The Seriousness of Sin

I'm already learning value of this new expanded lectern. I've got more room to lose things. No, actually, it is very nice, and I meant to comment earlier, but I got distracted with all the other things here. But, you know, I'm thrilled to have it back, and Mr. Shoemaker found a woodworker that got it done and expanded, and I've got lots of room to spread things out. So that's a nice thing. Now, there's an old joke that I thought of when I began preparing the sermon. I thought, it's the obvious way to do the introduction. And I think it's been around probably as long as there have been men serving in the ministry. It didn't start with our church. And the version I first heard talks about an old pastor in a rural area. And so he's preparing for the Sunday meeting, and his wife says, Well, what are you going to preach on this week? And there's a pause, and he says, Sin. And she said, well, what about it? Pause it again. I'm a guinea. I'm glad you haven't heard it too many times, right? Now, another version I've heard since that's about the old Sunday preacher for young ministers, and I wonder, they didn't tell us this when we had our training, when we, I first started in the employed ministry last year, but they said, all sermon preparation is easy. Just every week, preach about sin, and always be against it. Now, that makes it sound pretty easy. If I get up and just say, don't sin, then I could sit down and we could go have snacks. Instead of the Bible, we could just have a flyer. I was trying for a bigger font, but this is the biggest one I could get. And I thought, instead of those two heavy stone tablets, Moses could just carry down one sheet of paper. You know, sin is bad, so don't sin. Put that aside for now. Now, that's about as many laughs as I'm going to get for this one, I think, because we have to put the humor aside because sin is very important. It's something we have to talk about. Jesus died for our sins. It comes down to a simple sentence. Now, you could hear that same sentence in a lot of churches. You could have heard that sentence in this church before we took it over and started using it on Saturdays. It's one thing with which we completely agree with mainstream Christianity. No qualms. You can hear people that meet on Sundays, Catholic, Protestant, whatever. We all say, Jesus died for our sins. Because you and I sinned, our Maker suffered and died. That makes sin a pretty important subject. That alone would make it worth talking about. So today my subject is sin, and as you might have guessed, I am against it. Since we disagree with mainstream Christianity on a lot of other points, and we often, as an organization over the years, we've tried to not sound like them, partly because they sometimes can be kind of syrupy-sweet. What's always sounded to me somewhat superficial, and maybe because I was young and was taught to think of it that way. I think there are very many heartfelt Sunday keepers. But I thought, if we agree so much on something, maybe we should make sure it's grounded in the Bible. So let's go to see where it says that. In 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 3, and I will warn you, I put a lot of scriptures in my sermon today, so we'll turn a lot. My excuse would be that I'm not such an expert on sin, that I didn't have to look at the Bible to tell you a lot about it. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 3, Paul's writing to the Corinthian church, and here, well, he says, For I delivered you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. Very simply. But notice, he didn't die for sin in a generic sense.

He didn't die because there's sin in the world. He died for our sins, mine and yours. So that makes it a little more personable. Personal, not personable. Let's look a few pages back to Romans chapter 5 and verse 8. This passage also tells us a similar thing in slightly different words. It's worth seeing. Romans 5 and verse 8, But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Even before we might have stopped sinning, presuming that we have, Christ died for us. Now, we should ask the question then why? Why would Jesus, who was God in the flesh, die because we sinned? I think you know the answer, but let's examine it a little bit briefly. Since we're here in Romans, we can look at Romans 6 and verse 23. This is one of those memory scriptures, one of the first I've ever memorized. The wages of sin is death. And the result of sin, you could say, it's what you earn when you sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life. In Christ Jesus, our Lord.

So then sin, on this side, earns death. If you sin, the result is you will die. Now, the alternative is life, eternal life. That's a gift from God. You earn death, you don't earn life, it has to be given as a gift. So we want to get from here over to there. And what's in the middle is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Makes it possible for us to leave the penalty, the wages that we've earned, which is death, and get over to eternal life, which God can give us.

Now, exactly in the same book, we could see why... What I was going to say is, why don't we just say, well, I'm not going to sin in the first place. I don't want to be over here. I want to be with God and have eternal life. And you probably have this one memorized in Romans 3, verse 23. Everyone has sinned, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Now, as I said, it's becoming clear. Every person sins. Every person is over here. Now, none of us can say we haven't sinned. The only one who could say that was Jesus Christ. Sin brings death. God gives life through Jesus Christ. So just as life and death are opposites, you could say God and sin are opposites. At least, they're on opposite sides. Sin is far away from God. He has nothing to do with sin. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ is that one thing that can bring us from our sinful nature to being like God. Let's go back to Romans 5 to read a little bit more thoroughly in that passage. Romans 5, and we'll begin in verse 6.

For when we were still without strength, meaning we didn't have the power to overcome sin or to give ourselves life, we couldn't retain that life. When we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly, for those who were away from God because they were sinful. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, you've probably heard justified could be as an old construction term meaning made right or set straight. Am I saying that correctly? I caught you off guard. I've heard it a lot of times. When you're justified, you take away the variance. You're set straight with God. Being justified, now I lost my place, by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies, we were enemies because we were sinning, and that's the opposite of God. But when we were sinful, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. Much more, having been reconciled, will be saved by His life. The death of the Son of God is what reconciles us to God. And then, the life of the Son of God will save us. Now, the second part of that statement is incredibly important, but it's going on beyond the subject I wanted to discuss today. Matter of fact, as we near Pentecost, that'll be a very good subject to discuss. But we need to absorb first the importance of the sacrifice of Christ for reconciling us in the first place, for overcoming the penalty of sin. So, we can make another important deduction about sin, as it said here. Sin makes us enemies of God. Sin brings death, but God gives life. Sin separates us from God, and from the life that He wants us to have. We can see that in Isaiah chapter 9.

