28 - The Identification of Sin, Part 1

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29 - The Identification of Sin, Part 2

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Well, welcome to the

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Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Systematic Theology. We are in 28 lessons so far of theology and we're not even, we're just getting started to this.

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So we're not even, I don't think, halfway done. So we got a lot more to study, a lot of good things coming our way.

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We do want to welcome all of the new students that we have with us. We know some new folks that signed up this past week.

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We appreciate you being with us and I hope that you grab your syllabus, which if you have enrolled, you have a copy, wait,

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I have to stick my head this way, okay. So the syllabus is over there, over here, there, okay, got it.

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So grab your syllabus, that's what you get when you go to the website down there and enroll in the

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Striving for Eternity Academy. You get the syllabus. So there, what you get in that is all of my notes and some more.

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So you also sometimes get some cool emails that we send out and different things like that.

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There's been kind of a joke with some folks. They're trying to say that, you know, my forehead is starting to reflect the light and they want me to put makeup on.

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I think they just want to see what I would look like in makeup. But then again, someone else sent us something.

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I don't know. Maybe someone's trying to tell me I'm getting old, but someone sent me some glasses and I don't think

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I need them, but I look awful good in them, don't I? But I must be getting old.

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So we are in, for the more serious stuff now, we are in the lesson in book number two.

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Book number two, we are looking at God's gift to man. And in that, we are looking specifically at the doctrine of sin.

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And the doctrine of sin is section number two. We are looking specifically at lesson number three.

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Lesson number three we are going to be looking at this week is the identification of sin.

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The identification of sin. Now this is very important because following the doctrine of sin, we're going to get to the doctrine of salvation.

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And I know a lot of people love to debate the doctrine of salvation called soteriology.

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We'll get to that. I'll give you those big buzzwords to impress your friends at dinner. Study of salvation, soteriology, that's what it means.

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So what we're going to look at though is we're going to look at the doctrine of sin first.

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Because although many people love to debate over the doctrine of salvation, and many people love to debate on the end times.

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Those are two big ones everyone loves to debate over. And those are kind of later in the theological systems.

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Really you need to first, I hope you all watched lesson one by now. But lesson one where we get into one, two, and three where we look into the attributes of God.

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Because all of our theology is based in an understanding of knowing who God is.

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Having a right understanding of the character and nature of God. But if you want to understand sin properly, well you better understand, or sorry, if you don't understand salvation properly, you better understand sin properly.

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I mentioned earlier that if you have a wrong definition of sin, chances are likely, not guaranteed, but chances are likely you're going to get a wrong definition of salvation.

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And a lot of people don't know that they have a problem in their soteriology because they have a misunderstanding of their, not understanding of what sin is.

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And so what we're going to do today is we are going to start with lesson three, which is the identification of sin.

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And so in our pursuit of identifying sin, basically what it is, we're going to examine the concept of sin and words that describe it.

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Basically what, how does the Old Testament and the New Testament define it? So that we have a better understanding of this.

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So let us begin in our syllabus with section number one, which is the biblical understanding of sin, a biblical understanding of sin.

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Now we're going to start this with an incorrect understanding first.

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We'll get to the correct in a moment, but let's start with an incorrect understanding of what sin is because some people have some of these views and not always understanding it, but they have a view of sin that's not accurate.

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And so let's first deal with what it is not, and then we'll look at what it is. Sound fair? All right.

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So an incorrect understanding of sin is that sin is salaciousness.

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Now if you have a syllabus, you have blanks that need to be filled in, and that is your first blank, salaciousness.

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In other words, the idea that it's only the physical aspect of sin.

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That's the other blank there, physical. So sin is salaciousness, only dealing with the physical aspect of sin.

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In other words, sin is just the evil things that we do, the acts that we call sin.

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In other words, that sin has no spiritual concept, it's just something that we do.

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Now this is very popular in first century thought in what's called Gnosticism.

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That sin was something physical, something part of anything material, and anything immaterial is spiritual and therefore good.

