Above the pulpit at PFWC is the quote from John Wesley that says, “Give me 100 people who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God and I will change the world.” Have you ever stopped to contemplate that statement before?
Why should we fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God? This week at the Wednesday morning Bible Study we were studying Ephesians Chapter 2. In this chapter, verse 3 uses the term “objects of wrath.” This is referring to the habit of sin. Sin separates us from God! Isaiah 59:2 and Romans 6:23 tells us that sin separates us from God and that the penalty for that sin is death. What is that death? – eternal separation from God in hell! This is why we should fear Sin. I think that we take sin way too lightly and too often try to justify it or excuse it. That’s why Jonathan Edwards, in his sermon “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God” preached so passionately about sin when he said:
“O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder. And you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.”
I remember my 8th grade History teacher saying that this doesn’t sound much like a loving God. He is a loving God (John 3:16-17) that why He came to earth to die for our sins so that we would not have to be separated away from Him. This is a good place to ask the next question:
Why should we desire nothing but God? Without God we are “objects of wrath” because our sin separates us from Him. A relationship with God brings LIFE (See Romans 6:23b and John 3:16-17). I John 4:9-10, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” In order to really live we need to pursue God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). When we do this we will be able to be used by God to make a difference.
As Christians we no longer have to fear death, we embrace life and look forward to eternity and hearing His words “Well Done!” Let’s pursue God with all that we are this day. God Bless!
Because of HIS Amazing Grace,
Myron D. Atkinson
Pastor
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