Isaiah 59. I'll send you 50 whole chapters away from where I wanted. Isaiah 59 and verse 2.

God inspired Isaiah to write this. But your iniquities have separated you from your God. Your iniquities separated you, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that it will not hear. Let me think. If the threat of death isn't enough to make us want to stay away from sin, being separated from God doesn't sound so great either. Especially when we consider that sin has the ultimate penalty of death. But of course, there are some people who are enjoying a sinful lifestyle and enjoying it quite a bit. They don't always feel the repercussions right away. But even that doesn't last so long. Sin brings a lot of unpleasant circumstances. A lot of bad things happen when you sin before the ultimate penalty of death. Wow! On the other hand, God gives many blessings. If you don't want to turn there, you can just make a note of James 1, verse 17. It's where it says, every good and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father. So we've got sin causing suffering and hurting and turmoil, but God wants to give good gifts. Again, all this should be enough to convince us that sin is important and we'd like to avoid it. It's worth understanding at any time, but of course, as we know, we're getting in the Passover season. It's coming very soon, and I appreciated Mr. Evans' message reminding us about how we want to prepare. But I've managed to talk a lot about sin without answering some very important questions. And I want to go ahead and start answering some questions, starting off with, what exactly is sin? If it's so bad, we need to know what it is. I think I saw someone mouthing. Let's go to the truest definition we have, 1 John 3 and verse 4. 1 John 3 and verse 4. I've been mentioning memory scriptures. It's come to mind, especially since the ABC class has the fundraiser of selling the memory scriptures. And I thought, it took me back. I think I was probably 10 years old when my grandmother taught me this scripture. My sister and I spent a lot of time with her, and she taught us the Ten Commandments. And at one time I had the fruits of the Spirit memorized. I say at one time because now I get them out of order. And she taught us 1 John 3 and verse 4 says, sin is the transgression of the law. I've got the New King James with me now. I'll read that. The other version says, whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness. They're outside the law, and sin is lawlessness. I like the Old King James a little better there because it has this strict definition. Sin is transgression of the law. Now, I wanted to mention that I learned that very early on, partly to show how basic it is, but also because I have to confess something. Being a young person and hearing this, and being taught that people in the other churches don't necessarily understand what sin is, I figured maybe they'd never read this scripture. They probably have a weird, different definition for sin. I thought they might say something like, well, sin is bad, though it seems fun at the time.

I figured that the confusion came over disagreeing over what bad is, the difference between us and other churches. They think we think sin is bad, but they think it's not quite so bad. Somehow in that thought, it made me think, well, what do I think is really bad?

And I thought of Brussels sprouts. But that doesn't hold up because Sue thinks Brussels sprouts are really good. So that's not...we have to have a firmer definition than that. I figured, well, let me tell you something. With all this, I said, well, let's go...instead of me guessing what they think it is, let's look in the dictionary. So I got out my Webster's dictionary off my shelf, and I turned to sin, and surprisingly, the definition that they have says, sin is the transgression of divine law.

They don't have a different definition than us. Well, that makes it clear...that's two things we agree with mainstream Christianity. We agree that Jesus died for our sins, and we agree that sin is the transgression of the law. You might wonder, where is the difference then? Well, it comes down to the difference of we disagree on what the law is, or what's happened to the law. Many professing Christians will say, well, the law was done away. However they will explain that. Or the law was nailed to the cross, and we would have disagreements on that. But that does tell us sin and law are two subjects that have to be intermingled.

You can't talk about one without talking about the other altogether. And I was going to mix the two in one sermon, and I discovered it was getting to be a really long sermon. So here a couple weeks ago, that's why I gave a sermon on the law, and I wanted to break it down into different systems of law.

See, there are some laws given in the Old Testament that were temporary models of Christ's sacrifice, but the basic fundamental law of God that expresses His way of living was in no way done away with because of Christ's sacrifice. Let's go to another well-known passage of Scripture, and we'll let the subject of the law rest there. If we go to Matthew 5, verse 17.

Instead of giving that sermon a couple weeks ago, well, no, I think this wouldn't have covered it that. But this will be a good supplement to that, rather than me pulling out those notes and repeating it. Here is part of the sermon on the Mount where I said this. Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy. So we didn't come to do away with the law or nail it to a cross. That foreshortly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, or one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

For whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. And I think we've explained before, that doesn't mean that whoever teaches us to break the law will be in the kingdom of heaven. But those who are there won't think very highly of those who taught it against the law. But whoever does and teaches them, he will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

That's a pretty good summary of what we should teach about the law. There are other details, but when it comes down to it, God, Jesus Christ said, I didn't come to destroy the law. It's there forever. And as the bumper sticker says, God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. So, I don't want to go into a deeper discussion of the law, but is there more that we can and should understand about sin? Is there more to it? Well, I think so. Well, there better be, or once again, the sermon needs it then pretty soon. Let's start with looking at a deeper meaning of the definitions of the words. I'm partial to doing word studies occasionally, and I got out the lexicon to study what words from the original Greek and Hebrew were translated into the word sin in my Bible.

Now, the Hebrew word that's most commonly translated into the word sin is ha'ta. Now, there are a couple of ways you could spell it. H-A-T-A-H, or you could put a C-H, if you can learn to say it with that guttural sound, where you go, ha'ta.

