Pastor's corner
By CURTIS WIENS
First Baptist Church of Durham
There's a story about a little boy whose friend got in trouble. When asked "why," there was this discussion about the friend's parents, who were not quite what they should be.
And the little boy burst out passionately, "If parents are always to blame, how far back does it stop?"
Parents had parents too. And the parents' parents had parents. As far back as you can go everybody had parents. Wow, that's putting all the blame on Adam and Eve!
Exactly!
When God created the world, it was perfect. When He made man and gave him a mate, they were perfect. They had unbroken friendship with God. There was only one thing God told Adam and Eve they could not do.
Exactly what it was is not the point. The point is that God said "Don't do it" and Satan said "Do it" and they did it. And in doing it, they took themselves out of God's hands. They were lost. That is what being "lost" is — out of God's hands. And so everyone who was born after that was also out of God's hands.
And in "due time" — that is, the right time, when God was ready, He sent Jesus Christ to die for this "lost" mankind. He was punished in the place of every "lost" person. This was God's gift to every person born. Your privilege as a person is to accept this gift and thereby put yourself back into God's hands. That's what being "saved" is. That's what makes you a Christian.
But it doesn't make you perfect.
No person will be perfect until Christ comes again. The old nature you were born with is still there. Blame it on Adam and Eve if you will. But don't be discouraged by it. For when you became a Christian, God gave you a new nature. And that is the one you should be concerned about. You are in God's hands, where you belong, where He wants you. And He has promised that your new nature will have victory over the old one.
"But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ
