1 John 5:17 “All
unrighteousness is sin.”
Continuing Pastor Herk’s
message, he tells us some of the measures that we are taking against
Coronavirus that we could use against sin. The first is “separating ourselves”.
Since the start of the virus outbreak, we have been told to practice social
distancing in order to prevent infecting and being infected. The disease is
spread by contact. With the problem of sin, the general reason that we got in
trouble was that we distance ourselves from God. We are doing the wrong type of
distancing. God didn’t move; we did to ourselves. We moved away from God’s
directions and protections. Personal revival is blocked by our sin, so how are
we going to receive what each of us needs in our lives? If we don’t work
towards personal revival, we’ll never affect our healing that we all need in
this fallen culture. Nothing new, the Bible is full of examples of this. Isaiah
59:2 tells us, “your
iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have
hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.” We
still see it today. Distancing ourselves from God and ignoring God allows sin
to take control. Hebrews 3:12 says,
“Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in
departing from the living God.”
James 4:8 “Draw
near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands,
you sinners;
and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
The big problem today is
that we have distanced ourselves from God. What if we treated sin like we were
reacting to the Corona virus? What if instead of distancing ourselves from God,
we came nearer to God and distanced ourselves from sin? 1 Corinthians 15:33 warns us, “Do not be
deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits.” Do not distance
yourself from God. All we have to do is distance ourselves from those who tempt
us to do wrong in the eyes of God, our Lord and Refuge. All sin is evil. What
if we distanced ourselves from those who habitually live to party, get drunk,
do drugs, practice sexual immorality, lie, cheat, steal, are corrupt in
business, deceive for personal gain, have racial hatred and those who verbally
degrade and slander others? Galatians 5:19-23 “Now the works of the flesh are
evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of
wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders,
drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I
also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will
not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no
law.” Don’t you think that would affect our culture for the better and the
world would be a lot less sinful, if we could stand with God and distance
ourselves from all these sinful problems like we do COVID-19?
Psalm 1:1 “Blessed is the
man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of
sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.” In other words, blessed is the one who distances
themselves from sin. Everyone wants to be happy in this life, and God gives us
the formula for that godly joy and happiness. Distance ourself from sin and
we’ll be happier and blessed.
The second thing to
eradicate Corona virus is to wash our hands and used hand sanitizer often.
Scientists tells us that increasing the frequency of hand washing helps
decrease the infection rate of the virus. When we touch a surface with the
virus, it transmits to our skin, but washing with soap separates and kills them
off. Alcohol and disinfectants kill the virus on surfaces over a period of time.
Keep your hands clean. But, what if we did that to sin? What if we washed away
our sin? All through the Old Testament we see the ritual cleansing. The
children of Israel went through some very elaborate steps, and if we work that
hard to cleanse ourselves from sin, making the effort to remove sin from our
lives like they were doing, it would make such a huge change.
There is a theological term
for that called “repentance”. True repentance is sorrow or deep contrition for sin, as an offense and dishonor to God, a
violation of his holy law, and the basest ingratitude towards a Being of
infinite benevolence, and is accompanied with the relinquishment of any
practice, from conviction that it has offended God and followed by amendment of
life. Repentance is a change of mind, or a conversion from sin to God. What
if we cleansed our mouth from cursing and all foul language or hate-filled
speech? What if we cleansed our eyes from lustful looks? What if we cleansed
our hearts from envying, jealousy, and malice of others? What if we removed our
hate and anger? What if we cleansed our minds of greed and all impure thoughts?
What if we were just satisfied with how God has blessed us?
If we would make an effort
by praying and turning to God for help, we could reduce and eliminate biases
and prejudices. Praying “God, give me the eyes to see people the way that You
see them.” That would be turning towards God and away from sin, and that is
what God expects from us.1 Peter 1:14-16 instructs us “as obedient children, not conforming
yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He
who called you is holy, you also be holy in
all your conduct, because it is written, “Be holy, for I am
holy.” What if we repented from our sinful thoughts and ways? We would be
blessed by God! Don’t you think that our country would be blessed if each one
of us, as Christians in this nation, could personally receive revival? It would
change the sin and strife in our nation towards righteousness. It is sin that
is causing our problems.
2 Corinthians 6:17 “Therefore,
come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is
unclean, and I will receive you.”
Philippians 4:8-9 “Finally,
brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble,
whatever things are just, whatever things are pure,
whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good
report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything
praiseworthy—meditate on these things. The things which you learned and
received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be
with you.” If we strive to remove
evil from our lives, we would see a change in this world that we could not even
imagine. Pastor Herk point is that each one of us has the power to change
themselves, and if everyone made the effort to change themselves, we would see
such an unbelievable change for the better in this world. If we worked as hard
to cleanse ourselves from sin as we are with this virus going around, we would
see God’s blessing. It seems like, no matter how hard we try to do what is
right, we still slip and fall once and a while, but we have the ability to
repent, hating the sin, turn away from it and by promise not doing it again. We
all fall short of God’s expectations, so repent.
Romans 3:23-25a “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God, being justified freely by His grace through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by
His blood, through faith.”
The third that we do to
defeat the Corona virus is to seek medicines and vaccines to cure it. In the
same manner, we need a medicine for the spiritual disease of sin. The infection
rate of sin is 100%. But, we have the antidote for it. God provided that
antidote when He gave His Son as a redeeming substitutionary sacrifice on the
Cross to die in our place so that our sins could be overcome and forgiven. God
proved the way. Romans 5:6 explains,
“For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for
the ungodly.
Galatians 1:3-4 “Grace
to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave
Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age,
according to the will of our God and Father.” Jesus Christ died in order to be the only effective
treatment of our sins. The cure is there and available by faith. 1
Peter 3:18 “For Christ also
suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to
God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.”
John 3:19-20, 1 John 1:6-7 “And this is the
condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone
practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds
should be exposed. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in
darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the
light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the
blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Don’t look at the people
around you and their sin. What is it in your life that is keeping you from
personal revival? We can overcome them and make the difference. What is keeping
revival out of the church? What is keeping revival out of our nation? We have
sinned against our just and holy Creator God. It’s time we treated sin like
COVID-19. It’s time we took sin seriously. Romans 6:23 proclaims, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift
of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The root
problem is sin. It’s time to stand
before God, cleansed and consecrated to receive His promises and blessings.
In Christ, Brian
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