SPIRITUAL RUSSIAN ROULETTE

Russian Roulette is a deadly game. A gun is loaded with one bullet and a person gambles his life on the chance that the bullet is not under the hammer when the trigger is pulled. No sensible person would ever take this kind of risk with his life, yet fool-hardy Christians are playing spiritual Russian roulette every day. They are gambling that their soul will not be destroyed by the one sin they are about to commit.

 

Even now, there are some "believers" who have lost all hope of eternal life. They once walked in fellowship with God but now their saving faith is dead. It was destroyed by that one last willful sin.  For them, the grace and calling of God were in vain because God no longer answers their prayers and they can not repent.

 

What folly! They committed spiritual suicide because they believed that God would always forgive ...and they could always repent. That fatal deception is exposed here in the book of Hebrews:

 

"For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away,

 

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO RENEW THEM AGAIN TO REPENTANCE." Heb 6:4-6

 

Friends, that verse applies to the Christian who has overcome sin by the power of the Holy Spirit - and then decides to disobey God.  He prefers the rule of satan, so God will give him over to a reprobate mind that cannot repent.

Listen to what Peter has to say to the person who has been delivered from the power of sin and chooses to turn back:

 

"For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

 

For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment delivered to them." 2 Peter 2:20-21

Some church members sin and repent, sin and repent, and then sin and repent again. They have been told that God's love and forgiveness are unconditional. Do you believe that God will always hear your prayers and forgive you?  If so, read this awful warning from the scriptures:

 

"Because I called, and you refused; I stretched out my hand, and no one paid attention; And you neglected all my counsel, And did not want my reproof; I will even laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes, When your dread comes like a storm,  And your calamity comes on like a whirlwind, When distress and anguish come on you.

 

"Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently, but they shall not find me, Because they hated knowledge, And did not choose the fear of the LORD" Proverbs 1:24-29

What fate could be worse than for God not to answer our call? Friend, is the Holy Spirit still striving with you to repent of your sins?  Now is the time for you to cry out to God for forgiveness and ask Him for the power to stop sinning - because your next deliberate sin could be the one that causes God to turn His backon you for eternity.

Harold and Donna Kupp

The Danger of Delaying Repentance

"Our common idea [about repentance] is that we are walking towards the precipice of death; and that we can calculate to-day we are so many miles distant, tomorrow so many fewer, the next day so many fewer, till we reach the very edge.  But this is not the fact. We do not walk towards the precipice, we are walking along the slippery edge of the precipice, and know not what step may place us where all recovery is beyond our reach, because all is fixed; and all repentance impossible, because no place is found for it, though sought with tears."  --Cumming.

 

dk