THE ORIGIN OF SIN AND THE TROUBLE WITH HUMANITY

Many people these days ask the question whether God exist. Some ask whether God really cares about humanity. Looking at the suffering around us and the wars, we ask if God really does exist.

Why do I have to suffer in order to get bread to eat? Why is no one thinking about me? You may be asking these questions within you. That no one cares about you. Do I deserve to live?

1. What are some of the questions people ask about humanity and God?

Many people do not know the origin of sin and why man got into trouble and suffering. Many do not know where to go because they do not know where they come from. We all came from God who created everything in the universe for His own glory. We belong to God and we need to come back to God who created us in His image to commune with Him. The lack of this knowledge has led many to ask questions like:

• Why is there suffering on earth?
• Why did God allow suffering if He is a loving God?
• Why did God not make all created being sinless?
• Where did sin come from?
• Why did God create Lucifer?
• Why did God allow Lucifer to rebel against Him?
• Why did God punish man when they obeyed the word of Satan over God?
• How can man do to taste of the tree of life again?
• How can man live for eternity?

2. What does the Bible give as answer to questions above?

God created man for His glory and so He wants man to pay loyalty to Him alone. We are His property and he deserves the glory. But He does not want us to do it by force but by love. He wants man to be loyal to Him through love  and so God gave man the power of choice . In Isa 1:18 He says come now and let us reason together. He does not want to force but He wants man to agree with Him in love. In Gen 2:17  He created man and placed them in the garden of Eden with two trees; the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Imagine God who took His time and planted the garden as the Bible says. The garden of pleasure, the place that is highly pleasing. That is the meaning of Eden. SO God wanted man to live in a perfect place with enough pleasure. Adam and Eve had the power to chose and eat from the tree of life but they made a choice to disobey God and eat from the tree of the knowledge of God and evil which will lead them to death.

In disobeying God they man all humanity sinners. God gave the law that man should not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil out of love because He did not want man to die. Sin is rebellion against God’s love based law. God wants us to love Him with all our heart (Matt 22:37-40) and we can only be people who love God if we obey His law (Ro 8:7) and disobeying God’s law is sinning against God (1Jn3:4).

Sin is rejection of God and it brings separation from God. Many of us think life is not fair. No, it’s that we are separated from God because of sin. God is not in all the thoughts of a sinful man ( Ps.10:4). You have no favor, nothing is moving on your side because the face of God is hidden from you (Isa.59:2). That is what sin causes to man.

Sin originated in heaven with an angel called Lucifer who was later called Satan (Isa 14:12).God created him and he was perfect, and God allowed him the power of choice (Ez.28:15). Because of pride he made a choice to sin and declared Gods law unfair. He wanted to exalt himself above God. He wanted to take the place of God (Isa.14:13,14).

God did not stop him from expressing himself. God is very fair and He allowed him to express himself even though he wanted the place of God. Lucifer then deceived 1/3 of the angels in heaven who followed him and later on man (Adam and Eve) Rev.12:4. God could not make Lucifer a robot, neither would He have made man a robot to only say yes to God. That would not have been fair and since God cannot contradict himself as a just and fair God he allowed every created being the free will to chose what they want.

Even though we are allowed to chose, good and evil are not compatible (Mat.12:25) and God being a just God will always judge and reward every created being for what he/she has done. That is why Satan and the angels who decided to rebel against God were expelled from heaven (Rev.12:7-9)

Adam and Eve were warned against sin, its consequences and they were given the power of choice (Gen.2:15-17). But they decided to obey Satan rather than God (Gen.3:6). They trusted Satan more than God. For them God was a liar and Satan was the man of truth. This is what we also mean when we reject God’s command.

They gave their allegiance to Satan and so sinned against God bringing about death to humanity. Mankind became sinful by nature and deserving death as the wages (Rom.5:12-16)

As a result all creation groans under the pain and curse of sin (Rom.8:22). We are asking questions today why people are suffering, why people are in pain, why pain exist in the first place. All these is a result of the pain and curse of sin. By one man – Adam, all humanity became sinful by nature, by one man-Christ, all can be saved by choice if they want to be (Rom.5:17-21)

Do you believe you need God in your life? There are some who think they have all what life needs and do not need any one for their living. You may think you have:

·         Money

·         Your business flourishing

·         Good friends

·         A good family

·         Houses and cars

·         Good health and living well

·         Authority

·         A good education and intelligence, etc

But God says this about you:

·         You are empty

·         You are a very poor man/woman

·         You are a fool

·         You are a child who needs to be taught

·         You are naked and you need to be clothed

·         You are a dead man who needs to revived.

