People seem to be committing crimes and abominations in massive quantities today. And it only seems to be getting worse. Just watch your local or national newcasts. One may say demonic influence or possession seems evident. And being how weak the flesh is, I believe that could be a very reliable statement. For Scripture tells us our struggle is against the world, the flesh and the devil. So we must be strong in the Lord and the power of His might.
Paul addresses the demonic influence in Eph. 6:10-18. And if so, it is still no excuse for ones transgressions. Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We are tainted by it through and through. And our sin nature, which is with us from birth, is decidedly influenced if we feed it with the vain, wicked, immoral, and self centered cravings of this world which are passing away. For as a person thinks so they are. With what one fills their mind, you could say, they become. Junk in-junk out. Which is the common nomenclature for a persons condition today.
If you say God is a loving God who sent His only Son into the world to pay the sin debt. You are correct. By repenting, confessing, by grace through faith, and not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God, by Jesus Christ alone. Does one enter into a right relationship with the creator. And thus has a citizenship in heaven. (Phil. 3:20-21) A place in the kingdom of God. It is then that one is born from above a new creation. The old has passed away, all things have become new. (Gal. 5:17)
God the Father Sons torture and torment on that cross reveals to us all how absolutely obscene, disgraceful, offensive and atrocious our sins are before a Holy, Righteous, Perfect God. Jesus Himself said " you must be perfect, as the father in heaven is perfect, to have a place in the kingdom of God." (Matt. 5:48)
Only His Son, by which God has spoken to us. The brightness of God's glory and the express imagine of His person. (Heb. 1:3) The Word who was in the beginning with God and was God. (John 1:1) Only He is perfect, for He is divine. The One without sin, clothed Himself in human flesh. Prophesied by Isaiah as a child born, a Son given, born of a virgin. (Isaiah 9:6; 7:14) Jesus Christ is the One by whom all things were created in heaven and on earth, (Col. 1:16) and now sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
No mere human being could satisfy God's forgiveness. Only Jesus the Christ, being in very nature God, humbled Himself and came in the likeness of men. He was obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. His was God the Father's only acceptable sacrifice for sin. (Phil. 2:5-8) All the Old Testament animal sacrifices pointed to the only perfect, acceptable redeemer, who was to come. (For without the shedding of blood, their is no forgiveness Heb. 9:22) As John the baptist proclaimed as he saw Jesus walking toward Him, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." (John 1:29)
It is God who calls us from darkness to light, by grace through faith, it's nothing we can do. For in God's economy nothing mankind can do could warrant His approval. Only His Perfect, Divine, One and Only Son. Born of a virgin, born under the law, could fulfill the law and the prophets. And that Jesus did. (Gal. 4:4-5)
I urge you as God the Father proclaimed to the disciples and Apostles, "Listen to Him! For this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Hear him who speaks boldly in our Bibles, for all Scripture is "God-Breathed." That is God's chosen "Holy men spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter 1:20-21) As Our Messiah Himself has proclaimed " Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life." (John 5:24)
He is coming again as promised to gather his own, His elect from the four corners of the world, and to judge the world in righteousness by the man He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to everyone, by raising Him from the dead. (Acts 17:31) This is the Gospel.
Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. (1 Cor. 15:3-4) And though this fallen world will proclaim there are many paths to God. Jesus Christ, very God in very flesh, proves them liars and idolaters when He proclaims" I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father but through me." (John 14:6)
Jesus gives us Hope for He is called "the Blessed Hope." (Titus 2:11-14) And as he said over two thousand years ago to those throngs of people following Him, He says to us all today...“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28)
If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead. You will be saved. (Romans 10:9)
"He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”(John 3:36)
Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (James 1:21-22)
For those who have confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior are "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that they may proclaim the praises of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10)
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. (Col. 2:6-8)
Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?(Rom2:4)
When you assess those laws you begin to realize that they are there for our protection. Protection from ourselves, from we who are so easily lead astray and swayed to seek what is contrary to reason and logic, His enlighting regeneration of a cold dead heart to the things of God, to the way, truth and life, for our health both physically, mentally and spiritually.
Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Eph. 2:11-13)
The apostle tells us that we were once far from the God of Scripture following the course of this world, blinded by the god of this age, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and had no hope. But when the fullness of time had come God sent forth His Son, born of a women born under the law. The Blessed Hope came to all the world as a Blessed redeemer of a Blessed salvation.
