The Beginning of False Religions

Gen 4:3  In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground,

Gen 4:4  and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering,

Gen 4:5  but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.

Gen 4:6  The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?

Gen 4:7  If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it."

The account of Cain and Abel is not just interesting but full of theological lessons.  For one thing it proves that everything God said would happened if Adam sinned did happen as Cain, the firstborn of Adam, shows that he was conceived in the image of his fallen father.  It also shows us the beginning of all false religions as Cain attempts to approach God on his own terms and by his own works.  There are only two religions in the world, works and grace, and Abel comes to God on the basis of another’s work which is grace and Cain comes with the fruit of his own labor which is a religion of works.

As the NT tells us, the spirit of Cain is alive and well today and always has been.  Anyone who teaches us to live for ourselves and not the Lord is merely reflecting Cain’s sinful attitude, 1Jn_3:12  We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous.

Jud_1:11  Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion.

Another way this attitude is seen is in those who tell us that as long as our motives are right then God doesn’t care how we approach or worship him.  There are those that say that Cain was rejected because his heart wasn’t right; God didn’t care about his sacrifice.  But the NT tells us this is wrong, Heb_11:4  By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

Certainly Cain’s heart was not right with God but it was the sacrifice he brought that proved it.  God discarded his vegetable tray for a couple of reasons:

His sacrifice was not just the works of his hands but grown in the ground that was under a curse.  Cain was telling God to accept him for what he has done and the problem was that all the works we do are tainted with our sin.  All our works arise from sinful hearts and cannot be seen as righteous before a holy God.  Yes, he was acknowledging God and that there was a debt to pay but the payment was totally inappropriate because it was mixed with human effort. 

Both Cain and Abel obviously had been told to approach the Lord with the sacrifice of a substitute but Cain wanted to bring something he had done because his heart was full of himself.  So both his heart and therefore his sacrifice were rejected by the Lord.  And this leads to the second reason God had to reject Cain.

His vegetable tray ruined the OT types of Christ.  Every once in a while God makes an object lesson of someone who thinks he could approach God in a way that didn’t point to the finished work of Christ.  Moses wasn’t allowed to enter the Promised Land because he struck the Rock a second time when God said to merely speak to it.  Christ only had to die for our sins once, peace was made and now we approach the Father through this finished work and we can speak to God because Christ has already been struck by death and gained victory over it.

Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, learned this lesson with their lives.  Instead of burning incense on the golden altar with fire that came from the brazen altar they used a common fire.  The point is that prayers and service must arise from the sacrifice and anything done that is not based on Christ’s work is unacceptable.  Again, God took these types seriously since he was teaching that no one can be justified nor can do any act of worship and service until they have been purified through the blood of Christ.  Like Cain, Nadab and Abihu decided they could serve God any way they wanted.

Cain no doubt brought a beautiful sacrifice to the Lord but it was totally inappropriate not only because it was an act of rebellion towards God’s will but it didn’t rely on God’s work but on his own.  Had Cain first come to the Lord with a lamb and by such faith been justified then it would have been completely appropriate for him to bring his produce as a sacrifice of praise and thankfulness.  But he got the cart before the horse and was rejected.  And such religions do the same thing today when they teach that we can be right before God apart from anything other than faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ.  And no doubt the churches are full of people putting money in the offering plate thinking that this is earning them brownie points with God instead of getting right with God through the Son and then giving offerings based on what God has done for them in Christ.

Is Your Boss a Tool for the Lord

Gen 3:17  And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; Gen 3:18  thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. Gen 3:19  By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Isa 53:11  Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

One of the curses sin brought on man is that everything becomes more difficult.  It might be the difficulty of maintaining loving relationships such as in marriage as God told Eve in Gen. 3:16, To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."  Or it might be the difficulty of trying to make a living and feeding your family as in verses 17-19 above. 

