In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of ensuring that our lives are right with God and that our sins are forgiven before Jesus Christ returns to judge the world. The invitation is extended to all to acknowledge their sins, believe in Christ's sacrifice on the cross, receive Him into their lives, ask for forgiveness, and confess Him as Lord. The preacher explains that Jesus' death on the cross paid the punishment for all our sins, and the proof of this is His resurrection after three days. The uniqueness of the Christian gospel lies in the fact that it acknowledges humanity's lost state and offers a way to salvation through Christ's sacrifice and resurrection.

Sin separates man from God, and this is the problem that needs to be dealt with first before man can come back into fellowship with God. God is a holy God. He is a loving Father. He is a God full of goodness and love. But however loving He may be, He cannot overlook our rebellion and our sin, because He is holy as well. Now, it's this balance between the holiness and the love of God that many people do not seem to have understood. Many people's idea is this, that if they just go to God and say, well, God, I'm sorry for what I have done, He will forgive them. But on what basis can He forgive them? If you were to commit a crime against the laws of the land, and you were taken to court by the police, and if in the seat of the judge, the one sitting there was your own earthly father, who loved you intensely, could he say, well, I love you, my son, I declare you to be free? He may love you intensely, but he's sitting there as a judge, and it would be unjust for him to let you go. Now, if a human being can be so just and fair and righteous, can you imagine how much more just and righteous God is? But what can that father do for you? He can punish you the full penalty of the law. Let us say it's a hundred thousand rupees, fine, that he imposes upon you as a judge. And then, he can step down from his judge's chair, take off his robes and come to you as your father, and write out a check from his own hard-earned money for that one hundred thousand rupees and give it to you to pay the fine. Then there would be no injustice, because he has punished you with the full penalty of the law. And then, paid that punishment himself. This is the only way in which God can forgive our sins. It's not by our feeling sorry for our sins alone. It is by God having provided a way in His justice for the price for our sins being paid. This is the whole message of the Bible. This is what Jesus Christ did. God came down to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and paid that price. He punished us with the full penalty of the law. The punishment for sin is death. You and I need to get that death, whether our sins are many or few. A man who commits one murder is hanged and a man who commits a thousand murders is also hanged. The number of sins doesn't make a difference. If we are guilty, we deserve death, whether our sins be one or many. But God in His love made this way by which our sins can be forgiven. Jesus Christ came to earth and took our punishment when He died upon the cross. God had to become a man just like us. He had to live through the temptations and struggles that we face as human beings. And He died as a sacrifice in our stead, taking the punishment of our sins upon Himself. Now, remember this. The punishment for sin is not physical suffering or sickness or poverty or coming back into the world at a lower social scale or any such thing. The punishment for sin is eternal death. It means being separated from God forever. And our sin is like a debt that we owe to God. And Jesus Christ, when He died, paid that debt for us. Our good works, the Bible says, are like filthy rags in God's sight. We think of certain works as good works and certain works as bad works. But that's because we compare ourselves with other people who are more evil than us. To take an illustration from a classroom, a student who got 25% in mathematics may consider himself a very bright student compared to the other student who got 5%. And that may be true. But he's failed, just like the other student has failed as well. And they both have to sit in the same class the next year, even though one got 20 marks more than the other. So when we say we're good or somebody's good, it's a relative term. Compared to somebody else, he's good. He got 20%, the other person got 10%. But compared to Almighty God's standard of 100%, everybody has come short. And that's why the Bible says, even the so-called good things that you've done, the good deeds, are not valuable in God's eyes. They're like filthy rags in God's eyes. They cannot make you acceptable before Him. It's because we have such a low understanding of God's standards that we think a few good works that we do are going to make us acceptable to Him. God's standard of holiness is infinite. And none of us can ever reach it. We're all in a hopeless condition. Every one of us. And if even our good works and the best works we can ever do cannot measure up to God's standard, then what hope is there for us? We are hopelessly lost. And that's why God made this way, through sending His own Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins. And through Christ's death, every sin of every human being has been totally atoned for. That means paid for. Your debt has been paid. But like the illustration I used in the beginning of the father who comes down from the judge's seat and writes out a check and gives it to his son to pay the fine, that son is still not free until he takes the check from his father. It's not enough that the father has written the check. The son has to take it. And that is what God is waiting for man to do. God has already paid the price for man's sin when Christ died 2,000 years ago on a cross. But that forgiveness can never be yours until you accept it. You have to take it. You have to say, Thank you, Lord, for dying for me. And do you see the foolishness of a man when he does not receive that which is offered freely? What would you think of that son in the courtroom when his father writes out this check for one lakh rupees, one hundred thousand rupees, and he doesn't take it? That is the foolishness of man everywhere. If that son says, No, I'll pay the fine myself. Well, he's going to spend years in jail and still not be able to pay the fine. And that's the condition of man. Man is unable to pay for his sins. The only way we can have our sins forgiven is coming in simplicity, acknowledging our need and saying, Lord, I am unable to meet my need of forgiveness. I want to receive it from you. I'm never able to pay for my sins. Thank you that Jesus died for me and that when he shed his blood on the cross and gave his body as a sacrifice, that took care of the punishment of all my sins, the demands of God's justice have been met. And the proof of this, this is the important thing. How do we know whether this sacrifice of Jesus Christ was accepted or not by a holy God? The proof is that after three days, Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. See, these two things make the message of the Bible and the Christian gospel unique. It's different from any other message. In these two things, we can say that every religion in the world teaches that we must be good, we must be kind, we must not harm others. It's all true. But there is a foundation in the Christian gospel, which is unique. And what is that? Two things basically. The Christian gospel does not start with be good, be kind, don't tell lies. That comes much later. It starts with you cannot be good, you cannot be upright. Everything you do is unacceptable to God. First of all, you need the guilt of your past life to be removed. You got to clear your old account first before we start on our new account. The old debt has to be cleared. How is that cleared? Christ died for the sins of the world. That's the way that old record is cleared. The debt is taken out of the way. And secondly, the proof is that Christ rose again from the dead. There is only one person in the history of the human race who came out from the grave and conquered man's greatest enemy, death. That's one thing man has never been able to conquer. Man has conquered space, man has conquered many sicknesses, but he's never been able to conquer death and he will never be able to conquer death. Jesus Christ conquered death and that was the proof, the final proof to the entire human race that his sacrifice was accepted. And now all we got to do is believe and receive. The Bible says, if you believe in your heart that God raised up Jesus from the dead and you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, you will be saved. Your sins will be forgiven. It's like receiving that check which the father gives and saying, thank you dad for paying my fine. I can go out of this courtroom absolutely free. The Bible says that Jesus Christ is going to one day come back to this world to judge every human being that ever lived here. And before that time comes, we have to make sure that our life is right with God, that our sins are forgiven. And this is the invitation that comes to you today. What do you have to do? Acknowledge that you are a sinner. Believe that Christ died for your sins and rose again. Receive him into your life. Ask him to forgive you. Confess him as your Lord. That means say with your mouth that Jesus Christ is now my Lord. It's that simple. May God help you to take that decision today.