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It's a very important concept to understand when you read through many of the books in the New Testament like 1st

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John, actually 1st, 2nd, 3rd John really, deal with this. Colossians deals with this some.

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This idea of Gnosticism where they had this wrong definition of sin and that's where they got into a lot of trouble.

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And so sin is more than just the physical aspects of it, the things that people do.

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People talk about sin as if that's all it is, it's the acts of sin, but it is more as we'll see.

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A second wrong definition, wrong understanding of sin is that sin is an illusion.

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Sin is an illusion, the failure to realize one's human potential. Now if you study world religions, you might know exactly what major world religions fit into this category, but have you ever heard of Hinduism or Buddhism?

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They would be popular with this. The idea that sin really is just an illusion, it's something that we have to get over to recognize our true potential.

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This is also seen in the social gospel, those that teach that we should take care of man's well -being, take care of the poor, feed the poor and clothe the poor.

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You see this in the black liberation theology or the feminist liberation theology, actually any of the liberation theologies.

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And if you don't know what those are, you're not missing anything, trust me. You don't want to have to read up on them.

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You lose your hair, you pull it out basically. But in America, we actually have a president right now that is teaching liberation theology.

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He's teaching or arguing that the Christian doctrine is to feed the poor and to clothe the poor, to take care of the poor.

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As if the idea is that sin really is just not man reaching their fullest potential.

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And that's what God really wants from us is just to reach our fullest human potential.

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That definition doesn't even come close. And I hope you'll see that.

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So that's a second misunderstanding. Let's look at a third misunderstanding of what sin is as it's sometimes understood.

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And that is sin is a lack of a God consciousness. Lack of a God consciousness, that's your blank there.

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So to review, sin is salacious is one wrong view that it's just the physical aspect of sin.

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That sin is an illusion, that's your second one. That it's a failure to reach human's full potential, and that's your blank there, potential.

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And the third is sin is a lack of God consciousness. In other words, sin is just this inability for us to recognize

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God. Now you may say, well where is that? You know what?

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Some of that is taught in, yeah, evangelicalism. Do you have a

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God -shaped hole in your heart that just needs God to fill it? A lack of God consciousness.

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That's the problem. With some gospel presentations, they actually teach an incorrect view of what sin is.

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As if we somehow don't know who God is. When in fact,

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Romans 1 makes it quite clear that every one of us knows who God is. That's usually the problem.

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We know God. We have a recognition of it. We are conscious of God. And we don't like it.

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We don't like it because we want to be God. That's what happened in the garden in Genesis 3.

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Adam and Eve were told they could be like God. Okay, at least Eve was told that. But that's the thing.

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That's what in Ezekiel or in Isaiah 14 even. When Satan fell, he wanted to be like God.

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That was the problem. They were very conscious of God. They just didn't like what they knew.

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And that's the reason why no matter where you go in the world, people say, well, what about that tribe in Africa where they never heard about Jesus?

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Yes, but they know about God. Because they end up creating something to worship and they'll call it

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God. Even the professing atheists, they have a

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God themselves. But it's not a lack of a God consciousness.

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It's far more than that. Let's look at the fourth one. I already mentioned this because it's kind of tied in, but more specifically in this one than in the second one.

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But sin is a social problem. Sin is a social problem.

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That's your blank there, a social problem. As if it's the result of some social disadvantage.

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And this is really very much seen in the liberation theology.

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This is really where it gets its roots. But this is where the idea that, you know, you see this coming out of evolutionary thinking that somehow sin is just what our society tells us it is.

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And sin is really not that bad. It's just, you know, it's just the social ills.

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You're born in a state where you just can't rise above. OK, I'm an

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American. And as an American, let me just say that, you know, there are many who argue that there's limitations in America.

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And that's not the American dream. You know, we've we've lost the American dream. The American dream used to be that you didn't have these social limitations that you had like in Great Britain back when when they ruled and you had a nobility class and a lower class and the lower class couldn't rise to be nobility.

