No Middle Ground

What you're seeing on the screen is the way many people see life, black and white. No middle ground. There are a lot of folks who see all of life that way. They see it all as black or white, no gray, all as yes or no, no maybe. It's all very cut and dried for them. Everything is that way, for some people. I think most of us would admit, not all of life is that way. Not everything is that cut and dried, not that black and white, not that yes or no. There are some maybe, some grays in life. But there are some things that are just that cut and dried, that black and white. There are some things where there is no middle ground. And one of those things, the Bible makes very clear is salvation. There's no middle ground. And every one of us here this morning is on one side or the other. There are no babies. There are no gray areas. There's no in between. There's no undecided category. You're either in or out. You're either saved or unsaved. You're either believer or an unbeliever. There's no middle ground. Paul makes that very clear in Romans chapter 11. I invite your attention to the 11th chapter of Romans. If you've been tracking with us through Romans, you know that's where we find ourselves this morning. And we jump again right into the middle of an argument that Paul is making. And so we need to kind of back up and get our bearings again. In the book of Romans, Paul is describing the gospel, the way of salvation, the righteousness that comes from God, that comes down to us from heaven. And he's describing it in terms that God is building in this day and age a new people, the church that he's calling out from the world at large. And he's saving people who turn to him and faith through Christ. And he's building his body, the church. And those who are familiar with the Old Testament, particularly those Jewish listeners in Rome, would say, well, what about Israel? What about the nation of Israel? Has God forgotten about his nation completely? What about his promises in the Old Testament to Israel? And Paul's dealing with that in chapters 9 through 11 of the book of Romans. What Paul has said, we have seen, is in chapter 9, well, God can do as he chooses. The sovereignty of God, God is on the throne. If God sees fit, they have compassion, mercy on someone, that's up to him. If he sees fit, to harden someone, that's up to him. God is God. We are not. We cannot question what he does. And that's part of the answer as to why Israel has been set aside as far as God working with his people like he did in the Old Testament. But there's another part of the answer. And the other part is in chapter 10. And that is that Israel has not believed in the gospel. Israel has not trusted Christ and is because of her unbelief, chapter 10, that she has been temporarily laid aside. And chapter 10 ends on this sad note, this almost a note of despair in verse 21, chapter 10. The concerning Israel, he, God says, all day long, have I held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people? And the chapter ends on that very sorrowful note that God wants his people to come to him. He wants Israel to be saved and yet Israel is obstinate and rebellious. And God is there with these arms outstretched and the people are rejecting him. And so that leads to a question that he begins chapter 11 with. I ask then, did God reject his people? In other words, has God completely turned his back on these people? Is God through with Israel? Has God said forget it Israel? And notice Paul's answer by no means that familiar expression we've already seen several times in the book of Romans. God forbid, perish the thought. How can you even think such a thing? It cannot be that God has forgotten his people or completely rejected them or said, I'm done with Israel. Paul's going to expand on that answer to describe why God has not forgotten his Old Testament people. He's going to enter it in three ways in the book, or in chapter 11. In the first 10 verses, he's going to say, Israel's setting aside and he has set them aside as far as his covenant people working with them as he did in the Old Testament people. He has set them aside, but that setting aside is only partial. There are still individual Israelites who are coming to faith in Christ. And so it's only a partial setting aside. And then he will say in verses 11 through 24, that setting aside of Israel is purposeful. It has a purpose and that is to allow God's new people, the church to be built with both Jew and Gentile being put into the blessing of God. And then he will say in verses 25 to 33, this setting aside of Israel is preparatory. It is introducing a new work that God will do with his people Israel in the future. God's not done with Israel yet. Paul will describe a day at the end of this chapter when all Israel will be saved and God will fulfill the new covenant with them. So has God forgotten these people? Has God forever set aside his people? No, no. Well, let's look this morning at the first part of that answer. That that setting aside of his people Israel as working with them as a nation is only partial. In other words, some Jews, some Israelites are still coming to faith