. Wealth, honors, pleasures, are not so eagerly to be desired as
the forgiveness of our sins. All of them together are not to be compared with
the forgiveness of our sins. Forgiveness of sin brings joy anywhere it comes, whether
it be into the palace or into the prison cell. King David had wealth, honor,
power, pleasures, and privileges without number, but he was not happy. Indeed,
he was perfectly miserable. His own description of his condition is found in
the Thirty-second Psalm, the third and fourth verses; "When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your
hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer."
Then he found forgiveness of sin and in his joy he shouted, "Blessed is he
whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man
whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no
deceit" (Psalm 32:1-2).
Down in a wretched cell in Sing Sing Prison there was
a man under a fifteen- year sentence for manslaughter. He was, of course, a
very unhappy man. But there in his cell he got hold of a Bible and read it, and
through the Bible the Holy Spirit showed him the Lord Jesus as his Savior who
died in his place, and he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. It was in the
middle of the night when he finally found the Savior through meditating on what
he had read in the Word of God, and though it was in the middle of the night
and in a prison cell, such joy came into his soul that he began to shout. The
guard came along and rapped on his door and told him to keep still. "I
can't keep still," he shouted back, "my sins are forgiven." Yes,
there is a more wonderful joy in knowing that our sins are all forgiven than
there is in anything that this world has to give.
And we get this forgiveness of
sin by simply believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. In
the second place, you will get peace of conscience by doing the right thing
with Jesus Christ. It is a blessed thing to have a conscience that
does not accuse you, a conscience that has found perfect peace. It is an awful
thing to have a conscience that accuses. It is the greatest misery on earth. It
drives many men and many women to suicide. Oh, in what agony of mind men and
women have come to me from different ranks of society because of an accusing
conscience. And there are many who never unburden their hearts to others who
are in misery from the same cause. There are men and women here tonight who
spend days and nights of misery because of an accusing conscience. You try to
drown the voice of conscience in many ways, but you fail utterly. You try to
drown the voice of conscience in pleasure and indulgence. You try to drown the
voice of conscience in business. You try to drown the voice of conscience in
drink and in drugs, and in other ways; but you do not succeed. You never will
succeed.
One who perhaps knows as much about the life of the
movie colony in Hollywood as anyone else told a friend of mine a few weeks ago
of two of the leading stars in the movie world, two women whose names are
constantly in the daily papers and who are admired and envied by thousands,
that they were the hopeless slaves of drugs, and all over this land people who
are counted gifted, and on whom others look in envy, are trying to silence the
voice of conscience by drugs. But no one ever yet found real peace in that way,
and no one ever will. Jesus Christ alone can give the guilty conscience peace.
In Romans 5:1, God put it through the Apostle Paul in this way, "Since we
have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ." Do the right thing with Jesus Christ and you will get true
peace of conscience, deep, abiding peace, perfect peace. As Isaiah puts it,
"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he
trusts in you" (26:3). But do the wrong thing with Jesus Christ, and you
cannot find peace of conscience in this world or in the next, no matter what
else you may do to get peace.
I was dealing once in my office with a woman who
told me that she had been in a perfect hell for fourteen years because of an
accusing conscience. I pointed her to Jesus Christ. I showed her from God's
Word how all her sins had been laid on Jesus Christ. She believed it. She took
God's Word for it, put her trust in Him as her atoning Savior. After fourteen
years of agony, of hell on earth, she went out from my office that day with a
radiant countenance, for she had found peace of conscience in the only way in
which peace of conscience can ever be found by anybody, through her Lord Jesus
Christ. And that joy continues until this day.
3. In the third place, you will
get deliverance from the power of sin by doing the right thing with Jesus
Christ. It is a dreadful thing to be in the power of sin. There
is no other slavery so binding, so degrading, and so crushing as the slavery of
sin. We all know what a dreadful thing it is to be in the power of some sins.
We all know, for example, what an awful thing it is to be in the power of
strong drink. We know what an awful thing it is to be in the power of morphine,
or cocaine, or some other kind of drug. Many of us know through stories,
distressing and agonizing, that have been poured into our ears, what an awful
thing it is to be in the power of lust. How many men have come to me in despair
this past year and told the story of their dreadful slavery. It is an awful
thing to be in the power of sin of any kind.
