DAILY DEVOTIONAL – September 10, 2020
“Repentance Not Ignorance”
Prayer: Almighty God, You see all and know all. There is no hiding from You. If not for Jesus, Your omniscient judgement would be a terrifying fact indeed for our sinful and guilty conscience. We thank You and praise You that instead of bringing Your just wrath upon us, You punished Christ in our place. How can we but praise and worship You for such an inexpressible gift! Amen.
Scripture: Hebrews 4:13
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.
Devotion – “Repentance Not Ignorance”
There was a news story that ran in the Florida Times-Union newspaper back in 1998 that reported on a preaching illustration gone horribly wrong.
Melvyn Nurse, 35-year-old youth minister, was using a handgun to preach about the risks of living in sin. Melvyn had loaded the gun with one blank round, and was playing the game Russian Roulette while preaching to a group of several hundred adults and youths at the Livingway Christian Fellowship Church International in Jacksonville. Melvyn wanted to let the young people know that living in sin or going back into sin after they’ve come to the Lord is like a game of Russian Roulette.
After firing the gun several times without it going off, as planned, he fired again and then he fell. Pastor Anthony Speight said, “I thought it was part of the sermon, that he was supposed to fall, but when I got up there I saw blood on the carpet.” One of the congregants said, “Pastor, this is real. Something has happened.”
Unfortunately Melvyn and the others that had helped him prepare for the message were ignorant of the fact that though a blank round fired through a gun doesn’t fire an actual bullet, that doesn’t mean nothing is fired from the gun.
As one blogger wrote in response to the news article, “Blank rounds are comprised of a wad of cardboard and packing material around the kind of explosive charge that one might expect to find in, say, a bullet. When a blank is fired, the packing material shoots out of the gun’s barrel at high speed, with potentially lethal results.”
Unfortunately, ignorance proved to be fatal for Melvyn Nurse. Because Melvyn held the gun right next to his head, the packing material traveling at such a high velocity was no less lethal than a real bullet.
This is a truly tragic story, and though Melvyn’s salvation was sure through faith alone in Jesus Christ, this incident does provide a vivid teaching lesson.
Just as being ignorant of the real dangers of a blank round in a gun didn’t prevent the reality of those dangers, neither does ignorance, or claiming ignorance of the reality of God’s existence and the dangers of dismissing the judgement of sin, prevent the actual judgement of God that will in fact come. Nothing slips by God. He sees everything, knows everything and will judge every man and woman swiftly and without compromise against the Law and expectation of perfection He has put forth in His Word. Claiming ignorance or playing stupid with God won’t work.
“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.” (Hebrews 4:13)
God knows us better than we know ourselves. Claiming is not an excuse that will work when that day comes and each one of us stands before the Almighty God and Righteous Judge. Even to those who have not heard the Word of God specifically proclaimed to them, those who have not been able to read God’s Law in the Bible, Scripture tells us that they will be judged according to the law of their conscience; according the law God has written on their hearts. The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 2:12-16, “When the Gentiles sin, they will be destroyed, even though they never had God’s written law. And the Jews, who do have God’s law, will be judged by that law when they fail to obey it. For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight. Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right. And this is the message I proclaim—that the day is coming when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge everyone’s secret life.”
Knowing God’s all-seeing eye and coming judgement should terrify our sinful nature. All of us have rebelled against God with our sin and failed to uphold the Laws and rules He has given us to obey for both our benefit and His glory. Knowing our guilt before God should cause the sinner within us to tremble. It should cause us to be so fearful of God that we repent and cry out for mercy and grace. In fact, that is the whole reason God gave us the 10 commandments and all of His Law. God’s Law was given to show us our sin, to show us God’s expectation and how we have failed. However, God didn’t give us the Law and show us our sin in order to condemn us or shame us. He revealed our sinfulness to us through His Law in order to bring us to a place of repentance and confession, and to cause our hearts to cry out for His love and forgiveness – a love and forgiveness that God has in fact given by sending His Son Jesus Christ to die as the penalty for our sins.
The truth is friends, God is a righteous God. Sin must be answered for and sins must be punished. The Good News of the Gospel is that for all of those who trust and believe and put their faith in Christ as the only True sacrifice for their sins, there is no threat of punishment; Christ took the penalty for us on the cross. For all who know Jesus, we have no need to play dumb or fear at all that final day of judgement that is surely coming. For all those who believe in Jesus, that final day will be a day of salvation and a day when we realize in full the forgiveness Christ won for us. It will be a day when we realize the terrifying wrath of God against sin that Jesus has saved us from.
You know friends, we don’t have to wait until that final day to begin to experience even now the wonderful relief and joy and love of God. Every time we come to God in honest prayer and confession and lay our guilt and sins before Him, God has promised to forgive us, to give rest to our conscience and our soul and give us peace, and the hope and assurance of knowing we are His children now and forever by grace through faith in Christ.
One of my most favorite passages form the book of Psalms talks about this very freedom and joy that comes from no longer trying to hide from God or make excuses, but rather confessing the truth to the One God who sees all and knows all. David says in Psalm 32:5-7:
“Finally, I confessed all my sins to you [God] and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there is still time, that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment. For you are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory.”
Find the time today friends to have an honest sit down with our God and Father who loves you so much that He has already paid for your sins in Christ Jesus. Don’t hide anymore, but instead give all of your guilt and all that burdens your heart and conscience to Him, to Jesus. As Scripture says in 1 John 1:8-9, “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”
God bless you my friends, and remember that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
