Spiritual Roulette
I’m not, nor was I ever a gambler. During the few occasions I walked through a casino, one of the games that always intrigued me was roulette.
You've seen it... it's a large horizontal spinning disk with number and color divisions around its edges. A little ball is wung around the outside of the bowl until it eventually settles to rest in one of the divisions. Did you win? If the number the ball landed on matched the bet you placed on the cloth-covered betting area on the 'roulette table' (which is known as the layout), then yes, you won.
They're are many ways to win at roulette, but the odds of winning as described above are 37/1. However, the most alluring aspect of the game is you can bet on just 'reds' or 'blacks' - this gives you a 50-50 chance of walking away a winner.
If it lands on red when you chose red, you will double your bet. Same with black. It's that simple. By no means am I endorsing gambling. As a matter of fact, I personally don't think it's a good habit to establish. Some people even believe it's a sin. That's for another time. For me, even with a 50/50 chance, it isn't worth the risk. Not to mention, if I lost, I would feel too grumpy.
On a different note, imagine Russian Roulette.... this is a game of extreme risk.
Russian Roulette is where the player (probably not too sane,) places a single bullet in a revolver, spins the cylinder, places the muzzle against their head, and pulls the trigger hoping that the loaded chamber does not align up correctly in the barrel. If it does, it causes the weapon to fire. Pretty crazy right? Maybe you've seen it in the movies? Hopefully, not something you're too familiar with :-)
Some say it's probably one of the most extreme risks someone can take. I tend to agree, to an extent. What possibly could be worse, you ask? I believe 'Spiritual Roulette' could be worse. It’s much more dangerous than Russian Roulette or any gambling game for that matter.
What is Spiritual Roulette? It’s a deadly risk we take with our spiritual life. The one thing that kills our life spiritually is disobedience to God. We saw it happen with Adam and throughout the scriptures. In every case, disobedience or sin causes spiritual death - eternal separation from the God who created us.
Because God is holy, our disobedience causes Him to turn away from us. Each and every person born of woman enters this world in this spiritual situation of 'separation'. You may think it couldn't get any worse. It does.
There's something called 'hardening' in the bible. This is when, due to our sinful condition, we continually and perpetually disobey God, so much so that God 'hardens' us even more. God gives us over to our sin causing us to actually run head first into more disobedience without any restraining from God. When God hardens someone's heart, He lifts His hand away and 'turns them over' to their sin. It's frightening and tragic.
I call this Spiritual Roulette. It's as if someone is taking a ‘spiritual revolver’ with one or two chambers loaded with 'sin' or 'disobedience', placing the weapon at their head, and before pulling the trigger the Lord warns them not to do it. We willfully ignore Him. We pull the trigger and 'Wow! '... nothing happened!
As we know, God will not be mocked. Eventually, as we load more chambers, keep pulling the trigger, and continue to ignore the Lord's warnings, we eventually end up aligning the chamber with the barrel and then... game over. This is the point when God stops warning us and instead, gives us over to this high risk game of death.
I believe this illustration properly fits our text tomorrow. In John 12:36-50, we see an epilogue of sorts of Jesus' public ministry. John sums the public ministry up with a sober warning from Isaiah. He compares God's hardening of the Israelites due to their repeated disobedience, to what He was doing to the Jews of the time who were rejecting Jesus.
John writes in 12:40 (quoting Isaiah 6:10):
"HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HE HARDENED THEIR HEART, SO THAT THEY WILL NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED, AND [SO] I WILL [NOT] HEAL THEM."
John is implying strongly that all chances of turning back are gone. The bullet has fired. 'Hardness' has set in. The stubbornness of God's people finally pushed God to the limit. He caused them to become blind so they can't see Jesus. He also hardened their heart so they can't understand who Jesus is and be converted.
It's a difficult challenge to understand the how's and the why's of God's hardening. However, it can't be ignored. Neither can the warning to us. Why did John put this in his gospel? We know his gospel was written to ensure us eternal life, not hardening death. However, I believe the Spirit guided him to write this passage so we know, that despite Jesus going to the cross, one thing which can never be taken for granted is the grace of God in Christ Jesus.
The Word of God gives us a way to ensure we never pick up that spiritual roulette revolver ever again. John's text will lay it all out for us.
To prepare, also consider reading Isaiah 6 and 53.
Listen to the sermon on John 12:36-50