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And here is this idea rooting its head again. Well, the only reason there's social issues is not because it's some you're born into a state.

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That's not what sin is. But. It's more the issue, as we're going to see, let's let's just get that we're done with the incorrect views, let's switch to the correct views, the correct view or correct understanding of sin.

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Sin is fundamentally involves an attitude of unbelief.

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That's your blank there. An attitude of unbelief. So it's more than all the things we said.

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It's not just physical. It's not just the lack of human potential. Or a lack of God consciousness or some social problem.

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But it is an attitude of unbelief. Let's look at Romans chapter eight.

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Romans chapter eight and verse seven says this. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile.

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And they just so you see is the word flesh. There is the word for sin. OK, it's another term we're going to get that momentarily.

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And the mind is this thinking part of us. This part of us that is that where we do our where our thought is, what our meditation is.

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So for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.

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For it does not submit to the law. Indeed, it cannot. Let's look at one more.

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And that's in Hebrews 13. In Hebrews 13, we see here.

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That it says, take care, brothers, lest there be any of you.

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Lest be in any of you an evil. Unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living

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God. So you see those two passages make it clear. The mind is this idea of our attitudes.

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Here you see in Hebrews is being very clear. We can have this evil heart.

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OK, it's an attitude. It's a view of unbelief.

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And so what you have there is that sin is fundamentally involves an attitude of unbelief is number one.

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Number two is that sin involves activities. That's your blank there.

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Activities of lawlessness. So not only is it an attitude of unbelief, but it involves activities of lawlessness.

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So you see here where we're with the first one, where it was that sin is salaciousness.

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The idea that sin is an incorrect view. That's just that physical aspect. And now we see that it's more than that, because it's not just an attitude or sorry, just not just the activities, but also an attitude.

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It's both in the motivation to sin is just as bad as the sin.

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That's that's what's meant in Matthew five. When when Jesus says, if you are angry with your brother, you'd be called under the judgment as if you murdered him.

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Or if you look at a woman with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart already.

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In other words, when you look at a woman with lust, the lust doesn't happen without first that that attitude.

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So the attitude comes first and leads to the activity. But you can't separate those two.

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They're both involved. Let's take a look at some passages. Let's look at First John three, four.

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Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.

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Sin is lawlessness. Now, I want to point out here when we look at this verse,

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I said earlier, First John is dealing with this

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Gnostic thought. So why was he talking about this issue? I'm going to bring this verse up again, but I want to give some background to it before we look it up again.

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Remember, in Gnostic thinking, I've mentioned this maybe a couple of times in class, but Gnostic thinking was the idea that anything physical was bad, anything spiritual, anything non -material is good.

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And what they would actually teach is that you can go be with a prostitute as long as you didn't give your spirit over to it.

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As long as just your flesh was doing it, then it's OK, because your spirit isn't given over to it.

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And now look at what he's saying. In that context, look at what he is saying here with this.

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Everybody who practices, who makes a practice of sinning, and that's what they would do.

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They'd make a practice of going and being with a prostitute and other sins, also practices lawlessness.

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And sin is lawlessness. That's the whole point there is that the practice of it is the lawlessness, the activity.

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Let's look at another one in Matthew 7. And it says here that, "...and

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then I will declare to them, I never knew you.

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Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness." That, I always argue, is one of the scariest verses in all the

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Bible. Actually, the scariest passage is Matthew 7, 21 -23. People who have a false conversion, they think they're serving

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God, they think they're serving the one true believer, they're true believers serving the one true

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God, only to stand before God on Judgment Day and discover He claims He never knew them.

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And they practice what? Lawlessness. Yikes! I don't want to be that person.

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I feel bad for that person. And, you know, we should never feel that we're above someone.

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Do you feel better than the Jehovah Witness that knocks on your door? Or does your heart break for them?

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My heart breaks for that person who devotes every Saturday of their life to knocking on doors to try to lead more people to hell, a hell they don't believe exists, only to stand before God and say,

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Oh God, haven't we done such great works in Your name? And He says, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

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And they go to the lake of fire that they don't believe exists. That should crush you in compassion for them.

