Life Without God
I remember clearly the day when I first saw the sign “God is Dead.” About 30 years ago, I was traveling on I-65 headed north to Indiana with my family. My mind was in neutral and I was somewhere else in “never-never land” as you sometimes get when you are driving on a long trip. It startled me so as if I had fallen asleep at the wheel. In a sense, that’s where I was. I had fallen asleep at the wheel of life and living it as if God were dead.
In our society it seems that we are devoid of God. The headlines on our daily newspaper and the evening news explain what I’m trying to say. It’s seems that everyone’s pursuit is in self-gratification. It’s about ‘who I am’ and not about ‘who anybody else is’. We have a world that worships self without regard to another person.
But you know it still shocks our system when we hear of a 10-year-old that sexually molests a 3-year-old and then brutally murders him. It’s shocks our system still when a protective authority figure releases a child that has been abused back to its abusive mother. At her hands, the child is suffocated to death. It stills shocks our system when we hear of killings in cold blood right in our own community. It still shocks our system to know that our youth is sexually active and have no fear of becoming pregnant. It still shocks our system when a young, unmarried, college student couple deals with an unwanted pregnancy by delivering the child in a Motel 6 room and throwing it in the trash to die. It still shocks our system to read and to hear these kinds of stories.
But the reality of it all is that we live in a generation of young people being raised to consider themselves and combining that with junk food, junk movies, and just plain junk. We are raising a generation that thinks of nothing but itself. The old three R’s of our old school system; reading, writing, arithmetic has now become the three G’s; games, guns, and getting high. Smoking, swallowing, injecting, and sniffing are the many things that our kids are into today to take them out of reality into themselves and away from God.
Life wasn’t much different in the days of Judges. For those of you who are reading through the Bible, got a mind full of things that happened in the times of Judges. And for those of you that have read this morning’s section wonder how much more horrific can you get than in the times of Judges? It’s a life literally without God.
In chapter 17:6 says there was no king in Israel and everyone did as they saw fit in their own mind. This phrase is going to come up several times. As a matter of fact, the book ends that way; “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.” Just looking after self! But in reality, there was a king and His name was God. But the people lived as if there were no God.
So what is life without God? Look at chapter 2 of Judges and examine what life is without God, sin reigns. When sin reigns, there is disobedience. Look back to verse 2. The children of Israel disobeyed God. God had certain plans for them. He had brought them into the promise land and fulfilled His covenant made with Abraham. But the children of Israel disobeyed God, breaking the covenant. They disobeyed God and that’s what happens when sin reigns in our lives. God’s loves us enough to make a covenant and we break it.
Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus and begins, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” (Ephesians 2:1-2). He was speaking of the devil. All of us have lived at one time gratifying the sinful ways of our sinful nature and we followed its desires and thoughts. Paul dealt with this in his day. They dealt with it in the times of Judges. And we’re dealing with it today. We have become self-gratifying. In such a way that we begin to separate ourselves from God in doing what we want to do and that is called disobedience! When sin reigns in my life, I become disobedient to God. Satan is ruling your life, in a sense; he is the god in your life who’s ruling you.
I remember in speaking with a young person, who was kind of arrogant and very athletic. He says, “Nobody rules me”. I just kind of chuckled under my breath. We’re all ruled in some way or another. If God’s not reigning in your life, then Satan is. You say, “Well, I’m not a devil worshipper.” Yes you are. If God is not ruling your life, then Satan has you. We’re all slaves to one or the other, either God or Satan. When Paul writes to the people in his day he says, “this is where you were. You were dead in your transgressions. You were slaves to the spirits of this world.” When we consider the words of Paul in this text, not only are we disobedient but also when sin reigns in our lives we begin to compromise with sin.
In Judges 2 verses 12 and 13 the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord in that they followed and worshipped various gods. They were content with doing whatever was going on with the people around them. This was one of the things that God warned them about, “Don’t be involved with other people’s religion.” But they did anyway and were pulled away from God.
Sometimes we become content with where we are and in doing what we do. Right now you may be content with where you are. Even though you are here worshipping with us, you could worship anywhere, in any building, with any teaching. You just feel comfortable in a religious setting. When you consider God’s Word and its teachings on certain principles and you hear teaching that is false and you continue in that environment you are living in a content world thinking that just being in a church is the answer when it’s not. We can become content in our lives. It’s our responsibility to know the Word of God and His will for our lives, just like the children of Israel. God specifically gave them commandments to follow. When they didn’t follow them, they pulled away from God and were content to live with those people and do their religion. So God’s anger burned against them.
When sin reigns in our lives not only are we disobedient and become compromising but we also see that we become complacent in just where we are. Verse 10 says, “After the whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew not the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.” “I just want to go to church. I don’t want to read my Bible or study it.” I know nothing about God. Sometimes we can become complacent just like the children of Israel.