And I'm getting better at it. I've been practicing, actually. I think that's the way in Hebrew they would say ha'ta. Now, the Greek, it's a little easier to say, but harder to spell. It's harmartia, or another version of the same word is harmartano. These are two variations of the same word, but all of these could be translated sin, but their fundamental definition means to miss.

Simply to miss. To be aiming at a mark and not hit it. To miss the mark. It could also be translated in a different version to stumble, to fall, to not reach what you wanted to, to fall short.

Now, one of the things I find interesting about that is it does not necessarily mean malicious intent. To miss the mark doesn't make you evil, necessarily. But it still means you missed the mark.

Actually, I was reminded when we saw the camp video. You saw it here last week. And towards the end of the video, there was a young girl from Camp Pinecrest who talked about how archery was her favorite sport. Because we're trying to hit the mark of God's way of life, and I thought, boy, I bet Jim Call, Jr. is loving this. Because he was the archery instructor at Pinecrest. But she was exactly right. We're learning God's way, and we have a mark that we're aiming for.

While we're here in Matthew, let's look at Matthew 5, verse 48. I'm already on that page here where Jesus says what our aim is. What's the bull's eye for us? He says, Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

No pressure there. Just be perfect like the Father in heaven is perfect.

That makes it easier to see when we read in Romans that everyone has sinned. Well, everyone falls short of being like God. So we say, yeah, we can't win. But that's where we don't want to get discouraged, because we're reminded that Jesus already did die for our sins. As we come to the Passover season, we celebrate the fact that the plan was already there. We can be forgiven.

Now, let's think about this. We'll get into a little more detail, but keeping that in mind. Missing the mark is bad. It's much worse than Brussels sprouts. But God is patient. He wants us to keep at it, keep trying. Now, if you're missing because you're just not trying, that's a problem in and of itself. So you need to ask yourself, can I get better if I make a stronger effort, if I practice more? Now, as you won't get better if you don't work to improve, if you don't educate yourself to know where the mark is.

But let's consider some other important questions. Some that, if we're thinking, okay, we know sin is a transgression of the law, but are there some other things about sin?

That we should know since sin separates us from God and it brings death. One question I had, can a person sin without knowing it? Can you sin and you didn't even know it? In other words, is it all about your intent? And the answer, according to the Bible, is yes. Let's go to the book of Leviticus. Leviticus 5, beginning in verse 17.

We'll see that God makes it very clear.

And once again, this is the sin of the ha-ta, missing the mark. It doesn't necessarily imply deliberate intent, but it still is a sin when you miss the mark. Leviticus 5, beginning in verse 17, says, If a person sins and commits any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Eternal, though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity.

So even if you didn't know it, you didn't know what the law was, you're guilty and you bear the iniquity. And he'll bring to the priest a ram without blemish from the flock with your valuation as a trespass offering, so the priest shall make atonement for him regarding his ignorance, in which he erred and did not know it, and it shall be forgiven him.

That's the other good side of it. As the old saying goes, ignorance of the law is not an excuse, but the forgiveness is still there. Once you come aware, you can ask forgiveness and be forgiven. God already realizes in advance that we're going to need to repent and make provision for it. Another question. Can a person sin and not be doing anything? Can you sit comfortably on your couch and say, I'm not going to go out and do anything because I don't want to sin? Well, that one's pretty easy, I think, right? Of course, there are commands to do some things.

So, absolutely, yes. Those are what we call sins of omission. You can commit a sin, but if you omit to do some things, it's a sin. And I thought, that one's so obvious, I won't necessarily turn to a scripture. I'll remind you of one of the most obvious.

One of the Ten Commandments tells us, honor your father and your mother. That's a positive command. It's not a thou shalt not. It's a, you shall do this. So, if you do nothing, you say, I won't go do anything, so I won't sin. Well, then that ends up being a sin. I thought of another analogy. It doesn't quite rank up there with honoring your father and mother, but if you go to the IRS and ask them, if you do nothing, can you get in trouble?

And believe me, in this time of year, it's on our minds, right? Although I can... This is totally an aside. I mentioned I used TurboTax for the first time this year, and that actually worked pretty handy. Soon I got our refund back within like two weeks. So, but doing nothing would have been big trouble. And of course, God is much more... not scary, but... You need to take God more seriously than the IRS, and you need to take the IRS seriously. Let's get back on track here. Can a person sin without violating any specific law?

You would think since sin is a transgression of the law, as long as I'm always according to law, that I'll never sin. But you could say, in some cases, yes. Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 8. 1 Corinthians 8 will begin in verse 9. Now, I want to pull the principle out of here, but in this chapter, Paul is talking about the fact that... In the city of Corinth, if you wanted to get meat to eat, it was hard to find without it having been sacrificed in some temple in front of some idol. And some people thought, well, I'm worshipping the idol if I eat this.

Paul is saying, if you don't believe it's really a god, then you're not worshipping the idol. It's not, you know...where the animal was slaughtered doesn't necessarily matter, but he's made the point that to some people it did matter. And so he brings in the point of not wanting to violate your conscience. Let's pick it up here in verse 9. 1 Corinthians 8 and verse 9. It says, But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours, that is, the understanding that the idol isn't really anything, but this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak.

For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols? And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died? Remember, Christ died for our sins. But when you thus sin against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.

And he makes a point. Therefore, if my food makes my brother stumble, I'll never again eat meat. Lest I make my brother to stumble. So it's not a specific law he's talking about, but he's saying, if you know doing something that in the presence of someone will wound their conscience and lead them to cause us to commit a sin, don't do it. That's sinning against your brother and sinning against Christ. It's stated also similarly in Romans chapter 14. Let's look there, because I like the way Paul sums it up at the end of Romans 14 and verse 23.