So it seems that the sweat of labor reminds us that work will be difficult and unending all of our days and it will also not be as fulfilling as it should.  Sin causes everything temporal to never reach its desired end or pleasure.  Life just will not be what it was meant to be. 

Yet the truth that makes life bearable is that Jesus has defeated every aspect that sin has brought upon us.  It is no accident that the Gospels record Jesus’s work on the cross in such a way that we can clearly see him taking the effects of sin upon himself so that we can be freed.  He bore a crown of thorns as he became cursed for us; he was stripped naked as he bore our shame so that we can be clothed in his righteousness.  We even see him sweating profusely as he begins his work in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

The difference with his sweat and labor from ours was that what he was trying to accomplish was completed fully.  Unlike our labors that never find satisfaction and perfection and in this life, never finding rest for these labors, his brought complete satisfaction and accomplishment in defeating sin and redeeming his church and once he said, “It is finished”, he rested from his labor for it was perfect.  We see his satisfying work in Isa. 53:11 above, Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.  And nothing says a work was done right the first time like not having to do it again, Heb 10:12  But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.

Not only have our sins been completely paid for so they can never be held against us but Christ’s work now gives our work on earth the satisfaction it could never have otherwise.  The lost will labor and pursue pleasure all his days only to never find the fulfillment that he is looking for and then he will leave it all behind and suffer total loss, Mat 25:29  For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Mat 25:30  And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  But we have the opportunity by the grace of God to do all things for his glory and in so doing we are given meaning and reward for even the most mundane jobs and the same holds true in suffering patiently for the Lord’s sake.  Now there is no excuse for any saint to not find life fulfilling and rewarding because our work for the Lord brings great satisfaction and ultimate reward.  Christians have the promise that it will be worth it all, that our lives are not worthless but have great value, great reward and that perfect rest is coming. 

I will close with what I think is a practical example.  You might have a boss who is incompetent or who is mean and unfair and doesn’t treat you according to the work you do or might not pay you a fair wage, etc.  For many this brings frustration and discontent and they might wonder what is the point of working.  But Christ’s work of redemption changes everything.  That mean boss is actually a means by which you can gain great reward if you bear it patiently, if you love even him, if you continue to exhibit Christ to your co-workers.  If we returned kind for kind, we just end up frustrated.  But if we use every opportunity as a tool to glorify the Lord, then we can look at such people in a whole new light. 

Col 3:22  Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.

Col 3:23  Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,

Col 3:24  knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.

Col 3:25  For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.

Engaging the World

Mat 28:18  And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Mat 28:19  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Mat 28:20  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

Luk 6:27  "But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

Luk 6:28  bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Eph 4:28  Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

One of the things the above verses have in common is that they all command us to actively engage others.  When Paul tells us to aspire to live quietly and mind our own affairs in 1 Thess. 4:11-12 he isn’t telling us to go off into monasteries or communes and not engage the lost; to try and isolate ourselves from sin and wait for the Lord to come back and rescue us.  Such verses are telling us to be good citizens, don’t cause trouble and work so that you aren’t dependent on others.  Let me quote these verses in their entirety, 1Th 4:11  and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 1Th 4:12  so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. 

This isn’t my point in this article but it might be worth pointing out that it is not the Lord’s will for his people to live off charity and welfare as a rule of thumb.  These things can be helpful and there are times when we all need help but it is to be our goal to take care of ourselves as the Lord allows and not assume that somebody else owes me what they have worked hard for.  I say this because as our country turns more and more socialist Christians can get caught up in the idea that people don’t have to be held accountable to work and do their share to support the economy.  Our goal should be to enable people to work, not see how many can be dependent on the government.  But we will press on.

The point I want to make in the above verses is that we have been called to engage this world, to live among the lost and not just mind our own business so we don’t have to get involved in people’s lives and problems.  As the verse in Eph. 4 says, it is not enough that we don’t steal but that we work to have money to help others.  Here we see a contrast to the 10 Commandments that basically tell us what not to do but under the New Covenant we cannot stop there but must love and do good; we cannot just “not do harm”.  We are not to just not commit adultery but love our wives as ourselves, we don’t just not murder, we love and help, don’t just want peace but pursue peace, etc. 

