One day a man decided to head into the woods to go hunting. As he rounded a corner on the trail, he unexpectedly encountered a bear. As quickly as possible, he aimed his rifle and shot, and then missed! Immediately the bear came charging toward him, and out of extreme fear the man froze and couldn’t move. However, he was able to muster a few brief words.
“Oh, Lord,” he prayed, “Please forgive me for not living for You, and grant me just one petition. Please make a Christian out of that bear that’s coming after me.” That very second, the bear skidded to a halt in front of the man, fell to its knees, clasped its paws together and began to pray aloud, “Dear God, bless this food I am about to receive.”
It’s not a good thing to miss what you are aiming to shoot. Whether you are aiming at a bear, or aiming at a target in an archery competition, missing can result in serious consequences or penalties. In our message today we will learn about missing the mark with God; how it happens, and the resulting consequence. We will also learn how to get our lives centered and on target with God, and hit the bulls eye that will get us into heaven.
We Are All Born Off Target with God (Isaiah 59:1-2)
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. 2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
Isaiah declared plainly that sin separates us from God. Commentator John Gill says the imagery Isaiah had in mind was “a partition wall dividing between them, so that they enjoy no communion with Him,” and because of sin, “the Lord does not grant His gracious presence to them, but stands at a distance from them.”(1) Our sin separates us from God, because the Lord is holy and righteous; and sinful human beings cannot stand in the presence of a holy God. Sin is like black oil and holiness like pure water, and oil and water do not mix.
This distance between God and human beings is extremely wide, like an arrow that has been shot at a bulls eye and has missed the target completely and landed deep in the woods. Sin eliminates our accuracy in the game of life and leaves us off target with God; and the biblical truth we cannot miss is that all people are born into sin and begin their life off target with God. Paul said that “through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). He also stated, “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10).
In Romans 3:23, the apostle declared, “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.” The Greek verb that Paul used here for “sinned” is hamartano, which comes from the root hamartia. Hamartia first appeared in Aristotle’s book Poetics around 335 B.C., and is rooted in the notion of missing the mark.(2) “It . . . indicates failing to make a bull’s-eye.”(3)
For example, when a soldier was practicing archery, trying to hone his skills, there would be a score keeper standing nearby watching the target. If the soldier failed to hit the bull’s eye, the score keeper would yell out, “Hamartia!” Hamartia eventually found its way into the language of the New Testament to “make a point” concerning man’s relationship with God. John MacArthur elaborates,
Hamartia originally carried the idea of missing the mark . . . with a bow and arrow. It then came to represent missing or falling short of any goal, standard or purpose. In the spiritual realm it refers to missing and falling short of God’s standard of holiness, and in the New Testament it is the most common and general term for sin (used 173 times).(4)
Sin is simply missing the mark with God. It is falling short of the standard of God’s holiness; and Scripture teaches that we have all come up short.
If you are participating in an archery competition, there are penalties added to your score every time you miss a target. The main question that arises is, “What is the penalty for falling short of God’s standard of holiness?” In Romans 6:23, Paul declared, “The wages of sin is death.” This is a reference to “spiritual” death, which is eternal separation from God’s presence, and enduring, infinite and never-ending punishment in the flames of hell.
The penalty for missing the mark with God is death. Was such a penalty ever exacted in an archery competition? During the sixth century in Japan, the samurai practiced mounted archery in a game called Yabusame. The penalty for missing was an added incentive for hitting the target. “The warriors who missed were obliged to take their own lives.”(5)
Today’s society does not believe in any absolute standard. The philosophy is to do what feels good, and to experiment with different lifestyle choices. In essence, people are letting their arrows fly in all directions, having no sense of absolute center. Remember, however, that when you don’t hit on center there is a price to pay, and that penalty is your life.
I wish to share an experience told by Eric Hovind, son of the creation science evangelist Kent Hovind. Eric Hovind says,
Today I participated in my very first archery competition . . . The target was a steel buck, literally a steel buck silhouette and a four-inch by four-inch square cut-away where a “kill” shot would be on a real deer . . . If you miss the square, you never get to shoot that arrow again because it hits the steel buck and destroys your arrow.
I experienced my first miss in round two at 35 yards. Ouch! When you hear your own arrow hit that steel and you realize that you have missed the mark, your stomach sinks, your heartbeat escalates and you feel more pressure in the next shot.(6)
Hovind described how his stomach sank when he missed the target, and how his heartbeat escalated. This is the same sensation we experience whenever we have done something we know is wrong, wondering if we will be found out and punished. Perhaps you are feeling this way right now. If so, then the sensation you are experiencing is the conviction of the Holy Spirit of how you need to get on target with God before it is too late.
We Cannot Hit the Target By Ourselves (Isaiah 64:6-7)
6 But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. 7 And there is no one who calls on Your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us, and have consumed us because of our iniquities.
