Then God tells us what the words being spoken by, and the mindset of His people were regarding the constant warnings they were getting. One translation conveys it this way:
“They tell the prophets, “Don’t see dreams about things we should do. Don’t tell us the truth. Say nice things to us and make us feel good. See only good things for us. Stop seeing things that will really happen. Get out of our way. Stop telling us about the Holy One of Israel.” (vs 10-11)
I guess that should not come as a surprise to any student of the bible. We have often heard, and repeated ourselves that familiar passage found in 2 Timothy 4 where Paul writes “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, will heap up for themselves teachers who will turn their ears away from the truth.”
Most refer to it as people wanting their ‘ears tickled’ as one translation must have put it. But of course, that wouldn’t be ‘our church’.
“We preach the truth”.
At least that is what over 400 ‘Christian denominations’ are telling us today.
Yeah well…then why are so many on our pews still imprisoned by sin and unable to break free of its hold on them?
So….God really does ‘have this thing’ about sin.
And it has a way of grating on folks when it is brought up or taught on.
Go figure.
So you want to guess why God just won’t let up on this ‘sin’ thing.
Because It’s KILLING us.
It separates us from Him.
It’s ‘serpent food’ that allows the enemy to come in and steal, kill, and destroy like moth and rust and rottenness. (John 10:10 ,Gen 3:14, and Hosea 5:10-12)
That’s what sin does and has always done since that first sin committed when Adam and Eve ate from that tree. God told them “if you eat off this tree, you will surely die.” (Gen 2:17)
It’s not like God wants people to perish and be destroyed! He actually paid a pretty steep price to alleviate all that suffering. What He has to offer is so much better but we have a hard time sitting down to truly examine what that might be…because the ‘pleasures of sin’ taste so good even if…we know it is killing us.
And as long as we have bought in to our favorite ‘pet doctrine’ that excuses our sin, why change? I mean after all, ‘ Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven" ....or..."we're not under some law, we are under grace!"
And we wonder why our un-churched neighbors roll their eyes at us and see right through it. Have you ever read that verse in Luke 16 where Jesus said: “for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.”
Ouch.
So what is it that makes us rise up and bristle and get angry when God tell us to ‘go and sin no more’ and that we can actually be ‘free of sin’?
Well, the sad reality for one group of people (and probably a much larger group than we’d care to admit) is spelled out in John 3:19. I’ll paraphrase it for you but it just plainly tells us that there are people who have no interest in ‘coming to the light’ because they love the darkness and their evil deeds and will not come to the light. Period. Not a thing you can do for them. Other than pray and when given the opportunity, love them.
I doubt folks in that group are reading this posting at this moment. (Yet surprisingly, many will still ‘attend church’.)
Which leads us to the next group. People get tired of hearing messages and warnings and such regarding ‘sin’ because…well…It’s just so ‘negative’ and ‘condemning’. And besides, they just don’t sin like they ‘use to’. Which is great, I suppose.
But ‘sinning less’ really doesn’t ‘fix’ the problem for multiple reasons. Paul said that a ‘little leaven still works its way through the whole loaf’.
And if sin resides in our hearts (Mark 7:21-23) and God wants us to love Him with ALL of our hearts (Luke 10:27) and that it’s only the ‘pure in heart who will see God’ (Matt 5:8; Heb 12:14) …then we better not leave the “work unfinished”. (Rev 3:2)
God doesn’t want us sinning ‘less’…He wants us to ‘sin no more’. (John 5:14) He said we'd know the truth and the truth would set us free! Remember the post I had the other day about the 'enemy doing all he can to keep you from hearing the truth? Guess what!? He wants you to remain a captive!
The problem with not totally ridding ourselves of sin is that if we allow it to remain, it hardens us over time. We like to ‘barter with the devil and/or ourselves’. It’s part of the deceitfulness of sin that the devil knows all too well. (Heb 3:12-13)
Remember back in the day when your walk with God was so fresh and new and pure. I merely submit that slippery slope of ‘movie ratings’ that determined whether a “Christian” should watch or not. Yeah…I’m pretty sure many of you are reluctantly agreeing how that worked out for you over time. G movies only…maybe an occasional PG but there would be some ‘cringe’ moments over cuss words of whatever …but at least it was not an R rated movie because you were righteous. Until the real popular ones came out and everyone was watching them and so you kept the remote handy to ‘fast forward’ those ‘certain scenes’ but then overtime…yeah…you know.
