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Condemnation
Fall of Man
At the base of the Tetons
in Wyoming lies Jackson Lake. Sometimes
early in the morning when the lake is
perfectly calm
the reflection of the Tetons is magnificently duplicated and
mirrored on the lake’s surface. The interesting thing is that if you were to
take one little flat stone and skip it across the surface of the lake
the
image of the Tetons would be distorted and marred. In the same way
when Adam
committed on sin
God’s image in man was distorted and marred. ──
Michael P. Green《Illustrations for Biblical Preaching》
Sin
Defined
Children
in England used to play a game called "Saints and Sinners." A hoop was erected at a measured
distance
and the contestants were given 10 arrows each. The object was to aim them at the
hoop. If anyone shot ALL the arrows
through it
he was acclaimed a "saint." But if he missed just once
he was
designated a "sinner." If
he missed with all 10 arrows
he was no greater sinner than if he missed with
only one! One error was as bad as
10! That was the rule of the game.
The
same is true in the spiritual realm.
The Lord Jesus Christ never "missed the mark" but kept God's
law perfectly. All others have
sinned and "come short
" so they need Him as their Savior. ── Michael
P. Green《Illustrations
for Biblical Preaching》
Sin
Sin is like a woodpecker. Each
particular attack makes noise but doesn’t seem to do much damage. But
like a
woodpecker
if you let it chip away at your life long enough
it will leave
many an ugly hole that never fills in. ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations
for Biblical Preaching》
Sin
If you have to do wrong to stay on the
team
you are on the wrong team. ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations
for Biblical Preaching》
Sin
He that falls into sin is
man.
He
that grieves at sin is a saint.
He
that boasts of sin is a devil.
He
that forgives our sin is God.
── Michael P. Green《Illustrations
for Biblical Preaching》
Sin
A flippant youth asked a preacher
“You say that unsaved people carry a weight of sin. I feel nothing. How heavy
is sin? Is it ten pounds? Eighty pounds?”
The preacher replied by asking the
youth
“If you laid a four-hundred-pound weight on a corpse
would it feel the
load?”
The youth replied
“It would feel
nothing
because it is dead.”
The preacher concluded
“That spirit
too
is indeed dead which feels no load of sin or is indifferent to its burden
and flippant about its presence.”
The youth was silenced. ──
Michael P. Green《Illustrations for Biblical Preaching》
Sin
There is something of a secret atheism
in all
which is the fountain of evil practices in their lives
not an utter
disowning of the being of God
but a denial or a doubting of some of the rights
of His nature… Evil works are a dust stirred up by an atheistical breath.— Stephen
Charnock
Sin comes when we take a
perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill
it without God. Not only is it sin
it is a perverse distortion of the image of
the Creator in us. All these good things
and all our security
are rightly
found only and completely in him.
Augustine
The
Confessions of Saint Augustine.
For a long time I used to
think this a silly
straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man
did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one
man to whom I had been doing this all my life--namely myself. . . In fact
the
very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I
loved myself
I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those
things. Consequently Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the
hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. . . But it does want us to hate them
in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man
should have done such things
and hoping
if it is in anyway possible
that
somehow
sometime
somewhere
he can be cured and made human again.
C.S. Lewis
Mere
Christianity.
Few college football
coaches have made a point against drugs as effectively as Erk Russell of
Georgia Southern College. He arranged for a couple of good ol' country boys to
burst into a routine team meeting and throw a writhing
hissing
six-foot-long
rattlesnake onto a table in front of the squad. "Everyone screamed and
scattered
" Russell recalls. "I told them
'When cocaine comes into a
roon
you're not nearly as apt to leave as when that rattlesnake comes in. But
they'll both kill you!"
Unknown.
Ah! If our likeness to God
does not show itself in trifles
what is there left for it to show itself in?
For our lives are all made up of trifles. The great things come three or four
of them in the seventy years; the little ones every time the clock ticks.
Alexander Maclaren.
Dr. Ralph Sockman writes
about an experience he had while standing on the edge of Niagra Falls one
clear
cold March day. Wrapped in white winter garments
the falls glistened in
the bright sun. As some birds swooped down to snatch a drink from the clear
water
Sockman's companion told how he had seen birds carried over the edge of
the precipice. As they dipped down for a drink
tiny droplets of ice would form
on their wings. As they returned for additional drinks more ice would weigh
down their bodies until they couldn't rise above the cascading waters. Flapping
their wings
the birds would suddenly drop over the falls.