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What does it say in 2 Corinthians chapter 5? The love of Christ compels us.

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It should compel us to go and tell others how they can be reconciled with the

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God that reconciled Himself to us. We shouldn't think we're better than them. We should have a heartfelt desire to see them won to Christ.

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So, we're looking at that verse, we should have sorrow for false converts.

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I mean, a real sorrow. So, let's take a look now at...

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So, this is the understanding of sin. The understanding of sin.

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Now, let's take a look at the biblical terms of sin. Alright, we're going to take a look first.

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A good place to start is the Old Testament. I know, that's that section none of you actually read.

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You should. But, if you do look, this is in the

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Old Testament, has a lot to say. And this section of the syllabus is adapted really from Charles Ryrie's Basic Theology, which you may not agree with everything that Charles Ryrie believes and says in his

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Basic Theology, but one of the reasons I love his Basic Theology book is because in one volume, yeah, it's about this thick,

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I understand that, but each chapter is about three pages, maybe, and there's like 400 chapters, something like that.

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Some insane number of chapters. And basically, they're all very short. So, you can just read one a day.

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That's what I did. I read one a day and it took me about four months to finish. I went really slow because I read everything that he said and every single verse, as a good student of hermeneutics, every single verse he gave,

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I read the entire chapter to make sure he had it in context. So, it took me a little bit longer than it probably would take you.

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But he gives these definitions of the terms for sin and it's helpful.

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And so, let's take a look at our first one. The first Old Testament term that we're going to look at is

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Chata. Now, let me be clear. When you pronounce the Chai, and in case you don't know what a

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Chai is, actually, I don't know if this will show up, but can you see that? You see Jewish people wear that.

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That's a Chai. That's the letter, you actually have to say it like you're going to spit and then say

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Chai, you know? But it's not a C -H, it's not Ch as people pronounce it. It's not

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Chata, it's Chata, okay? Therefore, when David married

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Saul's daughter, it wasn't Michael, it was Michal, okay?

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Just a little bit Hebrew. Because it's fun to say, you know? Chai, Michal, Chata.

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All right. So, but Chata means to miss the mark. That's your blanks there, to miss the mark.

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Now, this is significant in the sense that sin is missing the right mark of hitting a target.

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It's an archery term, especially the word used in the New Testament. It's an archery term of missing the right mark and hitting the wrong mark.

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It's used to refer to a moral evil or idolatry or ceremonial sin.

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Now, before we look at some passages, I want to give you a picture of what hitting the right mark is.

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I said it's an archery term. And well, I happen to have here, if you can see this, this is an arrow.

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But, you know, people argue, you know, about Robin Hood.

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Well, that, my friends, is called a Robin Hood. This is a second arrow.

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This was the first arrow. That's hitting the mark. I know, you're saying, well,

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Andrew's just a lucky shot and can do that at 40 yards only once. No, this one was a friend of mine's arrow.

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He told me I couldn't do it. He was wrong.

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Oh, he wasn't wrong once. He was wrong twice. Yeah, look at that.

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Ten bucks for his arrow. I cost him 20 bucks. He should never dare me not to do things.

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Hitting the mark looks like this. I don't know if this is going to show up, but can you see that? You see that little hole right there?

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That is, let me grab one of these guys, that right there.

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You see this tip right here on an arrow? What was over here is that right there.

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And if you take a look at this, if you can see it up close, can I do that? Does that work? You see that there?

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Right down the center is where that shot. That's hitting the mark.

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You know what missing the mark is? Oh, just missing it by a little bit. See, people argue.

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Someone's saying that I did that in my backyard. No, I did that actually in an archery league that I was in, and I actually got trophies for it to prove it.

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It wasn't with a hammer. But it's a thing of what sin is.

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People say, well, sins, you know, it's just you can miss the mark a little. You know, you don't do that by missing a little.

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When you miss a little, it doesn't do what you just saw. When you miss the mark, even by a little, it could be dangerous.

