The Doctrine of Sin
Hamartiology 101
The Doctrine of Sin
Why Study Sin?
First, other than knowing God, your greatest advocate, nothing else in this world is more important than knowing sin, your greatest enemy.
Why Study Sin?
Second, a proper understanding of grace requires a thorough grasp of sin. A distorted, weak view of sin will lead to a disfigured, anemic, and unproductive theology. Thomas Watson (c. 1620–86) well said, “The more bitterness we taste in sin, the more sweetness we shall taste in Christ.”
Repentance Brings Piety
God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (Prov. 3:34; James. 4:6; 1 Peter 5:6). This principle implies that we MUST have a realistic view of our own dependence, depravity, and defiance BEFORE we receive God's grace. Our ultimate reaction ought to be like Job’s (Job 42:1-6)
Repentance Brings Piety
“The only sure foundation on which we can build spiritual growth is the solid ground of self-despair. To the degree that we minimize the evil within us, we lower the ceiling on how deeply we can grow.” (Ortlund)
Repentance Brings Piety
“Despair is not an end in itself, of course. But it is a vital element of healthy spirituality. It cannot be bypassed. One reason some Christians remain shallow their whole lives is that they do not allow themselves ever more deeply throughout their lives, to pass through the painful corridor of honesty about who they really are (cf. Rev. 3:17)…
Repentance Brings Piety
Beware of so filling your life with talk shows and phone calls that you don’t regularly stop and consider the ruinous condition of your life apart from Christ. You cannot feel the weight of your sinfulness strongly enough. I never met a deep Christian who did not have a correspondingly deep sense of his or her own natural desolation.” (Ortlund)
Freedom!
Only after I acknowledge my own sinfulness and wallow in God’s grace toward me can I then savor the Savior the way I am meant to.
Freedom!
I will never learn to love the Savior if I don’t think I personally need saving. But the lost, who know they are lost, love the Redeemer with an unbounded love! Cf. Lk 7:47.
Why Study Sin?
In other words, we must begin by lingering long over our sinfulness & feel the weight of our own wickedness… only then can we linger longer over our Savior!
The Reality of Sin
The Reality of Sin
We look at the world around us and we realize there is something wrong. Why is there so much sorrow, sickness, and pain? Why do we experience things like natural disasters, diseases, and death?
The Reality of Sin
This world is not what it once was. We live on a fallen planet amidst a perverted culture. The potential in humanity seems boundless, but the sinfulness of humanity seems bottomless!
The Reality of Sin
In 1 Kings 8, Solomon’s prayer of dedication confesses to God, “There is no one who does not sin” (v. 46). Assuming Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, he also says: “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins” (7:20).
The Reality of Sin
Solomon evidently had the same outlook as his father, David, who advised, “Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you” (Ps. 143:2).
The Reality of Sin
The New Testament confirms this bleak view of human nature. Pulling from various Old Testament texts, the apostle Paul says in Romans 3…
The Reality of Sin
“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (vv. 10b–12). The whole world stands accountable to God for sin (Rom. 3:19).
The Reality of Sin
Paul will go on later to describe the nature of humanity in the end times. He description is bleak (cf. 2 Tim. 3:1-5). In fact, Paul is not alone in this assessment…
The Reality of Sin
The recognition that there is something wrong with the moral nature of man is found in all religions. In primitive religions many offerings, some of them even human sacrifices, are made to propitiate the gods for man’s wrongdoing.
Diagnosing the Problem
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is known as “the father of psychoanalysis.” He essentially gave birth to modern psychology. He is considered by some as one of the most influential atheists of the modern time. Though he admitted belief in God did have some benefits, he nonetheless declared it unnecessary and inadequate.
Diagnosing the Problem
He believed God was a mere invention of humanity. God is a childhood dream that we never outgrew. Belief in a personal, loving, & absolute, being is a sort of heavenly security blanket. Freud believed that suppressed feelings and desires are the real source of our actions. In fact, he is partially correct, however, he misidentified those feelings.
Diagnosing the Problem
The Bible teaches that shame or guilt (i.e. an internal, suppressed feeling) leads to further sin. Yet Freud identified these inner feelings differently. Freud and many of his later students believed that repressing desires (e.g. sexual desires or anything else) led to mental illness. So, his solution was to let out those feelings and desires. In other words, if it feels good, do it!
Diagnosing the Problem
After Freud, came Carl Rogers (1902-1987) who essentially taught that if you fix up everyone’s outside, they will act differently on the inside. In other words, people become angry, violent, or greedy because of their environment.
Diagnosing the Problem
Modern views today still cater to his ideas. Many people today claim that education is the key factor in behavior modification. In other words, teach people math, science, and language, and they will become contributors to society.
Diagnosing the Problem
Though Freud, Rogers and others have actually made some positive contributions, I would suggest to you that they misdiagnosed the real problem. The problem of mankind is not our environment, past experiences, or repressed feelings, though all of these do contribute to our problems.
Diagnosing the Problem
The real problem of mankind was diagnosed by Hosea, “There is no truth or mercy, or knowledge of God in the land” (Hos 4:1). Our ignorance of God results in sin. Sin results in depravity and disintegration in our lives.
Origin of Sin
Origin of Sin
Defining Sin
Sin is anything I say, think, or do, that dishonors or displeases God. “Sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). Sin is not merely the violation of law but being contrary to law altogether. Sin is seeking absolute autonomy and becoming our own god (Gen. 3:5).
Vocabulary for Sin (cf. Ps. 51)
Vocabulary for Sin (cf. Ps. 51)
The Soul of Sin
At its core, sin is selfishness, autonomy from God, and the deification of man. Note the use of the suffix “selves” in Gen. 3:5–8. Compare 2 Cor. 5:15 where Paul is essentially arguing that the DNA of sin is selfishness!
The Soul of Sin
Sin must be understood from a theocentric or God-centered standpoint. At its core, sin is a violation of the Creator-creature relationship.
The Soul of Sin
Mankind only exists because God made him, and man is in every sense obligated to serve his Creator. Sin causes man to assume the role of God and to assert autonomy for himself apart from the Creator. The most all-encompassing view of sin’s mainspring, therefore, is the demand for autonomy.
The Extent of Sin Around Us
Romans 5:12 teaches that sin entered humanity through Adam, and thereby passed to all men, because all have sinned. In other words, we have received from Adam a predisposition toward sin and rebellion, yet we compound this problem by rebelling on our own.
The Extent of Sin Around Us
How was Sin Transferred?
The Extent of Sin Within Us
While we are not necessarily as evil as we could be, we are so polluted that no true goodness can be found anywhere in us.
The Extent of Sin Within Us
The sin of mankind effected every part of man at every level of society. The Hebrew prophets wax eloquent as they describe the pervasiveness of sin in the human race.
The Extent of Sin Within Us
Isaiah will describe sin as a crimson stain (Is. 1:18), a burdensome load (Is. 1:4), & a terminal disease (Is. 1:5-6).
The Extent of Sin Within Us
Jeremiah will describe the sinful heart of mankind as incurably evil (Jer. 17:9) and inscribed upon the heart of men with a diamond point (Jer. 17:1). Men can no more change their own sinful nature than a leopard can change its spots (Jer. 13:23).
The Extent of Sin Within Us
Paul will characterize the lost in Eph. 2:1-3 as…
The Extent of Sin Within Us
Dependent in Mortality
Dependent in Mortality
Notice the way Tozer puts it, “Man has no say about the time or the place of his birth; God determines that without consulting the man himself. One day the little man finds himself in consciousness and accepts the fact that he is. There his volitional life begins.
Dependent in Mortality
Before that he had nothing to say about anything. After that he struts and boasts and utters his defiant proclamations of individual freedom and encouraged by the sound of his own voice he may declare his independence of God and call himself an “atheist” or an “agnostic.”
Dependent in Mortality
Have your fun, little man; you are only chattering in the interim between first and last; you had no voice at the first and you will have none at the last. God reserves the right to take up at the last where He began at the first, and you are in the hands of God whether you will or not.” (Tozer)
Derelict in Duty
Not only are we dependent in our mortality, but we are also derelict in our duty before God & man.
We were created to know God, love God, and serve God by loving and serving others. Yet we are often self focused, irritated at others, and indifferent toward God!
Derelict in Duty
How does one measure the dereliction of our duty? Are you making a difference in the world around you? Are you faithful in the spiritual disciplines? Spurgeon imagines us standing before the throne as God examines our life…
Derelict in Duty
The Book of Truth shall witness against us. The time is not yet erased from memory when this sacred fount of living water was unopened by us, our evil hearts placed a stone over the mouth of the well, which even conscience could not remove.
Derelict in Duty
Bible dust once defiled our fingers; the blessed volume was the least sought after of all the books in the library. (Spurgeon)
Derelict in Duty
The Throne of Grace, so long unvisited by us, equally proclaims our former guilt. Seldom were our cries heard in heaven; our petitions were formal and lifeless, dying on the lip which carelessly pronounced them…
Derelict in Duty
Unwhitened by devotion, the days of the calendar were black with sin; unimpeded by our supplication, the angel of judgment speeded his way to our destruction.
Derelict in Duty
At the thought of those days of sinful silence, our minds are humbled in the dust; and never can we visit the mercy-seat without adoring the grace which affords despisers a ready welcome. (Spurgeon)
Derelict in Duty
Love of Others: Rather than loving others the way we should, we are self consumed to the point of insanity! We are not thankful toward God but rather complain when we don’t get our way. We are not patient with others, but rather irritated when they get in our way or spoil our agenda.
Derelict in Duty
Ortlund puts it this way, “What is a human being’s natural condition? On the one hand, we are resplendent with glory. The image of God drenches us in glory and renders us utterly unlike any other creature in the universe! But we are also ruined.
Derelict in Duty
The ancient rebellion of our Edenic grandparents flows down through every generation, its tragic repercussions infecting every aspect of our existence…
Derelict in Duty
most insidious of all, our minds and hearts have been infected-we crave the forbidden, we celebrate other’s misfortune, we hoard rather than give. In short, we construct our entire lives around the throne of Self.” (Ortlund)
Depraved in Morality
Furthermore, we are not merely dependent & derelict but also depraved. We not only imagine our own autonomy, but we ignore God's authority and invent our own morality. Read Eccl 7:29; Rom. 1:21-32; 3:9-19; Eph. 4:17-19; Titus 3:1-3.
Depraved in Morality
Spurgeon puts it this way, “Sin is a madness, disqualifying the mind for sober judgment; a blindness, rendering the soul incapable of appreciating moral beauty; it is in fact such a perversion of all the faculties, that under its terrible influence men will “call evil good, and good evil; they will put darkness for light, and light for darkness; bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.”
Depraved in Morality
To us in our fallen condition fiends often appear fairer than angels, we mistake the gates of hell for the portals of bliss and prefer the garnished lies of Satan to the eternal verities of the Most High.
Depraved in Morality
Revenge, lust, ambition, pride, and self-will, are too often exalted as the gods of man’s idolatry; while holiness, peace, contentment, and humility are viewed as unworthy of a serious thought. O sin, what hast thou done! or rather, what hast thou undone!
Depraved in Morality
Thou [sin] hast not been content to rob humanity of its crown, to drive it from its happy kingdom, to mar its royal garments, and despoil its treasure; but thou hast done more than this!
Depraved in Morality
It sufficed not to degrade and dishonor; thou hast even wounded thy victim; thou hast blinded his eyes, stopped his ears, intoxicated his judgment, and gagged his conscience; yea, the poison of thy venomed shaft hath poured death into the fountain.” (Spurgeon)
Depraved in Morality
The Bible never waxes romantic about human nature. Stories of revenge, genocide, false imprisonment, greed, lust, and murder among many other forms of evil fill its pages, putting the inhumanity of humans toward one another fully on display.
Depraved in Morality
But here’s the hard news. If the moral code given in the Bible is a window through which we can discern evil and corruption in the world, it is also a mirror in which we see every detail of our own utter sinfulness (Jer. 17:9; Rom. 3:10–23).
Depraved in Morality
As R.C. Sproul was once fond of saying, “we are a lot more like Adolf Hitler than we are like Jesus Christ.” When we ask ourselves whether our inclinations are good or evil and whether it is fair to blame society for our urge to steal, lust, or lie, we must face our own bent toward sin.
