Selfish Life in a Christless Grave

Father in heaven, I come unto you by the blood of thy dear son Jesus. I pray you take this message today, Lord, and apply it to hearts. I pray for your Holy Spirit to come and disturb folks that the truth of God's Word will fall like stabs of a knife.

I pray you bring a blessing to many today. Open hearts, great God, and bring conviction by your Spirit. I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus.

Amen. Well, the first book of the Bible, friends, paints a pretty, bleak, and black picture of sin and its terrible consequences. In the book of Genesis, we have the record of a paradise lost, man falls, God judges, and the Word of God declares.

And unto Adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, but curse it is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. But there's a fresco painting by the Italian Renaissance artist, Masaccio, and it depicts the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise.

And if you've seen it as I have, friends, you know the anguish and shame on the face of those two outcasts as they're banned from the presence of God by a powerful angel. It looks as if they're both self-imploding because of their shame and their sin. And that's what sin does, friend.

Sin is a destroyer. Sin is destructive. Sin is the cause of all the world's troubles.

Sin is the very heartbreak of man. Sin divides families. Sin wrecks marriages.

Sins weaken the nation. Sin ruins countless individuals on the rocks of vice and pleasure. But to live a life deadened by sin in a perishing world is dangerous.

Oh, the hollow life of trying to accumulate as much of the material goods of this liftly world as you can, trying to grab hold with both hands as much as you can, living only for this world and living for yourself, drifting along with feeble, mundane ambitions, utterly selfish and self-absorbed, giving no service to God and making no sacrifice for man. It's a selfish life focused on tasting the moment as each pleasure comes passing by, indulging every desire as you're gliding feebly down the stream of time as the years pass by until awaiting you is a roaring cataract of death. Down you tumble.

Down you go, caught in the cascade of swirling water that goes round and round, creating a vacuum hole that sucks you in, down into that vortex, into a region of outer darkness where the only noise is the howling of your fellow sufferers. Why risk it all, friend, on a dim view of God? Why live a selfish life only to lose it all at the end? But Jesus spoke of the foolishness and danger of living such a careless life. In Luke's gospel, Jesus declared, the ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully, and he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do? Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits.

And he said, This will I do. I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there will I bestow all my fruits and goods, and I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. And who shall be these things which thou hast provided? So is he that laith up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. Is this your story, friend? Your investment portfolio keeps growing by leaps and bounds, and you just get richer and richer.

You want more land. You want more material things of this world to prove to others you are a bona fide success in life. But in reality, you're nothing more than a bona fide fool.

Down you go, in the stream of life, as the current swells and sweeps you along as the years pass by. Then a day finally comes where your soul will be required of thee, and you'll stand before the judge of all the earth, where he will read out your most secret thoughts. He will open the books and probe the secrets of your innermost being, and analyze them, and judge you by your great number of sins.

You lived a selfish life. You did nothing for anything but yourself. You just heaped treasure upon yourself.

And now it's reckoning day, if you only had paid more attention to the wooing spirit of God, and acknowledged God's patience and forbearance with you. But you rejected his son Jesus. And now it's too late, as the books are open before you, and a judge sits before you, and a burning lake of fire rages behind you.

Oh precious one, had you only looked at God when you had opportunity. But listen, are you not still in this world? I want to point you, friend, to Jesus, the friend of sinners, who came down here, so we can go up there. It chokes me up to think about it, to think about the sacrifice he made.

Oh come with me, friend. Take me by the hand, as we stroll the dusty road to Calvary, where the Son of God was crucified for sinful man. Look that man on the cross, friend.

Look that bloodstained Savior from sin, hanging there, with his arms outstretched, beckoning you to come to him, and believe on him. Look at that blessed man on the cross. Look at that bleeding hand.

Look at his struggling form. See the dimmed eye beneath that crown of thorns God declares in Isaiah. Look unto me, and be ye saved.

All the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else. Listen, friend. Look at those nail-pierced feet, stained with his own very blood.

Listen to the voice of the Son of God. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Listen, friends. The cross is the place where wicked men sought to get rid of him, but by his death it becomes the place where a saving power flows out to all who come in repentance, confessing they are sinners and own him as their Savior and Lord. Oh friend, friend, don't risk a Christless death only to be placed in a Christless coffin, buried in a Christless grave, plunged into a Christless eternity of hopelessness and despair.

If you've not trusted this blessed Savior, receive him now, before it's too late. Soon he will come and judgment on this world, when his anger shall burn as an oven, and then you shall meet him as your judge. Repent before it's too late.