Transcript: Okay, thank you for listening. Today I wanted to talk about something that happens when you’re studying the older commentaries, you’ll find that they take time to

really give a good definition of terms so it’s words that I’m familiar with them. I’ve heard throughout my life. I thought I knew what they meant, but they really take time to break it down into like building blocks. So you’re like, ah.

it gets you that foundation might be a word for it but it’s like you get it where um They give you these definitions that really make sense and you can remember off the top of your head.

You can take time meditating on the concepts of them form the

imagery with the concept in your mind. And again, it just expands that framework that you’re thinking in, the framework in your mind.

So, one word I was going to talk about today that there’s a definition for is sin. So again sothat’s a word that we’ll remember with and you can think of that in terms of if you You think of sin as doing something wrong or bad. I think it’s in John Gill’s book that he was explaining what sin is. He used the word trespass. So, you might have prayed the Lord’s Prayer in the version of the Bible that says, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. So, when you hear the word trespass, I think the first thing I think of is a sign that says, do not trespass. So what does that mean? It’s that sign saying, don’t step over the line onto my property. so it’s a trespass if you walk onto somebody’s property without their permission and the definition of sin from the Bible as a trespass, it’s Instead of like walking onto somebody’s property, God has this pathway laid out for you. And a trespass is if you step over the bounds of that pathway, if you step off of the pathway. And it really helped me to learn the definition of it the way John Gill was talking about because It goes along with all the imagery you’ve heard of sheep. So, as Christians, we’re sheep with a shepherd. Jesus is our shepherd. And if you’ve ever been to a sheep farm and watched sheep…Then you’ll see how they move and they’ll be there together in a group in the field. And then a few of them will take off in one direction. And the rest of the sheep follow them. So that’s why they always have to have people with them and sheep herding dogs that are trying to bring them back in again and keep them from wandering off. And so, A lot of the pictures that I’ve posted on here with hymns that I’ve posted, it’s images of that pathway. So there’s this pathway through the world that, and it’s God’s pathway. You stay, you’re walking with Him, and you’re safe. There’s safety on that pathway.

And if you see off the pathway, then there’s danger. And.

We are like sheep. And, we need a shepherd, we need a guide. So, even after you’re saved, even if you’re really trying to follow God. You’re still going to be wandering, so you’re always going to be, like throughout every day, you’re going to be wandering.

You’re both trying to follow him and then you’re still going to be taking steps off the pathway and so…This is a really good image to use like when you’re meditating. It’s what you’re going to have to be doing. Throughout your life, when you see yourself taking those steps away from God, He gently brings you back to Him. Again, it’s practicing with that feeling of looking to him for guidance, listening to him as he’s calling out to you. Like, letting you know that you’re walking away from him. Lovingly being brought back next to him to walk on that pathway.

So you’ve got the image of that pathway, and then the next question would be, how do we know What’s right and wrong or what is a sin? And I’ve written posts on here about the importance of seeing God as God. He’s God the King. He’s lovingly ruling over us. As the king, he’s the great law giver. So, you see, the Ten Commandments were given. And the first table was about our responsibilities towards God. The second table is our responsibilities towards our fellow man. And Jesus summarized that in the New Testament when someone asked him what was the greatest commandment. And he said, “The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself.” So if you see that pathway, it’s God’s commands. You’re trying to stay in the pathway of his commands. And you’ll hear, when you read through the New Testament, you’ll hear Jesus saying, If you love me, you’ll keep my commands. So out of love to God, your father, your king, you’re trying to keep his commandments. You’re trusting that he’s trying to keep you safe. And if you work with that imagery, where you see the pathway is safe and everything outside of the pathway is dangerous. It helps you if you think of it that way. It helps you not walk off of the pathway as much. If that makes sense. If we see it as dangerous to walk away from God then that, would make us hesitate to do that as frequently.

So I was saying it’s important to work with that imagery of the pathway because that’s what you’re going to be doing in your daily life, throughout your life. And why is that? It’s because even after you’re saved, there’s still the remains of your sin nature in there. So, I’ve been talking about the importance of learning about God and I’m also going to be talking about the importance of learning about who we are as humans. It helps us to learn like where we started out in the Garden of Eden, what we fell from, and what we lost in the fall. I’m still learning about that. Then, where we are now, on earth as we are waiting. We are waiting to meet God. Whether that happens, you know, at death or if he were to return in our lifetime or waiting to meet him. And so, we’re learning where we started out as humans, what we fell from, where we are now, and what we’re waiting to be restored to in heaven.

