Introduction

Jesus came to take away the sin of the world. He came to cleanse us, from the sins we commit, by the shedding of His blood and He came to change us in our nature, what we are, what we were born as. He came to take away the factory, so to speak, that produces the sin in order to make all things new. John the Baptist said,

John 1:29 KJV) ". . . . Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

Jesus came to show us that we are all sinners:

Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

He came to show us we all stand in this world equal in the eyes of God:

Rom 3:12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: 14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood: 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways: 17 And the way of peace have they not known: 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Jesus, in the episode of the Pharisees wanting to stone the adulteress, brought forth this same truth in a very powerful way:

John 8:7 KJV "So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

She was a sinner, but in His words, Jesus showed all to be sinners. There's a Catholic joke that contrasts this truth, and really makes its point very real:

And Jesus said, "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." Suddenly a rock flew throiugh the air and hit the adultress in the head. Jesus looked up, and said "Mother!"

When told, one gets the feeling that there is really something radically untrue about two people being on earth who are without sin. In hearing the joke, the sinlessness of Jesus alone is compromised.

But concerning Himself, He said,

John 8:46 Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?

He said, "I have no sin. Prove it, and make me a liar. Yet, they could not. They, the Pharisees, said they had no sin and could judge Him, yet the opposite was true. They themselves were the liars. They said they weren't sinners, but John said:

1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
1 John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
1 John 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Jesus said their sin remained. The point: before Jesus came, all men had sinned, but after He came it was, All men have sinned except this one, and He is our way out of this condition. How did He make that way clear? He died for all men, or, for all sinners:

Rom 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Rom 5:9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
Rom 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
Rom 5:11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

The cross was the legal work of God concerning man, sin and our condition. Jesus sending the Holy Spirit to convict of sin is the operational work of God to make the work of Calvary and its freeing from sin a reality in our lives. Calvary is past; the Holy Spirit is present to make it real in our lives. Jesus said of Him,

John 16:8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
John 16:9 Of sin, because they believe not on me;
John 16:10 Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;
John 16:11 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

Once convicted, we must repent. Once convicted, we know the good that we are to do. James said,

James 4:17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

We can ignore the Holy Spirit's conviction, and what that means is we are convicted, we know it, we then know what good we are to do to change, and then WE DON'T DO and end up jumping into worse sin, more dangerous sin, refusing the Holy Spirit. But, how can a true Christian continue to live in sin once convicted of it. How can we continue to live in sin knowing,

2 Cor 5:21 . . . he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

This is God's work toward us and toward all men, to bring us out of a walk of sin to a walk of righteousness. If we ignore it, we become paper Christians, because by such an ignoring, we throw out the sin issue and God cannot work in us. We end up with the revival's attitude toward sin. That is how I got into this talk to put it together.

I have listened to TBN for weeks, and being battered continually with their message, I was very observant to see what I could see, and suddenly the message the Lord wanted me to see stood out very clearly: it isn't what I was seeing, and it wasn't what I was hearing. That's not where the message laid. It was what I wasn't seeing and what I wasn't hearing:

SIN as related and dealt with in the Scriptures. What brought that to light very clearly was while I listened to ANOTHER testimony of the Jesus' wonders and signs within the revival to set people free, this thought rose in my heart:

"When was the last time you heard a powerful testimony on the deliverance from sin through Biblical repentance." I could not honestly think of one.

The second thing that led to this talk was shortly after that, I was scouring the Internet to get info on the shofar and fire and Maitreya and how they relate to the year 2000, when I saw this title, The Seven Deadly Sins. I thought of what happened watching TBN, so I found a web page with these seven deadly sins and started looking up scriptures. We're going to discuss these, sometimes in ways not usually discussed, and we will do this over the next few weeks until were done. So I've titled this talk, Seven Deadly Sins.