Spiritual Malpractice: Sinless Christians

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good afternoon everyone. It is Sunday, February the ninth, twenty twenty five. It is currently three twenty six pm Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, I know, I know it's Super Bowl Sunday. I'm very aware of that. Everyone is aware of it. The whole world is aware of it. Everyone will be talking about it. Millions upon millions of people will watch it. We know it's like a cultural phenomenon.

0:43 It's something that everyone talks about. But before we turn on the television and watch Taylor Swift, I mean the Super Bowl, before we do that, Okay, Well, well, I won't get into all of my opinions of football fans getting all angry and upset and mad because they showed Taylor Swift for five seconds and they ruined America and they ruined football. Okay, I hope they show her seventy five thousand times, and I hope Taylor Swift wins the Super Bowl and then everyone can be mad. Okay, but I won't get into all, well, I kind of got into that when I said I wasn't right. But before that starts, and before people start yelling and screaming that the refs are paid and that the whole thing is fixed, and that this is wrong and this is horrible and this is a horrible, horrible thing, and before everyone gets upset about football and refs and Taylor Swift and politics and culture wars, before we do that, can we take a few minutes to talk about something Well, I think it's far more important, far more serious, and at least for people within Christianity, at least people within the church.

1:50 They should be far more bothered about what I'm getting ready to talk about then how many times Taylor Swift is seen or not seen, or if the refs get a call ride, if the refs get a call wrong, if Kansas City wins, or if Kansas City loses. Instead of getting upset about that, I think, and I mean this, Christians should really get ticked off and really get upset about something that happens in church after church after church after church, week after week after week. But for some weird reason, Christians don't seem too bothered about that. And what I am referring to is spiritual malpractice? Spiritual malpractice. Now, we talk about medical malpractice. I'm gonna sue this hospital, in this doctor for malpractice, right, medical malpractice. I want to talk about spiritual malpractice now. I don't know when the lawsuits begin and we start suing pastors for spiritual malpractice, but I feel in many cases those lawsuits should have come a long time ago. I know some people will be offended by that, but but considering how bad spiritual malpractice is and how damaging it is to people mentally, emotionally, spiritually, I think something needs to be done about it. But I think most Christians kind of welcome spiritual malpractice and somehow think it's okay. Now what do I mean by spiritual malpractice. Well, spiritual malpractice occurs when a teacher, when a pastor, when a religious leader miss represents biblical truth

3:20 in a way that harms people's faith, distorts their understanding of God, or leads them into spiritual confusion, despair, or self deception. I want you to write this down. I want you to have a definition of spiritual malpractice. I want you to write this down all rite, because earlier this morning I don't know what time it was, I know four or five. I kind of woke up for a few minutes. I'm like, well, I need to listen to something to help me fall back to sleep. I play on a message, a sermon, a lesson, a lecture, and well all I all I wanted to scream was spiritual.

4:01 So I want you to write this down because whenever you see spiritual malpractice, I want you to be able to define it, and maybe the definition will help you identify it. Spiritual malpractice occurs when a teacher, when a pastor, when a religious leader, when a Christian podcaster mis represents biblical truth in a way that harms people's faith, distorts their understanding of God, or leads them into spiritual confusion, despair, or self deception. One more time for those who take notes, Spiritual malpractice occurs when a teacher, pastor religious leader, Christian podcaster misrepresents biblical truth in a way that harms people's faith, distorts their understanding of God, or leads them into spiritual confusion, despair, or self deception. It involves the following things. Number one, philological misinformation, teaching doctrine that contradicts scripture, Church history and Christian experience. When you're teaching something that clearly contradicts right doctrine, it contradicts scripture, it contradicts church history, it contradicts Christian experience, It just contradicts everything your theology is well. Misinformation when it burdens believers. A second thing it involves when it

