Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth

Good morning my friends,

Consequences are difficult to swallow sometimes yet every action we take has a consequence. The question is, is our character strong enough to stand and face those consequences be they good or bad? It seems few people are willing to do that these days. We look for quick fixes, short cuts, back doors, anything to avoid facing the consequences of our actions. This is what we have taught our youth.

The saddest thing is when we won’t even admit that the consequences are a result of our actions or words, or even our thoughts. We blame other people or circumstances or anything to avoid taking the ownership of those consequences. It is one thing to sin; it is entirely a different thing to blame someone else for that sin. I use the word sin but maybe you feel that is too strong a word. Perhaps you would prefer I use the words “Error in judgment”, “misguided action”, “well intentioned”, mistake.

In our reading this morning we found that God had a simple solution to the problem of his instructions not being followed. God expected his instructions to be followed precisely as he gave them. In some of the simplest things the consequences were exact and severe:

And wherever you live, you must not eat the blood of any bird or animal. If anyone eats blood, that person must be cut off from his people. (Leviticus 7:26-27)

To go against God in some of the things that God considered major instructions resulted in being cut off from God’s people. Why? Because the instructions were clear. To not obey them was a deliberate act against God which was sin and God could have nothing to do with sin. That speck of sin had to be removed from God’s people. This is how precise and demanding our Holy God is. It is the reason that none of us could make it under this law. It is the reason we needed the grace of God in the form of his Son sacrificed on the cross.

We live in an age where science and medicine are working hard to help us avoid natural consequences of our sins. Science is coming up with cures to sexually transmitted diseases. Medicine is dong away with unwanted pregnancies. Families split and psychologists spend years trying to put the children back together so the male and female do not have to face the consequences of their sin. We have lawyers who try to make judges believe their twisted version of the law so their clients can avoid facing the consequences of their sin. It goes on. We are left to freely pursue a life that is contrary to the will of God. We are a people with little character to stand to face the consequences of our actions; to own them; to try and make restitution; to apologize and seek forgiveness.

Yet, here is the truth of this entire matter; we cannot avoid God’s judgment of our actions. There may be natural consequences here and now that we try to avoid but there is a much more severe consequence that is coming that cannot be avoided. Even if we manage to not “pay” for our actions here we will still have to “pay” for it. That is going to be such a terrible day for so many people. Too many people think they will get off on a technicality. They think that the good they do will out balance the bad. Listen to the words of Jesus:

"Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.'

"But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evil doers!'

"There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. (Luke 13:26-28)

There is only one way to be redeemed from our sins against God. He knew our hearts. He knew the impossibility of us living according to his holiness. He knew so he gave us the perfect sacrifice. To receive this sacrifice means we have to die. We must die to what we want, to our sinful nature, our tendency to do all the things contrary to God’s will, and to live for Jesus Christ. It is only in this manner that we will make it through the Day of Judgment that is coming. If not, we will have to live for eternity with the consequences of our sin and if you think it is hard now to live with a guilty conscience just wait until you feel the weight of it for eternity.

10 comments:

Niki said...

I'd hate to live for eternity with a guilty feeling. I'd rather live the rest of my life happy. I think it's wonderful how God knew that we couldn't live according by his holiness, so he gave us the perfect sacrifice; Jesus.

audrey said...

i find it sad that there is so many people that tink that their good deeds could balance their bad ones... they are not headding in the good direction.

Kayla said...

Consequences that we have to face when we do something wrong are sometimes very difficult. They put us in situations that we don't want to be in, but if we deal with them the right way and ask God to forgive us everything should be alright.

Ray said...

man, until you REALLY think about like this, you don't really all the things we have to get us out facing of our mistakes... how would people deal with them if all the escape routes were taken away? ... they would probably realize how silly (putting it nicely) they've been....

Anonymous said...

yes its true we try to fix everything even are consequences.

Naomi S. said...

It's very sad when people think that if they do a lot of good things it will balance out the bad things. I used to be one of those peoples, and it's hard sometimes facing the consequences of our actions.

sasha said...

Think that we should ask the Lord to forgive us .And we should deal with the consequences in a good way even if its hard.

Anonymous said...

since we always try to find a way out, that's why we feel guilty and having to feel guilty for an eternity, dosen't really sound like fun, so i'm glad that God did send the perfect sacrafice to save us all.

Brandon said...

We should always be responsable for our actions. We must face the concequences. It makes God sad when we sin too.

Kendall said...

Actions can tell a lot about a person, but we have to admit our actions in order face concequences. We have to day "I did ______ wrong and im sorry" (Too bad no one can do that because they dont want to)