I thought that the way to get power over sin would be to study the origin of sin. In other words, where did sin come from and how did I get infected with it? But what a long, involved study that is. It's a rather complicated story of a star war that took place before I was born, when the chief angel, Lucifer, led an army of one-third of God's angels in an insurrection.
The origin of sin also has to do with man's being born with a free will, including an alternative to commit evil. It has to do with Satan bringing that alternative to the attention of Eve, the first lady of creation. It has to do with both Adam and Eve having their eyes opened to the inner struggle they had introduced into their bodies and minds. How sin was communicated from Adam to the rest of the human race is another one of those theological problems still being argued.
I decided against trying to locate the origin of Adam's sin. I am more concerned about my own struggle. A person afflicted with cancer isn't concerned about entering into a study on how cancer originated. He simply wants a cure for his own disease. It's true the physician should understand the cause of disease in order to find a cure. But the afflicted body is more concerned about immediate help.
I simply asked the Holy Spirit to show me how to honestly deal with the evil that is right now present in me. To me it doesn't matter where it came from, how it originated, or how it got into my mind—all I know is that it I there, that I don't want it to dominate me, and that I need help to overcome it. I asked God to show me the answer in simple terms I could understand. With childlike faith, I have stumbled upon three absolutes that have opened my mind to a new life of freedom from sin's dominion. They are the keys to my victory over the deception of sin. If you, too, are seeking true freedom, study these absolutes carefully.
Absolute 1:
We Are All Sinners
The Bible says, "All men alike are sinners, whether Jew or Gentile" (Romans 3:9).
Are some people better than others? Are straights better than homosexuals? Are teetotalers better than drinkers? Are faithful husbands and wives better than their adulterous neighbors?
The Bible sets the record straight, once and for all. NO ONE IS INNOCENT. We have all sinned.
No one is good—no one in all the world is innocent. No one has ever really followed God's paths, or even truly wanted to. Everyone has turned away; all have gone wrong. No one anywhere has kept on doing what is right, not one (Romans 3:10-12 Living Bible)
The Bible doesn't waste words in describing what is in the heart of sinful man. It's an ugly picture we are all too familiar with. What is in man's heart comes out his mouth.
Their talk is foul and filthy like the stench from an open grave. Their tongues are loaded with lies. Everything they say has in it the sting and poison of deadly snakes. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. They are quick to shed blood, hating anyone who disagrees with them. Wherever they go they leave misery and trouble behind them, and THEY HAVE NEVER KNOWN WHAT IT IS TO FEEL SECURE OR ENJOY GOD'S BLESSING. THEY CARE NOTHING ABOUT GOD OR WHAT HE THINKS OF THEM (Romans 3:13-18 Living Bible).
It is very important how I view my sin. The Bible says I am a liar if I boast there is no sin in me. The only way I can reach God is to first reach deep into my own heart and drag out all the filthy, evil things hidden there, and let His light expose it all.
The Bible says, "From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness [about us]" (Isaiah 1:6). Sin is a disease that pollutes every part of our bodies and minds.
The Bible says my heart is "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9). Why is it, then, that we don't regard our sin as evil and dangerous, and why do we make excuses for it?
We go about cheating ourselves into the belief that sin is not quite as sinful as God says it is and that we are not as bad as we really are. We invent a long stream of smooth words and fuzzy phrases, coined to explain away the corruption of sin.
Sin rarely presents itself to us in its true colors; it doesn't come right out and say, "I'm your deadly enemy; I'm about to deceive you, destroy you, and send you to Hell." Instead, sin comes to us as an angelic apparition, with a kiss, an outstretched arm, and flattering words. Sin rarely seems sin in its beginnings. But even if you cloak sin with smooth names, you can't change it's character.
The broad and liberal theology being pushed today is a modern plague that can't even comfort those who preach it. We have too many false prophets in the pulpit who are clever deceivers. They try to absolve sin by painting it all over with a gray brush. To them, nobody is right and nobody is wrong. Everybody is going to be saved; God loves everybody; sin is just inhospitality or hatred toward your fellow man.
