Wanna’ Bet?
By Pastor Jim May
Gambling is big business in America today. Right now, in the city of Baton Rouge, there is another large casino and resort that is trying to make the people of the area believe that the end justifies the means. A gambling conglomerate by the name of Pinnacle is flooding the TV, radio and newspapers with articles that present a glowing report of their operations and what they will do for the community. As usual, you never hear of the downside of such operations, only what they consider to be the “good things” that they do for our community.
I remember a few years ago when the riverboat casinos were trying to get started. There was a lot of hype about what they would do for our area too. The big promise what that they would give so much back to the community and help to fund our schools and community social programs. Having worked in the education system in Baton Rouge for many years I was in a place where the truth could really be known, at least to some degree. From all that I was told and all that I saw, very little, if any, of the money that came into those gambling casinos has ever made its way to the classrooms. The schools are still going broke. The equipment is still in disrepair and the system doesn’t seem to be one bit better off because of the casinos and their big bucks.
Now this isn’t a tirade against Pinnacle or any other casino specifically, but I believe that anything that creates broken homes, ruined lives and makes gambling addicts out of people who don’t think that they have any other hope than to win at a game of chance is wrong. How much money is it worth to see a child go hungry because mom, or dad has blown the whole paycheck on the throw of the dice or a hand of cards?
What we always fail to remember is that not one of these casinos would be here if they couldn’t make a major profit for themselves at the expense of the little people who go there with a glimmer of hope of winning big.
I listened to a man who manages a large casino in Las Vegas on the History Channel last week as he discussed the “business” of gambling. He made a statement that we all need to remember: “The number one purpose of a casino is to get as much of the money out of the hands of the gambler and into the hands of the casino.” Another man made this statement, “Never forget that virtually all of the “big winners” were “bigger losers” before they won anything substantial, and that all of the glitz and glamour, all of the appealing buildings and the “atmosphere” of the gambling strip is paid for with the money of losers.” The point is that the only ones who seem to win at all are the casinos and it will be no different with Pinnacle or any other gambling business that comes to town. They all promise to do so much for the community but in the end they are here for only one thing in reality; that is to drain as much money off of the community as they possibly can. It’s all about profits for the casino owners and don’t ever forget it.
But this morning I don’t want to just focus on the casinos because they really aren’t the root of the problem. The root of the problem lies within each individual person who enters their doors because if that person wasn’t entering to gamble on winning there would be no casinos.
People gamble all the time. It doesn’t always have to do with the casinos or a deck of cards or a “one armed bandit”. There are many things that are a gamble to us.
For instance, this morning I saw the headlines of the Times Picayune newspaper that read something like this, “SAME HOUSE, SAME REPAIRS, SAME INSURER; WHY DIFFERENT PRICES?” Can you see the gamble in this headline? We all need insurance to help us through the unexpected disasters in our lives, but insurance itself is a gamble. One agent said it this way, “Insurance companies are gambling that they can take your premiums and not have to pay off a claim until they’ve made money by investing your money. The insured person is gambling that they will get more in return than what they are paying in when trouble comes. But in the end, both the insurance company and the insured person could easily lose.”
What about buying a car, a home or even an appliance? In our day, you are taking a chance on whether what you are getting is worth the price you are paying. So much of what is out there is not what it seems to be.
We who sit there this morning surely wouldn’t think of ourselves as gamblers, at least not in the sense of those who frequent the casinos. Most of us are against gambling because we know the evil that it generates and the damage it does to the heart and soul of man. But if we aren’t careful we will find ourselves gambling on something that is far more valuable than a paycheck or a retirement fund. We are gambling with our soul, our eternal consciousness, that part of us that will always be, forever and ever.
How do you gamble with your soul? How can you lay your eternal life on the line and rely on a roll of the dice for your eternal future? We bet our eternal future every day by the way we live, the way we think and the things we do.
Mark 9:38-40, "And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part."
John and the disciples loved the Lord. They had been with Jesus for some time now and had begun to learn a lot, but they had so much more to learn. They had reached a point where they thought that they were “above” the pettiness of the crowd. They were no longer tempted by the same sin that other men fell into. They were elevated onto a higher plane of existence because they knew the Lord and they were the chosen ones of God.
