Well, we Protestants don't believe in any transitional place of reform between earth and heaven. There is no purgatory. It's appointed for man to die once, and immediately after his physical death comes the eternal verdict. And in light of that comes this question. Is it fair for the soul's eternal destiny to be irreversibly determined by the mere span of 70 years of life in this world?

This question comes from a listener named Sean. It's something that he himself was asked as a pushback. "Hello Pastor John, thank you for this podcast. I was recently asked this question. What kind of silly God determines the eternal future of a soul based on the span of only one lifetime?

This seems fundamentally out of balance to many. How would you help me answer this objection from Scripture?" I would begin and end by saying that God's judgment is not silly, but infinitely serious. And I would look for some indication behind that word silly that my friend is at least a little bit open to the possibility that what the Bible teaches may prove spectacularly true and make his own assessment of silliness a great problem for him.

Is he open to that? And if I discern that he is willing to listen, then I would try to help him see how the Bible shows that it is perfectly just for God to condemn a person to eternal suffering, not just on the basis of 70 years of sinning, but five seconds of sinning.

From his standpoint, the problem is much more serious than he thinks it is. Or to use his words, the maker of the universe is much sillier than he thinks he is. One more comment about attitude, and this is a big deal because Paul makes a big deal out of it in Romans 9.

Jesus makes a big deal out of it when he wouldn't answer the question of those who wouldn't tell the truth to him. One more comment about attitude. God can handle our questions. He can handle our frustrations. He can handle our being utterly baffled. He can handle our confusion. He can handle our being at an utter loss to understand his ways.

What God does not tolerate is an attitude of condemnation toward God himself, an attitude that writes him off even before we understand his nature or his action. To such a person, Paul says in Romans 9.20, "Who are you, O man?" to answer back to God. He would say, "Who are you to call God silly?" The problem is not the questioner's perplexity.

That's understandable. We're not God. We're just human. His ways are often above our ways. The problem is an attitude of being unteachable, self-sufficient. So let me make three brief exegetical observations, text observations, and then offer a principle that I hope will help. First, Romans 5.18 says, Paul says, "As one trespass led to condemnation for all men," that's a pretty amazing statement, "so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men." This is why I said that the issue is more serious than 70 years of sinning resulting in eternal condemnation.

The issue is five seconds. That's how long it took Adam and Eve to be condemned with the whole human race. Treason against the all-wise God, the all-powerful Creator, the Sustainer of the universe, that brief act of treason resulted in the corruption of the entire race so that all of us are guilty in our sin, and we know we are.

Even the man who says God is silly knows it in his deep down consciousness. We know that because of what we have become in our corruption, we deserve punishment. That's observation number one. Number two, James 2.10 says, "Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable of all of it." And again, one sin makes us culpable of the whole law, and James explains why in the next verse.

He says, "Because he," we're dealing with God here, "he who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' is also the one who said all the other commandments," or, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. It's the person behind the law whom you're offending, that's the issue here, not how many of these you offend against.

In other words, the issue is not the quantification of sins or the quantification of the years of sinning. The issue is the vast difference between us as sinners and the infinite greatness of the person we're sinning against. More on that in just a minute. Third exegetical comment from Galatians 3.10.

"All who rely upon the law are under a curse, for it is written, 'Cursed be everyone who does not abide in all things written in the book of the law to do them.'" So from the biblical standpoint, as we stand before our Creator, we are obliged to do everything he says.

Not 99% of it, but everything. And if we do not abide in all the things written in the book of the law, we're under a divine curse. And I would encourage my friend at this point, indeed I would plead with him, not to exalt himself above Scripture and call God silly, but to humble himself at least under the possibility that because of his sin with all the rest of us, he is in great peril as he talks to God.

So here's the principle I said I would mention, and I would commend it for his consideration. Any offense, any dishonor against an infinitely worthy, an infinitely valuable, an infinitely dignified, an infinitely beautiful being is an infinite sin and deserves an infinite punishment. If the only way to measure the seriousness of sin and the seriousness of punishment was the time it took to sin and the time it took to punish, then eternal hell maybe would be an overreaction.

But neither human nor divine justice operates that way. It takes five seconds to kill a man. I'm talking about if I were to kill a man. Five seconds. It takes five seconds to kill a man. And I would be locked up—well, I'm too old, but say a 20-year-old kills a man in five seconds.

He'd be locked up for 50 years. And I did a little math. That's 378 billion times more punishment than the five seconds took to murder. We all know that time is not what measures the grievousness of a sin. Otherwise, it takes five seconds to kill, you'd be in jail for five seconds.

Go out. Everybody knows it doesn't work that way. It's a—I'm tempted to say—silly question. But I don't think so. It's serious. A lot hangs on it. The grievousness and heinousness of sin rises to its infinite proportions not because of the extent of time covered in the act of sin, but by the one whom we are sinning against, the dishonor we are bringing upon an infinitely honorable being.

If you dishonor a toad, you're not very guilty. I stomped on a toad when I was a teenager, and I felt a little bad, but not much. If you dishonor a man, you're very guilty. If you dishonor God, you are infinitely guilty, because he's infinitely worthy of every millisecond of worship in your life.

If you don't give it, you multiply the storehouse of wrath. And who can measure such an offense? Well, God can, and he is just. Amen. That's the very, very high price of five seconds of treason against the Creator of the universe. Well said, Pastor John. That was very heavy.

Thank you. And thanks for listening and making the podcast part of your week. You can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our past episodes in our archive, even reach us by email with a question of your own, even tricky questions that you hear from people as they attempt to undermine the gospel, which seems to be what we fielded in this APJ today.

You can do all of those things through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well in Matthew 5, 16, Jesus says we should let our light shine before men so that the world can see our good works and glorify God. But in Matthew 6, verse 1, Jesus says that we should not practice our works in public to be seen by others.

So we'll end the week asking this question. So should we Instagram our good works or not? The question is made especially interesting in light of Matthew 5, 16 and Matthew 6, 1 and the apparent tension with those two texts. That's next. That's Friday. I'm your host Tony Ranke and we'll see you then.

Bye.