Ungrateful Unholy
According to the 2018 General Society Survey, 23.1% of Americans claim no religion. That’s slightly higher than the number that claim to be Catholic (23%) and the number of evangelicals (22.5%). But these statics really shouldn’t surprise us, at least not those of us who read and believe the Bible. The Bible tells us that in the last days people will be ungrateful, unholy and so it is in America.
In 2 Timothy 3:1-5 it states: But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
In the last days, people will love themselves, they’ll love money, they will be proud, disobedient, ungrateful, unholy, heartless people who love pleasure rather than love God. You can read the Bible and read the headline news and the news sounds just like it came straight out of the Bible. Many people today are ungrateful, they are unholy.
No Fear Of God
People are unholy because they have no fear of God. They love themselves and they love pleasure rather than God. America is becoming more and more of a godless nation. Again, you just look at the news and see this. A young college girl in South Carolina got into a wrong car (thinking it was the Uber she requested) and the man killed her. A sicko recently threw a 5-year-old off the third floor of Mall of America. People are sick and perverted and unbelievers have no fear of God.
Your evil will chastise you, and your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God; the fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord God of hosts (Jeremiah 2:19). Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes (Psalm 36:1).
“Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:15-18).
Have you forgotten the evil of your fathers, the evil of the kings of Judah, the evil of their wives, your own evil, and the evil of your wives, which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? They have not humbled themselves even to this day, nor have they feared, nor walked in my law and my statutes that I set before you and before your fathers (Jeremiah 44:9-10).
Refused To Listen
In Proverbs 1:24-29, this is God speaking: Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord.
People are ungrateful and unholy because they have no fear of God. Unrepentant sinners live rebelliously against Almighty God, even though they know He is real. They can look around at creation and know there is a Creator. God has written His law on your heart and He has given you a conscience. But unrepentant sinners suppress the truth in unrighteousness because they love their sins. They love the pleasures of sin and do not love God. They are ungrateful and unholy and they mock the very God that gives them every breath that they take.
Ungrateful
Rebellious unbelievers are unthankful or ungrateful. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen (Romans 1:21-25).
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’
As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:7-13).
Unrepentant Sinners Are Ungrateful and Unholy
Not only are unrepentant sinners ungrateful, but they are also unholy and they rebel against our Holy God. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones (Jude 1:5-8).
Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted (1 Timothy 1:8-11).
Do You Know What Happens To Ungrateful Unholy People?
What is the end of the ungrateful and unholy people? What happens to those who die in their sins, in their rebellion against God? The answer is found in Revelation 20:11-15 where it says: Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life.
And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hell gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hell were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
What awaits all ungrateful unholy people? The lake of fire awaits all unrepentant sinners who die in their sins. Oh, don’t do it. Don’t continue racing down the broad road to destruction. Don’t die in your sins and suffer God’s righteous wrath over your sins for all eternity. Hell is a place where there’s wailing and gnashing of teeth. It’s a place where people are tormented day and night and they never rest, they never get a break. Do not die in your sins as a rebel against God and suffer eternal damnation.
Turn And Live
Instead, turn and live. Turn from your sins and turn to the risen Lord. Sunday is Resurrection Sunday. It’s the day we celebrate when Jesus rose victoriously from the grave. Before His victorious resurrection, Jesus suffered, bled and died in the place of guilty sinners. God poured His righteous anger over sin out upon His own precious, sinless Son. Jesus took the punishment that He did not owe in order to save His people from their sins.
We’ve all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. The soul that sins, it shall die. We have all rebelled against Almighty God and we all will die. Every one of us. But Jesus didn’t sin, yet He died in the place of sinful men and women, that is for those who repent from their sins and put their trust in Him. There is not universal salvation. I just read Revelation 20:11-15 where it says those whose names are not found written in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire.
Salvation Is Of The Lord
Oh, salvation is of the Lord, but you must come to Him the way He tells us to and Jesus said that we are to repent and believe the Gospel. Recognize that you have sinned against God and that you deserve eternal damnation. Confess your sins, cry out for God to have mercy upon you. Repent and surrender your life to Jesus. Oh, do this today and be saved.
Don’t continue rebelling against God. Don’t continue going through life with God’s anger upon you. Truly repent from your sins and put your faith in Jesus Christ our Lord. Submit your life to the Risen Savior. Trust Jesus today and receive eternal life. I am forever grateful for the sacrifice Jesus made for my sins. Can you say the same? Will you say the same? Will you repent and trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior or will you continue being an ungrateful unholy person?
(This message was proclaimed in downtown Springfield, MO on April 19, 2019)