Who can you blame if you are lost?

 

It seems that people always want to pass the buck these days. They want blame everyone and anything they can as long as they are not the blame. Kids are good at this because when someone gets hurt or something gets broken what do they do, they try blame it on the other person or on a dog or cat. Men and women do this as well. If I women burns the dinner she might blame the pan or the kids for distracting her. When the man misplaces something and can’t find it he might blame the wife or the kids for hiding whatever it is he looking for. We see this in our politics. No one wants to be the blame so they always pointing their finger at someone else and many times they find a scapegoat to the attention off themselves. But the main question I want to look at this morning is who can blame if you are lost spiritual?

 

First of we need to recognize that there are only two groups of people today; The saved and the lost. Jesus describes it this way,

 

Matthew 7:13 " Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  14 "Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.  

 

So basically there are two roads a person can take in this life. You are either on the narrow difficult road that leads to life or you are on the wide road that leads to destruction. Jesus also makes it clear that few will find themselves on that narrow road and this is not an unreasonable statement when you consider the Billions of people who have not know God or obeyed God’s perfect will. Even when you look at our own nation the percentage of those who know God and who obey his word without adding or taking away from it are very few. This means the Billions of people are going to lost but again the question becomes who are they going to blame for being lost?

 

They cannot blame God

 

From the very beginning of time before God even made humankind he was interested in making it possible for us to be saved. We can get this idea from what Paul wroth to the Ephesians in,

 

Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,  4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,  5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,  6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.

 

 As you can see it has always been in God’s plan that we would be able to be saved. For instance, when Adam and Eve were in the garden, He loved them and set up the perfect paradise for them to live. He let them have access to every single thing in the garden except one tree.

Now if God had wanted to be unfair from our perspective he could have gave them only 1 tree to eat from and could made everything else off limit but he did not. Of course we know that Eve with a little encouragement from the serpent choose of her own free will to eat of the tree and to offer it to Adam and He took it of his own free will and ate it and they found themselves kicked out of the Garden and now they would no longer live forever by would eventual die. But, even after Adam and Eve disobeyed Gods word he still showed his desire for their salvation as He gave us our first glimpse that he would be sending His son Jesus to the earth for all humankind.

 

Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel."

 

If God had not cared about our salvation he would have simply destroyed Adam and Eve and you and I would not be here today. If God did not care about us he would not have loved us enough to create us with a free will.

 

Now as the human race began to multiply, unfortunately the mass majority of them decided to turn their back on God and instead they turned to sin and they swam in it. Humankind had become so corrupt that God says this in,

 

Genesis 6:6 And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.  7 So the LORD said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."

 

So God brought forth a flood that destroyed everything except the 8 righteous souls and the animals he preserved on the ark. Again you can see God’s desire to save his creation because during the 100 + years Noah was building the ark he was also preaching warning people to turn away from their sin by no one listened or cared except Noah’s family.

 

From Noah’s son Shem, God began a special race the Hebrew race which of course included Abraham. God made the following promise to Abraham

 

Genesis 12:2   I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing.  3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

 

God had chose this special nation to be his people and he did everything he could to make sure his new nation would honor the covenant they had made with him. He gave them a great leader, Moses, and he divided the children of Israel up into tribes and he made the Levite’s tribe to be charge of helping the people to maintain spiritual faithfulness.

 

 He gave them everything they needed to know to be pleasing to him. He gave them an exact pattern to follow so they knew how to build a tabernacle so that they could offer up all kinds of offerings and sacrifices for their sins. He gave them a special law to follow that would guide them to the pathway of righteousness, but they continually turned their backs on God, and sought sin and idolatry.

 

However, this did not stop God from showing His love for their salvation. He sent many prophets to teach and warn them, but the majority of them continued in their sinful ways Even when God punished his people for their sinful ways they still had the opportunity to repent and get back right with God.

 

Even though his special nation was constantly rebelling God sent  prophets to foretell the coming of the Messiah that would save those that would obey Him. Even though ten of the twelve tribes became so evil that God gave them up to the world, He was still able to preserve the tribe of Judah from which the Savior would come.

 

As you can see God is very concerned about us finding salvation and Jesus tells us why.

 

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

 

You see God’s love is it what motivates Him to save the lost. Paul and Peter both lets us know just how much God wants us to be saved and not lost.

 

1 Timothy 2:3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,  4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

 

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

 

This is why God wanted his word proclaimed to all the world because he wants everyone to be saved and have eternal life in heaven because his word is the power of God to salvation Rom. 1:16. So, there is no way you can blame God for being lost.

 

Another person that cannot be blamed is Jesus.

 

He cannot be blamed because he did not leave one stone unturned to make salvation possible for all. Jesus left his heavenly home and became flesh. He went from riches to poverty!

 

2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.

 

Why did Jesus give up all these riches to become poor? Was it because he wanted to take a vacation or to simply experience what it felt like to be human? No! His whole purpose for coming to the earth was to provide salvation for all of humankind.

Hebrews 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.

 

Knowing that this was Jesus mission, how in the world could anyone ever point their finger at Jesus and blame Him for being lost? Every step He took and every pain He suffered was motivated by love for a lost humanity.

 

1 John 3:16  By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.  

 

You see Jesus loved us and he wants everyone us to be saved and find rest for our souls.

