Is it God’s fault? Is it Adam’s fault? Is it mother or father’s fault? Or is it each man’s fault? Are God’s requirements too hard? Are men lost because God made it too hard? Is man born only to go to hell? Why are people going to hell? Why are so few going to heaven?

1. God is righteous and desires for all men to be saved, 1 Tim. 2:4f; Tit. 2:11; 1 Jn. 2:2; Jn. 3:16. The blame cannot be laid at the feet of the righteous God.

2. Adam sinned and led the way for his children, but they sinned all on their own – just as Adam did. Paul says spiritual “death spread to all men,
BECAUSE ALL SINNED”, Rom. 5:12. The spiritual death
Adam suffered came on him because he disobeyed God. And when all men follow in his steps, also sinning against God, so death spreads to all men.

3. Can we blame our parents for spiritual separation from God? After all, Moses said God visits, “the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth
generation.” Exodus 34:7; Num. 14:18. This is the warning from God that our children can and will suffer in this life because they learn their father’s ways. The limitation of the influence of the grandfather and great grandfather indicates that this isn’t the idea of inherited that supposedly is transmitted from Adam throughout all of mankind. This is something different which Moses is speaking of. Parents can influence their children to do evil, hence the strict warning by Jesus in Mt. 18 and 19, but the soul of each person is not stained by the parents’ trespasses.

4. Perhaps men are lost because God’s requirements are too difficult. Is faith in God instead of faith in materialism too hard? Is the fruit of righteousness less desirable than the fruit of darkness? God says to “having nothing to do with the fruit of darkness”, but men immerse themselves in the darkness and they suffer from being in the darkness. Is it not better to walk in the light of God’s truth and love? Is obedience to the only Sovereign God harder than obedience to worldly taskmasters? Men only seek what they can get out of you and they mistreat you. But Jesus said, ‘Come to me” and “I will give you rest for my burden is easy, my load is light’. Mt. 11:28-30. There are many people who choose the broad path that leads to destruction and they reject the very idea of denying themselves and carrying their cross daily. They fool themselves to think they are choosing the easy path, but it is full of disease, pain, and death. Instead they choose the flesh and blindly they lay up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy. They don’t know that their money bags are moth eaten and every way they choose will not prosper, Haggai 1:6. Is the lie easier than the Truth? Men choose to suppress the Truth of God because they are literally hellbent on doing evil. God’s way is better. To follow Christ is not too hard. Salvation is a moment away for those who put their faith entirely in God, Mark 16:15-16.

5. God from before the very foundation of the world determined to rescue man from sin, Eph. 1:3ff. “Do I take any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord GOD, Aand not that he should turn from his ways and live?” Ezek. 18:23. There you have it. The wicked man is spiritually dead and separated from God. But God says the man can turn, if he chooses to, and the same will live. No, this isn’t speaking of physical death and life, for we are all dying and all shall die. But God’s concern in this chapter is the spiritual condition of fathers and sons. If a man repents, he shall live. This is the love and the justice of God. God has paved the way in the Gospel of His beloved Son for all men to be saved.

The wages for sinning against God is death, Rom. 6:23. We look at Judas and think how could he? Whatever was his motivation to take those thirty pieces of silver, Mt. 26:15. What did it get him? It got him nothing but despair. And do we not see that the world offers nothing but empty despair? “God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, this he shall reap.” Men are so very lost because they have made the monumentally bad choice of turning away from the beneficient Creator.

All men will not be saved. And on judgment day God will judge them for the choice they made today. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” 2 Cor. 5:10. Judgement Day is coming and God’s wrath is against those who did not know Him and did not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ, 2 Thess 1:6-9. God is fair and there’s not an ounce of partiality with Him, Rom. 2:11. And so God is showing kindness to all in the hopes that it leads men to repentance, Rom. 2:4. Many reject God, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, and to these He says, “But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his deeds.” Rom. 2:5-6.

The choice is yours. It’s a faith choice. Will you follow Jesus Christ or will you reject Him? Acts 2:38; 22:16. Respond today.