Verse six says that we are all unclean, and that “all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.” The NIV says that “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” John Gill says, “They are ‘rags,’ not whole, but imperfect, not fit to appear before God, and by which they cannot be justified in His sight; they are ‘filthy’ ones, being attended with imperfection and sin.”(7)
There are countless people trying to hit the target all by themselves, attempting to work their way into heaven through their righteous acts and good deeds; but Isaiah accurately stated that all our good works are seen only as dirty rags in the eyes of the Lord. If left to our devices, we will remain unholy and unworthy to come into God’s presence. In Ephesians 2:8-9, Paul reminds us, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
According to Isaiah, all of our good works will fade into nothingness. We will remain trapped in our iniquities and sins that will carry us away to crumble into tiny pieces like a leaf. Peter, in quoting Isaiah (cf. Isaiah 40:7-8), declared, “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away” (1 Peter 1:24). On the day we pass away and stand before God in judgment, all of our righteous acts will fall short of the true standard of perfection; and thus, we will fall short of heaven.
In trying to work our way into heaven we often establish our own standard of righteousness; by aiming for something we feel we can attain. This is a form of cheating. For example, someone might say, “I bet you $100 that I can hit a target 50 yards away.” He then draws his bow, aimlessly lets the arrow fly, and it plunges into the bark of a tree over 50 yards away. He then calmly walks up to the tree, takes out permanent marker, and proceeds to draw a circle around the tip of the arrow. He then says, “I told you I could hit a target 50 yards away. You owe me $100!”
“People consider themselves good people only by the standards of bad people. We judge ourselves against others rather than against an absolute standard of good.”(8) Carol Brooks says, “The ‘mark’ or target that the Scriptures are referring to is an absolute standard of good - the perfection of God Himself. Anything short of that standard is ‘missing the mark.’ We might be satisfied with ‘goodness,’ but God is not. He demands perfection.”(9) The Lord is quick to identify all forms of cheating, and He does not allow us to draw our own target.
In verse seven Isaiah said, “There is no one who calls on Your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of You.” The reason why many people are refusing to take hold of the Lord and receive His salvation is because they are feeling self-sufficient in their own works, and their own standard; but as Isaiah emphasized, our works leave us separated from God and removed from the face of Shechinah, and divine Majesty.(10)
Only Jesus Can Hit the Target for Us (Isaiah 53:4-5)
4 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
Isaiah prophesied of the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ; and described how He took on all our sin, and received the punishment so that we could be healed, and be on target with God. Anne Graham Lotz states that Isaiah understood that the root cause to the world’s problems was sin, and he “believed that the solution was a Savior who would take away the sin and restore humankind in a right relationship with God” and that - no pun intended - Isaiah “was right on target.”(11)
When Jesus died on the cross, He took our sin upon Himself; all of our mistakes and shortcomings. Isaiah stated that the “chastisement of our peace was upon Him.” John Gill comments, “The punishment of our sins was inflicted on Him, whereby our peace and reconciliation with God was made by Him . . . whereby divine wrath is appeased, justice is satisfied, and peace is made.”(12) The word “reconciliation” describes exactly what Jesus did. Paul shared with the believers in Colossae,
For it pleased the Father that in Him [or Jesus] all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight (Colossians 1:19-22).
Jesus paid the price for our sin in order to reconcile us to God. The word “reconcile” in Colossians means, “to bring back,”(13) as in recentering and realigning our lives with God, and getting back on target. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a); however, the good news is that “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23b). Jesus offers us an indescribable gift. He removes the penalty; thereby, granting us a perfect score, even though we have missed the mark countless times.
Time of Reflection
The Lord desires for you to hit the target and spend eternity with Him. Peter declared, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise . . . but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). His desire is for you to land on target with Him, but at the same time He is also targeting you. The Lord is aiming straight at your heart, stirring your conscious by the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus declares, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20). Can you hear Jesus asking to come into your heart? He is chasing after you as hard as a hunter pursues the one that got away. Will you surrender your heart to Him? It is my hope that He has worn you down, so you can declare as the psalmist, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God” (Psalm 42:1).
NOTES
(1) John Gill, John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible, Bible Study Tools: www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/isaiah-59-2.html (Accessed November 16, 2011).
(2) “Hamartia,” posted October 27, 2011, Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamartia (Accessed November 18, 2011).
(3) John W. Ritenbaugh, “What Sin Is and What Sin Does,” posted February 1996, Bible Tools: www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Library.sr/CT/PERSONAL/k/489/What-Sin-Is-Does.htm (Accessed November 18, 2011).
(4) John MacArthur, “Ephesians,” The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago, IL: The Moody Bible Institute, 1986), p. 54.
(5) “Twisted History - The Olympics,” Fun Trivia: www.funtrivia.com/submitquiz.cfm?quiz=216124 (Accessed November 18, 2011).
(6) Eric Hovind, “Sin - To Miss the Mark,” posted August 6, 2010, Creation Science Evangelism: www.drdino.com/sin%E2%80%94to-miss-the-mark/ (Accessed November 18, 2011).
(7) John Gill, John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible, Bible Study Tools: www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/isaiah-64-6.html (Accessed November 16, 2011).
(8) Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004), p. 397.
(9) Carol Brooks, “What Is Sin?” The Heart of the Matter, In Plain Sight: www.inplainsite.org/html/sin.html (Accessed November 18, 2011).
(10) John Gill, John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible, Bible Study Tools: www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/isaiah-64-7.html (Accessed November 16, 2011).
(11) Anne Graham Lotz, I Saw the Lord (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006).
(12) John Gill, John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible, Bible Study Tools: www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/isaiah-53-5.html (Accessed November 18, 2011).
(13) “Apokatallasso,” Strong’s Number G604, Blue Letter Bible: www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G604&t=KJV (Accessed November 19, 2011).