And to be who you want to be, depends only on you. It is your choice to make. Accept the one man who brings life. Ro 5:17-21 says though your sins, dependence on yourself, brokenness is too much for you, God’s grace has increased the more. He is still ready to receive you because of what Christ did on the cross for you and for me.

God’s suffering servant; the messiah

Isaiah 42 :1-9

Many Christians today think they can only glorify God when they have been blessed. Many do not know that God needs our praise and glory at all times and situations. Jesus Christ our Lord showed the example as one who glorified God as a suffering servant.  Isaiah in this text is looking far to the future though he uses Israel as the historical foundation in his statement. God says, this is my servant whom I uphold; my soul delights in him.

a)      The Character of the suffering servant

• He is tender and compassionate (vs 2)
• He’ll draw all men to himself
• He’ll bring justice to the weak (vs3)
• The Gentiles will seek His redemption (vs1)
• He’ll not stop until justice is brought on the earth
• He’ll bring His law to the earth (vs4)
• God’ll establish his covenant with the people through Him
• He’ll bring light to those in bondage and darkness hence a source of freedom (Jn 8:32-36)

He is therefore Jesus Christ. This is the suffering servant who brought Glory to the father by what He did. That was Isaiah’s prophecy and to us today who are Christ’s disciples we need to show the same character as our Lord taught by example. We have to be like Christ.

b)      What is the main mission of the suffering servant?

• He’ll redeem all the nations
• The blind will see and move in the light of God
• The prisoners held in bondage to sin will be freed from sin and the power of Satan vs7

c)       Assurance of the redemption (Vs8)

1. God reminds us that He is the Lord.

ü  The lord is the master

ü  The master deserves submission from His subjects

ü  The master deserves obedience

ü  The master deserves respect and fear (reverence)

ü  The master deserves worship and glory

ü  Praise belongs to the master who is our Lord

2. God says “The Lord is my name. Glorify my Name.”

ü  God will not share His praise and glory with anyone

ü  How many of us worship and give praises to other human beings instead of God? More of us even do so to man made images.

ü  God says, “I made you for my glory” reason why He is sending His suffering servant to redeem you and I for His glory.

ü  God takes dominion in our lives when we truly worship Him. God wants to rule our whole life. That is why he asks of s this worship.

ü  If you worship Satan he’ll take dominion of your life. Whether you worship him in sorcery, “ngambé” as it’s called in Cameroon, falsehood, sectarian practices, etc your life will be controlled by him whom you worship.

ü  Isaiah 26:13 says other masters beside God have had dominion over the Israelites. It also applies to us today. Is it the things of the devil? Or is it money? Or sorcery which has even entered into some of our churches today in the form of prophecy?

3. Are you saved? If yes then what are you doing with your life?

ü  Do you think it’s enough to be saved? If your salvation does not bring glory to God, then it is worthless.

ü  Your salvation and God’s glory can be compared with money and paper. An empty paper has no value but a thousand bill has a value because of that which is engraved in it. It is the glory of God that gives value to your salvation, else it is worthless.

ü  Yes you are saved! And so what? You must glorify God, because that is the goal of your existence.

                                                               i.      Glorify God in your way of life

                                                             ii.      Living a righteous life brings glory to God

                                                            iii.      Living in obedience to His word, loving Him with all your heart, trusting Him in all things, being the light of this world by reflecting God’s work in you. That is it!

4. God’s word is true and it’ll be accomplished. The things prophesied happened and now Isaiah is declaring God’s prophecy for the future. Today we know that God’s word was true because we have also seen and heard. The suffering servant, our Messiah, Jesus Christ has come.

Isaiah knew it’ll come because God never fails. Today we need to hold on to the same promises. We have read from scriptures and this Messiah who died on the cross of Calvary for you and me, was raised from the death and is seated at the right hand of God, will come again but to judge the world.

That is the promise. He’ll come and judge the world, paying every man with his own coins. It shall be like that because God has spoken in His word. Today He is telling you the same things. “I am the Lord. That is My name. I’ll not share my glory with any man or anything.”

Glorify God by obeying the teachings of Jesus Christ our savior, the suffering servant. Amen!

Who will ascend into the hill of the Lord ?

Psalm 24:3-6

Many people think worship is just something you do for formality. We worship God because we know He exists. Because we know that He created us for His glory and He needs our worship even though we do not see Him. He does not want to share His glory with any other.

[My intention is to make you see the attitude you need to have in order to truly worship God]

What is the first attitude we must have to truly worship?

   a)      Know the one you worship

True worship starts by understanding the one you worship. True worshipers know that God exist beyond our human imagination.

i)                    We cannot ascend unto God. This statement makes us know that we do not need to ascend to God before we can worship Him. That is why Christ told us to believe His words because he alone comes from the Father. No one has ever seen Him. We shall only see Him when we meet in His kingdom after the judgment day. But we are expected to worship Him here on earth.

ii)                   No one fully comprehends His majesty. The scriptures make us understand that we cannot fully know the truth of God’s majesty. “Who can be God’s counselor?” There’s none like Him. No one whom we can imagine in our mind! Only man-made gods are in the imagination of the one who makes them but our God is not.