Now, there is a point I should add to that. It's not that it, like I said, your brother thinks that eating... We could transfer it to vegetarianism, which Paul also addresses. Just because some people think you should never eat animal flesh, he doesn't say, I'll never eat it, but it's implied that I won't eat it around that person. We don't want to have our lifestyles restricted entirely by the beliefs of other people, but we don't want to wound someone's conscience. In Romans 14 verse 23, and he makes the point that we do not want to wound our own conscience. Here he says, but he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith. For whatever is not from faith is sin. Here he's saying, if you're doing something that you believe is wrong, you're sinning. So don't do it! Even if it's not strictly spelled out by one of the laws, don't violate your conscience. Unless, of course, not doing it like, if your conscience says, I shouldn't honor my father and my mother, but the law says, honor your father and your mother, obviously the written law takes precedence. But we don't want to violate our conscience. And that brings to mind a question that came up at one of the Bible studies. Actually, I think it came up at a couple of the Bible studies. As we go into the days of Unleavened Bread, there has been a controversy on and off over the years of, do you have to physically eat a piece of unleavened bread every day of those seven days? And many people say, yes, you do have to. Other people say, well, that's not what the Scripture means. It means whenever you do eat bread, it has to be unleavened. My point is, and I'll tell you, the Council of Elders of United is, they have a doctrinal committee studying that, and they're working on a paper. I don't want to come out in a dress and say, thou shalt. But I would say, if you believe you should eat that unleavened bread every day, do it! Do not violate your conscience. Because there's certainly nothing wrong with it. And they said, I've been unsure exactly of how that should be interpreted, but I eat that unleavened bread every day. I think I would, even if it weren't an issue, because I like bread, and I eat plenty of it. But my point here is, if you have any qualms in your conscience, do eat it. Do not violate your conscience. And if you don't feel that way, but someone around you does, don't try to argue them out of it. Don't try to change their conscience. That's not our purpose. And as I said, the doctrinal committee might well come out and say, yes, we do need to do that. It is the symbol of living without sin. So it's a very good thing to symbolize that and to do it. And as I said, I wanted to make the point about conscience. Don't violate your conscience.

Oh, sorry, I was looking to see where I was in my notes. I got away from it. I just wanted to make a point. Of course, if you're not sure where this fits in the law of not violating your conscience or harming your brother's conscience, remember the fundamental two commands. Love God with all your might, and love your neighbor as yourself.

If you're loving your neighbor as yourself, you won't lead him astray or do anything to harm his conscience. God might have stopped with just those two commands if we all had perfect love and understanding, but he went forward because the question would be, how do I love God? How do I love my neighbor? He spelled it out more thoroughly with the Ten Commandments and then added statutes and judgments.

Another question we could consider. Are some sins worse than others? Now, on the surface of it, I'd say, well, yes, some sins are worse than others. Of course, some sins hurt people more. And if you look in the Old Testament, if you read through Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers, you'll see there are different penalties. There are some sins for which there might be a fine, or a small animal is killed, and some sins for which there's a bigger one.

But, we also want to look at the larger picture. If we turn back to James 2, I think what we could say is, some sins have different effects now in this life. Some hurt more, some hurt less now while we're living here on this earth in the flesh.

But in the long run, we want to consider James 2, verse 10. Here he says, For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, is guilty of all. For he who said, Do not commit adultery also said, Do not murder. Now, if you don't commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

So it doesn't matter which law you break, even if it doesn't seem like a big deal, they all separate you from God. They all bring the penalty of death. So in that sense, all sins are equally bad. As I said, we could judge in the short term and say, some seem worse than others, but in the long term, any sin could cost us eternal life, if not repented of. That's where we get back to Romans 6, 23.

Sin brings death. And we don't want that. And that brings the point, and I think what Mr. Evans said in the sermonette was very well put, fitting in this point. You don't justify, or you don't say, well, he did something much worse, therefore what I did is okay. No. As he said, that doesn't make it right. It's still wrong. Wrong is wrong. Along the lines of a word study, I wanted to consider some other ways described in the Bible that we can be separated or opposed, separated from God, or opposed to Him, where we don't necessarily see the word sin, but they all tend to be bundled together.

One of those words is transgression. Sin is the transgression of the law. I thought I should pay a little attention to the word transgressing, so I looked up the Hebrew for that. In the Old Testament Hebrew, the word for transgression is pasha.

At least, that's the transliteration I got out of my lexicon. P-A-S-H-A. Interesting. Not that far different from the word for passover. When passing over is passing over, transgressing means to go contrary, to rebel or to break away. So if you're transgressing the law, you're going contrary to it. So it's not as far as the passover being going over something. It has that similarity. I guess, linguistically, there's probably a connection. In the Greek, in the New Testament, the word was parabasis, which is a bit longer, but it has the same meaning. Sin is rebelling against the law.

There's one more word I wanted to include, and that is the word for iniquity. Iniquity, we see often. The Hebrew word for iniquity is avon. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it exactly right, but that sounds like... Usually when you're pronouncing Hebrew correctly, it sounds like Klingon. Avon. A-V-A-W-N. I can tell that people watch Star Trek. It could be translated aside from iniquity, it could be translated as perverse or faulty.

The Greek equivalent is poneros, P-O-N-E-R-O-S, which is not that far from porneia, which is translated as fornication or moral sin. And it could be translated also as depraved, malicious, or sinful. It means a bad nature. You could sum it up as just plain bad. I like Brussels sprouts, but much worse. I told you I was going to work in Brussels sprouts. Now I'm hung up on it. I really don't like Brussels sprouts.

