The Sinfulness of Sin

I am currently reading a book by John Bunyan called "The Pilgrims Progress" and it is incredible. It is said to be the greatest allegory ever written and since it is the first allegory i have ever read i think i will stop after the best. I would hate to be dissappointed.

Anyways, God showed me something while i was reading this book the other day. Read this:

"CHRISTIAN: Sir, what think you? Is there any hope? May I now go back, and go up to the wicket-gate? Shall I not be abandoned for this, and sent back from thence ashamed? I am sorry I have hearkened to this man’s counsel; but may my sin be forgiven?
EVANGELIST: Then said Evangelist to him, Thy sin is very great, for by it thou hast committed two evils: thou hast forsaken the way that is good, to tread in forbidden paths. Yet will the man at the gate receive thee, for he has good-will for men; only, said he, take heed that thou turn not aside again, lest thou “perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.” Psalm 2:12."

What evangelist says to christian here is so crazy to me. When you and i sin we just count it as one little thing but what if every time we do something wrong we have committed more than just one sin against God.

We have become so numb to sin that we neither recognize it nor are grieved by it. Pray that God will give you a sensitivity to sin like you have never had before. I am not talking about things like murder and rape, i am talking about things like watching movies with cursing or music that does not glorify God. Remember that if you are not sensitive to sin then you are lost according to 1 John.

WALK IN A MANNER WORTHY OF THE GOSPEL.

I love you

Are you truly born again?

3By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.
4The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
5but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected By this we know that we are in Him:
6the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
7Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard.

Persecution

2 Timothy 3:2
12Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

I just read a story at The Voice of the Martyrs website. Five muslim men walked into a Christian institute of somekind and killed three Christians because of their hatred for Christ and His Church. Two of the men who were killed were converts from Islam and the other was a missionary from Germany.

The church in Turkey (which is where it happened) wrote a letter to the Church abroad. The pastor of the church said this "Please pray for the Church in Turkey. “Don’t pray against persecution, pray for perseverence,” urges Pastor Fikret Bocek".

THIS IS REAL CHRISTIANITY!!!!!!!!!!!

How much do you or I cherish Jesus Christ. My heart is broken over the condition of the American Church.

PLEASE PRAY for our brothers and sisters in Christ that face this kind of opposition every day. There is so much we can learn from them.

God has been good

For me it is too rare of an occasion to stop and take a look at my life and thank God for how good He has been. God has blessed my life in more ways than I could count but here are a few.

1. I am engaged to the most wonderful person in the whole world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It still blows my mind that God would bless my life with Carmen Ann York. She is my baby.

2. I have the best job ever outside of ministry. I help kids with terminal illnesses and i get to work with mice and other animals. Get mad all you want to all of you PETA members. I would kill ten thousand mice to save the life of just one HUMAN child.

3. I have two of the most wonderful parents in the world. They have never failed me that i can remember. My mom has always been so great and thank you dad for showing me how to selflessly love my future wife.

4. God is growing me in His Word through His Spirit.

5. God chose to save me. Because He first loved me now I give everything i am to Him forever.

6.He has never failed to keep His promises.

7. I am surrounded by some incredible people who love Jesus with all their heart.

That is all that i have time for but read this verse.

Ephesians 3:20
20Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,

Our God is AWESOME.

Romans 8:33-39

33Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies;
34who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.
35Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36Just as it is written, "FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED."
37But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is )in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Persecution

The Bible has a lot to say about the subject of persecution, mainly that christians will have to face it. This verse is awesome. It is in 2 Timothy.

12Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

I have one question. Are you, in some way, being persecuted for the sake of the Gospel and because of your desire for holiness. If not then it is obvious that you do not truly desire to "live godly in Christ Jesus".

I exhort you to do one thing. "LOVE JESUS AND BE HOLY"

Jesus

Well when in doubt look to Jesus. After all He is everything. This passage in in Mark 4.

9And He was saying, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
10As soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve, began asking Him about the parables.
11And He was saying to them, "To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables,
12so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN."

There is no taking this out of context. This whole chapter is astounding from a theological perspective.

Matthew 24
22"Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.

24"For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.

More Scripture

Proverbs 21
The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD;He turns it wherever He wishes

Malachi 1
3but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness."

Romans 8 (radical depravity)
7because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,
8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God

Daniel 4 (irresistable grace)

35"All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, 'What have You done?'

John 6

64"But there are some of you who do not believe " For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him.
65And He was saying, "For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father."

2 Timothy 2
24The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged,
25with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,

Romans 3 (definite atonement)
25whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;
26for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

John 10
26"But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep." Notice: being a sheep enables you to become a believer, not vice versa

john 17

9"I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours;

Ephesians 1(unconditional election)

3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
4just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him In love
5He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
6to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

For more on this look at previous posts and read romans 9

I will address passages like John 3:16 and many others later. I am at work and i have to go.

John Piper on free will

IV. The Place of Free Will
Verse 16 draws the obvious inference from verse 15. Whether a man receives mercy from God or not does not depend on a man's willing or his running (=efforts) but solely on God. In other words, God's merciful treatment of anyone is never initiated by or in any way ultimately influenced by the person's will. This is a necessary inference from verse 15: The all glorious God whose glory consists in his freedom to choose whomever He will cannot be determined by or obligated by anything outside himself.
If free will were defined as the native power in a man to determine his own destiny, this text shows that there is no such thing in the entire world. It not only shows free will to be non-existent, it also shows that to demand free will is an offence against the righteousness of God. For in Paul's understanding the inability of man by his willing to elicit God's mercy (9:16) is a direct inference from the glorious freedom of God (9:15) which in turn is the ground of his righteousness. If God's righteousness consists in his maintaining the fullness of his glory, and if an essential side of that glory is his absolute freedom in election from human willing and running, then to insist that man's will ultimately determines his destiny is to offend the righteousness of God.

The verses are in Romans 9

Does God elect some?

13Just as it is written, "JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED."
14What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!
15For He says to Moses, "I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION."
16So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH."
18So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
19You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?"
20On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?
21Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?
22What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
23And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
24even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

I could not add even one word but none of you can deny what we are taught in the Scriptures here.


48 Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

What about this verse?

10 Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

Interesting.

Please do not say that this is not enough proof. It is in Scripture. There are many more.