Defiant in Mutiny
We not only imagine our own autonomy, ignore God's authority, & invent our own morality but we also instigate rebellion. We proudly defy God's supremacy.
Read Neh. 9:5-26 & Ezek. 20:1-32
Defiant in Mutiny
Fallen humans are factories of filth! Evil is the ocean, not the islands, of our internal existence (cf. Eccl. 9:3). The reality of this evil is itself what prevents us from recognizing it.
Defiant in Mutiny
“You will never make yourself feel that you are a sinner, because there is a mechanism in you as a result of sin that will always be defending you against every accusation. We are all on very good terms with ourselves, and we can always put up a good case for ourselves” (Martin Lloyd-Jones).
Defiant in Mutiny
This Defiance will one day reach the level of absurdity. Mankind will insanely rebel against the LORD and against His Anointed (Ps. 2). The Armies of earth will gather against God’s people Israel (Zech. 14; Rev. 19) in defiance of God and yet He who sits in the heavens will laugh!
Sinful Response to Sin
Note Genesis 3:6-13. Just like Adam & Eve in the garden, we normally respond to sin as follows…
The Effects of Sin
King David, in Psalm 51, chronicles thirteen characteristics of sin that when considered as a whole, give us a profound insight into the devastating effects of sin in our lives and the lives of those around us.
The Effects of Sin
The Effects of Sin
2. Sin soils the soul (v. 2, 7). “Wash me thoroughly... cleanse me from my sin.”
The Effects of Sin
3. Sin saturates the mind (v. 3). “My sin is ever before me...” all sin & especially sexual sin, poisons the mind, which then must be renewed (cf. Eph. 4:17-24).
The Effects of Sin
4. Sin summons secrecy, self-justification, & deception (v. 3-4). You will never understand sin’s slight of hand until you acknowledge that the DNA of sin is deception (cf. Heb. 3:12-13).
The Effects of Sin
5. Sin starts inside of us (v. 5). Cf. Genesis 5:3, says Adam had a son in his own likeness and image.
The Effects of Sin
6. Sin stings our conscience (v. 6) & sours our spirit (v. 10).
The Effects of Sin
7. Sin causes us to know and say we believe one thing yet do another (v. 6). God does not want His truth to merely penetrate our mind, but our heart, our innermost being (cf. Dt. 4:4-6; Ps. 15:2; 2 Cor. 4:16).
The Effects of Sin
8. Sin saddens the heart (v. 8, 12) & steals our joy. Yet restoring fellowship restores joy and gladness (Rom. 14:17; Gal. 5:22; 1 Thess. 1:6). However, consequences are not always dismissed.
The Effects of Sin
9. Sin sickens the body (v. 8). The spiritual / psychological stress can also affect the body in a physical way. cf. Proverbs 11:17; 14:30; 17:22; 18:14.
The Effects of Sin
10. Sin separates us from God’s presence, blessing, and power (v. 11-12). David lost his sense of empowerment due to being alienated from the Spirit.
The Effects of Sin
11. Sin silences the tongue (v. 13-15). When steeped in sin we do not praise God, nor do we proclaim God to others. Thus, the experience of those around us is also depreciated due to our sinfulness.
The Effects of Sin
12. Sin requires sacrifice to be restored back to God (v. 16-17). Thus, sin is a defilement that needs cleansing, a rip that needs mending, & a subtraction that needs repaying.
The Effects of Sin
13. Sin stunts God’s kingdom (v. 18-19). David now prays for a cause bigger than himself, cf. 2 Samuel 12:14; Deuteronomy 17:14-20.
The Ultimate Effect
The wages of sin is DEATH:
The Web of Sin
The Web of Sin
Sin is profound in its ability to corrupt and tarnish humanity. It spreads its tentacles into every realm of our existence, then turns back to interconnect with itself in another area of our lives, so that in the end it looks like a massive web of our own making wherein we trap and ensnare ourselves.
The Web of Sin
The true source of temptation is our own lusts (James 1:14-15). James does not blame Satan. James does not blame God. James does not blame our circumstances or our chemical makeup. Instead, James says the source of temptation is the desire within each one of us.