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As an illustration, I did this once where someone said that sin wasn't a big deal.

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And that even the definition of missing the mark, that it's the idea that it's not as big of a deal if you miss by a little.

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You know, one of the guys I used to shoot with, he would hit the bullseye, but he'd let the arrow go and he'd say, oops.

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I'd be like, what do you mean oops? He hit the bullseye. He said, yeah, but it was off to the left a little. It wasn't dead center.

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You know, it was just a little oops to him. And I would look at him and be like amazed and say, hey, but you still hit the center.

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You know, you got the bullseye. But he would practice by shooting at things at the size of a nickel from 60 yards away.

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You get better at that. But here's the thing. I had someone that said, well, sinning isn't so bad. If you miss the mark, you're missing just a little bit.

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And so what I did was I showed him this. And I have some, I actually have more than just these three.

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It was just, you know, I took these three. But I showed him, you know, four or five of these different types of arrows that I've done.

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And I showed him some trophies that I had on archery, you know, where I've won, you know, different placements.

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And then I asked him if he thought I was really good at archery. And he says, yeah, you're pretty good.

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I mean, he could shoot through the center of an arrow at 40 yards. That's pretty good. I said, well, why don't you do me a favor?

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I gave him an apple that was like this big, a small apple. And I said, here you go. I just want you to put that right there.

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And I pulled my bow out and I walked only 10 yards away. And he held the apple like this.

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I said, no, no, no, put it on your head. You said you thought I was pretty good. And he said, yeah, but I don't want you to miss even by a little bit.

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See, because a little bit is deadly, isn't it? A little bit of sin is deadly.

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It's not something that we play with. And that's the problem many in Christianity do.

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We play with sin. We see how close we can get to the line without sinning.

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There's people who argue, well, how much can I drink since the Bible talks about drunkenness but not drinking?

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How much can I drink before I'm drunk? You know, what's the line? Is it when I get the buzz?

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Is it when I'm totally out of control? My argument would be it was the thought.

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Remember, it's an attitude, not just the activity. You see how that plays into things. It's more than just the activity of sin but the attitude.

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The person who desires to go and drink so they can drink because they want to get that little bit of a feeling or they want to argue that they want to have that drink, those that are looking to do it to see how close they can get to the line,

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I would argue already in sin. You see this with single Christians. I just saw an article of single

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Christians that are fornicating. And they asked the question, I've been asked this unfortunately both as a pastor and before, was of a single couple, how far can we go in our physical relationship before we sin?

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And my response is, you've already gone too far. And like, we didn't tell you how far we went.

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No, I'm talking about the thoughts. You see, you've already missed the mark. The mark is not see how close we can get with sin.

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See how much we can play with sin. But really we have to be how far can we get away from sin?

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We want to go in a complete opposite direction of sin.

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That's repentance, right? We want to be shooting totally away where we used to shoot.

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We don't want to be looking to see how close we can get to sin, but how far we can get away from sin. That's what Joseph did, right? The temptation is there.

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Potiphar's wife is there. He has all the arguments. I mean, he's a young man. He has physical desires.

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You know, Potiphar's wife is there. You know, he can't get caught. He can always blame her. You know, she's not going to say anything.

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And so he has all the excuses in the world. What does he do? He runs. I mean, he hightails it out of there, leaving his jacket behind because he doesn't want to be anywhere near there.

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He's willing to take whatever consequences come. Are you willing to run away from sin so fast and so furious?

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You'll hightail it out of there so you can do whatever it takes to avoid sin?

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That's a question for us to think about. I'm not going to ask you to show a raise of hands. Don't want to do that.

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That can be embarrassing for some of us, right? But the reality is, is that we need to totally miss the mark when it comes to sin, but not when it comes to godliness.

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When sin means, by the definition of missing the mark, it is the idea that we need to be hitting a godly target every time.

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We need to be doing what God calls us to do, not just once in a while.

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Now, are we going to be able to live that perfectly? Absolutely not. But that's the goal. Every time we fail, even in a little, we have sinned.

