I CAN’T HELP WONDERING
WHAT HARRY WILL SAY
MIKE CUNNINGHAM
JUNE 1, 2008
Billions of people throughout the world were
shocked and horrified when they learned about the May 2-3 tropical cyclone
Nargis which hit the coast of
In
Now allow me to ask you folks a few questions:
suppose a fictitious person I’ll call Harry had advance knowledge of these
natural disasters and absolutely nothing could have prevented Harry from
warning those poor people in plenty of time to flee. Every one of them could
have been spared such horrific grief if they heeded the warning, but Harry deliberately
chose not to warn them. What kind of an answer do you think Harry could come up
with which would convince the judge to acquit him if he was brought to trial for
his apparent apathy? If it was a jury trial, and you were a member of the jury,
do you know what your verdict would be? Would the fact that Harry was a
professed follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, perhaps even a member of your
church, persuade you to cut Harry some slack? To whom would you compare such a
person? How about the likes of a Hitler, Stalin or Sadam Husain? Satan
incarnate (in the flesh)comes to my mind?
In case you’re wondering why I’m asking these
kinds of rhetorical questions about an imaginary person and the decision he freely
made, allow me to explain. According to God’s Word, the spirits of those dead
people right now are either in a place called Heaven or Hell. Their Christian
loved ones and you and I can take comfort in knowing that our brothers and
sisters in Christ who lost their lives in those disasters are in the presence
of the Lord enjoying indescribable happiness. But now let’s look at what Jesus
said about what those poor victims who were not covered by His precious Blood
are experiencing. Enduring those natural disasters will seem like “a piece of
cake,” so to speak, in comparison to the torments of Hell.
(1) Matthew
25:46 (ESV) 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal
life."
Matthew
25:41 (ESV) 41 "Then he will say to
those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels.
Matthew
13:42 & 50 (ESV) 42 and throw them into
the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Revelation
20:15 (ESV) 15 And if anyone's name was not
found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of
fire.
Revelation
14:10 (ESV) 10 he also will drink the wine of
God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur
in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
Matthew
3:12 (ESV) 12 His winnowing fork is in his
hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn,
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
Matthew
8:12 (ESV) 12 while the sons of the kingdom will be
thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth."
Revelation
20:10 (ESV) 10 and the devil who
had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast
and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever
and ever.
Matthew
5:29 (ESV) 29 If your right eye causes you
to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one
of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.
Matthew
10:28 (ESV) 28 And do not fear those who kill
the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both
soul and body in hell.
Earlier I asked what you would think of a man
I named Harry who had an opportunity to caution a lot of people about how to
avoid such eternal horror, but didn’t do so as Jesus did. He warned His hearers
about a dreadful day which will come. It’s referred to as “Judgment Day”,
and He certainly had much to say about it.
(2) Matthew
25:31-32 (ESV) 31 "When the Son of Man
comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his
glorious throne. 32 Before
him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from
another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
Matthew
11:22 (ESV) 22 But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for
Mark 6:11
(ESV) 11 And if any place will not
receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust
that is on your feet as a testimony against them."
Luke 12:48
(ESV) 48 But the one who did not know,
and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom
much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.
John 3:19
(ESV) 19 And this is the judgment: the
light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather
than the light because their deeds were evil.
John 9:41
(ESV) 41 Jesus said to them, "If
you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains.
John 15:22
(ESV) 22 If I had not come and spoken
to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they
have no excuse for their sin.
What kind of a
defense can you visualize Harry offering on “Judgment Day,”
when, although he had many opportunities to warn countless people of how to
escape Hell’s eternal horror, he didn’t? If any of you are wondering what my fictitious
person could have offered those people the reason as to how they got into such
a predicament in the first place, he could take them back to the dawn of human
history and Adam and Eve, the first humans God created.
(3) Genesis
2:16-17 (ESV) 16 And the Lord God commanded the
man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you
eat of it you shall surely die."
Genesis 3:1-7 (ESV) 1 Now the serpent
was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any
tree in the garden'?" 2 And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the
fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree
that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'
" 4 But
the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that
when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing
good and evil." 6
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it
was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one
wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who
was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they
were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
They had just
suffered immediate spiritual death as a consequence and every one of their
descendants entered this world in the same terrible condition. The great
Apostle Paul reminded the early Christians of this awful fact. Addressing the
early Christians, Paul wrote:
(4)Romans
5:12 (ESV) 12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death
through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Ephesians
2:1-3 (ESV) 1 And you were dead
in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this
world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at
work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh,
carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children
of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Colossians
2:13 (ESV) 13 And you, who were
dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together
with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
The Holy Spirit
inspired King David to acknowledge the truth of fallen mankind’s dilemma.
