The Most Unhappy People

From the Fundamental Baptist List
Pastor Peter Laitres

I read this today:

“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” (1 John 5:3)

Dear Friends,

The most unhappy people in the world are not the unbelievers, many of whom are ignorantly and blissfully happy in their sin, albeit temporarily.

The most unhappy people in the world are Christians who resist the will of God for their lives! The Christian who refuses to do the will of God must be prepared to pay the price of disobedience. Whatever we sow, we reap, the Bible tells us.

This story was told by a man who resisted the call to ministry in Sweden. He stubbornly resisted God's will, even through the death of his wife and daughter. He went into business and prospered, only to be robbed by his own son. In his older years, he languished with cancer. He said, "I know that I am saved, but, oh, the loss, for I know that I soon will be ushered into His presence only to give an account of a whole life of disobedience.

Did this man really know Christ? I am sobered by the Bible's words,

“And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.” (1 John 2:3–6).

Whether he was or not, it has long been my conviction that I have never met a happy disobedient Christian or an unhappy obedient one. It is so true.

R. A. Torrey, a famous educator and evangelist, tells the story of a woman who came to him and said she did not believe in the Bible any more. When he asked her why, she replied,

"Because I have tried its promises and found them untrue. The Bible says, 'Whatsoever ye ask believing, ye shall receive.' Well, I fully expected to get things from God in prayer, but I did not receive them, so the promise failed."

Dr. Torrey then turned her to 1 John 3:22:

"Whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight."

Then he said, "Were you keeping His commandments and doing those things pleasing in His sight?"

She confessed she was not.

Her trouble was not that the Bible's promises were not true; it was her own disobedience. Let that not ever be true of any of us.