So we are told in Matthew 28, for instance, that the church is not to just mind its own business, worship in your heart, keep to yourself, but we instead are to go to those who don’t want to hear and lay the claims of Christ on them in the preaching of the Gospel. 

Why this matters especially today is because Christians are being told to keep their religion to themselves.  We are free to believe what we want but if it is out of step with today’s morality then we must keep silent.  There are many Christians that are happy to oblige them and there are many in the church that are also saying that we must fall into step with the social mores of the day regardless of what the Bible says.

But the problem with this is that Matthew 28 commands the church to proclaim the Word of God to the lost whether they want to hear it or not.  The call today to keep our religion to ourselves is just another attempt by Satan to keep us from telling this world about the cross of Jesus Christ.  It is an attack on Christianity itself which cannot be silent and to do so is to blatantly disobey the Lord.  The church propagates itself not by running from the world but by attacking it with the Gospel.  This is historic and biblical Christianity and we dare not be diverted from it.  We are to go into all the world, not hide from the world.  May God give us the strength in these uncertain days to be faithful to him and not fear the culture around us because it will soon be gone but the Word of God abides forever.

Let's not be Pharisees

Mar 7:8  You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men."

Mar 7:9  And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!

Having been raised in Fundamentalism it is not difficult for me to see a connection between it and Pharisaism.  I want to be clear that I am not saying that all Fundamentalist are hypocritical legalists, but the system lends itself to some similarities.  Also, some of the things I am going to point out are things that we all must be on guard for because it is easy for any of us to miss the point of biblical principles and go to one extreme or the other.

I remember my pastor of a large Fundamental church saying on more than one occasion that if the world moves away from biblical principles in some way, we Christians must move the other way.  So for instance, if the dress hems moved up I guess our women’s dress hems should move down, if the world drinks we must be teetotalers, etc.  This preached well in such churches because Fundamentalism tends to over react to the world around them.

And in that we can see a connection to the mindset of the Pharisees.  The Pharisees were so concerned that God’s Law not be broken that they went too far the other way and made up laws so that they wouldn’t get near to God’s actual law and then taught that these man-made laws were equally important as God’s laws.  Of course, the result was that they became judgmental because they assumed that if you didn’t live like they did you were not as holy as they were; your standards were lower than theirs.

Growing up we would hear a lot about keeping your standards high and your convictions uncompromised; to lower them was to compromise with the world.  This is all well and good if your “standards or convictions” were biblical.  But if your standards are a result of over-reaction to the standards of the lost then you are in danger of making up things in order to be different from the world in ways that God has not commanded. 

In the above illustration, if I am living as best I can based on my understanding of God’s Word and the world moves further away from God’s standards; why do I have to move at all?  To move in the opposite direction is to do something similar to what the world has done; it is to do things my way rather than trust that God knows best.  If I am living biblically then to move either way is to move away from that which is biblical.  So I end up making up my own list of rules in an effort to be holy which is exactly what the Pharisees did.

This results in my becoming “more holy than Jesus”!  The principles laid out in the Bible aren’t enough to be a good testimony of the grace of God so I need to develop stricter standards than God thought necessary.  And the real problem here is that I then must assume that those who don’t do as I do are sinning and so I can see myself as a “better, more committed” Christian than those compromisers out there.  And, again, this is exactly what the Pharisees did. 

To be sure the Bible doesn’t give us detailed commands in every area of life.  It sets forth principles to guide those that love the Lord and want to honor him in the way they live (which describes every true believer, by the way).  So we consider these principles, such as “Do all for the glory of God” and we decide what is wrong for us and right for us in gray areas or subjects that the Bible doesn’t speak to directly.  What should happen is that we can agree to disagree with other saints in these gray areas and work and fellowship together in service to the Lord.  But when we have a spirit that what I think is right is right for everyone, even in those things that the Bible doesn’t address, then I begin to judge everyone else’s hearts and motives and I become a Pharisee.