The Web of Sin
Lust is a strong desire or passion that can be positive, negative, or neutral. Cf. Luke 22:15. You do what you do because you want what you want. And you want what you want because you worship what you worship (cf. Prov. 4:23; Matt. 12:35; 15:18-19; Jm. 4:1-5). We must learn to worship God and long for right things.
The Web of Sin
Drawn away and enticed: Both of these are word pictures:
The Web of Sin
Drawn away and enticed: Both of these are word pictures:
The Web of Sin
The Life Cycle of Sin:
The Web of Sin
One of the most dangerous things about sin is its deceptiveness. Sin spins its web in the dark right under our noses. We often do not even detect its influence until it is too late (cf. Heb. 3:12-13).
The Web of Sin
According to Paul in Rom. 3 & Gal. 3, one purpose of the law is to shine a spotlight on the web of sin, so we see it and are able to consider its extent and the value of its remedy.
The Web of Sin
The law’s regulations and sacrificial system expose the roots of sin and help us understand the shocking extent of the sin in our world and in our lives. Yet also by contrast, the study of the law and the sacrificial system also begins to unveil the breadth and depth of the work of Christ, which cleanses sin!
The Web of Sin
The law highlights sin in our actions, attitudes, motivations, words, and even thoughts. The sacrificial system informs us as to the extent of the damage done by sin in both our relationship to God, other human beings, and even the created order itself… sin tarnishes EVERY area of our lives and existence.
The Web of Sin
Note the five sacrifices of the sacrificial system... they are designed for us to get a glimpse of what it takes to undo the damage of sin... we must repair our relationship with God, His creation, and our community…
The Web of Sin
It took five different sacrifices to deal with Israel’s sin, but also to picture what Christ accomplished on the cross. The problem of sin is not simple, therefore there is a need for a complex solution.
The Litany of Sacrifices
The Litany of Sacrifices
The different sacrifices have different facets that they contribute such as bringing tribute, offering thanks, enjoying fellowship, cleansing from defilement, or repaying a debt.
Six Parts to a Blood Ritual
The Litany of Sacrifices
First, the Burnt Offering: This sacrifice was the most fundamental sacrifice and served as a sort of tribute offering required to come before the presence of an Almighty Monarch.
The Litany of Sacrifices
This sacrifice represented complete dedication and surrender to God in that all of it was burned up and the priests received no portion of it back to eat. The animal, the best of the flock, was brought as tribute to God (cf. Mal. 1, offering to the governor). After the blood was sprinkled on the altar, the animal was completely burned.
The Litany of Sacrifices
Back in Genesis 3:24 the Lord God set a barrier of fire between Himself and us. This fire, guarded by the cherubim, says that we cannot come into the presence of the One who is too holy even to look at sin. The fire shows that the payment for our sin is death. Is there a way back through the fire? Is there a way to propitiate the Living God?
The Litany of Sacrifices
The book of Leviticus begins with the wonderful news that there is a way through the fire into the presence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is a way for sinful humanity to enter the throne room of the Most Holy God. In the burnt offering the animal was entirely consumed by fire “to make atonement” (1:4).
The Litany of Sacrifices
It is as if the animal goes into the fire and pays the price of the sin. The animal is consumed by the barrier between heaven and earth … so that the sinner can pass safely through. The animal dies as a substitute, taking the place of the sinner in the fire of divine wrath.
The Litany of Sacrifices
Thus, this sacrifice highlights the distance between us and God in that we cannot approach Him without a substitutionary sacrifice, which He then consumes. This sacrifice reveals the necessity of ATONEMENT, AT-ONE-MENT, which implies separation... a bridge that must be crossed…
The Litany of Sacrifices
Second, the Grain Offering: This offering was given to God in thankfulness for His provision of grain (i.e. a sort of mini first-fruits ceremony, cf. Dt. 29). The people brought fine flour, unleavened cakes, or roasted grain to the priests. The priests burned a symbolic handful at the altar but could then partake of the rest.
The Litany of Sacrifices
There was very little ceremony involved, though this sacrifice was often associated with other sacrifices (Lev. 2).
