Mike’s post headlines one of the sins in the Bible, but we must note the longer full list.
I’ve been busy these past weeks and neglected my blog. As summer ends I plan to reactivate my posts. Many like this one are reblogs. As the old StarTrek series proclaimed, Mike boldly follows the famous line “to boldly go where no man has gone before”. Very few quote or speak directly on these verses. As an example our pastor Sunday was teaching about the Woes in Habakkuk.
Hab 2:18 What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?
Hab 2:19 Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach! Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it.
Hab 2:20 But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.
He mentioned many of the common “idols” of today’s culture, focused on money, wealth and power, much like Mike details in the Romans 1 passage. But he failed to mention how so many have the idol of a God created in their own image, which just lets them ignore the plain truth of the Bible and justify their own sin. I also noted that he, (our pastor, not Mike), quoted the Romans 1 passage, but unfortunately stopped before getting to the last verses detail our sins. The place Mike boldly goes….
Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
The Good News is we have a savior! The Jesus Christ of the Bible.
Mike quotes from Paul ending with:
1 Corinthians 6:11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
This is a message of hope, but do note the word “some”. Old John Gill wrote:
1 Corinthians 6:11
And such were some of you,…. Not all, but some of them; and of these everyone was not guilty of all these crimes; but some had been guilty of one, and others of another; so that they had been all committed by one or another of them. The Corinthians were a people very much given to uncleanness and luxury, without measure (i), which was the ruin of their state: and among these wicked people God had some chosen vessels of salvation; who are put in mind of their former state, partly for their present humiliation, when they considered what they once were, no better than others, but children of wrath, even as others; and partly to observe to them, and the more to illustrate and magnify the grace of God in their conversion, pardon, justification, and salvation; as also to point out to them the obligations that lay upon them to live otherwise now than they formerly did.
Perhaps John Newton captured the essence of that in his popular Hymn:
Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev’d;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believ’d!
Rainbow Trout 