Hamartiology - What is Sin?

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Well, we are back in our study, and this is our overview of Systematic Theology.
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Overview of Christian Theology and Doctrine is what we have entitled it.
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So far we have gone through several different courses as part of this larger study.
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We have covered Theology Proper, which is the study, if you'll remember, of God and His nature and the various aspects of the qualities and characteristics of that nature.
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We have looked at Christology, which is looking directly at the person and work of Jesus Christ.
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We have looked at Pneumatology, which was the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
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We have looked at Angelology, which was an interesting sidebar because not many Systematic Theologies will study Angelology, but we looked at Angelology and Demonology.
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And we looked at Anthropology right before we took our break back during the time of our Reformation celebration.
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Well, tonight we are moving on to Section 7, Hamartiology.
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Of all the names, maybe Pneumatology wins, but I was going to say Hamartiology is probably the most difficult to say and it is the oddest of the ologies that we have looked at so far.
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Most of us are familiar with Anthropology because it is a science that possibly many of us took or at least heard about when we were in school, the study of man.
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Angelology, Christology, those were built into the name.
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We know what those are.
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But when we come to a word like Hamartiology, it can be a little overwhelming, maybe a little intimidating because we don't know where the word comes from or what it means.
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Well, I want to begin tonight by giving you the meaning of the word.
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If you are going to be, and I know most of you aren't, but if you are going to be joining us for our Greek class tomorrow, this will be one of the words that we learn in our Introduction to Greek Vocabulary and that is the word Hamartia.
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Hamartia is the Greek word which means sin.
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So, our study of Hamartiology is the study of sin.
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I want to read a quote from Dr.
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Millard Erickson's Systematic Theology in regard to the subject of sin.
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As important as the doctrine of sin is, it is not an easy topic to discuss in our day.
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There are several reasons for this.
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One is that sin, like death, is not a very pleasant or enjoyable subject.
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It depresses us.
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We do not like to think of ourselves as bad or evil persons.
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Yet the doctrine of sin teaches us that this is what we are by nature.
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Another reason it is difficult to discuss is that to many people it is a foreign concept.
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Not only are the problems of society blamed on an unwholesome environment rather than on sinful humans, but there has been a corresponding loss of a sense of guilt.
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In part to the influence of Freudianism, guilt is understood as an irrational feeling that one ought not to have.
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Furthermore, many people are unable to grasp the concept of sin.
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The idea of sin as an inner force, an inherent condition, a controlling power, is largely unknown.
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People today think more in terms of sins, that is, individually wrong acts.
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Sins are something external and concrete.
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They are logically separable from the person.
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On this basis, people who have done nothing wrong, generally conceived of as an external act, would consider themselves to be good people.
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And there is no thought of sin.
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That is the end of the quote, rather extensive quote, or extended quote from Dr.
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Erickson, but his point is well taken.
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We don't like to talk about sin because sin, like death, is an uncomfortable subject.
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And when you talk to the world about sin, oftentimes there is great confusion because they confuse sin with sins.
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You say, well, why are you making a distinction between sin and sins? Well, you're going to see in tonight's lesson that when we talk about sin, we are talking about actions that are concrete, but we're also talking about something deeper.
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We're talking about an innate nature that is a part of every man, the sin nature.
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Jesus very clearly teaches us that what we do on the outside comes from the inside.
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What we say, what a man speaks, is coming from his heart.
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And so the sin doesn't begin in the external, it begins in the internal.
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And therefore, when we discuss sins, well, we can talk about adultery, but it begins with lust.
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We can talk about murder, but it begins with hatred.
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And therefore, sin is more principial, and it's more of a nature before it's an action.
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And so tonight we're going to talk about the nature of sin.
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That's our first, but I want to give you the, this is a six-part study on sin.
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I've outlined six parts, and these are the six parts.
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You don't have to outline them, they're in your notes.
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The nature of sin is tonight.
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Lord willing, we'll get through it.
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Next week we're going to look at the origin of sin and the problem of sin.
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If you don't know what I mean by that, you'll learn next week what I mean by the problem of sin.
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Not that sin is a problem, certainly it is, but there's a question that people have about, well, why does sin exist? Why would God allow it to exist? And so that's the problem of sin.
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It's a theological question.
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Part three will be the consequences of sin.
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What does sin bring? Part four will be the extent and imputation of sin.
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I'm really looking forward to that one because that one is very much a part of how we understand the constitutional makeup of man, that we actually have inherited a sin nature, and that's going to be part four, and we're going to address that.