Today in the Word
October
1990
p. 14.
Augustine's stages with
sin:
1. Lord make me good
but
not yet.
2. Lord make me good
but not entirely.
3. Lord make me good.
Exact work unknown.
This was how Susannah
Wesley defined "sin" to her young son
John Wesley: "If you
would judge of the lawfulness or the unlawfulness of pleasure
then take this
simple rule: Whatever weakens your reason
impairs the tenderness of your
conscience
obscures your sense of God
and takes off the relish of spiritual
things--that to you is sin."
Resource
July/August
1990.
Time-lapse photography
compresses a series of events into one picture. Such a photo appeared in an
issue of National Geographic.
Taken from a Rocky Mountain peak during a heavy thunderstorm
the picture
captured the brilliant lightning display that had taken place throughout the
storm's duration. The time-lapse technique created a fascinating
spaghetti-like web out of the individual bolts. In such a way
our sin presents
itself before the eyes of God. Where we see only isolated or individual acts
God sees the overall web of our sinning. What may seem insignificant -- even
sporadic -- to us and passes with hardly a notice creates a much more dramatic
display from God's panoramic viewpoint. The psalmist was right when he wrote
"Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Keep back your
servant from presumptuous sins" (Psalm 19:12-13).
Unknown.
Once we assuage our
conscience by calling something a "necessary evil
" it begins to look
more and more necessary and less and less evil.
Sidney J. Harris.
I live in a small
rural
community. There are lots of cattle ranches around here
and
every once in a
while
a cow wanders off and gets lost . . . Ask a rancher how a cow gets lost
and chances are he will reply
'Well
the cow starts nibbling on a tuft of
green grass
and when it finishes
it looks ahead to the next tuft of green
grass and starts nibbling on that one
and then it nibbles on a tuft of grass
right next to a hole in the fence. It then sees another tuft of green grass on
the other side of the fence
so it nibbles on that one and then goes on to the
next tuft. The next thing you know
the cow has nibbled itself into being
lost."
Americans are in the
process of nibbling their way to being lost. . . We keep moving from one tuft
of activity to another
never noticing how far we have gone from home or how
far away from the truth we have managed to end up.
Mike Yaconelli
"The
Wittenburg Door."
STOP. I know you're
thinking about crossing this gate. What you should know is that if the Coyotes
Cactus
Mesquite
Heat
Dust or Rattlers don't get you
I will.
"No trespassing"
sign seen in west Texas
with rancher's name signed in blood red paint at
bottom.
A man purchased a white
mouse to use as food for his pet snake. He dropped the unsuspecting mouse into
the snake's glass cage
where the snake was sleeping in a bed of sawdust. The
tiny mouse had a serious problem on his hands. At any moment he could be
swallowed alive. Obviously
the mouse needed to come up with a brilliant plan.
What did the terrified
creature do? He quickly set up work covering the snake with sawdust chips until
it was completely buried. With that
the mouse apparently thought he had solved
his problem.
The solution
however
came from outside. The man took pity on the silly little mouse and removed him
from the cage. No matter how hard we try to cover or deny our sinful nature
it's fool's work. Sin will eventually awake from sleep and shake off its cover.
Were it not for the saving grace of the Master's hand
sin would eat us alive.
Unknown.
It's like a World Series
of weeds
a Hula Bowl of herbicides
with agriculture students from U.S. and
Canadian universities competing to identify problems in farm fields. This year
Iowa State took top honors in the Collegiate Weed Science Contest
which tests
students' abilities to identify weeds and the right chemical to kill them and
diagnose herbicide failure. "They need to be able to recognize weeds when
they are tiny
" said James Worthington of Western Kentucky University
president of the North Central Weed Science Society. "When they get big
enough that anybody can recognize them
it's too late to do anything about
them."
Spokesman Review
July 27
1989
p. A9.
When John Belushi died in
the spring of 1983 of an overdose of cocaine and heroin
a variety of articles
appeared
including one in U.S.
