Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.” (John 9:39-41 ESV)
In America, at least, Christianity is the main (primary) religion, and so we have a large percentage of people who identify themselves as Christians and of the Christian faith who will say that they believe in Jesus Christ. Many of them attend weekly gatherings in buildings called “churches” where they sing songs purportedly about God/Christ and where they listen to sermons supposedly taken from the Scriptures, usually preached by one man.
Now, in some of these gatherings the truth of the gospel is being taught and the body of Christ is functioning as the biblical body of Christ, but I would say that these are probably in the minority. What appears to be in the majority are these gatherings called “churches” where they are following marketing schemes and tricks and gimmicks for how to draw in large crowds of people from the world. Thus they are marketing the church to the world.
And in order to draw in large crowds of people from the world into their gatherings they have altered their gatherings and the biblical concept of church, and they have altered the character of God/Christ and of his gospel message in order to make them more acceptable and appealing to the ungodly and to human flesh. And so most are teaching an altered gospel that does not require death to sin and living to righteousness.
And the result of that is that we have a large number of people professing faith in Jesus Christ who are still living like the world, still walking in sin, still making sin their practice, but while they profess faith in Jesus Christ and claim heaven as their eternal destiny. And not all of these are recent “believers” in Jesus Christ, but a lot of them have professed faith in Jesus Christ for a very long time, but they just have not lived the Christian faith.
So sin is running rampant in these gatherings of the church (or what is falsely being called “church”). And sexual immorality hits the top of the list of predominant sins presently permeating the American church. For the diluted gospel message which is being taught in most of these gatherings and on TV and on the internet and on social media is giving them permission to keep on in their addictive sins only now without conscience.
For if they begin to feel guilty at all about their addictive sin patterns, many are being told that they should just claim who they are in Christ, based off some list someone made up, some of which is biblical, but only applies to those of genuine faith in Jesus Christ evidenced by the forsaking of their sins and by them walking in holiness and in righteousness and in walks of obedience to the Lord and to his commands under the New Covenant.
So, those who are being fed these lies and this diluted gospel message, and who are believing the lies, appear mostly to excuse away their sinful practices and to claim that all their sins are forgiven and that God’s grace covers it all and that it will not impact their salvation and their eternal security. But that is a ruse. It is not what the Scriptures teach. Yet, they continue in their deliberate and habitual sin, and nothing changes.
Many of them, therefore, remain in their sinful addictive practices and they do not make the necessary changes in their hearts and lives that need to take place in order for them to be free from those addictive practices and to now walk in genuine faith in the Lord Jesus. For they love their sins too much to give them up, for they are stimulating and captivating and they want that “high” that it gives them, so they don’t want to let it go.
And it isn’t that they are ignorant of the Scriptures or that they don’t know what God requires. According to Romans 1 we are all without excuse if we choose our sinful practices over obedience and true worship of God, for God has made himself known to all people. But many of these people do know the Scriptures well, and some of them have been or still are teachers and preachers of the word of God, so they definitely know better.
And this was the condition of these Pharisees. They knew the Scriptures. They even taught the Scriptures, or some of them did, but they didn’t practice what the Scriptures taught fully, but they followed a self-made religion, instead. Yet if we read Jesus’ scathing words to them in Matthew 23 we realize that these men (or most of them) were full of filth and wickedness on the inside while they tried to appear righteous on the outside.
And that is what this lesson is about today, about people professing faith in Jesus Christ who go through the rituals of religious practice but whose hearts have not changed, for their hearts are not aligned with God and with his word and with his moral laws and righteous rules for godly living. But their hearts are still filled with all sorts of wickedness – lying, deception, sexual immorality, abuse, faithlessness, adultery, idolatry, and trickery.
And they are slacking in doing anything about what needs to take place in their hearts to bring about the change required and necessary for them to have salvation from sin and the hope of eternal life with God. For Jesus said that not everyone who says to him, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING the will of God the Father who is in heaven (Matthew 7:21-23). So, we all need to take this to heart.
And Jesus also said that if anyone would come after him that he must deny self, take up his cross daily (die daily to sin) and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to our old lives of living in sin and for self, we will lose them for eternity. But if for Jesus’ sake we deny self, die daily to sin, and follow him in obedience, then we have eternal life with God. But if we deny him in this life, when he returns, he will deny us (Luke 9:23-26).
See also [Matthew 7:21-23; Matthew 10:32-33; Matthew 15:7-9; 2 Timothy 2:11-13; 2 Timothy 3:1-5; Titus 1:15-16; 2 Peter 2:1-3; Jude 1:3-4]
As the Deer
By Martin J. Nystrom
Based off Psalm 42:1
As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after You
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You
You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZv3jzOTE70
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