The Litany of Sacrifices
This offering highlights our need for gratitude toward a good God. Cf. “neither were thankful” (Rom. 1:21). This sacrifice helps us see the beginning conception of sin, an attitude of ingratitude... Our lack of gratitude begins when sin sows seeds of discontentment in our hearts and begins the thought train toward individual autonomy from God… cf. 2 Sam. 12:8.
The Litany of Sacrifices
Third, the Peace Offering: Hebrew shelamim, which is connected to the word shalom, can also be translated “fellowship offering.” Shalom refers to wholeness, or peace, which results from being in good standing with your covenant God.
The Litany of Sacrifices
This offering symbolized fellowship and peace with God through shed blood. After some meat was ceremonially waved toward heaven and given to the priests, worshipers and their guests could share in the feast as a meal with God.
The Litany of Sacrifices
This is the only offering where the worshipper received a portion back and could then eat a meal with God and perhaps speak to God in prayer (cf. Hannah in 1 Sam. 1).
The Litany of Sacrifices
This offering highlights our lack of peace with God. We were created to know God, love God, and serve God. This is what brings meaning and purpose to life, it brings shalom. Yet this love must be voluntary. Love, by definition, cannot be forced. As a voluntary sacrifice, the peace offering demonstrates this.
The Litany of Sacrifices
The other offerings were all necessary and compulsory. They represented all that had to be done to make the possibility of fellowship between the Lord God and His people. If all those offerings had been made, then what?
The Litany of Sacrifices
The fellowship offering is what the people could do instead of had to do when full atonement and cleansing had been made. Did the person really want to enjoy fellowship with their Lord and Savior? Did they understand the point of all the other offerings?
The Litany of Sacrifices
The Peace Offering afforded the opportunity for a family meal in the presence of God, and so also points toward the restoration of our relationships. This offering is a sort of precursor foreshadowing the coming Marriage Supper of the Lamb (cf. Rev. 19:1-9; Matt. 8:10-12).
The Litany of Sacrifices
Fourth & Fifth were the Sin & Guilt Offerings (Leviticus 4–6; Numbers 15:1-12): The sin offering focused on receiving cleansing for sin, while the guilt offering focused on paying damages with interest (adding 1/5).
The Litany of Sacrifices
Various animals were offered, depending on the person’s position and income. Priests and leaders, as examples to others, had to offer larger sacrifices for sin, while the poor offered what they could afford (Lev. 4).
The Litany of Sacrifices
Blood was sprinkled in the Holy Place, smeared on the horns of the altar of incense, and poured on the altar. The parts of the animal were burned, often with wine poured on them (drink offering).
The Litany of Sacrifices
In some cases, the meat could be eaten by the priests. Since the priests were full-time tabernacle workers, sacrificed animals were their main source of food (Dt. 18:1-8).
The Litany of Sacrifices
The Sin Offering highlights the defilement sin causes in our lives and our need for deep cleansing. Sin pollutes the sinner and the world. The social status of the sinner (Lev. 4) determines the level of pollution that sin causes.
The Litany of Sacrifices
Pollution is not an idea we readily associate with sin, but if we fall into a pile of manure, we are soiled; we stink and need cleansing to be made presentable and respectable once again.
The Litany of Sacrifices
Yet it is not merely us who need cleansing, but the world around us. Since the fall in Genesis 3, everything has fallen into disrepair (i.e. think world-wide flood, the fracturing of tectonic plates, the ring of fire, deadly weather, etc.).
The Litany of Sacrifices
Not only creation, but society is also fractured. Humans don’t work right, so society won’t work right either. We live in a world steeped in sin. As we sit on things, bump into things, and touch things in our soiled state, we defile things...
The Litany of Sacrifices
Sin in the camp of Israel defiled the tabernacle, which then had to be regularly cleansed if God was to remain in the camp... (Lev. 16).
The Litany of Sacrifices
If you are used to hygiene, you will understand this language. An unhygienic person defiles other things by contact. The sinner defiles the holy things of the Living God. It was vital that the uncleanness of the sinner be cleansed.
The Litany of Sacrifices
Praise God that Jesus purifies us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). No matter what our sin, whether we know of it or not, He will completely cleanse us if we confess our sin before Him and beg Him for mercy.