But these same "sin silencers" share with all sinners the same inner gnawing, the same sense of guilt and corruption. They leave the loneliness, emptiness, and despair out of their calculations. They can try to make a sinner comfortable with his sin, but they can't provide him with lasting rest and peace. They can't quiet the deep inner voice that cries, "In spite of it all, you are still guilty."
Sin manifests itself in two ways: first, by appearing insignificant and harmless; and second, by seeming intoxicating, pleasurable, and cozy.
Sin almost always creates a false sense of peace and "righteousness." Two lovers, caught up in an illegitimate secret affair, say to themselves, "This can't be sin; it has given me such peace and joy. I feel so complete, beyond anything I've known."
This counterfeit peace causes the sinner to imagine he is not sinning. They presume that what they are doing is all right because they feel so satisfied, and they assume they are not hurting anymore. But the satisfaction that sin creates is based on an illusion. It is a false freedom founded on error. And when the illusion fades, there is nothing left but sorrow and despair. That is why sin always leads to depression.
Sin causes pride. And pride aborts all desire for truth and righteousness. The end result is an arrogance that puffs at God and all enemies. The Bible clearly depicts the lifestyle of a proud sinner.
The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in any of his thoughts...as for his enemies, he puffeth at them... his mouth is full of cursing and deceit: under his tongue is mischief and vanity....He sitteth in lurking places in town....He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it...(Psalm 10:4-11).
Sinners often think themselves freest from those sins that they are most enslaved to. They can't reform or convert because they can't be convinced of any wrongdoing or guilt.
Some would rather die than give up their sensuality. As one gay put it to me, "I'd rather die and go to Hell than give up my gayness. There could be no Heaven for me without gays. I'd sell my soul rather than change."
Sin reigns so completely, it causes total self-delusion. It causes victims to become unacquainted with themselves so they don't know what they really think, or what they love or hate, or that they are habituated and hooked. Sinners eventually become slighters of Christ who hardly ever again think of salvation or righteousness. They hear so much about Christ and know so little about Him, because sin destroys the understanding of spiritual things. It narrows their freedom of choice down to objects of self-gratification and robs them of their power to serve God.
The mind becomes so distorted by sin, it causes men to fear cancer, yet laugh at Hell. They will seek help for a toothache—yet allow their souls to decay and be lost through neglect. What a pity! What folly!
Only as time goes by does sin reveal its true cancerous nature. A man sins and, because he doesn't drop dead, thinks it is not dangerous. His seared conscience gives him no burn pains, and the burden of sin grows so slowly, the suspect has no idea how high it is heaped.
Sin keeps its control over the sinner by promising more and better freedom down the road.
Sin has its own law of hidden gravitation that causes an automatic downward pull. As it gets lower, it widens in scope. It is always contagious and drags down everyone connected with it.
Sin is most desperate in a sinner when he is hearing the call of God. Sin will resort to any kind of deception to keep from losing control of its victim. Sin becomes subtle when the Gospel is near. It doesn't suggest: Run or Mock; it rather chooses to suggest: Wait! Don't get in a hurry! SOME OTHER TIME. If that doesn't work, sin will pretend the VOICE OF THE SPIRIT, telling the inner man to "Yield to God; be changed—in a little while."
Sin can lock its victim in a prison of unbelief and turn him into a violent hater of God. People who are totally possessed by their sins become bitter and hostile enemies to Jesus Christ because He threatens their lifestyle.
Sin offers service to mankind as a substitute for service to God. The path to dignity and satisfaction is then through helping others in need—fund raising, social involvement in many and various causes. It becomes a substitute religion of good works and charitable deeds. The Bible exposes this religion of good works.
Salvation is not reward for the good we have done, so none of us can take credit for it....We are saved only by Christ's kindness and by trusting Him... (Ephesians 2:8,9 Living Bible)
Whether open or secret, all sins must be renounced and confessed—or God cannot help you part with them. THE CAUSE OF MOST DISTRESS IS THE MAINTAINING OF SOME SECRET SIN. It blinds the eye of the soul and deadens it so that it can't see its sad condition.
