03.01.2020 SER The Cure

In October 1347, Merchant ships landed in Messina Italy, most of the sailors aboard were dead. The few who survived wish they hadn’t. Fever and Festering boils were taking life one by one. By the time the authorities ordered the vessels out of the harbor, the flea infested rats had already scampered down the ropes into the village, and the black death, begun its ruthless march following trade routes northward through Italy and France and other northern nations. By spring it reached England. Within five years, 25 million people, 1/3 of Europe’s population, had died.

When you look at history’s harshest, the bubonic, the black plague ranks near the top. But it’s not the highest. The bubonic Plague was catastrophic, disastrous, but NOT humanity deadliest? The bible reserves,

The greatest pandemic to touch our world is sin.

Romans 5:12 (NIV) 12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--

Blame the bubonic plague on Yersinia pestis bacterium. Blame the plague of sin on a godless decision.

In our first reading today, Adam and Eve turn their heads toward the hiss of the snake and for the first time ignored God. Eve could have asked God, what He wanted. Adam could have said to Eve, “Let’s talk to the Creator first.” But they acted as if they had no heavenly Father. They ignored His will, and sin infected and affected every human began in the world. That’s pandemic.

Sins sees the world with no God in it.

Where we might think of sin as slip ups or missteps. God views sin as a godless attitude that leads to godless actions.

Isaiah 53:6 (NIV) We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;

The sinful mind dismisses God. The sinful mind does not ask for God’s opinion or seek out His plans. The sin-infected mind gives God the same respect as middle schoolers give a substitute teacher, acknowledged, but not taken seriously.

The lack of God-centeredness leads to self-centeredness. Sin celebrates its middle letter sIn. It proclaims, “It’s your life, right? Pump your body with drugs, your mind with greed, your night with pleasure. The godless lead a “me-dominated, childish life, a life of doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it.

Ephesians 2:3 The Message

We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us.

And the pandemic of sin is still infecting and affecting the entire world.

The husband ignoring his wife. The dictator murdering the millions. Grown men seducing the young. The young propositioning the old. When you do what you want, and I do what I want, and no one cares what God wants, humanity collapses. The infection of the person leads to the corruption of the planet.

1 Corinthians 6:9–10 The Message

Don’t you realize that this is not the way to live? Unjust people who don’t care about God will not be joining in his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don’t qualify as citizens in God’s kingdom.

God has clearly revealed: Sin will not be found in heaven. Infected souls will never walk on his streets of gold.

God refuses to compromise the holiness of heaven.

Here in lies the awful fruit of sin. Lead a godless life, and expect a godless eternity. Spend a life telling God to leave you alone, and he will. He will grant you a life without HIM forever.

2 Thessalonians 1:8-9(TEV) “…those who reject God and who do not obey the Good News about our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from his glorious might,

Life‘s greatest calamity, from God’s perspective, is that people die in sin. In one sentence Christ’s twice warns,

John 8:24 (NIV) 24 I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am [the one I claim to be], you will indeed die in your sins."

What is the solution? The cure.

Imagine a man born with bubonic resistance. In his body He carries the cure. “touched my hand.” He offers. “Give me your disease, and receive my health.” True to his word, the bacteria passed from them to HIM. They are immediately healed. He get’s disease. Their relief spells his anguish. Those healed stand in awe, the disease bearer suffers to bring their healing.

Our history books tell no such story, but our bible does.

John 1:29 (ESV) “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

Isaiah 53:5–6 The Message

But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.

Isaiah 53:12b (MSG) He looked death in the face and didn't flinch, He embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

Our only hope for surviving sins pandemic is Christ

How does Christ’s healing reach us? It is the question of the jailer in Philppi:

Acts 16:30 (ESV) “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

You need a connection to the cure.

Acts 16:31 (TEV) 31 They answered, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your family."

Christ is the heaven-sent cure, the antidote to the plague of sin.

2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV) 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Christ the sinless, became sin so that we, the sinners could be counted in less.

Christ not only became the sin offering by receiving God‘s wrath for the sins of humanity, he overcame the punishment for sin (death) through his glorious resurrection from the dead.

1 Peter 3:18 (TLB) 18 Christ also suffered. He died once for the sins of all us guilty sinners although he himself was innocent of any sin at any time, that he might bring us safely home to God.

Christ takes our sins to the cross, destroying sins power over us.

Romans 8:1 (NIV) 1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

AND, then, Christ moves into the believer’s heart.

Galatians 2:20 (NIV) “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

1 Corinthians 3:16 (NIV) 16 Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?

Romans 8:11 (NIV) 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Connected to Jesus we possess and live with the cure for the plague of sin. John words are simple, make certain you stay connected.

1 John 1:7 (NIV) 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

Keep sin at bay. Stay connected to Christ-the cure. Let His life flows through you.

John 10:10 (ESV) 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Keep the thief away. Stay connected to Jesus. Live with a smile on your face and a twinkle in your eye. Trust the work of his cross. Let his work in you bring His healing to others. For your heart now is his home and he is your master and he has brought you eternal healing from the plague of sin.

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