in Christ and they, like anyone else, today, are believing. And then there's another category of people you'll talk about, unbelieving. So Paul is going to divide the nation of Israel in this day and age into two categories. Believing is relights and unbelieving is relights and every one of us fall into one of those two categories. There's no middle ground. You're either a believer or an unbeliever. You're either saved or unsaved. So let's see how Paul describes those two categories of people. First of all, the believing is Israelites. First one, I ask then did God reject his people by no means? I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham from the tribe of Benjamin. Let me stop right there and say this as he introduces this concept of the believing Israelites, those who know Christ, those who've been brought into the family of God, he will call this group of believing Israelites in verse five a remnant. Now, I am no seamstress or I guess I'm a man. I would be a seamster, but I'm no seamster. Okay, I don't know anything about fabric or sewing. I'm completely lost with needle and thread. I can't even put a button on. I'm a pitiful character, but I just am no good with that kind of stuff. And so I've learned a little bit from my wife. At least enough to know what a remnant is. I think I've got this right. Nobody corrected me earlier. A remnant is a piece of cloth that's left over from the bolt. After you've gotten all the yardage, you can get out of a bolt of cloth when you go to the fabric store. And there's just a little bit left, but not enough to really measure out three, four, five yards. That's a remnant. And they usually just fold it up and put it under the counter. And somebody needs just a little bit to pull out a remnant. Is that right, Margaret? Is that close enough? Okay. A remnant is what's left over. It's the little piece that's left over. Paul is going to call believing Israelites in this day and age a remnant. In a sense, they're the left over group of Israelites. No, God hasn't forgotten these people entirely. He has set aside the whole bolt of cloth as far as his dealing with the whole nation of Israel as his covenant people. But he's still got a remnant. He's still got some individual Jews who are believing in Christ as Savior and who are now a part of the body of Christ, the Church. I know that we have some here this morning who are believing Israelites who are a part of the Church. And so Paul calls them a remnant. Now in that remnant, he gives some examples of this remnant. He himself is an example. We just read it in verse one. Paul says, let me give you an example of this remnant of individual believing Jews. I myself, he says, and when Israelite, I'm a descendant of Abraham. I mean, I can trace my lineage back to the tribe of Benjamin. I'm an Israelite, and look at me, I'm a believer. I'm saved. I'm in the body of Christ. I'm an example. So I'm an example, verse two, that God did not reject his people who before knew. The word for new going back to chapter 8 where God has chosen to set his love on. God has established a loving relationship with his people Israel and he hasn't rejected them completely. He hasn't cast them aside and Paul's an example of that. Paul's an example of an individual believing Israelite in this day. And then he gives a second example of a remnant. This example, he pulls from the Old Testament. It's a beautiful example. Middle of verse two, don't you know what the scripture says in the passage of the body Elijah? How he appealed to God against Israel? Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your authors. And the only one left and they're trying to kill me. And what was God's answer to him? I have reserved for myself 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to bail. Now you may or may not be familiar with this story from the book of first kings, chapter 18 and 19. The great story of Elijah, how God used him as a prophet to speak out for his name in a very dark time in Israel's history. A time when bail worship, a worship of a false God had swept through the northern kingdom of Israel. And it had taken over the people's hearts. And so Elijah as a faithful prophet of God decides to challenge the prophets of bail to a contest on their home turf, one of their religious sites Mount Carmel. And so they both go up there, 450 prophets of bail, one prophet of God. And here's the challenge, will both form an altar, put a sacrifice on it. And the God that answers our prayer by fire from heaven to consume that sacrifice, he will prove himself to be the true God. You may remember the story, the prophets of bail cry out for hours and nothing happens. Finally Elijah prays a very simple prayer that takes 20 seconds to pray. And God answers with fire from heaven, consumes that sacrifice and shows himself to be God. And all the people cry out, Jehovah, he is God, he is God. And it looks like the nation may turn to the Lord. But right after that, the wicked queen Jezebel decides, I'm going to take your life Elijah, I'm going to kill you. And so in despair and discouragement Elijah flees and you find him over 100 miles away out in the desert saying, oh God, what Paul has quoted here. The nation has turned against you and I alone and left. I was the last hope. I'm the only one. What a dark time this is. If you read 1st Kings 19, you find that God looked at him and said, what are you doing here? What are you doing here? Kind of shook him out of his self pity. And he said to him, I have 7,000 people that did not bow the knee to bail. In other words, I have a remnant. It's not the majority of the nation. It's not the whole vote, but it is a remnant. It is a small group of people who are still true to me. And Paul's using that Old Testament illustration as a story to give us hope that there is still a remnant of Jews today, of Israelites today, of believing Israelites that are in the body of Christ as a whole. So God has not forgotten his people altogether. There are still believing Israelites and their examples of this remnant, these left over. There are ones who have come to faith in Christ. But I want you to notice what Paul says about how the remnant is saved. How did these people get saved? How did they become believing Israelites? How were they saved? Like anybody else is saved. Look at verse 5. So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer by works. If it were, grace would no longer be grace. Paul says this remnant, this remaining group of Jewish, of Israelites believers, how did they get saved? How did they become part of this family of God? It was by grace. It was by grace. You see, that means that God offers salvation as a free gift without expecting anything in return, without expecting anything you do to earn it, without any merit, without any work, without any worthiness on your part or mine. God offers salvation totally by grace. It is a free gift. There is nothing you have to do to pay for it or to earn it or to merit it in any way. Paul makes this very clear in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9. Look at these verses. He says for it is by grace. You have been saved through faith. And this, the word this referring to the whole concept of saved or salvation, this salvation is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God not by works so that no one can boast. There is nothing you or I can do to merit a place in heaven, to earn our way to heaven. It is totally, fully, freely a gift of God. That's what grace means. So there's nothing you can do. And we have a tendency to think, but wait a second. There's got to be something I'd have to do. Don't I have to give up some stuff? You know, get rid of some things in my life first in order to get to heaven? And what God says I'm offering it to you is a free gift. No, you don't have to clean up your life. You don't have to get better at resisting this or that or the other. Get rid of these bad habits. Recognize that you are a center incapable of saving yourself, turned to Christ in faith and I will offer you as a free gift my salvation. You say, wait a second. Don't I have to join the church? Isn't that part of what it means to get to heaven? I've got to be in church, right? Well, certainly we ought to be in church and there's a good case it can be made for a commitment to a local church that finds its expression and membership. But membership in a local church or even attending a local church will never do anything to get you to heaven. That's a work you do. Paul makes it clear we're not saved by works. Not anything we do. It's a gift of God. So coming to church is not going to get you to heaven. Joining a church is not going to get you to heaven. You say, well, wait a second. Don't I have to be baptized? Well, baptism is a very important expression of our faith in Christ and a symbol of object lesson, a public declaration that we've trusted Christ. But baptism is an act of obedience. That's something you do. You can't save yourself by any work you do or add anything to your salvation by anything you do. No, you're not saved by baptism. You're saved by faith and Christ is not by our works. So there's nothing you can do to add to the work that's already been done. Christ did all the work for you on the cross. To add anything to that is to say I can contribute something to my own salvation. And Paul makes it clear. Notice it's black or white. We're six. If it's by grace, then it is no longer by works. If it were, grace would no longer be grace. There's no way to mix the two. There's no way to add works in with grace. Salvation is a free gift of God given to those who trust Christ as savior. It is not earned in whole or in part by anything we do. It is by grace. If it's by works, then there's no such thing as grace. If it's by grace, then it's not by work. You see the black and white nature of that either or no common ground, no middle ground. It's either or Paul says, how are people saved by grace by grace alone? That's it. Lily Bautrop was a great bus driver in the city of Houston school bus driver. In fact, she had a work record that was impeccable and no no accidents, no incidents at all on her record for years. And so she was going to be awarded an honor at a special awards ceremony for city school bus drivers. And there were several others who were