“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.” ― Charles Spurgeon
As 2021 drew to a conclusion I watched as my father slipped away from us due to the icy, cold fingers of death. My brother and I watched helplessly as we could really not do anything to change his condition, we had no ability to bring healing and we felt a moment of hopelessness. There has been a lot of talk about idea of hope as of late in our culture and many have stated that they feel hopeless and desperate in light of the political and cultural things happening in our world and as I write this column I was reminded of those feelings I had of hopelessness in the hospital, but I’m also reminded of the hope we have in Christ Jesus, those who are in Christ have this amazing and everlasting hope, ‘ 7 For we live by
believing and not by seeing. 8 Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him 2 Corinthians 5:7-9. Now, I know and understand that many who read this scoff at the idea of a living Savior who can redeem and save. This honestly breaks my heart because if you’d take a moment to sit down with me and talk to me about this topic, of eternal hope you’d see that my heart level desire is to see everyone I interact with rescued and
redeemed by Jesus Christ.
So for the rest of this article I want to talk about the HOPE of JESUS!
Take a look at this text, Romans 4:7-8
7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
Think about this, Jesus Christ has created a way to be forgiven of all our sinfulness, here is the thing,everyone of us has fallen short and sinned, according to Romans 3:23, and because of the fact that everyone one of us has broken the law, (the ten commandments) all of us have lied, stolen, and used God’s holy name as a four letter curse word at some point in our lives we deserve his judgment, according to the scripture (Romans 6:23) and think about this, that’s just three of the ten commandments.
Some might say, well Caleb, I’ve only broken a few of them, so therefore it’s not that
bad, well according to James 2:10 ‘For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws.’ So in other words if you break one of the ten you’re guilty of breaking ALL ten. Why? Because they are all interlinked.
God internalizes everything, so the idea is not that you just physically break God’s law the Lord goes even further to the intention of your heart. God looks at all of our motives, including my own motives. Proverbs 16:2 says People may be pure in their
own eyes, but the LORD examines their motives. You might not have ever physically murdered anyone, but you might have attempted to murder someone’s character online.
That’s why in 1 John 3:15 the scripture says ‘Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.’ This is what I mean by saying we’ve all fallen short. We’ve all sinned, none of us are innocent, including myself. I’m guilty and I deserve the judgment of God because I’ve sinned, I’ve broken the commands of God, I know, that sounds bleak and morbid, right? But here is the HOPE I want to talk about.
Here is the GOOD NEWS!!
Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
The hope is that JESUS, the sovereign KING of the universe humbled himself to the point of death on a cross in order to redeem and buy back those who would believe. I know, it seems simple, but that’s the beauty of the Gospel, it is simple.
There is a story in the book of Numbers where a large host of poisonous snakes were sent into the camp of the Israelites because they had sinned and spoken evil against God, so therefore because of this wickedness these snakes were sent into the camp and anyone who was bitten by these snakes got hopelessly sick and some died, and after some time the people came to Moses in Numbers 21:7 and said “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.’ This was really a hopeless situation; it was serious people were dying. Now, the fact of the matter was that these people were being judged
because of their wickedness, that’s the bad news, but because the people recognized the error of their ways and repented of their sinfulness and asked for forgiveness God provided a way for them to be saved/healed. Look at this in Numbers 21:8-9 8 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze[c] serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. He didn’t take away the snakes, he just provided a way for them to be healed if they happened to be bitten by the snakes. If a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. SIMPLE,
right, can you imagine some folks in the camp probably scoffed at this idea and said it was too simple, too stupid to do and they got bit and ignored what Moses told them, and sadly they died. In the same way I’m trying to relay the SIMPLE hope that Jesus is the cure for the fatal bite of sin that has happened in all of our lives. Romans 10:11 says “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” Furthermore, in Romans 10:13 says ‘For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
My plea today is that we all would be like this group in Numbers 21 and acknowledge the error of ourways and ask God to forgive us of our sinfulness. 1 John 1:9 tells us If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Do you see the similarities? God has provided a pathway out of our state of hopelessness if we would but just repent of our sins and trust the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I am praying you understand my tone in this article today. Even though we’ve never met I love you! I long to see you forgiven and redeemed, seated in heaven with all the saints of God to enjoy the presence of KING JESUS for all eternity. So even when we are in the middle of a sea of slithering poisonous snakes in our current culture there is hope. The hope is to lay aside every weight of sin which clings so close to each of us and then look to
JESUS as the founder and perfecter of our faith. So as we enter this new year my hope is that we get our eyes truly fixed on the only One who can bring everlasting hope to our world. Hope has a name and His name is JESUS CHRIST!
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