Once lost, blind, ignorant of the God of all creation. We have now been brought near to God through the blood of Christ. He is all of humanities great high priest. Who was tempted in every way as we are yet without sin. For Jesus shared in our humanity and destroyed him who has the power of death, that is the devil, and frees those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
Satan is the enemy of mankind who desires to facilitate our rebellion against God. For he desires the destruction of God's creation in general and man in particular. Satan is a murderer from the beginning. (John 8:44) He desired man's death in the fullest sense of the word: Both physical and spiritual death. But God not satan pronounced the curse of death on the world when Adam and Eve fell into sin. Satan, an angel created by God, is subservient to God. Without permission from God, satan is unable to do anything.
Jesus is the only Son of God, who was in the beginning with God and was God, yet He humbled Himself, came down from heaven, the Word became flesh. He is the image of the invisible God; For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. That's right. By Jesus Christ all things in creation hold together. That one who created you and gave you life itself, He made himself of no reputation, was conceived in the womb of a virgin, as prophesied by Isaiah. (Is. 7:14; 9:6) And coming in the likeness of man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.
For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. (Col. 1:19-20) For without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Heb. 9:22) No other door, no other way, no other path leads to God's forgiveness and acceptance. No other god, for all other gods are all idols of man's invention. The only path they lead to is destruction and a hopeless future that only ends in eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth. As Jesus proclaimed.." "And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matt. 25:46) We are bathed in His perfect righteousness, His fulfilment of the law and the prophets, when we believe in the only name under heaven by which anyone can be saved. Believe, Repent, Confess, Trust and Obey. For there is no other Way, Truth or Life but that in Jesus Christ.
Sin doesn't seem to be an offense against God anymore. Just a slight slap on the wrist is needed for the rampant evil the permeates society today. All the crime, murder, sexual immorality, (that is any sexual liason outside the marriage bond of a man and a women) adultery, divorce, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness Jesus says comes out of a person and defiles them.
The Apostle Paul continues on in Gal. 5 and 1 Cor. 6:9-11 saying the works of the flesh include lewdness, idolatry, sorcery,(which in Paul's time was the use of intoxicating drugs used in magical incantations) hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, and drunkenness, haters of God, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; and in addition to sexual immortality, idolators and adulterers, Paul also adds the sins of sodomy and homosexually. As does Jude in verse 7 where he writes " as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh,(the strange flesh being God's messengers, the angels...See Gensis 19) are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."
For without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Jesus the Christ is the answer to humanties dilemma of death and eternal separation from God. All those sacrifices of animals in the Old Testament were but types of the one and only exceptable sacrifice that would for once and only once be the atonement for sin that God demands. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Heb. 9:27-28)
Sin is that offensive to God. And not to be trifled with. There is absolutely nothing anyone can do to be accepted by a Holy and Righteous God. For as Isaiah proclaimed "all our righteous acts are as filthy rags" (64:6) We are fallen, tainted through and through. We are at enmity with God, and need a mediator to intercede for us. God has provided that in the person of his Son. He is one who bruised the head of the serpent (the devil /satan), (Gen. 3:15) Jesus Christ is the only perfect, righteous, holy sinless and undefiled suffering servant who was pierced through for our inequities, and by His stripes we are healed. Made right with God by our trusting in the only name under heaven by which we can be saved.
For God made Him who had No Sin to be a sin offering for us. So that in Him (in Christ Jesus) we might become the righteousness of God. A righteousness not of our own doing but imputed to our account. Our sinful condition is so offensive before our Holy, Righteous, Perfect Creator God, that it took God's One and Only Son," the Word who was in the beginning with God and was God (John 1:1) to pay that sin debt. God has in these last days spoken to us by His Son whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high."