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Part five, we're going to look at the bondage of the will.
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What has sin done to our ability to make choices? And finally, part six is going to be the Christian in sin.
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As a believer, do you sin? Well, you don't have to answer.
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I know the answer.
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But the question a lot of people have is, why? And to what extent are believers expected or allowed? You know, that's a question that's very important.
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And so that's going to be the Christian in sin, I think, is probably the most practical of these six for us.
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How do we see our lives, and how do we see the sin in our lives if we claim to be followers of Jesus Christ? So those are the six parts.
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So tonight we're going to look at the nature of sin.
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So let's look at part one.
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Part one, nature of sin.
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What is sin? Well, turn in your Bibles to 1 John 3, verse 4.
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This will be our primary text for the evening.
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There are other texts we could have looked at, but I try to at least look at one primary text when we're doing a study, if I can.
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And in 1 John 3, verse 4, John clears up any confusion or consternation we have about the definition of sin by simply defining sin for us.
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He says in verse 4, Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.
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Sin is lawlessness.
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So again, everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness.
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Why? Because sin is lawlessness.
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That is the focus verse that we're going to use tonight for our study.
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And you'll see that we have three points we're going to look at.
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Number one, sin is defined in relation to God's holy nature.
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Number two, sin is a privation of Godliness.
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And number three, sin is a principle or nature that is within man.
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So let's look first at number one.
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Sin is defined in relation to God's holy nature.
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How many of you are familiar with the Westminster Catechism? Okay, probably most of you have at least heard me mention it, if you've not studied it for yourself.
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The Westminster Confession was written in 1644, and along with the Confession was a catechism written.
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There is a longer catechism, which is designed, obviously, to be read and memorized, but it's a lot more intensive.
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The Shorter Catechism is the one that most people are familiar with, usually taught to children, and it is much easier to memorize because the answers and questions are shorter by its very design.
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Westminster Shorter Catechism asked this question, What is sin? Answer.
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Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.
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Now, that's kind of a very powerfully worded sentence.
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I want to break it into its parts, and I want to just read it again.
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Sin is any want of conformity.
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What does it mean to want something? It means to lack it, right? To want means to be without, to lack something.
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So you could change the word want into a more modern vernacular and say lack.
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Sin is any lack of conformity unto the law of God.
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Now, I'm jumping past the portion because I'm just helping us understand.
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We lack conformity to the law of God.
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Amen? That's sin.
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But it also says it's any transgression of the law of God.
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So it's any lack of conformity to or transgression of.
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So it's not meeting the requirements, but it's also violating the requirements.
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It's sort of like the way that I've tried to explain it in the past.
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There's sin, which is falling short of something, and then there's trespass, which is going past something.
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The word trespass means to go past a border.
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So like if a law says you can't do more than 55 miles an hour, and you go 70, you are trespassing.
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You're going beyond the law.
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Right? But when it comes to sin, sin is falling short.
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If the law says you must do at least 40, because that's the highway law.
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You have to do at least 40.
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If you're trucking along at 30, you're also breaking the law because you're not meeting the requirement of the law.
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So it's want of conformity to or lack of conformity.
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You've got lack, and you've got that which goes beyond.
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And sin sort of addresses both.
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Sin is encompassing both.
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And this is why when we pray the Lord's Prayer, we have in one part, Jesus is quoted as praying it like this.
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Forgive us our debts.
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But in another part, we see him say forgive us our sins.
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Now debts also can be translated as trespass.
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That's how we normally, if we're quoting it in our church, we say trespass.
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We think of trespass, again, going beyond.
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And sin is not meeting the demand.
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So we have that which is not meeting the demand and that which is going past or beyond the boundary or the border.
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Millard Erickson, again, I quoted him earlier.
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He says this.
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He says, Sin is any lack of conformity, active or passive, to the moral law of God.
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This may be a matter of act, a matter of thought, or a matter of inner disposition.
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And this takes us back to 1 John 3 because that's what it says.
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Sin is lawlessness.
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And lawlessness is not just what we do, but lawlessness is also what we think.
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And lawlessness is also found in our inner motivations.
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The biblical text, along with these added definitions, all refer in some way to one driving force to help us understand sin.
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And if you haven't noticed it yet, I want to write it on the board because this is the heart of it all.
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If you want to know what sin is, you've got to know this.
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The law.
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The law defines sin.
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Law defines sin.
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You have to understand the law if you understand sin.
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But here's something you also need to understand.
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Law is dependent on God's holy character.
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The law of God is not something that He simply came up with out of thin air, but the law of God is based on who He is as a being.
