The Beauty of Desperation

It occurred to me how seldom I have seen people actually desperate to be saved.  In the Bible there are grave warnings given concerning those who have done wrong.  Ezekiel 18:20 bluntly states, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die."  The death spoken of here is not merely a physical death, but a spiritual death spent in eternal torment separate from God.  I have great concern that this warning is either not being given, people don't really believe it is true or could care less.  Most people are more worried about being stuck in traffic, their car breaking down or losing their mobile phone than going to hell.  Something is very wrong with that picture.

Are people any less desperate now than they used to be?  I don't think so.  We are so desensitised to death from TV and movies that when we see it for real we don't know how to respond.  There are also more distractions in our lives than ever to keep us from thinking about the things of eternity.  For years there was an outcry warning against too much television.  Funny, I haven't heard how bad plunking down in front of television is lately - or computer screens, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, iPads, and the like.  I've heard statistics about how much time people spend in front of televisions on average per day, but for the life of me I can't remember hearing of a single statistic on how often people on average spend in front of a computer screen.  Maybe the people performing the studies are too glued to their electronic devices to crunch the numbers.  I would assume computer and mobile phone screen-time have hammered time in front of the television into the dust.

Another challenge people face today on an unprecedented level is the amount of information and misinformation readily available on the web.  Blogs and videos which contain genuine, biblical truth are tossed in with the rantings of fanatics and lunatics, like coins that sink obscured in a murky well.  Stacks of chaff must be sifted through to find a grain of edible wheat.  The truth of God's Word is not malleable clay a man fashions according to personal bias but to be taken literally and applied personally.  My opinions about the reality of an afterlife do not matter any more than a six-year-old in Chattanooga, a fisherman off the coast of Japan, or a herdsman in Tibet:  what God's Word says matters because it is true.  If God says there is a place of eternal torment called hell where people are sent who break a single point of His Law, then there is such a place.  Therefore if I have told a single lie, dishonoured my parents by disobedience, or coveted something which was not mine, hell is my eternal destination.  That's how horrible sin is.  Hell is even more horrible still, a place of unspeakable torture prepared for the devil and his angels where men choose to go because of their rebellion against God.

But God is not willing that man should perish.  He made an escape from that fiery pit in outer darkness where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched.  God does not tell men they are headed to hell so He might gloat over our damnation, but so we might heed the warning to repent and be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  Should a man resent loud sirens and the shouts of the fireman who wakes him from his sleep to pull him from his house which is burning to the ground?  Why should we die when God has freely provided life through the shed blood of Jesus?  Many trials in life make a man desperate:  disease, loss of a job, going to jail, divorce, or losing financial investments.  Yet few men - very few - are ever desperate enough to repent and trust in Jesus Christ.  People are willing to spend thousands of dollars and travel internationally to have a "spiritual experience," but they will not bend their knees before the Creator in their bedrooms, say they are sorry for their sins, and commit to follow Jesus in faith.  They are unwilling to give the life and existence they say they hate to Jesus to change and transform for good.  Tragic.

There is no shortage of people in this world who are miserable, wounded and dying inside.  How can it be that even in this condition they are not desperate enough to repent and commit their lives to follow Jesus?  He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  He came to save people from hell, forgive them of all their sin, guilt, shame, demonic oppression, addictions, hate, bitterness and lust.  Jesus has come to set the captives free.  Maybe it sounds too good to be true, that Jesus has been the answer all along.  Won't you repent and trust Him today?  And if you have trusted Him, follow Him faithfully.  Are you desperate for love and life?  It is only found in Jesus!