The One who always obeyed His Father, took up the task to cloth Himself in human flesh, A child born, a Son given, to live a perfectly sinless life while He walked among us on the earth, and submitted Himself to death, even the death of the cross for our sins, according to the Scriptures: As the prophet Isaiah proclaimed over 700 years before His birth when he wrote through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit "For He (God's chosen Messiah) was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. For He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed." (Is. 53:5)
That this chosen One of God was buried according to the Scriptures: "And they made His grave with the wicked—But with the rich at His death Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth." And that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures: "He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied." (Is.53:10-12)
Jesus Himself tells us the sign of resurrection of the Messiah was a sign of His soon rising from the death "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matt 12:40) And an early tradition saw the combined evidence of Ps. 16:8-11 and 110:1 as bearing witness to the Messiah's resurrection: David spoke about the Messiah, when he uttered "that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption." (Ps. 16:10;Acts 2:27)
Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Reformer John Calvin said, the scriptures are God's baby talk, to us who believe. Desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby. For all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and in the language in which the New Testament was written literally says, "is God-breathed" and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:15-16) For whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. (James Chapter 1:21-22;25;27)
Those who are Christ's are New creations. The old has gone the new has come. So says the Scriptures. That new life is to be in the world but not of the world. For everything in the world, the cravings of sinful man, the lust of the eyes and boasting of what we have and do comes not from the Father but from the world, so said the apostle Jesus loved. God's chosen people, are born of God by grace through faith, according to His mercy, not by trying to appease God through obeying some religious ritual or tradition through good works to gain His favor. For that is not acceptable since all our works are as filthy rags for their is no one who is righteous no not one. (2 Cor. 5:17; 1John 2:15-17; Romans 3:10-18)
In our tainted, corrupt human natures we are all, by nature children of God's wrath. Nothing done for God is acceptable, as Jesus said 'without me you can do nothing" that will appease His wrath because we are His enemies by simply being human, being born of flesh, blood and bones. We are born into sin, handed down through a sinful adamic nature which is defiled, and incapable of doing anything worthy of being accepted by God. Being apart from the Messiah is being apart from God. For when you honor the Son, you honor the Father who sent Him. Those who have the Son have life. Those who have not the Son do not have life. (1 John 5:12; john 3:36)
Only Jesus the Christ is the one mediator, between God and all persons, the one go between between God and mankind. Nothing else is acceptable. As Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) God calls a sinner...changes their heart and gives those born again the ability to repent, confess and follow the messiah. As Jesus Himself said, "You did not chose me, but I chose you."
God chose us. A difficult reality for many. People are vain enough to think, It has to be that God saw something in me, something that gained His attention and his deserving of me to enter into His kingdom. But "no one can can come to Christ unless the Father who sent Him draws them" (by grace through faith and not of ourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, less anyone should boast. John 6:45;65 Eph 2:8-10) It is God and Him alone through the person of His perfect Son, that saves a lost soul and nothing that person can do, no so called good works without Jesus Christ can give you a pass into God's everlasting and glorious kingdom.
Salvation is simply a gift from God to those chosen before the foundation of the world. The apostle John speaks about it when He says "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. " The will of man does not save because that will is at enmity with God . "He saves us not because of the righteous things we have done, but because of His mercy. He saves us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." As Paul said to the Corinthian believers, "you were washed, you were sanctified (set apart for God) you were justified (made right with God) in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Your salvation is one hundred percent from God. A gift of grace through faith and not of yourself. As Peter proclaims in 1 Peter 2:9 "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."
Before Jesus Christ is in a persons life, that one walks in the darkness of this present evil age. They are blinded by the god of this age, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Following the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air (the devil, satan) who works in the sons of disobedience. And are by nature children of God's wrath. (Eph. 2:1-5) Everyone is not born a child of God. That's what much of the popular media preach. But David proclaimed in Ps. 51:5 "Behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother concieved me." We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are born that way. By nature we are born children of God's wrath. We need to clothe ourselves with the full armour of God provided by God through His one and Only Son. That we may extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. (Eph. 6:10-18)
Well then you might ask who are the children of God? They are the ones who respond to that call from God unto righteousness. These are those given to Jesus Christ, by God the Father, as our savior proclaims in John 6:37, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” They are His, because God has given them to Him. They are born again [that is, reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, and set apart for His purpose] born again not of perishable seed but imperishable through the living and enduring word of God. (1 Peter 1:23)
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (Heb. 4:12) The Word of God speaks to God's chosen people. As Isaiah the prophet penned "So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." (Is. 55:11)
What God has said, through His Holy prophets and apostles, will come to pass. David in Psalm 119:105 declared "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." In the New Testament we are told by Jesus Christ that "He is the light of the world. Whoever follows Him will not walk in darkness but have the light of life. And Whoever believes in me will not perish, but have everlasting life."
