Is Man Basically Good – Part 4

Mark 10:18 So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.”

Pastor Kennedy explains that it seems good for our pride and ego to hear that we are “good” people. But, I would rather believe the most miserable fact, then be deceived by the merriest lie. And the notion that “man is basically good” is just that; a lie. Chuck Colson said, “In recent decades popular, political and social beliefs have all but erased the reality of personal sin from our national consciousness.” How true that is! We are told that evil does not lie in us, but that it lies in society. Evil is “out there”, in the society and the environment, so they believe that we must repress all efforts to change the hearts of man. We must get rid of religion – out of our schools, out of government, out of every place public and focus all of our attention on the externality. It is rightfully said that you can take a man out of the slums, but only God can take the slums out of man. And only when we realize that the problem lies in the human heart, as the eye of Jesus Christ surely saw this fact when He said in Mark 7:21-22, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil  thoughts,

 adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” It’s out of the heart that the evil of this world comes and it’s only by the changing of the heart that we have hope.

Romans 6:22-23 “But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of  sin

is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Not only so we have the reality of sin and the ramifications/consequences of it, but, also thanks to God, we have the redemption of sin through Jesus Christ, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation to take away the sin of the world. Yes, we have been in a “fallen” state; the fallen state of sin. But, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. God was willing to take all of the sin and place it upon his Son. God was willing to punish sin, not upon us in Hell, but upon His beloved Son on the Cross. And God was willing to come and take the blood of Christ to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and make us whiter than snow. But, if we deny that we are sinful, if we deny that we have this inequity upon us, then we cut ourselves out from the redemption of Christ. Jesus Christ came to save that which was lost. He came to save sinners; not to call the righteous, but sinner unto repentance of sin. And if we deny that we are sinners, then we will end up as the man in Jesus’ Matthew 22:1-14 parabol about the kingdom of Heaven - “But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless.

Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him

 nto outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

The kindest thing that can be said to a person who is dying from a mortal disease is that they have a terminal disease and there is a cure. And unless the person recognizes that they have the deadly disease, they will not receive the cure. Ah dear friend, you have a fatal disease; the disease of sin, which will surely and certainly kill you everlastingly and cast you into perdition for eternity. But, there is a fountain filled with the blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins and sinners plunge beneath that blood, loosing their guilt stains. We are truly washed in the soul-cleansing blood of the lamb. Would you be cleansed of that sin? Would you be made perfectly whole? Would you have all of your sins buried in the depths of the sea? Then come to the foot of the Cross, where Jesus died for your sins. Humble your heart, bend your knee and ask the living Savior to come and take your sins away. For that is why He came into this world.

1 John 5:12-13 “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.”

Amen