The problem was that they had become “elitist” in their thinking and it came to the surface when they ran across someone who was being used by God but wasn’t one of “their crowd”. This man wasn’t one of the “Chosen 12”. He shouldn’t be casting out devils if he isn’t one of us.
Does that still happen in the church of today? Yes it does, and you can see it if you will look. Have you ever seen God answer the prayer of a sinner? Have you seen people blessed in spite of the fact that the preacher wasn’t right with God? Of course we have. I’ve seen people saved when a gospel message came forth, even though I knew that the man giving the message was living in sin. I’ve seen God reach out in his mercy and deliver a sinner who needed something from God.
If we aren’t careful though we will find ourselves like the disciples. We will begin to question God why these things happen when we can’t seem to do the same thing and we are truly doing our best to serve God.
So we gamble with our relationship with God, and we take the chance on making an enemy by preaching against anyone who doesn’t agree with us or who may not live the way we think that they should. When we begin to cut down people who are lifting up the name of Jesus in any fashion, we are gambling with the blessings of God in our lives.
Look at what Jesus said. “Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part”.
Paul says it this way in Philippians 1:15-18, "Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will: The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel. What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice."
I may not agree with the way that a preacher lives, or the message he gives, or the way he runs his church, but if that man is preaching that Jesus Christ is Lord and that it is only by the blood of Jesus that we can be saved, then who am I to judge his methods? If he is preaching Jesus then he can’t be blaspheming God and if he is on the Lord’s side, then he’s on my side. We may all be saying it differently and teaching differently but if we are all pointing people to Christ then why gamble with the souls of men by attacking one another. It’s not worth the gamble.
Let me tell you that when we begin to preach against another ministry, or against another preacher, we are on dangerous ground. We are gambling with our own relationship with the Lord when that happens.
Mark 9:41-42, "For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward. And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea."
God calls the weaker brother, “his little ones”. Jesus warns us that if we offend these little ones that believe in Him that we are going to face the wrath of God upon ourselves. I wonder how often preachers think that they are better than someone else and that their way is the only way, then cut down on every one who says different. Do we forget that the other brother is still one of God’s children, and that he still believes in Jesus as Lord, and still believes in the blood as the only thing that has power to cleanse us from sin? Whether he agrees with us or not, he is still God’s child and we better not gamble on bringing the anger of God down upon ourselves for what we say against a child of God.
I have to be careful not to get caught up in the name-calling and finger pointing in the church. If they are preaching Jesus leave them alone. At least they aren’t cursing God and blaspheming the name of Jesus. If they are missing the mark on a few points of doctrine so what! Will trusting God for money keep a man out of heaven? I don’t think so as long as he trusts Jesus for his salvation. Will being baptized by sprinkling cause a man to lose his soul because he wasn’t immersed in water? Baptism doesn’t save you. Believing and trusting in Jesus saves you. There are a lot of things that other people preach that I don’t agree with. There are some things that I preach that other Pentecostal preachers won’t agree with. Again I say, SO WHAT! Let’s all preach Jesus Christ and him crucified and let the Holy Ghost take care of the rest. Let’s quit gambling with the souls of men over petty things that don’t make a difference in our salvation.
People in the church gamble in other ways too. We lay our bets on the table every day when we decide that we are going to take a chance on our salvation by serving the devil one more time.
I see it all the time. We see people come to the Lord and then we hear of them flirting with the world again. They are gambling on their salvation; their eternal soul.
I see people who promise God to give up their old ways. They come to an altar of repentance and lay their sins upon the altar, but then they pick them up on Monday morning and go back to the same old pigpen and the same sinful associations in the world. They are gambling that the experience they had at the altar on Sunday will keep them safe until they get back the next Sunday.
We gamble with our souls by keeping one foot in the church while the other foot, both hands and our head are in the world. And where does that leave the heart? The heart isn’t in that foot that’s in the church. It’s out there with the rest of us in the world. We are taking a gamble on eternity and we are not holding the winning hand. Do you wanna’ bet on your eternal soul? The devil is hoping that you do because he wants you to be a loser like he is.
