(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.”
SHARING
