Biola Broadcaster - 1968-02

Jesus whom the Bible does not pre­ sent. Their Jesus is one who is a good teacher and a good man, but they deny that He is the eternal God who came in flesh to this world, lived a sinless life, and died on the cross for the sins of men and rose again from the dead on the third day. When men say they have not sinned, they deny the Jesus of the Bible. If they do not admit their sins, then they are still in their sins. By denying that they are sinners, they make God a liar and His Word is not in them. They have turned from the light that would have led them to salvation and have gone into dark­ ness, a darkness of their own choos­ ing. Such men are lost. The light may shine around them, but they will not permit it to shine in them, revealing sin. What is the remedy for this con­ dition? The cure is suggested in the previous verse. It lies in acknowl­ edging the shed blood of Christ, but acknowledging it in the sense that it is presented in Romans where we read: “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the for­ bearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:24-26). Provision has been made in Christ for the forgiveness of sins. God is willing to pardon, to cancel the debt that is against sin­ ners. When a sinner agrees with God that he needs a Saviour and that that Saviour is Jesus Christ, God will give him complete cleansing through Christ’s shed blood. * * * Faith is not trying to believe something regardless of the evidence, but rather dar­ ing to do something for God regardless of the consequences. 34

eye becomes keener and keener in detecting sin. The third religious sinner is de­ scribed in verse 10: “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” Here is a person to whom sin has been revealed. Light has shown in his heart but he refuses to own up to the sin disclosed. Surely this is depravity in the extreme and could be possible only of an unsaved per­ son. There are several good illustra­ tions in the Scriptures concerning this type of sinner. Two of these are found in Luke’s Gospel (Ch. 18). The first has to do with the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. You recall how these two men went up to the temple to pray and the Phari­ see stood and prayed with himself saying: “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortion­ ers, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess” (w. 11, 12). This man did not once admit that he had com­ mitted sinful acts. He boasted before God of the religious things he had done and contrasted himself with the publican, to the latter’s disadvantage. In that same chapter in Luke we have the story of the rich young ruler who wanted to know what he should do in order to inherit eternal life. He claimed to have kept all the commandments from his youth up, but the Saviour stripped all the hy­ pocrisy from his claims by telling him to give all his goods to feed the poor. He was promised treasure in Heaven for so doing. Then he was to follow the Saviour. Instead of this, the ruler went away sorrowful for he had many possessions. He was very rich and his riches came before God. Like the Pharisee he was say­ ing, “I have not sinned.” This kind of religious sinner makes God a liar. He denies that the God of the Bible is a God of truth. They would make to themselves another

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