You Must Deal With The First Thing, First
My attention was particularly drawn to the importance of this issue, Sins Come First, by a reference to the story of the healing of a paralyzed man brought to Jesus in the gospel according to Saint Mark, Chapter 2 verses 1 to 12. For the students of the Bible, one main feature of the Book of Mark is the absence of frills or thrills in his reporting of the works of the Messiah.
[sgmb id=”1″]
For a quick recap, a paralyzed man was brought by 4 of his friends to a meeting being held in a house by Jesus. The attendance in the meeting was so huge there was no way the four could get their friend to Jesus through the normal routes. They hurled him to the roof, broke up the roof and let their cargo down through to Jesus.
Now given all those troubles the paralyzed man and his four friends went through to get to the front of Jesus, you would expect the Messiah to promptly address the obvious cause of their pains. Instead, it was an obviously totally unrelated thing that Jesus latched on: “Son, your sins are forgiven thee”. Now, the paralyzed man and his friends never thought they were coming to the meeting with Jesus on the issue of his sins. All that was in their minds was heal someone who could not walk by himself. Yet, sins were the primary thing, as far as Jesus was concerned.
When I go through the internet in the last few years, I notice the ubiquity of ‘inspirational’ sites and writers obviously plying what they think are spiritual truths. At times one reads, “The first 1,000 people that presses, ‘Like’, will obtain so so miracle before 12 noon tomorrow”. Writings such as this are not only gimmicks: they are frauds. They are inspired by the Devil to divert attention of readers from the one real way God set down to obtain lasting and safe miracles. “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear” in Isaiah 59:1-2 has not changed.
Do you really need a very serious miracle by 12 noon tomorrow? Get down on your knees and deal honestly with the sin question first.
That is the main issue in the Bible.