 

Matthew 11:28 "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  30 "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

 

Does this sound like someone who doesn’t care whether we are lost of saved? Of course not! Jesus loves every one of us and he wants us all to obey His word and be saved. That is why endured the cross for us and was raised from the dead. This is why his apostles went around proclaiming his death burial and resurrection and teaching them everything that Jesus had told them so that both Jew and Gentile could be saved a become part of the church that Jesus built. Everything that Jesus did while he was on this earth can be summed up with,

 

Luke 19:10  "for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."  

 

Therefore, no one can ever point their finger at Jesus and blame Him for being lost.

 

One Cannot Blame The Holy Spirit

 

We may spend several hours studying the Holy Spirit and then declare that there are many things that we do not understand about Him, but there is one thing that is crystal clear. The Holy Spirit is one of the persons in the Godhead and He is concerned about the salvation of lost humanity. As Jesus made preparations to die and return to His Father, He promised His apostles the coming of the Holy Spirit.

 

John 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

 

One of the last things that Jesus said to His apostles before ascending, was about the promise of the Holy Spirit:

 

Acts 1:5 "for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."

 8 "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

 

Sure enough just as Jesus promised in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came like a mighty rushing wind and it filled the whole house where the apostles were sitting". This brought a large crowd together where Peter and the other apostles preached the gospel for the very first time. All the nations represented could understand them in their own language because of the power of the Holy Spirit. It was because of the help of the Holy Spirit that made that such successful day for salvation because 3000 souls that received the message that day with gladness was baptized in the name of Jesus for the remission of their sins. That day would have never come and the church would have never begun if the Holy Spirit and not come as promised. So, no can blame the Holy spirit for lost.

 

Of course the Holy Spirit’s work does not end with this one event but his work continues on throughout the spreading of gospel to the whole world.  When Jesus sent his apostles out to make disciples by baptizing them he commanded them baptize people in the name of the father, the son and the holy Spirit Mat. 28:19. This command shows us that the Holy Spirit is interested in our salvation. We can also see his interest in our salvation in the fact the he guided the authors of the Bible on what to write in the Word of God so that can know what we must do to be saved and to be pleasing to God. Peter writes,

 

2 Peter 1:21  for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

 

Paul tells us,

 

1 Corinthians 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.  13 These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

 

Then finally he tells Timothy,

 

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,  17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

 

How could we ever know about the Savior, the gospel, and how to obey it for salvation through the written word without the work of Holy Spirit? We, could not and so it should be easy for us to see that he has made every effort to give us what we need to be saved. Notice this great invitation that is given by Jesus and the Spirit in,

 

Revelation 22:17  And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.

 

Therefore, there is no way we can blame the Holy Spirit if we are lost!

 

Some people want to blame the devil for being lost and certainly is the case that the devil going around like a roaring lion seeking whom he can devour as 1 Peter 5:8 says. But we need to understand that just like with God we have choice of whether we will listen to the devil and go with him. He cannot force us to serve him. Just like in the garden of Eden the devil did not force Eve to eat from the forbidden tree he just tempted her do so.

 

So, the conclusion is this, the only person you can blame for being lost today is you. We have received God’s full instructions on how to be saved in his word and so we are with out excuse and we can not plead ignorance.

 

Acts 17:30 "Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,  31 "because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead."

 

The scriptures also make it very clear that even if someone doesn’t know God at all they will still not escape his wrath on judgment day.

 

2 Thessalonians 1:7 when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels,  8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  9 These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,

 

Another great passage that shows that we cannot be forced to go down that wide road that leads to destruction is,

 

1 Corinthians 10:13  No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

 

The temptations that we face in this life can all be overcome which means that no one including the devil can force us to be lost. James describes the process of sin very well in,

 

James 1:13 Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.  14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.  15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

 

Notice you can’t blame God because you can only blame yourself for being lost because when you sin it because of your own free will. While it is true that brothers and sister and Christ are to help one another remain faithful in the end we are solely responsible for our own souls this is why Paul says,

 

Philippians 2:12   Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

 

When judgment day comes we must all stand before Christ 2 Cor. 5:10 and we will be judged by what we did and how we obeyed the Word of God. We have to make the choice today will I be lost or will I be saved. Jesus makes it clear that there is only one to find yourself on that narrow road that leads to life in,

 

Matthew 7:21 " Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.  22 "Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?'  23 "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'  24 " Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:  25 "and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.  26 "But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand:  27 "and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall."

 

So there you have it. The only person you can blame for being in lost state and being wide road that leads to destruction is you. The question becomes if you are lost what are you going to about it? Are you going to remain on the wide road or you going to decide today that you are no longer going to follow the devil. You can make the decision right now to start following God and to live your life according to his word so that you can be one of those few who will enter into that narrow gate. It wont be easy but it can be done and I hope that if you are lost this morning that you obey the gospel call so that you wont suffer the same fate as the devil and his angles. The Bible speaks very plainly on what it takes to become a Christian and to begin your journey up that narrow road.

 

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

 

Luke 13:3  "I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.

 

Romans 10:9   that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

 

Acts 22:16  'And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.'

 

Obeying these commands will put you on that narrow road but you must continue stay on that road by living a faithful life unto God and when you do Jesus makes this promise.

 

Revelation 2:10  "Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.

 

I can’t stress it enough if you choose not to love God enough to obey these commands and you die today in your lost state then you will have no one to blame but yourself.