Problem Facing the Modern Church
by Bryan W Melvin on 11/24/11
There is a problem facing the modern Church world and that is, it is losing its way. Recently I encountered people who are mixing worldly religion into Christianity when it comes to the subject of the afterlife and eternal recompense.
I hear often this question: “I cannot conceive that finite sins warranting infinite punishment - even against an infinite God.” Such reasoning which at first sounds reasonable; instead deny reality about what sin within is to an eternal being. It is this lack of understanding in the modern church is causing a lack of conviction and life altering power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of many believers.
Add to this, a new modern mix of Hindu, Eastern, and Buddhist thought about the afterlife consisting of only eventual bliss for all with the new churchy human definition of God’s love, who’s Love Wins all. In the modern church movement, there is no need for an eternal Hell which Jesus consistently warned about, because – love conquers all. The result is that you now have a weak seeker sensitive kind of Church that plays church and is no longer church.
The Church instead becomes a building or social gathering. Pastors insolating themselves, members compartmentalized and ritualized. People remain hurting, relationships with each other and God remains broken behind a visaud of oee-gooey sounding phrases about love. Sin and its effects are swept under the rug. The sound tenant of eternal punishment is being slowly being erased away by morally reasoning creatures created with eternity in their hearts. Sin is no longer sin and no sin worthy of eternal doom.
What is Sin?
Is sin stealing a
candy bar from a grocery store?
Is sin telling a white
lie when your wife ask you if her dress makes her look fat and you say NO –
let’s go?
Does sin consist only of chewing tobacco, doing illegal drugs, drinking alcohol in excess?
If our definition of sin is limited only to simple finite expressions, then the objections to an eternal Hell have a valid point. However, those things are not sin, nor do they define what sin really is. These maybe spontaneous expressions of inward sin but such expressions are not what sin is.
In America and elsewhere, was lost the concept of what sin
is. Jesus died for our sins – so did Jesus die for our stealing a candy bar, telling a white lie so your wife doesn’t go
through the roof? Did Jesus die for alcohol and drug abuse alone? Is that the
kind of sin He died for?
If a person’s definition of sin is only on finite spontaneous outburst, then is it any wonder the gospel message has so little effect in modern evangelical circles? Think of it – Jesus died because you said the cookie monster broke the lamp, or you got drunk last night and joyfully killed a squirrel crossing the road while driving.
Did Jesus die to forgive you because you broke the traffic
law speeding down a one way street or having a head light out in your auto? Did
Jesus just die for sins because nobody is
perfect because we all just have little problems that a happy pill can’t cure?
Did Jesus died on the cross to forgive for stealing a few bucks out of the spouses’ wallet? Is this what sin is that Jesus died for to forgive?
The answer is NO. Those things do not make sin. They are expressions and manifestations of what the sin, inside, does to the heart in expressing itself but theses finite manifestations cannot alone be used to define what sin really is.
Sin in the Hebrew and Greek original languages of the bible contained the notion of missing the mark, of twisting away, or twisting in and out of something. You could simply say sin is the ability to develop a personal morality that justifies – getting away with it.
Sin twist the truth to – get away with it. Sin manipulates truth, love, goodness, in order to get away with it. Sin is the attitude of the heart defined in Jeremiah 17:9, a continual wrapping of love, truth, justice, righteousness, goodness, grace, mercy, etc – for one’s own selfish gain.
It is that kind of sin that is not finite. Even the opposing argument posed as “…can't conceive of finite sins warranting infinite punishment - even against a infinite God,” exposes the wrapping nature of sin. How? By pitting God’s sense of mercy, love, against God’s own Character of grace and love. It seeks to demand God to bow to man so man can twist his way out of a jam – avoiding eternal punishment. It is such attitude as this, is what is infinite because it is what resides in the heart of every man and woman.
Until we are again made aware of sins consequences by bold preaching empowered by the Holy Ghost (John 16:8-11), the current seeker sensitive gospel will have only lukewarm effect. We will continue to seek to circumvent the Justice of God Justice. Continue to choose sin over God’s cure and processes of eradicating it out of our eternal heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11-22 Note -Jesus is the one that cause to see what comes after)
Why God takes not actual life away
Why God designed moral reasoning beings to be eternally living is only known to him. What he does reveal in his textbook, the bible, is that he did fashion us originally to live eternally with him. We fell into twistedness of the heart. God cannot lie, God cannot sin, God cannot do wrong, God is not unrighteous but our sin seeks to cause God to act contrary to whom and what he is, to what he promised and given. God takes away not actual life after our mortal being dies…but makes a way so that a banished one can return just as revealed in 2 Sam 14:14c.
God will be who He is to a banished humanity. A God who cannot lie, God who cannot sin, God who cannot do wrong, God is not unrighteous, God who is impartially fair to all, etc & etc. He will make a way for humanities banished ones to return back to him that is righteous, impartial, and perfectly just to the person. The person must awake to their sin and simply seek and call on Him to forgive. The way such awakening occurs is by what happened on the cross.
Jesus was lied about, falsely accused, put on trial, mocked, beaten, spat upon, forced to carry a splintery burden of great weight, stripped naked, his only possession gleefully divided amongst profiteers, and forced to die, stabbed in the side. That is our sin against God and each other. That is the infinite sin of the heart that Christ’s cross erases and paves the way for the Holy Spirit to sanctify a lasting cure against sin's corrupting.
How many times have we symbolically, or allegorically, lied about someone, falsely accused, put God or another on trial, mocked, physically or mentally beaten and spat upon? How many do we force to carry a splintery burden of great weight, or stripped naked, or gleefully divide God’s or another’s possessions for our profit, and forced death and ruin upon each other? Rob their heart, stole their trust, and manipulated their goodness and love? Who have we stabbed in the back and spread this muck around to our families, neighbors, friends? Done it to the least of these…done it to me did not Jesus say in the gospel of Matthew?
That kind of sin is infinite and God made the way that is fair to the hearer providing an escape from God’s very wrath if only they but believe in Christ Jesus – his work on the cross and resurrection into new life. That is the fairness and love of God exposed. We deserve not even one chance of escape for abusing God’s goodness in any shape or form, but God does anyway – to them who believe as Jesus said in John 3:15-21, 36.
Somewhere, we lost the concept of sin and by sin, twisted its meaning so as tempt God to avoid His eternal wrath befitting eternal beings who reject his plea to return. Now read 2 Samuel 14:14 again and notice the principle being set forth from the throne of God by a wise woman:
“For we will surely die and become like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away a life; but He devises means, so that His banished ones are not expelled from Him.” 2 Samuel 14:14 NKJV
The means by which God devised for those banished to be able to return is Jesus Christ, the grace of the cross, and resurrection into new life. So reader, is that you? See the sin of your heart that tempts God and test him? Recognize how you steal, rob, bring to ruin your life in the lives of others? You need to be forgiven – How? Please read this bible verse and do likewise in your own words…
Luke 18:13-14
Last Parting Thoughts
Why God designed moral reasoning beings to be eternally living is only known to him. What he does reveal in his textbook, the bible, is that he did fashion us originally to live eternally with him.
He is called the living God – A God of the living and to be otherwise would cause him to deny himself and become less that he is. Something he will not do. So stop attempting to manipulate God and force him to deny himself by manipulated human definition of what love and mercy is. Reader, you are not God – stop trying to be.
Instead, praise the Lord for his way that he alone devised, before the foundation of the world, to restore justly, rightly, impartially those banished who come to their senses – return to Him and transformed out of darkness into newness of life. Be that one, come on his terms of grace, not your own. Amen.
'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' Luke 18:13