Let me look at my notes here. Okay, so if we think about where the human race started out, Adam and Eve were created by God and placed in the Garden of Eden. Remember, the world was created perfect. And we’ve never seen it like that. We’ve never seen it without any of the effects of sin. So, the world was created perfect. Adam and Eve were without sin. And then, sin entered the world at the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden when they ate the fruit that God had told them not to eat.

And this is something that we can talk about over time. Again, I’m trying to summarize a lot of things in a few minutes.

I think it was John Gill that was talking about what we have to understand. Again, go back and read through that account.

And we need to understand the seriousness of our rebellion.

He’s saying that Adam and Eve had the ability to obey, and then they chose not to. So then, that was the entrance of sin.

And, then we’re part of the fallen human race. So we’re born in a sinful condition and we’re not able to obey the law perfectly.

We’re able to obey in general, but we’re not able to obey perfectly, so Adam and Eve had that ability to obey God’s command perfectly, and then they chose not to. And we’re born as part of the fallen human race. And that’s what I was writing about in the post one of the early posts on this website it’s something that I learned studying John Calvin’s writings.

saying that we’re supposed to rejoice in God’s mercy to us.

That he saw us being born in a sinful condition where we were totally unable to save ourselves. We were not able to meet the requirements of the law. We were not able to make atonement for our sinful condition, and … by our own righteousness.

So out of love to us, God provided us with a redeemer, and he promised that redeemer right there in Genesis to Adam and Eve.

But, and this is one of the really important things to talk about that it really helped me to learn about what it means. When you’re saying you’re trusting in Christ’s righteousness, we’re rejoicing in that gift of his righteousness to us. It’s saying that, it makes me think of, there’s a, one of the verses, there’s a hymn called, A debtor to mercy alone, and I think it’s in the first verse.

that it says the terrors of law and of God with me can have nothing to do For Jesus’ obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from view.

And you’re thinking ok obedience and blood. So I knew about Jesus’ death on the cross. So that’s talking about his blood and it says his obedience also. And I knew that he was perfect and without sin, and it really helps to learn more about what that means. He was obeying the law in our place so he worked out a righteousness for us um that then he gives to us, so he takes away the guilt of our sins. What was the matter of offense between us and God. And He gives us what’s pleasing in God’s sight, so He gives that righteousness.

It’s really important to understand that. And again, I’m trying to summarize it really quickly. You’re hearing that throughout the New Testament. That we’re saved by faith (I meant to say grace), not by works. So we’re born in a condition where we’re not able to save ourselves from it. That’s why we rejoice in being given the Savior. And I think I’ll try and stop there because we’ll be talking about this over time.

So, let me, one verse I was going to read to you that’s really interesting. It’s Genesis 5, 1 through 3.

So, you know, Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, and then they fell, and that corrupted human nature.

So then we are born as part of the fallen race. So Genesis 5, verses 1 through 3 says, “This is the written account of Adam’s family line. When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them, and he named them ‘mankind’ when they were created.

When Adam had lived one hundred thirty years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image, and he named him Seth.”

So you see that it’s really interesting when it says he had a son in his own likeness in his own image. We’re still made in the image of God, but we also have inherited that corruption. Um.

That’s going to be something to talk about over time, is that we’re rejoicing that God sent us a Savior. And We’re rejoicing in the righteousness of Christ that he worked out for us by obeying the law perfectly.

And one thing, too, on the topic of sin is to remember that we’ve never experienced what it is like to be totally free from sin. Charles Spurgeon talks about this in a sermon called Saved in Hope. If you have time to listen to it or read it. what I do In Microsoft Edge, there’s a read aloud voice in the browser. So

They have recordings of Spurgeon sermons, and for the ones they don’t have recordings of, I just use that read aloud voice so you can listen to it. That’s what I do. If you want to try that. He talks about it in there in Saving Hope. That was where I was learning about it. He talks about we’ve never been totally free from the effects of sin. So…Again, another theme that’s there in all of these older writings. And it’s The older writings study the Bible, so the themes are there in the Bible. And they are explaining them to you on these other writings is that we don’t have our full reward yet. Our souls are saved, so we’re totally saved. We have our salvation. We don’t have the full reward yet, because the reward is we get to go to heaven. And we’re not there yet. So we’re waiting on this life in heaven. We already have eternal life. Our souls are eternally alive. We are regenerated. We are eternally alive. But we’re not in heaven yet. But we get to start walking with God here.

