Sin is very crafty. It is simultaneously deceitful, beguiling, seductive and destructive. Sin is always looking to destroy us. The bible says that the enemy, who is the author of sin, only comes to steal, kill and destroy. Christians that understand the gravity of sin know that sin is the stumbling block that lies between man and God. Christians that understand the destructive power of sin don't get biblical amnesia when it comes to Romans 6:23 where Paul says plainly that the wages of sin is death.
I liken sin to a virus that we are all infected with because we are all born into sin (Psalm 51:5). While a virus cannot be cured, only the symptoms can be treated, there are vaccines for viruses that prevent viral infections. Vaccines help the body to develop antibodies to ward off viral attacks. There is no human cure for sin or the symptoms of sin but there is a supernatural vaccine which is found ONLY in the blood of Christ Jesus. How is sin like a virus? Let us look at two properties of a virus that differentiate it from other organisms. A virus, while it does not have a brain, is very smart. The sole objective of a virus is to survive. In order to survive, the virus replicates itself rapidly. This first property means that as soon as the virus finds a host, it sets about to create copies of itself to ensure its survival. The second property of a virus is its ability to mutate. Viruses, once they get hip to a particular treatment create copies with genetic mutations within their DNA in order to outwit medications and make them harder to treat. This second property, the ability to mutate makes viruses very difficult to treat and necessitates the use of a different vaccine every so often.
Well, sin is the exact same way. It behaves much like a virus. It copies and replicates itself once a host is found. In our case, we were born with the virus of sin in us and until we meet Christ and repent and trust Him with our lives, that sin simply replicates and increases making us sicker and sicker. Christ's blood acts as a retroactive vaccine to heal us from the sickness of sin. It is funny that vaccines work by giving the body a weakened form of a virus that the body identifies and then develops antibodies to defeat a future viral attack. Jesus did the same thing for us! He was tempted in every way but was without sin- but he withstood the wiles of sin, defeated sin and his blood gives us the power to avoid sin, overcome sin by obedience to His word and escape the penalty of sin which is death!
The other thing about sin that is comparable to a virus is this, sin can mutate! Once we get hip to a certain pattern of sin, sin will mutate, change what it looks like, what it smells like and then re-present itself in order to fool the believer and the unbeliever alike. I said in the beginning of this post, sin is very crafty. Sin tricks us into thinking that it is not sin. David justified his dalliances with Bathsheba and did not believe he was doing anything wrong by sending her husband to be killed on the battlefield. Only when Nathan gave him a word from the Lord did he realize what he had done! Judas justified his stealing from the money purse with an excuse about feeding the poor when in reality, the more money that was in the purse, the more he could have access to. He believed that lie up until the day that he hanged himself.
What we are witnessing in the church is a mutation of sin that has re-presented itself as a lovefest otherwise known as the inclusion movement. I recently stumbled upon an interview with the pastor of The Vision Church in Atlanta, GA. This church is headed by a gay pastor (O.C. Allen) and his gay lover (the First Gentleman (I'm gagging as I am typing this), Rashad Burgess). OK, this is where it gets very interesting...these two brothers see absolutely nothing wrong with them being homosexuals and leading a congregation of mixed sexual orientations- there are some straight people that attend but the majority of the church is gay, bi, trans or whatever else they like to include in their alphabet soup nomenclature. Genesis 4:7 says, directly from God, that sin is crouching at the door with a desire to have you, but you must master it. We must resist the desire that sin has for us!
Sin has repackaged itself and mutated into a false love and tolerance of an unnatural, ungodly and immoral lifestyle. Sin has disguised itself as tolerance and has these folks believing that homosexuality is no longer a part of sin's profile but God made you this way! Sin has blinded these folks to the fact that God does not make defective people, but sin itself causes all defects, all destruction and all rebellion. This particular church, along with other gay affirming churches, use God's love as a license for their own immorality. It is automatically assumed that any Christian that criticizes homosexuals for their blatant and open sin is somehow unloving. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is more unloving to let someone persist in sin and eventually burn in hell than it is to tell them the truth with the aim of leading them towards repentance.
Can you see how sin has mutated and disguised itself as "love" as if accepting blatant and willful disregard for God's commands makes us more loving? If we accept this anomaly as normal, according to the logic of the ones overcome with their own lustful desires, then we are loving and kind Christians that God is pleased with. If we tell the truth that you cannot live in sin and call yourself a believer, then we are being judgmental and hateful, according to the same group. Let me be clear here, this is applicable to all who persist in sin and not just those homosexuals that refuse to repent.