(5) Psalms
51:5 (ESV) 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me.
Psalms 58:3
(ESV) 3 The wicked are estranged from
the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.
Now what I have been
speaking about is bad, really bad news for the entire human race. And unless
something is done about it, no one will be able to enter into the
(6) John
1:12-13 (ESV) 12 But to all who did
receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of
God, 13 who
were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man,
but of God.
John 3:5-7
(ESV) 5 Jesus answered, "Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and
the Spirit, he cannot enter the
Jesus also insisted
there is absolutely nothing any human being can do to remedy his or her pitiful
condition. Those Jews Jesus spoke to would have would have been very familiar
with the following.
(7)Genesis
6:5 (ESV) 5 The Lord saw that the
wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Genesis
8:21 (ESV) 21 And when the Lord smelled the
pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, "I will never again curse the
ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart
is evil from his youth.
Ecclesiastes
9:3 (ESV) 3 the hearts of
the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after
that they go to the dead.
Jeremiah
17:9 (ESV) 9 The heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
Mark
7:21-23 (ESV) 21 For
from within, out of the
heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder,
adultery, 22 coveting,
wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil
things come from within, and they defile a person."
John 3:19
(ESV) 19 And
this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness
rather than the light because their deeds were evil.
Romans
8:7-8 (ESV) 7 For the mind
that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's
law; indeed, it cannot.
8 Those
who are in the flesh cannot
please God.
1
Corinthians 2:14 (ESV) 14 The natural person does not
accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because
they are spiritually discerned.
Ephesians
5:8 (ESV) 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light
in the Lord. Walk as children of light
Titus 1:15
(ESV) 15 To the pure, all things are
pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.
Harry, the alleged
follower of Christ could have done everything possible to dispel the myth of
the universal brotherhood of man. Harry could have driven home the truth of
what the One he professes to follow once said, but he didn’t. How sweet it
would have been to have heard Harry echo these words of Jesus when He addressed
multitudes of unbelievers.
(8) John
8:44 (ESV) 44 You are of your father the devil and
your will is to do your father's desires.
He
was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth,
because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own
character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Harry could have told
those people to consider what Paul, John and Titus had to say about human’s
beings being enslaved by Satan, and their will being held in bondage to sin, but he didn’t.
(9)Ephesians
2:1-2 (ESV) 1 And you were dead
in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this
world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at
work in the sons of disobedience—
2 Timothy
2:25-26 (ESV) 25 correcting his opponents with
gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the
truth, 26 and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after
being captured by him to do his will.
1 John 3:10
(ESV) 10 By this it is evident who are
the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not
practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his
brother.
1 John 5:19
(ESV) 19 We know that we are from God,
and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
John 8:34
(ESV) 34 Jesus answered them,
"Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to
sin.
Romans 6:20
(ESV) 20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to
righteousness.
Titus 3:3
(ESV) 3 For we ourselves were once
foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in
malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
Harry didn’t share
these truths. Nor did he point out the fact that there is absolutely nothing anyone
can do about it, or another person can do on their behalf. He never took
advantage of his God given opportunity to challenge all those unbelievers.
(10)Job
14:4 (ESV) 4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an
unclean? There is not one.
Jeremiah
13:23 (ESV) 23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin or
the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.
Matthew
7:16-18 (ESV) 16 You will recognize them by
their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy
tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree
cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear
good fruit.
Matthew
12:33 (ESV) 33 "Either make the tree
good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.
John 6:44
(ESV) 44 No one can come to me unless the Father
who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on
the last day.
John 6:65
(ESV) 65 And he said, "This is why
I told you that no one can come to me unless it
is granted him by the Father."
In closing I want to
say that just as in the past several sermons I used an imaginary person I
called
(11)Ephesians
6:18-20 (ESV) 18 praying at all times in the
Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all
perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19 and also for me, that words may be given
to me in opening my mouth boldly
to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains,
that I may declare it boldly,
as I ought to speak..
May it please the
Lord to make these words of my mouth and thoughts of my heart a blessing to all
who have just heard this message, and everyone who may read it later. Lord
willing, on Father’s Day….
(1)INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF RED CROSS AND RED CRESCENT
SOCIETIES http://www.ifrc.org/what/disasters/response/myanmarnargis/index.asp?gclid=CNW1_LqL1JMCFQQcHgodzV_zhg
(2)INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
(3) THE
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