47. Separated From God

Sermon 47 Separated From God

In the morning of time when God created Adam and pronounced him "good and very good," man then stood a friend of God, and without condemnation from God.

To this created man and woman in their purity God gave the law of reproduction, telling them to multiply and fill the earth, and this law is just as pure today as when God gave it. While principles surrounding this law are often violated, and children come into the world who are illegitimate so far as legal parentage is concerned, yet their coming is according to God's law, and the child is not born a sinner nor a prisoner on account Or the wrong doing of those who brought him into being.

As all become violators of God's law and sin, then, and not until then do they become sinners. So God says by the prophet Isaiah, "Your sins separate you from God."

Noticing in the diagram the left circle is the home of the sinner when separated from God. Of this class Paul declares they are dead in trespasses and in sins. In this connection comes up the deception of sectarianism which teaches the impossibility of the sinner's doing anything to become alive, or a subject of gospel light, until God in some mysterious way may come and operate on him by the Holy Ghost, and then the sinner acts because he is alive—never to make him alive.Often by this sophistry they will illustrate by telling you a boy gets sick and dies and the doctor comes and calls up that dead boy and tells him to get up and take some medicine and get well, and think they have carried their point in using an incident in real life and death. That does not illustrate their point, as there is no comparison between this kind of death and the one Paul talks about. They forget the word death is susceptible of different meanings, and that a person may be dead and alive at the same time. Paul says of the young widow who spends her time in pleasures that she is dead while she is living (1 Timothy 5:6). Paul calls upon unfaithful Christians and tells them to arise from the dead (Ephesians 6:14). He does not tell them to wait and pray until God will by some mysterious power give them life. So we find a man may be dead and alive at the same time like Christ reasoned with the Pharisees about Abraham and Isaac. They are both dead to us but alive to God; for, he says, "God is not the God of the dead but of the living" (Luke 20:38). Then we conclude that a man in this life may be dead to God yet alive to the devil.

This may be easily illustrated by all foreigners who come to this country. People of France, Spain, and England are all dead to this government. They are not subjects of its laws neither indeed can be, as long as they are citizens of foreign governments. But the time comes when they look at our government with love, desire, and longing eyes to be members of the same, and when they then decide to renounce their government and take the oath of allegiance to our government they then become dead or separated from their former governments and become citizens of our own United States. So it is with the sinner.

That old Calvinistic theory that the sinner is so dead be can not move or do anything until life is given him with which to act is not in accord with truth.

After noticing the above I call your attention to the diagram. The sinner is alive to sin but dead to God. He is under condemnation, yet he is not literally dead, and has as much power to act as a man in Spain has who desires to become a citizen of our country. But the question comes to mind, should this sinner desire to act, to leave his country, the place of condemnation and come into the kingdom of Christ where he may become alive to God and dead to sin, what are the conditions upon which God promises to accept him?

I hear Jesus calling and saying, "Whosoever will may come." Again I hear him calling and saying, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). Also He says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), and that no one can come to the Father only by Him. With these important guides to lead us, I notice there is a way between these two kingdoms, and Jesus claims it is narrow, and few there be that find it.

The first thing I am required to do is to hear Christ in all things (Acts 3:22-23). Jesus says the wise are those who hear his sayings and do them (Matthew 7:24). But no one can stop at hearing. Before I can reach the home of justification I must believe with all my heart that Jesus is the Son of God (John 20:30-31). After believing this I must repent of all my sons and forsake them (Acts 17:30). After this I am required to confess Jesus as the Son of God (Matthew 10:32). The final step I must take is, I must be buried with Christ in baptism ( Romans 6:4 ) .

I now stand in the state of justification. I stand where the church at Rome stood when Paul said, "There is therefore, now, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit" (Romans 8:1-2).

I am now dead and alive at the same time. I am dead to sin and alive to God. I am in the right place, and if I follow Him in His commandments, I have the promise that heaven will be my final home.