Taking Sin Seriously

In his short publication, What Did Jesus Really Mean When He Said Follow Me? author and pastor David Platt describes an encounter between a friend of his and an American Taxi driver regarding the seriousness of sin:

Azeem, an Arab follower of Jesus and a friend of mine, was talking recently with a taxi driver in his country. The driver believed that he would pay for his sin for a little while in hell, but then he would surely go to heaven after that. After all, he hadn’t done too many bad things. So Azeem said to him,

“If I slapped you in the face, what would you do to me?”

The driver replied, “I would throw you out of my taxi.”

“If I went up to a random guy on the street and slapped him in the face, what would he do to me?”

“He would probably call his friends and beat you up.”

“What if I went up to a policeman and slapped him in the face?

What would he do to me?”

“You would be beat up for sure, and then thrown into jail.”

“And what if I went to the king of this country and slapped him in the face? What would happen to me then?”

The driver looked at Azeem and awkwardly laughed. He told Azeem, “You would die.”

The driver got Azeem’s point and realized that he had been severely underestimating the seriousness of his sin against God.