The Litany of Sacrifices
The Guilt Offering highlights that our sin has subtracted from the world around us. When we sin, we steal from God’s good creation, we tarnish it, we make it less than it once was. To experience true restoration, restitution must be made. I must seek to restore the relationship or creation to the state it was before my sin...
The Litany of Sacrifices
Today, when one trespasses on the property of another and causes damage, a fine is paid to try and restore the damages... a true sign of repentance is not merely sorrow over the sin done but also seeking to undo the damage done (cf. Luke 19:8).
The Complexity of Sin
The problem is not simple, therefore there is a need for a complex solution. The work of Jesus the Divine Messiah is so deep and wide, with so many facets. The more we appreciate these prophetic offerings, the more we will appreciate all that Jesus has done for us.
The Remedy for Sin
The Once For All Sacrifice
The ONLY permanent solution for sin would be the blood of a spotless & eternal human being! Yet praise God we have one of those (cf. Heb. 9:14)!
The Path to Perversion
The path to perversion is through the mind. Paul says our war is waged against “imaginations” (i.e., false philosophies, arguments, justifications, or rationalities, cf. LXX of Ps. 33:10-11 or Col. 2:7-8).
Weapons of Our Warfare
The Bible NEVER views application of spiritual truth as “easy or automatic.” Yet the Bible also promises the power for a victorious life. So, the Bible seeks to equip us with “weapons” for our warfare, so that we may lead our heart instead of follow it (Eccl. 10:2).
Weapons of Our Warfare
1.Regular Times of Confession & Cleansing both Privately & Publicly.
2.Regular Renewing of Your Mind through Memorization & Meditation.
3.Regular Times of Prayer & Fasting.
4.Regular Church Attendance & Accountability
5.Regular Times of Remembrance & Hope
6.Conscious Enjoyment of God-Given Pleasures
Confession & Cleansing
Regular Times of Confession & Cleansing are required in order to “Draw Nigh to God.”
Renewing Your Mind
1)Starve Out Evil Thoughts (Prov. 4:23-27; 2 Cor. 10:3-6)
2)Crowd Out Evil Thoughts (Prov. 2:1-6; Phil. 4:8)
1)Memorization (Deut. 6:6; 11:18; Psalm 119:11; Col. 3:16)
2)Meditation (Josh. 1:8; Psalm 19:14; 63:5-6; 119:15, 23, 27, 48, 78, 97, 99, 148)
(i)Themes for Meditation
(ii)Methods for Meditation
Prayer & Fasting
1)Prayer for God’s Grace & Strength (1 Chron. 16:11; Prov. 2:1-6; Matt. 26:41; Eph. 1:18)
2)Prayer Strengthened by Numbers (Matt. 18:19; Acts 1:11; 4:24; 12:12; 21:5)
3)Prayer Strengthened by Fasting (1 Sam. 7:6; Ezra 10:6; Dan. 10:3; Matt. 17:21; Acts 9:9; 13:2-3; 14:23)
Church Attendance
1)Public Teaching of the Word (2 Tim. 4:1-4)
2)Exhort One Another to Love & Good Works (Heb. 3:13; 10:24-25)
3)Confess Sin to One Another & Receive Accountability (James 5:16)
4)Rebuke One Another of Sin (Matt. 18; 1 Cor. 5)
Remembrance & Hope
1)The Dangers of Forgetting God’s Goodness (Deut. 4:9; 6:10-12; 8:11)
2)Seasons of Remembrance were Built into the Mosaic Law (Ex. 12:14; 16:32; Num. 15:39).
3)The Psalms Encourage Regular Remembrance (Psalm 77, 78, 105-106).
4)Scripture Encourages to Look Ahead and Anticipate Final Victory (Rom. 5:1-2; 1 Thess 5:8; 1 John 3:1-3).
Enjoy God’s Gifts
1)Every Good & Perfect Gift Comes from Above (Prov. 17:22; James 1:17)
2)Count your Blessings!
3)Enjoy God’s Good Gifts (Eccl. 2:24; 3:13; 5:18; 8:15; 9:9)