The Human Condition--Born/Live/Die

                                                             

 

Human beings are tainted through and through with the propensity to that which is evil. A radical statement you may say? We can find that truth in both the Old and New covenants of Scripture. Jeremiah the prophet warns us "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it." The heart isn't referring to the physical heart that beats within each ones chest. The bibical view of the heart refers to the center of one's being. The control center of each of us, the source of every thought and passion. It represents the totality of a person's inner self, including thoughts, desires and decisions.

It doesn't take long to recognize that in each adorable little baby that screams out over something it is displeased with. We have all inherited what is referred to as our sinful nature. We are all born that way. As David, prophet, priest and king proclaimed in Psalm 51:5 "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me." In other words we are not sinners because we sin . We sin because we are sinners. We are born that way. Paul in Romans chapter 5 declares, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned...."

Scripture gives us a guide toward what is good, right and proper. Yet the world system offers the titillation that inflames the prurient interests of the human species. Our flesh is prone to such proclivities. We desire that which makes us feel contended, satisfied and above all happy. And to make matters worse our enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Three strikes and your out! And surrounded by this cesspool of salacious, depraved, voyeuristic proclivities that lure the unsuspecting victim into its cunning, deceptive, stunningly attractive web of deceit.

The prophets and the Apostles understood this and knew the only answer to the human condition was/is the God of the Scriptures. That is why in the Old Testament Moses stressed: "These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." (Deut. 6:6-9)

King David understood that God's Word is a mighty weapon given by God that we not be surprised by sin when he wrote, "Thy Word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against Thee." (Ps, 119:11) And in the New Testament the Apostles of Jesus Christ, The Word who was in the beginning with God and was God, echoed the same wisdom, James saying, "Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." (James 1:22)

Peter reminded believers "you have been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever..." (1 Peter 1:23)

The Apostle Paul proclaimed "All Scripture 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. 3:16)

The author of Hebrews 4:12 tells us, "For the word of God is alive 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."

And Jesus the Christ Himself said, "“Those who hear 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) And again in Matthew 24:35 "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away."

God the Father so loved the world He gave His One and Only Son, the Word, as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Why? All the Old Testament sacrifices and especially the passover, where a lamb without blemish, a male of the first year, was sacrificed and it's blood put on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the Israelites homes so that the death angel would passover their locations. It was a type of what was coming. Jesus the Christ who would save us from our sins and from death and give His chosen people Everlasting Life. "Behold," said John the Baptist, when he saw Jesus walking toward him, "the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world."(John 1:29)

God has given us a way out of our sinful perdicament. A way to deliver us from the grip of sinful desires, from eternal hopelessness, absent from the presence of God and the glory of His power, to everlasting life through "The Way, The Truth and the Life," the One in whom God the Father said, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. LISTEN to Him!

What does the righteousness of faith speak? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

For there is no other name under heaven by which anyone is brought from the darkness of this present evil age, to the light of the Gospel. It is God's Word. Right there in the Bible. God's baby talk (so said reformer John Calvin) to a lost and dying world. Read it. Feed on it. Hide it in your heart. And be not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. (***The "weapons" with which this warfare is managed are the Scriptures of truth, the sword of the Spirit, the word of God; and which indeed are an armoury, out of which may be taken weapons of all sorts, both offensive and defensive;) On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

(2 Cor. 10:3-5){***JohnGill)

We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.  For He says:

“In an acceptable time I have heard you,
And in the day of salvation I have helped you.”

Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. (2 Cor 6:1-2)