There is, however, a way to get free. There is a
way by which any man or woman who is the slave of any sin of any kind can get
instantaneous and complete deliverance from the power of that sin. There is,
however, only one way. That way is by doing the right thing with Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul was once in the power of sin. He was once helplessly and
hopelessly enslaved. With all the power of an unusually strong will he tried to
break away from the power of sin, but the more he tried to break away, the more
completely he seemed to be in sin's grip forever, until at last, in utter
despair, he cried, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this
body of death?" (Romans 7:24). And then he found Christ and took Him as
his Deliverer from the power of sin, and he found perfect freedom and cried
again, "Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!" You cannot
get out of sin's power unless you do the right thing with Jesus Christ. You may
get free from some bad habits. You may, for example, give up drinking without
the help of Christ, though very few do; but whether you do or do not, you will
not get out of sin's grip, you will simply turn from one sin to another. Christ
alone can save you from sin's power. I could stand here by the hour and tell
you of men and women I have personally known, men and women as completely
enslaved by sin in one form or another as any man or woman who ever walked the
earth, whom the Lord Jesus Christ has set free when they did the right thing
with Him.
4. In the fourth place, you will
get great joy by doing the right thing with Jesus Christ. The
Apostle Peter says "Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even
though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an
inexpressible and glorious joy," by doing the right thing with Jesus
Christ. You cannot get inexpressible and glorious joy in any other Way. You
know happy people, of course, who are not Christians, but you do not know
anyone who is not a Christian who has "inexpressible and glorious
joy." You do not know anyone who is not a Christian who has the deep, constant,
satisfying, and overflowing joy, that those men and women have who are not
merely nominal Christians but real Christians, those men and women who have
fully accepted Christ as their personal Savior and are really trusting God for
the forgiveness of all their sins because they fully believe God's testimony
concerning Jesus Christ having borne every one of their sins when He died on
the cross, thus fully settling their sins forever, and who have without
reservation surrendered the entire control of their thoughts and lives to Jesus
Christ, and who are confessing Jesus Christ as their Lord before the world
every reasonable opportunity they get, and who are watching for every
opportunity to lead others to Christ, and who are serving Jesus Christ with all
their strength every day.
Do the right thing with Jesus Christ and you get
this wonderful joy. Reject Jesus Christ and you lose it. How foolish men and
women are! There are many men in this audience tonight who are rejecting Christ
because they think they will lose joy if they take Christ. Are you blind, men?
Do you not see that those who have taken Christ really are happier than you
are? Do you not see that many Christians are happier in poverty than skeptics
and worldly people are in wealth? Are you deaf, women? Have you not heard many
whose word you must believe, and from all ranks of society, testify that they
have found a joy since they took Christ that they never dreamed of in the
world?
I do not think that many of you could tell me much
that I do not know about this world's joys. I have tasted pretty much all of
them, but I never knew "inexpressible and glorious joy," until I took
Jesus Christ. I do now. My every day is full of joy. I have perplexities, I
have annoyances, I have experiences that could easily prove exasperating. I
have burdens of many kinds, I have what may appear to be great losses, I have
things said to me and written to me, and said and printed about me, that would
cut to the quick if I did not know the Lord Jesus; but, through it all, every
day is inexpressibly happy. Not so long ago I had more things come to me that
might have caused grief and anxiety and worry and heartache and deep sorrow
than in almost any other week of my life, but it was a radiantly happy week.
Why? Simply because of what Jesus Christ is to me, and what He is to me, just
because I have done the right thing with Him.
5. In the fifth place, if you do
the right thing with Jesus Christ you will get eternal life. Eternal
Life! What a wonderful phrase that is, eternal life. Life that never ends! Life
that knows no death! Life of unutterable beauty and dignity and honor and glory
and rapture! Life that is endless in its duration and perfect in its quality!
Life like the life of God Himself. Eternal life! What has the world to put in
comparison with that? What is the wealth of a millionaire compared with eternal
life? I would rather be a penniless pauper all my days, living in destitution
and hunger and rags and cold, and have eternal life, than to roll in wealth all
my days and have all that wealth can buy, and not have eternal life. I have no
envy of the rich. No, I know their lives and hearts too well. I have often a
greater pity for them than for the poor, for often they are more to be pitied
than the poor. The life of the average millionaire is a sad, sad life.
