God Doesn’t Owe You Anything
Rev Wilbur Witt
God doesn’t owe you anything! A lot of Christians subscribe to cause-and-effect Christianity. We have all sinned. We have all fallen short of the glory. Religion puts a meter on the severity of the fall. Venial sin, mortal sin, penance, once saved, not saved, Baptist or Bhai, Mormon, Methodist, or Muslim, we’ve all tried to spit the hook for what we truly deserve. Hell, I’ve done it. Took off. Left a wife, dog, and two kids and shacked up with a New York whore. Now plain old whores are bad enough, but New York whores? Shut the front door. And I was saved! Oh yeah. Brother J F Franks saved me at the Memorial Baptist Church in Killeen Texas while I was married to my first ex-wife. Got baptized. But he didn’t hold me under the water long enough. By Mrs. Me number two I was a junk yard dog. Ask yourself; If Baptists are once saved, always saved then why to they throw you out of the church when you get caught smoking a cigarette?
Because everybody’s gotta have somebody to look down on. You can’t be holy without the unholy. All those “Better Than Yous” up there in the amen pew shouting, “Halleluiah,” fully aware of their own short comings, knowing that hell ain’t half full. So, religion provides Neosporin for the soul. Isn’t that why Jesus died? To provide spiritual penicillin for STDs of the soul? And yet you can’t follow the simplest of His requests. Treat others as you would want to be treated. Love God. The same God who made all this. The one who gave you cognitive ability. Empathy. Reason. The Bible! And you still can’t make it work. Why?
Because we were supposed to fall! That’s right. There’s food, but don’t eat. A pretty girl, but don’t touch. An entire host of things that are forbidden yet right in front of your face. Why? One third of the angels fell and followed Satan to earth. Paul said man will judge angels. But if the angels were literally before the throne, in God’s very presence, how did they fall? God never said that they were made perfect. They fell like any other creation. They fell through reason. They reasoned themselves right out the front door. And for them there was no way back. So how can God justify a meat puppet like man judging creatures that fell after beholding God. Through a sacrifice. God didn’t create man perfect, but He made man perfect. Knowing full well that man was not strong enough to stand the heat, a fix was provided. Ask, and you shall receive. But you must be sorry. I mean really sorry. Because if you’re not sorry you won’t value the gift. You must feel the real weight of your sin leave you. Oh, your wife will still leave you, the judge will take half your stuff, and your kids will be in therapy forever, but you will survive. If you are smart you won’t make that mistake again. If not, you will return to the trough, and each time you do it gets easier, until there is no repentance, therefore no clearing of the slate, and the song remains the same. It’s the one you sing in hell.
You were given reason for a reason. To reason things out. It’s understandable that you may slip and fall once, or twice, maybe more. But when you look at your watch in the confessional just go home. You have become reprobate. And it takes more and more to get the same effect as the first time. Just like any drug. And the only thing that stands between you and that is your willingness to use your reason. Your understanding. Not your emotions. The emotional people are all up in the amen pew shouting, “Halleluiah!” You must live halleluiah. Because if you ever lose that feeling of forgiveness that means your bank is overdrawn, and your book is due. And that’s a scary thing. Hell is the loss of the presence of God. And you can feel that even before you arrive. You can’t be saved by works, but you can be lost by deeds. Your works demonstrate the Holy Spirit within you. Your deeds demonstrate who you truly are. And it’s always there. Just as sin becomes easier, so does walking away. And hopefully you will never have to wait for a return flight home from JFK to an empty house like I did!
Pretty Insightful!
ReplyDelete