August 16, 2013
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Why the Preaching of Sin is important
Legend: This is to help those who want to understand my color coding of Scripture, it is a separate Key apart from what I post below merely to help give understanding of why I highlight things the way I do, namely so as to bring out greater clarity from the Word of God. Here’s the Key:
- Any shade of BLUE = Judgment of God on or over sin.
- Any shade of GREEN = grace, forgiveness, salvation, redemption.
- Any shade of RED = sin, lawlessness, transgression, evil
- Any shade of ORANGE = the Character or Nature of God — Who God is.
- Any shade of PURPLE = commands to obey, passages that speak with authority on how a Christian or the men of this world should live.
- White on Black is merely there for emphasis. Kind of zeroing in on the key part of a passage.
Please likewise note, this only applies to Scripture passages. What I write of my own is merely off-colored to give greater emphasis to certain thoughts. Sometimes this highlighting does follow my themes…. just as often it doesn’t.
What follows is the text of a comment I made elsewhere at Xanga. As I said in my last post, most of my “theology” is reactionary, being explained as I respond to things I see or read. This is a clear example.
@akarui_mitsukai - Let me take one comment from your comment and talk about that for a second. (This is a total aside to what you said in your blog and please take it as such.)
You said: I believe it is our job to love rather than to judge. We get so worried with pointing out the sin in others that we forget we are to love, more importantly.
Let me ask you a question — can a person be saved WITHOUT understanding their sin against God? Can a person be saved if they don’t see their sin as “sin”? The plain fact is, you can’t save someone if you don’t first explain what it is they need to be saved “from”.
(This statement is a footnote, please read it as such.) As for the use of the word “Judge” in your comment — it is not “judging” another if I am telling them the truth, if I am speaking exactly to them as God, Himself, one day shall. People don’t like to hear this and will cry foul BECAUSE THEY LOVE THEIR SIN. (John 3:19-20)
Think of it this way… light shows us our way because by it we can see — if I find someone who’s lost, in the dark, and in perilous danger, even though the light of my flashlight might blind them momentarily, it is not unjust to point that light upon them to show them where they can safely move…. once their eyes have adjusted. The gospel is rightly called “Light”…. because men are blind and need to see. And it is not “Judging them” to show them their sin as the danger which will ultimately condemn them. (end footnote)
Jesus death on the cross — the focal point of all Christianity — served the purpose not of joining hands man to God… like we’re some long lost cosmic buddies. The point of his death was to make atonement for sin. Every major sermon in the book of Acts deals with sin at some point. I love Acts 17:30 —
God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him.
That is the crux of our preaching, the very heart of what we say to men — (1)you have sinned against God, and until this point, He’s been very gracious to you… (2)but you will face a day of Judgment and (4)God calls you to repent of your sins and turn to Him (3)through Christ.The order of this is likewise very important. First we call men’s attention to the Fact of God’s grace. The fact that God has not paid them back for all the things they’ve stolen, all the times they’ve lied, all the times they’ve looked at pornography, all the times they’ve lusted, and yes… all the times they’ve fantasized about being something they’re not, or about Homosexuality, or greed or gluttony… Sins can be deliberate or they can be unintentional, but either way, they are sins. God’s Grace has indeed spared them THIS FAR…
But (secondly) God has stated plainly that “Your sins will face Judgment” and nowhere is this clearer than (thirdly) on the Cross of Christ. Jesus death was an exact representation of what our sins deserve — scourging, beating, mocking, scorning, hammered-to-a-hunk-of-wood-and-left-to-die-horribly …. Jesus took it all upon himself to show us GRAPHICALLY just how serious God takes the matter of sin.
But that’s only one side of the Cross. While it violently depicts the judgment of God on sin, it also (fourthly) equally displays the loving-kindness of God in that He made Jesus the scapegoat for our sins — placing our sins upon Christ and leaving them there. This is why we’re called to trust and believe in Christ as a payment for our sins.
(1) God’s Grace
(2) Our Sin
(3) Christ’s Cross
(4) God’s commands for us to believe and repent.But if we don’t cover sin in part (2) — they will never comprehend the repent of part (4).
If we seek to bring men to God APART FROM REPENTANCE… we lead men down a broad road that takes them to damnation, not forgiveness. Proverbs 28:13 spells this out pretty plainly: He who hides his sin shall not prosper, but whoever CONFESSES AND FORSAKES their sin shall obtain mercy.
So…. wrapping it all up in a short statement (well…. kinda short… most people stop at John 3:16 and don’t carry through to the end of the thought… let’s carry it through to John 3:21 for clarity):
For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.
Men are enemies of God, even though they think otherwise (Romans 5:8,10; Colossians 1:21; Ephesians 4:18-19) and until they comprehend that their sins have made them so…. there will never be a true conversion of the heart, only a continuance of playing games with sin, only now in the name of Jesus.
It is our responsibility as Christians to speak clearly about Truth — not as we see it, but as God presented it — because failing to do so will ultimately leave men lost and condemned for having not heard the full saving Gospel… which does include salvation from their sins.
Remember — before Paul preaches Grace in Romans… he first goes through 3 chapters of “Sin”. Even in Scripture… this manner of showing men their sins before extending to them “Grace” seems predominant.
- Any shade of BLUE = Judgment of God on or over sin.