I have this recurring nightmare…
“Crowd In a Park” by Francisco de Goya
I am outside somewhere where kids are playing, usually a public park, and it’s packed, there are people everywhere.
Nearby there is a large building, with an entrance close to us which leads into an elaborate glass walled and ceilinged room. Further along there is another entrance which leads to a less elaborate, but cozy windowless basement.
Everything is fine and happy for a little while, but then something changes in the air and as I look off into the distance, I notice dark clouds.
The clouds begin to twist as the wind picks up. I watch as a thick and massive funnel drops to the ground. Next to it, another thinner spindly funnel begins to zigzag down, behind that another one, and they just keep appearing. The sun is blotted out as the horizon fills with countless tornadoes, but somehow, I am the only one who seems to have noticed.
“Tornado Storm 1 Collage” by Steve Ohlsen
I start to yell to the crowds, “Look! Tornadoes are coming! Quick, get inside! Go to that door over there that leads to this building’s basement!”
A few people hear me, turn to see the tornadoes, grab their kids, and run off in the direction of the building. But most people act as if I don’t exist. I try to get in their faces, to get their attention. A couple more notice me and run in the direction of safety. Most still ignore me.
“Look!” I yell. “Those tornadoes are coming and they will kill us all if we don’t take shelter right now! We are running out of time!”
I start to get desperate and physically grab some heads and turn them in the direction of the tornadoes. A few acknowledge the danger and run towards safety but some other people look at the tornadoes, shrug, and continue on with what they are doing.
I consider running to safety myself and leaving everyone who is ignoring me to their fate, but I decide that while I still have time, I will keep trying because maybe someone just hasn’t had the chance to hear my warning yet.
I run to the other side of the park while continuing to yell my warning, a few more run to safety but most people keep ignoring me.
I’m now at my wits end. I decide that just because the adults are foolish, doesn’t mean the kids should die. I start grabbing and carrying as many kids as I can down to the entrance to the basement door. I funnel them inside and tell the adults already there to watch them as I run back to the park to grab more. I continue this pattern, until the tornadoes are practically on top of us. With a pile of kids in my arms and on my back I make one last trip toward the basement door.
But on this trip I realize there is a line of people forming outside the door to the above-ground, glass-walled room. In front of the line is a table with people selling tickets to the glass room. There is a big sign on the table which says, “Safety from the storm here, only $10 a person”.
I am furious. I drop off the kids I’m carrying inside the basement door and then run back to the line. The wind from the tornadoes is so loud I have to get right next to each person in line, yelling in their ear for them to hear me. “They are lying to you, this does not lead to safety. A glass room cannot keep you safe from a tornado. They are charging you and you will die. But right over there is a door to the basement, you will be safe there, and it is free to get in. Go over there, quick!”
I tell every single person. A few listen and run to safety, again, most do not.
They roll their eyes and scoff. “Who are you?” they say. “Why should we listen to you? These people are traditionally known for providing safety from storms. They have centuries of experience. What could you possibly know about it?”
“They are scamming you!” I yell. “Look! You can easily see with your own eyes that the room is made of glass!”
The people left in the line do not care. So, I push my way past the ticket table and run into the glass room to try to warn the people already inside.
“Everyone! You are not safe here! Those tornadoes will shatter this glass and the shards will tear right through you!” I point to a door towards the back of the room that leads to the basement. “You have to get downstairs! It’s free to go down there and you will actually be safe there!”
Some people actually listen, they can see the tornadoes through the glass and have already been concerned for a while, my words were all they needed to have their fears confirmed. They run to safety in the basement.
But most people ignore me. Either they don’t think I know what I’m talking about or they have already invested so much money and time into getting into this glass room that they refuse to admit it is a scam. I try to physically pull people towards the basement. They fight my efforts to save them.
The tornadoes are on top of us so I finally give up and duck into the safety of the basement.
Then I wake up.
It isn’t a mystery to me why this nightmare plagues me. It’s a clear illustration of what has torn at my heart every single day since I first learned about the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for us.
Some people don’t know about the impending danger or the free salvation which has been provided, and it is my job, along with every other Christian, to tell people about it.
The tornadoes in my dreams represent judgment day, which we will all face after death. Even if we are ignoring it, it is still there, looming on the horizon.
But, like the door to the safety of the basement, there is shelter from the consequences of that day available. Christ took on the punishment for our sins, Himself, so that we wouldn't have to. He paid the price of our shortcomings.
We just have to decide if we still want to pay for our failings ourselves and face God’s judgment, or if we want to accept Jesus’s payment as our own. His payment is free, just as the door to safety in the basement was free to enter.
“Blind Faith” by Ciro Marchetti
However, there are other forces at work and other people in the world who are only out for themselves. They will give you a long list of things they claim you must do to pay for your sins and it usually includes giving them money. They claim that if you choose their way, to pay for your sins yourself, you will be saved from the judgment seat of God. But their way offers no protection from God’s judgment. You cannot not pay for your sins with man-made traditions or offerings.
Hebrews 10:1-3;8-14 (NIV) “The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins….
First he [Jesus] said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
You cannot undo your mistakes by covering them with good deeds. The mistakes are still there, you will still have to pay for them. The glass room cannot keep you safe from tornadoes, no matter how much you pay to get into it.
The only way to not have to face the consequences of your own sins, is to let someone else face those consequences for you. And that person cannot have their own sins to pay for or they would spend all their time paying for those and couldn’t pay for ours.
Jesus was able to live a sinless life because He is God. He came down to earth as a man in order to fulfill the Old Testament Law by living a sinless life and then take on the consequences of sin for us, because He loves us. Jesus offers us safety from those consequences, and he offers it for free, all we have to do is choose to accept His free offer and “take shelter in the basement”.
1 John 4:10 (NIV): “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
Galatians 2:19-21 (NIV): “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV): “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”