NO EXCUSES ACCEPTED II 

ROMANS 1:18-23 

          A couple of weeks ago we started a message entitled No Excuses Accepted.  At that time we talked about the excuse of the atheist and the excuse of the person who was being deceived.  Today I want to continue that message and talk about three more excuses. 

1.  The excuse of the agnostic. 

          The agnostic is the person who says prove to me that there is a God.  Prove to me that there is a heaven or a hell.  Prove that the Bible is true.  He unlike the atheist does not say that there is no God, he simply demands proof that such an entity exist. 

Master book of new illustrations  “Any Brains” page 21 

          Today it would be hard to ask the agnostic have you seen because there are so many things that man has seen.  All of the different sciences and technologies are designed to help us see and understand more about ourselves and our world.  As I pondered I could come up with nothing.  I asked Glo and she immediately said the wind.  We can see the effects of it but we can not see it.  Yet we believe leaves moving in the very top of a tree are the effect of the wind blowing.  Then she said love.  Love is a noun but we can not see it.  We have attributed certain reactions to the feeling of love, but we can not actually see it.  In fact love and wind are two of the most powerful forces in the world and we can see neither with our physical eyes.  Would it not make sense that he who tells the wind where to blow or that he who is pure love (I John 4:8) would also be invisible to the eye. 

God’s response to the agnostics challenge to prove the existence of God is found in  

PSALMS 19:1-2 

          All of heaven speaks to the existence of God.  The starry space and all that is beyond it tell of the existence of God.  The fact that day and night continues to come which means that our planet continues its same pattern speaks to God’s existence.  Our world and everything in it is so ordered and continues in perfect order and we still struggle to understand why things continue in such an ordered fashion.  Only someone much more intelligent than man could keep in order what we can not even understand.

          As we read in our opening scripture, the invisible God is to be understood by the visible things He has created.  In fact all of nature speaks to the existence and glory of God. 

Master book of new illustrations  “No Further Discussion Needed” page 24.         

          The agnostic wants proof, but God in his mercy withholds the proof the agnostic desires because the proof itself comes with death.  Either one is already dead when he sees God visually or one dies when seeing God in all of his glory.  God patiently waits for the agnostic to come to know him by all of the visible evidence he has presented.

          To the agnostics statement of “No one can know whether the Bible is true” turn to

PSALMS 119:89

          All of heaven knows that God’s word is true.  There is no doubt about it there and guess what; there is no doubt about it in hell either.  But wait the agnostic questions the existence of heaven or hell.  Ask the agnostic what is death.  He will probably say when a man stops breathing he dies or when the heart stops beating.  But now due to modern medicine we can put a person on life support to keep him breathing and his heart beating, but is that life.  Doctors now look at brain activity, and declare people on life support as brain dead.  What they don’t understand is that saying someone is brain dead is the same as saying their soul has left them.  Why? Because the soul is the seat of our emotions, knowledge, desires, etc.  When man dies something other than air leaves him, because we can now supply air, but the man is still dead.  Something else leaves and whatever it is that leaves man gives him life.  To the agnostic, ask where does the life of man go?

JAMES 2:26

          This verse identifies the Spirit as the thing that leaves man.  To the agnostic, what happens to it? 

2.  The excuse of the ignorant

          The ignorant will offer excuses like I have committed the unpardonable sin. 

MATTHEW 12:30-37

     Many who have studied the scriptures have tried to put a definition on blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.  The Bible Knowledge Commentary explains it this way.  “Jesus then invited the people to make a clear decision. They must either be with Him or against Him. He gave a strong warning to those moving away from Him. Understandably some would not comprehend who Jesus is. A divine Person living among men would naturally not be appreciated fully. That was why allowances for such actions were made: Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven. But while the person of Jesus was not fully comprehended, the power evidenced through Him should never have been misunderstood, especially by religious leaders.

The nation, because of its leaders, was on the brink of making a decision that would bring irreversible consequences. They were about to attribute incorrectly to Satan the power of the Holy Spirit exercised through Jesus and thus to commit the blasphemy against the Spirit. This specific sin cannot be reproduced today, for it required Jesus’ presence on earth with His performing miracles through the Spirit’s power. If, however, the leaders, acting on behalf of the nation, concluded that Jesus was empowered by Satan, they would commit a sin that would never find national or individual forgiveness (in this Age or in the Age to come). The consequences would bring about God’s judgment on the nation and on any individual who persisted in that view.”  Our best attempt at defining blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is it is knowingly attributing the works of the Holy Spirit as a work of the devil.  And there is still the question of whether this was specific to the work of the Spirit in the life of Christ.  If those who have really studied the scriptures can not put a clear definition to this statement how can the one who is using this excuse be so sure that he has committed this sin.  Our response should be.

