One night in my own church in Chicago in the after-meeting, a gentleman who sat in the second row called me to his side. He said, “I want to ask you a question. I am not a Christian. I make no pretensions to being a Christian, but I lead a moral, upright, honest life, and the question I want to ask you is this, if I don’t accept Christ, leading the moral, upright life that I do, will I be sent to hell just because I don’t accept Christ?” I said, “You certainly will.” “Well, all I have to say is, it isn’t fair.” I said, “Wait. Suppose you had a mother, who was one of the noblest women that ever lived.” He said, “I have.” “Suppose that mother loved you with even greater love than a mother ordinarily loves her son.” He said, “She does.” “Suppose that mother would be willing to lay down her life and to die for you.” He said, “She would.”
“Very well,” I said, “having such a mother as you say you have, suppose you should do your duty by everyone else, your duty by your wife, by your children, by those you are connected with in business, by your neighbors, by the state, your duty by everyone else but that old mother that loves you, that has suffered for you, that would be willing to die for you; now suppose you turned her out on the street to starve and perish, what would you say of yourself?” He said, “I should say that I was a scoundrel.”
“Very well,” I said, “Jesus Christ is holier, better, nobler than any mother that ever lived. Jesus Christ not only loved you enough to die for you, He actually did die for you. Now suppose you do your duty by wife, by children, by neighbors, by business associates, but utterly fail in your duty to Jesus Christ, what would you say of yourself?” He had sense enough to see the point. He said, “I am a scoundrel.”
Be honest. You will have to be honest someday. Be honest with God, be honest with yourself. The claims of Christ are higher than the claims of the whole race, and if we do our duty by every fellow being and fail in our duty towards Christ, we fail at the principal point.