5:33 burdens believers unnecessarily imposing unrealistic or unbiblical standards that lead to guilt, shame, or despair. When a pastor imposes some unrealistic or unbiblical standard and all it does is lead to guilt, shame, or despair, that's not You have to do this. You got to do this, and if you don't do this, then you're probably never saved. If you don't do this, you lose yourselvation. You got to do this, you got to do this. You need to do this. You got to do this, You got to do this, You got to do this. Well, then next thing, you know, all do have this unrealistic standard. What happens is or they're completely unbiblical. You just start burdening people with things that the Bible doesn't even You have to do this, you have to do this, and the Bible doesn't even say anything about it, or you can't do this and you can't do that. Well, it leads to guilt, it leads to shame, and it can lead to just complete and total despair where you just come to the end of yourself and like, I don't know what to do.

6:27 I can't do any of this. This is miserable. So theological misinformation, so spiritual malpractice involves Theilological misinformation involves burdening believers unnecessarily, and it involves false promises or deceptive claims. When you make some promise that hey, if you do this, God will do this, and God will do this, and God will do this, and God promises you to heal you, and God will promise that. God promises to do this for you and provide for you, and do this and do this, do this, and do this, and do this and do this. And you take all of those promises and then when they don't come about, well typically that what they do is people then blame you. The reason you don't have it is because you didn't do this, and you didn't do that, and you didn't do this, and you didn't do that, and you didn't do this.

7:13 That's what Christians love to do. They love to blame the victim in many cases, blame the one that's suffering. But these false promises are deceptive claims. It can be offering assurance like guaranteed healing, financial prosperity, and of offering these assurances and these promises that are not grounded in reality or sound doctrine. In many cases they run to the Old Testament. Take promises that are not for you in any way, shape or form. Therefore Israel make them about us and then well then lead people ultimately to despair or they have to well at least to a lot of other problems. Okay. A spiritual malpractice involves stilological misinformation, burdening believers unnecessarily false promises are deceptive cla. It also involves manipulating or controlling others where you begin to use religious authority to pressure to deceive. When you begin to use your religious authority and only to pressure to deceive, to spiritually abuse people rather than pointing them to Christ. All of that is spiritual.

8:23 All of that is involved in spiritual malpractice. Now, so there was a specific thing I did not mention because I don't want to mention it, right, now i'll come back to it. I'm going to add this to it, because we're going to talk about a very specific example of what I believe is spiritual malpractice. They would not believe it. And I think many of you listening, depending on who it is. If it's normal listeners, you'll probably agree with me. New listeners will probably agree with what we're going to listen to and go no. I think they're right, and I think it's spiritual malpractice. I think there's no way to get around it now. To me, the biggest, the biggest offenders, the people most guilty of spiritual malpractice. I think I kind of put them in two camps. But the first camp everyone knows what I think.

9:10 The entire charismatic movement is nothing more than spiritual malpractice on crack. Okay, it is spiritual malpractice. It is at a crazy level. The things that say God guarantees to heal you. God will do this. God supposedly speaks to you, God will do this, God God, God will do all of these things, and it just leads people and then if it doesn't work, well, you didn't have enough faith, you didn't do this, you didn't do this. Oh the entire Charismatic movement is just pure spiritual malpractice. I don't even understand how it ever survived. I don't understand why anyone would ever get wrapped up in it. I don't understand it. It is pure and it's just poison. It's just it's cancer. So there's the biggest that's probably the one I get the most angry about. Is anything related to the Charismatic movement, everything about it. But there's another group that in many cases will be the opposite of charismatics.

10:07 They're not even they would be against the Charismatic movement, but they teach something and regards to sin and Christians. And well, I have a major issue with it, and we're going to talk about it. Now. How did we get here? Well, it all started with the spelling error, right, Remember yesterday we stumbled upon the word marteology. Right, if I can even say it right, hamartiology, hamartiology, hammartiology. Remember we even did this. I can't say the word writ anymore, and I'll explain why. Remember we did this amalteology, hmatiology, hamatiology.