But being avon is much worse. It's like morally bankrupt, perverse. Now the important concept when it comes to repentance, especially repentance for baptism, and that's something we have a lot of young people in the church here. When you grow up in the church, sometimes as you come to baptism you say, well what do I have to repent of? You know, I've been good. I've been coming to church. I haven't been stealing or lying or any of those things.

So what do I repent of? Well part of it is this. You're still avon. You're still not God. There's a flaw in your nature. You missed the mark and have to repent of that. It means asking God to forgive you for not being what God is. And of course he will. It's much better if you're struggling to find something to repent of than when you say, oh I've got a long list. I'm ready to go. But either way, we have to come to God and say, please wash me.

Make me clean. Which actually brings me to where I wanted to go to Psalm 51, to see how these tie together. Psalm 51, and for a sermon like this you might think I'm going to read the entire Psalm, but I'm not. Just the first couple of verses will do. And I began to wonder when Mr. Evans started talking about David and his sin, I thought he's going to go read the Scriptures I'm going to read.

And then I thought, well that's okay because you can't get too much of this in Passover season. But it's interesting, David brings these together. There's not a huge difference. Let's read beginning in verse 1. He says, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies.

Blot out my transgression, my pasha. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, my avant, and cleanse me from my sin. Hata! God, David asked for forgiveness of all these things. He said, Clean me up! Help me to change! So the question is, how do we do that? How do we stop sinning and become like God? How do we stop earning death and say we want to have life? That's perhaps one of the biggest questions of all. And to be honest, I've already been answering it all along, in a sense.

And as we saw here in Psalm 51, the real solution to sin is God's mercy. God's mercy and the Holy Spirit. Because God's mercy can forgive our past sins, His Spirit in us helps us to begin to not sin, to change our nature. But of course, well, let me not get ahead of myself. Let's turn back to Exodus 34. Exodus 34, beginning in verse 6. I found it interesting how this chapter ties in, well, in this particular way, ties in very well with the Scriptures we just read in Psalm 51.

And it shows us that long before Jesus Christ came in the flesh to die for our sins, God had in mind to be merciful. God has always wanted to be merciful and forgive sins. Exodus 34, beginning in verse 6. Here is, to set this, this is when the children of Israel were still camped at Mount Sinai, and Moses was going to go back up and talk to God, and he wanted to see God.

And Moses, or God had to tell Moses, well, I can't let you see me, it'll kill you. But I'll let you see me from behind. So we're getting to this where God is going to greet Moses, and so we're breaking in here. But it says, The Eternal passed before him and proclaimed the Eternal, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, that's the Avon, and transgressions, forgiving, sorry, I lost my place, forgiving iniquity, Avon, transgressions, the Pashah, and sin, ha-tah.

So God is that way all along, all three of those, and then the others we want to mix in. Now, I stopped reading there, but of course you can keep reading that says, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children, shows that God doesn't just clear your sins for nothing.

You have to repent. You have to ask that forgiveness. Now, he wants to, he wants to forgive, but if the iniquity is still there, it brings the punishment. But we know that God had a plan for that. Let's see, we've seen in Scripture this is accomplished by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Let's go to 1 John chapter 4, 1 John 4 and verse 10. And we don't want to, and it's not that we're ignoring something important about God, but as I said, we don't want to focus on the idea of him retaining iniquity, because he doesn't want to retain iniquity. He wants us to focus on the fact that we can be forgiven.

1 John 4 and verse 10 says, That's funny, when I first started speaking, I always avoided using this Scripture, because I didn't want to have to say propitiation. It's a long word, but it means made up for, or to be made right, to go back and fix things. Jesus Christ makes up for our sins, his sacrifice does.

And it was done by his literally paying the death penalty.

As we go to John chapter 1, not 1 John, but the Gospel of John chapter 1, we'll see that again.

It reminds me, when I was little, my grandmother always talked about the book of John and the epistle she called the little johns.

Little johns, which they are small by comparison. 1 John 1 and verse 29, and this is where John the Baptist is there with some of his disciples. The next day, John saw Jesus coming towards him and he says, Now, of course, we've been saying this all along, Jesus died for our sins, but he was the Lamb of God to take away those sins. That's important, as we remember, we're about to keep the Passover.

In the original Passover, God told the children of Israel to take a lamb for each household and slay it, and then the death angel would pass over them. But that lamb was only a symbol of Jesus Christ, who is the true Lamb of God. He's not called the Lamb because they were slaying lambs, it's the other way around. You don't have to turn there, but it's in Revelation 13 verse 8, which refers to the Lamb of God slaying from the foundation of the world. The foundation of the world, from the time the world was created, the plan was there that Jesus Christ would be that sacrifice for sin. Even before we were on it, even before the sin was committed, God knew that we would have that proclivity. He wanted to make us with a free moral agency to sin, and so the plan was there from the beginning to have a way to pay for those sins. As a matter of fact, while we're still in 1 John, you can see this. 1 John chapter 1 at the beginning. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That Word being the one who became Jesus Christ. He was always there, He was always God. They were one family. He was in the beginning with God, and then in verse 3 it says, All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. He's the one that did the actual creating. And that scene again, I made a note in Hebrews 1, verses 1 and 2. It's just as part of the introduction, it's almost a side, saying, God in times past spoke to us through the prophets, but in these last days, He spoke unto us through His Son, by whom He made the world. So we could say that God is the Creator, but one of the two beings in the God family did the actual creating. And you know how I think of these weird analogies. This one popped into my head this morning, but I thought, Did that seem unfair? Was it like, you know, God the Father, it was a Sunday afternoon, He was sitting on the couch watching football, making the Word go do all the work. You think, wow, it wouldn't be more fair if they were both doing it? Well, and of course that's silly, which is meant to sound silly, but I think there was a reason one of them did the creating. So one of them could take the responsibility for the creation. Okay? If the creation goes astray and earns that death penalty, then the one who created them is responsible for what they did, and he could die and pay the penalty.

