Is Life But a Coin Toss?
Sometimes we act as if our lot in
life is but a coin toss!
(toss a coin:
heads or tails)
The analogy of two coins would be a
better fit.
(Heads or tails times two)
In reality, though, chance has
nothing to do with it –
It’s choice,
not chance!
TIME
AND ETERNITY
The two coins, I will call ‘time’
and ‘eternity’.
The two sides of each coin will have a name too.
On the coin called ‘time’, you have
‘blessed’ or
‘cursed’. On
the coin called ‘eternity’ you have
‘saved’ or
‘lost’. This
depicts our general choices in life pretty well, because
as people made in the image of God, LIFE is broken into
‘time’ and ‘eternity’.
TIME
Let’s look at the coin called
‘time’. The two
sides are ‘blessed’ and ‘cursed’.
So, what determines your lot in life?
Chance?
The toss of a coin?
No, The Bible says, that the choices you make,
the life you live determines your fate in time.
Let’s compare
Deut. 28:15, ff with Deut. 28:1-8:
Blessings for
Obedience
If you fully obey the
Lord
your God and carefully follow all his commands I give
you today, the
Lord
your God will set you high above all the nations on
earth.2
All these blessings will come on you and accompany
you if you obey the
Lord
your God:
3
You will be blessed in
the city and blessed in the country.
4
The fruit of your womb
will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the
young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the
lambs of your flocks.
5
Your basket and your
kneading trough will be blessed.
6
You will be blessed when
you come in and blessed when you go out.
7
The
Lord
will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will
be defeated before you. They will come at you from one
direction but flee from you in seven.
8
The
Lord
will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you
put your hand to. The
Lord
your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.
It
seems to me that this promise of Blessings, would apply
to an individual or a nation.
So, too, can the curses that follow disobedience
apply to a nation or to individuals.
Curses for
Disobedience
15
However, if you do not
obey the
Lord
your God and do not carefully follow all his commands
and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will
come on you and overtake you:
16
You will be cursed in the
city and cursed in the country.
17
Your basket and your
kneading trough will be cursed.
18
The fruit of your womb
will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the
calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
19
You will be cursed when
you come in and cursed when you go out.
20
The
Lord
will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in
everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed
and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have
done in forsaking him
21 The
Lord
will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you
from the land you are entering to possess.22
The
Lord
will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and
inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with
blight and mildew, which will plague you until you
perish.23 The sky over
your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron.
24
The
Lord
will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder;
it will come down from the skies until you are
destroyed…
25
The
Lord
will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You
will come at them from one direction but flee from them
in seven…
38
You will sow much seed in
the field but you will harvest little, because locusts
will devour it.39
You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but
you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes,
because worms will eat them.
40
You will have olive trees throughout your country but
you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop
off.41 You will
have sons and daughters but you will not keep them,
because they will go into captivity.42
Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees
and the crops of your land...45 All
these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and
overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did
not obey the
Lord
your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave
you…
58
If you do not carefully
follow all the words of this law, which are written in
this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome
name—the
Lord
your God—59
the
Lord
will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants,
harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering
illnesses 61 The
Lord
will also bring on you every kind of sickness and
disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you
are destroyed.
63 Just as it pleased
the
Lord
to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will
please him to ruin and destroy you..64 Then
the
Lord
will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the
earth to the other. There you will worship other
gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your
ancestors have known. 65
Among those nations you will find no repose, no
resting place for the sole of your foot. There the
Lord
will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing,
and a despairing heart. 66
You will live in constant suspense, filled with
dread both night and day, never sure of your life.67
In the morning you will say, “If only it were
evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were
morning!”—because of the terror that will fill your
hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.”
Blessed or Cursed, by the toss of a
coin or by chance?
No, by the choices you make in life to Obey God
or disobey God.
No one
is Blessed apart from works of Law!
Even one who doesn’t believe in
God’s law will be blessed by keeping the law, even in
ignorance, if they do things necessary to be blessed.
And even one who is a child of God will be cursed
in life by breaking God’s law.
God’s laws are ‘principles of
living’ for individuals, for nations.
NOW, THE OTHER
COIN – ETERNITY.
The next phase of life, after time; and to sum
this one up:
No one
is Saved by works of Law!
Romans 3:20 tells us, “For by works
of law shall no flesh be justified.”
Again, people get so confused.
Some believe Salvation is purely by chance, a
toss of the coin.
Some are saved, others lost!
Others believe they must work for their
salvation, be good enough; …that their good deeds must
outweigh their bad deeds.
Here again, the Bible teaches that salvation is
not by chance, but again by choice.
You
choose to follow God’s commandments and teachings and
are thereby ‘blessed’.
You
choose to accept God’s gift of salvation through faith
in Jesus Christ and are thereby ‘saved’.
Now this double coin scenario gives
us four possible states.
1.
The best possible state – Eternally
Saved; Temporally Blessed.
2.
The worst possible state -
Eternally Lost; Temporally Cursed.
3.
The state of many Christians -
In Eternity, Saved; In Time, Cursed.
4.
The state of many unbelievers – In
Eternity, Lost; In Time, Blessed.
Many Christians find themselves
living in want because they fail to believe God’s Word
and trust God for their needs.
Many believe that it’s God’s will that they live
in want; when in reality, they live in want because they
live in violation of God’s laws and are thereby
‘cursed’.
Christians, we need to take to
heart the following admonition.
Deut. 11:18-21.
18
Fix
these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them
as symbols on your hands and bind them on your
foreheads.19
Teach them to your children, talking about them when you
sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you
lie down and when you get up.
20 Write them on the
doorframes of your houses and on your gates,21
so that your days and the days of your children
may be many in the land the
Lord
swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that
the heavens are above the earth.
2 Chronicles 7:14 says,
“if God’s people will… God will…”
AuThor
