BREAKING FREE FROM SIN

BREAKING FREE FROM SIN PART 1

Anchor Texts: John 8:32, Genesis 6:5, Genesis 3, Revelations 2:19-20, Galatians 5:16-26

Praise the Lord! I want to implore us that we take time to study those scriptures outlined above. We will take study references from them as we go on in this series but the most important thing we need to get here is Deep Understanding; and this, we can get if we dutifully study the passages. My prayer is with the series and self-study, light will descend upon us and will shine in all our hearts. Amen

Hallelujah! The topic series we are considering this week is a very crucial one and important that we discuss it even as the world is where it is today. The topic is crucial in the sense that the knowledge is very vital and necessary for us as children of God and heirs according to the promise.

The concept of Sin and Righteousness is so clearly preached; almost everyone will already at one time in their lives have heard of how to not live a sinful life or how sin is unpleasant before God and how that the Righteous God loves us to be righteous. We must have also heard that without Holiness, we cannot please God. And a God we cannot please, we cannot expect him to be pleased with us or even bless us.

Many words like these we have heard and they are all true. Very true. Because the Word of God, the Bible which preaches against Sin is the same everywhere. And the preaching on it has never changed and will never change. It now becomes a bother when though the word is being preached, though everyone hear of this fact, yet sin doesn't decline. We can even say the number of practices are yet increasing; even the church which used to be seen as free from the sins of the world is also not left out as we see what so many great teachers of the word find themselves in today. What then can we say is the problem?

To say, one might argue that ignorance of the nature of sin is a reason for people committing sin but yet even those that have heard and seen the truth which is supposed to be the antidote for ignorance are also guilty of the truth. But both ways are possible. Ignorance is one reason many lavish in sinful practices. Whether it is ignorance of what sin entails, not knowing how it is practised or what we are doing that is sinful; ignorance of how to live a life without committing sin. Many people fall especially in the last category. They see sin as the second nature of man, something that man can never do without. But this is not true, man was created in the beginning as the Bible recorded, just in the image and likeness of God. That is to say, that man had the nature of God; we can thus infer that since God is righteous, then that same righteousness He put in man. 

For man then, it wasn't a choice of let me commit sin today or not commit sin as we see in our world today. Living a righteous life was not a choice. It was not something you can decide to turn on and off like a light switch. It was meant to be man's true nature not even second nature, because man was god. But then man lost this when the first Adam sinned, I used the word "first" here because that generation line perished for a new line to start which came to be through the Lord Jesus Christ. For as the first Adam, came also the second Adam to be the mouth piece of everyone who would descend from this line that is me and you. It was at the point of the first man falling that it became difficult for man to live as He was before hand designed to live. Sin became the order of the day... beginning from Genesis 4 when Cain killed Abel; this was when the devil began to perpetrate his works of sin. I believe by now we know the devil is the one that causeth man to sin. Genesis 3:1. He was that serpent that appeared to Eve and formed the Genesis of man's problem with sin.

But we must also understand that after the first Adam sinned and through his sin, sin became the nature of man; then the concept of Choice also came to being. It was then that man could either decide to live right or to live the other way. We see this in Genesis 6-8. In the same time when people were doing wickedly, the Bible makes us understand that there were still some people heeding to the voice of God. And from a few paragraphs above, we have seen that God cannot speak to you if He finds you unpleasant. And this is what sin does to us. But then He still spoke to the likes of Noah, Abraham, Enoch, Samuel, Moses. He walked with these people and we see the scriptures say again and again of how righteously these men walked and worked with God. Romans 4:22 "(Abraham) and therefore it was imputed unto him for righteousness". Enoch did not know death, the Bible recorded he was translated. Can a sinful man be translated? The answer is No. The New testament talks about the death of the sinner after which He enters into judgement. This part of the scripture scares me enough. The fact that there will be no redemption for man once He is beneath the earth, once He is down six feets. 

This is why I say we can still say some people are ignorant of these words. Because until you read and see for yourself these things in scriptures; the fact that you have heard doesn't take care of anything or may only take care of it a little. This brings us to the part of those who we can say have heard about these words, the so called Christians who still go about frolicking with sin.

One thing I have realized is this, it is one thing to "hear", it is another to "know" and another thing entirely to "do". We can safely assume that just hearing does not amount to having knowledge; having knowledge does not amount to having understanding. It is however much difficult to have understanding, then somehow still not do the works i.e. act it out. Having an understanding gives us the upper hand grasp of the concept and all things being equal, this is supposed to foster us acting upon those things we have understood. We must also understand that not everyone that really hears a word will the hearing translate to understanding for them. The book of Matthew makes us see this clearly in the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:3-9).

Here, we were made to understand that a certain sower went into his field to sow and while at it, we saw some seeds fall by the way side; some upon stony places where they had not much earth; some fell among thorns; while some fell upon good grounds. And from the scriptures, we saw what became of each of these seeds. Only those upon good grounds yielded good fruits. Bringing this to our topic series, it is very possible that these set of people who hear the word only hear but do not do well in having knowledge or understanding.

Matthew 13:14-15 "And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them."

And just hearing without full knowledge and understanding will not give us the results we desire. Ask the citizens of Jesus' home town; they heard the words He preached but it couldn't profit them because they were just hearing. John 8:32 says "ye shall know the truth and the truth that ye know shall set you free". Hence, it is not hearing the truth that shall set us free but the knowledge of the truth.

Pls stay tuned for the next on the series. The Holy Spirit is ready to open our eyes on so many things. The question is are you ready???

TO BE CONTINUED...

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