“But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:40).
In the end, those who will be lost will be those who have insisted on being lost. God has made great efforts to free us from sin, and He waits a long time for us to turn around and come back to Him. He appeals to us, pleads with us to accept the reconciliation He has made possible (2 Corinthians 5:20). If we ultimately refuse him to save us, it will be despite everything he has done to win our hearts. The truth is that it takes a lot of perseverance to keep saying no to God.
C.S. Lewis once observed that the unbeliever is always in danger of having his faith overthrown. As long as he lives in this world, the unbeliever is surrounded by symbols of God’s grace and many other powerful evidences of His reality. And so an atheist parent who wanted their children to follow in their footsteps would always have to be concerned about the “corrupting” influences they would encounter every day. Given that God tries many ways to get our attention, an exceptionally determined child will need to resist them all and remain unbelieving.
But sometimes, when it comes to disobedience, we are just as determined as we are. Isaiah spoke with a little more sarcasm when he condemned those who were “mighty” and “brave” in drinking wine: “Woe to the mighty for drinking wine, woe to the brave men for mixing intoxicating drink” (Isaiah 5:22).
In the book of Proverbs, one of the key characteristics of a fool is that he emphasis on this On committing evil, despite many opportunities to change one’s mind. “A wise man sees trouble and hides himself, but the innocent come forward and are punished” (Proverbs 22:3). Sadly, it is the fool’s “persistence” that keeps him in trouble.
God’s prayer is that we turn around and come back in His direction. If we do this, we will live, but if we do not do this, we will die (Ezekiel 18:27,28). So in a sense, there is only one sin that will kill us, and that is the sin for which we refuse to repent and ask God for forgiveness. If we are lost forever, it won’t be because we made mistakes – it will be because we made mistakes maintained In our mistakes.
“No man is blamed for anything he has done: he is blamed for continually doing wrong. He is blamed for not coming out of the darkness, not into the light” (George MacDonald).
Gary Henry – WordPoints.com AreYouaChristian.com
