Text: “But your iniquities have separated between you and
your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not
hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with
iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered
perverseness. None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth; they
trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth
iniquity.”
Isaiah 59:2-4.
Good morning, constantly confounded Christian!
What has you and I in a constantly confounded state? What circumstance,
or event, or trend in civilized society today would drag God’s genuine people
into a state of being constantly confounded and annoyed? Furthermore, IF
- as genuine Christians - we are NOT in this constantly irritated and
confounded state - perhaps we should make doubly sure that we are, in fact,
Spiritually reborn children of the Living Lord God! Take heed, Christian!
Confounded: To be confounded, basically, is to be perplexed, to be
astonished; to be deeply annoyed and irritated by some event or trend that is
taking place which shocks us to the core, and leaves us wondering how such an
event, trend, phenomenon could ever have happened, or continues to manifest itself
within our society or territorial sphere of social/religious influence.
Thus, when Bible-believing, Spiritually regenerate,
Christians witness the fundamental principles and practices of true Bible-based
Christianity being broken down, ignored, or totally compromised by those in
Christian society responsible for their maintenance - we become first amazed
(confounded) and then deeply irritated. When such trends of unbelief are
seen to, not only persist, but to be promoted by religious leaders - then we
become really angry. Praise God for Christians who are angry against sin!
“Be ye angry, and sin
not…” (Ephesians 4:26) I have
been told in recent times by a fellow professing Christian that I am ’an angry
man’; and after praying and assessing myself afresh, you know, that person is
quite right. Increasingly, I am becoming quite an ’angry man’; but not perhaps
in the same spirit that the accusation was delivered.
The Scripture above from Paul’s epistle to the
Ephesians exhorts us to ’Be ye angry, and sin not…’; which seems like a
Biblical paradox to my mind; for how can we ’…be angry…’ yet ’…sin not…’?
Many in the universal Christian church today believe, erroneously, that it is
ALWAYS a sin to be ’angry’. What nonsense! The Lord would not
exhort us to ’…be angry…’ if merely being angry was a sin! Our Holy Lord God
will not encourage us to commit sin, nor tempt us to sin, for He is Holy.
Fact.
I maintain openly today that it is NOT a sin to be
angry IF the Christian is being ’angry’ at evil; personal and societal sin;
speaking lies; speaking and practicing perverseness; failing to promote and
practice justice; not speaking God’s revealed truth and preaching the Gospel
clearly; trusting in human vanity, office, ’men-pleasing’, and bribery;
conceiving mischief by making laws contrary to Bible-principles and Christian
morality; ruling a nation unfairly on behalf of any given privileged
class.
All the above listed ‘iniquities’ separate us from the
face of our true and Holy Lord God of wrath against sin; against
unChristlikeness; against perversion and corruption - and, as Spiritually
regenerate Christians, we MUST get angry when our Christian societies are
practicing all this sin; angry enough to pray to God for judgement upon such
sin, and angry enough to speak out against it - just like I am doing right now!
Verse 9. “Hide not Thy
face far from me…” The Holy Lord God
will, in fact must, hide His face from us, even true Christians, when we are
engaged in personal or social sin. Our Bible text for this morning states
this fact of God’s nature most clearly!
“But your iniquities have separated between you and
your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not
hear.” (Isaiah 59:2)
Sin separates us from God. God is angry at the
state of the professing Christian church worldwide today in this increasingly
apostate, compromising, 21st Century! If the Lord God is angry
at the state of His professing church, and we are called to be Christ-like - we
too must be angry at the sinful, lazy, too-well-fed; compromising apostates
responsible for this backsliding! We are merely being angry - but we do
not let our righteous anger cause us to sin. We do not try to work this
ungodliness out of the church by use of the arm of our foolish flesh.
Thus, we ARE angry, but we sin not.
Verse 9. “…Put not Thy
servant away in anger. If the
Living Lord God were to deal with us without grace, we would ALL be consumed in
an instant because of our sins.
Verse 9. “…Thou hast
been my help, leave me not. If the Lord were to leave us, as He left the sin-blind Samson, we would
have no help to withstand the current apostasy sweeping the Christian church
worldwide today. But with His help, we must speak out the truth of His
Word - to fail to take such a stand is to join and embrace the apostasy.
Verse 9. “…Neither
forsake me, O God of my Salvation. True born again Christians cannot lose their Salvation - for it was
never theirs to lose in the first place. ‘Salvation is of the Lord!’
(Jonah 2:9) Salvation is ‘…the gift of God, not of works…’; the Lord has
promised ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.’ (Hebrews 13:5-6)
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