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That's what sin is. The idea here is that sin is missing the right mark, hitting the wrong mark.

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Anything but godliness is the wrong mark. It is used in reference to moral evil, idolatry, and ceremonial sin.

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Let's take a look at some of the verses. We're not going to get through very much into the lesson here, but let's look just at Proverbs.

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What do we have? Proverbs 19 .2. Okay. Proverbs 19 .2. Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.

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Do you see the idea here? The desire, notice the hard attitude, without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet, what?

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Misses the way, misses the mark. Do you see the idea there? This is the term used for sin, chata, the idea of missing the mark.

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All right. I don't even think we're going to get to all the Old Testament terms, let alone the

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New Testament, so we'll definitely continue next week, but let's see how many we can get through. Maybe we can get through most of the

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Old Testament terms. If I stop having fun pronouncing them. All right. So, the second one, and maybe as we go through these different definitions, these different things,

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I hope, I hope, hope, hope, hope, hope that you as a believer in Christ are recognizing how bad sin is and how much we must run away from it, how much we must, and how much the

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Bible tells us, we must be on guard. I mean, set boundaries up in your life to keep you from evil, to keep your eyes and your thought life pure.

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You know, I have a friend of mine that when he goes to a, you know, he like I as a traveling speaker, goes to many hotels, you have lots of opportunity when you're away from family and away from the accountability to sin.

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And one of the things that he does is he throws a towel over the

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TV, and he does that so that he doesn't look at it. Another one of my friends, what he does is he's got different board members on his board that will call him and ask him what he's watching on TV.

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I just don't even turn it on. I don't have time, but just stay away from that stuff because, you see, in my home, the

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TV I have doesn't have too much to watch. Not so many things that are going to cause you to, you know,

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I mean, it doesn't have the channels that would really be bad, but you go to someone else's home or to a hotel and who knows what's there.

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So, you know, we got to be careful. We got to set these boundaries up in our lives and make it a habit if we're going to stay away from sin.

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So, let's look at the next Hebrew word is ra or rasha, which means breaking up or destroy.

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That's your blank there, destroy, breaking up or destroy. And the significance of this word, this word is often used to refer to calamity, injurious things or things morally wrong.

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It's often translated as wicked. Let's take a look at a passage that we're going to see here. I think we have a passage here, maybe some interesting things.

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For God knows that when you eat of it, this is speaking in the

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Garden of Eden, that this eating of the fruit is the discussion of it.

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For God knows and Satan through his serpent is talking. For God knows when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

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This is the evil spoken of here. Okay, rasha, this is the idea, this wickedness.

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I know some people like to call themselves wicked as believers, but if you're a believer, you're no longer wicked.

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You are righteous, the righteousness of God. Now, you may not act that way every moment of every day, but that is the position that we have.

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Now, with this, let's take a look. Well, if you also note, and this is a fun one because it's going to cause some problems.

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In Isaiah 45 verse 7, we see the word calamity used.

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It refers to calamity and ruin. But take a look at this because this becomes interesting if you're reading

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King James, especially. But I form light and create darkness. I make well -being and create calamity.

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I am the Lord who does all these things. The reason I say this is if you read in the

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King James version of the Bible, that word calamity is translated as evil. So, it says that God created evil.

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Now, that presents a problem for people because they say, oh, in English it says

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God created evil, but in James it says God can't be tempted and can't tempt with evil.

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So, how could he create it? Is God the author of sin? Now, that gets into a real fun discussion because is

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God the author of sin? Well, yes, in a way he is because he's sovereign. I mean, he's in control of everything.

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Nothing happens outside of God's control, right? But the passage that we saw there is not speaking, let's just look at that again, it's not speaking of the idea that God created evil, created sin, that he's the author of sin, but look in the context, he formed light and created darkness.

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Now, what is darkness? Darkness is the absence of light.

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I will make well -being and I will make calamity. What's the idea here? He's going to make things good.

