"Ummmh, No. I’m just passing through." Stuart Crossler pressed his right elbow up against his rib cage. There, underneath a natty sports coat and his pinpoint button-down, he felt the vest he had strapped on earlier that morning. The vest was fitted with sixteen pockets, six in front and ten in rows across the back. Each pocket was filled to capacity with currency of only the noblest denominations. He was loaded.

He hadn’t really come to the Blue Marble planning to wager his wealth. In fact he hadn’t really 

planned anything yet that day. The routines of his day, although by definition routine, had brought Stu unexpectedly to this establishment. At eight that morning his most penetrating thought was that he was glad that his "new self" was twenty pounds lighter than his old one. "If I weren’t skinny, this vest would make me look fat," he thought to himself in a moment of reckless obviousness. Although not attached to his cache in an emotional way, he nonetheless kept it attached to himself lest it become the emotional and constructive property of someone else - anyone else. Fear did not guide him; it served more of an advisory role.

"The lights are brighter than I thought," thought Stu as he entered the Casino. He had always heard these were dark affairs full of men with busted noses and less than discriminating women. In fact, the people seemed friendly and altogether ordinary, even a few families could be found at the gaming tables.

Ah, the tables. As far as the eye could see, tables of various dimensions and allure were choked 

with players. Men and women staffed the tables with as much diversity as the tables themselves. Some barked the appeals of their venues with religious zeal. Others stood by, almost dispassionately, calmly anticipating the arrival of the next wave of optimistic bettors. It was to this sort that Stu was attracted.

"Good day, Mr. Crossler," said a tall young lady with the skin the color of a statue in a Henry Moore sculpture garden. "What can I get you?"

"Oh, hi. I, uh, I’m just passing through," Stu said looking around. "I don’t really understand..."

Well, that’s okay," the lady interrupted (for which Stu was privately grateful). "Look, it’s really simple here. You just enjoy yourself. This is a place where you decide what you want to do and when you want to do it. Look at all these folks, don’t they look happy?"

"Yeah, they look happy. But where are all the losers? There are winners and losers here, right." (Stu wasn’t his high school’s valedictorian for nothing.)

"Everyone is happy because they are playing the games they enjoy playing. Look at the 

Biddlemans. They have been at that one table for I don’t know how long. And old Mr. Tinler just 

keeps rotating between about seventeen different tables. Seventeen tables, and doesn’t he look 

happy?"

"I grant you they look happy, but what about the winning and losing part?" Stuart Crossler’s dogged persistence had been the author of his great and now closely-held fortune. Sitting at home one Saturday afternoon, Stu watched an NBA game with unusual insightfulness, and no small amount of scientific philosophy.

The game had turned on the last basket - well, the lack thereof. The ball had been inbounded by the team trailing by a single point. The remaining time would have allowed a tight pass and a 

high-percentage shot. The pass came as planned, but as the point guard swirled for the shot, his fingers lost traction on the ball. He had to force down a quick dribble and then shoot. The ball drained the net, but the blare of the game-ending buzzer sounded at the moment the ball last rested upon his fingertips. The basket did not count.

"Injustice!" Stu screamed at his television which gave no reply. Stu was struck, almost physically, with the principle of the infinitude of a finite measure, or as he liked to say, "How many times can you divide an inch in half?" If the second which had preceded the inbound pass had been divided in tenths, the shooter would have had the benefit of an additional fraction of a moment to separate himself from the ball on its flight to victory.

Flung into action, Stu spent the next three years as a contingently compensated lobbyist for the NBA players association. If he got the league to accept timing in tenths, the players would, out of their personal salaries, pay him the league average one-year salary. Stu was successful, the league times in tenths, and Stu no longer tolerates arguments as to the extent to which pro-ball players are "overpaid." He became a very wealthy man.

"What about the winning and losing part?" Stu inquired again thinking he had lost the attention of the lady whose name badge read ‘Nilla.’

"Mr. Crossler, this room is for playing the game. When you have finished playing, when you have placed all your bets, just go through the big doors at the far end of the room." Stu looked in that direction. Two large, fireproof doors were held open by attendants for the small but steady flow of people who ambled through them. "Yes, over there. When you’re done, just go through those doors and look for a booth with your name on it. It’s all alphabetical, so you won’t have a long walk. Boy, the Ungaschick’s were in here the other day... Oh, I’m sorry. Just go to your booth and the person there will tell you how your bets turned out."

"But, lady, Nilla, I’m not here to bet, gamble, wager, or otherwise put at stake my considerable... 

well, I’m simply not here to bet - anything."

"Of course, you are here to bet. That’s why everyone is here. You’re silly. You’re cute, but you’re silly. Now enjoy yourself. Is there anything I can get you?" As she said "cute," Nilla poked Stu lovingly in the ribs. Without showing it on his face, Stu recoiled inside himself. It almost seemed as if she know that he wore a money vest and that it was heavily laden.

