Unleavened Bread Feast
The Battle with Sin!
|
THE WAR AGAINST SIN
The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a good time to talk about sin, and the victory over it. If you have been a Christian for some time you will certainly know that sin does not stop coming your way after you become a child of God. Satan and his demon helpers do not run off into the dust just because you have Jesus as your personal Savior. We are given an example in the New Testament of sin still being actively alive in the lives of the disciples of the Lord. It is perhaps one of the greatest examples, for it concerns the life of one of the most important men ever used by the Lord, not only in His work of spreading the Gospel, but in writing the very New Testament Scriptures themselves. It is the life of the mighty apostle PAUL! From what he tells us in plain words, you and I can take encouragement: "Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is evil? Of course not! The law is not sinful, but it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, "Do not covet." But sin took advantage of this law and aroused all kinds f of forbidden desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power.... "But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my doom? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God's good commandment for its own evil purposes. "The law is good, then. The trouble is not with the law but with me, because I am sold into slavery, with sin as my master. I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. But I can't help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things. I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do right. I want to, but I can't. When I want to do good, I don't. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. But if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it. "It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin." (From Romans 7 - The New Living Translation) We see that Paul's bottom line, foundational attitude of mind was that he really did desire to serve the law of God, which he said was good, for it showed him what sin was; yet still in his nature was this leaning towards doing what was not good. You can sense he was in a battle, a fight, and sometimes he lost the fight to sin. But his basic mind-set was to do what was right. He could certainly see that he was wretched in comparison to the holy and good law of God. He could have felt it was hopeless and given up the fight against sin, but he could see there was victory through Christ Jesus. This section of Scripture should make it very clear to you that it is not possible to "earn through works" our way to eternal life in God's Kingdom. Paul in Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. One sin puts us under death, and it makes no difference if we have rung up a thousand "good works" - one sin still requires the penalty of death. I think most of us can understand this by taking the example of "driving a car." You may obey a thousand times all the road laws out there, but when the policeman pulls you over for one infraction of the road laws, he ain't going to ask you how many times you've obeyed the road laws. He's just there to give you a penalty for that one breaking of the law, he just caught you in. So it is no wonder at all that the New Testament teaches that YOU ARE SAVED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH in the sacrifice of Christ. He paid your fine for breaking the road law, so to speak. But can you just decide to set your mind to not bother trying to observe all the road laws, because you have someone to pay the fine? I do not think the police would say you can have that attitude towards all the road laws. So it should not surprise us God thinks the same way as the police, about his laws either. If you read what Paul wrote again in Romans 7 (and a modern version really brings out the clearness of it), you should be able to see Paul had no attitude of just deciding to break the law at will. He tried to observe the good, holy, law of God; it was his weakness of the flesh that pulled him towards sinning. But he said he had victory through Christ. Paul did not go into the details of how this victory worked, for it would be the apostle John that was going to be inspired to tell us the details of how the victory works. WINNING THE FIGHT 1 John 1 and 2 1 "The one who existed from the beginning is the one we have heard and seen. (This one verse in the New Testament blows to a million pieces the teaching by some that Jesus did not exist from the beginning, or only came into existence when in the womb of Mary - Keith Hunt) "We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is Jesus Christ, the Word of life. This one who is life from God was shown to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and announce to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was shown to us. We are telling you about what we ourselves have actually seen and heard, so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. "We are writing these things so that our joy will be complete. "This is the message he has given us to announce to you: God is light and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness. We are not living in the truth. But if we are living in the light of God's presence, just as Christ is, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every sin. "If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. "If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts. 2 "My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if you do sin, there is someone to plead for you before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who pleases God completely. He is the sacrifice for our sins. He takes away not only our sins but the sins of all the world. And how can we be sure that we belong to him? By obeying his commandments. If someone says, 'I belong to God,' but doesn't obey God's commandments, that person is a liar and does not live in the truth. But those who obey God's word really do love him. That is the way to know whether or not we live in him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Christ did" (1 John chapter 1 and first part of chapter 2, from