This spiritually lethal whopper has been around for thousands of years and qualifies as the most damaging lie of them all.

Because it is so subtle, so seemingly “logical” that it has persisted in various forms since the dawn of time.

People who fall for it are not only worse off in the here and now, but can end up separated from God forever in the hereafter.

The spiritual “arithmetic” that leads to Hell.

As written in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way which seems right to a person, but its end is the way of death.”

So, what is this “spiritual sandcastle” that so many billions of people through the ages have foolishly bet their eternal lives upon? All the while thinking they’re on a ladder to heaven, when in fact, they’re approaching a trapdoor to the “other place”?

It is the belief that when you die you will somehow be ushered into God’s presence where He will have a set of scales with which to “weigh” your life in the balance.

Your good work and stellar behavior will be placed on one side, and your bad works and misdeeds will go on the other side of the scale.

Supposedly, if your good “stuff” outweighs your bad “stuff,” then, bingo, you’re in Heaven for good. Otherwise, you are out of luck, and end up in Hell.

This view makes salvation a matter of arithmetic, (Hell or, Heaven = my good stuff – my bad stuff).

Oh, Balderdash!

Yes, it seems logical in our merit-based world, and that is why so many fall for it.

This little mental charade takes countless forms: “I’ve tried to live a good life,” “I’ve tried to live up to the Ten Commandments,” “I’ve gone to church regularly,” “I’ve been baptized,” “I’m basically a good person,” “I belong to the right denomination,” etc.

Trouble is, all such supposedly “religious” positions rely for their support, upon the ultimate “broken crutch” … YOU … and therein lies the fatal flaw.

The terms “I’ve,” “I’m,” “I” say it all. You are pointing to yourself and your merits that give you a right, a claim, on God to let you in.

You have appointed yourself your own savior and sadly, your savior doesn’t amount to much.

The telltale attitude behind the deception, hubris.

“The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick;
Who can understand it?”
— Jeremiah 17:9

People who sign up for this merit/demerit approach to God have no idea what they’re bargaining for. To begin with, they must present to God a life lived perfectly — without one tiny sin — ever.

The Apostle James put it this way in James 2:10, “For whoever keeps the whole Law, yet stumbles in one point, has become guilty of all.”

If they lived a perfect life (impossible) and on their deathbed uttered a tiny “white” lie, the Law says they will be considered as having lived a completely godless life all along, “guilty of all” (the Laws).

Can you say that you’ve never stumbled even on one point of the Law? Remember, we’re not just talking about the “Big Ten” commandments, but the 613 additional laws associated with the Ten.

In Romans 3:10, the Apostle Paul wrote: “… by the works of the Law none of mankind will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes knowledge of sin.”

The Law was never intended to save anyone. It was intended to show us how far we fall short, how sinful we are, so we’ll look outside ourselves for help (more on that in a coming column).

How About You?

Do you really believe that you have bargaining power with God? That you can put God in your debt, effectively saying, “Hey God, look at me, I’ve done this all by myself, you owe me an all-expense-paid trip to Heaven!”

God put the Old Testament saint, Job, straight on that point in Job 41:11, “Who has been first to give to Me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the entire heaven is Mine.”

Don’t even go there.

Do you see the insult to Christ and HIS WORK on the cross for you? No one who struts up to God proudly waving their personal merits survives the experience.

The infinitely safer posture is to come empty handed like the prophet Isaiah, as outlined in Isaiah 6:4-6:

“And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I (Isaiah) said,

‘Woe to me, for I am ruined!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I live among a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of armies.’”

Now we’re getting somewhere.