We do not deserve to be here today!
Read Lamentations 3:1-24
Introduction… Not a single person in this room should be in here today!
Not a single person in this room DESERVES to be in here today…
I mean, we are all human beings are we not… we all have certain inalienable rights…we all have specific goals for our lives, we all have specific qualities about us, we all have something going for us.. therefore… we do not deserve to be here…
We have just read a few verses from the book of Lamentations, it is a book of the Bible that was written by a man named Jeremiah…
Jeremiah was a well known prophet, that is, he spoke to the people and delivered God’s message to them..
Similar to what preachers do today… not exactly the same, but similar…
And we can see that Jeremiah, this prophet of God, had gone through some difficult times in his life…
He started chapter three off by saying “ I am a man who has seen affliction”.
And then he goes on to list many of the afflictions, or, sufferings he had been through in his life…
This man of God, this prophet had seen so much destruction, and had witnessed so many bad things happen in his life that he felt like God was using him for target practice…
Verse 12 says, “He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows”
The prophet of God feesl like he is being used by God for target practice… he doesn’t understand all that has happened, he can not comprehend all of the suffering he is seeing…
He doesn’t even feel like God is hearing his prayers… verse 8 says “even when I call our or cry for help, he shuts out my prayers”
Guys, we feel like that some times don’t we… We feel like God is using us for target practice and we feel like when we call out or cry out for help, God does not even hear us….
We can relate to Jeremiah… we can relate to this prophet of God and how he feels about what he is going through in his life…
And we can study the Bible, and we can look and see that Jeremiah served God faithfully, he served God unconditionally, he did what God wanted him to do…
And we can look and see what Jeremiah is going through and we can say…
JEREMIAH DIDN’T DESERVE TO BE THERE!
And NO ONE…. No man woman or child on earth, deserves to be in here today!
Now, Some people would argue with that statement…
Some people would say that certain persons in this room today DESERVE to be here…
And some people would even go as far as to say that certain persons deserve to be in here because they are DIFFERENT than us…
But, I want us to look at God’s word and see why we do not belong in here today…
The first thing I want us to notice, is that according to the Bible,
Not according to me, but according to God’s Word…we are all equal in God’s eyes…
And I always want to use scripture to back up what I say… because nothing I have to say is of any importance, but everything that GOD says, is important…
Acts 10:34 (NIV)
34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism
Deuteronomy 10:17 (NIV)
17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.
Job 34:19 says that God..
…… shows no partiality to princes and does not favor the rich over the poor, for they are all the work of his hands?
Colossians 3:11 (NIV)
11 Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
You see, according to the Word Of God… God is no respecter of persons…
God looks at our hearts… he sees us as either a person who has accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior, or as a person who has not…
But God does not look at the color of our skin… He does not look at the country we were born in, he does not look at our bank accounts, he does not look at where we live, He does not look at where we are at this very moment…
We are all equal in Gods eyes……
And since we are all equal, may I say that NONE of us deserve to be in here today…
Now, you might hear someone say that there are some people that deserve to be in here today more than others…. because of some sin they have committed or because of some sin they have in their life…
But I want you to know today, that not only does the Word of God say that we are all equal in Gods eyes,… it also says that our SINS are equal in God’s eyes..
James 2:10-11 (NIV)
10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.
Think of a 10’ chain….
If you have a 10 ‘ chain and one little link happens to break on that chain… then that 10’ chain is broken…
The Bible teaches us that none of us can boast about being more righteous than anyone else, because if we have committed any sin…
No matter how big some may say it is or how small some may consider it to be…
If we have committed ANY sin… we have broken God’s law…
Now, we have to realize that there are different consequences for our sins… there are different things that happen in our lives because of the choices we make.
But in God’s eyes, if we have committed one sin, even if it is just lying to our teacher when we were 10 years old… if that were the only thing we have ever done wrong….. then we have still broken God’s law…
So, to be fair to everybody, none of us should be in here today….
And then we may still come across some one today who says that they are NOT a sinner…
But the Word of God says EVERYONE is a sinner…. The Bible teaches that everyone has sinned…
Romans 3:23 (NIV)
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
We have all missed the mark… We have all failed to live life the way that God had intended for us to live…
Everyone has sinned, so in that aspect, again, we are all equal…
Isaiah 64:6 (NIV)
6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
Romans 3:10 (NIV)
10 … “There is no one righteous, not even one;
No one is righteous… not me, not you, not Bill Clinton, not George Bush, not Adrian Rogers, not Billy Graham…according to the Word of God, NO one is righteous….
So there we go,
Everyone is equal in God’s eyes, no matter what color, creed, nationality, or otherwise…
And if we commit ANY sin, we have broken All of Gods law…
And EVERYONE has committed at least one sin, therefore, we are all on the same playing field, we all have the same odds… We are all equal in these areas … every single one of us has sin in our lives…
And the Bible says in Isaiah 59:2
Isaiah 59:2 (NIV)
2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
The Bible says that this sin, this sin that each and every one of us has in our lives… separates us from God..
Romans 6:23 says,
Romans 6:23 (NIV)
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When the Bible says that the wages of sin, or, the penalty of sin is death, the word we have translated as death in that passage means to be eternally separated from God…
And to spend eternity separated from God means to spend eternity… in … HELL!
Yes, the Bible teaches that Hell will be a place of eternal pain, agony and suffering, it will be a place of eternal fire and burning…
But I believe that the worst things about hell is going to be the total and complete separation from GOD.…
You see, here in this life, we have God with us at all times… Even those who choose not to obey Him, even those that deny Him, still have the presence of God to some degree all around them… But, when the soul enters hell, it will be forevermore separated from our creator…
And the magnitude of that separation… the awfulness of Hell, is something that we can not even begin to comprehend or imagine…
Now, back to the fact that none of us deserve to be in here today….
According to the Bible, we are all equal in God’s eyes, He does not see skin color, nationality, or so on.,..
We have ALL sinned, so we have all broken God’s law, so we are equal in that aspect as well….
And if we follow along with what the Word Of God has today to us today, since we are all equal and we are all sinners….
None of us deserve to be in here today because we ALL… DESERVE TO BE IN HELL!
At this very moment, each and every one of us deserves to be in Hell because of the sin in our lives, because of the separation we have brought between God and us…
So, if we all deserve to be in hell, then we could ask the question…why are we not there?
Well, I am going to go back to our original passage that we started with…
Remember that Jeremiah had been through some pretty difficult times… He had seen his fair share of trouble and heartache…
And many of us have seen our fair share of trouble and heartache as well…
Some have seen much more trouble and heartache than others haven’t they….
Some people could start naming off the difficulties that have come their way, some of you in this very room could say right now, just as Jeremiah… the great prophet of God said, some of you could say…
“I am the man who has seen affliction”….
Yet after Jeremiah had listed 20 verses of scripture here of the trouble he had seen and the problems he was facing at that very moment… he went on in verses 21 and 22 to say….
Lamentations 3:21-22 (NIV)
21 Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: 22 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
Why are we not in hell at this very moment guys…..
Because Gods compassions never fail…
God loves each and every person in this room more than any of us could ever imagine…
1st Timothy chapter 2 and verse 4 tells us that God wants ALL MEN to be saved… God wants every human being to spend eternity in heaven, instead of eternity in Hell, separated from His great love…
God has provided a way for us to spend eternity in heaven even though we are sinful and wicked people….
God sent his Son, Christ Jesus, to pay the penalty, to suffer the wages of our sins and to provide us a way to heaven…
God wants EVERYONE to go to heaven…..
But He will not FORCE us to make that choice…
The ultimate decision is ours…
I have heard so many people over the years say….
Boy, How could a loving God send a soul to hell for all eternity…
And the answer is… He doesn’t…
God does not send any soul to Hell, we have already seen that God wants everyone to be in heaven with him…
If any soul winds up in Hell, it is their own decision…
God has provided the way, the easiest way you could think of…
God sent his own son, Christ Jesus, as a gift for us…. Now all we have to do, is accept that free gift…
All we have to do, is accept that love that God is offering us….
God has given us all a pardon from Hell, he has made it possible for all of us to be free, all we have to do, is accept that Pardon…
Do you want it today…. Do you want to spend eternity in heaven…. Or hell…
The choice is truly ours….