also going to be honored along with her. And her peers thought so much of her that they asked her to drive the bus that would carry all of them to this award ceremony. Unfortunately, on the way to the award ceremony, she cut a corner a little bit too close, hit the curb, hit the bus over on its side, sending her and 15 other people to the hospital for some minor treatment. Did she receive her award? No, no. Why? Because awards committee don't operate on a basis of grace. They operate on the basis of merit. And she had a strike against her now. She could not be awarded a safe bus driver of the year award. I am so thankful that God says, the way you get into my heaven, the way you get into my family, the way you receive my righteousness is not through anything you do. It's not based on your record. It is a gift of my grace. And we've already seen that Paul says if it is based on anything we do, we would have to have a perfect record. Because if you're guilty of one sin that cancels out heaven. So none of us qualify on the basis of our own good works. It is totally solely by grace. We have so much trouble believing that. We really do. We have trouble believing that it is strictly by grace that we're saved. We have an inborn tendency to think I've got to contribute something. I've got to do something good. I've got to be a good moral person in some way. You say, well, no, I believe in grace. Let me tell you about Wesley Allen Dodd. Wesley Allen Dodd was executed by hanging in the Washington State Penitentiary in 1993. You may recall some of the controversy over the method of execution when that happened. There was a national uproar about the brutality of it. But that was his request. He was a serial murderer of young children. Three young boys he had brutally killed. And he himself said right up to close to the time of his death. He had said he would murder again if he were ever released. There was no hope he would ever be released from the hideous darkness within his soul. Those were his own words. Yet when he was asked to make a closing statement if he wanted to, he said this. He said, I was wrong when I said there was no hope, no peace. There is hope. There is peace. I have found them both in the Lord Jesus Christ. And when he said that, the father of two of the little boys that he had killed who was in the audience, hissed at him as probably most of you would have to. As probably I would have to. Because there's something in us that says that person doesn't deserve forgiveness. That person doesn't deserve heaven. You mean to tell me he can do what he did and still go to heaven? You see how much trouble we have believing in grace? Jeffrey Dahmer was another mass murderer in the city of Milwaukee who also was led to Christ. I believe by a prison fellowship staff member before he died. Before he was executed. And there was a great uproar about his deathbed conversion and whether or not God would allow anybody that had killed so many young men and dismembered them and stacked them in his freezer and that kind of stuff. Whether or not he could ever get to heaven. I'll never forget the statement Chuck Colson made. If God cannot save Jeffrey Dahmer, God cannot save you or me. And that is true. You see we have so much trouble believing in grace because deep down we think we've got to be worthy. We think we've got to do something to be a good enough person to earn our way into heaven. And none of us whether or not you're the best moral person on earth or you are one with the history and background of a Jeffrey Dahmer or a Wesley Allen Dodd. None of us is capable of living the kind of life that will earn us a place in heaven. That's why Paul says totally of grace. It is totally a gift of God. That ought to humble us beyond measure. Because there's nothing you or I can do to get ourselves into heaven. If we ever get there it will be simply because God in his grace said I will receive you. If you turn to me in faith. Trust what my son did view on the cross. I freely give you salvation. It's by grace. Those are the believing Israelites. Those are believers today. The way we come to that point is by grace, by the grace of God. But there's another category of people that Paul must deal with. And that is the unbelieving Israelites. Notice what he says in verse 7. He says what then? In other words what's the conclusion? What's the summary of this matter? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain but the elect did. What does he mean? What Israel sought so earnestly? Remember back in the context. If you've been with us we saw those same words back in chapter 10 verse 3. What Israel was seeking so earnestly was righteousness. Salvation. But they were seeking it on their own. By zealous religious ceremonies and by law keeping. Remember that? They were seeking salvation. They were seeking righteousness. And he says what the nation as a whole was seeking they didn't find but the elect did. Those whom God had showed his grace to showered his grace on. Who had come to faith in Christ. They did find that salvation. And then notice he says the others. The others. Now he's going to talk about the others. We've seen the