ROMANS 10:13

          Paul did not say whoever as long as they have not blasphemed but just whomever.  The question to this person is “are you a whoever.” 

I TIMOTHY 2:3-6

          God desires for all men to know the truth and be saved.  He gave Christ of all mankind not just those who had committed only certain sins.  Salvation is available to all mankind. 

          The one offering an excuse in ignorance may also say something like I can’t stop sinning.  This person believes that the Christians are able to restrain themselves through their own power.  Of course we all know that they are wrong.

I PETER 1:5

          We are not keeping ourselves but rather are being kept by the power of God.  It is the Holy Spirit constantly staying on our case that keeps us moving in the right direction and if truth be told sometimes we do more to move ourselves in the wrong direction and further out of the will of God than we do to move towards God.  Often we are a hindrance not a help in the work of the Spirit in our lives.

JOHN 8:34-36

          This person is correct in recognizing that they are a servant or slave to the sin that has them trapped.  However, there is a great power than the sin that is holding them down.  They are deceived into believing that sin is an unconquerable power.  Sin is powerful yes but God is all powerful (I John 4:4).  They need to know the truth and that truth is Jesus.  The more of Jesus we know the more freedom we experience.  And when Christ sets you free, you truly are free.  Matured Christians are free to choose what they will do.  We are no longer driven by our flesh, but by our choices.

GALATIANS 6:7-8

          This is a warning to the person who refuses Christ and continues to be a slave to his own fleshly desires.  If he continues to be pulled along or dragged through life by the desires of his flesh then that same flesh will pull him right into destruction.  However, if he will yield to God and allow God to lead him he will be carried into life everlasting.

          Another statement given as an excuse by the ignorant is “the Christian life is too hard.”

PROVERBS 13:15

          Jesus told his disciples in John 16:33, in the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”  Both saved and unsaved face tribulations in this world; for it rains on the just and the unjust.  The good rain does not only fall on the righteous, sinners are also blessed by it.  Nor does the flood come only to the unjust, righteous people are also affected by it.  Saved or unsaved, all face trials and tribulations.  But Jesus told his disciples have hope because He had overcome the world thus showing that we can do likewise.  Though the devil tells the unsaved that the Christian life is hard he knows that our lives are made easier by the presence of Christ.  As a Christian I have assistance in facing the everyday trials of life and my helper, the Spirit of God has access to all the earthly and heavenly resources need to produce for me an abundant life.

JOHN 10:10

          It is the way of the transgressor that is hard because he has no helper.  His helper and the one who is leading him has as his desire to steal the life out of man, kill any hope of a good life and destroy any possibility of man having a relationship with God who is a loving father.  Life itself is hard.  But the life of a Christian is made easier by the loving support given to us by God our father through His Spirit and by Jesus our Savior who constantly intercedes for us.

HEBREWS 10:28-29

Just as the Romans in our beginning scripture were told that they were without excuse because the glory of God can be seen in what God has created and the Children of Israel were not excused when they refused to abide by the rules of God given to them by Moses, no man will be excused when he has rejected Jesus and the great sacrifice given by God to give him an opportunity for a better life here and in eternity.  No excuse will be acceptable when the sinner stands before God.  We who know Christ should try to help the sinner understand this basic but true fact.  Let me encourage you to do something.  For those who you know and have some type of relationship with do a role play with them.  You pretend to be the gate keeper in heaven and God’s instruction to you is to let no one in the gate who does not first give you the proper code words.  Ask them to convince you that you should let them into the gate without the Code.  Though you may desire to let them in you know that disobeying God is a serious and costly matter.  Even if there argument seems reasonable before letting them in you would check with God and find that his requirement is firm.  You would not let them in.  If they cannot convince you and you did not even set the standard, you did not even shed your blood, how can they hope to convince God.  Let’s take away their excuses here on earth and save them the embarrassment of offering God lame excuses when they stand before him in judgment.