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The law of God is holy because God is holy.
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And therefore His commands are holy.
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The very reason there's a law in the first place is because God Himself is by nature good.
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Anything that fails to conform to Him or violates Him is bad.
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And if you think of sin as bad and you think of God as good, then you're starting to get an idea of what sin is.
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Sin is bad! I remember R.C.
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Sproul, and I hope I tell this story correctly because I'm telling it from memory, but I remember him talking about his daughter when she came to faith in Christ.
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She was young and she could not really define very well in theological terms what had happened in her coming to faith, but she said, I know I've been bad and I know God is good.
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If I remember correctly, that's basically the affirmation.
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She knew that sin is bad and God is going to punish that which is bad unless we are saved through the work of Christ.
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Christ was good.
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Christ is the only one who was good.
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Remember the man who came to Jesus and said, good teacher? Jesus said, why do you call me good? Why would you call anyone good? And even though Jesus was good, He was challenging the man's understanding of what it means to be good.
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How can you look at another man and say that man is good? There's only one who is good.
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That's God who is good.
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One of the scholars that I read in preparation for this, Buswell said this, he said, anything in the creature which does not express or which is contrary to the holy character of the Creator is sin.
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Anything in the creature which does not express or which is contrary to the holy character of the Creator is sin.
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We know about God's holy character because He gave us His law.
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And you say, well, wait a minute.
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There are people who don't have the law of God.
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Not so.
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There are people who do not have the Levitical laws.
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There are people who do not have the written law of God.
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But the Bible clearly says that every man has the law of God in his heart.
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We call that the natural law.
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I don't know if you remember this, but several weeks ago, Brother Mike, in preparation for our evangelism, he taught about the three different types of law.
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He talked about natural law.
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We talked about the Levitical and Mosaic law.
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And then we talked about the law of Christ, which is the law of liberty or the law of the New Covenant, which James and other writers talk about in the New Covenant, James and Paul and others.
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So, what is it that every man has? Every man has an internal sense of, this is an important word, an internal sense of ought.
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I like an N, so I was fixing it.
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The internal sense of ought and the internal sense of ought not.
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You ought to, and you better not to.
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Right? We all have that.
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And if you want to write down a scripture, Romans chapter 2, verse 14 to 16, says this, When the Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.
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They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
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He's saying this.
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He's saying they don't have the written law, but they have the work of the law in their hearts because they know, by nature of the conscience, that there are things they ought and there are things they ought not do.
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Yes, sir.
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That's right.
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It was an immediate sense of this is wrong.
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That's right.
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I now have a new sense of ought and I ought be covered.
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What about people eating human flesh? Are you asking like a cultural anomaly? I'm asking where is there ought not? But are we talking about a tribal thing or individuals? I guess tribal.
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Okay.
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The reason I'm asking is because I do think that there are cultural sins that are passed down and that people inherit entire cultures of sin.
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And that sense of ought, you know the Bible says we suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
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And what do we do when we suppress the truth and unrighteousness? We worship the created thing rather than the creator.
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That's Romans 1.
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And we worship birds and animals and creeping things.
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This is why we see the Native Americans who worship the animals and the totem poles.
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And we see in tribes where they're worshipping creatures and they're worshipping all these things.
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I think those are cultural sins which are passed down.
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And even though internally they may know they're wrong, socially they're being encouraged that these things are right and appropriate.
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So I do think that there is a danger in passing down wrong teaching which obviously suppresses what the scripture teaches.
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And I want to tell you, it kind of takes us off a right turn.
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But I think this is why we do see, and this might get me, somebody might want to write me an email about this, but you can email me if you want to.
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I don't care.
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I think that there's a reality as to why certain cultures were obliterated in scripture.
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Remember, don't leave anybody alive because this culture is a godless, dangerous people.
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Eliminate them from the top to the bottom all the way down.
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And people say, oh, why would God do that? Because the culture itself had been infested with such vile and degraded sin.
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So I think absolutely.
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But on an individual level, there is something, there is psychosis.
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Like somebody like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahlmer, you know, who are psychotic.
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What is psychosis? How do we define psychosis? Someone who doesn't have a regular understanding of ought and ought not.
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Because we say, what about that person? They're anomalies.
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They're not normal.
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Yes.
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Yeah, for whatever and however it happened, certainly.
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But we would say the natural, normal person who does not deal with whatever the psychosis is would have an understanding of natural law.
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Things like theft is universally repugnant.
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Murder is universally repugnant among cultures.