believing Israelites. Now he's going to talk about the others. The unbelieving Israelites. And I want to make it very clear this morning that the people he's talking about are not people who are poor lost. Folks who've never heard the gospel. Who've never heard of Jesus. He's not talking about those kind of people. He's talking about people who for the most part saw the Messiah. Who saw the Lord Jesus. Saw his miracles. As a nation witnessed his life. Saw the proofs that he was the Savior, the Son of God, the Messiah. And rejected him. He's speaking for the most part to people, to Jewish people who have heard the preaching of the apostles in the book of Acts. And they've heard the message of the gospel. And they've turned their back on it. They've rejected it. He's talking about people that he's been talking about in these last couple of chapters. Who heard the warnings but did not believe and would not receive Christ. So those are the kind of people we have to apply this passage to this morning. It's people who have heard the gospel. People who know what it means to be saved. People who've been introduced to Jesus and have heard over and over again the gospel. But have said no. Turn their back, rejected, refused. For whatever reason. It's you that I'm talking to this morning. If you that Paul is going to describe here this morning. You who may have heard the gospel over and over again. But have said no. It's you that he's describing here. And he describes a three-step progression of what will happen to you. If you do not trust Christ. This is the others. This is the unbelievers. This is the other category of people. Here's what happens. First of all, they were hardened. They were hardened. You see it there in verse 7. The others were hardened. Now I want to stop right there because there's a whole lot packed into that word. Hardened. By the way, it's a different word. The original word is different than the one we saw in chapter 9 where he talks about God hardening whom he will harden. This is a different word. This is a word which literally means to become insensitive or calloused. To become calloused. It means that something hits you enough times or rubs against you enough times to form a calloused. In the first church I had the opportunity to serve in North Carolina. It was a rural church. And we had our own cemetery, church cemetery, cross the road. As most rural churches in North Carolina did back in the 70s. The men of the church, whenever there was a death and we were going to have a funeral, we would dig the graves by hand. We did not do it with back owes or anything. Our guys kind of took pride. In the fact we were the last church. It really did it right. We did it by hand. I will never forget those times when we would gather out in the graveyard and we would lay out a form that indicated what size the grave should be and dig the corners with a spade. And then we would start just pick and shovel, pick and shovel. And only one or two guys, only one with a pick and a couple with a shovel could work at this time. So a couple of guys would go at it for about 10 or 15 minutes and the other guys would be standing around telling stories, talking. Including the story that Bill Comer always told. Every time we dug a grave, he told the story about the woman who always said, I'd rather be buried under that big oak tree at Needham's Grove cemetery than anywhere I've ever been buried. You can tell that story every time. But you know one thing I noticed about those men. I was fairly young. I was about 10 years old. I remember I had much time to do the kind of work that would toughen my hands, but all those men who were farmers and sawmillers, they had tough hands. And I didn't want to become one of their stories, so I would not wear gloves. And so you know what happened the first few times I helped dig a grave. And I had never felt it. I got blisters on a palms of my hand. I had trouble shaking hands with people for a few days. It was tough. It hurt. But after a while I began to get some calluses. You can close your mouth. It is possible for a preacher to get a callus on his hands. After a while, after repeated graves digging, swinging a pick, I developed some calluses. Some of you are going to test me out this morning. I haven't dug a grave in a little while. But I noticed what was happening. I didn't feel it anymore. Didn't bother me anymore. I didn't get blisters anymore. Didn't have them break open and didn't have had some calluses. And the same thing can happen to your heart. And that is by repeated exposure to the gospel, by a repeated hearing of the gospel, and a repeated rejection, what used to feel, what used to hurt, what used to penetrate, what used to prick, you no longer feel. But after developing some calluses on your heart, you are developing some hardness to your heart. And the soul, the spirit, is now becoming insensitive. And you no longer feel those pricks of the spirit as the gospel is preached. That is what can happen when you consistently hear the gospel, but refuse the gospel. You can become past feeling when you deliberately ignore God's truth, or when you walk out time after time