BEFORE CHRIST

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.

In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.

Titus 3:3

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

I have always held to the belief that we can’t fully appreciate what God did for mankind through willingly sacrificing His Son Jesus until we fully realize the fallen state everyone was in and continues to be in outside of Christ. In today’s message, we are going to touch on where mankind is without Jesus and we will follow up tomorrow discussing how everything changes the moment anyone places their belief in Him as Savior. Both messages will be based on Paul’s words to Titus and the Christian believers on the island of Crete in the final chapter of his letter. Look at these words from verse 3:

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another (3:3).

I want to focus on three main traits in a person that place them in a place of dangerous opposition to God and in the crosshairs of His eternal judgment.

First, a person who is living separate from Christ is foolish.

At one time we too were foolish.

Here we find Paul reminding the Cretan Christians that before they believed in Jesus, they were nothing but fools, fools for choosing the world and its ways while rejecting the new life God was offering them through His Son.

Fools do foolish things and every form of sinful behavior is foolhardy as it is carried out in plain view of a God who despises it. He doesn’t tolerate such conduct and will send punishment on anyone or any group of people who flaunt transgressive living before Him. Consider how that worked out for Sodom and Gomorrah and then ask yourself if God couldn’t easily destroy you too.

Only a fool would think He couldn’t.

The second place we are in minus Jesus is enslaved and dead in our sins.

One of my favorite present time pastors, John MacArthur, said this:

“Everyone is a slave to something. You are either a slave to sin or Christ.”

It can’t be both ways. A person chooses to be enslaved by one or the other.

Before Christ, we foolishly opted to be married to sin. We wanted to embrace and embellish our own passions and pleasures by following the world’s ways instead of surrendering and exchanging them for the ways of Jesus. And this choice to remain in the bondage of sin, shackled by our iniquities, placed us on the road to death and eternal damnation in Hell.

Indeed, many people today are still on that wide road to destruction that Jesus spoke of in the Gospel of Matthew:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (7:13-14).

Fools are foolish because they decide enslavement to sin and walking the road to Hell is more favorable that being saved.

Finally, people living without Christ are disobedient. They have no respect or regard for the very God who made them in His own image, the God who reigns over them and established set guidelines to live by, guidelines the non-believer gives no attention or care to.

A person’s disobedient behavior dishonors the God of all Creation, the Maker and Master over everything in Heaven and on earth. It disrespects the Lord who holds infinite power, a Lord who can wipe out any man or woman with ease.

Did I mention a life apart from God’s offer of salvation through Jesus is foolishness?

Indeed, anyone who would dare God to do something about blatant disobedience and a passion for sin is a fool in the purest sense of the word.

I pray you can say like Paul that this is the kind of person you used to be, the person you were before you surrendered your life to Jesus. If not, today can be the day of your salvation and I urge you to make the needed change to move from foolishness and a destiny of Hell to becoming an heir to the very Kingdom of Heaven, one of the many blessings one experiences after placing their belief in Christ, blessings we will cover in tomorrow’s second message.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.