Reggie Weems

Fundamentally and ultimately people are not saved because of
3. Unbelief  

People do not trust Christ to the saving of their own souls simply because they do not believe that Christ can or will save them or simply, because of their blinded eyes and hardened hearts, do not want Christ to save them.  Many people possess desires “too weak” (CS Lewis) and are satisfied with what the world can temporarily offer rather than drinking at a well which can ensure people never thirst again. 
The is abundantly clear on this matter. 
Matthew 11:28 ‘Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’

Romans 10:12 ‘The Lord is rich to all who call upon Him.’

Romans 10:13 ‘Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”

John 5:24 ‘He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.’

John 6:37 ‘The one who comes to Me I will by no means’ — under no conditions whatsoever, under no circumstances — ‘cast out.’

God says that salvation is like a wedding feast in which ‘All things are ready. Come to the wedding’ (Matt. 22:4). God has prepared everything.  It’s not like a Baptist supper - we don’t need to bring anything; we only need to come.

Because God is a faithful Creator and “all things are now ready” (Luke 14:17) there is no reason to refuse God’s offer.  God has even encouraged humanity to listen to the Lord Jesus - ‘This is My beloved Son; hear Him’ (Mark 9:7).
Yet unbelief will damn a person while belief will eternally save any soul who places his or her faith in Jesus Christ.  Don’t fear…only believe (Mark 5:36).   

With sobering words Jesus declared that “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  14  For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13-14).  Why aren’t more people saved?   A second reason is
2. Unwillingness to let go of sin

Christ’s call to Himself is also a command to leave the life of sin. ‘You shall call His name Jesus,’ said Gabriel to Joseph, ‘for He will save His people from their sins’ (Matt. 1:21). He will not save them in their sins, but from their sins. ‘I have come to call sinners to repentance,’ Jesus said in Luke 5:32. To be wed to Christ is to be divorced from sin.  Righteousness is loving what is right and sin is loving what is wrong.  Repentance simply cannot be separated from faith and forgiveness. Paul affirmed the gospel to be ‘repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Acts 20:21).  Peter told the Jews in Acts 5:31 that God had exalted Christ in order to ‘give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.’

Many people know they are sinners (problem #1) but they are not ready to leave their sinful lifestyle and come to Christ on His terms, which is the only way a person can be saved. This was the problem of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19. He sincerely desired eternal life, and he came to Christ looking for it. But Jesus, in His omniscient knowledge of the young man’s heart, focused on one issue: his love of possessions which the young fellow was unwilling for forsake.  But you cannot grasp Jesus while still holding onto sin. Jesus commanded him to ‘Go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’ But the rich young ruler was unwilling to yield Lordship to Christ, and the biblical record says, ‘he went away sorrowful.’

Jesus said, ‘You cannot serve God and the things of this world’ (Matt. 6:24). ‘Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me’ (Mark 8:34).  Our perfectly holy God calls people away from sin because He knows it will destroy us in the end.  Sin is not worth holding.  Solomon asked, “Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? (Proverbs 6:27).  The answer is no – that fire will destroy you.  ‘The wages of sin is death,’ cried the apostle in Romans 6:23. Such impenitence is not only inexcusable, but also irrational!!!
Salvation is unto Jesus Christ but it is also from sin.  Redemption is intended to deliver people from the penalty, power, practice, and eventually, even the presence of sin.

Jesus understands how hard this is.  He spoke of sins as dear as a right eye or a right hand. He knows that true repentance, confession and forsaking of sin may cause embarrassment, misunderstanding, financial loss, and the pain of breaking off close relationships. When He said to those Jews, ‘You will not come to Me,’ He knew that they loved to receive honor from one another (John 5:44) and that love of men would keep them from loving God. To follow such a despised teacher was more than their proud hearts could bear. Jesus knew their struggles but never compromised His demands.  The gospel is a call to God and from the world. 