10:47 If I want to add an accent to it, harmartiology. Remember that word hamartiology. Now the reason, see, if I look at my screen, I'm going to say the word completely wrong. It's hamartiology. If I'm looking at my screen, I'm gonna say, horr mar theology, hamartiology, not huh mar theology. And you say, well, I'm barely hearing a difference. Well, probably because you know my Texas accent coming through there. But the reason on my screen it's completely wrong is because, well, we've found we stumbled upon a series that misspells the word hamartiology and spells it in a completely different way.

11:27 I'm not going to go through the spelling differences and all of that. And like I said yesterday, I wasn't. To me. What caught my attention is when I saw it, I didn't immediately if you don't know what hamartiology is, just for those who didn't know, that's the doctrine of sin. That's the doctrine of sin. Right. So when I first saw the series and the sermon and the messages, I was like, what is that? What is that? Is that some new area of theology I'm not familiar with. And then when I started listening to him, I'm like, Oh, bring the doctrine of sin. They're covering hamartiology. Not however they have it harrmartiology. It's hamartiology, right. I have to look at my paper and not look at the screen.

12:13 Right. So I was like, okay, they made a spelling error, they got the wrong word. They okay, it's fine, you know, no big deal. I misspelled things all the time. I say things incorrectly, like I just almost did right there when I got ready to say hamartiology the first time, right, because it's easy to say it incorrectly or whatever the case may be, I'm like, okay, no big deal. You know, I'll email them. I'll let them know, they'll get it corrected at some point. Everything. I'll be happy. I would hope someone would point out when because a lot of times people have to email me like, man, you got your entire title is misspelled and wrong punctuation and everything else. So I was like, okay, great whatever. I didn't really it wasn't that big a deal that they had misspelled it.

12:57 It wasn't the issue. The thing was, Oh, well, I can use this spelling error so that we can do an overview of harmarteology the doctrine of sin. And we did an hour where I did an overview of Harmarteology. An entire hour overviewing the doctrine, and I talked about how throughout Church history there are lots of different theological systems with a lot of different theological understandings to Hamarteology and to the doctrine of sin, and we looked at some of them and I'm like, Okay, great, wonderful. I think I did a good job. Move on now. As I said earlier, it was around four or five am this morning. Somewhere around that time, I woke up decided to listen to something, and I said, well, let me listen to a message about the doctrine of sin, and let's just see what they have to say about the doctrine of sin. All right, let's see what they have to say about hamartiology. Let's see what their position is.

13:58 And I was listening. I was like, okay, right, that's good, that's interesting. And then all of a sudden they say it and I'm utterly like immediately, I just set up and I'm like, well, so much for sleep, because what is that. I almost wanted to get up and go to the microphone right then and say okay, good morning everyone. I just crawled out of bed. We're going to talk about hamart theology, and we're going to talk about how this is spiritual malpractice. So what we're going to do is we're going to listen to it. I will interrupt a little bit. I kind of want to just let it play through and let them say it and see if you can discover it. Obviously, I'm going to kind of give this away, so I don't really you know, I would like it to be like I almost just wanted to play it and say, okay, tell me if I like, if I was in church and if I could just play it, I would play it and like play maybe fifteen minutes, go way past the statement itself, and then stop and see if anyone in my church could determine the area where spiritual malpractice occurred. I think everyone hears to be able to catch it quickly, so I'm probably just gonna mention it immediately, but we're going to be listening to see where spiritual malpractice occurs. And this to me, when it comes to the doctrine of sin or the doctrine of Hamartiology, it's not if you know the word hamartiology, if you say it H A M A R or if you say har martology h A R M A R. It doesn't matter if you say the word correctly, spell the word cort. I mean it matters ultimately, I mean, to some level. But I'm

