"Work Makes Free"
Johnny V. Miller delivered the following message:
When I was a teenager, I became fascinated, appalled, and grieved by the literature of the Holocaust … One scene that haunts me is a picture from Auschwitz. Above the entryway to the concentration camp were the words, Arbeit macht frei. The same thing stood above the camp at Dachau. It means, "work makes free"—work will liberate you and give you freedom.
It was a lie—a false hope. The Nazis made the people believe hard work would equal liberation, but the promised "liberation" was horrifying suffering and even death.
Mr. Miller adds:
Arbeit macht frei. One reason that phrase haunts me is because it is the spiritual lie of this age. It is a satanic lie. It's a religious lie. It is a false hope—an impossible dream for many people in the world. They believe their good works will be great enough to outweigh their bad works, allowing them to stand before God in eternity and say, "You owe me the right to enter into your heaven."
But it's the love of God that liberates. It's the blood of Jesus Christ that liberates. He died in my place, and I am free.
"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" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Holding the Reservation
Jerry: I made a reservation for a mid-size...
Rental Car Agent: Okay, ler' see here. I'm sorry, we have no midsize available at the moment.
Jerry: I don't understand. Do you have my reservation?
Rental Car Agent: We have your reservation, we just ran out of cars.
Jerry: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.
Rental Car Agent: I think I know why we have reservations.
Jerry: I don't think you do. You see, you know how to *take* the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation. And that's really the most important part of the reservation: the holding. Anybody can just take them.
Do you have a reservation in Heaven? Various world religions claim to provide reservations in Heaven for their adherents, but only God can hold them. That was precisely Jesus' promise when He said, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am" (John 14:1-3, NLT).
Think about it. What good is a religion that only takes reservations? But Jesus not only makes the reservation, He also holds it for us!
Watch Out For Fake Rolexes
Years ago, when I lived just outside of NYC, my wife and I received a lot of visitors. One of our favorite things to do was to take our guests into the city to see the sites. Usually, included in this tour was a trip to Chinatown. The food was great and our guests always enjoyed the unique gift shops we found there.
Without a doubt, the most popular gift item was always the ten-dollar Rolex watch. Virtually all of our guests went home with at least one. They looked real, so long as you didn’t look too closely. But you couldn’t rely on one to keep accurate time. Not even close. As far as watches go, they weren’t worth the ten dollars.
These fake Rolexes (Fauxlexes) are big sellers for one reason: somewhere, other than in China Town, there are real Rolexes. If there weren’t real ones somewhere, there wouldn’t be a market for the fake ones. These knockoffs owed their very existence to the public’s desire for the original.
Jesus warned His followers that there would be no shortage of false prophets in the world. So, we shouldn’t be surprised that there are wolves in sheep’s clothing in the Church, and we certainly shouldn’t allow them to cause us to question the truth of the Gospel.
Charlatans exist because the real thing exists. Forgeries are never made of forgeries. They are not the truth, but they are proof of the truth.
"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves" (Matthew 7:15).