Mark 9:43-48, "And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."
We aren’t talking about taking a knife and chopping off your hand, your foot or putting out your physical eye. It’s all about things in the spiritual realm.
Your hands represent the things that you do with them such as handling the things of the world, or holding on to the things of God. If you have one hand on your friends in the world, you have to let go, or you can never fully follow God. If you have your hand in the hand of Jesus, then you can’t enjoy your friends in the world. And it doesn’t always have to be friends. It can be that you have one hand on old worldly habits and one hand on the Bible. You can’t have it both ways. If you want to win eternal life, then you have to sever your hold on the things of the world, the friends of the world and anything of your old way of life that was dragging you down before it drags you down again for the last time.
Do you wanna’ bet on your eternal soul? If so, just keep on trying to hold on the to world and Jesus at the same time. You will lose in the end. In fact, you already have. You have a losing hand. Jesus says, “it’s either all or nothing”. He doesn’t honor half-heartedness. You have to chop off that hand that is holding on to the world. It’s better to never have those things in your life than to hold on to them and lose your soul. You can’t take them with you to Heaven and you don’t want to stay in hell with them forever so get rid of them now while you can. Don’t gamble on your eternal soul or you will be the loser!
What about your foot? Are you walking according to the leading of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God on Sunday, and then following the leading of your desires or the of the devil the rest of the week? The same thing applies here. You can’t have it both ways. You are gambling with a deal that you are bound to lose and your soul is on the line. You can’t live for the world and obey the desires of the flesh all week and still have a good relationship with Jesus. Like one old farmer says, “That dog don’t hunt”. Either get in or get out before you become the greatest loser of all eternity.
Don’t ever forget that hell is going to be filled with people who gambled on life and lost. The world doesn’t have a winning hand; only Jesus does. They gambled that they had more time, and lost the bet. They gambled that their past experience in God would be enough, but it wasn’t. They gambled that they could repent just before they died, but they couldn’t. They gambled that they were still on the rolls of the Book of Life, but their name wasn’t there because they chose to disobey God’s law.
What about your eye? Do you see the things of God, and yet you are drawn by the things of the world that you see too? Cut out your vision of the worldly things and get your eyes on Jesus. If you keep your eyes on Him, you won’t see the things of the world and they won’t tempt you anymore. Stay in church and you won’t see what’s in the bar. Stay in the House of God, and you won’t see the “fun” that you are missing. It’s not worth the gamble.
What is the cost of losing that bet? It’s very high indeed. This is how Jesus described what you “win” if you lose your bet on your eternal soul.
He uses these words three times: "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."
What is the “worm”? It’s your conciousness that will never cease to exist. You will always exist somewhere, forever and ever. You will still be alive and thinking and feeling 10 million years from now. The question is; Where will you be living? What will you be thinking? And what will you be feeling?
You will never be annihilated. If you lose your gamble you will spend the next billion years and on, and on, and on – forever – in unspeakable misery and suffering in the flames of hell that never go out. Those flames aren’t meant to destroy you or burn you up to a cinder, but to keep you alive, forever remembering and thinking of all the times you sinned against God, forever trying to remember what it was like to feel good, to feel love and to enjoy life. They are meant to keep you alive so that you feel the pain of the fire, feel the pain of separation and feel the pain of absolute hopelessness and rejection.
These are more than just literal flames but they are literal. It really is a lake of fire and brimstone, molten lava, but it is kept burning by the wrath and judgment of Almighty and Holy God to forever punish those who lost the gamble with their souls because they rejected Him.
Are you ready to gamble this morning? Do you really wanna’ bet your soul? I think not. It’s a gamble not worth taking. There’s too much to lose, far more than you can pay.
Why gamble with your soul. Give yourself wholly and completely to Jesus. Surrender your heart and life to him without reservation and serve Him with all your heart. Now that’s a sure bet! It’s not a gamble – it’s a guarantee. You will make Heaven your home.
Come to Jesus right now, don’t gamble another minute.
