Saturday 19 June 2010

IS GOD THE AUTHOR OF SIN ?

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Answer is definitely No if you are referring to the real intention of the Living and Mighty God. He is very consistent with Holiness - abundance of love and slow in anger. Because of His characteristics the fallen angels took advantage of Him and wanted to be god as well. He sent His only son to earth to redeem our sins is also part of the BIG picture He initiated from day one. As the Mighty God knows everything in the first place, he knows how the fallen angels and human beings think from day one.

This can be seen by how God chose his people as advocated in the Scripture, as follow:-
By men’s nature – unless the person is drawn to Christ granted by God.
In Exodus 7:2 -5 Now we know that God did this for His own glory and as a sign to both Israel and Egypt .

In this case, God knew that Pharaoh would not hear and bow to Him. God knows that the Pharaoh will harden his heart which is already desperately wicked and will do harm to any person who does not obey him. After Christ, we should take the interpretation that his sin destroy his ownself. However, if you view from the Law through Moses, it is acceptable that this is due to divine judgment repeated in the Scripture.

God have given humans the free will. In this sense, he will not revoke the free will which He has given though His covenants. He knows that those who refused to listen to Him will naturally face disaster. God intervenes to rescue His people out from Egypt as they cried for His help. You can see how He parted the red sea to allow them to cross over and not others who chased after His chosen people.

As such, you can see that sin can come in so many different forms, with and without the individual's knowledge. In the above case, we were told that Pharaoh feels uneasy when he see Jews. God knows every heart and Pharaoh's heart is also not an exception.

That’s why we have to constantly deny ourselves and take up the cross and follow Him as we have inherited Adam's sin. You can see that pagans also recognize that the greatest enemy is sin of themselves. – invisible to them. And yet sins can manipulate the minds so as to achieve some extraordinary achievements to certain extent. The difference here is that they pushed themselves to achieve them, not in our case where God is using us, as the vessel to do His work, and not our work.

Here, once we open our hearts to Him and He shall make all these visible in our eyes and we are able to see things from His perspective. By grounding our hearts with His word and leading us to trust Him more. We shall then always let the spirit take the lead, rather than our flesh. Never underestimate the power of sin, we cannot see on our own eyes, we need Christ to make it visible. Wouldn’t that this point has been well demonstrated in scripture.

At the same time, we must be cautious too as the devil can also quote bible very well. He (God) warns us about these things out of love, so that we don’t fall. He understand ourselves more than us. He knows how many hairs each of us have, far better than us. Such a illustration can be obtained through Jesus' own experience where the devil also tried to tempt Him on three occasions. He knows that the devil will tempt Him, so do us.

Again, we will receive His blessing of protection from the devil who cannot touch us because we belong to Him. Similar to the story line of a wolf. It claimed to have similar status like the tiger when it bring the tiger to the jungle and claim that every other animals was running away from it similar to the tiger.

That’s why we treasure His relationship very much. It’s more than just a political relationship, which goes deep into our hearts. Internalisation to be Christ like - the goal for every Christian.

If we understand that no one can come to Christ provided it is granted by God. On our own will, we are incapable to do so. This is the result of the sin committed by Adam and Eve.

Consequently, we want virtually to have unlimited power and authority within the sphere of our domains. – the danger of our own self desire. And the only restraint on our self wickedness is the holy arm of God. In this sense, the free will given to us is to choose whether to follow God or follow our own selves.

Will in the verse should be read as passive hardening. God does no violence to Pharoah’s will. In the above case, Pharoah chose not to obey Him and follow his own will which brought self destruction to himself.

Similarly, once freedom of our flesh takes the lead, and not spiritual, then we are certainly exposed to sin.

Now we can clearly see how God let the evil inclinations and evil intentions of fallen men to bring about his own redemption. Or so called free will of man. Similarly for Judas’s case. It must be reminded that God never coerce any evil thing on him, rather his own evil action that brought him self destruction.

God gives mercy to the elect by working faith in their hearts. He gives justice to the reprobate by leaving them in their own sins. One group receives mercy, on the other hand the other group receives justice. No one is a victim of justice. We can’t complain that there is unrighteousness in God.


Your Chief Servant,

James Oh

Founder and Group CEO

Skype me at james.oh18

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