Sometimes I wonder if we ministers have set the bar too high for our people to get over it. There are so many things that we put the “sin” tag on that the people just can’t seem to measure up to what they are taught that, they have to do to please God. I know that the word “sin” is used many times in the bible, but is everything that is labeled sin, really a sin? Some of us ministers teach that it is a sin to drink, or smoke or to swear with words that are unacceptable to society. We preach about women wearing pants or shorts or cutting their hair and call these things sins. We say it is a sin to discriminate against certain groups of people. Some because of their color or living together habits when they are not married and those who have been married several times and we call these things sins. But are they really sins that God recognizes as sin?
Back in the early days when mankind began their walk through time. The time between when Adam first appeared to the time when God gave Moses the Law on Mount Sinai, they all were living under sin and death from sin and didn’t know it. Why? Because there was no written Law and no one to tell them the difference between right and wrong. Everyone just did those things that were right in their own eyes. If they committed sin, there was no atonement for sin as we have today.
Then when Moses came down off the mountain and brought the Laws which God had given them, they first learned what sin was. God had spelled it out in words they could understand and informed them about the consequence of disobeying those Laws.
Those laws were so strict and rigid that those early Israelites could not adhere to them. Because of that it was necessary for them to make yearly sacrifices for the sins they had committed. These Mosaic Laws were in effect up until the time of Jesus when God sent him to be the one and only sacrifice and atonement for the sin of the people. For those who did not accept Jesus as the Messiah and the atonement for their sin, those Laws are being followed to this day.
Now here we are in modern times and in place of those Laws which pointed out what sins were, even after accepting Jesus as our atonement for our sin, we still continue to teach our people about many things being sins when it is not required by God.
Just as God set the bar too high for the Israelites, that they couldn’t measure up to His requirements, we are doing the same thing in our churches today by putting our people under bondage with our man made doctrines. With the way the World has changed, it is near impossible for the people to measure up to what they are being taught.
But you see it is not necessary. All of these things we teach as being sin are not true according to what God looks for. There is but one sin. The sin that Adam committed, the sin of disbelief in God’s word being true has been passed down through the generations to all of us. When we are born, we are guilty of that one sin of unbelief that stays with us until we accept Jesus as our atonement for that sin.
The sin of unbelief is the only thing that can keep us from being saved and not able to inherit eternal life with God. All these other offences that we call sins mean absolutely nothing. All God requires of us is to believe His word that He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ and those who will believe in Him will inherit eternal life.
The sermon that Jesus came and preached is to believe the gospel message and be baptized and we will be saved.
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