That Troublesome ALL!
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Some days a person hates to turn on the news because the moment we do we are bombarded with sin and its justification. The heart of man has not changed since the fall of Adam. But things that used to remain private sell a lot of cereal on the news channels and these things are now made public. So why watch the news, you might rightly ask? Because as an evangelist, I feel the need to know what is going on in the world and not to live an isolated life. I want to be able to relate to people who need to know that there is a solution to sin. That solution is not mentioned in the news. The solution is found in the Bible. The Bible is not the cause of our problems, the Bible contains the solution. That solution is THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.
But what I have been meditating on is how easy it is for us as Christians to be proud that we don’t commit “certain sins.” We tend to rank sin into those that are really, really, really bad, those that are kind of bad, and those that we commit which are of course not so bad really. In all fairness, the Bible does tend to rank the sins of society and the sins of believers. Romans one describes societies that have turned away from God and that have “debased minds.” The end result is for those societies to be involved in unbridled sin. 1 Corinthians 5 mentions six sins that must be judged by the church if unbelievers are characterized by these sins. But this verse in Romans 3:23 moves us from sin that affects society and sins that affect the church to sins that affect us. There is something really convicting about that word ALL.
I have been reading through the Psalms and I have noticed how David in particular praises the Lord and how he sees himself as “poor and needy”. See Psalm 68:19, 70:5. I suppose I may have missed a passage where David exalts himself, but the general thrust of his Psalms is to exalt the Lord who saves him and meets his needs. David was a worshiper of Jehovah from his youth. In Psalm 71:5 he says, “For You are my hope, O Lord GOD; You are my trust from my youth.” I am sure that the genuine faith of David was the reason why the Lord chose him to lead the nation of Israel. But David sinned and he sinned grievously. I have wondered if this sin and its forgiveness by God wasn’t one of the reasons that David was such a sweet Psalmist (2 Samuel 23:1). He had learned by experience that his heart had the same sin problem as the hearts of the people he ruled.
So what is the solution for this sin problem? How do we keep from having it depress and discourage us? If we look at our society, it is discouraging. If we look at our own hearts we are confronted with that ALL in our verse and that is discouraging. But if we look to the Lord, now that is a look that not only saves but encourages. Isaiah says in chapter 45:22 “Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.” I believe David kept his spiritual eyes focused on the Lord and on all the benefits that the Lord had heaped on him. When we look at the Lord we don’t see sin, we see the sinless One that the writer of Hebrews tells us is our High Priest: For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens (Hebrews 7:26). Peter says that He “committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth (1 Peter 2:22).” Yes, there is beauty to be found in Him.
I intend to keep watching the news although I am not going to watch all the news commentary. One of the reasons that I will watch it is that it makes the Lord and His solution so much more encouraging and beautiful by contrast. The news is constantly bombarding us with those who are critical and with those who laying guilt trips on us if we don’t see things their way. But the Lord came not to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:17). He calls sin “sin” but the Lord is the answer to that problem of ALL.
And that is truly encouraging!
Bruce Collins
Meditation for the week of August 4, 2013