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There’s a little-known story about Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday we celebrate this week, which needs to be told.

Shortly before his death, an Illinois clergyman asked Abraham Lincoln, “Do you love Jesus?”  Mr. Lincoln solemnly replied:

“When I left Springfield I asked the people to pray for me.  I was not a Christian.  When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian.  But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ.  Yes, I do love Jesus.”

(America’s Providential History, p. 241)

Abraham Lincoln was not by himself in his profession of Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour of his life.  Most of our ancestors in America, up until 1900, did know Jesus as their Lord.  It was their faith in God, and their belief that the Bible was true, that made America the greatest nation on earth.  However, in the early 1900s a different way of thinking began to take root in America because the churches had weakened by that time.  Liberal theology, which accepted the possibility of a different ‘creator’ of man, began to make its way into the seminaries and public school system of America.  The result was that we began to accept that anyone who was, quote, “good” or religious (meaning he went to church somewhere), was also a Christian.  No longer did the churches require that people make an open statement of their faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and their Saviour.

The result was that a new generation arose in the 1930s and 40s whose intellectual elite looked more to the writings of the atheist, Karl Marx, and men like the French atheist Voltaire, for their view of life.  While most true Christians didn’t know it, their pastors graduating from these seminaries were being influenced by the thinking of these atheists.  Thus, the church stopped emphasizing, you must be “born again,” as Jesus had said (John 3:3).

Today, we are seeing the full effect of this liberal thought process.  Many of our young adults and teenagers have no clue why they are alive.  They experiment with every kind of heathen practice that they think will bring them a thrill.  Property rights are almost non-existent.  Suicide per capita is at an all time high.  The family, as defined in the Bible, is almost unknown.  In the world marriage is ridiculed by people ‘just living together’; and worse, what is called “marriage” between homosexuals.

Many of you who think you are okay with God are actually deceived.  You think when you die God will weigh your good deeds against your bad ones and because your good will outweigh your bad, He’ll let you into heaven; when the truth is what Jesus said,

“Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

(Luke 13:3)

To repent means you change your mind about who has the right to make your decisions in life.  To repent means you admit Jesus is God’s Son and that His shed blood at the Cross is your only hope of being accepted by God.  To repent means you are willing to stand with God in the crowd, even if you are the only one to stand for what’s right. Repent means you change your mind about the church and that you are willing to be baptized and identify with one that believes and teaches the Bible to be completely true.

Have you repented by this definition?  If you haven’t, it doesn’t matter what church’s roll your name is on—you do not know God and you won’t go to heaven when you die.  You are deceived!!!  You would do well to heed Lincoln’s words when he said:

“It behooves us then to humble ourselves before [God], to confess our…sins and to pray for…forgiveness.”

(Lincoln’s Fast Day Proclamation; March 30, 1863)

Will you repent to God?

Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—
and for your children!  And you won’t like what that brings to you.  I’m Don Pinson, this has been Think About It.