Something else happens in a life without God. Sin reigns and sin enslaves us. It binds us. It captures us. We are restricted in what we can do by the chains of sin. Look down to verse 14. Read it in regards to the children of Israel and what they were doing. “In his anger against Israel the Lord handed them over to raiders who plundered them.” They took advantage of them. When sin comes into my life and I’m a slave to sin it restrains what God can do in my life. When we are separated from God and His power source then we are literally restrained and restricted from what God can do. Even though He is all-powerful, if I’ve chosen to walk another path, His power in my life is restricted. I’m taking myself away from the power source and what God can do. In John 8:34 Jesus said to his audience “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” As I’ve said before, you will be a slave to something. Sin enslaves us and we are destined to fail. In verse 15 of Judges 2 says, “Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them.” We will be defeated if we continue to allow sin to reign in our lives. Romans 7:14 says, “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.”
When I begin to consider my life as ungodly I know I am wrong. We are born with an instinct of what is wrong. I remember as a little child doing something bad and knew it was wrong. Young people when you do something that it is wrong you know it don’t you?
The amazing thing about this whole story is when they got so low they cried out to God. And God heard them. He sent judges. He sent Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, Abimilech, Tola, Jair, Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, and Samson. God sent them to deliver and bring them out of their depression and to put them back on the road again to do what is right. Just as soon as a judge dies, guess what? They go right back to where they were, to a life without God. How many of us could raise our hand and say “I’ve been there?” I remember when my walk was strong. But I can also remember when my walk was weak. I remember coming back to be strong and fell back into weakness, strong and then weak. But God still delivered them.
When we consider where we are now and what we have in Jesus Christ that a life without God is terrible. A life with God brings salvation and we are restored to His relationship through Christ Jesus. As God the Father delivered His people back then even though they were sinful, God sent His Son to die for me even though I was sinful. He brought me into a relationship with Him over and over again. He can do it in your life today! No matter what you have done, no matter where you have been, God calls you home.
Again the words from Jesus in John 8:35-36, “Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Allow Jesus to set you free from sin. The apostle Paul says in Romans 6:7, “Anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” Now when you take the contents of chapter 5 and 6 and put them together in Paul’s letter to the Romans, he’s talking about the One, Christ verses the one Adam and how Adam brought sin into the world and how Christ came to redeem us from sin. In Romans chapter 6 after speaking about grace in chapter 5, he goes on and says, “Should we go on sinning so grace should abound?” He says, “no, God forbid. Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death?” You have died and are freed from sin.
There was a son who decided to go off and live in a world of his own. Tired of his dad bossing him around. Tired of doing this and that. So he went off. His dad gave him what belonged to him. He went away and he spent everything. He lived a very wild life. One day, he found himself with no friends because there was no money. He found himself eating with the pigs. He decided, “I can go home to my father.” Jesus tells the story in Luke 15. The big thing of the story is what Jesus tells about the father. The father doesn’t sit with condemnation in his heart toward the young man that has chosen a wayward life outside of his family. But he looks upon him with grace and favor. He runs to him, which is not done in that day and embraces him and puts a ring on him and a robe and puts slippers on his feet. He embraces him as his son and he brings him into the family and rejoices because what was lost is now found. No matter where you have been or what you have done, your Father wants to embrace you. God wants to embrace you, to restore you to His family. With God, not only is there restoration and adoption through Christ, He wants us to respond in repentance. God brings forth the promise of eternal life. That’s our God! That’s life with God. He loves us so much.
C.S. Lewis tells a story about an artist that was cast into a dungeon. She was able to bring her paper with her, her parchments, and her charcoal pencils. Her only light came through a barred window that was so far up that she couldn’t reach it to see out. Things happened to her in this dungeon. You can imagine being a woman in captivity and the things that can happen. She becomes pregnant and gives birth to a child in the dungeon. As the little boy grows, she tells him about the world outside; about it’s golden fields and gorgeous skies and the sound of the ocean and all of the beautiful things of the world. She thought that maybe he understood. But when she looked at him, she knew he didn’t. So she began to draw pictures to show him what it looked like. In all of that, he still didn’t understand because his vision of the world was all black charcoal on parchment paper. His idea was that the world inside was much better than world outside.
Have we become so complacent with where we are without God that we don’t know what a life with God is? Maybe our concept of being made in the image of God is some stick figure. I’ve got to tell you, God has so much more to promise us. He’s got so much more that He wants for you in your life. God wants us to have things that we can’t even comprehend beyond this world. But it’s your choice today as a young person, as an adult to live with God or to live without God. Choose God today!
