Читать книгу Hear God's Voice - Andre Dellerba - Страница 5

Why the inner void, emptiness, the inner uneasiness? One word – SIN, and the consequences of sin. Now I didn’t really know what sin was when I was growing up. Only when I accepted Jesus and His Word as my ultimate authority did I understand this void and the sin that caused it. What is sin? “Sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). Lawlessness is rebellion against God and His will, just like Satan (1 John 3:8). I was doing this unknowingly. I later found out in the Scripture that whether I knew it or not, it made no difference to the fact that I was guilty. Whether I knew about the consequences or not, I reaped the consequences (Lev. 5:17). Ignorance isn’t bliss.

If a baby crawls off the table, whether he knows about gravity or not, he will fall and receive the consequences. How many times must the baby crawl off the table to recognize it? This accounted for the inner emptiness I sensed every time I sinned. No matter how many times people around me said, “It was right, everyone is doing it and you are not hurting anyone”. My mind convinced me that it was good but inside I had turmoil. When I tried to listen to the inner voice and not sin, I sinned even more! It was hopeless, I was a hopeless sinner but I didn’t know it, nor could I help it. My life was like driving a car on a road filled with potholes that people said weren’t there; as I miss one I hit another. So I just got used to it and started to enjoy the bumps in the road. But the void was still there and I couldn’t escape it, I just became numb to it.

It will be worse for a sinner to be in the presence of God than in Hell because God is Holy and sin separates, tears us away, from Him (Is. 59:2). Therefore unless sins in the hearts of people are dealt with, those people go to Hades or Death, away from God. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23; 1 Kings 8:46). So no matter how many righteous works we do, our works are but filthy rags before Him (Is. 64:6). It’s like having a big bucket of pure water. And everyday I add pure water to it (righteous works) hoping to have the perfect bucket of water at the end of my life. But one day I drop a grain of poison (sin) in it by accident, the bucket of water is no longer pure. Even if I add more pure water to it, it is still contaminated. The only solution is to empty the bucket and start again, but what are the chances I will drop something else in and contaminate it? Infinitely high. I am the bucket, my righteous works are the water and the poison is my rebellion against God (sin). My righteous works will never be able to get me into Heaven because they are contaminated. Jesus declared, “For if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins” (John 8:24).