A Word to those with Background in Substance Dependency
Let me address specifically those who have backgrounds in drugs, alcohol and other destructive and addictive substances. There came a time in many of your lives, when you awoke from the deep deception that this drug was something to be desired and brought pleasure and thrills into your body. You discovered that you were sinning against yourself and destroying yourself. If no steps were taken, you saw that this path would end in death, therefore you went for help. I think you can recognize that your motives were basically selfish. You wanted out! You wanted to live a normal life.
That is as far as some of you have come and it’s not far enough. You can be free from drugs by calling on God for deliverance, but you cannot be saved from eternal punishment, if that is as far as your revelation has brought you. My friend, you who are involved with drug rehabilitation, is this as far as your work takes you? If so, you are a good humanitarian, but you are actually making people two-fold more the children of hell, and you are useless as far as the Kingdom of God is concerned. You need to be more preoccupied with the principle that brought this person into this condition more than the condition itself. You may be helping someone into a state, in which he will think that he needs God less than he needed Him before. I am convinced that many former drug addicts are precisely in that spiritual condition.
Drug-related sins and the Garden of Eden
Let me compare this category of sins to that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We will view it from the position that many of you had and some of you still have… a position of harm and damage done to yourself and others. Take all the destruction done to yourself, possibly bringing in incurable illness and also, perhaps, all kinds of mental repercussions. Then, add to it the harm done to your family, perhaps causing divorce and serious effects upon children, the theft of money and property that caused innocent people to be in want, and the added moral decay to those who were seduced by prostitution. The list of damages goes on and on. I say, take that seriously immoral lifestyle with its multiple immoral acts and compare it, on that same and only basis, of which some of you are conscious, to the direct damage caused by Adam and Eve.
What did they do that was so evil and destructive? They didn’t take some harmful substance; they ate some fruit, that’s all. Everyone would say that eating fruit is healthy, certainly not detrimental. What could possibly be wrong with eating fruit? No, Adam and Eve’s act cannot be measured by the immediate harm caused to life or limb. The gravity of it consists totally in the holiness and majesty of the One against Whom they sinned. They disobeyed Almighty God, their Creator! Therefore the sin was infinite, because it was committed against an infinitely pure God with infinite authority. Never should one deed be raised against His holy character and never should His authority ever be challenged!
It is for that reason that man fell from his high position to an evil state; his nature collapsed into corruption and perversion, for which there is no earthly cure. For this reason, he brought a curse upon all future generations, upon every baby born into this world. For this reason, millions, no billions, are suffering today in the flames of hell and will continue to suffer for all eternity. The sin was infinite and even an eternity in hell will never be enough to pay for that sin. He must go on and on being punished, because the final payment of the debt can never be paid. (Rob Bell, who wrote that the punishment of hell was disproportionate to the offense committed, doesn’t begin to understand the holiness of God or the seriousness of sin. He is deceived into thinking that he is being kind in his attempt to eliminate hell, but he and his doctrines are evil, because they dishonor the infinite holiness of God. In fact, therefore, he blasphemes God!)
A massive, irreparable dilemma
This is your problem, practicing or former drug addict! It dwarfs the damage caused by drugs. Have you awakened to that fact? You see, I, who have never ingested any drug stronger than caffeine, share this supreme problem with you. The alienation from God makes the difference between us very small.
We don’t need to go for help to “people who understand us”. We need to go to people who know Scripture, who have a revelation of the God of the Bible and are anointed by His Spirit to take us to His unchanging law… not a federal or international law, mind you, not the flexible opinions of men, but that which a righteous God has deemed eternally unholy. There we can see what He has commanded us and how we have broken His commandments and therefore have a far more pressing dilemma than that of a murderer, who is destined to die by lethal injection tomorrow. We are in big trouble! We hang by a thread before an offended God, who frowns upon us, because we lightly spurned His good commandments and have not repented. (A line each, please, from two old songs… “I was humbly kneeling at the cross, fearing naught but God’s angry frown… By God’s word at last my sin I learned, then I trembled at the law I spurned…”) We are a heartbeat away from suffering that cannot begin to be imagined.
A greater tragedy exists in that there is nothing that we can do to end this life of sinning, because it springs from an evil nature. We can as easily stop breathing, as we can stop sinning. This is the understanding that we need; we need people who can bring us to this understanding. We will see that no rehabilitation can really help us. We are lost and hopeless, without an earthly source capable to lend a hand.
The necessary revelation that everyone needs
When God opens our eyes through His Word to our situation, we will see that we have but one recourse. His Word will then cause us to gaze upon the only One, who would pay an infinite price to release us from so great condemnation. No good man could do it and there is no angel in God’s heaven, who could make an infinite sacrifice in our place. There was only One and that was God Himself, in the person of the eternal Son, Who came to this earth and took on flesh and blood. God shed His blood on the cross and one drop of that precious blood is enough to buy the pardon for every sinner on this planet and 10,000 planets besides. His generous nature is viewed in the fact that He gave every drop of life-blood. He emptied Himself of life that we might live. He was forsaken that we might be accepted. The anger of God was placated; His perfect righteousness was satisfied. He was judged, condemned, and took the full sentence of justice against us. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” And because they are forthwith born again, they no longer walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit. See this and live! Flee to the cross!
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