15:28 saying when it comes to spiritual malpractice, spiritual malpractice occurs not in if I say the word correctly, or say the word incorrectly, or spell it correctly, or spell it incorrectly, that's insignificant. That's you just want to help people out if they I hope people want to help me out, and I want to help anyone else out. If we say the word incorrectly or if we spell it incorrectly because I have to be corrected constantly because I say things incorrectly or spell things incorrectly, that's not even an issue. That's insignificant. That matters. That's more just about appearance and pride and trying to be technically correct. I may never say hamart theology correct, I may miss I may say it incorrectly five times out of ten, eight times out of ten. But what I want and what I want you to have, is a correct understanding of the doctrine of sin, so that we're we you, I, us, all of us are not guilty of spiritual malpractice, and I believe in the audio clip we're about to listen to, spiritual malpractice occurs. Some of you will agree, some of you will disagree, but we're going to hear it together.

16:35 Here we go. So we talked about the fact of sin last over the last period, and now we're looking at the nature of sin, and then we'll look at the effects of sin. So tonight, as we consider the nature of sin, we're gonna look here at the introduction, and then we're going to see sin defined. We're going to see transgression define. We're going to see iniquity defined. We're going to see and then we'll get into other biblical turs for sin and so on. So Psalm fifty one, verses one through three, let's open to our bibles. Open our bibles to Psalm chapter number fifty one. Just remember, for historical context, Psalm fifty one happens to be a Psalm of David all right, clearly a believer in the true God, right, Okay, refer to in some places as a man after God's own heart, a man used by God to write a good portion of inspired scripture.

17:33 Right. Many of the psalms are credited to King David. Psalm fifty one is King David confessing him being a sinner, Okay, a great sinner because of his great sin. So everyone has a basic idea of the context. All right, here we go. Let's see where this is going to go. Psalm fifty one. All right, this is basically a discussion about sin. So this would fit in with a discussion about hamartiology or a discussion about the the doctrine of sin. This is fits perfectly. You can hear they're gonna talk about the effects of sin. They're going to define sin, they're going to define transgression. All of this would fit in perfectly with a discussion about hamarteology. Now, so all of this is great, wonderful. We're going to see if spiritual malpractice occurs.

18:26 Psalm Chapane for fifty one in your biblem Psalm Chapanel for fifty one. All right, verse number one. It's taking a long time. It feels like it's taking ten minutes to get to some fifty one. Okay, I don't know, there's I think it sounds like he was tapping on something, so I don't know if he's trying to pull it up on a computer. I don't know.

19:15 If he's trying to pull up a slide, I don't know. It's like Psalm fifty one, Okay, let's just have it ready to go, all right. So, or maybe he's giving. Maybe what he's actually doing is giving the people he's looking I see. That's always the thing in preaching. When you're preaching in front of a live audience, you may be doing something specifically for the benefit of the live audience and the people online. Because sometimes I'll get those emails you repeated this or why did you review this? Or why did you do this? Or and I'm like, well, maybe because the people sitting in front of me needed in the review. OK, maybe that's why, Well why did you do this or why did you do that? Or sometimes it's well, so there's a high probability that he's looking around and maybe people are just having a hard time finding Psalm fifty one. Maybe people aren't opening the Bibles, and so you just kind of wait, giving people kind of a hint like until you open, we're not going.

20:08 I don't know what's going on, but it just seems like it's taking a long time. Psalm fifty one, Verse one says, have mercy upon me, Oh God, according to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash me through lee from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is. Ever before me. I feel like we need to go to Lord in prayer. Let's do that. Father. We thank you Lord for this topic as we consider it tonight. But I pray that if we have any sin in our heart tonight, that we would have the same heart as David, that we would come to you for mercy.

20:57 I pray Father that you'd help us Lord, as we study the topic of sin. We would study it understanding that this is a very serious topic. Help us, Lord to consider the fact that sin is what separates us from you, that sin is is the whole reason that your son had to come and die. We pray Father that we'd not look at this concept lightly. We pray Lord that should help us to understand the doctrine of sin and help us Lord to forsake it, to have the right mindset concerning sin. Lord, forgive us for being so flippant about sin and thinking that, oh, it's sin and everybody does.

21:41 It and all of that. But Lord, we that's the wrong heart. The right heart would be as David said, have mercy upon me, Oh God, according to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies. Lo loot out my transgressions, Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. May we recognize that against thee and the only have we sinned and done evil in your sight? And pray that if there's any sin in any of our hearts, that you'd reveal that to us and that we would deal with it tonight as we consider the topic of sin and the concept and definitions and things. May not just be a class, but may it be an opportunity for us to think about our position with you and our relationship.

22:32 Help us, Lord, I pray, and Jesus amen. Now. And that opening prayer I immediately caught my attention even when I was first listening to it. I'm like, if if there's any sin in our hearts, if if okay, no, we have a sinful heart, we have sin in us perpetually twenty four sent like, what do you mean if there's any sin in our hearts? If is there anyone there who does not have sin in their heart? Is every is it even possible that it's only an if? Like, No, Lord, we know we have sin in us. We know we have a sinful nature, we know we have a sinful heart.

23:21 We know that now. I understand, though it is very common within a large portion of Christianity to basically teach you we no longer have a sinful heart, and almost basically teach the eradication of the sinful nature. I think it's the most ridiculous teaching in the world. And you're already getting close to what I consider spiritual malpractice at that point. And people I know who, they're going to run to Ezekiel, and they're going to run to these Old Testament passages that are about Israel getting a new heart, not about us. Then someone's going to go. But the Bible says, if anyone's in crisis, a new creature, old things have passed away, all things have become new. Well again. If that is true practically, well, then we should be sinless. The fact that no one is sinless then we're obviously not practically a new reach and all things are passed away, all things have become new. That is true positionally and christ practically, you know you're still a sinner. Come on now, unless you can just convince yourself otherwise. So all right, just right there, If if we have sin in our heart, an you mean I am like, no, Now I can tell you it's not an If it's you, do I do?

24:22 Everyone listening? Everyone there, the person preaching, if I'm the one preaching about them, reviewing them, all of us we have sin in our heart. That is a guaranteed, absolute fact. Sin remains in us. That's why we have to have glorification, so that we can be rid of this sinful body and sinful nature, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, now we still haven't gotten to the spiritual malpractice, but right there kind of already gave me a clue. Hmm. This is going in a direction. I feel it's going to lead us to write into the face of spiritual malpractice.

25:08 So you're going to notice that three words are used here and most often in the Bible, you'll see. That three words are used to refer to sin. Sin is transgression, sin is iniquity sin is also the word sin is used as well. And so we're going to define these three terms. Now, I applaud that. I think that's good. Hey, there's three terms transgression, iniquity, sin. How are these terms connected? How are they different? Do they have different emphasis? All right? What's the distinction between them? So that's something you could write down. You can write down the word transgression, iniquity and sin. What is the Hebrew word for transgression? What is the Hebrew word for iniquity? What is the Hebrew word for sin? How are they the similar? How are they different? What do they mean? That is a good course of study. Hey, right here in Psalm fifty one, blot out my transgressions, wash me from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Three words transgression, iniquity, and sin.

26:16 And then in verse three I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin. Now, I could ask you, is the intent of the author? And Psalm fifty one under the inspiration of Holy Spirit? Was the intent of David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit here to give us three distinct terms that mean something different? Or is he using these terms almost synonymously. They just basically mean the same thing, right, It's like, no, this, it's the same thing. So do we just need to have a general understanding of all three or do we separate them into three and then break them down in three separate definitions and then try to determine if there's a different meaning. We could probably go I think you can make it an argument. I think it's just using them in a synonymous way. I don't know, but maybe maybe there's an argument for breaking them down. You can make that decision, all right, But let's let's see what they do here.

