Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: sin

  • What’s a Hypocrite to do? – 2

    What’s a Hypocrite to do? – 2

    What does Jesus Christ say of the world who will not accept Him as Lord of anything?

    The evil ones of this world “have called the master of the house Beelzebul!” 

    Did you know that this particular name for Satan means: “lord of the house” and “prince of evil spirits?”

    Jesus said the evil ones (Pharisees and others) have accused the Righteous One of being the evil lord of this world, when in fact they are ruled by the dark powers of the enemy of God Almighty.

    Christ’s further warning to His disciples: chosen servants of the Holy Heavenly House of God, will be hated even more.

    How much more will Christ haters call Christ followers ‘devils.’

    Matthew 10

    26 “So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.

    27 What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.

    28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell…

    32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

    What is YOUR witness?

    • HYPOCRISY that points to the sin of the world (& your own righteousness)?
    • OR Do you acknowledge your many sins and Christ Jesus before the world who hates Him?

    I am a great sinner, forgiven by a Lord greater than all our unrighteousness.

    Not Peace, but a Sword

    34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

    38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

    39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

    As for the church:

    • Premarital sex? Some of us are guilty
    • Living together in sexual sin? Some of us are guilty?
    • Homosexual sin? Some of us are guilty.
    • Out of wedlock births? Some of us are guilty.
    • Fathers abandoning our children? Some of us are guilty.
    • Murdering a child by abortion? Some of us are guilty.
    • Divorce? Some of us are guilty.
    • Putting away our Christian wife? Some of us are guilty.
    • Putting out our Christian husband? Some of us are guilty.
    • Running from Christ and brothers & sisters in the Lord?  Some of us are guilty.
    • Embracing worldly ways and wicked friends? Some of us are guilty.
    • Calling our selves “christian” and accusing others of sin? Some of us are guilty.

    By the breaking of our VOWS and the witness of our rotting fruit, we have sinned against God and the Bridegroom returning for His Bride the Church.

    We, Christ’s church betrothed, are ADULTERERS

    “in a relationship” with the enemy of all Righteousness!

    And to what TRUTH does Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior call us?

    The Woman Caught in Adultery

    7:53 [[They went each to his own house,] 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.

    Imagine, dear sister or brother in the Lord, that this is you (a christian).

    11 … And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you;

    go, and from now on sin no more.”

    Beloved sister, beloved brother in the Lord; this is Jesus’ charge to the church:

    You have been sinners.

    Neither do I condemn you.

    Go and sin no more.

    12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

  • The Mirror of Church Hypocrisy – 3

    The Mirror of Church Hypocrisy – 3

    Therefore you have no excuse, O christian…

    Do you suppose, O christian… —that you will escape the judgment of God?

    Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

    But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

    He will render to each one according to his works:

    Dear unfaithful sister in the Lord — dear unrepentant brother in the Lord:

    Do these verses from Romans 2 look vaguely familiar? (I only changed one word: ‘man‘ to ‘christian,’ meaning apostate, former worshiper of Jesus Christ.

    Will YOU be convicted by the letter to the church at Rome? (Yes, we know that these words were written for unbelievers.)

    The world cannot differentiate our hypocrisy from their sins.

    REPENT!

    Romans 1

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    “The righteous shall live by faith.”

    God’s Wrath on Unrighteousness

    18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

    O, dear christian, how we suppress the truth of our sin: HYPOCRISY!

    19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 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. 21 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.

    Do YOU honor God? and thank the Lord?

    OR is your worldly witness worthless to Christ?

    22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

    24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 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.

    26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.

    • For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;
    • 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another,
    • men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

    28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

    29 They were filled with all manner of

    • unrighteousness,
    • evil,
    • covetousness,
    • malice.
    • They are full of envy,
    • murder,
    • strife,
    • deceit,
    • maliciousness.
    • They are gossips,
    • 30 slanderers,
    • haters of God,
    • insolent,
    • haughty,
    • boastful,
    • inventors of evil,
    • disobedient to parents,
    • 31 foolish,
    • faithless,
    • heartless,
    • ruthless.

    32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die,

    they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

    Can you tell the truth (even to your self before God)?

    HOW MANY of these SINS invade the lives of your ‘christian’ household and ‘christian family’ EVERY DAY?

    None of these in any way describe Jesus Christ.

    None of these of our sins describe the fruit of our witness before the world that our returning Bridegroom expects of His spotless bride, His Holy Church.

