Our choir's special today was "The Lighthouse." Our Sunday morning sermon was brought to us by our associate pastor, Brother Ryan Crawford, and was entitled, "Sin Lieth At The Door."
We stood for the reading of God's Holy Word, and our opening prayer, with Brother Crawford's message taken from the book of Genesis with special emphasis on Genesis 4:1-7. "And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived , and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him."
"The Bible talks about sin a lot. Sin is a very crazy, wicked thing. Sin is a very destructive, dangerous thing. Numbers 32:23 states, 'But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord; and be sure your sin will find you out.' We use this verse with our children, all the time. My folks used that verse with me and my siblings, all the time. And the Bible is right. James 4:17 says, 'Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.' So doing wrong/bad is sin, but not doing something you know is right/good is sin also. It has often been said: our Savior died for sins, and believers are dead to sin, but unbelievers will die in their sin."
"I want to share four points about sin, with you this morning. The first three are how sin is awful, dreadful, horrific. The last point will explain how sin is good. So you might want to stick with me to the end, just to see how it all works out."
"First off, sin is: deceptive." See Genesis 3:1, 3:4-6, 3:6, 3:12-13. "Sin will make you doubt God's word. Satan comes up to Eve and insists she won't die. And when she did finally eat, she said to herself, huh, I didn't die. Spiritually she did die at that moment, and physically she began to die, and she would one day actually physically die. So in this way, sin is so deceptive as it never delivers on what it promises."
"Sin is also: destructive." See Genesis 3:14-19, 3:20-24, 4:1-14. "Sin destroyed what was familiar in Adam and Eve's world. Even the serpent was affected the fall of man. And it will do the same to your world. Before they fell Adam and Eve were equal partners. After the fall Eve's status changed, and she would now be ruled over by Adam. After the fall Adam's status changed too, work would now be sweaty and full of briers. Sin destroys that which is familiar. Sin will cause a division between you and your spouse, between you and your children, between you and your God."
"Sin is deadly, as there are sins to death." See Genesis 4. "Satan came to steal, kill, and destroy." The former archangel literally hates the human race, every single one of us. "You will die because of your sin. And if you die in your sin, because of sin, you will go to hell, and burn forever and ever. But if you die in your sin, and you are saved, what a shame, you won't be very happy to meet your savior, like it ought to be."
Ephesians 2:1 explains how we are dead in sin. Romans 6:23 shows how we are dead in self. And John 5:24 illustrates how we are dead in soul." The key phrase in all of this is dead in. 'Deadend,' get it?
"Let me leave you with one last thing. There really is one good thing about sin. Sin is dismissable. Sin can be forgiven." See Genesis 3:21, Genesis 4:25, Psalm 103:10-12, Acts 26:18. "Because of Seth, Jesus. Jesus came out of Seth's line. So when we do sin, we can be forgiven by Jesus the Christ. Then according to Psalm 103, we don't even get what we deserve when we do sin, as all sin, any sin should put us in hell. But God's Mercy and Grace removes and separates us from our sins. Both horizontally (east from west) and vertically (Heaven high from Earth below). And a horizontal line and a vertical line meeting...the cross. "Your lack of belief in Jesus, God's only Son, sends you to hell. But He took away your sin, He took away my sin. And that is about the best thing I can think of in the whole wide world, is that when I sin, as I am a sinner, I can have it forgiven...and then it is totally forgotten."
"Jesus is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Today is the day. So why do you need to get that taken care of right now? Because none of us is promised tomorrow. And because sin is so deceptive, sin is so destructive, and sin is so very, deadly; you need to deal with sin right now, while you still can."
Friday, May 22 is the last day of school. Pray for students, teachers and administrators. Monday, May 25 is Memorial Day. Friday, Saturday May 29, 30 is the Men's Fishing Retreat Roaring River.
KFC (Kids For Christ) starts this Wednesday night. Supper is at 6:45 p.m.; KFC service is at 7 p.m.
You can hear a rebroadcast of one of our pastors' services, on KURM radio, 100.3FM at 8:30 a.m. Sunday mornings. Or listen to our pastors' services on our website at: http://www.firstbaptistchurchpineville.com/Sermons.html.
If you have no church home of your own, we would love for you to join us (off the northeast corner of Pineville square, just behind U.S. Bank) in ours. No friendlier, down home church, can be found anywhere in the four-state area.
Religion on 05/21/2015