And we know that, but...oh, we're not in 1 John anymore. Let's go back to 1 John. I want to develop this a little bit, but let's consider why it is that way. As a matter of fact, did I pass over? Oh, yeah, I did pass over something I wanted to say. While you're turning to 1 John, it's a reasonable question to ask, why didn't God just forgive? Why is there a sacrifice? And, funny, I didn't mean to talk about my grandmother all this many times, but actually this is the story of my grandfather. I remember when I was a kid, because my grandmother's first husband was not in the church, and he wasn't very favorable to the church. He thought all religion was a little hokey, and he didn't trust it. And I remember once when I was visiting there, we were out in the barn. They rented a house out on a farm, and there was horse barns. And he was there with some of his friends, and they were talking about religion and how goofy some of our beliefs were. And my grandfather said, if there had to be a sacrifice, why couldn't he do something else? Why couldn't he make a golden Cadillac, and then send it to the crusher, and let it be destroyed, and say, that's paying for your sins? And you know, as an eight-year-old sitting there, I thought, yeah, why not the golden Cadillac? I didn't even know what a Cadillac was, but I thought it was made out of gold. It must be... Well, we all know that's not going to cut it. And God doesn't just write it off because of the way God is. God's nature doesn't change. Remember, in 1 John 4, let's look at verse 8. I want to get to the last part of this, but it says, He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. That's what God is. God is love. That's His very nature. And remember, He created the universe, so the universe reflects His nature. Keep your finger here because we're going to come back, but if you look at Romans 13 and verse 10. Romans 13 and verse 10... Oh, I probably could have just referred this now that I look to see what it says. Love does no harm to a neighbor because or therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Love is fulfilling the law. God is love. That should start telling us things. God didn't just capriciously make up these laws, but rather the laws explain what God is. His nature of love. And so to live in harmony with the universe and to be happy, you have to conform. And anything that's not conforming is sinful and is not going to be happy for very long. As I said, some people might enjoy a sinful life for short term, but they know eventually it always leads to hurt and destruction. And many of you have seen me in years, and you've seen that. You've seen people who go counter to God's way and they're not happy in the long run. So when God created physical life, knowing that, and knowing that God couldn't change, He couldn't just decide, well, if they all want to go that way, I'll make it okay. Malachi 3, verse 6 tells us God does not change. He says, I don't change. It's also in Hebrews, I believe, 13, verse 8, where Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He doesn't change. So He can't just say, well, it's okay to break the law for this time, and I'll pass on it. Knowing that He wouldn't change, and He wouldn't be God if He did change, He created physical life so that it could end. If someone goes counter to His way, He made it so the life could be snuffed out, so they don't have to be miserable forever. But He also made it so, being flesh and blood and physical, we can change.

We can change with the power of the Spirit working in us. So any person who sins and earns a death penalty, God can give a chance to change, to overcome, and to do that, He took responsibility. Jesus Christ the Maker took responsibility and paid the price. As I said, God couldn't be God and be unchanging and just say, well, it doesn't matter. You know, the penalty has to be paid, but He did make it so the Creator can pay the penalty.

And that's the fundamental teaching of Christianity, that Jesus Christ died for our sins. He paid the price that we earn. And that's a wonderful thing to love and embrace that. We're in 1 John, if we're still there, 1 John chapter 1 and verse 9.

1 John 1 and verse 9, He's faithful and just to forgive our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

He's faithful and just to forgive us, to cleanse us, because the sacrifice is there. Now, the question could come up. Well, did Christ have to be sacrificed every time we sin or every time a person sins? And of course, the answer is no, but rather than you hearing it from me, let's turn to Hebrews 10 and see it, stated plainly in the Bible.

Because Jesus' sacrifice was so great, and as I said, He is the maker of us all, He paid the price one time. Hebrews 10 and verse 10.

By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest, that is physical priest, stand ministering daily, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.

From that time waiting, those enemies are made as footstool, for by one offering, he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

So, there we have it, the one sacrifice. Now, he doesn't have to go and be sacrificed every time we sin. It is worth mentioning, though, we do need to repent every time we are aware. And that sacrifice is available. And we can come boldly to the throne of God through the blood of Jesus Christ. And of course, I'm not getting into that today, but of course, when Christ was sacrificed, it was the symbolism of the veil being ripped open in the temple, that had separated the Holy of Holies from the main part of the temple. That separation was taken away so that we could come to the Father.

And if I think, and well, we get asked the question, well, is God going to forgive us over and over again? Isn't he going to get tired of it? And I think maybe that's what Peter had in the back of his mind when he came to Jesus. Now, he was thinking of himself. He said, how many times do I have to forgive my brother? You know, if I do really well, can I seven times enough? And Jesus said, no, not seven times. I'm telling you, seventy times seven. Okay, but that was talking to Peter, who was unconverted, didn't yet have the Spirit. He didn't say that God will only forgive us 490 times. And after 491, sorry, you're in the lake of fire. Because 1 John 1.19 says, he's faithful and just to forgive us. And there's no limit put on it. Now, he doesn't want to have to forgive us over and over again. He doesn't say sin as many times as you can, so that you can hold the record.

