What a bug bite can teach us about sin

I was out fishing yesterday with friends when I felt something bite me on the wrist.  I looked down and saw an ant there and flicked it off, but it immediately started itching, and I knew I was in trouble.  I’ve told you before that I am allergic to bees.  I found out today that I’m allergic to other kinds of bug bites too.  I know the routine.  Slowly the area around the bite started to swell.  Then the swelling began to creep up my arm.  Within a couple of hours, my hand looked like the Pillsbury dough boy’s.  With a bug bite, it’s easy to diagnose the problem.   The problem was the bug’s venom got into me.  I felt the bite and I saw the progress of the swelling.  The antidote is a steroid shot, a relatively simple solution to the problem. This morning the swelling had receded some and my hand looks more like mine than an advertiser’s cartoon mascot.  All of this got me to thinking about sin and salvation. Let me explain:

Sin gets into us like that bug’s venom got into me.  Sin is at the root of every problem we have in our lives.  Our own sin causes us problems.  We have health problems because we over-eat, or smoke or drink.  We have financial problems because we spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need.  We have relational problems because we are proud and won’t admit when we are wrong. We are addicted to video games, pornography, drugs, or gambling. Sometimes, it’s the sin of others that makes our lives difficult.  The boss is an ego-maniac.  Our children have walked away from the faith.  The mechanic is ripping us off.  Other times, our problems are caused by the fact that we live in a fallen world, which is the result of sin.  When Adam ate the forbidden fruit, sin and death entered the world.  Natural disasters, evil, bug bites, and the tendency of things to decay and deteriorate are the result.  

Unlike a bug bite, sin can be hard to diagnose, especially our own sin.  It creeps into our lives like the swelling crept up my arm, slowly but surely, and if we don’t get the antidote, our sin will kill us and keep us from heaven.  Satan entices us to sin, and he blinds our eyes so that we continue in it, so that we never make the connection between our sin and the hardship we create for ourselves by it. The problem is sin.

The antidote to sin is Jesus Christ.  When Jesus died on the cross, He said, “It is finished.”  That means that the work of paying for our sin is complete.  The debt that we owe for sinning against Holy God is “paid in full.” We will never pay the penalty for our sin if we believe in Jesus for our salvation because God doesn’t demand double payment of the debt.  Jesus already paid it for you once and for all.  That’s wonderful news of course, but how does that help in our battle against sin?  Romans 8:9 says, “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”  As believers, we have the Holy Spirit to help us defeat sin.  Romans 8:5-8 says, “⁵ Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. ⁶ The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. ⁸ Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.”

Believers in Jesus Christ have the power to defeat sin because we have the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, living inside of us.  If we want to defeat the sin in our lives, we have to have our minds set on what the Spirit desires.  The will of God is not hard to discern.  He wants us to live holy lives, lives of integrity and high character.  He wants us not to worry and to trust Him for our needs.  He wants us to share the love of Jesus with others.  As we fill ourselves with the desires of the Spirit, the sin in our lives will decrease correspondingly.  If you have kids, you want them to be busy because you know that busyness keeps them out of trouble.  God wants us to be busy about His work in this world.  We can’t be sinning and doing His work at the same time.  If I had killed that bug or flicked it off of me before it had bitten me, I could have stopped that venom from getting into me.  If we kill sin before it gets into us, we will be spared of so much suffering and hardship that we bring on ourselves. 

Let’s be filled with the Holy Spirit; let get about doing God’s work.  We will still have the problems that come from living in a fallen world, and we will still face persecution for being Christians.  But hopefully, we will have far fewer problems that are caused by our own sin.

The Baker who wouldn't bake

If you are like me, you have been eagerly awaiting the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. This is the case of Jack Phillips, the Christian baker and owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, who refused to bake a wedding cake for two gay men on the grounds that doing so would violate his religious beliefs.    

After Phillips refused to bake the cake, the gay couple filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights commission alleging that Phillips violated a Colorado anti-discrimination law that prohibits business open to the public from discriminating against their customers on the basis of race, religion or sexual orientation. Phillips argued that his cakes were an artistic expression and subject to free speech protection under the first amendment, and that requiring him to bake cakes for gay couples violated his right to free speech and free exercise of religion.  There is much procedural history that can be summarized by saying that Phillips lost at trial and on appeal. The courts ruled that the making of a cake was the expected conduct of Phillips business, and not an expression of free speech or an exercise of religion, and therefore his refusal to bake the cake violated the anti-discrimination law.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jack Phillips yesterday.  This is wonderful news for Phillips and for those who believe that business owners should not be forced to violate their consciences and beliefs by being required to use their creativity to endorse same sex marriage.  But we should look at what the Supreme Court actually said and didn’t say.  The Court ruled in favor of Phillips because it said that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission violated its obligation to apply “religious neutrality” to its hearings and therefore overturned the ruling by the Commission.  The Supreme Court found that the Commission was unduly biased against Phillips and had shown open hostility toward his religious beliefs.  In other words, Phillips didn’t get a fair hearing before the Commission because the Commission was hostile to Phillips religious beliefs and overturned the ruling on those grounds.  What the Supreme Court did not say was that Phillips or anyone else in a similar situation has a right to deny providing goods or services to a gay couple. The court basically kicked the can down the road, choosing to decide the case on a very narrow issue, rather than dealing with the big issues in the case.

