Sin is a robber and a thief.
For it robs God of his great glory
and it steals a person's time and squanders
it in light of eternity.
If you could only see, friend, what sin
is, what sin really is.
It's the devil wearing a fun Halloween mask
with a dagger in his hand with your
blood on it.
Sin leaves a stain wherever it occurs.
The blackness of sin is a homewrecker, a
life-ruiner, and a stealer of one's integrity.
Sin has a laugh in its aftermath and
it mocks and echoes all the way to
the chambers of hell.
Listen, friend, young person, you only have one
life to live.
How you live it will determine where you
spend eternity.
How I used to squander my time on
golf courses all over this country, I weep
now over the lost opportunities that will never
make a mark on eternity because of my
willful wasting of the time God gave me
chasing a little white ball in the game
called golf.
Golf stands for golden opportunities lost forever.
I could have spent that time in prayer
or in gospel witness but instead I selfishly
spent it on me for my own amusement.
A man goes through life blind to spiritual
things in a worldly pursuit of empty things
that don't add up to a hill of
beans in eternity.
A man drifts along in life with a
mundane purpose and selfish ambition to accumulate as
much of this world's goods as he can.
Why?
To leave it to another to squander aimlessly
as well.
A man lives unto himself and gives no
service or sacrifice to the God who made
him.
He lives for the moment, tasting the pleasures
of life as he glides down the stream
of time, enjoying the scenery of the frolicking
waves until he comes to the roaring cataract
of death where he tumbles over that last
waterfall in a cascade into eternity.
Eternity he is quite unprepared for.
Over he goes.
Down he falls to a silent coffin in
the ground.
The thud of the dirt clouds as they
fall on that casket are reminders of what
empty things he pursued in life.
Oh, why, friend, would you want to squander
your life in sin and self-gratification?
It's an empty hole with no lasting satisfaction.
King Solomon lamented later in life.
Then I looked on all the works that
my hand had wrought and on the labor
that I had labored to do, and behold,
all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and
there was no profit under the sun.
Why have you chosen the path you are
on?
What drives you to stay in the career
you chose for yourself?
What are the things that make you get
up out of bed in the morning?
Are they things that will perish with the
earth and one day be burned up?
Or are you living for things of eternal
worth?
What is your life, friend, but a vapor
that appears for a little while and then
it's gone, gone, gone?
God in his mercy has kept his heavenly
bloodhound on your trail to woo you, to
win you, to turn you to the Christ
of the gospel, the Christ who is the
only remedy and refuge for sin.
Apart from him, there is only a dank,
cold grave and then a burning, hot hell
of infinite torments that awaits you, beckons you,
if you continue to stay the course you
are on.
Oh, oh, look at that scene on that
hill up yonder.
Do you see him?
Do you see that man on the cross?
Look at that man on the cross as
he hangs there.
He says, and I, if I be lifted
up from the earth, will draw all men
unto me.
Look at that man on the cross as
he hangs there, suspended in air with his
outstretched arms.
He is ready to receive you.
But are you ready to receive him?
He says, and him that cometh to me,
I will in no wise cast out.
Look, dear sinner, look, dear sinner, friend, look
at the man on the cross.
It is the Lord Jesus Christ.
See his nail-pierced hands?
Blood oozes from those hands.
There's a hymn that captures this terrible scene
in all its vivid colors.
There is a fountain filled with blood drawn
from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that
flood lose all their guilty stains.
That is your story, friend.
You stand guilty, stained with sin, separated from
God himself.
Your only hope is in that man, that
man on the cross, the Savior from sin.
Look at him there as he lifts his
noble head with that thorny crown and cries,
it is finished.
Just receive him.
And in a moment, in the twinkling of
an eye, you may be his, resting in
those outstretched arms, ready to receive you.
Are you ready to receive him?
Cast your burdens down at his feet and
receive mercy and pardon for sin.