In 49 BC, Julius Caesar had a big decision to make. He was one of the most successful generals Rome had ever seen. He had conquered the people of Gaul, a feat never seen before in Rome. But in spite of the wealth and power he had, he craved more.
The problem was the Senate feared him, so they limited the influence he could have in their city. One of the ways they could keep Caeser in check was due to a law over 400 years old. It stated that no general could return to Rome with his army. Since the army was the power behind the general, that power could not be allowed to threaten Rome or the Senate.
In 49 BC, Caesar saw the writing on the wall. Rome refused to give him the power he craved and thought he deserved. So he took his army and marched toward Rome. The boundary of Gaul and Rome was the Rubicon River. The Senate saw Caesar coming and grew worried. Would he do the unthinkable and cross the Rubicon, breaking a law over 400 years old meant to keep civil war from breaking out in Rome?
Julius Caesar had a big decision to make. Would he cross the Rubicon? If he did, he would commit himself to an act of no return. The die would be cast. Civil war would break out. If he crossed the Rubicon with his army, there would be no going back.
We know the story. He did the unthinkable and marched his army across the Rubicon, thus changing the course of human history forever. Because he crossed the Rubicon, he prepared the world our Savior would enter. Forever after that, the idiom “Crossing the Rubicon” would refer to any action we take that represents a point of no return. Once we commit to an action, there is no going back. Very rarely do we have our Rubicon moments, but when we do, they require us to commit to actions that are not easily reversed.
What does it mean for us to cross our spiritual Rubicon? Is there a decision we can make that represents a course of action that there is no coming back from? Can we make a decision so set in stone that we reach our point of no return? I think there may be, and it is a frightening thing to consider, and it can have transforming effects on our lives going forward.
I’m not talking about committing to actions so heinous that God won’t ever forgive us. There is nothing we can do that is beyond God’s mercy and grace. Listen to this list of heinous sins that were not bad enough to keep God’s grace away:
“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.
And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV).
And such were some of you. God even forgave murderers and thieves. Daniel says,
“To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him” (Daniel 9:9 ESV).
Isn’t this the point of the story Jesus tells about the prodigal son? Isaiah says it like this:
“Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;” (Isaiah 59:1 ESV).
So, if there is nothing we can do that will keep God from forgiving us, is there a spiritual Rubicon we can cross? Is there something we can do that represents the point of no return for us, that once we commit to the action, we will never come back from it?
In my humble opinion, yes, there is.
And it is a terrifying prospect to consider.
And the Scriptures take great pains to warn us about reaching this point of no return.
While God is always willing and able to cleanse us from all wrong, we may reach a point where we are no longer willing to have God save us. We may spend years sinning and rejecting God, and still be on the safe side of the Rubicon. Living a life of rebellion is not, by itself, crossing our Rubicon. Luke 16, with the parable of the prodigal son, teaches us that.
Simply knowing we are living in sin and choosing to do so, even though we know God wants us to stop, is not crossing our spiritual Rubicon, though it may lead us right up to the banks of that river.
And crossing our spiritual Rubicon, reaching a point of no return where we will never come back to the Lord or choose Him, is nothing God does for us. It is an action fully committed by us. It is when we make the conscious decision never again to consider the Lord and to go our own way. And it is a pitiable place to be.
And when we cross our spiritual Rubicon, God will let us. In tears and anguish, He will allow us to march according to our own will, and He will give us over to what we truly want.
Do you want to see this in action?
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
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.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;” (Romans 1:18-26 ESV).
Twice in this reading, we see that God gave them up to their sins and their way. Paul talks about people who knew God but made the decision to pursue their own path to the point God gave them up to their passions and sins. For them, there was no coming back. Not because God washed His hands to them, but because they had crossed the spiritual Rubicon and they would no longer consider coming back.
So God let them go. Crossing our spiritual Rubicon is that inner boundary we cross when we make a decision to live our own way, and we cut off any avenue of changing. It’s not something that men can discern. I can’t look at you and claim you have crossed your spiritual Rubicon, and you can’t look at me and claim I have crossed my spiritual Rubicon.
But God knows when we reach that point. He is the only one who knows. And as in Romans, He warns believers about reaching this dangerous place. Here is another warning He gives about reaching our spiritual Rubicon:
“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,
and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,
and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.” (Hebrews 6:4-6 ESV).
Crossing our spiritual Rubicon is when we get to the point in our lives when we will never again choose to consider following God. Sometimes this is a conscious decision we make, and once we do, our conscience will grow hard, and our hearts will grow cold. Until we reach this point, there is always the possibility of repentance. And this point never comes from God. It is always a point we reach in our spiritual lives.
Sometimes crossing our spiritual Rubicon is something we do unconsciously. We may never articulate that we are refusing to consider God. We just may fill our hearts and desires with everything we want so that we no longer look for anything else. We love the sins we possess (or, in reality, the sins that possess us).
