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Title: Charles Dickens and the Mind of the Believer
v8 “but to those who are self seeking, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness…”
This is about the most succinct biblical definition we can come up with for a non believer. Paul outlines three characteristics of those who are not saved:
1. They are self seeking.
The root of every sin ever committed from the fall of Satan, to the fall of Adam, to you and I today is pride.
Essentially, when we sin, what we are choosing is our desire over God’s desire for us. Here Paul builds on what we looked at last week in verse 7 by saying that the believers are the ones who seek for Glory, Honor, and Immortality, all things that are greater than themselves. While the non-believer seeks only for themselves.
It makes me recall the final line of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities where, in a surprise ending, one of the main characters gives his live on the guillotine so another may live, and his last words, “This is a far far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.”
He understood that what he was taking part in was greater than himself.
Understand this and understand the mentality of the non-believer: Nothing that they do is greater than themselves. Because they do not know God, they are deplorable in His sight, and none of their works are accepted as righteousness.
Yet you and I, as believers, have one of the most amazing opportunities imaginable: we can do something, take part in something that is not only greater than ourselves, it is the single greatest thing in the universe. We can please God. Don’t ever, ever, ever, take that fact lightly. Because you are a believer, because through the blood of Christ you are made whole, because by the direction and counsel of the Holy Spirit you can have your works accepted as righteousness before God, you can do something greater than yourself, you are not locked into being self-seeking, you can seek Glory, Honor, and Immortality in the one true God.
2. They do not obey the Truth.
Paul’s entire argument up to this point in Romans is built on the foundation that those who reject God are in fact ignoring the presence of God because he has made himself known through his creation, therefore all are without excuse. We cannot cry, “Lord I did not see you!”
Oh, they saw him, and chose to praise science, or Mother Nature, or a the Big Bang.
They reject God, they do no obey righteousness. But here is where things get very interesting and we can dissect the mind of the non-believer in a Biblical fashion and come to a greater understanding of one of the craftiest moves the shrewd Devil ever invented.
It was once said in a film, “The greatest trick the Devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
These people who do not obey the Truth, if you were to ask them who their master is (for it surely is not Truth) they would most likely say, “I am my own master.” And they are so mistaken. They have a master.
3. They obey unrighteousness.
It is not that the non-believer has free will as they would like to think. Many non-believers scoff at the religious, particularly the Christians and say, “Look at you with all of your rules and self-proclaimed Holiness, you are wasting your life on empty hopes and dreams, and I, in the meantime, am my own master, enjoying my life to the fullest.”
But their master is not themselves, it the master of unrighteousness, the master of all that is evil, all that is displeasing to God. Christ did not tell us that “if you are not for me you are for yourself.” He said, “If you are not for me you are against me.”
This is what we mean when we say that salvation is a black or white issue, there is no in between. And the greatest trick that the Devil is playing on the lost is that he is telling them that they are their own masters, they control their own destiny, they can decide for themselves what is good, what is evil, what is moral, what is just.
And nothing could be further from the truth. As I’ve said before from this pulpit many times, if our standard of good and evil is anything other than the Character of God as he is revealed in these scriptures, we are doomed. He is the standard by which everything is measured, his son is the reason everything was created, His glory is the point of our existence, and these truths will be known by everybody one day.
Wouldn’t it be better for you and I to do something greater than ourselves and let these truths be heard by people while they are here on Earth, and not suffering eternally in Hell, when it is too late?
The powerful play goes on, brothers and sisters, and you may contribute a verse. The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?