No person can be a true believer, until sin becomes his greatest sorrow and burden. Every soul that comes to God must admit to "the exceeding sinfulness" of his evil doings.
Absolute 2:
Our Sins Make Us Slaves
Jesus made it very plain that any man who commits sin becomes its slave. He said, "Believe me when I tell you that every man who commits sin is a slave" (John 8:34 Living Bible).
We have the dread power to choose our own master. Paul said, "Don't you realize that you choose your own master? You can choose sin [with death] or else obedience [with acquittal]. The one to whom you offer yourself—he will take you and be your master and you will be his slave" (Romans 6:16 Living Bible).
Degree by degree, secret sin brings its victim to a state of hopeless bondage. Every yielding is the taking on of a new chain. It causes a "fixation" on corruptness. When the mind discovers the body is hooked by a cruel habit, it pretends helplessness. "I was destined to this slavery," the mind argues. "God made me this way. How can He judge me when I am not responsible for this evil magnetic pull in me? I've been this way since childhood."
Not so, according to the truth of God. We enslave ourselves by following our lusts to the point of no return. We are drawn away and enticed by the lusts that are at war in our bodies.
It does not come naturally, because we are all born with a free will to choose either right or wrong.
Paul said, "In the past you voluntarily gave your bodies to the service of vice and wickedness—for the purpose of evil" (Romans 6:19 Living Bible).
You may reject this concept of slavery being a learned process of behavior. You may blame your problem on some kind of personality defect, neurosis, or some other stress factor. You can keep telling yourself you are not responsible for your actions—BUT YOU CAN NEVER FIND DELIVERANCE FROM YOUR SIN UNTIL YOU ACCEPT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO DEAL WITH IT. YOU MUST WANTFREEDOM.
If you keep on believing your sin is inherited and you are like a tiny cork carried away by a mighty torrent, you will finally give yourself over to your slavery. Why fight it if you can't beat it? Why seek a cure if there is none? Why talk about a cure when you don't admit you are sick?
This fatalistic approach is a clever lie of Satan to keep slaves in line. There is not one iota of truth to it. There is no sin too difficult for Christ to cure, no bondage too powerful for him to break. You may believe you are hopelessly chained to a habit or to the physical charm of some man or woman, but Christ can melt those chains away like wax.
Twenty-two years ago I went to the slums of New York City to work with drug addicts. The greatest scientific and religious minds of that time were saying that drug addicts could not be cured. The then governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, had just completed a two-year, multi-million dollar research program with not a single positive result. In one medical gathering after another, I heard "experts" say, "There is no known cure for a drug addict. He is psychologically and physiologically hooked. The best we can do is offer methadone as a substitute drug."
I set up business for God in an old, run-down mansion in Brooklyn. Yet, I had that nagging thought deep in me, "Maybe they can't be cured. Maybe there are drug-prone personalities destined to live as slaves to drugs."
Every drug addict who walked through our doors parroted the line of the experts. Over and again they argued, "I'm hopeless. I can't help myself. Once a junkie, always a junkie. I was born to end up with this monkey on my back."
What a lie of the devil that was. God helped us to expose it with a documented 85 percent cure rate, and today thousands of drug addicts and alcoholics have been completely delivered from their slavery. Most do not even have the faintest desire for the very thing that once enslaved them.
I believe the same is true of homosexuality. I hear experts, even in religion, tell me this problem is different. I am told homosexuals are born that way. That it is such a deep psychological behavior pattern, nothing can change its course. Churches and ministers are capitulating, and some now reject the possibility or need of a cure. Yet, hundreds of homosexuals and lesbians are right now finding life-changing power through Jesus Christ. A spiritual hunger is being aroused in the hearts of homosexuals all over the world. I believe it is a result of a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit to once again prove Christ demands cure, not capitulation. As sure as the Holy Spirit has broken the back of drug and alcohol addiction, He will break the myth that homosexuality is incurable.