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What is the definition of good? Good. Or what's the definition of evil? Evil is the absence of good.

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So, you see what he's doing here is he's giving two different things, light versus darkness and well -being versus calamity or good versus evil.

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So, what you have there is this idea of the two extremes that God created. He created light from dark, in other words, dark being the absence of light, good from evil, in other words, evil being the absence of good.

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But in a sense, God's the, he's not the author of sin, Satan is the first to have sinned and then sin entered the universe and then through Adam and Eve.

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And oh, by the way, it wasn't when Eve ate of the fruit that we had the curse of sin, but when Adam did. So, what we have here is we have the idea that God is, he created goodness, the absence of that is what we call evil.

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So, did God create evil? In a sense, because he's sovereign, yes, but clearly he's not the author of evil.

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Okay. And so, what we have to do is understand this, that we need to be careful in how we read the scriptures because that's a verse that some use to say that God is the author of sin and he's not.

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Okay. God is not the author of sin. So, we have to, I hope you see though that this is the term used of wickedness or of evil.

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Let's see if we can get through one more in this class and that is pasha, which is defined as to rebel, to rebel.

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That's your blank there, to rebel. Let's look at the significance of that. While this is the basic meaning of the word often translated transgression, that's your blank there, transgression, which indicates a willing, this indicates a willing crossing of a boundary.

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Okay. So, while this is, the basic meaning of it is to rebel, it has a more of an idea of a willingness, a willing rebellion, a willing transgression.

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Okay. It's basic meaning as often translated as a transgression, but it connotates an idea of a willingness here.

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Let's take a look at Exodus 34. It says here, we'll look at two verses here, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving the iniquity and transgression and sin.

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But those who will by means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children on the third and fourth generation.

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Let's look at Isaiah 1 -2 and see, hear, O heavens, and give ear,

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O earth, for the Lord has spoken. Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.

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Now, do you notice the illustration that is used in Isaiah as a child rearing up, rebelling against their parent?

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That is a fitting illustration because that is what we think of when we think of, at least maybe not you, but if you're a parent, maybe you think of it more, the idea that a child who is willingly disobedient.

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I always think of the story when I think of a willing disobedience, my son, when he was maybe two years old.

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I never had to teach him to sin. This is how we know we have a sin nature. We don't teach children to sin, they do it.

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And so what we have is my son, I still remember him sitting there, like putting his hand on the garbage can and I said, no, and he looked at me and he's doing this, like how far can

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I go? Can I touch it? Can I get close to it? How close do I get before he says no or punishes me, right?

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No, really? Look, that's what little kids do.

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They test the limits. They see how far they can go. How much can they get away with?

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And if you don't have strict boundaries, those kids keep learning to push the boundaries.

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So it makes our job as parents so hard because even as adults, we find it hard to set boundaries up to protect us from going over those boundaries.

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But for children, we have to set these boundaries to keep them on the straight and narrow and they keep wanting to push it.

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And if we are inconsistent with those boundaries, they don't have a clear guideline on what they can do and what they can get away with or not.

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So they keep pushing to see what they can get away with. That's the idea of this rebellion, this willingness to just keep testing the waters, keep trying to transgress, transgress, see what

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I can get away with. What can I do? Can I get away with it? Oh, I got away with it that time. Let's see if I can get away with it a different time. Oh, I did it that time.

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But let me see if I can get away with it a third time. Oh, I got away with it that time. How about four, five, six? Isn't that what children do?

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I mean, don't you get frustrated as a parent sometimes going like, haven't we talked about this like a thousand times?

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And then you hear in the back of your head, the Lord telling you something like, haven't we talked about this a million times?

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And you're like, oh Lord, I'm sorry. Right? But that's what we do.

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That's this idea of rebel. Okay. So we'll pick up there in the next class.

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So we're not going to, there's no way we'll finish all of it. But if you have any questions with this, we're going to finish this up next class.

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But if you have questions, you can always email us at academyatstrivingforeternity .org, academyatstrivingforeternity .org.