Sin has deceived these apostate "Christians" into believing that those who accept their lifestyle and turn a blind eye to it actually "love" them! This mutation of sin has also caused folks to reinterpret and re-exegete texts concerning homosexuality only to play word games and hit semantical backflips in order to justify what the bible roundly condemns. That, my friends, is a mutation. A cleverly designed ruse to fool more people into accepting what God already said was unacceptable.
Paul said it very simply and it cannot be reinforced enough, light has no fellowship with darkness. the Body of Christ cannot and must not include any group of people that lives in willful and blatant disobedience to His Word. Well, doesn't that include everyone, aren't we all sinners? While we are all sinners, there are many within the body of Christ that are actually striving for holiness and purity. There are many that are trying to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, that are not being deceived by sin to think that being a practitioner of sin glorifies God in any way. These practitioners of sin are the ones, the "so-called" brethren (1 Cor 5:11) that Paul warns true believers not to even eat with! The practitioners of sin are the ones that Paul says should be put out of the church. Pay close attention here. I am not advocating expelling folks from church, but the ones call themselves "Christians" but refuse to repent and think that it is OK should be removed- they are hindrances to those in the church that are truly trying to glorify God by allowing the flesh to be crucified.
To be deceived into thinking that the Holy Spirit is among you when you grieve Him openly by ignoring his call for conviction is foolish. Sin has caused these folks to believe that God is glorified when an entire body of homosexuals is "worshipping" their version of the Almighty. You might be able to conduct service, but if there is no repentance and no change occurring which comes as a result of people forming a true relationship with Jesus, the service is totally in vain. It is just noise and clapping. God is looking at folks that love themselves more than they love Him and wondering when that commandment got reversed.
I'm urging anyone that is stuck in such a place or in such a lifestyle to take the vaccine and not to believe what sin is presenting to you. It is simply a mutation designed to help sin evade detection. Don't fall for the lie. If you are currently a part of the Vision Church or any other church that condones ANY sin, come out from them and be separate. Sin must be dealt with openly, honestly and with love. This post strikes a major chord with me personally because there are several people that I can think of that I need to have a heart to heart conversation with, not homosexuals, just people that I know personally that need to move away from certain things that they are doing in their lives. Jesus loves all men, He does not have a problem with the person, but with the person's sin. Take the vaccine and let Jesus cleanse you of all unrighteousness. His blood was shed from before the foundations of the world so that a vaccine would be available to all that would hear his call and accept it. God bless you and stay on the path to righteousness.
I liken sin to a virus that we are all infected with because we are all born into sin (Psalm 51:5). While a virus cannot be cured, only the symptoms can be treated, there are vaccines for viruses that prevent viral infections. Vaccines help the body to develop antibodies to ward off viral attacks. There is no human cure for sin or the symptoms of sin but there is a supernatural vaccine which is found ONLY in the blood of Christ Jesus. How is sin like a virus? Let us look at two properties of a virus that differentiate it from other organisms. A virus, while it does not have a brain, is very smart. The sole objective of a virus is to survive. In order to survive, the virus replicates itself rapidly. This first property means that as soon as the virus finds a host, it sets about to create copies of itself to ensure its survival. The second property of a virus is its ability to mutate. Viruses, once they get hip to a particular treatment create copies with genetic mutations within their DNA in order to outwit medications and make them harder to treat. This second property, the ability to mutate makes viruses very difficult to treat and necessitates the use of a different vaccine every so often.
Well, sin is the exact same way. It behaves much like a virus. It copies and replicates itself once a host is found. In our case, we were born with the virus of sin in us and until we meet Christ and repent and trust Him with our lives, that sin simply replicates and increases making us sicker and sicker. Christ's blood acts as a retroactive vaccine to heal us from the sickness of sin. It is funny that vaccines work by giving the body a weakened form of a virus that the body identifies and then develops antibodies to defeat a future viral attack. Jesus did the same thing for us! He was tempted in every way but was without sin- but he withstood the wiles of sin, defeated sin and his blood gives us the power to avoid sin, overcome sin by obedience to His word and escape the penalty of sin which is death!
The other thing about sin that is comparable to a virus is this, sin can mutate! Once we get hip to a certain pattern of sin, sin will mutate, change what it looks like, what it smells like and then re-present itself in order to fool the believer and the unbeliever alike. I said in the beginning of this post, sin is very crafty. Sin tricks us into thinking that it is not sin. David justified his dalliances with Bathsheba and did not believe he was doing anything wrong by sending her husband to be killed on the battlefield. Only when Nathan gave him a word from the Lord did he realize what he had done! Judas justified his stealing from the money purse with an excuse about feeding the poor when in reality, the more money that was in the purse, the more he could have access to. He believed that lie up until the day that he hanged himself.