One way this is practically important is because if I don’t have this level of maturity it will be impossible for me to fellowship with people who don’t agree with me on secondary and tertiary matters and the church becomes even more splintered than it is anyway.  I have yet to be in a church in which someone (usually a husband and father) who assumes he knows it all and so if the church leaders don’t see things his way, it is his responsibility to take himself and his family away from the ministry of God’s Word because evidently only he knows the truth in every matter and so only his views are safe for his family.  Evidently the pastor will lead his family into all manner of sin if he lets anyone else but himself lead them. 

We all have to decide what is right and wrong for us according to the principles of God’s Word but we can’t make such things into laws that we then expect everyone else to live by.  Such legalism only divides and it is making obedience to the Lord more than the Bible teaches; it is being “more godly than Christ” and that, of course, is nonsense.

Let's Stop with the Excuses

1Pe 2:20  For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

1Pe 2:21  For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

1Pe 2:22  He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

1Pe 2:23  When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

1Pe 2:24  He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

Christians have always struggled keeping themselves untainted by the culture around them.  Today we see this as many Christians, nominal but also true saints struggle with what has been termed determinism.  Briefly it is the idea that we are a product of our environment and genetic makeup so that freewill is illusionary.  Theologically it results in the belief that we are what we are by birth and so we can’t help but sin.  So for example the homosexuals use this to say that they have same sex attraction because of their genes and so it is God’s fault they are the way they are so they can’t and shouldn’t change their behavior.

Of course, there are many problems with this but primarily it is an attack on the biblical definition of sin and also an attack on the gospel itself.  The above passage offers one example in which those who find themselves in adversity cannot blame their attitudes and actions on their environment but must bring them under control through the power of gospel truth.  Peter offers Christ as the ultimate example of obeying God regardless of the pain and difficulty to do so.

So if our environment isn’t an excuse to sin what about our genetics?  The Bible teaches that this also is no excuse.  Sin has affected every person’s genetics for sure.  We are all broken by sin and we are all born with the desire to live for ourselves and not the Lord.  Our natural propensity is to put our desires ahead of both God and others.  This is seen in that we get angry when things don’t go our way and sometimes we want to hurt others as a result. 

The Bible teaches us that we are to subdue these sinful passions and love our enemies instead.  We can’t use genetics as an excuse to murder someone because we have a will that is to control what our bodies do.  So being born with a violent temper just means that it will be more difficult to control it but control it you must or suffer the consequences.  Up until the last couple of decades even a worldly society understood this.  But now we are being told that personal autonomy is more important than laws that govern our baser desires.

The Bible teaches us that we are all broken sexually as well.  Before the Fall men and women would have only been attracted to a person of the opposite sex and would have no difficulty being faithful to only their spouse because they loved God supremely and so would have obeyed whatever God told them to do.  But after the Fall our sinful nature is at enmity with God and loves self supremely and often this is seen in that we are attracted to things we shouldn’t be.  But nowhere does the Bible say that since we have a sinful nature it is okay to disobey God and act on whatever desires we have.  After the Fall our environment and genetics make loving God more difficult but they do not excuse sin.

As Christians we have been given new natures and the power of sin has been broken so that we can say no.  So it is especially disturbing when false professors stand in our pulpits and tell us that it is okay to practice the most perverted of sins and that God made them that way so it is his will.  This makes God the author of sin.

I say this hits at the heart of the Gospel because the whole reason God saves us is so that we can live for him and not be dominated by sin.  Is this not what this verse and many others teach?  1Pe 2:24  He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.  Instead of things beyond our control determining how we live, the power of the Holy Spirit controls us. 