You can justify any kind of slavery if you buy the deception that God played a trick on you and singled you out as a victim for harassment. How relieving it is to lay the blame on parents, on God, on destiny. And how devastatingly final that deception can become!
Converts are constantly being tempted to fall back into that deception. The battle is lost once the mind is convinced that nothing can be done about the sin problem. When old desires return, the evil presence suggests, "Your deliverance will never be final. Give in to the inevitable. You cannot change. Like a leopard, your spots cannot be removed. Go back; you are wasting time; destiny is against you. It was born in you; it's your nature; quit fighting it. Get out of your closet and live with it."
Victory is possible only when the truth dawns, clear and final: I WAS NOT BORN TO BE A SLAVE. I CAN UNLEARN ANYTHING I LEARNED! SLAVES CAN BE EMANCIPATED! SATAN CANNOT MAKE ME BLAME GOD FOR FREAKING ME OUT! I AM NOT A DEFECTIVE CREATURE! I AM NOT HOPELESSLY HOOKED. I WILL LEARN TO BE FREE!
There is no such thing with God as "too far down" or "too deeply involved" or "too late" or "too hard."
Humanly speaking it is impossible, but not with God. Everything is possible with God (Mark 10:27 Phillips).
Absolute 3:
A Plan Was Devised for Our Freedom
The law of the Old Testament brought mankind under guilt and condemnation, because even though it clearly exposed sin, it lacked the power to produce obedience. It was impossible for any human being to fully obey all the laws and commandments of God.
Paul said, "Now do you see it? No one can ever be made right in God's sight by doing what the law commands. For the more we know of God's laws, the clearer it becomes that we aren't obeying them; His laws serve only to make us see that we are sinners [or doing things all wrong] (Romans 3:20 Living Bible).
Suppose you stumble upon a man deep in some isolated jungle, far from all sources of knowledge. He is sitting on the ground, surrounded by a variety of things which he has no idea how to use. He has a piece of raw meat, a container of water, a small crock of dust, some iron chains, clothes made of skin, and a roaring fire.
He gets thirsty, so he picks up the crock of dust and throws it into his face, making his eyes smart. He gets hungry, so he chews on his clothes. He gets cold, so he sits in the container of water. He feels pain in his chest, so he beats it with the iron chains. When he is tired, he lies down in the fire. He tries forcing the meat into his ears to stop an earache.
What torment that poor man would go through because he had no idea how to use the things at his disposal. He doesn't understand the law of fire, of pain, of hunger, or of thirst. Suppose you approach that man and show him how to cook and eat the meat, how to use the iron chains to pull the logs for his fire, how to put the clothes on his back when he is cold, how to drink the water to quench his thirst. From then on, he will know it is wrong to do it the old way.
Did you show him how wrong it is to lie in the fire just so you could bring him under bondage? Did you do it to rob him of his freedom of choice? No! You did it to save him from destroying himself.
In that way, God's laws and His commandments are meant for our own good. They are not meant to cramp our free style or hinder our freedom. They are meant to teach us the proper way to use the things created for us by God. The laws of God are designed to show us that if we misuse the world and the things in it, it can never bring happiness or satisfaction—that we will only add to our pain and continue mishandling those things meant to help us.
Let me show you the weakness of this whole thing and why a new plan had to be devised. You can show that misled man how harmful his way of doing things may be. You can show him how to do it the right way. But you can't force him to do it the right way. He may go right back to chain-whipping his chest, throwing dust into his eyes, and sitting in cold water in an effort to get warm, simply because he is used to doing it that way.
God had to send Christ to die on a Cross. Stubborn creatures as we are, we keep on doing things our own way and destroying ourselves. God gave us the Law to show us how stupidly we were conducting our lives and to warn us of the consequences, but we preferred to go on doing things the way we were accustomed to. So the Law failed to make us do what is right. The Law was an illustrated lecture that nobody paid much attention to.
That is why a new plan to save mankind from sin was devised. A new way so simple that even a child could understand it. The new plan consisted of believing, rather than doing.
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