“They do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34 (NIV)
Jesus said these words about the men who were nailing him to the cross. What was it that they didn’t realize? Well, one thing they could not see is that, by their actions, they were preparing for themselves an eternal hell.
Sin brings sorrow in this life and judgment in the life to come. If you knew the sorrow and the judgment a sin would bring, you would not do it. Spurgeon says that hell is “drinking a cup of gall, every drop of which is distilled from your own sin.”
God always acts in perfect justice. His justice means that nobody will be judged for a sin that they did not commit. The judgment for each sin will be in proportion to the weight that the sins have, not in your eyes, but in the eyes of God. Every sin will be so punished.
This leads me to the conclusion: A person in hell would give anything and everything to have committed just one less sin. What kind of hell is prepared by nailing the flesh of the Son of God to a cross? No wonder Jesus said, “They do not know what they are doing.”
Whenever we sin, it’s true… we don’t know the full extent of what we’re doing. Every sin is an act of folly, and if you knew the extent of the folly, you wouldn’t commit the sin.
Do you believe that there is a direct link between your sins and your experience of God’s judgment?