thinking, you know, I'm a pretty good person, I don't need that. Oh yes you do. You need God's grace. But continual rejection leads to continual calluses of the heart to the point that you may no longer sense the moving and conviction of the Holy Spirit, and then step two kicks in. And that is, their opportunity was removed. You see it there in verse 8, as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear to this very day. God steps in and gives a spirit of slumber, a spirit of insensitivity, a spirit of apathy, of who cares, of I can sit through this without even caring anymore. God may remove the opportunity so that the eyes cannot see, the ears cannot hear. And He says that's true of Israel to this very day, but it may also be true of some who hear the gospel over and over again today. That when one repeatedly hears the gospel and refuses Christ and begins to develop calluses on the heart and begins to become insensitive and unfailing toward the pricks of the Holy Spirit of conviction. That it may be there comes a point where God removes the opportunity and judicially hardens someone that seems to be the process that's being described here. It is also the process described in other places in Scripture. And notice the danger when that happens, verse 9, and David says, may their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block, and a retribution for them. What does he mean by that? Well, he's quoting from Psalm 69, which is a messianic Psalm, the Psalm that predicts the Messiah, and what Israel would do, what would happen to her if she refused her Messiah. Judgment would come upon her, and one of those judgments, most of those who deal with the Book of Romans believe that verse 9 is talking about their table, talking about their religious feasts. The religious feasts of Israel actually become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block, and a retribution for them. A source of judgment. How can that be? Very simply, the nation of Israel began to misinterpret the very religious ceremonies they were given. Religious ceremonies, which were designed as a part of their calendar, to cause a joyful worshipper whose sins had been forgiven by God, to express joy and thanksgiving for all that God had given and all that God had done. And also, under the covenant with Israel and the land promises to cover their sins for a year ahead, so that they would be forgiven by God and remain in the land. All of that, a picture of the forgiveness that would come through Christ, and yet they began to see the very feasts, the very religious ceremonies as the way to get the God, as the way to get the heaven. And by Jesus' time, they felt that the way they got saved was by performing the religious ceremonies, going to the feasts, going to the temple, offering the right sacrifices. It is those activities which get you into heaven, and God never intended them to save anybody. No one was ever saved by what they did, even in the Old Testament. These were pictures of the forgiveness that was offered through an innocent sacrifice, pictures of the ultimate sacrifice of Christ. It is possible today to take the very religious ceremonies that God has given us as a means of expressing our gratitude to Him and turning them into what we think are the ways of salvation. And our very table, our very religious ceremonies become a trap and a snare to us. Some people do that with the Lord's table, thinking that I must partake of these elements which become a fresh sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ. And I must partake of these elements. In fact, it's so important that before I die, if I'm on my deathbed, somebody's got to come to me and give me these elements because I've got to have them so that my sins will be forgiven. And people who believe that, believe that is the actual table. It is the actual ceremony religiously that gets them to heaven. And that's not at all what it was for. It was designed to be an act of gratitude to God, of remembrance of the death of Christ, that Jesus died for us on the cross. And when we come to the Lord's table, the communion service, it's not designed to get us to heaven, it's designed to reflect upon the Savior's death. What He did for us, their own table, their own religious ceremonies became a stumbling for them. Anything you put in the place of the grace of God, the death of Christ, becomes a stumbling block for you. You can stumble over it, you can begin to think, what's going to church? It's by doing this or doing that, that I get to heaven. God never intended anything you do to be the means of you getting to heaven. It's all done through the death of Christ. Their opportunity was removed so much so and they became so blind and death that they began to see the religious rituals as the very way to heaven. They stumbled over the very religious rituals. In a very sobering way, Paul gives us the third step in this progression of unbelieving Israelites. And it's this, they will be eternally punished. Verse 10, May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see and their backs be bent forever. Paul finishes the quote from Psalm 69 with these very sobering words