Hello, everyone. This is Tony again, and before we dive into today's episode, I'd like to ask you for a favor.

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Was the cross overkill for sin? It's a question from a listener named Lisa.

Dear Pastor John, thank you for your diligence and taking the time to help people all over the world work through difficult questions. I have one.

Why do we need a savior in the first place?

I consider myself to be a good person and when I look around at most people, I would say the same about them.

I know I'm not perfect and I cannot hold God's law perfectly, but I don't consider my thoughts and actions to be so terrible that they need to be punished by death.

Should I really need to die because I disobeyed my parents as a child or told a lie?

I have a difficult time seeing myself and those close to me as being wicked and utterly depraved.

There is certainly great evil in the world, such as war, rape, murder, racism, oppression, etc.

But the majority of the world doesn't need God to see these things as evil or to make a positive change.

I certainly don't see how someone innocent, dying a horrible death, can somehow make my wrongs right in the sight of God.

And you helped me make sense of this seemingly twisted justice and come to understand why I need Jesus.

I think Lisa speaks for millions of people who quietly don't feel comfortable to put it mildly, don't feel comfortable with hell or with the cross of Christ.

And I would stake the problem like this, where God is small and man is big, hell will be abhorrent indeed absurd and the cross will be foolishness.

So where God is small and man is big, hell will be abhorrent and the cross will be foolishness.

The most telling thing about Lisa's question is that her conception of evil can never be big enough to make sense of hell or the cross of Christ because she defines evil only in relation to what harms man, not what demeans God.

She says, for example, I have a difficult time seeing myself as being wicked and utterly depraved and then she defines evil like this.

There is great evil in the world, such as war, rape, murder, racism, oppression.

But the majority of the world doesn't need God to see these things as evil or make a change.

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