that you eat you shall surely die". The universality of death proves the universality of

sin, if we will only face up to it. We must be absolutely honest here, otherwise, in our

great quest for truth, we shall never get anywhere. It is silly to indulge in wishful

thinking or try to gloss over and not face up to facts.

When the Saviour said "I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" He

is really describing me and He is describing you, and we hope the reader will not be

offended by this statement. You may reply, "I am a good-living person; I am trying to

do the very best I can and God cannot expect more than my best". We have to tell you

that He does expect more than your best. God demands a hundred percent, and even if

we do not like to admit that we are sinners, we shall all have to confess that not a single

living person is absolutely perfect a hundred percent; perhaps some may get somewhere

near it, but all fall short of such an exacting standard.

Why do we say that God demands a hundred percent? It is because in the great plan

that is revealed in the Bible, He is working back to a restored and perfected creation, just

in the way it started. When God created the universe, and we are told in Gen. 1: 1, "In

the beginning God created the heaven and the earth", the whole of it came from His hand

as a work of absolute perfection, and then it was spoiled by sin and failure. Now God

could do one of two things; He could either patch it up and make it better or, He could

make a fresh start and make a new creation, a new heaven and a new earth spotless and

perfect as the first, and that is what the Bible says He is going to do. And in that new

heaven and new earth there will be a "hundred percent" beings--ninety-nine percent will

not do. For that reason God cannot lower His standards, He can not have one sinner in it,

or any blot whatsoever, otherwise His end will never be attained. It is not a question of

doing our best; we cannot make ourselves utterly and absolutely spotless and sinless; we

cannot make ourselves a hundred percent perfect. And because of that, the Lord Jesus

Christ came to put away sin and death righteously, so that we can be a "hundred percent",

if we will only accept Him, God's unspeakable gift, Who alone can give us the perfection

we lack.

"I have come to call sinners to repentance", Christ said, the great need of every sinner

is a Saviour. Can anyone save himself; can he be his own saviour, can other human

beings be his saviour? No, the Bible says, "No man can redeem his brother or give to

God a ransom for him". We cannot save or redeem anybody, not even our closest friend,

however much we would like to be able to do so. If God had not come to our aid in the

person of Christ, the future of all of us would be absolutely hopeless. We should be

outside His perfect Kingdom for evermore. But let us note, the same Saviour said this:

"I am the door; by Me, if any man enter in he shall be saved". He said, in effect, I am

the entrance to this hundred percent state. If you have stepped through Me, like a door,

you will have all you need--I will actually put you in the position of being perfect,

spotless and complete.

Of course, one may try to by-pass God's way but, again, hear Christ's Word: "He that

entereth not by the door", that is, through Himself and trusting what He has done for us

on Calvary's cross, "but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber",