Not Guilty
There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness. — Proverbs 30:12The writer of Proverbs is describing for us a generation that actually will exist at some point, or points, in time. We can go to the book of Revelation and read about a church that is called the church of the Laodecians. This is commonly accepted as a picture of the final state of the church before Jesus comes. This church says of itself, “we are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” They have attained to all they feel that is necessary, and feel no need to be corrected, or grow any more. They have need of NOTHING — no need of preaching, no need of wisdom and understanding, and surely no need of forgiveness, because they are not guilty of anything. Now we don’t have to study history or do an intensive search for that generation — it is all around us now.
We are living in a day when it is practically impossible to make anyone guilty of anything. We have a president who has the reputation of being coated with Teflon because they can’t get any charges to stick. He has had more accusations, and there has been more evidence of wrong-doing on his part than any president in history, but somehow it is impossible to convict him of anything. He is simply a representative of what our society is like, including the church. No one is guilty of anything, and you can’t make them guilty. They refuse to accept the responsibility for their actions and always have an excuse or a scapegoat to blame it on. People have discovered ways to release themselves from guilt without repentance and confession. They have figured out how to feel good about themselves without facing the responsibility for their actions.
In order to reach such a state there are some things that a person has to do to their conscience and their mind. There are different ways that people accomplish this. One is role playing. They may convince themselves that they are really a multiple personality and say to themselves that it wasn’t the real ME that did THAT, it was my “old man.” They may play the role of a victim and say it was only because of the influence of so-and-so that they did what they did. They will comfort themselves by believing that they would NEVER do such a thing if left to themselves. They may go back to their childhood and figure out that their mother and father are to blame for the actions THEY are committing now, and therefore it is not THEIR fault, but they are simply a victim of their raising. Another way is to find an excuse by searching out someone, especially a preacher, who will agree with them that what they did was not wrong. We all know how easy that is to do. So they have justified themselves while they continue to live in sin and ignore the commandments of God. This is a generation that is pure IN THEIR OWN EYES, and yet is NOT WASHED FROM THEIR FILTHINESS.
Parents are guilty of instilling this into their children. In their love and desires for their children, parents will, many times, not allow them to face the responsibility for their actions. If someone tries to correct their children at school or at church, they will immediately jump to the defense of the child. They will say things like, “Well, if he hadn’t been with that crowd,” or “if it weren’t for influence of those OTHER kids, he wouldn’t have done it.” Everyone should understand that a child will NEVER be converted to Christ unless he learns to accept the responsibility for his own sin. They think they are helping their child, but they are DESTROYING their child. Every child will one day stand before God ALONE and be judged for what he has done. It used to be that mothers would march their children back into the store and make them tell the clerk that they had stolen something and apologize and give it back. Now they say, “Well, he wouldn’t have done it if they hadn’t made it so easy, &ldots; and if he hadn’t seen it on television &ldots;. and if he hadn’t been hanging around those other kids on the block, he wouldn’t have done it.” A parent that does this is not helping the child, but it is destroying him. They are helping him to justify his NEXT crime. They are setting him up for destruction in his life because he will never be able to solve any problem he has until he realizes and accepts the fact that it is HIS problem. As long as he is in the habit of looking for someone or something else to blame it on, so he can justify himself, he will always have the problem. He may be a drunkard and blame it on the state for making it so easy to buy the booze. He may smoke and get lung cancer and then blame the tobacco companies because they sold him the cigarettes.
The teaching of the Adamic nature has really helped man to release himself from the guilt of his sin. If it is stressed to a person that he has Adam in him, and he has a sinful nature that he was born with, and that is what makes him sin, guess what he is going to realize sooner or later? He is going to say to himself, “It isn’t my fault, why, if Adam wasn’t IN me, I wouldn’t sin myself. It is this OTHER personality that was put in me that makes me sin, it isn’t ME. I’m not really responsible for my actions because Adam made me do it.” Surely, if Adam is in heaven and can get to God, he has come before Him thousands of times and said, “Lord, I didn’t make him do that. He is blaming me, but I didn’t have a thing to do with it.”
Some try to act like Flip Wilson and say, “the devil made me do it.” But that isn’t the truth either. The devil cannot make you sin, your flesh cannot make you sin, no Adamic nature can make you sin. You sin because you chose to do so of your own free will. You chose to satisfy your lusts regardless of the commands of God, or the consequences to other people. That makes YOU the sole responsible party in the matter.
When a person goes down this road of role-playing, excuse-making, or buck-passing it will eventually sear their conscience until they actually feel good about what they are doing, even though it is against the Word of God. You can preach to people now and deal with any certain sin, and they will sit there in the pew and nod their head and agree with you, but never acknowledge that they are guilty themselves. You can’t hardly bring people to the place any more where they will blush, be ashamed, and repent of their sin. People will sit in the pew and listen to the preacher rebuke a sin which they are committing in their life right now and you will not see any guilt or remorse come over them. They will not confess or acknowledge their sin in any way. People will sit in the church cold and apathetic in their hearts and the preacher will rebuke them from the Word of God about it, but they will not even acknowledge that they are cold and indifferent, let alone get right about it. People in the church drift away into worldliness and open friendship with the world, which is enmity with God, and yet they never stand and confess that they have strayed and are worldly and wrong.
Why aren’t people repenting in our day? Why don’t they blush? Why aren’t they ashamed? Why don’t we see revival anywhere? It is because people are saying in their hearts, “I am pure, I am clean.” “I’m NOT GUILTY, I’m not wrong.” “It’s not wrong for me to live this lifestyle.” Our heads are held high, but they should be in the dust. How sensitive are YOU about your sin? How clear is God’s voice to your heart in these matters? Do you get rebuked by the Holy Ghost for the slightest thought you think or word you speak out of order? Can God just touch you and melt your heart over your waywardness and sin? Or are you right in your own eyes? Do you have need of nothing? If you have reached such a state it might be too late for you. You might have seared your conscience until you can’t hear the voice of the Holy Ghost. Today, IF you hear his voice, HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS. There is no hope of revival until we are willing to confess and forsake our sins and accept the responsibility for our wrongs. That is the only way to forgiveness and cleansing.
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