No, I didn't want to dwell on that. But the question comes up while we're talking about sin, one of the last questions I want to address. Some people say, okay, maybe there's not a limit on quantity, but what about quality? Is there some sin that's so bad, God's not going to forgive it? He would say, I'm not going there. I think about that. I remember when I was in college, we used to have an annual competition, speaking competition. It's funny, in other colleges, they have other competitions, but in Ambassador, we had speaking competitions, and the winners would get to give a speech at one of the annual dances. They called it Speech Banquet. But one of the winners gave a speech about how he first learned about forgiveness. And he said he was talking to a minister. He said, now, you got this straight. He's going to forgive everything? Everything? There's some things you don't know about. And he said, yes, everything. He's talking about how thrilled he was. The speech went on. It was a really good speech. But I couldn't help thinking about it. There's no sin so bad. As a matter of fact, in my word studies, it brought up the question, is there an unpardonable sin? So I checked my concordance. In the King James and the New King James, you won't find the term unpardonable sin. But it didn't get made up from nowhere. There's a concept. Let's go to Matthew 12. Because I'm saying that, but I don't want you to think that you can never do anything that would permanently separate you from God. Christ does talk about something that can be a little puzzling, and we want to understand it. Matthew 12 and verse 31. It says, Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy, everyone, will be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. Now, that's pretty serious stuff. To me, it's also a bit mystifying. It's good to know that all other sins can be forgiven. Murder, rape, all types of violence. Of course, you have to ask. You have to repent. And that brings, before we come back to this, let's talk about, to be forgiven, you have to repent. Repentance is a big subject. We don't have time. We could give a whole sermon on repentance. But remember, it involves that deep being sorry for your sin and then asking forgiveness and changing. So it's not just feeling bad. It's making a change. That brings us to Acts 2, verses 37 and 38. We're near there now. Acts 2, 37, of course, is that passover when the Holy Spirit was poured out and it appeared like tongues of fire. The apostles, especially Peter, gave this great sermon. And afterwards, people asked him a question and they felt. They realized their sin. So in verse 37, they said, When they heard this, they were cut to the heart. And they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? They realized they were sinners. They were cut off from God. Peter said to them, Repent. Repent. And let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. Having your sins taken away. Jesus died for our sins. So you repent, you're baptized in the name of Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Of course, as I said, sin and death is on this side. God and life is on this side. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ can move you from one to the other.

But it also shows us how important the Holy Spirit is to that repentance and that forgiveness. The Holy Spirit is vital.

So there's a lot of significance. So when we talk about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, now if we believed in the Trinity, that might make it easier. Because if we said, well, the Holy Spirit's a person, and boy is he thin-skinned. You know, you can talk bad about Christ, but if you talk bad about the Spirit, he's not going to forgive you. But we know that's not true. That's not what Christ meant when he said blasphemy against the Spirit wouldn't be forgiven. So what difference does it make? Well, to understand, let's see what a difference the Spirit makes. Let's go back to Romans 8.

Romans 8 and verse 8.

So how is it that we're blaspheming against the Spirit and thus aren't forgiven? We get a hint of it here. Romans 8 and verse 8.

So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So just being in the flesh, we're not going to please God. But you're not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.

So he's saying, you have the Spirit of God in you, which you get by repentance and baptism, then you can please God. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. So there's, that's the basic definition of a Christian. You have the Holy Spirit in you, and then you're a Christian, and you can please God. Now you might say, well, then that must mean, if you commit a sin, the Spirit's out.

Or does it? Does committing a sin mean you automatically lose the Holy Spirit? Well, let's go back to Psalm 51. I told you we were going to be turning a lot today, but I don't want you to rely on my word for any of this. Psalm 51 and verse 11. Once again, we're not going to read all of this, but remember, David had sinned pretty badly before he wrote this. He had committed adultery. First he lusted, and he coveted, and he committed adultery, and then he lied, and committed murder, and then repented.

And he's in the process of repenting, and in verse 11, he's pleading to God, and he writes down his prayer. He says, Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Don't take your Holy Spirit from me, implying that he had not yet taken his Spirit from me. You know, it's not written, Please give me back your Holy Spirit. This shows that even as bad as sins that David had committed, they had not caused God to take away the Holy Spirit.

But he was concerned that it could be taken away. So if it's evident that God doesn't remove his Spirit from us just when we sin, but that it can be taken away, that leads us to the question of how does that happen? And there is a scripture that supports that in 1 Thessalonians 5.19. We won't turn there because it's a very short scripture. It says, Plench not the Spirit. Don't plench the Holy Spirit. That seems to imply it's not that God takes it away, it's that we cut it off.

And that's important. Remember, we get the Holy Spirit on baptism. Upon baptism, we symbolically, we lay on hands to ask God to imbue the Holy Spirit because the scripture shows us. That's the example and the command.

But it's not just that one time. We continue to receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ described it, maybe, an allergy of water. Water that flows. And of course, in that famous episode that's described in John, I think Chapter 7, he said, Whoever believes on me, rivers of living water will flow from him.

And it says he was speaking of the Holy Spirit. So the Spirit flows from God. It's a continual supply. And he wants it to flow out from us by our love and our good actions to treat other people. But there's a way that we can quench that supply. Not by a sin, but perhaps by continuing the sin. And not repent. Here's what I was looking for. Obviously, if we continue to sin, but we don't repent, then we're not coming back to God and asking Him to renew that supply.