The New Living Translation). To have an attitude of just not caring about obeying the commandments of God, is fully and completely blown out of the water by what we have just read. It should be as clear as the sun in a cloudless sky, that anyone coming to you and telling you the law of the Lord has been "done away with" and you do not need to take note of it any more, is simply a bold-faced LIAR!! Such a false teaching as the law of God has been abolished by New Testament "grace" is a teaching of such magnitude that it would have to be classified under the end times "doctrine of demons" the apostle Paul said would be around in the latter times, which really have been from the days of the first apostles. Jude in the first century said that many had already come who were turning the grace of God into a license to sin at pleasure (Jude 4). He had to tell his readers to "earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints" (verse 3). The true way of salvation for many had slipped away within the very life time of the first apostles. How far do you suppose it has slipped away today? God is light and no darkness is in Him at all. If we say we walk in the light but really live in spiritual darkness, not even understanding the "common salvation" that Jude exhorted his readers to get back to, then we are indeed in darkness, and we just fool ourselves that we have fellowship with the Father and with Christ. If on the other hand, we are living in the basic light of truth, and certainly the way to salvation is one of the very foundational truths of God, then we are in the light of God. At this point I need to say that as shocking as it is to hear, there are tens of millions, nay over a BILLION people on earth who call themselves "Christian" and who have not the foggiest light of truth as to the way of salvation; they have no idea of what is the truth behind Paul's words: "For by grace as you saved, through faith, and not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8,9). I have given you the full and clear truth of these verses, in a study called, "Saved by Grace." You need to make sure you understand the bedrock of the Bible. One of the most important truths is on your salvation by grace through faith. Many theological "scholars" with DR in front of their name, or PhD after their name, cannot, do not, understand the simple truth of being saved by grace. But it is simple, and I make it simple for you to understand in that study of mine; why even a young child can understand it. That study will compliment and amplify the truth of this study you are reading. It is one of the most important studies I've ever written - of course it is, for it concerns YOUR salvation. If we are living in the light of the truth of God then we can have the cleansing blood of Jesus applied to our lives, day by day, month by month, year by year. That is what John is telling us in chapter one. The blood of Christ cleanses us from sin! Walking in the light of truth with the Father, qualifies us to receive the blood of Christ to wash away our sins, on a present basis. "If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. "If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts." Pretty clear words are they not? John pulls no punches. He's just flat up straight out. Just tells it as it is. Paul did not fool himself; we have seen he told us he was a wretched sinner at times. He didn't want to be, his inner being did not want to sin, he loved the law of God, and his inner being served it; yet he fell short at times, and sinned. To say that under the New Testament of being saved by grace (and the truth is it was this way under the Old Testament also) we do not have sin in us, we are refusing to accept the truth of the matter. What must we do? We are to CONFESS our sins, confess we are sinners to our God! Do you remember the story Jesus gave in the Gospels about the Pharisee and the publican going up to pray? The Pharisee said he was thankful that he was not like the sinners out there, and boasted about his self-righteousness. The publican, well he just looked down and said, "Forgive me Father, a sinner I am." Jesus said the publican would be justified, forgiven, at one with God, before the self-righteous Pharisee. When we confess, as Paul did, that we are sinners, when we have the attitude of knowing we fall very short at times, from the perfectness and holiness of the Father, then we can be forgiven and cleansed from every wrong through Christ. If our attitude is that we are not sinners, we make God out to be a liar, for God knows we are really just like the apostle Paul of Romans 7, and our heart is far from having God's word in us. We are then in REALLY BAD shape, spiritually speaking! So how does it work? John went on to tell us: 2 "My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if you do sin, there is someone to plead for you before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who pleases God completely. He is the sacrifice for our sins. He takes away not only our sins but the sins of all the world." Like Paul, we do not desire to sin, our attitude of mind is to love the law of the Lord, we know with Paul that it is holy, just, and good. Looking at and meditating on each of the Ten Commandment, we realize that if all nations were obeying each of those commandments, we would have a world that is FAR DIFFERENT than it is today. I do not have to use space and time to tell you how different the world would be if everyone, in all nations, were obeying the Ten Commandments. You can soon figure that out for yourself. The problem usually comes when you get to the FOURTH commandment - the Sabbath commandment. People today just do not want to observe the fourth commandment. They feel it is unimportant, that you can leave it or take it, or they figure any one day in seven is good enough, and maybe just a few hours of "worship" on that day is also just good enough. But the fourth commandment is the longest worded commandment of the ten. And it is pretty clear in what it says: the SEVENTH day is the holy Sabbath rest day, not any other day, only the seventh day of the week has been sanctified and made holy by God, right from the beginning in Genesis chapter two. That