How Brief The Sinner's Joy

"What of God?" I asked the carousing man.
"I fear God not, for he I cannot see;
I use his name to curse, yet here I stand!
I keep no law; he does not punish me!"
"What of God?" I asked His faithful child.
"I fear Him much, not for redemption's sake;
God chastises whom He has reconciled;
For earthly sins His children earthly quake!"
O, venal one! You know not your peril;
If God chastens those He so dearly bought,
What rage awaits cohorts of the devil?
They flaunt His will and mock the plan He wrought!
Repent now! Or tremble, for your offense!
How brief your joy! How long your recompense!

Compare the vast chasm between eternity spent suffering and that enjoyed in paradise. Jonathan Edwards, a famed preacher of the 18th century in the northeastern U. S., was noted for his sermon Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God. He depicted a fierce angry God whose outstretched hand hovered over the pit of fiery Hell holding a great mass of carousing humans busily breaking His laws, unknowing their peril, for it was God's wish to dump them in the next splitsecond into the flames. Crowded churches, so full of people that their windows were opened to the hundreds outside, saw men and women fainting in fear, screaming with terror, and begging for mercy. Such fire and brimstone preaching is rare today, but it is sobering to realize that Rev. Edwards was telling it exactly like it is.

The fact is, you can sin all you want, and if you have never sought God's forgiveness, He will never punish you in this life. Your wages for sin will be paid by spending an eternity in hell. In fact, there are several Bible passages that state frankly those who persistently refuse Him will receive His help in falling deeper into rebellion on earth. If you are living just as you please with never a worry, you have cause to wonder why things are so good for you.

Believers, on the other hand, have had their past sins forgiven and even removed from God's memory (Colossians 2:13-14). You will still commit sin as long as you live. What God does about these new sins depends upon you. If you recognize that you have sinned, feel sorry that you did, and ask His forgiveness, it, too, will be forgiven and forgotten. If you do not repent and make a sincere effort to erase that sin from ever occurring again, He will chastise you in some way.

"My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor detest His correction;
For whom the Lord loves, He corrects,
Just as a Father the son in whom He delights."
(Proverbs 3:11-12; also, Hebrews 12:6)

I would choose to live for Jesus here, even with earthly discipline.