I was reading Mr. Armstrong's booklet about the unpardonable sin, and I thought he made an analogy that I couldn't improve on, so I thought I'd just copy it. I paraphrased a little, but he described the situation like this. He said, Christians are walking along a road to conversion. Conversion is a process. It's like we're heading down the road. It doesn't happen just on baptism. But as we're traveling this road, we're babes in Christ. Compared to God, we're like little babies. And as you all know, when babies are learning to walk, they fall down a lot. Even my son, although he's getting to be a pretty good walker, he still falls down a lot.

Falling down doesn't get you off the road. If you work to get up and keep on going, then God will continue renewing the Holy Spirit in you. And that's what He wants. God will work with us a lot. We could fall down a lot as long as we don't purposely get off the road and not try to get back on.

There's a classic example of that in Romans 7. Romans 7, if you worry, all of us probably at some time or another looked at ourselves and said, Am I going off the road? Am I committing the unpardonable sin? Because we know the Bible talks about sinning willingly and there not being forgiveness. Or willfully. There are subtle differences. Because when we sin, we usually want to sin. But that doesn't mean that we want to sin.

Does that make sense? I mean, there's part of you that wants to sin and part of you doesn't want to sin and you have to struggle. And that's what Paul describes here in Romans 7, beginning in verse 14. It says, For we know the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.

As long as we're in the flesh, we're never going to be able to completely overcome sin. Is this for... Ah, I lost my place. Yes, for what I'm doing, I don't understand. I'm doing something for what I will to do, that I don't practice. I will, I want to do what's good and right. But what I hate, that's what I'm doing. That's what I do.

If then I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it's good. I'm not wanting to do that. I know the law is good. I want to go God's way, but I'm doing something I shouldn't.

But now it's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells. And of my own self, I can't do anything good and right.

For I know that nothing good dwells. For to will is present with me. So there's something in me that wants to do what's good and right. But how to perform what is good, I don't find, at least on some occasions. For the good that I will to do, I don't do. But the evil that I will not to do, that I practice. Now, I don't think Paul is writing this because he's always going out and sinning horribly. But he's acknowledging that there's a struggle going on inside.

He said, now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me. With me, you're the one who wants to do good. For I delight in the law of God, according to the inward man. And that's interesting, that inward man. When God puts His Spirit in us, we become a new creation. As Paul described it, a new man. And that new creation needs to grow and get stronger and put to death the old man, that nature that wants to sin.

But it doesn't happen overnight. It continues. It's an ongoing struggle. He says, I delight in the law of God, according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. He says, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of death?

He's acknowledging, you know, this is the Apostle Paul, who had a pretty strong will, it seems. But he says, I can't do it. I can't. How am I going to overcome this? And of course, the answer, I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's how we can overcome. Jesus Christ died for our sins, as we stated. We have that sinful nature, but the answer is there. We can be forgiven. Even the Apostle Paul could be forgiven, which sounded ironic to me.

But if he could have this big of a struggle and continue on, of course we can. He didn't admit this because he wanted to tell people how horrible he was, but he wanted to show that someone that people were looking at saying, boy, he's great, he's writing books of the Bible. Of course, I don't know that they knew that at the time. But he was a good example, but even he was struggling. Now, the way I see it in the way of, once again, Mr. Armstrong taught this, and I don't think I can improve on it. He described two ways to quench the Holy Spirit, to lead you to unpardonable sin.

One is, as we describe, deliberately sinning, over and over, and not repenting, even when you realize you sin. Now, sometimes we repeat over and over again, and we don't even know we're doing it. There's a sin of ignorance. It's still a sin, but God will forgive you. But it's said the sin that can't be forgiven is the one that's never repented of. You become aware of the sin, and you say, with the Holy Spirit, to make you knowledgeable, but you still refuse. You say, yeah, I know that's the way of death, but I want it.

I don't want to live God's way. And we hope no one ever goes there. We hope that there will be very few that end up, we say, in the lake of fire. We think most people, well, at least at some point, they say, oh, I can't believe I was going that far. I was almost off the road, or I was off the road in the ditch, but then I saw and I climbed back out.

It's only by that deliberate choice that you can quench that spirit. Now, there's another way that we also want to be aware of, though, that Mr. Armstrong just described as deliberate neglect of the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit flows through God and we won't renew it, we do so by our relationship with God. We study His Word and we pray and we live His lifestyle. If we cut off contact, we cut off our relationship with God, we don't pray, we don't ask Him to renew the Spirit, we don't study, we're not living that lifestyle.

Well, we'll be sort of pinching off, closing the valve on the Spirit ourselves. And God is not one, He's not going to burst it open on us. He might send us reminders, and I think that's probably happened to a lot of us. You can be off-stray, and God will send reminders in ways that aren't always pleasant, but the worst circumstances to wake you up to what's going on are better than cutting off the Spirit entirely and quenching it.

But as I said, generally, and I think entirely, the way to quench the Spirit, to cut it off, is by going the way of sin and not wanting to repent.

Because God is faithful and just. If we repent, He will forgive us. To sum up that question, of course, it's usually said, if you're worried or afraid that you've committed the unpardonable sin, it's almost certain you haven't, because you wouldn't be worried about it then. So let's wrap this up. Timing's better than this morning. We see sin as an important subject to us. Very important. Sin is pretty much the opposite of God's way, of God's nature and His way of love.

Sin brings death. God gives life. Unfortunately, because we're human and we're not God, we sin. Not being God like God is a sin. It's missing the mark. But God knew that would happen. He planned all along to save us from the death that we would earn. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ can pay for our sins.

And Christ living in us through His Holy Spirit then helps us to change. We become people who won't sin as Christ lives in us. So, I think about it. It's been a long and bold sermon, but I can summarize it fairly briefly. Sin is bad. So don't sin.