What is the wisdom of the world's greatest
scientist or philosopher compared with eternal life? What are the honors of a
great general or a mighty ruler of men compared with eternal life? What are the
pleasures of the most devoted seeker of pleasure compared with eternal life?
Put all the world has, absolutely everything the world can give, into one pan
of the scales. Put eternal life into the other scale. See the world's side go
up. It is lighter than the smallest dust in the balance in comparison with
eternal life. Eternal life! Oh, who can fathom all the depth of meaning that
there is in these two wondrous words?
And you get it by simply doing the right thing with
Jesus Christ. Do the right thing with Jesus Christ and you get eternal life. Do
the wrong thing with Jesus Christ and you lose eternal life. Listen to God's
own Word about that, John 3:36, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal
life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on
him." Listen to God's Word again, "This is the testimony: God has
given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has
life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life" (1 John
5:11-12).
Are you going to do the right thing with Jesus
Christ now and get eternal life, or are you going to do the wrong thing with
Jesus Christ and forever lose eternal life?
6. But there is something better
even than eternal life that you get by doing the right thing with Jesus Christ.
By doing the right thing with Jesus Christ you become a child of God, an heir
of God and joint heir with Jesus Christ. We read in God's own Word, in
John 1:12, "To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he
gave the right to become children of God." And in Romans 8:17 we read,
"Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with
Christ." Just think of that a moment, a child of God, and an heir of God,
and a joint heir (or fellow heir) with Jesus Christ. We have heard these words
very often but have we ever stopped to weigh their meaning and to take in their
wondrous meaning? A child of God! Think of it! God the Infinite One, God the
Creator of all things, God to whom the whole race of men and the whole company
of angels is as nothing, less than a speck of dust is in comparison to the
whole earth; God in comparison with whom the greatest of philosophers, the
mightiest of monarchs, and the purest of saints is less than the most ignorant
idiot is in comparison with the greatest philosopher--and we to become His
children and His heirs! Heirs of all this Infinite God is and all this Infinite
God has. It staggers the mind to try to think of it. That is what is open to
each one of us. That is what is open to you and open to me by just doing the
right thing with Jesus Christ.
One day, years ago, I met the son and heir of one
of the richest men in the whole world, and he invited me to dinner. As I sat
and talked with him it seemed to me as if it might be in some respects a fine
thing to be the son and heir of the richest millionaire on earth. But that is
nothing, just nothing at all, to being a child of God, an heir of God and
fellow heir with Jesus Christ. That is what is open to us, to each one of us;
but it can be obtained in only one way, and that is by doing the right thing
with Jesus Christ. Do the right thing with Jesus Christ and in a moment you
become a child of God, an heir of God and fellow heir with Jesus Christ. Listen
to God's own statement about it again, "To all who received him, to those
who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God"
(John 1:12).
Do the wrong thing with Jesus Christ and you lose
forever your chance of becoming a child of God, an heir of God and fellow heir
with Jesus Christ. Oh, what a loss that is! The loss of untold wealth, the loss
of earth's greatest honors, the loss of dearest friends, is nothing in
comparison with the loss of becoming a child of God, an heir of God and fellow
heir with Jesus Christ. That is the awful cost of doing the wrong thing with
Jesus Christ. We see, then, something of what we gain by doing the right thing
with Jesus Christ, and something of what we lose by doing the wrong thing with
Jesus Christ. By doing the right thing with Jesus Christ we gain forgiveness of
all our sins. By doing the right thing with Jesus Christ we gain peace of
conscience. By doing the right thing with Jesus Christ we gain deliverance from
sin's power. By doing the right thing with Jesus Christ we gain joy
inexpressible and glorious. By doing the right thing with Jesus Christ we gain
eternal life. By doing the right thing with Jesus Christ we become children of
God, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Jesus Christ. Is it not evident, then,
that the most important question of this day and of all days is, "What
shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?"
But what will you do with Him? Will you do the
right thing with Him, or will you do the wrong thing with Him? Will you do the
right thing and gain all, or will you do the wrong thing and lose all? I put
the question to each individual reader. What will you do with Jesus? It does
not matter whether you are a church member or not, I put the question to you,
What will you do with Jesus? I put the question to the most worldly man or
woman here as well as to the most religious, "What will you do with Jesus
who is called Christ?" I put the question to the one who is most sunken in
sin, for there is hope for you of getting all these things if you do the right
thing with Jesus Christ, just as much as there is for the most moral and
upright and highly respected man or woman here. "What shall I do, then,
with Jesus who is called Christ?" I ask each one of you, Will you do the right
thing with Jesus Christ, or will you do the wrong thing with Jesus Christ?