So, even though Phillips won the case, he did not hit a home run.  He won on a much narrower issue than what he was hoping, i.e., that the Court would declare that his rights to freedom of speech and freedom of exercise religion trump the anti-discrimination law. This case establishes no legal precedent and will be of no use to the next Christian business owner accused of violating anti-discrimination laws by refusing to sell goods and services to same sex couples. That issue is not resolved and I doubt it will be very long before another case makes its way up to the Supreme Court. 

In the meantime, let’s not be part of the problem.  God loves people who are practicing homosexuality, although the Bible is clear that homosexuality is an abomination to God.  We need to love them too, yet not be afraid to speak Biblical truth to them IN LOVE.  I emphasize IN LOVE because this issue has been so clouded by hate.  We ALL have sin in our lives.  God hates ALL sin.  Jesus died for ALL sin.  Let’s show practicing homosexuals the same grace, mercy and love in their sin that we want for ourselves and our own sin. Let’s find the proper balance between loving the sinner and not endorsing the sin.  Let’s point them to Christ.  That’s where forgiveness for ALL sin is found.

The Weatherman and the Bible

Most mornings I wake up pretty early and go for a long walk around the golf course near my neighborhood.  The weatherman was calling for a high chance of rain this morning, but I have learned not to trust weathermen in Texas.  The weather is always the same in the summer, and I think that they want to report that there is a chance of rain just to break the monotony of their weather forecasts from June to September.  Typical weather forecast in Texas: Hot and sunny, with a continued chance of hot and sunny for a solid 3 months.  Well, this morning the weatherman guessed right.  As I reached the furthest point from my house, the lightning started and the deluge began.  I was dodging lightning bolts and was thoroughly drenched by the time I got home. 

This got me to thinking about the reliability and trustworthiness of the weatherman and the Bible.  The weatherman is often wrong so I have learned not to trust him.  I don’t live my life around weather forecasts. The Bible is never wrong and so I do live my life according to what the Bible says.  I trust it completely.

As we live our lives trying to witness to people about Jesus Christ, our evidence is the Bible.  The difficult thing about witnessing is not that people don’t know their Bibles, it’s that people don’t believe what the Bible says.  They think it’s just a human book, written by human authors, is not inerrant, infallible or authoritative, and has no bearing on their lives.  How do we cope with that reality?  Here are a few suggestions: 

1. Know what the Bible says about itself:

·     2 Tim. 3:16-17: ¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the servant of Godmay be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

·     1 Peter 1:20-21:²⁰ Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. ²¹ For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

·     Psalm 12:6:“And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times” 

·     Psalm 19:7:“The law of the Lord is perfect”.

·     Proverbs 30:5:“Every word of God is pure”.

Those are just a few of many verses that speak about the Bible’s inerrancy.  But is that enough?  People will say that you can’t use the Bible to argue that the Bible is true.  OK, what if everything else the Bible says is also true?

2. Know some of the many prophesies of the Bible that have already been fulfilled:

Think about all of the prophecies of the Bible that have already come true.  To name but a few: 

·     Isaiah’s prophecy about the death of the Messiah (Is. 53)

·     Isaiah’s prophecy that Messiah would be born of a virgin (Is. 7:14)

·     Jesus’s birthplace (Micah 5:2)

·     Zechariah’s prophecy that they would look on him who they pierced (Zech. 12:10)

·     Not one of Jesus’ bones would be broken (Ps. 34:20)

·     Jesus’ prophecy that He would be killed and rise again (Mark 10:32-34) 

There are so many more that could be cited. What about the secrets that lie in the sands of the Middle East?

3. Know that Archaeology has not disproven anything in the Bible, rather the opposite is true: 

·     The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (858-824 B.C.) shows Jehu, king of Israel, bowing before the Assyrian king, and he is mentioned by name. This is the only known picture of an Israelite king.  It confirms Jehu’s existence.

·     Tablets from the time of Tiglath-Pileser (744-727 B.C.) state that he received tribute from Jehoahaz of Judah. This is the full name of Ahaz (2 Kings 16:7).

·     A detailed limestone relief from Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh shows the siege of Lachish. (2 Chron. 32)

·     The cylinder of Nabonidus (555-539 B.C.). He was the last ruler of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. This stele proves that his son Belshazzar was co-regent with him (Daniel 5; 7:1; 8:1). Belshazzar promised Daniel that he would be third in the kingdom rather than second, because there were two kings!

There are many, many more findings that could be cited.  

I want us all to understand that the Bible is inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative and true!  We can depend on it for our salvation.  If the weatherman tells me it’s going to rain tomorrow, I’ll probably go out for my walk again anyway.  His predictions are right about half the time.  The Bible says Jesus Christ died for my sins and rose from the dead so that I can have eternal life.  The Bible promises that He will come again.  The Bible has proven itself to be the Word of God over and over again. It is true 100% of the time and I believe its promises!