that the end of this progression is eternal punishment. The figure of speech here is of a captive who has been taken captive from a foreign nation whose back is bent over with a load they're carrying into captivity, maybe in chains. But this captivity that Paul's describing is forever. It's one being bowed down, judged, punished under the load of his own sin. Like John Bunyan's pilgrim who bowed under the weight of the sin on his back before it was rolled off at the cross. But here's a person who carries that weight into eternity and back is bent forever carrying the weight of their own sin being punished for their own sin forever. That's the end result of this progression. Remember where it begins. It begins by sitting in church and hearing the gospel. But when one does that continually and refuses rejects the gospel, the death of Christ for salvation, then it is possible for the heart to become increasingly calloused and insensitive and unfeeling to where God finally says, I've given you enough opportunity. The opportunity is removed and you will face an eternity in punishment separated from God. I take no pleasure. Honestly, I take no pleasure in announcing that. But it is the truth. It is the truth. And we have the incredible tendency to believe that won't happen to me. I've still got time. I can still live however I want to. There'll be a day when I'll get things right religiously. I'll make my peace with God. It's very easy to think this is not happening to me. Gary Richmond was for many years an associate pastor with Chuck Swindall out in California. Before going into the ministry, he was a zookeeper in the Los Angeles area. And so he had a special affinity for animals and he saw many parallels with biblical principles and the behavior and lifestyle of animals. So he wrote a book called A View from the Zoo. And in that book, he tells the story of the glandular change that takes place in a raccoon at 24 months. He says there is a glandular change. It takes place in a raccoon that will often make them very vicious and they will turn against their owners if they're kept as pets. It was a young lady by the name of Julie in their church who he knew had a pet raccoon. Why anyone would want a pet raccoon? But that's another story. She had a pet raccoon and he said, you know, I feel compelled to let you know that a big change may be coming over Bandit very soon. He's about the age where raccoons change. And she shook her head and looked at him. He said, I will never forget her words. She said, this will not happen to me. Bandit and I get along just great. We love each other. You know, he's a wonderful pet. That's going to happen to me. He said three months later she was in the hospital recovering from plastic surgery for scratches to her face when her 24 month old raccoons suddenly without any explanation turned on or an attacker. And he said in the book, a 30 pound raccoon is equivalent of a hundred pound dog. He just can't fight him off. It can happen to you, my friend. It may already be happening to you. Do you find yourself in that progression of those who have heard over and over again the gospel of the Lord Jesus? How Jesus came to die so that your sins might be paid for you might be forgiven and you might be given as a gift God's righteousness. You heard that story, but you've heard it over and over again. It is possible to hear it so many times and reject it so many times that you become calloused in your heart. And then past feeling opportunity removed and you will spend an eternity in the lake of fire being judged for your own sin. The Bible warns, look at this verse, Proverbs 291, Whoever remains stiff net after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed without remedy. Notice the progression there? Many rebukes heard the rebukes many times, but remained stiff net, but bowed up against it. What would not accept it? No, no, I'm better than that. I'm a good person. I know I'll be okay. Remain stiff net after many rebukes. There comes a point of sudden destruction with no remedy, no possibility. My friend, once you die, there is no possibility to change your eternal destiny. And so it is imperative that you recognize your need of Christ now. You see, when it comes to salvation, when it comes to believing and unbelieving Israelites or people impuse today, whoever it may be, you're either on one side or the other. There is no middle ground. There is no undecided category. To remain undecided is to reject. There's no middle ground. Would you pray with me, please? Oh God, our Father, as we lift our hearts up to you, it is with the sobering realization that what we have seen Paul describe today is of the utmost importance for each of our eternal destinies. Oh Father, I pray that even this day, if there is one person, if there are others in our midst who have never trusted the Lord Jesus, who have turned their back against him time and time again, rejected the gospel. Oh God, I pray that today they would recognize, sense that conviction of the Spirit, the pricking in their hearts that they need to make that decision today. And I pray that today they would come to Christ. Jesus name we pray amen.