Sinless! 'cause God Says So!



Sermon: "Sinless! ’Cause God Says So" D. Anderson

Gen. 2:7-9,15-17,3:1-7; Ro. 5:12-19; Mt.4:1-11

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God’s word today speaks of the foundation

doctrine concerning how we are saved--the

Doctrine of Justification. Paul proclaims

our justification when he writes by the

inspiration of the Holy Spirit:

17 For if, by the trespass of the one man,

death reigned through that one man, how much

more will those who receive God’s abundant

provision of grace and of the gift of

righteousness reign in life through the one

man, Jesus Christ. 18 Consequently, just as

the result of one trespass was condemnation

for all men, so also the result of one act of

righteousness was justification that brings

life for all men. (Romans 5 NIV)

IT WASN’T THAT LONG AGO WHEN Edward M. Davis,

then Los Angeles police chief, told a

Breakfast Club that the United States was on

the verge of--and I quote--"a crime wave like

the world had never seen before." Why? (And

I quote again) "[because of] the new morality

which condones lying, stealing and killing."

(end of quote).

Now let’s see what sense we can make of the

"new morality." If you no longer consider

lying wrong, will it hurt any less if someone

lies to you?

If you no longer call stealing a crime, will

you remain passive when someone wants to come

into your house and carry away your

furniture?

If killing is no longer murder--a legal term-

-then will bullets and knives hurt you or

your loved ones less?

Clearly, a rose, or a rotten egg, will not

change their aroma when called by another

name. Evil actions continue to hurt and

harm, even if they are no longer called

immoral.

What’s happened today? Why don’t we see

morality in the public square? Why is there

so much violence.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn came to the United

States in Exile from the former Soviet Union.

He received the 1970 Nobel Prize for

literature. Speaking at a commencement

address at Harvard University in June of

1978, he compared American morality to a

thin, surface film. Listen to his comment

about how virtuous we act when we feel we can

be criminal without getting caught:

"The center of your democracy and of your

culture is left without electric power for a

few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds of

American citizens start looting and creating

havoc. The smooth surface film must be very

thin, then, the social system quite unstable

and unhealthy." (end of quote)

So I ask the question again: Why don’t we

see morality in the public square? The

answer to this question, I say with deep

meaning and sadness, is that we have lost the

notion of sin within the clear proclamation

of Christendom.

So what does all of this have to do with the

Doctrine of Justification? Very simply said,

if there is no real, hard-core, concrete, and

unholy sin, then everything that I say now,

or the Confessions have said before about

justification, or the Apostle Paul, is

meaningless.

Do you believe that there is such a thing as

sin? I’m serious. This is not a rhetorical

question. Or if you do believe in sin, is

sin merely what other people do?

If you like to steal, is sin everything but

stealing? If you like pornography, is sin

everything but pornography? If you like

casual sex, is sin everything but casual sex?

If you like to gossip, is sin everything but

gossip. If you neglect worship, is sin

everything but neglecting worship?

I MUST TELL YOU FRANKLY, that if you have

started to believe that some of what the

Bible has called sin, is not really sin, than

it’s not a long jump to conclude that all of

what the Bible has called sin, may not be

sin.

And that’s what has happened in Christendom

today! There is very little serious

attention given to what the Bible calls sin,

or to what the Bible calls the dangers of

damnation because of sin.

Against this deceptive and demonic gospel of

Satan, God takes sin very seriously. He has

spelled out the meaning of sin very clearly.

And God will very surely sentence a person to

hell if that individual has only merely one

sin--much less than the millions of sins

which may be accumulated by a person within a

single lifetime.

That’s the true prognosis for each one of us

here today. Sin is so serious to God that He

will not take us into heaven with even one

sin. And any one--any pastor--who relaxes

the code revealing sin--the law of God!--

teaching others to neglect the law of God,

will be, and I quote the Lord Jesus, "Called

least in the kingdom of heaven."

Again the other night, I needed to visit with