SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/28/2024 8:54 PM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-1 “The Certainty of Sin”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1 John 1:6,
8, 10
Message of the verses: “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;…If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us….If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”
Just a little personal things from me that I am
doing now to help this 77 year old man to live a healthier life. I have 20 visits on a machine that works in
conjunction with my heart to help (for lack of a better term) push my blood
through my body in order to get more blood to my brain. There are a number of things that this is
suppose to help and one of them is memory.
I have had three one hour sessions on the machine with another seventeen
to go and then I hope that this will work on my body to help me remember things
better along with other benefits. At any
rate I have time to listen to some of John MacArthur’s sermons while laying
there and I listened to one from 1 John chapter one, the first seven
verses. One of the things that caught my
attention is that what he had to say about the ninth verse which I will not get
into for perhaps a couple of weeks. All
I can say is that I was surprised at what I heard and leave it at that until we
get to that section. (I will try and
give an update on the results of my 20 hours on this machine in a later SD.)
We begin this first SD on these verses to talk first
about what happened to us at the fall, and ever since the fall, mankind has
tried to deny the reality of sin, even though every human being is innately
aware of its presence, that is if they are honest with themselves.
Let
us look at the following verses from Romans 2:14-16: “14 For when
Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these,
not having the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they show the work of
the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their
thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, 16 on the day when,
according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.” MacArthur asks in his commentary to compare
these verses with Eccles. 7:20; Rom. 5:12; and Galatians 3:22.
If
one who has lived in the United States for as long as I have and have been a
believer in Jesus Christ for a little over 50 years then they can see that
people today minimize and redefine sin, often alleging that the “failures” of
their lives and certain “disorders” exist because of how others have treated
them. Well the reason for this is that
the victim mentality reigns supreme as popular no matter what may be wrong is
not really wrong, but merely a preference of personal freedom. I can say that social media has been
something that has caused this kind of thing to grow. Now instead of accepting responsibility for
their behavior, people demand to be accepted as they are. Let me at this time go over something that we
have just gone over in our Wednesday evening church service from the last
chapter of 2 Thessalonians, but remember this is written to believers: “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take
special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be
put to shame” (2 Thess. 3:14). Paul is
saying that the truth is in this letter and you are to obey it with no
excuses. Now back to our lesson. MacArthur writes “They reclassify serious and
heart issues ‘illnesses’ and ‘addictions’ and try to ‘cure’ them with
prescription drugs and psychotherapy.
But because that fails to deal with sin, the actual root cause of the
problem, society goes from bad to worse.
In contrast to all that delusion, Jesus taught that every person is
sinful at the very core of his or her being:
That which proceeds out of the man, that is
what defiles the man. For from within,
out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts,
murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit,
sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and
defile the man” (Mark 7:20-23; cf. Gen. 6:5; Jer. 17:9; James 1:15; 4:1).
As
mentioned, many in the church today seem to be reluctant to make the diagnosis
Jesus did, for fear that they might offend someone or be deemed that they are
unloving. So then sin is explained away
in culturally acceptable terms.
Lord
will we will continue to look at this section of verses in the next SD.
8/28/2024 9:30 PM
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