God knows that we cannot be perfect. He knows that we are going to sin. He deliberately left us with our flesh intact. Why? He uses our struggles with it to humble us. We hate our sin if we have been regenerated. We hate what God hates and love what God loves. Therefore, we must never be at peace with our sin.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalms 51:10 (NASB)
Perhaps the number one teaching missing in the Compromised Church is that of how horrible sin is in the eyes of God. The Gospel is good news only if it includes how our sin is rebellion against God which separates us from Him. This separation is eternal. No one is born righteous. There is no one who does enough good works to be declared righteous by God. There is not one thing men can do to save themselves from God’s judgment against all sin. His wrath burns against it. The Gospel is the good news that God has provided a way for people to be saved from His wrath. He has provided His own sacrificial lamb whose death was sufficient to cover the sins of those whom He will save. Those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are saved by God. This belief is by the grace of God through the faith He gives those whom He saves. As they believe they repent of their sins, they turn from them and, therefore, God declares them righteous. He justifies them. Did you see that the gospel is the good news that our sin can be forgiven and taken away? Isn’t it clear that it is given to those who believe and repent?
When God saves a person they are not perfect, but are a new creations and now have the ability to obey God because of their regenerate heart that is indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. They are spiritual whereas before their salvation they were fleshly. The problem for most of us is that we still struggle with our obedience. We still sin. What is the solution for us?
King David was a man after God’s own Heart. What made him different from other men that God would express that truth about him? David was far from perfect. In fact, he was a murderer and an adulterer. He had an affair with the wife of one of his loyal soldiers who was away at war. When the wife found that she was with child she told David. David attempted to cover it up by bringing her husband home from the war so he could be with his wife and then assume that the child was his. The husband showed his loyalty to his fellow soldiers and his king by refusing to go home to be with his wife. David then sent a message via the husband back to Joab who was General of the Army. The message told Joab to put the husband in the heat of the battle and withdraw from him so that he would be killed. Joab obeyed David. After the wife mourned for her husband, David took her as his wife and she delivered a male child to him. (2 Samuel 11)
27 When the time of mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house and she became his wife; then she bore him a son. But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord. 2 Samuel 11:27 (NASB)
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