27:12 In our in our Bibles tonight, uh, and and in our study tonight and and so we're going to look at the full nature of sin as it relates to God, God's law and man, and so tonight we'll look specifically at defining sin, transgression and iniquity. If we get any. Further than that, then maybe we'll get into other biblical terms. But we're gonna look at sin, transgression and iniquity Romans, Chapter three, verse number twenty three. If you have the book, it's right there in the book. If you don't, and and again you can you can follow along on the digital you know, digital. Copy of the book as well.

27:53 But if you have the book, the text is right there. If you don't have the book, you can turn to Romans three twenty three, and and I encourage you to memorize Romans three twenty three in fact that. And what was kind of interesting there. And so this is just from a structural standpoint, just like, wait, you just outlined the three words we're going to cover, transgression, iniquity, and scent, and now we're going to Romans three twenty three. Well, if you go to Romans three twenty three, now we're we've entered. Now we're going to be looking at Greek words. We would have been looking at Hebrew word. Well, what just happened? So I was a little I was a little confused like that, I don't know what book they're referring to. If it's a digital copy, I'd love to find the copy of the book and look at it, see who wrote the book, see if we understand the philological framework from which it's coming. So but but I was a little like just from a like a just a preference. It's like wait a minute, no, no, you've given us the three Hebrew three English words that are obviously trans translated from from three Hebrew words. Let's go look at the Hebrew words that was translated transgression and the one and the one the iniquity and the one sin.

29:00 And let's go from there. Why did we runder Romans three? I'm a little I'm a little confused. Let's see what he does with Romans three. That was our memory verse for the last lecture, Romans three twenty three. Who hasn't memorized? Very close? One word different, all of sin and come short of a glory of God. There's a difference, but you're close. That's good, Amen. But for all of sin, it comes short. With the glory of God. And the word sin means to miss the mark. It's like an archery term, all right.

29:48 The word sin means to miss the mark. Now is he referring to the Greek word, this Greek word and Romans three? Now if he's meaning this Greek word strong c G two sixty four hamartano, harmartano, harmartano, harmartano and and Romans three twenty three? For all have Romans three twenty three, for all have sinned? Well, yes, this this means harm harmon if I can say it, hum our art tano ham artano, right, hamartano means to and I'm looking at Strong's definition to miss the mark, so not to share in the prize. Uh for your faults a fen sin, trespass, so to miss the mark. That's that's that's fair to say. Harmartano means to miss the mark.

30:42 But now let's just go back. I'm just curious. Here we go to the Old Testament. We go to Psalms fifty one. All right, Uh see here, wash me thoroughly, my cleanse me from my sin. Verse two, right, the Hebrew word for sin, and well, it's and from my sin. It's this Hebrew word. It's this Hebrew word. Strong's age twenty four to three. Hat to ah, hat to ah, cat tough. Cat, tough hat to ah. I can't do the guttural sound hat to ah. Now that one doesn't say anything ought missing the mark. It doesn't say anything at all.

31:29 It says an offense, habitual sinfulness and its penalty occasion sacrifice uh sin, sinful sin, offering, condition of sin, guilt of sin, punishment of sin, sin, offering, purification from sins of ceremonial and cleanliness. Doesn't say anything about missing the mark. So is he going to the Greek word using that Greek definition and reading that back into Psalm fifty one or is he gonna show a distinction? Is he? What? Like? I'm a little confused how we ended up from Psalm fifty one then we go to Romans three and then you give me a definition based off the Greek word not the Hebrew words. I'm already a little just like, what do we go? What's going on here?

32:09 All? Right? But let's see my wife? Just what a month ago, the no less than a month ago? Uh taught archery at the at at the kids' school and what's that? And I went and helped and stuff, and it's always fun to do it. How many kids who have taken archery? Have you taken archery class? Taken archer? Aaron? You? How many principles are there archery? How many? How many steps to archery success are there? You don't remember? There are eleven steps to archery success and you each of the Now there's all the safety rules and all that stuff. But when you get a bow and you are and you are giving the green light from the the instructor to go ahead and uh knock your arrow that's the term that's used. You put the arrow on the bow and knock it. It clicks into the string there or the string clicks into the back side of the what the notch of the of the arrow, and then you you know, you have each step, every it the whole thing.

