Isaiah 65:11 “But as for you who forsake the Lord
    and forget my holy mountain,
who spread a table for Fortune
    and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny…”

This is a hard section to write on, because from here on God is contrasting the fate of those who forsake Him to that of those who are faithful to Him, in verse after verse. The contrast is pretty stark, and He doesn’t even get into the eternal consequences! The problem is, so many people are blinded, or are willfully blind, to consequences of all sorts. Otherwise, why would anyone ever take the first hit of cocaine, or of any other narcotic? The devil does blind us, as Paul said, (2 Corinthians 4:4) but I think willful blindness is the bigger issue. We tend to downgrade the reality of free will, blaming our many faults on anyone but ourselves. The devil does all he can to foster a victim mentality, because once he has that, he gets full control of a person. The problem is, we can’t control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond to it, and that’s where accountability comes in. God does all sorts of things to warn us of the consequences of sin, but too often we choose to sin anyway. In this passage He spoke through Isaiah, He lays it out very clearly, and it’s clearly not pretty. We need to understand that, whereas we can’t earn our way into heaven, there are consequences to sin and rewards for obedience. None of us could ever get it perfectly, so He provided a way through His Son for us to be saved by grace through faith, but there is a lot more to the Christian life than just a “ticket to heaven!” We need to understand the consequences of sin, and of obedience, and choose obedience.

As a part of my duties as a pastor, I am to warn people of the consequences of sin. However, I’ve seen very few good results to “hellfire and brimstone” preaching. I am to speak the truth in love, unequivocally and unapologetically, but I’m not to do it in a condemnatory manner. That’s not “in love!” I have a friend who just recently entered into a same-sex marriage. My heart is broken, but I don’t know anything to do but pray. Both people have been “active Christians” for a long time, and all I can do is surrender them to God, for Him to be as merciful as possible. There have been many places in my own life that I could easily have taken the wrong fork in the road, but God has been more than gracious. I can’t save anyone, but I need to keep myself available to God for however He might want to use me to draw others to Himself, away from the pit.

Father, as much as my own heart breaks for some people, I know that Your heart breaks more. You told me Yourself that there is much that is not as You would like it to be. Help me stay yielded to You, so that I may be as useful as possible to You in making things right, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!