At least you didn’t watch ‘hardcore porn’. That is, until the internet got piped in to your home. Oh…now your 13-year old son has a cell phone attached to his hip 24/7. I’m sure it’s only used to do research for homework.
Sin…is the epitome of the ‘slippery, subtle, slope that hardens us and sears our conscience to where we can’t even hear from God anymore if we are not careful.
But this is not about watching movies. And it’s not about you just pulling up your bootstraps and doing better or trying harder. Look where that has gotten us.
It has everything to do with our attitude towards sin, and understanding what sin even is.
We have failed to see sin the way God does.
Try this illustration on for size.
Guys…you and your wife walk in to your house one night after dinner out. There on the kitchen floor, you find seven, six-foot long water moccasins coiled up with their mouths hissing at you for turning on the lights. After your wife creates another opening in the house next to the door and has locked herself in the car, you do your ‘man thing’ and grab a shovel or shotgun or rake and go in to attack mode.
Twenty minutes later you go out to reassure your wife all is well and coax her back into the house and get her settled in bed and as you reach over to turn the lights off, she thanks you for getting rid of all those horrible serpents. To which you reply, “Oh…I only got five of them. The other two got away.”
Bro....Dude…. convince me she is going to be satisfied with the progress made in your battle with the snakes. We think we did good…and she should be thankful it’s not as bad as it use to be.
Your wife is assessing that situation and your lame logic in the same way God looks at us when we want to brag how we ‘sin less’.
But you settled. It’s not as bad as it once was…especially when you compare yourselves with others (not wise) but there is only one tiny little problem with that line of thinking. That may be a ‘standard’ that you are fine with. But God isn’t. He did not send His Son to die on that cross so you could ‘sin less’.
He suffered and died and defeated the power the devil had over your life…He paid the ransom for your freedom…not so you could ‘sin less’, but so you could sin no more and walk in the power of His spirit.
Did Jesus not say we were to “perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect”? (Matt 5:48- His words, I might add, not mine)
And if you want to know what a ‘stronghold’ is that scripture talks about (2 Cor 10:4), THAT lie that a true follower of Jesus can’t ever be totally set free of sinning, is a perfect example of one that the church has bought into and propagated suggesting you really can’t be set free.
We have been deceived, duped, and lied to by the ‘god of this world’ (2 Cor 4) into believing that there is no way that a believer and follower of Jesus would be able to ‘walk like Jesus walked’ even though He commands us to follow him and ‘walk just like He walked’ (1 John 2:6)
So why have so many settled and are comfortable with that lie?
Maybe they have a ‘false peace’ because they ended up, despite Paul’s warnings in 2 Cor 11, and heard another gospel and another ‘Jesus’ and received ‘another spirit’. And there is a large crowd of people(which always makes us feel better about our decision, yes?) taking that ‘wide path to a wide gate’ and are in for a very rude awakening. (Matt 7:13)
And then there is that third category of folks, which I suspect many of you fall into. It’s not like you have gained any more victory than the next person. If anything, you are wore out…exhausted…defeated and discouraged. Perhaps you are like that mother who just blows a fuse and screams and hollers and swears at her kids and/or husband and then just is crushed by the weight of guilt and shame for doing it again for the hundredth time.
How many times have you cried yourself to sleep hating yourself for doing what you know is harmful and wrong, yet you feel powerless to overcome.
Maybe you are that male (of any age) driven by sexual compulsions and just are resigned to the fact you won’t ever be able to get true victory. So over time, your heart has hardened. But that doesn’t stop you from attending church regularly and serving in various ministries…you know…putting on a good face while you ‘walk in a form of godliness but deny the power’…While all the time battling with your personal demons that heap condemnation and shame and guilt…burying you under a mountain of darkness and chains.
I have news for you. Jesus came to set the captives free.
We’ve just been leaving out some very important parts of the bible…I’d call them significant ‘missing pieces’.
More tomorrow.
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