January 12, 2023
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It may have been the happiest traffic jam in history. The scene: the Brandenburg Gate between East and West Berlin on an incredible November weekend years ago. Suddenly, after rapid revolutionary changes in the policies of East Germany's communist government, people could go through the wall that for 28 years had divided that city between free and communist. The cars were lined up for miles to cross that barrier that had been closed for so long. Some people drove through the wall, some people walked through the gate, some scaled fences to get there more quickly, and the news reported that tens of thousands of people began to break into a delirious chant that the whole world could hear, "The wall is gone! The wall is gone!" Well, so is yours.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Wall That Keeps Us From God."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Isaiah 59:2 - "But your iniquities" - that's your sin; your wrong doings - "have separated you from your God. Your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear." Now, when the Bible talks about iniquities here, or sin, we have to realize we're living in a world that doesn't even know what sin is or why sin is so devastating. See, sin is really a lifestyle that says, "My way, God, not yours. God, I believe in you, I go to your meetings, I give you money. But I'm going to basically run my own life. You run the universe; I'll give you a tip every once in a while, I'll do some things that I think You want me to do, but You run the universe. I'll run my life." In essence, "I'm god for me."
Sin is a lifestyle that pushes God to the edges instead of having Him at the center of everything where He belongs. And that decision results in thousands of little daily choices that go against the way God meant for us to live. We all have a sin problem, and here's what the Bible says the result is - separation. "Your iniquities have separated you from your God." The result? It's a wall far more imposing than the Berlin wall ever was and with far more eternal consequences. And it may be you're experiencing that separation from God right now. You can feel it, even though you're a religious person.
Right now God has the love that you've spent a lifetime looking for, but you can't get at it. It's on the other side of that wall. He's got the strength you've needed, but He's on the other side of the wall. He's got the meaning, He's got the reason you were put here, but He's on the other side of the wall. And if you die with that wall there, it's there forever.
You say, "Well, Ron, I knew there was something between me and God. I've known that without hearing you tell me that." Well, the great news is earlier in this same book of the Bible. Isaiah 53:6 says this, "God has laid on Him (speaking of Christ) the iniquity of us all." All of my sin was put on Jesus Christ when He died on the cross. He was separated from God the Father so I don't ever have to be, so you don't ever have to be if we'll just pin all our hopes on Jesus. Not on a religion about Him, not on our own goodness, but on Jesus alone.
You tired of a wall between you and God? You tired of being away from the God that you were made by and made for? Maybe you've tried all kinds of ways, maybe religious ways to get through that wall. But the wall is still there. Only Jesus, the Savior who died for the sins that make up the wall, can take it down.
Today, right now, you could talk to Him even as we conclude and say, "Jesus, I'm pinning all my hopes on You to be forgiven, to go to heaven and to have a relationship with God."
I want to invite you, if that's where you are in your heart, go to our website, will you? I've laid out there as simply as I can a very clear way to know for sure that you belong to Christ, and to know that you're going to heaven when you die. Here's that website. It's ANewStory.com.
As soon as you open up to Jesus Christ, you can know the incomparable joy of a person who can finally say, "The wall is gone! The wall is gone!"