What we are witnessing in the church is a mutation of sin that has re-presented itself as a lovefest otherwise known as the inclusion movement. I recently stumbled upon an interview with the pastor of The Vision Church in Atlanta, GA. This church is headed by a gay pastor (O.C. Allen) and his gay lover (the First Gentleman (I'm gagging as I am typing this), Rashad Burgess). OK, this is where it gets very interesting...these two brothers see absolutely nothing wrong with them being homosexuals and leading a congregation of mixed sexual orientations- there are some straight people that attend but the majority of the church is gay, bi, trans or whatever else they like to include in their alphabet soup nomenclature. Genesis 4:7 says, directly from God, that sin is crouching at the door with a desire to have you, but you must master it. We must resist the desire that sin has for us!
Sin has repackaged itself and mutated into a false love and tolerance of an unnatural, ungodly and immoral lifestyle. Sin has disguised itself as tolerance and has these folks believing that homosexuality is no longer a part of sin's profile but God made you this way! Sin has blinded these folks to the fact that God does not make defective people, but sin itself causes all defects, all destruction and all rebellion. This particular church, along with other gay affirming churches, use God's love as a license for their own immorality. It is automatically assumed that any Christian that criticizes homosexuals for their blatant and open sin is somehow unloving. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is more unloving to let someone persist in sin and eventually burn in hell than it is to tell them the truth with the aim of leading them towards repentance.
Can you see how sin has mutated and disguised itself as "love" as if accepting blatant and willful disregard for God's commands makes us more loving? If we accept this anomaly as normal, according to the logic of the ones overcome with their own lustful desires, then we are loving and kind Christians that God is pleased with. If we tell the truth that you cannot live in sin and call yourself a believer, then we are being judgmental and hateful, according to the same group. Let me be clear here, this is applicable to all who persist in sin and not just those homosexuals that refuse to repent.
Sin has deceived these apostate "Christians" into believing that those who accept their lifestyle and turn a blind eye to it actually "love" them! This mutation of sin has also caused folks to reinterpret and re-exegete texts concerning homosexuality only to play word games and hit semantical backflips in order to justify what the bible roundly condemns. That, my friends, is a mutation. A cleverly designed ruse to fool more people into accepting what God already said was unacceptable.
Paul said it very simply and it cannot be reinforced enough, light has no fellowship with darkness. the Body of Christ cannot and must not include any group of people that lives in willful and blatant disobedience to His Word. Well, doesn't that include everyone, aren't we all sinners? While we are all sinners, there are many within the body of Christ that are actually striving for holiness and purity. There are many that are trying to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, that are not being deceived by sin to think that being a practitioner of sin glorifies God in any way. These practitioners of sin are the ones, the "so-called" brethren (1 Cor 5:11) that Paul warns true believers not to even eat with! The practitioners of sin are the ones that Paul says should be put out of the church. Pay close attention here. I am not advocating expelling folks from church, but the ones call themselves "Christians" but refuse to repent and think that it is OK should be removed- they are hindrances to those in the church that are truly trying to glorify God by allowing the flesh to be crucified.
To be deceived into thinking that the Holy Spirit is among you when you grieve Him openly by ignoring his call for conviction is foolish. Sin has caused these folks to believe that God is glorified when an entire body of homosexuals is "worshipping" their version of the Almighty. You might be able to conduct service, but if there is no repentance and no change occurring which comes as a result of people forming a true relationship with Jesus, the service is totally in vain. It is just noise and clapping. God is looking at folks that love themselves more than they love Him and wondering when that commandment got reversed.
I'm urging anyone that is stuck in such a place or in such a lifestyle to take the vaccine and not to believe what sin is presenting to you. It is simply a mutation designed to help sin evade detection. Don't fall for the lie. If you are currently a part of the Vision Church or any other church that condones ANY sin, come out from them and be separate. Sin must be dealt with openly, honestly and with love. This post strikes a major chord with me personally because there are several people that I can think of that I need to have a heart to heart conversation with, not homosexuals, just people that I know personally that need to move away from certain things that they are doing in their lives. Jesus loves all men, He does not have a problem with the person, but with the person's sin. Take the vaccine and let Jesus cleanse you of all unrighteousness. His blood was shed from before the foundations of the world so that a vaccine would be available to all that would hear his call and accept it. God bless you and stay on the path to righteousness.
Well said! I love you! The other Dr. Russell
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