The Point Of No Return

The Cambridge Dictionary defines the phrase to be a point of no return as the stage at which it is no longer possible to stop what you are doing and when its effects cannot now be avoided or prevented.

You have probably said, as I know I have, that we wish we could have controlled ourselves. The idea suggest that if we had only controlled what we did what came after that would not have happened.

I want to put this in the simplest of ways for us all today. The point of no return for man was the sin in the Garden of Eden. The actions of Adam and Eve would not ever allow for sin to stop from that moment on and the effects are unpreventable.

I say this because when we consider and identify this as to what is occurring around us it provides a means for understanding why it can never go back to the moment before sin in the garden. That point of no return changed forever what and how man would be dealt with by God.

You may remember me saying that currently I am reading the Book of Jeremiah. It is quite a book and Jeremiah certainly cared for the people. However, in Jeremiah 2:13 NKJV we read the words of God-

¹³ “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Many Christians today, and I do mean true Christians, have forsaken God and hewn their own cisterns.

They are no longer reading and adhering to God's Word. And also looking for and accepting the things of this world that provide for nothing. Listen, we came into the world naked and crying and we leave the same way. Having put things before God and missing the close personal relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. I mean you are saved. You have believed in your heart and confessed with your mouth Jesus Christ is Lord. You remember what Paul said in Romans 10:9 that very thing-

⁹ that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

He then affirmed in verses 10-13 that-

¹⁰ For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

¹¹ For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”

¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him.

¹³ For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

So you know you are saved, but yet you recognize, or you should recognize, that you are not where you should be in relation to God. I really hope that is the case for you. Because for the people of Judah that was not the case at all. They were led away by sinful kings and spiritual leaders. Jeremiah began prophesying in his early 20's when Josiah, also a 20 something at that time was king. Josiah was a child king coming to the throne at the age of 8 and ruling for 31 years. Jeremiah 1:2-3 tell us that-

² to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.

³ It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.

Josiah did what was pleasing in the eyes of God. However, Jehoiakim and Zedekiah did not and this ultimately lead to the fulfilling of prophecy which leads to captivity.

The kings, religious leaders were attracted to the gods of other peoples around them and began to worship their gods. Forsaking the God that had brought them from Egypt to a land previously promised to Abraham some 700 years before.

Isaiah would prophesy of this captivity by Babylon some 200 years before it occurs. So much so that he would even, by God's direction, name a king who would end the captivity. Isaiah 39 was written around 700 BC, King Hezekiah of Judah was told that his people and his sons would go into captivity in Babylon.  Beginning in Isaiah 40, Isaiah prophesies the deliverance from that captivity, a prophecy fulfilled around 535 BC, some 150-175 years later.  In that prophecy, he actually names the ruler who God would use to release the children of Judah from their captivity, Cyrus of Persia. Isaiah 44:28 says-

28 who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt,” and of the temple, “Let its foundations be laid.”’

and in Isaiah 45:1 we read-

1 This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armor, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut:

Pause here for a moment and recognize that God knows all. Certainly, He knows the names of kings before they ever exist. For Isaiah to have this knowledge it could only have come from God. That thought alone can provide assurances for us that God is in control and that certainly our actions cause us joy and pain. God knows this and He uses it to work in our life.

As we get older, we slowly begin to recognize and accept our lack of the wisdom and knowledge that we may have thought existed earlier in life. I have said to Elaine often that the older I get the less I feel I know.

I wonder what will happen in the years to come. How it will effect our kids, grandkids and even beyond that I don't know about today. Because that point of no return has passed for the world and for all of us. The next step leads to somewhere we have read about but have no conscious thought of what it is like.

In God's Grace,

Elbert Nasworthy