He revolutionizes our thinking so that we don’t have to think in a self-destructive way any longer.  It doesn’t matter if you weren’t loved; now you are.  We no longer can say that I am not a loving person and so don’t have to love because God loves us in his Son and that love is shed abroad in our hearts.  Change is possible, change is commanded, and we are free in Christ to live differently than the way we were born.  Greater is he that is in us, than he that is in the world.  This is why the political correctness mess today strikes at the very heart of the gospel.  Christians are not to identify themselves by their past sins or past abuse but instead start living in the reality of what Christ has done for you and to you. 

How Sinful Am I?

Rom 1:18  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Rom 1:19  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

Rom 1:20  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Rom 1:21  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

It has always been fallen man’s tendency to reduce sin to acts that they can either commit or not commit.  It makes us believe that we can stop sinning by our own power and so the struggle not to sin isn’t all that difficult.  Probably this is why so many over-emphasize the 10 Commandments when it comes to the pursuit of sanctification.  Reducing the bulk of being “good” to a list of ten certainly makes it easier to convince oneself that he is winning the battle against sin.

Now to be sure, the 10 Commandments in their proper context can be useful for a Christian but I think there are better passages in the Bible that lays out to us the true nature of sin and so gives us a better idea of how to identify it in our lives and so guard against it and also point us in the right direction as to what true godliness is. 

I think a proof that there is merit to all this is in the fact that there are Christians that think they have quit sinning or can go long stretches without sinning.  As you talk to them you begin to see that what they have done is to lower the bar of what a sin actually is to the point that anyone with a little human effort can stop doing certain overt acts.  So if sins are acts I commit with my body but not necessarily thoughts I think or things I should have done but didn’t then it is much easier to convince myself that I have been pretty good from one day to the next.

There are many Scriptures that refute the idea that sin can be reduced in this way and the above passage in Romans 1 is a good example.  If we assume that the wrath of God is directed at man’s sinfulness as it clearly says then the things listed must be considered sinful; namely, suppressing the truth, and especially in vs. 21, not honoring God as we should and not being as thankful as we should. 

These things speak to a mindset, a way of life and not just overt acts that we commit now and then.  In other words, sin isn’t just acts we commit but acts and thoughts and motives that we omit from our life; sins of omission as well as commission.  Now I guess it is possible that I am such an awful sinner that the whole concept of being sinless for even a short time is just beyond my ability to comprehend.  But I am willing to bet that every descendent of Adam is just as unable to stop sinning and fully honor the Lord as they should. 

So sin is not honoring God in every moment of everyday as he deserves.  To have stopped from sinning we must always do everything for the absolute right reason and pride never enter into the picture.  It is to be so motivated by our love for God that we always do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reason.  Being thankful is pretty much the same thing.  We always know that all that we have comes from God and is therefore to be used for him.  So we never take credit for what we have or have done and are therefore properly humbled.  Giving God his due and being thankful means that I give proper honor to his Word and always obey it, always know that it is right and never argue with it because that would not be honoring God as the only true Wisdom.

While in our hearts we might agree with all this, we all know that it is impossible to live it out moment by moment, day after day, year and after year.  For instance, it is not enough to not murder someone but we are to work out love for them by our words and actions.  So while I have never broken the commandment to not murder; I continually am unable to work out perfect, godly love towards anyone. 

I think this is important because it keeps me focused on my heart and not just on what I do with my body or my speech.  And it reminds me how sinful I still am and how much I need the Holy Spirit working in me to do God’s will and not my own.  It also makes me realize how much I need the ministry of the Word of God in my life and why we all need to be under the ministry of the Word of God in the local church.  Because we are so prone to sin we need the constant reminders and instruction of the Word of God; otherwise what does the Spirit have to work with? 

To dismiss the need of constant Bible study just shows how easy it is to be full of ourselves and not give the Lord the honor he is due.  At the end of the day sin is thinking I know better than God or living as if I believe that even if in my heart I know it is not true.