·   Who can describe the image of God or His glory? No one can describe it, but what we know is that we are made in His image. His image which is not the physical appearance because God is spirit reason why we can only worship Him in spirit and in truth (Jn 4:23-24)

·   What we know is that God exists. This generates worship from our hearts. We have many names or attributes which people have used to worship God such as

o   God of peace

o   Great provider

o   God of Love

o   The Lily of the valley

o   The ancient of days

o   The unchangeable changer

o   Omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, etc

We cannot list all the attributes because God is beyond our imagination.

·   This is what we need to know when we worship God. He is someone to fear with reverence because we cannot know 1 millionth of everything about God. But He still wants us to worship Him and Him alone.

   b)      Who can then worship God?

                    i.            Those with clean hands.

·         Only those who have clean hands can truly worship God. They are not in conflict with their neighbors.

·         If you are in conflict, then you are guilty and your worship will be hypocritical if you try to worship God. True worship comes from clean hands, clean lips and clean heart. If you cannot care about others, how can you understand the God who cares for all men? If you cannot show peace, you cannot know the God who brings peace into the heart of men.

                  ii.            Those with a pure heart.

·         True worship comes from the spirit and is truthful. The character of your inner man determines your worship to God.

·         If your heart is full of forgiveness, then you can identify with one who wants to worship.

·         If you have mercy for others, then you are one who seeks to worship.

This is what makes your heart pure. It makes you truthful before God. You are not a hypocrite when your heart is pure. True worshipers worship in spirit and in truth. (Jn 4:23-24) They worship with a pure heart!

                iii.            The one whose soul is not carried to vanity.

·         You cannot worship a true God while loving things that are false. Psalm 12:2 makes us know that vanity is spoken with flattering lips. So they are not true or they are exaggerated. It also tells us that when you speak vanity, it is with a double heart. How then can you worship God who will not share his glory with any man? You’ll say “Yes I did this thing and God blessed me like this”. When you really know is a lie. False testimony is vanity! It does not worship or bring praise to God. Your mouth is a waste! The Bible says you are giving your heart to those things rather than God. You pass your time talking bout your wealth or achievements rather than seeing what God has done to you through those things.

·         You love the things more than the giver of those things. You have a double heart and cannot worship God in truth. If you carry your man-made god, whether it is an invented image or thing, or money, whatsoever you trust more, know that you love lies. Because they have taken the place or position of the true God in your life. Psalm 31:6 encourage us to hate those who regard lying vanities, but to trust in the Lord.

                 iv.            Those who seek God like Jacob

·         Jacob was a liar but when he realized that he could not go anyway with it, he turned back to God. He cheated his brother and took his birth right. He did the same to his father-in-law Laban in order to gain animals. From Genesis 32:22-30 we see how Jacob’s soul wrestled with God. Who can battle with the Lord? No one. But Jacob struggled with his soul before the messenger of God. He asked him to bless him, but he did not know with whom he was struggling.

·         What Jacob knew was that he was carrying a curse because of his lies and he needed blessings. The Bible tells us that he asked for blessings but he did not know the name of the person with whom he was struggling. He asked him “I beg you, tell me your name” The man did not tell him his name but he blessed him. Jacob knew that the man could bless him and reverse everything about his life, but he did not know his name.

·         Because the messenger was from God, it is considered that Jacob struggled with God. He wrestled for his blessings, because he knew he could only have it through the man whom he did not know after he had sent his family ahead of him. A similar thing happened to Manoah in judges 13:17-18 when the angel of the Lord announced to him and his wife the birth of Samson. He asked the same question and the Bible says, the angel knew it’ll be difficult for him so he asked “Why do you want to know my name?”

·         Before you pass over to a new life, as Jacob passed over to Penuel, seeing sun light upon him (Gen 32:31), you most face God and reconcile your differences with God. You must struggle in repentance (Gen 32:10), and be on the side of God before you can be victorious over your enemies.

·         Jacob cleaned his past before he was ready to worship God. He worshipped God in spirit and in truth. He could not abandon even though it was difficult for him to know the name of God’s messenger. But he did not stop struggling with him, knowing that his blessings will only come through the man he does not know. He continued with him till the day was breaking and there he received his blessings. That is the attitude of worship we need to put before our God! Cleaning our past and showing a repentant heart, then remain truthful and faithful in worship.

Amen!