you know, we’re eagerly awaiting getting to be there in heaven with Him and So, I think it’s Matthew Henry that says this life is a preparation for the next. So there’s a process we’re supposed to be participating in of being fitted for heaven, prepared for heaven. And, if you read, I think it’s the last verse of Away in a Manger, it actually uses that phrase. Seeing that, it says, and fit us for heaven to live with you there. And that’s the sanctification process that we’re going through, where you’re made more and more like Christ. And then But you’re not going to be made perfect here. At death you’re made perfect. So, but we’re supposed to be going through that process of becoming more and more like him. And then we’re supposed to be meditating on and wondering what it’s going to be like to be transformed and to be living in the heavenly realms.

So, what are the effects of sin? Sin brought in death decay uh corruption you know before the fall like in the creation things didn’t die so like trees didn’t die flowers didn’t die That’s what I was saying, that we’ve never seen it that way. Everything we see, we’re used to things growing old and then dying. And so that’s the effect on creation. It has that effect on people that we go through an aging process

So. That’s decay, like you’re getting older. Matthew Henry was saying it, and he wasn’t saying it being pessimistic. or anything, you can say that just literally to be born is to begin to die. So in the fallen world, you’re born to be born is to begin to die. your

body starts going through that process at first you’re just like growing up from a child into an adult But you’re still going through that. Then it ends up where you’re going to be getting older and then your body starts wearing down and shutting down. And the person passes away in old age. Talking about the effects of sin, it reminded me, I meant to say one of the things That’s really important to learn about is what we lost in the fall. So that would be, what was the effect of that first sin? and I’m still learning about this, but it darkened their spiritual understanding. That’s one of the important things to know is that we are born in that condition. We’re born separated from God. And then it’s the work of the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin, convince us of our own sin and our need for a Savior.

And That process, like the imagery that goes with that, you’re illuminated or just…He’s opening your eyes. There’s a hymn in the hymnal that I’m trying to think of the words and I’m having trouble with my memory trying to get my thoughts going.

You’ll see that I struggle to remember what verse it is or exactly what hymn I’m thinking of, but it’s talking about The chorus says open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine.

So, we’re longing to know him. We’re in that state of having that darkened understanding. The world itself is in darkness. Remember when Jesus was being born, he was…

During his incarnation here, he was the light shining into the darkness. And, this life in this world is compared to, you know, nighttime, midnight, and then the…sun’s rising. That’s heaven. Heaven is eternal day. This world is like nighttime. Going through that pathway. God’s leading you through.

So,I was summarizing a lot of things quickly. But these are all things that are so important to be learning about. It would take, I’m hoping to do posts where we just go through the books.

And talk about like one chapter. There’s so much in every chapter. and hopefully you’re seeing what happens when you start studying these things and seeing why the answer is to be spiritually minded because once you start like interacting with this information you’re reading about, it just lights up your mind. The gears start turning differently. It occupies your thoughts and it focuses your mind on God. And again, it just expands your awareness. It has this healing energy flowing through your mind and body. So that’s the effect that it has. These things are so interesting. Once you get started reading on it, then again, it changes you and can really help. So, I’ll probably stop there for today. As again, I was summarizing a lot of different things there but I think the main point is that we’re It’s really helpful to have that definition of sin and seeing that pathway. Keep working with that imagery of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

He’s your guide through this life. He’ll guide you on that pathway. He’s trying to keep you on that pathway to keep you safe. to keep you out of harm. You know, things that would draw you away from him. And then we’re going to be learning more about God and who He is. And then it also helps to learn about who we are as humans and the condition that we’re in in this world. So we learned about where we started out in the Garden of Eden. what they fell from, what were the effects of that fall, and then the condition that we were born in, in a fallen condition. We’re saved from that. And then what we’re going to be restored to in heaven. And I’m still learning about this, but John Gill says that we’re actually, mankind is taken into…

Well, you look at the friendship that they had with God in the Garden of Eden, and then there was the rebellion and the fall, and then God provided a redeemer, and mankind is actually going to be taken into a more exalted state of friendship with God in heaven because of our union with Jesus, than they were in the Garden of Eden.

Again, these things are really interesting and it gets your mind working differently. Because, again, I was searching for answers about, okay, what’s the key here? So, okay, be spiritually minded.

Okay, well, how is that going to work? but then when you start doing it, you start reading it, you see…why that’s the answer, so I hope that you’re seeing that. And I’ll probably stop there for today, so thank you for listening. And I’ll post again soon.