Both the Spirit and the Word

1Jn 1:6  If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 1Jn 1:7  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 1Jn 1:8  If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1Jn 1:9  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

In preaching on the subject of how the Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to both convert us and sanctify us, I have used the illustration of a washing machine.  Our dirty minds and hearts are the dirty clothes that need cleansing, the soap is the truth of the blood of Christ that not only washes away our guilt but casts light on our sin so that we will believe what the Bible says and not what sin says and so this helps us clean up our lives so we live for the Lord.  The water is the Word, water that conveys the truth to us so it can do its work.  So the Holy Spirit is the agitator that gives power to the Word so it can transform our minds.

This might be a little convoluted but I think it stresses the need for both the Holy Spirit and the Word in both conversion and sanctification.  This is important since many fall into error because they want to emphasize or even ignore one over the other.  Let me press the illustration a bit further to show what I mean.

What would happen if you put your dirty clothes into the washer added soap but no water?  Not much.  You can agitate the clothes with the dry soap and expect no change.  This is what happens with many churches that emphasize the Holy Spirit with little to no biblical study; such as many charismatic churches.  They have a lot of agitation, emotionalism, but there isn’t much truth to direct the emotion and so it is misdirected and won’t help much when their emotions are under attack during trials.  They know much of experience but know little of God and his will.  They know a little about the Spirit and a little about the blood but how it all works together under duress is sometimes lost. 

The Spirit’s job is not to excite us but to help us understand and apply truth.  When we understand the Truth our own emotions will excite us.  The gospel is the good news of how our guilt can be alleviated.   We are saved by grace, through faith.  But what causes us to quit believing in this world and ourselves and start believing the gospel?  The Holy Spirit awakens us so that we believe the Truth!  He gets us to trust in Christ by shining the truth into our darkened minds and enabling us to flee to the cross and thus our sins are forgiven.  So he doesn’t “clean” us without us believing Truth and acting on it.  His work isn’t mystical in that he just does it all for us, but he brings us to the point that we actually believe the Word and live according to its truth.

What does the Word of God have that can convert and sanctify us?  In both cases it is truth.  Why did you go to church last Sunday?  It was knowing where the world is headed and that you have been saved by Christ and wanting to hear from your Savior, etc.  In other words, it was knowing truth.  Why does the drunk or drug addict or businessman or pleasure seeker stay home or go to work or play?  Because they believe sin’s lie that they are more important than God, and not the Word.  The Spirit has given us ears to hear and hearts to obey.

Let’s press the illustration the other way.  What happens if you dump dirty clothes into the machine, turn it on but don’t add water?  Not much.  To me this is the error that the Hyper-Calvinists fall into because they put all the emphasis on the Spirit’s work and power but don’t feel it is necessary for us to do anything.  But this ignores the need for the cleansing work of Truth.  The Spirit converts us by teaching us of the deceitfulness of sin and the sufficiency of the Cross and enables us to believe Truth and act upon it.  He doesn’t work apart from the Word.  I have met Hyper-Calvinists who have told me the Holy Spirit doesn’t need the gospel to save people; he doesn’t need us to respond by faith; he can do it all without means.  But that is just not biblical.  Another form of this is that the Holy Spirit believes for us or that he gives us Jesus’s faith.  One form of this is also the Deeper Life Movement where we are told to “Let go and let God”.  But the Bible doesn’t say that Jesus’s faith saves us but our faith is the means by which we are justified.  Notice in the above passage that we are to use truth to live for the Lord.  “Walk in the light” is another way of saying this.

We need both the Holy Spirit and Truth in order to be saved and to grow in our faith.  One alone would just produce emotionalism and mysticism; the other alone produces dead orthodoxy.    

Jesus teaches us that both of these will work in unity in Joh 16:13  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. Joh 16:14  He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

The Spirit doesn’t magically make us holy, he uses the Word, 1Pe 2:2  Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.  He gives us hearts that want to love Christ and so hear what he says that we might do his will, Eph 4:30  And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.