Isaiah wrote, ‘The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt and “There is no peace for the wicked,” says my God’ (Isa. 57:20-21).  Solomon penned, ‘The way of transgressors is hard’ (Prov. 13:15). John wrote that one day sinners will cry for mountains and rocks to fall on them, to hide them from ‘the wrath of the Lamb’ (Rev. 6:16).  Yet Jesus died to end all of this for sinners.  Look at the cross. There the sinless, precious Lord of glory was made to be sin for His people so that the could live righteously.
Paul wrote, “By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,4  in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:3-4).  No saint continues in sin and no one can become a saint unless they forsake their sin.  This would defeat the very purpose for which Jesus came to the earth which was to free us from sin.  John wrote, “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil (I John 3:8).
No wonder John Newton:  ‘A bleeding Saviour I have viewed, And now I hate my sin.’  Yet many people will not let go of sin that will damn them to take the hand of a Savior Who can and will save them if only they will believe.  We’ll talk about that on Monday.   

Instead of rejoicing at the pool of Bethesda healing, the Jewish leaders confronted the healed man and then condemned Jesus for His ‘work’ of healing on the Sabbath day! Jesus simply responded, ‘My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.’ This response the Jews understood as nothing less than Jesus ‘making himself equal with God’ (John 5:18). 

His claim gave rise to murder in the hearts of the Jewish leaders, but Jesus lovingly responded in verse 34, ‘I say these things that you may be saved.’ And since they could not be saved unless they believed on Him, Jesus then offered three kinds of evidence; 1 - the testimony of John the Baptist, 2 -the miraculous works which Jesus had done, and, 3- the Scriptures themselves. But in spite of all this evidence they still refused to believe.  So Jesus responded in verse 40: ‘And you will not come to me, that you may have life.’

The Lord Jesus clearly asserted that eternal life was to be found in Him, and that it was to be obtained simply by coming to Him.  Yet His hearers refused to do the one thing necessary to have eternal life - they refused to believe on Him. And Jesus’ words showed that He held them fully accountable for their stubborn unwillingness to come to Him.

What kept these religious people from coming to Christ? What keeps you those about whom we care from coming to Christ?  And can we help overcome the obstacles? 

1. Ignorance of the Serious Need of Christ as Savior

Some people simply don’t understand their spiritual predicament.  The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were classic examples. In Luke 18 Jesus boldly spoke a parable directed toward these hypocrites, who ‘trusted in themselves that they were righteous’ (Luke 18:9). When the scribes and Pharisees murmured against Jesus for eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus observed, ‘Those who are well do not need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance’ (Luke 5:31-32).

What was true of the Pharisees two thousand years ago is also true of many people today: they don’t even know they are sick. They are unaware that they have any moral or spiritual disease. They don’t care to go to the great Physician of their souls because they don’t think there is anything wrong.

But such indifference to the real condition of your soul is inexcusable, and it is inexcusable because of the clear testimony of the Bible and of the human conscience.  Both the Bible and the human heart clearly, constantly tell people of their sinfulness. 

Open almost any book of the Bible and you will read about the sinful, fallen condition of man. From the account of Adam and Eve disobeying God, down through the entire record of man, God’s Word shows we are a guilty peopler.  There are no exceptions.  Paul wrote, ‘In Adam all die’ (1 Cor. 15:22), and (Romans 5:12) ‘Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.’

We are sinners whom Paul describes as’children of wrath by nature’ (Eph. 2:3). Even David, the man after God’s own heart, testified, ‘I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me’ (Ps. 51:5). Each one of us has inherited a sin-nature, and sinning comes naturally to every one of us. We are guilty of breaking God’s law which  is written on our hearts and in God’s Word. ‘All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way,’ declares the prophet in Isaiah 53:6. Paul asserted with final, sweeping authority, ‘There is none righteous, no, not one’ (Rom. 3:10).

In addition, every person has the internal testimony of their own conscience. Conscience is active in every person, either accusing bad actions or commending those which are good (Rom. 2:15).  The human conscience is like the warning light on an automobile’s dash board yet people continue to ignore its ‘guilty’ signs.  Multitudes who argue against the Bible’s truth and their conscience’s witness are perishing because of their own unwillingness to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and His Word.  How many there are who ignore the testimony of the Bible and fight the witness of their own consciences!

Let us pray that our friends, relatives, associates and neighbors will not be like the Pharisee in Luke 18, who brazenly stood in God’s presence proclaiming his own goodness.”  May they rather bow like the humble tax collector and cry, ‘God be merciful to me, the sinner.’

More in the next blog but until then, take time right now to ask God to break the hard hearts of those for whom you are concerned and the open their eyes, making them sensitive to their conscience and humble before His Word.