homeier@aero.ARPA (Peter Homeier) (09/10/85)
r Adam abused his
freedom, and chose to violate the Law that God had made, sundering his intimate
relationship with God and causing an inevitable result of death which has
continued through all the ages since, rumbling and increasing in intensity and
sorrow.
For Adam and Eve were innocent, without guile or deception, without any cruelty
or darkness in their souls at all. But the devil came hidden in the disguise
of a snake, and questioned what God had said to them. He works the same way
today, with the subtle, sneaky, slippery thought nudged into our minds,
"Did God really say that?" (Gen 3:1) It is the same spirit which today says
"How do you know that Jesus is the Christ? Prove it to me!". The woman
responded to the question, stating the commandment as God had taught her, and
that to violate it meant death. Then the serpent lied to the woman, saying
"You will not surely die. But God is just trying to suppress you, to keep you
from being as great as He is, to know both good and evil." (my paraphrase)
Thus the devil tempted Eve with the same pride that caused his own downfall,
to be as high as God. And the woman yielded to the serpent's persuasive,
seductive words, and ate of the fruit, and gave it to Adam, and he ate also.
The effects of that choice, freely made, have resounded to this day. The man
and his woman were cast out of the Garden, and ever since man has been separate
from God. No one but Jesus has ever known such closeness with the Father as
Adam enjoyed. That intimacy was now shattered. Yet even at the moment when
the Father, his heart broken for His children, was pronouncing the inevitable
curse, He also gave the first promise of the escape from that curse.
"So the Lord God said to the serpent:
... 'And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.'"
This is the first promise of the Messiah; Jesus was bruised by Satan on the
Cross; but at that moment of death Jesus bruised Satan by completely defeating
him and all his works.
How might the story of our race be if Eve had refused the serpent? What would
our life be like? Can we imagine a world at peace, with people sharing love
with each other, supporting one another, and not hating, destroying, polluting,
maiming and killing one another? Yet that innocence is gone, lost by our
surrender to sin, but there is a greater glory coming than that which would
have been ours. For the Bible says, "When sin abounds, grace does much more
abound." and we shall finally see a kingdom of God on earth that will be richer
and deeper and more fulfilling because we went through this darkness to get
there.
Today, the entire world is held in the grip of sin. All grief, suffering,
sorrow, fear, torture, and death that we see today are here as a result of sin.
This physical and emotional suffering is compounded by our separation from the
beauty and love of God, leaving in us a hole, a need, an emptiness, that we do
not know how to fill. People try all kinds of things to fill that emptiness;
common attempts are to seek money, power, sex, and various kinds of material
success. Even drug and alchohol addicts are really people trying to find
something that will ease the pain and loneliness of daily life. But what we
really need is not found in any of these substitutes. We need to know God and
His deep, fulfilling love for us, unconditionally given to us. We were made
to have fellowship with God- without Him, life has no purpose or value.
The Bible says that all have sinned, that all men have come short of the glory
of God. We know this to be true for ourselves, for each of us is painfully
aware of his misdeeds. In the first letter of John, the apostle writes,
"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:8-9.) I do not write this to
lay any condemnation on anyone reading this. But just as a doctor would
gently but seriously tell his patient that he was terminally ill, I must say
to each of you that you also have an illness in you, which if left untreated,
will bring you to a depth of death which is beyond comprehension, beyond all
pain and anguish felt here on earth. Sin kills, utterly and completely,
without any mercy, ruthlessly, inevitably. "The wages of sin is death."
(Romans 6:23.) We can see these wages being paid out today, in physical
illnesses, mental and emotional cripplings, breakups of marriages, hatred
between parents and children, and worse. The thing about sin is that it
inevitably brings death as it's nature. It is not just something naughty that
if we could just get away with it, we'd be O.K. When a person sins, he sets
in motion irresistable forces that may not strike him that day, that week, or
that year, or perhaps in some cases not even in his life here on earth, but
will without any possibility of escape seek him out in the end and fall on him.
For even if a person should manage to live pleasantly all his life while
committing great evils, there has been ordained a Day when all shall stand
before Him who created them. And on that Day, all that men have done will be
remembered, and they shall be judged, unless they have come under the grace
of Christ.
But there is an escape from this law of sin and death. The good news of the
Gospel is that Jesus Christ came to fulfil this law by taking the death that we
had earned onto himself, and dying in our place on the Cross. The law still
operates, that sin brings death; but now we can live because Jesus, who lived a
sinless life, took our sin on Himself and suffered the penalty that should have
been ours. In Christ we have redeption for our sins. Praise God for this
freedom in which we stand! Praise Jesus for willingly giving His life for
ours! Was there ever such love as this? Here is the Power of the cross. For
it is the power to catch up people out of the mire of their lives into the
light and glory that we were intended to live in from the beginning. No one
can lay an accusation against God's beloved children, who have accepted Jesus
in their hearts, for "There is therefore now NO condemnation for those who are
in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1, emphasis mine). Anything that might have been
just grounds for condemnation and punishment before has now been completely
dealt with on the Cross, and we are free! It is a complete, unconditional
pardon given freely to all who will accept it, just by accepting Christ.
It is not necessary to try to clean up your life before you come to Jesus. In
fact, you never could clean it up enough anyhow, and if you could, then what
need would you have of Him? Let Him clean up your life, wash your heart with
the blood He shed on the Cross, and remove the stain and corruption of sin in
your soul. Come to Jesus just as you are, and He will love you and accept you
just as you are. And all of your sins He will wash away.
Jesus said, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." He
commonly ate and talked with prostitutes, opressive tax collectors, and all
kinds of people who had lived lives full of obvious sin. But these people
did not hide from Him, but came to Him, and followed Him, and He loved them.
But look at those that were considered righteous in those days, the Pharisees,
who thought that they were doing everything that God required and did not need
forgiveness. They did not practice the obvious sins that the others did, but
their hearts were hard and cold and cruel, and they hated the Lord of Life
because He exposed their shallow, meaningless self-righteousness and hypocrisy,
hating Him to the point of hanging Him on a cross. I ask you, which people
were the greater sinners? God has sacrificed His own Son to pay for your sin;
will you scorn that gift and thrust it away? Choose today what you will say.
Lord, may the grace of Calvary and your ultimate sacrifice there enter with
power into the lives of those reading this now. May the words here written be
testified to by your Holy Spirit. Move in the hearts of them now, Lord, that
they may feel both their conviction of sin, and of your readiness to accept and
cleanse them. I pray that if they have never before accepted You as their
Lord, that they would now humbly and meekly yield to your Spirit and let Jesus
into their hearts, taking Him to be their Lord and their Savior. May they be
born again at this moment of committment, entering into Your family and into
eternal life. May all this be to Your magnificent glory, that Your name may
be wonderfully praised. In Jesus's name, amen.
--
Peter Homeier ______
Arpanet: homeier@aerospace / o \_/
UUCP: ..!ihnp4!trwrb!trwrba!aero!homeier \___)__/ \
The Aerospace Corporation, M1-080
El Segundo, CA 90245