I hate going to jail.
One of the regular events of my professional life has been visiting a client in a jail. Perhaps some of you have never been to a jail or a prison. If you have never been to either, then you really cannot know what it is like. If you have only been to a prison, not a county jail, then you cannot know what a jail is like.
For old guys like me, the first thing we ever knew about a jail was from the old Andy Griffith Show, with two little cells in a simple office, presided over by Andy and Barney. That's not the way it works.
My client has been in this county jail (the one I visited today) for seven months. Keep that in mind. Seven months.
The jail is very small. It sits on a back lot in a very small town, with nothing to see anywhere. The jail yard is smaller than a front yard in a normal subdivision and is surrounded by high walls topped with razor wire. You could not run in the jail yard, because you could not get up any speed before hitting the fence. The most you could do for exercise is walk around the little yard.
The jail building is small, but most of it is taken up with the offices of the local sheriff, so that the actual jail area is much smaller than even a simple home. You are "behind the door," the only entrance and exit, and you never get beyond the door, except to see visitors.
For seven months, he has set in this jail. He is there because he is in federal custody, but the feds pay the county to house prisoners for the federal government. He is awaiting a sentencing hearing, which could have happened in June and may not happen until this June. It is up to the judge to decide when to give him a hearing. In the meantime, he is stuck in the jail.
There is nothing to do in the jail. You can read, but he does not really read. Otherwise, you just sit all day and do nothing. There are no fancy weight sets (like movies show in prison) to do workouts. There are no TV rooms with cable. There are just 24 hours every day, sitting in this jail. He has been there seven months. He may be there for seven more. His entire world is that small building and that small yard.
I do not like visiting the local jails. This was the smallest of the ones I have had to visit. By his actions, my client has placed himself in these circumstances. He is 23 or so years old. My son, the same age, is in Monterey, California, learning Arabic with the Army. But my client is stuck in this jail, waiting to learn how long he will be in prison.
This is where sin gets you. This is where all sin would one day get you. You will be going along in your sinful life and, suddenly, you will be taken up and put into a place where there is nothing to do all day but suffer. Where all the world cannot reach you. Where walls and locks bar you from all that is worthwhile and all that is worth doing.
You will not, however, be stuck, as my client is, not knowing how long you will be there. You will always be there. Always. You will never have a yard in which to run or a restaurant in which to eat or a child with whom to play or a day in which anything happens because you want it to happen.
We emphasize the idea that hell includes burning torment, which may or may not be the case, but the fire is surely not the point. We emphasize being "absent from Christ," although we speak to people who, in fact, do not want to be near Christ. We tell them about an "eternal punishment" even though they cannot imagine eternity. We seldom tell them the reality they must really fear.
The reality is that they will be like a man in a county jail. A man with no freedom, no joy, no hope, no plan, no power, nothing at all. A man whose entire existence occurs in a small building on a back street in a nothing town where no one cares a thing about him. A lost man.
How often do you think about what Christ has done for you? We, in modern America, tend to look at present things. We talk about "fulfillment" and "personal integrity" and "celebrating Christ" and lots of other things that are really about us, not about Christ, and have almost nothing to do with what He actually did.
Drive by a county jail sometime. Imagine spending eternity in that place. That is what Christ saves you from. Nothing that happens in this life, with its short span of years, compares with the joy of being free of that fate.
I hate going to jail.
One of the regular events of my professional life has been visiting a client in a jail. Perhaps some of you have never been to a jail or a prison. If you have never been to either, then you really cannot know what it is like. If you have only been to a prison, not a county jail, then you cannot know what a jail is like.
For old guys like me, the first thing we ever knew about a jail was from the old Andy Griffith Show, with two little cells in a simple office, presided over by Andy and Barney. That's not the way it works.
My client has been in this county jail (the one I visited today) for seven months. Keep that in mind. Seven months.
The jail is very small. It sits on a back lot in a very small town, with nothing to see anywhere. The jail yard is smaller than a front yard in a normal subdivision and is surrounded by high walls topped with razor wire. You could not run in the jail yard, because you could not get up any speed before hitting the fence. The most you could do for exercise is walk around the little yard.
The jail building is small, but most of it is taken up with the offices of the local sheriff, so that the actual jail area is much smaller than even a simple home. You are "behind the door," the only entrance and exit, and you never get beyond the door, except to see visitors.
For seven months, he has set in this jail. He is there because he is in federal custody, but the feds pay the county to house prisoners for the federal government. He is awaiting a sentencing hearing, which could have happened in June and may not happen until this June. It is up to the judge to decide when to give him a hearing. In the meantime, he is stuck in the jail.
There is nothing to do in the jail. You can read, but he does not really read. Otherwise, you just sit all day and do nothing. There are no fancy weight sets (like movies show in prison) to do workouts. There are no TV rooms with cable. There are just 24 hours every day, sitting in this jail. He has been there seven months. He may be there for seven more. His entire world is that small building and that small yard.
I do not like visiting the local jails. This was the smallest of the ones I have had to visit. By his actions, my client has placed himself in these circumstances. He is 23 or so years old. My son, the same age, is in Monterey, California, learning Arabic with the Army. But my client is stuck in this jail, waiting to learn how long he will be in prison.
This is where sin gets you. This is where all sin would one day get you. You will be going along in your sinful life and, suddenly, you will be taken up and put into a place where there is nothing to do all day but suffer. Where all the world cannot reach you. Where walls and locks bar you from all that is worthwhile and all that is worth doing.
You will not, however, be stuck, as my client is, not knowing how long you will be there. You will always be there. Always. You will never have a yard in which to run or a restaurant in which to eat or a child with whom to play or a day in which anything happens because you want it to happen.
We emphasize the idea that hell includes burning torment, which may or may not be the case, but the fire is surely not the point. We emphasize being "absent from Christ," although we speak to people who, in fact, do not want to be near Christ. We tell them about an "eternal punishment" even though they cannot imagine eternity. We seldom tell them the reality they must really fear.
The reality is that they will be like a man in a county jail. A man with no freedom, no joy, no hope, no plan, no power, nothing at all. A man whose entire existence occurs in a small building on a back street in a nothing town where no one cares a thing about him. A lost man.
How often do you think about what Christ has done for you? We, in modern America, tend to look at present things. We talk about "fulfillment" and "personal integrity" and "celebrating Christ" and lots of other things that are really about us, not about Christ, and have almost nothing to do with what He actually did.
Drive by a county jail sometime. Imagine spending eternity in that place. That is what Christ saves you from. Nothing that happens in this life, with its short span of years, compares with the joy of being free of that fate.
I hate going to jail.