News and World Report
on the seductive dangers of cocaine:
"It can do you no harm and it can drive you insane; it can give you status
in society and it can wreck your career; it can make you the life of the party
and it can turn you into a loner; it can be an elixir for high living and a
potion for death."
Like all sin
there's a
difference between the appearance and the reality
between the momentary
feeling and the lasting effect.
Daniel Hans.
Sin arises when things
that are a minor good are pursued as though they were the most important goals
in life. If money or affection or power are sought in disproportionate
obsessive ways
then sin occurs. And that sin is magnified when
for these
lesser goals
we fail to pursue the highest good and the finest goals. So when
we ask ourselves why
in a given situation
we committed a sin
the answer is
usually one of two things. Either we wanted to obtain something we didn't have
or we feared losing something we had.
Augustine in The
Confessions of St. Augustine (Christian Classics in Modern English).
We never see sin aright
until we see it as against God...All sin is against God in this sense: that it
is His law that is broken
His authority that is despised
His government that
is set at naught...Pharaoh and Balaam
Saul and Judas each said
"I have
sinned;" but the returning prodigal said
"I have sinned against
heaven and before thee;" and David said
"Against Thee
Thee only
have I sinned."
W.S. Plumer quoted in: J.
Bridges
The Pursuit of Holiness
p. 20. cf. Gen 39:9
Sin is a blasting
presence
and every fine power shrinks and withers in the destructive heat.
Every spiritual delicacy succumbs to its malignant touch...
Sin impairs the sight
and works toward blindness.
Sin benumbs the hearing and tends to make men deaf.
Sin perverts the taste
causing men to confound the sweet with the bitter
and
the bitter with the sweet.
Sin hardens the touch
and eventually renders a man "past feeling."
All these are Scriptural analogies
and their common significance appears to be
this--sin blocks and chokes the fine senses of the spirit; by sin we are
desensitized
rendered imperceptive
and the range of our correspondence is
diminished. Sin creates callosity. It hoofs the spirit
and so reduces the area
of our exposure to pain.
John Henry Jowett in The
Grace Awakening.
There is something
terribly right about...realizing that our struggle with sin is in many ways
similar to an alcoholic's struggle with drinking. It's never over. How often I
find myself talking about sin in the past tense as if being a sinner is
something I'm beyond--a page turned in the book of my life. But sin is like
alcoholism. Sinners are never cured; they simply decide to stop sinning...and
it's a daily decision.
John Fischer
Contemporary Christian Music
September
1987.
A recent survey of Discipleship
Journal readers ranked areas of greatest spiritual challenge to them:
1. Materialism.
2. Pride.
3. Self-centeredness.
4. Laziness.
5. (Tie) Anger/Bitterness.
5. (Tie) Sexual lust.
7. Envy.
8. Gluttony.
9. Lying.
Survey respondents noted
temptations were more potent when they had neglected their time with God (81
percent) and when they were physically tired (57 percent). Resisting temptation
was accomplished by prayer (84 percent)
avoiding compromising situations (76
percent)
Bible study (66 percent)
and being accountable to someone (52
percent).
Discipleship Journal
November /
December 1992.
In the 1950s a
psychologist
Stanton Samenow
and a psychiatrist
Samuel Yochelson
sharing
the conventional wisdom that crime is caused by environment
set out to prove
their point. They began a 17-year study involving thousands of hours of
clinical testing of 250 inmates here in the District of Columbia. To their astonishment
they discovered that the cause of crime cannot be traced to environment
poverty
or oppression. Instead
crime is the result of individuals making
as
they put it
wrong moral choices. In their 1977 work The Criminal
Personality
they concluded that the answer to crime is a "conversion
of the wrong-doer to a more responsible lifestyle." In 1987
Harvard
professors James Q. Wilson and Richard J.Herrnstein came to similar conclusions
in their book Crime andHuman Nature. They determined that the cause of
crime is a lack of proper moral training among young people during the morally
formative years
particularly ages one to six.
Christianity Today
August 16
1993
p. 30.
U.S. Senator Daniel
Patrick Moynihan recently published a disturbing essay entitled "Defining
Deviancy Down." In the Nov 22 issue of The New Republic
Commentator Charles Krauthammer writes that "Moynihan's powerful point is
that with the moral deregulation of the 1960s
we have had an explosion of
deviancy in family life
criminal behavior and public displays of psychosis.
