I work with High School boys one day per week who struggle with addiction to drugs and alcohol. When the topic of heaven and hell comes up with new kids in the program, 100% of the boys will say, “I’d go to heaven…cuz I’m a pretty good person.” Here they are sitting in a 1 year, in-house treatment program for lying, stealing, doing perverse things and doing huge amounts of illegal drugs and they still believe they are pretty good! Why? Because we all want to compare ourselves to people who are way worse than we are!
And just in time to add gas to the delusion-fire, last week we had the Pope announce on 60 Minutes that “all people are basically good.” You can’t make it up!
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As we inch closer and closer to the time when Jesus will call us home, it is not only our anticipation which grows, but also the urgency we feel in warning others of the wrath to fall upon this earth in the form of the Tribulation Period. There are many wonderful remnant ministries throughout the world who are labouring fervently, expending time, money and effort to comfort the saints and warn the sinners. But are the unsaved listening?
Mention Isaiah 6 to serious Bible students and you will receive a knowing nod. It is the familiar scene when Isaiah appears before the throne of God. Although Isaiah was overtaken by the majesty of God’s holiness, he wasn’t afforded much encouragement about the task he was about to take on. Verse 9 says: “And He said, ‘Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed.’”
The hope in our ministry is that we will be an instrument God can use in order to open the eyes of the spiritually blind and bring hearing to those who are spiritually deaf. Yet God tells Isaiah that his ministry will make some people’s eyes more blind, their ears more deaf and their heart more callused. Hardly a good advertisement for a ministry position, is it? Warren Wiersbe said: “God does not deliberately make sinners blind, deaf, and hard-hearted; but the more that people resist God’s truth, the less able they are to receive God’s truth. But the servant is to proclaim the Word no matter how people respond, for the test of ministry is not outward success but faithfulness to the Lord.” So, let’s examine some reasons as to why the average unsaved person is not heeding the warning.
One of the major reasons the unsaved are not listening is because they do not believe they are inherently bad and worthy of eternal punishment. But herein lies the problem. It all comes down to the fact that most people mistakenly think they are “good people”. What that term really means, nobody can sufficiently explain. It is, for the most part, highly subjective. We have courts, we have politicians and police and gossip magazines and even ordinary people who say it is their right to tell you who is good and bad, but ultimately God is the Judge. The point is, many people consider themselves good, but they are measuring themselves against others who are worse. The true indicator is to measure yourself against those who are better. And we know there is none better than the God-Man, Jesus Christ. And when we measure ourselves against Him, there is none good – not even one.
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