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So we see those things as part of natural law.
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And this is why the Bible can declare all have sinned.
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Not everybody has sinned from a Levitical perspective because not everybody has that law.
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But everybody has sinned from a position of we have all fallen short of God's standard.
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And therefore, how do we define sin? God.
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God is the standard.
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Anything that fails to meet Him as the standard is sin.
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And God has revealed Himself in the conscience though men suppress it.
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So, part two.
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Sin is defined in relation to God's holy nature.
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Part two follows that line of logic in saying this.
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Sin is a privation of godliness.
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Now, what does it mean to be a privation? Well, deprived is the root.
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Privation means to be absent of something.
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I think of this sort of in this category.
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If you think of like a plus sign and a minus sign, that's not a cross, but a plus sign and a minus sign, right? Sin is not a plus.
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You say, well, I know that.
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What I mean is sin is not something that is out of demand.
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Sin is a deprivation or a privation.
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Let me try to make this clear.
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The reason why I'm saying this is people will say sin is something God made.
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They'll say, well, why did God choose to make a world with sin? Okay, God made a world that was very good.
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At the end of chapter 1 of Genesis 1, it says the world was very good.
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And what did man do? Man violated God and he didn't add sin in.
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He took away from that righteousness.
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It was a privation, not an addition.
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You say, well, why does this matter? I want to quote actually now from Augustine.
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Augustine, taking a page from Aristotle, argued that evil is not a thing, but rather the lack of a thing.
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The privation theory of evil says that evil is the lack of good where being and good are understood as convertible.
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Evil is not a substance or property, but is a lack of a substance or property.
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What is sin? Godlessness.
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Lawlessness.
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You see, it's a privation of something.
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It's not having something.
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Righteousness is a thing.
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Sin is the absence of that thing.
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Therefore, it's not a created thing.
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It's a privation of that which is right.
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It's a privation of that which is good.
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Another quote here.
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Adam's decision to follow his desire created a privation of being, a privation of goodness, or better, godliness within his entire person.
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Once the door was opened, the foul infection of privation touched every part of his person.
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Adam surrendered his righteousness for unrighteousness.
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He allowed his desire to move him from law-keeping to lawlessness.
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Adam deprived himself of righteous standing before God.
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This is why sin is defined as missing the mark.
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There's a standard.
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We fall short.
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That's literally what hamartia means.
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As I've explained in the past, it was an archery term.
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When an archer would draw back the arrow and let go, if the arrow, as it soared like a missile through the air, fell short of the intended target and hit the dirt in front of the target, one would say hamartia.
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Fallen short of the standard.
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The standard was the target.
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That was what we were aiming at and we have missed it.
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So sin is privation.
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It is missing the mark.
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God is standard.
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He is the standard.
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Sin is whatever wants conformity or lacks conformity to Him or violates Him in any way.
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God is the standard.
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Sin is anything that lacks His standard or violates His standard.
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So are we getting a good understanding of what sin is? Tonight's all about understanding the nature of sin.
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Third, sin is a principle within man.
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I talked about this at the beginning and I sort of already kind of gave this, but I want to give it again.
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Sin is more than outward actions.
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Sin is an external practice to be sure, but it is also an internal principle.
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The verse that I am considering and I want you to consider is Matthew 12, 35.
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The good person out of the good treasure, rather, let me say that again.
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The good person out of His good treasure brings forth good.
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The evil person out of His evil treasure brings forth evil.
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Now you might challenge me and I would be satisfied if you did.
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And say, but pastor, a few minutes ago you said no one is good and now Jesus said the good person.
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So how do you rectify? You have to understand there is context in everything.
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And what Jesus is referring to here is that the good that we do is motivated by good within us.
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And I would argue that any good within us is because God is working through us.
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But the bad that we do is also motivated from within.
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And so it's principle, it's the drive that causes the external practice.
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Scripture distinguishes, as I said earlier, between sin and sins.
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Sin usually refers to the nature or the principle in a man.
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Sins, plural, refer to the outworking of that nature.
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The passage I want to show you in regard to this is Romans chapter 7.
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Now I want to say from the outset I'm not here to debate whether or not Paul is talking about prior to his salvation or after his salvation.
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Because that's not the topic for the evening.
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And I know some of you want to debate that.
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That's not what I want to debate.
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What I want to show you is whether you take it as this is Paul talking about himself prior to conversion or after conversion, listen to what he says about sin.
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Listen.
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Beginning at verse 13.
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Romans 7.13 Did that which is good then bring death to me by no means? It was sin producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
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For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, and I am sold under sin.