fourth commandment as you find in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, has NEVER been "done away with" or "changed" to some other day of the week. The arguments from some "minister" theology fellows that the law has been done away with, is usually because they do not want to obey the specifics of this fourth commandment. If they did they would have to tell their congregation, and they would soon find themselves out of a job, and out of favor with the masses of people who go under the title of "Christian." As a child growing up [in the 1940s and 1950s] in a Church of England school, I was taught we should obey the Ten Commandments and I had to learn them by memory as in Ex. 20, KJV, full version, every word. Not one person ever told me that Sunday was not the 7th day of the week; so I grew up believing it was. All the towns closed down, no pro sports was done. I fully believed we were all observing the 7th day as in the fourth Commandment. Britain at that time still claimed to be a religious nation under God. It was easy to see as I read the four Gospels, Jesus observed the Sabbath commandment, and taught how it should be observed. The early Church of God has a minister conference over the subject of physical circumcision [Acts 15]. If the weekly Sabbath was ever going to be changed to the first day, or any day a person wanted, you can bet there would have been a minister conference over the matter. There never was. To the Jews there were FOUR very important points in their religion—— 1. The Temple 2. Priesthood and sacrifices 3. Physical circumcision 4. The weekly Sabbath. They had over 600 laws governing the weekly Sabbath; most Jesus thew aside. But the point is there is no way the day of the weekly Sabbath could be changed without a ministerial conference as it was for physical circumcision. Jesus, in telling us the signs to look for when He would return [Matthew 24], told about His disciples having to flee from persecution, and went on to say, His people should pray the fleeing would not be in the winter or on the Sabbath day. Even if you believe Matt. 24 was for 70 A.D. you still see the weekly Sabbath was in force till then, after all the epistles of Paul had been written, whom some claim he did away with the weekly Sabbath [Col. 2:16] and yet told the Romans they could pick any day [Rom. 14]. Atheists laugh at Christians who have Paul contradicting himself, and contradicting Jesus in Matthew 24. As a child of the Father we want to live, our mind is set to live a life that is holy and sinless. Yet sin is still with us, all around us, and our fleshly nature, together with the influence of Satan and his workers, pulls us into sin at times. Remember the account of what Paul told us about himself in Romans 7. The Father not only sent Jesus to live a perfect life, to take our sins upon Himself at His death on the stake, and so to reconcile us to the Father, have all our sins up to our baptism, washed away in the blood of Christ's sacrifice for us, but we still continue to live on after our baptism, and as we do live on we find ourselves being in the company of the apostle Paul in Romans 7. Now Jesus was RAISED from the dead, and He did return to the Father to sit at His right hand, as clearly stated in many New Testament Scriptures. But He's not just there to give moral support to the Father, and have a wonderful time with Him, while he waits for the Father to say he can return to earth. Jesus, has a very important job to do, now today. He is an interceding High Priest on behalf of His brothers and sisters here on earth, in the flesh, and who are still sinning at times, in thought, word, and deed. Jesus PLEADS for us! He knows what it is like to be human. It is written that He was tempted like we are, when He was in the flesh, but unlike us, He did not sin, no not once. And because of his earthly life and sinless life, He is more than qualified to be an interceding high priest, on our behalf when we sin from time to time. This is the wonderful news John is telling us. And because Jesus was God in the flesh - Immanuel - God with us, His life and sacrifice is continually able to take every sin, by every person, who will ever live. His blood through death on the cross, His life as our interceding High Priest (much of the book of Hebrews is all about Christ's office as High Priest in heaven) is forever able to secure our forgiveness of sins, providing as we have seen, that we acknowledge, as Paul did, that we are sinners, in need of victory through Christ. With our day to day attitude of mind, a humble repentant mind, and with Jesus as a faithful pleading High Priest on our behalf, we are continually under the grace and mercy of God the Father. Each day we can come before the Father, confess we are a sinner, ask the Father for forgiveness where we have fallen short of the mark of holy perfectness, and with Christ pleading for us, though our sins may be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; they are washed away through the blood and life of Jesus our Savior. So it is then that we are saved not only by the DEATH of Christ but also by His LIFE! "FOR IF, WHEN WE WERE ENEMIES, WE WERE RECONCILED TO GOD BY THE DEATH OF HIS SON, MUCH MORE BEING RECONCILED, WE SHALL BE SAVED BY HIS LIFE!!" (Romans 5:10). The question may arise: "Well how can we know that we know we are in Christ, and so can have this great confidence of what you have said Keith?" John answers: "And how can we be sure that we belong to him? By obeying his commandments. If someone says, 'I belong to God,' but doesn't obey God's commandments, that person is a liar and does not live in the truth. But those who obey God's word really do love him. That is the way to know whether or not we live in him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Christ did" (1 John chapter 2 - The New Living Translation). There it is, simple and straightforward, easy to understand, simple as even for a child. You can know you are in Christ, within the favor of God, by having an attitude of mind that WANTS to keep the commandments of God; you now desire to live by every word of God, as Jesus taught (Mat.4:4) and you follow in the footsteps of Jesus. You look into the Gospels to see how