    The earlier quotes from Romans 2 (a mirror on christians for us) are followed by more conviction:

    11 For God shows no partiality.

    22 You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

    Romans 3:

    Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,

    “That you may be justified in your words,
    and prevail when you are judged.”

    “None is righteous, no, not one;
    11     no one understands;
    no one seeks for God.
    12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
    no one does good,
    not even one.”
    13 “Their throat is an open grave;
    they use their tongues to deceive.”

    18     “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

    23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

    Romans 6

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    Dead to Sin, Alive to God

    6 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means!

    How can we who died to sin still live in it?

    This is the QUESTION for the mirror of EVERY soul claiming Christ Jesus?

    3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

    4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

    Let us confess our sin and bury it.

    Let us not confess a righteousness not yet worked out by the fruit of grace.

    Let us no more judge the sin we have not buried in Christ and cleansed for our returning Savior and Bridegroom of the Church.

     

  • And they knew that they were naked

    And they knew that they were naked

    Genesis 3:7  Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.

    SIN – Original Sin. Let’s talk about the relationship of man and woman. Let’s talk about the relationship of a husband and wife to God.

    The question is always: Good or Evil?

    Righteousness or Lawlessness? Obedience or Disobedience? God or Satan?

    We are free to choose in each circumstance of life.

    What will it be: Life? Or will we choose sin and death?

    Let us look back to the creation of mankind before sin and the consequence beyond.

    The Creation of Man and Woman

    7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (soul).

    15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

    One Commandment. Do not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

    Why would you want to know that? God will tell you what is good. You have no need to know of evil. (Surely the angel Satan plots evil against God. Satan has already fallen from heaven as far as the earth, though this is yet paradise before sin.) “You will know good from evil, like God. Choose whatever you want. You do not have to obey God.”

    18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

    It is NOT good that a man should be alone, nor is it good that a woman should be alone. God creates a special intimate relationship. The KJV states: ‘ I will make him an help meet for him.’  That is: one who helps the man.

    21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

    “This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
    she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”

    24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

    The woman is NOT made from the dust of the earth, but from part of the man. She is near to him – part of him. And she is his helper.

    Note now that the Bible calls the woman his wife. They were naked and were not ashamed. (It was not evil to be naked.) They were naked before God, in whose image they were made.

    Enter Satan and evil (of which Adam and Eve had no knowledge). One commandment from God: Do NOT eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Simple. No other rules. Paradise! Obey God’s one rule and that’s it. The man and his wife had complete blessing from God and they knew nothing else.

    The Fall

    3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

    He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

    Obedience does not require knowledge, only discernment to obey.

    The tempter will always question God. “Did God really say…?” The tempter will always seek your disobedience to God’s will by causing you to question God’s motives.

    Thy will be done? Yes but, MY will be done first! The sin of disobedience.

    6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

    The tree looked to be good for food. The fruit was a delight to the eyes. No, Eve was not blind prior to this, nor was Adam. They beheld the glory and beauty of each other. They beheld the glory of paradise, of all of the garden of God’s creation which they tended as gardeners or caretakers – God’s garden, with man the caretaker. Yet the only commandment of their Lord they willingly disobeyed: original sin.

    And now, consequence.

    Adam and Eve now know that their disobedience is evil. In fact, they see and know all good and all evil. They were naked and ashamed (perhaps not of the desirable site of each other, but certainly of being looked on by God their Lord and Maker).

    They make excuses to God for their sin. (Sound familiar?) Then God pronounces judgment.

    16 To the woman he said,

    “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
    in pain you shall bring forth children.
    Your desire

    (We are talking ‘sexual desire here.)

    shall be for your husband,

    (Perfectly natural: a woman for her husband and a man for his wife.)

    But now, more than being his ‘help mate,’ the punishment of authority (since she did not accept God’s authority).

    and he shall rule over you.”

    17 And to Adam he said,

    “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife

    (rather than obeyed the voice of God)

    and have eaten of the tree
    of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
    cursed is the ground because of you…

    This is the first use of cursed in the Bible in relation to man. The very first use was in the condemnation of the serpent. Good and evil; blessing and curse. We must hear much more of these in the Law, now that we have knowledge of good and evil. We must discern what is good to obey God and discern what is evil to avoid further sin.

    Adam and Eve knew that they had sinned. Now mankind would learn the consequences of knowing good and knowing evil.

    To be continued…