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For I do not understand my own actions.
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For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
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Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good.
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So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
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Notice how he speaks of sin almost like it's a personal, like almost a person within him.
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And this is the nature of sin that he's referring to.
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The nature of sin that's within him is the driving force behind the external sins.
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He goes on to say, For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.
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For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
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For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
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Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
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It's clear Paul is talking about a nature of sin that's in him.
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This does not excuse his sin.
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In fact, if anything, it makes him even more culpable because he's saying it's in him.
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It's not a mistake.
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Exactly.
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He's not...
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Yeah, you're right.
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What often modern psychologists try to do, they try to turn all sin into a mistake or some kind of a disability or something like that.
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It's either social, economical, or medical.
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Those are the things that cause people to misbehave.
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Nobody misbehaves just because they're bad.
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Just like this old guy.
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And again, not to get political, but just recently, the whole thing with Iran is over this guy who was killed because he himself was a person who was a terrorist leader.
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And people don't want to say that because people say, well, I don't want to talk about evil.
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He was a freedom fighter.
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A poet! I mean, I'm telling you, if the New York Times were writing about World War I and World War II today, the headline would be Austrian artist forced to commit suicide by American military.
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You know what I'm talking about, right? Hitler was an artist.
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Austrian artist forced to commit suicide.
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Because we do not see evil natures.
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I remember the time I was at the fair and I had the board up asking the question, what causes people to misbehave or to sin? And I said, social cause or their own evil heart.
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That was the answer.
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Police officers.
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Nice guys.
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They were willing to have a conversation.
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I was glad to talk to them.
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Oh, I know this.
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It's social.
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Boom! Because I see it every day.
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And I said, well, I appreciate that you do see a lot of evil that I don't see and I appreciate the work that you do and I'm certainly not challenging your experiences, but I'm going to tell you what causes a society to be evil if it's not the evil hearts of the people who live in the society.
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The society doesn't cause evil hearts.
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The evil hearts cause the evil society.
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It's the nature that's within the man that is bringing down the man.
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Do the outside things have effects? Yes.
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And as we talked about, cultures can heap upon themselves generational sins and things like that.
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Absolutely.
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But it's the nature of sin within us is where it starts.
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All men possess the nature of sin.
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In fact, I would say 1 John 1.8 is clear.
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It says, If any of us say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
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If we say we have no sin, we are liars.
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So, the three things we've seen tonight.
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Sin is defined in relation to God's holy nature.
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Sin is a privation of godliness, which one and two really go together.
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And then finally, sin is not just what we do, but it's a nature within us that drives what we do.
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Now, I want to interject a final thought as I draw to my conclusion.
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When it comes to the unbeliever, I'm going to say something that you might take radical.
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If you take this radically and you want to talk about it later, that's fine.
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But I believe that I got this.
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I think I'm understanding this correctly, so I'm going to say it.
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When it comes to unbelievers, there is a sense in which all they do is sin.
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You say, Well, wait a minute.
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They can't always be sinning.
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Here's why I make that statement.
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In Romans chapter 14 and verse 23, Paul is talking about whether or not we should eat meat and whether or not people should not do something that offends someone else.
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And he tells the people who don't eat meat, if you have doubts about eating meat, then don't eat it.
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But he adds this statement at the end.
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This is Romans 14 verse 23.
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He says, Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
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Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
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Therefore, if a person is living outside of Christ, if a person is not living in faith, what can they be doing but sinning? On their best day, in their most noble efforts, in their grandest philanthropic activities, all it is is a glorious sin.
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Filthy rags, right? And only evil continuously.
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That's right.
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And you say, Well, why do you bring this up, Pastor? I bring it up for this reason.
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If you are outside of Christ, and whether you're listening to me through that thing or whether you're listening to me in here, if you are outside of Christ, know this.
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Every day you live, you are just heaping up judgment upon yourself.
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For every day you live, you sin and sin and sin and sin if you live apart from faith.
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But if you would come to Christ, the Bible says, He will choose to not remember your sin anymore.
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Because your sin will be paid for by the blood of Christ.
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Sin is either going to be dealt with at the cross, or it's going to be dealt with with you in hell.
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It's one of two, and there's no other option.
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So I pray tonight, you've been better instructed on the nature of sin, and next week, we're going to turn our attention to the origin and the problem of sin.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for this time of study.
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I pray that it has been fruitful for your people and that you'll use it to encourage them and draw them to a deeper desire to study your word.
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We pray all this in Jesus' name.
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Amen.