And we have dealt with it in the only way possible: by redefining deviancy down
so as to explain away and make 'normal' what a more civilized
ordered and
healthy society long ago would have labeled--and long ago did
label--deviant."
Christian Research
Institute letter
December 6
1993.
Why would Christians
choose to sin rather than choose what they know God wants them to do? Four
answers are commonly given today.
1. Some would point to
Romans 8:16 and explain that Christians who willfully sin have forgotten their
true identity as "children of God." While it is true that Christians
can forget who they are and sin as a result
Christians can also be well aware
of who they are and sin anyway.
2. Some say Christians
choose to sin because they have lost sight of what God has done for them. 2
Peter 1:9 indicates that Christians can be "blind or short-sighted
having
forgotten [their] purification from [their] former sins."
3. Some wisely state that
Christians consciously choose to sin because they have forgotten that God will
severely discipline disobedient believers.
4. Some have said that
Christians who consciously sin have lost their focus on the future. These
Christians have forgotten that God will reward in heaven only those who have
lived faithfully for Him here on earth (1 Cor 9:24). Christians who fail to
keep eternity in mind often sin in the here and now.
J.Kirk Johnston
Why
Christians Sin
Discovery House
1992
p. 31.
What is sin?
Man call is an accident
God calls it abomination.
Man calls it a defect
God calls it a disease.
Man calls it an error
God calls it an enmity.
Man calls it a liberty
God calls it lawlessness.
Man calls it a trifle
God calls it a tragedy.
Man calls it a mistake
God calls it a madness.
Man calls it a weakness
God calls it willfulness.
Moody Monthly.
Sin
its effects: How does
a worm get inside an apple? Perhaps you think the worm burrows in from the
outside. No
scientists have discovered that the worm comes from inside. But
how does he get in there? Simple! An insect lays an egg in the apple blossom.
Sometime later
the worm hatches in the heart of the apple
then eats his way
out. Sin
like the worn
begins in the heart and works out through a person's
thoughts
words
and actions.
Heaven and Home Hour Radio
Bulletin.
Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman told
of a distinguished minister
Dr. Howard
from Australia who preached very
strongly on the subject of sin. After the service
one of the church officers
came to counsel with him in the study. "Dr. Howard
" he said
"we don't want you to talk as openly as you do about man's guilt and
corruption
because if our boys and girls hear you discussing that subject they
will more easily become sinners. Call it a mistake if you will
but do not
speak so plainly about sin. "The minister took down a small bottle and
showing it to the visitor said
"You see that label? It says strychnine --
and underneath in bold
red letters the word 'Poison!' Do you know
man
what
you are asking me to do? You are suggesting that I change the label. Suppose I
do
and paste over it the words
'Essence of Peppermint'; don't you see what
might happen? Someone would use it
not knowing the danger involved
and would
certainly die. So it is
too
with the matter of sin. The milder you make your
label
the more dangerous you make your poison!"
Unknown.
Imagine all the obstacles
a person might have to overcome if he were to walk from New York City to San
Francisco. One man who accomplished this rare achievement mentioned a rather
surprising difficulty when asked to tell of his biggest hurdle. He said that
the toughest part of the trip wasn't traversing the steep slopes of the
mountains or crossing hot
dry
barren stretches of desert. Instead
he said
"The thing that came the closest to defeating me was the sand in my
shoes."
Our Daily Bread.
Several years ago our
family visited Niagara Falls. It was spring
and ice was rushing down the river.
As I viewed the large blocks of ice flowing toward the falls
I could see that
there were carcasses of dead fish embedded in the ice. Gulls by the score were
riding down the river feeding on the fish. As they came to the brink of the
falls
their wings would go out
and they would escape from the falls.
I watched one gull which
seemed to delay and wondered when it would leave. It was engrossed in the
carcass of a fish
and when it finally came to the brink of the falls
out went
its powerful wings. The bird flapped and flapped and even lifted the ice out of
the water
and I thought it would escape. But it had delayed too long so that
its claws had frozen into the ice. The weight of the ice was too great
and the
gull plunged into the abyss.
