How God Deals
With The Sin Problem
By Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.
“For all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. The wages of SIN is death, but the gift of God is ETERNAL
LIFE through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
(Rom. 3: 23; 6: 23)
BILLY
GRAHAM stated: “There is one thing God’s
love cannot do. It cannot forgive the unrepentant sinner… God will not force
Himself on any man against his will. A person can hear a message about the love
of God and say, ‘No, I won’t have it’,
and God will let him go on in his sin and slavery and judgment.”
In the
article ‘SIN: An Ugly Three-Letter Word’, I stated: Sin is real, says
famed psychiatrist Dr Karl Menninger. The highly acclaimed psychiatrist is
distressed by modern society’s failure to understand that many of man’s
problems are caused by sin.
It annoys
him to hear people discuss morality without so much as mentioning the word
‘SIN’.
Menninger
believes that in order to raise civilization’s moral tone and deal with depression, anxiety and worry, people must learn the root
causes of their problems. And the root cause in many instances is a person’s
unwillingness to take responsibility for his own actions, but rather lay the
blame on someone or something else.
Several
decades ago, George W. Cornell of the Associated Press (AP) wrote a column
titled, ‘Word Sin Disappears But Remains
A Fact’, in which he quoted at great length Dr. Karl Menninger’s beliefs on
this subject:
“He
says the realities of personal guilt and sin have been glossed over as symptoms
of emotional illness or environmental conditioning for which the individual is
not considered responsible, but he adds: there is sin…which cannot be subsumed
under verbal artifacts such as ‘disease’, ‘delinquency’, ‘deviancy’. There is
immorality. There is unethical behavior. There is wrong doing.”
PERSONAL
RESPONSIBILITY!
Cornell
states: “He calls for a
reaffirmation of the concept of sin and of personal responsibility for it. In a
new book published by Hawthorne called ‘Whatever Became of Sin’ he
declares: “If the concept of personal
responsibility and answerability for ourselves or for others were to return to
common acceptance, hope would return to the world.”
I can say, “Amen”, to that statement! Modern
psychiatry often lets people off the hook. And failure to bring offenders face
to face with their error could produce a sense of vindication, without coming
to grips with the problem; the need to change lifestyles.
Thousands
of years ago, King David stated: “He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin
shall have mercy, but he that covereth his sin shall not prosper.” (Proverbs 28: 13)
Forgiveness is vital to good mental health. We must forgive others if we
expect God to forgive us, as well as being able to forgive ourselves. A leading
psychiatrist noted that 90 % of the mentally ill could be immediately well if
they were able to forgive themselves and others and to receive forgiveness.
It is
difficult for a person to forgive himself without the assurance that God has
forgiven him. That is why the Gospel – Confession,
Repentance and Forgiveness – is
so relevant and necessary!
The Bible
states emphatically: “If we confess our sins (to God) He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.” (1 John 1: 9);
“But
if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with
another, and the BLOOD of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
(1 John 1: 7)
Some
health officials, in explaining their AIDS program, go into great lengths
promoting condoms, as well as sexual abstinence. Then, they usually add: “This
is not a moral issue!”
HOW STUPID: OF
COURSE IT’S A MORAL ISSUE!
If our
young people had higher morals there wouldn’t be a drug, fornication or
homosexual problem, putting themselves at risk to the AIDS virus. And if people
were more moral and stuck with the Bible standard of “One woman- one man”,
there wouldn’t be a dramatic in sexually transmitted diseases.
When asked
what could be done to stop the AIDS epidemic, Pope John Paul 11 answered: “Stop homosexualizing!”
The Norwegian
Media asked Arild Edvardsen if SEX was to blame for the AIDS virus. He
answered: “I know a couple in Gudbrandsdalen who have been married for 45 years
and have five children. They have slept in the same bed for nearly a half
century and they do not have AIDS!”
It also goes without saying that violence
would be almost non-existent and crime, rape and child abuse would drop
drastically, as would abortion! Teenagers – our greatest commodity – are being
threatened by violence, murder, drugs, alcoholism and suicide!
An article by Dr.
Robert Blum in the Journal of American Medical Association states: “Over the
past thirty years, adolescents have been the only population in the US who have
not received improvement in their health.
According to Blum, 77% of adolescent death
were caused by accidents and violence, including self-inflicted violence. And
there was a shocking four-fold increase in suicides and murders!
A US
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Report states: “Of the 10,250
kids born today…one will die and four will sustain serious or crippling injuries in an alcohol
related crash before they reach the age of 24”.
This is a
very sobering, serious warning about sin, accidents and death! May we all take
a lesson from these tragic statistics, realizing that the “wages of sin is death.”
(Rom.6: 23)
You may say, “All that you have stated is
true. But, what must I do to be forgiven and freed from my sins?”
The Bible
says: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosever
believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not
His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him
might be saved.” (John 3: 16,1 7)
“He that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son
shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” (John 3: 36);
“Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My Word and believeth on Him Who sent
Me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation but is past from death unto life.”
(John 5: 24)
When the
Philippian Jailor had seen God’s power - the earthquake, all the prisoners
loose and no one escaping - he fell down before Paul and Silas, crying out: “What
must I do to be saved?” They answered: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved.” (Acts 16:30, 31)
In the Old Testament Scripture of Micah 7: 18 & 19, we discover the MERCY and Grace of God toward His people. Here are the gracious actions of our Heavenly Father toward us:
No. 1 - He pardons our iniquities, our sins and transgressions when to come to Him with a contrite heart in repentance an faith.
No. 2 - He overlooks our sins - passes by them! They are covered by the precious blood of Jesus. On the Passover night He said: " When I see the blood I will pass over You." Exodus 12: 13
No. 3 - He retains not His anger forever. In His mercy, He remembers that we are but flesh and His agape love makes everything right between us when we cry out for forgiveness.
No. 4 - He delights in being merciful. He has no delight in our destruction. His will is to save us all and is not willing that any should perish.
No. 5 - He turns back to us and like the Good Samaritan saves us and cares for us. He doesn't leave us in our sins. He searches for us and finds us and like the Father who ran out to meet his prodigal son our Heavenly Father waits for an opportunity to love us!
No. 6 - He subdues our sins. He gives us power over our failings and faults. He washes us clean in the Blood of His crucified and Risen Saviour and then He fills us with the blessed Holy Spirit and gives us His power! Acts 1: 8
No. 7 - He forgets our sins and casts them into the sea of forgetfulness, never to remember them any more. The Prophet Isaiah concurs with Micah. He states: "Behold, for peace I had great bitterness; But Thou hast in love for my soul, delivered it from the pit of corruption; for thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back." (Isaiah 38:17)
The amazing thing is that the Hebrew word used here refers precisely to the area "between Thy shoulder blades" of the back. No-one is able to see something behind their back, between their shoulder blades! In using this term, Almighty God wants us to know that when He forgives us He also forgets our sins! Amen.