7. But there is something better
than anything I have mentioned yet that depends entirely on what you do with
Jesus Christ. If you do the right thing with Jesus Christ, then some day you
will become just like Him. Listen to what God says, "How great is the
love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
And that is what we are! Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we
will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:1-2).
"What," someone will say, "can I become like Jesus Christ?"
Yes, even you can become just like Jesus Christ. Think of it! You and I, with
all our present failings, with all our shortcomings, meannesses and
pettinesses, some of which we do not see but others see very clearly, for they
stick out all over us and generally they stick out most conspicuously on those
of us who have the best opinion of ourselves--even we can become just like Him,
be like Him in every perfection and glory of His matchless, faultless,
glorious, Divine character. Yes, and we can be like Him in the glory of His
outward appearance too; for it is written in the Word of God, "But our
citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his
control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious
body" (Philippians 3:20-21). And how can we become just like Him? By doing
the right thing with Jesus Christ.
II. What Is the Right Thing to Do with Jesus Christ?
1. First
of all, the right thing to do with Jesus Christ is to receive Him, to receive
Him as your Savior. This is evident from the verse that we have quoted
already a number of times, John 1:12, "To all who received him, to those
who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." He
died for your sins. "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has
turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us
all" (Isaiah 53:6). Will you accept Him as your sin-bearer? Will you say,
"Oh, God, I believe what Your Word says about Jesus Christ. I believe He
bore my sins in His own body on the cross. I believe every one of my sins was
laid on Him and settled fully and forever when He died on the cross in my
place. And I now take Him as my sin-bearer. Forgive all my sins for Jesus
Christ's sake"?
Take Him not only as your Savior from the guilt of
sin but also as your Savior from the power of sin. He not only died to make
atonement for your sins, He also rose again, and He lives today to set you free
from the power of sin and to make intercession for you (Hebrews 7:25). Will you
take Him now as your Deliverer from the power of sin? Will you come to this
risen and mighty Lord Jesus with all your weakness and sins and trust Him to
set you free? That is the right thing to do with Jesus Christ: Just take Him as
your Savior, your crucified Savior, from the guilt of sin and your risen Savior
from the power of sin.
2. The
next right thing to do with Jesus is to let Him into your heart. He says,
"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and
opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me"
(Revelation 3:20). Jesus is standing at the door of every heart. He is knocking
at the door of every heart. Will you open the door and let Him in? Who will?
Who will say, "Lord Jesus, come in; come in and reign"?
3. The next right thing to do
with Jesus is to enthrone Him in your heart. He is the Christ, God's
anointed King, because God has made Him so. As Peter said on the day of
Pentecost, "God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and
Christ" (Acts 2:36). Will you enthrone Him as King in your heart? Will you
say honestly to Him, "Lord Jesus, take the throne of my heart and live and
reign there supreme"? Who will do it?
4. Once more, the right thing to
do with Jesus Christ is to confess Him before the world as your Lord and
Master. He Himself says in Matthew 10:32, 33, "Whoever
acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in
heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father
in heaven." And Paul says in Romans 10:9-10, "If you confess with
your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from
the dead, you will be saved." Who will do it?
There is just one more right thing to do with
Jesus.
What is it? Go tell others about Him, when you
yourself have taken Him as your Savior and let Him into your heart, and
enthroned Him as King and confessed Him before the world as your Lord. When
Jesus was here on earth He cast several thousand demons out of a wretched man
who was in their control. The condition of that man before he met Jesus was
awful beyond description, but the condition of that man after he met Jesus was
glorious beyond description. And that man naturally wanted to go with Jesus
wherever He went. But Jesus said, "'Return home and tell how much God has
done for you.' So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had
done for him." (Luke 8:39).
Oh, if you have taken Jesus go tell everyone you
can about Him and bring every one you can to Him.
These
are the right things to do with Jesus. Who will do them now and gain all that
is worth having for time and for eternity? Who of you will take Him as your
Savior? Who of you will listen to His voice and let Him into your heart? Who of
you will enthrone Him in your heart as King? Who of you will begin the
confession of Him as your Lord?