The common rebellion of us all

[On your deathbed, you will say,] “I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.”
-Proverbs 5:13

It seems the curse of every generation to make the same mistakes as the previous ones. You see this in every area of life. Politically, we continue to try the same programs that failed ten years ago. Children generally turn out like their parents, even in those faults that they despise in their parents. Even churches do this. I have seen so many churches, in trying to be hip and new, fall into the same heresies that have been around since the first century.

And this is what it is – there is something in us that just wants to rebel. If our elders are telling us to do something one way, we will run in the opposite direction, not thinking that our elders may be telling us to go this way because they’ve already been the other way, and it was no good.

It’s a strange truth, but a truth nonetheless – in our rebellion we tend to conform to every generation that has come before. We don’t know this, of course. We just think we’re looking out for ourselves, having a little fun, seeking pleasure, and finding our own identity. But that’s just what our parents did, and their parents before them. We rebel, and in rebelling we prove that we are just like them.

Here’s the other truth of it – normally we sin for our own self promotion. We sin to have more fun, or to climb higher, or to be better. And in the end, we find out that we’ve had less fun, we’ve sunken lower, and we’ve been worse than we could have dreamed.

Our lives are driven by sin. We follow our greed, lusts, ambition, pride, and selfishness for almost every minute of the every day. We have not sought God, the very Creator who gave us life. We have not loved one another, but used one another for our own advancement and pleasure.

Some of us come to this realization before we die. Some of us discover it on our deathbeds. There are so many people, at the end of their lives, looking back in disgust and regret.

In our rebellion against God, we all end up in that place. Some of us get there before death. For some, it won’t be until the Day of Judgment, standing before the throne of God, when every sinful thought, word, and deed is revealed.

I don’t want to be there on that day, thinking, “I didn’t listen to the warnings. I didn’t listen when they told me to seek God and love first. I didn’t listen, and I fell into the same trap that everyone else did.”

We have all spent our lives in rebellion against God. But it’s not too late for it to be fixed. It can’t be fixed by you, but it can by Jesus. In love, He came from Heaven to die in our place. He paid the price for our rebellion. If we repent and believe, His righteousness will be credited to us, and our sin will be paid for by His Blood.

This is the wisdom passed down through the Word of God. Don’t ignore the voice of this particular teacher.