There was a car in the shade of the trees in the park, and the car door stood wide open. A strange man was leaning in. An older couple who knew the car’s owner suddenly quickened their steps just as he looked over his shoulder.
The door was shut with a bang, and the young man began to stride rapidly away at a right angle to the couple. Cutting diagonally toward him, they called, “What were you doing in that car?”
Faster he went, calling back, “Sorry! Sorry! Okay?”
Then as they still followed, he shouted, “Sorry! Okay?” and he sounded as irritated as if his “Sorry!” should excuse everything.
Was “Sorry! Sorry!” really enough?
The couple who witnessed the incident didn’t think so. They told the owner, and described the would-be robber.
The young woman whose car had been rifled didn’t think so. She pointed him out to the Park Ranger.
The ranger, the representative of the law, took an even darker view. He stopped the young man, checked his identification, verified it with the police, and let him go at last with the warning that if he should return to the park he would be arrested for trespassing. What seemed like a very minor offense was definitely lawbreaking, and “Sorry! Sorry!” was not “okay.”
Some day there will be millions—billions—of souls before the throne of judgment. Will “Sorry! Sorry!” and an ingratiating smile and “Okay?” be enough to admit them to heaven?
Never!
Every single one of us has “sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:2323For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)). Just feeling “sorry” for sin is not enough. The penalty must be paid, and no sinner can possibly do it. Only One who had no sin can be accepted—accepted in the place of the sinner who has put his faith and trust in Him—Jesus Christ, the Son of God. “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:1212Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)).
It all comes back to that wonderful, well-known verse: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)).
“Christ also hath once suffered for sins,
the just for the unjust, that He might
bring us to God.”