The material possessions
of this world can entrap us if we become too attached to them. They will take
us to our destruction if we cannot give them up. And as Sweeting observed
"Oh
the danger of delay!"
Adaptation of Dr. George
Sweetings Special Sermons for Special Days.
Gary Richmond
a former
zoo keeper
had this to say: Raccoons go through a glandular change at about 24
months. After that they often attack their owners. Since a 30-pound raccoon can
be equal to a 100-pound dog in a scrap
I felt compelled to mention the change
coming to a pet raccoon owned by a young friend of mine
Julie. She listened
politely as I explained the coming danger. I'll never forget her answer.
"It will be different for me. . ." And she smiled as she added
"Bandit wouldn't hurt me. He just wouldn't." Three months later Julie
underwent plastic surgery for facial lacerations sustained when her adult
raccoon attacked her for no apparent reason. Bandit was released into the wild.
Sin
too
often comes dressed in an adorable guise
and as we play with it
how
easy it is to say
"It will be different for me." The results are
predictable.
Gary Richmond
View
From The Zoo.
Not long after a wealthy
contractor had finished building the Tombs prison in New York
he was found guilty
of forgery and sentenced to several years in the prison he had built! As he was
escorted into a cell of his own making
the contractor said
"I never
dreamed when I built this prison that I would be an inmate one day."
Today in the Word
July 12
1993.
Man
reading about an
"eat-all-you-want" diet
to friend: "I knew there'd be a catch
to it. You have to run seven hundred miles a day!"
Hoest in Parade.
The man huddled on the
cabin floor was slowly freezing to death. It was high in the Rockies in
southwestern Alberta
and outside a blizzard raged. John Elliott had logged
miles that day through the deep snows of the mountain passes. As he checked for
avalanches and as dusk and exhaustion overcame him he had decided to
"hole-up." He made it wearily to his cabin but somewhat dazed with
fatigue
he did not light a fire or remove his wet clothing. As the blizzard
blasted through the cracks in the old cabin walls
the sleeping forest ranger
sank into oblivion
paralyzed by the pleasure of the storm's icy caress.
Suddenly
however
his dog sprang into action
and with unrelenting whines
finally managed to rouse his near-comatose friend. The dog was John's constant
companion
a St. Bernard
one of a long line of dogs famous for their heroics
in times of crisis. "If that dog hadn't been with me
I'd be dead
today
" John Elliott says. "When you're freezing to death you
actually feel warm all over
and don't wake up because it feels too good."
This moving story
illustrates the spiritual condition of many people today. They are cold
spiritually
and sadly are oblivious of their true condition. Thank God for all
the ways in which He arouses such sleepers. He sends His messengers to nudge
them awake. Sometimes the methods used to awaken them are drastic
but always
for their good. Let us not imagine that because He shakes us
He therefore
hates us. He awakens us from lethargy because He loves us
and wants to save us
from an eternal death. When we were "ready to perish" (Isaiah 27:13)
He was "ready to save" (Isaiah 38:20). Trust your life in His hand.
The Prairie Overcomer.
In 1982
"ABC Evening
News" reported on an unusual work of modern art--a chair affixed to a
shotgun. It was to be viewed by sitting in the chair and looking directly into
the gun barrel. The gun was loaded and set on a timer to fire at an
undetermined moment within the next hundred years. The amazing thing was that
people waited in lines to sit and stare into the shell's path! They all knew
the gun could go off at point-blank range at any moment
but they were gambling
that the fatal blast wouldn't happen during their
minute in the chair. Yes
it was foolhardy
yet many people who wouldn't dream
of sitting in that chair live a lifetime gambling that they can get away with
sin. Foolishly they ignore the risk until the inevitable self-destruction.
Wake Up Calls
Ron
Hutchcraft
Moody
1990
p.60.
Roman Catholic theology
distinguishes between mortal and venial sins. A mortal sin removes your
justification
and if you die with unconfessed mortal sin on your soul
you
will be sent to hell. Venial sins do not destroy your justification
and only
reduce your rewards or add to your time in purgatory. The Reformation rejected
this system because of its works- orientation
but did not reject the idea of
degrees of sin. John Calvin said that all sin is mortal in the sense that it
deserves death
but no sin is so severe that it can destroy the grace of
justification.
Tabletalk
April
1990
p. 34.