Briefly, as wonderful new followers trickle in:
> There is a God.
> He alone is by His nature perfectly holy, good, just, merciful, loving, and wise.
> Because of this, He alone may define what these things mean.
> He gave a perfect law, which all human beings have violated in deed and in heart.
> As lawbreakers, all humanity stands guilty in the court of the only just Judge, and may not open their mouths in their own defense.
> Because God is perfectly holy, any violation of His perfect law requires a perfect atonement.
> Because we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, we are incapable of offering this atonement on behalf of our own lawbreaking. The wages due this lawbreaking is death.
> If you are a human being, you have lied, stolen, hated your neighbor for the things he has and you don’t, reviled God, lusted after strangers on the street, and waved it all away by saying at least you’re not as bad as Hitler.
> God was not required to make any provision for this great failing on our part, but because of the great love with which He loved us, He became a Man, born of a woman, born under the law, and lived the only human life in history in perfect obedience to that law…
>…and when the time was full, He offered up His own body to be punished in the place of deserving lawbreakers.
> All the gods of Olympus and of Asgard, of sun and stars and earth and sea, gods of war and sex and thunder, gods of the river and gods of the fire, wreaked their displeasure with Man upon Man himself.
> Only the God of Abraham laid His own willing Child upon that altar, and brought down the killing blow on His own Son in the stead of guilty men.
> Because this Son was not guilty, but perfectly innocent of all the crimes laid on His bloody shoulders, death could not hold Him, and the Spirit of God raised Him to life after three days in the tomb, thereby vindicating His offering and sealing His payment for all the people He purchased with this ransom.
> The whole world measures time now in accordance with this truth. It is the great historical demarcation.
> All who call on the name of this Christ, who cast themselves upon His perfect offering for their blood-guilt, who believe what God has said about Him in the Scriptures, may hand Him the soiled, bloodstained garment of their own failed moral efforts, and be wrapped instead in the snow-white linen of His perfect obedience as if it was their own.
> This is Christianity. It is not death, but life. It is not thirst, but cool, sweet water on a dry, parched tongue. It is not starvation for the pleasures you love, but the first filet mignon you’ll ever eat after a lifetime of licking dust off of the floor to ease your hunger pains. It is not stringent culthood, but adoption by the Father your heart has longed for all your life.
> In the name of the Lord Jesus, be reconciled to God through this perfect atonement. Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart. You need this Man to stand in your law-place. You need the plea of His blood across the letter that stands against you in this cosmic court. You need His name on your doorpost and on your head. No other name will suffice, for there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved.
