Sermon Tone Analysis

True &False Believers and

the Issue of Sin

I John 1:5-10

 

People today minimize and redefine sin, often alleging that the "failures" of their lives and certain "disorders" exist because of how others have treated them.

* *

*Example:* New age church

/The Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles/

Making no claim at all to be Christian, but still calling itself a church, Pastor Michael Beckwith confidently exclaims, “we combine new thought with ancient wisdom.

We don’t believe you are born into sin.

We are born into blessings.

While some seek salvation, we call it self-elevation” (World, Dec. 15, 2001, p. 16).

*Example:* Liberal Episcopalian church, woman mad

Russ Moore, a member of the faculty at Southern Seminary spoke at a liberal Episcopalian Church in New Albany, Indiana recently, (Feb.

2002), explaining what Baptists believe.

During a Question and Answer session, a woman spoke up and said, /“My daughter is 10 and she has never sinned and I don’t think she ever will.

I don’t think she has it in her.”/

 

 

 

 

*Example:* National Day of prayer

Congress voted some years ago to require the President to proclaim each year a national day of prayer, and Truman began it in 1952.

The following year (1953) President Eisenhower made his first proclamation and in it he made a reference to */SIN./*

He borrowed the words for his proclamation from a call issued in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln, the country’s first Republican and most theological President:

 

/“It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their *sins and transgressions* in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon.”/

An article in “Theology Today” has this to say about Eisenhower’s use of the word “sin”:

 

/“None of Eisenhower’s subsequent calls to prayer mentioned sin again.

The word was not compatible with the Commander-in-Chief’s vision of a proud and confident people.

… Since 1953, no President has mentioned sin as a national failing.

Neither Kennedy, Johnson, nor Nixon.

To be sure, they have skirted the word.

The Republicans referred to the problems of “pride” and “self-righteousness.”

The Democrats referred to “short-comings.”

But none used the grand old sweeping concept of sin.

I cannot imagine a modern President beating his breast on behalf of the Nation and praying “God be merciful to us sinners” …’/

______________________________

 

The victim mentality reigns supreme as popular culture comforts itself in affirming that people are basically good and whatever may be wrong is not really wrong, but merely a preference of personal freedom.

Instead of accepting responsibility for their behavior, people demand to be accepted as they are.

They reclassify serious and heart issues "illnesses" and "addictions" and try to "cure" them with prescription drugs and psychotherapy.

But because that fails to deal with sin, the actual root cause of the problem, society goes from bad to worse.

In contrast to all that delusion, Jesus taught that every person is sinful at the very core of his or her being:

 

Mark 7:20-23

/    And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.

[21] For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, [22] Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: [23] All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.

/

 

Jeremiah 17:9

/    The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

/

 

Yet, many in the church today seem to be reluctant to make the diagnosis Jesus did, for fear they might offend someone or be deemed "unloving."

Thus, sin is explained away in culturally acceptable terms.

*Example:* Israel in Malachi's day "What sin?"

The people of Judah in Malachi's day were equally good at denying their sin.

God had given them very clear and detailed instructions concerning what offerings were acceptable to Him (Lev.

1:1-7:38).

Yet they continued to present defiled food and defective animals to the Lord.

Then they acted surprised (as though they had done nothing wrong) when the Lord, through the prophet Malachi, confronted them about their clear disobedience:

 

Malachi 1:6-8

/    A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour?

and if I be a master, where is my fear?

saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name.

And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?

[7] Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee?

In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible.

[8] And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil?

and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil?

offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person?

saith the Lord of hosts.

/

 

John has an altogether different understanding both of sin’s severity and a Savior’s necessity.

He recognizes the danger of calling God a liar and warns his /“little children”/ (2:1) to be on alert.

Find out what a person believes about Jesus and what he thinks about sin, John says.

 

1 John 1:5

*/    This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

/*

 

*/“This then is the message which we have heard of him..”*[1]*-/* The message that John and the other apostles preached came from God not from men (cf.

Gal.

1:12).

*/“God is light”/* – In Scripture, light and darkness are very familiar symbols.[2]

Intellectually, */“light”*[3]*/* refers to biblical truth while */“darkness”/* refers to error or falsehood (cf.

Ps. 119:105; Prov.

6:23; John 1:4; 8:12).

Psalm 119:105 (KJV)

/Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

/

 

Proverbs 6:23 (KJV)

/ For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life: /

 

John 1:4 (KJV)

/In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

/

 

John 8:12 (KJV)

/Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

/

 

Morally, */“light” /*refers to holiness or purity while */“darkness”/* refers to sin or wrongdoing (Rom.

13:11–14; 1 Thess.

5:4–7).

Romans 13:11-14 (KJV)

/And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

13 Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.

14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.

/

 

1 Thessalonians 5:4-7 (KJV)

/4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

/

/6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.

/

 

The heretics claimed to be the truly enlightened, walking in the real light, but John denied that because they do not recognize their sin.

*/“and in Him is no darkness at all./* [4]*/”-/* With this phrase, John forcefully affirms that God is absolutely perfect and nothing exists in God’s character that impinges upon His truth and holiness.[5]

James 1:17 (KJV)

/Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

/

 

Those two essential properties of divine light and life are crucial in distinguishing genuine faith from a counterfeit claim.

If one professes to possess the Light and to dwell in it—to have received eternal life—he will show evidence of spiritual life by his devotion both to truth and to righteousness, as John writes later in this letter:

 

1 John 2:9-11

/    He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.

[10] He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.

[11] But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.

/

 

We will mark how the issue of sin exposes true believers from false believers: