The Tragic Nature of Sin: Isaiah 59

by Ken Pullen

ACP

Monday, April 9, 2012

There is a great malaise and deception weighing upon us in these times. We are under the false belief that we can be partially saved and attain eternal life – that we can proclaim we believe in Jesus Christ and continue in this world. Without regeneration. Without a renewing of mind, heart, and spirit being filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit.

We have become a diseased body infected with the terminal illness of deception, delusion, fantasy and an abundance of false teachings and teachers. We will only attend churches or listen to ministers that make us feel good; that put on a good show. We shun chastisement and admonition. We rebel at instruction unless it involves the variance of so many secular songs stuck in a groove like and old 33 1/3 rpm vinyl record playing “love, love, love, love everything and everybody all you need is love” and we throw in the name of Jesus a few times thinking we’re being righteous, holy and serving the Lord.

We are all sinners. Even after being redeemed by the shed blood of the risen Christ and proclaiming we believe in His name and profess to be Christian and saved. Few read a Bible anymore. Those that do only return to select passages that affirm their narrow spectrum of belief and feed them a diet of the same milk with each serving.

We are all sinners, be we heathen or professed believers. And we professed believers continue to sin greatly in our approach, our walk, in how we fashion ourselves. We make every excuse in the book – while omitting the Holy Book of God’s Word – and justify our every deed and action. Becoming third-rate actors in the process to add the necessary dram and keep the veil of deception from falling and the bare naked truth of our bankrupt spiritual lives from being seen.

We walk in darkness. We walk into the jaws of a drooling Satan licking his chops as he deceives the church into believing they are following the Lord and God’s Word as they in truth serve him and abandon the Lord. Abandon the Word of God. Abandon service, work, diligence and fighting the good fight.

We want to lie back in our Lazy Boy spiritual recliners and sip on a cool iced beverage smiling as if we’ve just had half our minds scooped out.

We continue to sin. We must daily take up our cross and follow our Lord Jesus Christ humbly seeking to become more authentically godly, holy, righteous, pleasing and acceptable in His sight.

We adopt the philosophies and fashion of this world while professing to be Christian and if that isn’t sin then what is my friends?

We refuse to be objective and think critically about ourselves and our life and what we do and partake of. We refuse the light we sing half-heartedly about and continue in darkness.

The prophet Isaiah saw and knew this. Isaiah didn’t prophesy to Hittites and Assyrians! He was a prophet of God for God’s people!

We refuse context and understanding. Thinking we know better than God and His complete living Word. Opening our lips to say what once applied no longer does. Why we can’t even be bothered to read the Word of God now unless it is delivered in a perverted translation as we lie and proclaim translations such as the King James Version are just to difficult to read and understand – what is difficult is the truth to digest and the diligence and service to the Lord! Not the ye’s, thou’s, and showest’s!

Context me friends. Context of the content. Seeking and trusting in the Holy Spirit to bring understanding and wisdom of God’s will which is revealed through His Word.

How we are to live. What we are to believe. How we are to walk and conduct our lives. And God’s Word is consistent. Only man perverts, corrupts and feels the need to eliminate much of God’s Word proclaiming it no longer relevant and not current. And we say we are saved and therefore no longer sin?!

And the tragic nature of sin is the judgment of God and our being separated from God for eternity.

This very tragic and false belief of “once saved always saved” has opened the door to the great falling away – the apostasy we now see evidenced before us.

Only a remnant will be saved. And not only a remnant of Israel as the apostle Paul writes of in Romans. Only a few will be found worthy and righteous in the sight of the Lord.

Many believe in Jesus Christ.

Few will enter into eternity with Him.

Because we refuse to be separate from this world and insist on deluding ourselves we can live of and in this world and profess with our lips a faith in Christ while we never permit the Holy Spirit to commend and command our lives.

We are all continual sinners. And the only way to win the battle is not only to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior but to make Him Lord of our lives and to strive daily to live according to the full Word of God – not only the “love, love, all you need it love” parts taken out of context or used without knowledge and understanding of the context and what that love is connected to.

The prophet Isaiah knew this…

Isaiah 59

The tragic nature of sin

1 Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.

4 None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

5 They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.

6 Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.

7 Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.

8 The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

9 ¶ Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.

10 We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.

11 We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

12 For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;

13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

14 And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.

15 Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.

16 ¶ And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.

17 For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke.

18 According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence.

19 So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.

20 ¶ And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD.

21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.