Jesus lived and you now have a mind-set to follow in His steps. Your mind actually has the mind of Christ within it (Philippians 2:5), you now yield your will to Jesus. Your mind now says along with Jesus, "Father, not my will be done, but Your will be done." And of course with that mind-set you do most of the time conform to the thinking, and the doing, of the way and life of God. The times you fall short and sin, you confess your sin, you admit your sin, and Jesus pleads on your behalf, and you can be forgiven, you can continue to be under the grace of God. GREAT CONFIDENCE I've heard many a preacher tell his congregation, proclaim to his congregation: "And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal, and this life is in His Son. He that has the Son has life ... that you may know you have life" (1 John 5:11-13). Often some very important words are left out of this passage by many preachers. If they are read they are seldom given emphasis. Now the important words are: "These things I have written to you that believe on the name of the Son of God." John WROTE words to expound HOW people can have full assurance that they had eternal life dwelling in them. You have to read all the words that John wrote, that is all the FIVE chapters of this first letter of John. Are you scared as to what you may find in those 5 chapters? Do you find yourself not really wanting to "go there" as they say? Is it because deep down in your soul you know there are areas of your life you need to change. Is it because John just may convict you of sin, or that you need to take a deeper study course on understanding what God says is sin and is righteousness? I hope none of those thought will enter your mind. I pray you will be able to start on verse one of chapter one and read through all verses of all five chapters in John's first epistle. We have already seen chapter one and the first part of chapter two. But read those verses again. Hummmm, yes, John upholds the putting aside of sin and the keeping of the commandments of God (oh, by the way, sin is defined in chapter 3, but we'll get there), and the walking in the walk that Jesus walked. Annnddd, the Gospels show Jesus never observed the first day of the week as the Sabbath, nor did He observe Christmas, Easter, Lent, Halloween, or January 1st. and other days set by men as the centuries past. You will find He observed all the ten commandments, including the fourth one as written, and He observed the Festivals that belong to God (which are found in Leviticus 23). We cannot be a true Christian if we have hate towards anyone, and we are to not love the lust, and the pride of the world. We are to realize there are many anti-christ deceivers out there. Oh, they come in the name of Christ, they tell you that Christ is the Christ, but their Christian theology is full of falsehoods and deceptions. It is the Spirit of anointing that will guide you and lead you into truth and away from all the anti-christs. John finishes chapter two by saying that everyone who practices righteousness (one definition of is Psalm 119:172) is a child of God. Chapter three. We find the definition of what sin IS (add James 2:10-12) and all who claim to be children of God must practice as a way of life the righteousness of God. their mind-set is to love to serve the law and way of life that God has set down. They have the attitude of the apostle Paul in Romans 7. You should read 1 John 3"1-10 in the Amplified Bible, it will bring out the Greek tenses and make very plain to you what John was teaching here. John goes back then to talk about "hate" which begins in the heart. He talks about people who have some earthy "goods" but who will not give to others, they can hardly be called the sons of God. He that has the humble mind to obey the commandments of God, will abide in Him and He in them by the Spirit given to them. Chapter 4. John goes back to the many false prophets out there even in his day, so in our day, wow, it has to be bad, and so it is for Jesus said in the last days of the end of this age, falsehood would be so strong that IF it was possible even the very elect would be deceived (Mat.24:24). We are admonished by John to "try the spirits" - and we do that by doing what those at Berea did, when Paul and Silas came teaching in their town, they "searched the Scriptures daily" to see if what they heard squared with the Word of God (Acts 17). We are to love God is the theme of the remaining passages of chapter four and into chapter five. John does not leave us in doubt as to what is the love of God. He tells us what it is in chapter 5 and verses 2-3. "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments. FOR this IS the LOVE of God, that we KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS: and His commandments are not grievous." So now we have had a brief overview of what John wrote, and through the acid test of what he wrote he said his readers could KNOW that they had eternal life. It's the whole CONTEXT of John in this epistle that gives you the key of the knowledge that you need to know eternal life dwells in you. We can take heart, good comfort, during this Great Feast of Unleavened Bread. Yes sin is at the door, yes we are still flesh, with the pulls of the flesh, yes we are still sinners and we fall short many times. But with the love of God in us, with the mind of Christ in us, we continue to set our heart and mind to serve the way, the walk, the commandments of God. Yes, we confess our sins, we acknowledge we are sinners, and Jesus our Savior will plead for us on our behalf to the Father. And the Father will continue to show us His wonderful grace and forgiveness. We then continue to have fellowship with the Father and with His Son Christ Jesus. The day will come friends, brethren, when we shall be delivered from this physical body of sin and death, when we shall see Jesus in His glory and we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is. And we shall be free from even the temptation to sin. What a day, what GLORY that will be, what a VICTORY that will be through Jesus Christ. AMEN AND AMEN!! ................... Keith Hunt - the first holy day of the Unleavened Bread feast, April 2009. |
No comments:
Post a Comment