"No, I don’t need anything. But thanks for the info." Stu wandered off, watching those who 

surrounded him in the Blue Marble Casino and Resort.

About a quarter of the way back around the hall from the double-wide exit doors, Stu spotted one of those quiet tables and there he headed. He passed by the roulette wheel, brightly spinning. The craps tables were hard to get around. The yelling and shouting in connection with the action drew a great deal of attention and the aisles were clogged. Card games were most prevalent with players sweating, counting, anxiously gathering from the short stack in the dealer’s hand.

At last, and without any great eagerness on his part, Stu reached his destination. Stu had once 

dated a girl whose eyes reminded him of the table attendant’s eyes. There was a certain 

timelessness in those gray eyes. Whether or not Stu would trust this man, he wasn’t sure, even 

thought he was already convinced the man would tell him only the truth.

"So, you take bets." ("I’m going to have to work harder to impress this guy," Stu thought to himself.)

"I do," Said the man.

"What’s your game?" Stu asked, staring down at a plain green table with a white triangle and a 

black square laid on its surface.

"Not much to it, son. Take what you got and lay it on one of the shapes. You know how it goes from there."

"Doesn’t sound very exciting."

"Did you come here for excitement?" inquired this man from behind those eyes.

"No, in fact, I’m glad you said that. I didn’t come here to gamble at all. I’ve got plenty to wager, it’s not that." (Stu was caught between seeming impoverished or cowardly.) "I just don’t know why I have to take everything I’ve got and risk it."

"Everyone feels that way to one degree or another," counseled the man. "But the doors you came in are one way. And the doors over there are one way out. To go out, you’ve got to place your bet. Where and on what you wager is up to you. Nobody’s holding a gun to your head."

All of Stu’s smart aleck remarks seemed to fail the moment. He looked around hoping maybe to 

see Nilla and evade the weight of this moment. Neither she nor any other hope for escaping his host was evident.

"Seems too simple," Stu summarized.

"Ah, you’re a thinking man, now. Funny, when you walked up here, it looked like you were one of those who didn’t care to reason all this out. That’s mostly who I get. Just a simple ‘whatever’ kind of bet and on through the doors. The fancy games are up against the far wall. I’ll still be here if you decide you’d like a clean shot at it."

"Well, I just can’t believe you expect me to put everything I’ve got on a black or white deal. What 

about hedging my bets?"

"Nice idea, sometimes I wish we’d set this place up that way. But in fact, there is only one way to win. You can’t spread out your dough hoping a little of it will rise in several places. Only one bet is a winner. But it is your bet."

"How ‘bout I just pass on through those doors without wasting my time on a bet."

"D’ya ever hear the phrase, ‘You can’t take it with you?’ Well, those boys on both sides of the doors are the reason why. You make your bet and then you go. Simple. Yes, quite simple.

Stuart Crossler stood before a man who looked as if he had wound the watch stem of Time itself. This man’s matter-of-fact attitude was no consolation at all. "Just make the bet," he thought to himself. He thought about leaving the table, but his feet would not go with his inclination. He was going to stand there and he was going to place a bet.

Slowing and deliberately, Stu slid off his jacket and began to unbutton his shirt. The last thing he 

thought he would ever do today was to disrobe in public. Before he pulled apart the Velcro fasteners of the money vest, he took one last look at the men standing by the exit doors. Only the hope in the truthful eyes of his table host kept him from making a quick, foolish dash for the doors.

"Hey, nice pecs," floated a familiar voice from behind his right shoulder.

"Nilla!" called Stu as his modesty pulled the vest back over his T-shirt. "Boy, am I glad to see you."

"Then don’t call me ‘boy,’" Nilla said.

"Sorry."

"Just teasing. Hey, lighten up," Nilla said with a wink.

"Nilla, I’m going to make my bet. You know how this place works, what do you like, black or white."

"Stu, you are not betting on shapes and colors. This bet is on plus or minus, right or wrong, good or bad. You decide for yourself. I just hope you paid enough attention to get it right."

"Paid attention, to whom," Stu demanded.

The man with the eternal eyes said, "Mr. Crossler, it’s time to place your bet."

"Nilla, paid attention to whom?" Stu repeated.

"Not to whom, to what, Stu. To the truth. If you didn’t pay attention then, it is your own fault; truth is 

hard to miss. Stu, you did pay attention, didn’t you?"

"Mr. Crossler, I’ll take your bet now."

Stu was fazed. He slid off the vest and handed it to the man. The vest was laid on the shape that Stu pointed to with a loosely curled fist. "Right there."