We cross our spiritual Rubicon because we never again see the need for Jesus and His saving grace. We have heard it all, and we simply choose to follow the life choices that make us happy. Some of us may be precariously standing at the banks of our spiritual Rubicon for years, flirting with crossing but never committing to taking the point of no return. It is here where Jesus stands at the door and knocks. He pleads with us to give our lives to Him and receive His grace.
If we are fearful we may have crossed our spiritual Rubicon, it is highly unlikely we have. We often have peace when we make this decision because our hearts are hard, and our conscience is cold. But having a hard heart and a cold conscience is not the definite sign that we have reached the point of no return with God. In fact, He is the master at softening a hard heart and warming a cold conscience.
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26 ESV).
In fact, when God shows Ezekiel the valley of the bones, where He brings them back to life and gives them flesh and life, we see the power of God to transform the dead into the living. We are never so far gone that God cannot save.
Crossing our spiritual Rubicon has nothing to do with what God can or cannot do. It has everything to do with what we will or will not do. It is simply the choice we make, never again to consider the life Jesus offers.
And it is a terrifying place for us to be. That’s why Jesus says with a sigh in His heart,
“For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’” (Matthew 13:15 ESV).
I am in Genesis in my Daily Bible reading, the part where we read about Abraham’s willingness to offer Isaac as a sacrifice to God.
The text says when God told Abraham to make this sacrifice,
“So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.” (Genesis 22:3 ESV).
Did you catch that? “Abraham rose early in the morning.”
Abraham didn’t have to think about it.
The text didn’t say he discussed it with Sarah (though it’s possible he may have).
When God told Abraham what to do, he rose early in the morning and did what God said.
That’s faith. That’s what it looks like when we have a relationship with Him.
We do what He wants us to do without discussing it with others and coming to a consensus.
We don’t question God as to why.
We trust, and we submit to Him. We show our allegiance to Him.
Abraham is our example in faith, not just because he was willing to sacrifice his son when God asked, but because he rose early the next morning to do what God wanted.
In my daily Bible reading, I read that Jacob finally gets enough of his father-in-law’s cheating him. Laban lied to and cheated Jacob with no intention of allowing Jacob to leave.
But no matter what Laban tried to do to Jacob, God was able to protect Jacob. For example, Laban agreed to give Jacob spotted or striped lambs as his wages, but every time those lambs proliferated, Laban changed the wages on Jacob. Jacob told his wives,
“You know that I have served your father with all my strength,
yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times. But God did not permit him to harm me.” (Genesis 31:6-7 ESV).
Over and over, God blessed Jacob, and Laban changed the wages when He did. Have you been at the mercy of someone like that, someone who promised when it was convenient but lied when it was inconvenient? Jacob gives examples of how Laban cheated him.
“If he said, ‘The spotted shall be your wages,’ then all the flock bore spotted; and if he said, ‘The striped shall be your wages,’ then all the flock bore striped.” (Genesis 31:8 ESV).
But here is the payoff for us. It is tempting to take matters into our hands or wallow in self-pity. But when we do that, we forget that God can take all our problems and shoulder the burden for us.
We will never hear God say to us, “I’m sorry, I tried to help you, but your “Laban” made it impossible for Me.” When we have to deal with our Labans, we must learn to trust in God to handle things His way. Jacob did this, and when God handled it, Jacob credited it to God.
“Thus God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me.” (Genesis 31:9 ESV).
God may not always handle the Labans in our lives the way we want, but let us always remember that our circumstances are never beyond God’s ability to help us.
Are we prepared to stand before King Jesus today?
I sometimes wonder if the “old paths” we strive to go back to are really not old enough.
The kind of hurt that people will experience when we’re honest with them is an entirely different kind of hurt that they will experience if we lie to them.
It might be easier for us in the moment to lie, but it will be much harder for us in the long run if we do.
Today is the Lord’s Day. Are we prepared to leave our gifts at the altar and be reconciled to our brother first?
“So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,
leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24 ESV).
Yeah, He was serious when He said that.
I am in Exodus in my daily Bible reading, specifically, the part where God leads Israel from Egyptian bondage through Moses. All but the last plague of the death of the firstborn have been brought against the people of Egypt.
This last plague would be the one that breaks the spirit of Pharaoh and gives God the generational glory He purposed in His heart. Because the exodus was an absolute, God told the people to prepare unleavened bread and eat it in haste, dressed to move when the Word of the Lord came to them to leave.
“In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s Passover.” (Exodus 12:11 ESV).
Jesus tells us the same thing today. We are to live our lives with our lamps trimmed, waiting for the Lord’s return. We are to give Him our stewardship now and not put it off.
Like the Israelites, we must be ready with our shoes on our feet and belts around our waist. When we hear the trumpet sound and the archangel proclaim the return of our King, let us all be ready for that moment.
“Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning,
and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.
If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants!” (Luke 12:35-38 ESV).