Man’s Religious Motivation

(Compliments the November 14, 2010, Sunday Morning sermon, “The Enmity Of Sin”)

Just casual consideration of the opposition of religious men to Christ while He was here on earth, should alert us to a problem that needs to be identified. Man has always accepted religion of, and for the flesh, while finding it against his grain to accept that which is of God.

The root cause lies in the enmity between man’s sinful nature and God. The world never hated Christ for a fault, but due to the enmity of man’s sinful nature against Christ’s Divine, righteous nature. From His birth on, there was nothing of this world that stood up with Christ, but it all came down on the side against Him. And in the forefront, leading the charge against Christ, was the religion of men, with all its sects and diversities, uniting in one common cause to oppose Him.

In the very beginning, the nature of sin was manifested as being that which does not submit to God, but rather presumes upon God (Genesis 3). Sin exalts itself to be the authority on God and the things of God. Thus it is sin in man that produces the desire to presume upon the things of God. This presumption is the strong motivation for man to express himself in being religious, not in honor of God in spirit and in truth, but according to the pride and presumption of man to present himself to God on his own terms.

There was a fundamental difference between the religious sects of Judaism and true Christianity in New Testament times. The difference was not in those who professed to believe in God and those who didn’t. Rather, the difference was between that which was of God, and that which was according to the pride of man in presuming upon the things of God.

This fundamental difference is the reason man argues against salvation by grace through faith only, without works. Man is opposed to trusting in Christ to be made the righteousness of God in Him, because man does not accept the conviction that he, as a sinner, at enmity with God, has no righteousness before God. Man rather promotes the presumptuous belief that Christ will save him because of the goodness and righteousness of man’s own person (eternal life in prospect of man’s own way of living.)

Thus anywhere, anytime, religion is a matter of the flesh and for the flesh and by the flesh, man will naturally respond to it for his own pride’s sake. He will promote it, because of how it exalts him for what he is and does. And at the same time, these same religious motivations will stir him up to not endure sound doctrine and that which is not of the flesh, but rather is wholly for the worship of God in spirit and in truth. The personal motivation that moved Cain to offer his own pride and self esteem offering, is the same motivation that caused him to be angry when God accepted not his offering, and was the same motivation that resulted in him rising up and slaying his brother, Abel. John 16:2 “…yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.”

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Others May, You Cannot

By George Douglas Watson, 1845-1924
(public domain)

If God has called you to be really like Jesus, He will draw you to a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience, that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways, He will seem to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.

Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it; and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others many boast of themselves, of their work, of their success, of their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence on Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.

The Lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hidden in obscurity, because He wants you to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others be great, but keep you small. He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit of it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He may let others get the credit for the work which you have done, and thus make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do as He pleases with His own.

He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you. But if you absolutely sell yourself to be His…slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle.

Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others. Now when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.

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The Set Of The Sail

I stood on the shore beside the sea;
The wind from the West blew fresh and free,
While past the rocks at the harbor’s mouth
The ships went North, and the ships went South,
And some sailed out on an unknown quest,
And some sailed into the harbor’s rest;
Yet ever the wind blew out of the West.

I said to one who had sailed the sea
That this was a marvel unto me;
For how can the ships go safely forth,
Some to the South and some to the North,
Far out to sea on their golden quest,
Or in to the harbor’s calm and rest,
And ever the wind blew out of the West?

The sailor smiled as he answered me,
“Go where you will when you’re on the sea,
Though head winds baffle and flaws delay,
You can keep the course by night and day,
Drive with the breeze or against the gale;
It will not matter what winds prevail,
For all depends on the set of the sail.”

Voyager soul on the sea of life,
O’er waves of sorrow and sin and strife,
When fogs bewilder and foes betray,
Steer straight on your course from day to day;
Though unseen currents run deep and swift,
Where rocks are hidden and sandbars shift,
All helpless and aimless, you need not drift.

Oh, set your sail to the heavenly gale,
And then, no matter what winds prevail,
No reef shall wreck you, no calm delay,
No mist shall hinder, no storm shall stay;
Though far you wander and long you roam,
Through salt sea-spray and o’er white sea-foam,
No wind that can blow but shall speed you home.

–Annie Johnson Flint

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Philosophy’s Blindness

1. God is good.
2. God is all-powerful.
3. Bad things happen.

After listing these, the philosopher confidently says that all three cannot be true at the same time. If God is good, and if God is all-powerful, then bad things should not be happening. Or let’s say if God is good, and bad things happen, then this means God is not all-powerful enough to prevent the bad. Or if God is powerful enough to prevent bad events and doesn’t, then God is not good, but bad.

The above is erroneous thinking, due to not know the scriptures. It is the typical “blame God for everything” rather than man take responsibility for anything.

When God finished the creation, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” Genesis 1:31 There was nothing bad in the creation, nor would anything bad happen throughout God’s creation. And, all that man knew at that time was good.

But it was sin that changed everything — the sin of man! When man disobeyed God and sinned in the Garden of Eden, he not only knew both good and evil, but his sin brought the curse upon the entire creation. This curse brought corruption, mortality, sorrow, pain, suffering upon mankind, and brought the whole natural realm under the bondage of corruption, which is responsible for all natural disasters.

God gave man dominion over all the earth. Man had the choice to keep his world all good as God created it, or bring the curse of sin upon all of it, and man chose the latter.

Beyond God’s goodness, is God’s grace, that provided salvation for man through the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. God is so good that He was not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance unto salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s goodness commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for our sins.

Because God is all-powerful, He will, in His appointed time, judge all mankind, destroy this old universe and make all things new, where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. Revelation 21:1-5

But until then, due to man’s spiritually dead state, man will continue to blame, rather than glorify, the good, almighty God.

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A Reprobate Mind

By Thomas Smith

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;” (Romans 1:28)

It would be good if every person would familiarize himself with the message of Romans 1. The second half of the chapter documents the human descent from spiritual awareness to utter depravity. Our text uses the term, “a reprobate mind.” The word “reprobate” means that they have been “rejected, abandoned to error and spiritual destruction, unable to discern between right and wrong.” Notice that the verse says, “God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” In this chapter, the phrase, “God gave them over,” is found more than once. There is no hope for a person when God turns them over or gives them up.

How many times have we heard people lament the deplorable condition and direction of our country, and wonder how we could ever have become so sinister? Is there any explanation for the increasing acceptance of sodomy, the plague of pornography, and the epidemic of sexual deviancy toward innocent children? Where is the conscience of a nation that allows the murder of more than a million unborn babies a year? What kind of logic would cause a politician to fight for the life of an endangered animal while insisting a woman has the right to terminate the life of her child? How unreasonable is it that children are exposed to sexually explicit information in government schools, but the Bible is a forbidden Book.

The minds of Americans are becoming reprobate, unable to distinguish between good and evil. How does this occur? According to Romans 1, it follows a predictable path. People go from knowing about God and seeing His evidence in creation, to rejecting Him. They then make themselves the center of their universe, and worship the creature rather than the Creator. They change God’s truth into a lie. They do not want God to have a place in their minds. This is the journey to reprobation. When God is removed from the minds of people, the lie of evolution is accepted, the Word of God is rejected, humanism is promoted, and the end will be what we are seeing so much of in our society. There are severe consequences when individuals or nations reject God and His standard of truth. If there is any hope for such a people, they must turn to God in true repentance.

–From Straight Paths, Vol. 1, Mt. Zion Baptist Church, 1352 Parkway Dr., St. Clair, MO 63077

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