Matthew 15:1-20
When many of us were in the elementary grades in school we had spelling books. We would have a list of words each week to learn to spell and know the definition of these words. As the church began to reject the scriptures as God’s word for us, we no longer seem to know the definition of the word ‘sin’. We now have people making up their own definition for sin or think that nothing is a sin. Thus, we can live life anyway we desire.
In our human family, we have always had people that are atheists. David Horowitz, in his book “Dark Agenda”, gives the new form of atheism a definition. He wrote about the definition from what Richard Dawkins had said in his book “The God Delusion” about religious people. The atheists have a faith of their own. They see themselves as liberators – pioneers of a new millennium for the human race. They envision a future in which religion has been vanquished and rationality prevails. They want a world in which humanity is finally free from myths and superstitions of religious faith. They believe in a vision of a world of new men and women liberated from the chains of the past. Science will usher in a utopian age of reason, enlightenment and social justice.
Horowitz said that this is the vision of the new atheists’ plan of an earthly redemption. This is a fantasy in which human beings aspire to act as gods and create new worlds. It is the faith of socialists and communists who have set out to transform the world from the one we know. This is what Satan did when he tempted the first man and woman. Satan said to Adam and Eve, “Then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods.” The faith of the socialists and the communists is that they are gods themselves. Look at the wreckage in the human family from this kind of faith when we think we can become our own god. Look at our world today. I don’t believe it is working too well. This kind of faith does not offer us a solution to combat sin.
In the 1980s Dr. Karl Menninger, MD wrote a book titled “Whatever Became of Sin.” In his book the distinguished psychiatrist examines human morality and the existence and consequences of sin today. He came to the conclusion that a rigorous re-examination of our values must take place. He said that the church (that is us) had stopped dealing with the issue of sin in our human family.
It was true then and it is very true today that we need a re-examination of our values because the god of humanism offers no solution for our broken human family.
Jesus defines sin for us in the scriptures and in the scriptures we find the only solution for our sin. Peter says to Jesus, “Explain to us the parable that says people aren’t defiled by what they eat.” “Don’t you understand yet?”, Jesus asked. “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. But the words you speak come from the heart. That’s what defiles you. For from the heart comes evil thoughts: murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying and slander. These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you.” Jesus was dealing with the spirit of life within us, in other words, ‘the human soul’.
In this list of evil and sin Jesus did not exclude any form of human sexual immorality. Adultery and homosexuality are not excluded from the list of our sins. Today churches have been, and are being, destroyed by the people that bow at the altar of evil and sin and, yes this includes homosexuality. Through repentance of all our sins God offers us grace, love, mercy and forgiveness. This is the only solution to our sin problem. Jesus tells us the things that defile: murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying and slander. Yes, we have freedom to bow at the altars of our human gods. But we will suffer the consequences of our sin. In our free will we can choose to serve any human god and that includes the god of homosexuality. But don’t call yourself Christians because these gods are not the God we meet in Jesus Christ that died on the cross to save us from the sin of worshiping phony gods. The life of Jesus makes it clear for anyone that to worship him is his plan to defeat evil and sin. His life given for us does not include room for our human gods. In almost every generation we see human gods arise and die. Faith in Christ is faith in the only true and living God.
The ten commandments were for His covenant community. The life of Jesus defines the commandments for us. The first commandment is that we must not have any other god but the creator God and his earthly name is Jesus. The second commandment is that we must not make for ourselves an idol of any kind, an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth, or in the sea. We must not bow down to them or worship them for our Lord God is a jealous God and will not tolerate our affection for any other gods. That, my friends, is God’s message for us. We can serve our human gods, but God will not accept us serving other gods. We are the saved people of God by His grace.
The other eight commandments define the way to have a right relationship with God and each other. It is the scriptures that gives us the definition for sin. It is the scriptures that give us God’s plan that defeats sin. You can choose a human plan and die, or you can choose God’s plan and know the joy of life forever.