"Thank you, I hope you have chosen well. Now just go through those doors and look for a booth with your name on it. They are ready for you."

Stu left the room without even speaking to Nilla, although he saw that she watched him as he left the hall. He turned left and arrived at his booth in much shorter time than he thought it would take. A lady on the opposite side of a waist-high counter handed him a small gray envelope.

"What’s the verdict," he said in an attempt to keep the moment light.

"Oh," said the lady looking up, "You played the black and white table, didn’t you? It’s odd, those who play one shape never ask how it turned out. It’s like they already know how it’s going to turn out-and they’re smiling. Those are the winners. The ones who bet the other shape never know what to expect. Sometimes I just want to lean over this counter and tell them to pay more attention next time. I guess that includes you, Mr. Crossler. Yes, I see that that includes you. I’m sorry, but you only get to place your bet one time; there is no next time. But you knew that coming in, didn’t you, Mr. Crossler? 

Mr. Crossler, didn’t you?"

"Didn’t you know that, Mr. Crossler?"

There is much ado about gambling in our country.  The roles of the state, the church, and the citizen are all brought under the microscope by this debate.

The reality of our lives, however, is that we miss the big picture to study the small one.  There is no larger issue in life than where we go after this life.  Gamblers, puritans, surveyors, tea-totallers, rapists, taxi-drivers, sprinters - everyone has to make a bet on what door will open when they pass through the hallway of death.

I appreciate the honesty of the gaming industry.  They promise you that you will lose what you hope to increase.  They promise you that with every television commercial, with every drop-dead-gorgeous dancer, with every million-watt light display - they didn't pay for all that by increasing your stake.  They manipulate and diminish your fortune - and they are honest about it.

So we should expect similar honesty about our largest bet - our eternity.

The world is full of people who offer a path to salvation.  Some are honest some are not.  Most of the world's religions suggest that you will have a happy eternity by being good here on earth.  Wouldn't that be wonderful?  To receive in eternity what we earn here on earth.  (That's puts a real crinkle in the gaming industry - the hope of getting something you did not earn!)  But you must have wondered at some point, "Have I been good enough?  Have I been good long enough?"  Well, that's one option - that's one bet - and most of the world religions suggest that is the best bet.

There is one major world religion which is drastically different than all others.  That religion teaches that, although it may be fair to "get what you deserve," it wouldn't be pleasant - we all deserve punishment for our bad deeds.

That religion - Christianity - teaches the same truth as the gaming industry - you can get what you don't earn.  Unfortunately, millions have found that ganbling is a lie; it takes and does not give back.

Experience is the best teacher.  We know that the gaming industry does not keep its promise.  Will God?

Experience is the best teacher.  We will know with absolute certainty the truth about the Christian Gospel immediately upon experiencing death.  Then we will know whether our faith was rightly placed or whether Christians have been the victims of the greatest hoax in history - even greater that the gambling hoax.

Can we hedge our bets?  Many do.  Many hope God will save them, but trust in their good works, good looks, or good luck.  God says a house divided cannot stand.  We have to choose and stick with our bet.  They do it that way in Vegas and God does it that way in heaven.  We can not bet in two directions and win in both.

Faith in Jesus Christ as Savior is a bet that is contrary to every normal human experience.  We can't see Him, we can't have Him over for dinner and ask Him that angels on a pin-head question.  We can consider the claims of the most widely published and distributed history text in the world - the Bible.  It has been inarguably proven to be an authentic and accurate compendium of the working of One God with One Message.  You can disagree with the teachings of the Bible just the same as you can disagree with the information on a road map.  In either case, you will be disatisfied with your attempt to arrive at your destination.

Most American people, including most American Christians, actually know more about a deck of cards than they do their own Bible.  That's a fact, not a condemnation.  If you would like to know more about the Bible so that you can know more about your Great Bet, then we suggest the following:

Read your Bible.  Start with the Book of John in the New Testament.  Read it and then ask God to impress upon you what it said.  (If you do not have and cannot afford a Bible - we will provide you with one at no cost.  All you have to do is ask.)

Find a church that teaches that the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God.  (If you suppose there is error in the Bible and yet it claims to be perfect [II Timothy 3.16-17], then you shouldn't spend much time with talking about it.)  Regularly attend that church and find opportunities there to learn more about the Bible there.

Most importantly, understand that God uses the church to help you discover a personal relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ.  Your faith must not be in the teaching of the church, but in the teaching of the Bible.  Do not follow the leading of men unless you know that you (and they) are being led by the Holy Spirit.

If we can minister to you in any way, electronically, personally, through prayer, or by whatever means, we are eagerly offer to do so.  We want you to understand to significance of this life - that it is a bet on the next one.  We want to tell you the truth, because we want you to live free.

Ladies and gentlemen, Place your bets now!