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We'll finish up here next week with this, continue this discussion, get into more of a description of what sin is.

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But a couple of announcements that we do have for you. This will only be useful for this week, but I will be on a radio program, the

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Cross Encounters Radio. Do want to encourage you to tune in. It is something we're going to be talking about.

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A group of open air preachers that have started a church.

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Sorry, let me correct. That started a cult. We're going to be getting into why it is a cult, what is wrong with it, and why we have to be very, very careful.

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It is called the Church of Wells. They're starting to gather a following, and I have lost many people to this group.

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I know the founders of this group have been on the streets with them, and there's now three others that are over there.

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It is a tragedy. I'll be praying for these people that are being sucked into this cult. But there's some dangers with it.

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We're going to get into that next Sunday night, 7 to 9, Eastern Time.

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7 to 9, Eastern. It is Cross Encounters Radio. Put the website up again.

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That's the short website, so you can get to it from that site down there. Sunday night, it will be live.

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I think you can watch it or listen to it afterwards. But it'll be John Speed, myself,

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Ken Cook, and some others who will be on there for the full two hours discussing this. Of serious importance, these are nomadic street evangelists.

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This is part of the reason that we give warnings. I challenge people to listen to Tony's message that we have from Jersey Fire on our website.

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You can listen for free. Go there under audio to the bottom, Jersey Fire Messages, and you can hear the messages with Tony talking about the importance of being tied to a local church and mying on pride.

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Yes, they are from Texas, the person in the chat room that I was just told they asked. Lastly, one of the things that you know as good students of this program,

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I know you always look forward to this. Who are we going to talk about? That's right. We're going to talk about somebody, because we always do, because we want to encourage you to encourage other people.

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The person we want to encourage this week actually came in from a couple different people asked for this sister to be encouraged.

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I don't know what's going on, but clearly either other people know what's going on, or they just so love this dear sister.

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They wanted her to get encouraged this week. We would like you to encourage Sister Angela Braxton.

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Angela is here in the New York City area. I go out with her several times a year.

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I get to spend with her in New York where we get to go out and evangelize. Wonderful, wonderful sister.

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I love her. I love spending time with her. A heart for the lost, big time. She really is a very giving individual.

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Just got to be with her at the Super Bowl outreach. Loved the time with her. Just always wanting to do right.

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She'll contact me, just, you know, oh Pastor Andrew, I just have a question with you. What should

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I do in this situation? Just really wanting to do the right thing. I mean, we all fail, like we were just talking about, right?

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But that desire to do what's right. You know, she works long hours.

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Is up real early in the morning. I mean, real early. And so she's someone who does whatever she can for the

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Lord. She gives wherever she can. Very active in her local church, which is just great to see.

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And so I want to encourage you this week to go out and encourage Angela Braxton. Now, if you don't know

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Angela, here's what I'd encourage you to do. I'd encourage you to go to her Facebook and message her and say, hey,

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Angela, tell me how you got saved. What was it like living through 9 -11?

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That's right. She was in the Twin Towers at the time. CNN even had a picture of her.

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And you'd have to ask her for the picture because I got to tell you something. You look at the picture, you'd never see.

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You'd see she actually has a picture of her covered in dust and then a picture of her the way she looks without the dust.

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And it's just like you can't even believe it's her, you know. But CNN had gotten a picture of her as she came out of the towers and as the towers collapsed and she was covered in dust.

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She's a real powerful testimony. Really a woman that gives her heart for the

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Lord and a woman who could use your encouragement. And so someone's saying in the chat room, and a great cook.

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I cannot attest to that. Sorry, I've never had her cooking. But Angela, if you're watching,

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I'm not opposed to coming over and getting a free meal. You know, I am Jewish. Any free is for me, you know.

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But that wasn't a bribe, by the way. But next week, we will continue with this lesson.

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We are glad that you were able to join us. And I hope that you got a little bit of a taste of what sin is and enough of a taste to want to run away from it just from the first couple of descriptions of terms that the

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Bible uses. So remember this week to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.