How Big Was The Debt
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Luke 7:41-43,47 'Two people owed money to a certain money-lender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?' Simon replied, 'I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.' 'You have judged correctly,' Jesus said. . . .But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.'
David Martin Loyd Jones said, "Imagine that a friend of mine comes to see me and says, Hey, I was at your house the other day and a bill came due and you weren't there so I paid it." Jones says, "How should I respond?" The answer is that I have no idea how to respond until I know how big that bill was. Was it just postage due and you pay another 20 cents or so? What if the IRS finally found you, and you owed ten years of back taxes? What if it was an enormous debt? Jones says, "Until I know how much that he paid, I don't know whether to shake his hand or to fall down on the ground and kiss his feet."
You do not know how much Jesus loves you unless you know how much that He suffered. Jesus Christ spoke more about Hell than anybody else in the Bible because on the cross He lost the eternal love of the Father. He experienced an agony and isolation infinitely greater than you and I would experience in an eternity in Hell. He took the isolation and the disintegration that we deserve because He loves us. Unless we see that He didn't just experience physical or emotional pain on the cross on the cross, then we will never know how much that He loves us.
People getting rid of the idea of judgment and Hell try to make God more loving, but they make Him less. If somebody says to me, "I believe in a god of love. I don't believe in Hell or judgment." I always say to them, "What did it cost your god to love you?" They say, "I don't know if it cost Him anything. He just loves everybody." If God just loves everybody and it didn't cost Him at all, I can honor and be glad for a god like that. If I want to be transformed and sense His wild love around me, I have to believe in Hell. Jesus Christ was the judge of the earth who came not to bring judgment but to bare judgment and go to Hell for His enemies. If you understand and grasp that, then it's going to equip you to live at peace with yourself and other people and with God who did this for you.
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining
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