33:26 It's a step by step process. And then and then when you're down to the last part, what's the Does anybody want to guess what the last step is for archery? Incorrect? Nope, nope. Reflect reflect is the last thing. So you when you when you there's Actually. It's kind of I mean, I guess it's interesting knowing all this stuff about archery. I guess it's interesting. I know what he wants to say, archery missed the mark. You shoot the arrow at miss the mark? Okay, gotcha. He kind of goes into all of this other stuff. But that's okay. I can do the same thing. You give an illustration. That's one of the dangers of illustrations.

34:07 You can get caught up in the illustration, and so sometimes it becomes more about the illustration instead of what the illustration is supposed to be pointing to. This is supposed to be pointing about the definition of sin, but it's the definition of the Greek word. The Hebrew word doesn't appear to have the same emphasis. So we started in ps Psalm fifty one, but we ended up in Romans three, and so he's really giving the definition of the Greek word, but he didn't mention the Greek word. Okay, all right, all right. So I'm assuming at some point as he goes to this archery thing, he's going to get to how we miss the mark? Right, we shoot the arrow and we miss the mark? Okay, got you right? Now? Does the Hebrew carry the same idea? Is it slightly different? Is it the same? We love that idea of sin missing the mark. We love that idea. Okay, And we even talked about this when we talked about the doctrine of homarteology. We discuss this whole concept. But let's see where he takes it.

35:04 More than one step after release. So you've got it back, You're set up and everything, and you you get your you take aim, shot, set up, release, follow through, reflect. I know I hit the bullseye. There was no sin in that shot. I hit the bulls I'm sorry. He shouldn't have been behind the bulls eye. So the word sin. It has to do. It's a markmanship term. So, uh, you can use it for arrows, which is generally biblically speaking. They weren't using machine guns or sixteen's, they were using bow and arrow, right, and so as far as marksmanship is concerned, right, you don't usually use a sword for marksmanship, right, I mean that would be strange.

35:54 You could maybe use a javelin for marksmanship, or a spear, right, but you're you're talking about a bow and arrow that's mechanical marksmanship. Or you have that's like the step up from spear, or you have a spear right where you throw that spear at your target, and when you miss the target, the space by which you miss the target is called sin. Missing the mark, that's sin. So okay, so missing the mark of sin? What is the mark? Absolute perfection? Internally? Externally? Where do we find that God tells you to be holy as He is holy?

36:36 That is the mark. You must be as holy as God is holy. That is absolute perfection. And every area of your being, even if your external acts were as holy as God's external acts, even if that was true, as long as you have a sin nature inside of you, those external acts are always motivated by some level of sin. They're always corrupted to some level. So he himself sets the standard. You have to hit the bullseye directly. Any missing of the bullseye, missing the mark is sin. All right, let's just let's just let's continue.

37:18 I'll read what he states here. He says it is to deviate from the standard of moral rectitude. It is a term associated with marksmanship, as you mentioned in fact, go to Judges chapter twenty real quick m Judges chapter twenty mm hmm, and verse number sixteen.

38:01 Among all this, there were seven hundred chosen men left handed. Everyone could sling stones, add a hair breadth and not miss. Okay, so he's going to Judges twenty sixteen and all the people there were seven hundred chosen men left handed. Everyone could sling stones and in hair breadth and not miss. So I guess the idea is that's what it means to not be sinful, is to hit and not miss, not even add in hair breadth. Right, I mean, the I guess the idea of a hair like it's they're perfectly on, they don't miss at all. Okay, great, that's wonderful.

38:44 That's great. So the bottom line from that story then is, hey, guys, be perfect. We have to be perfect, that's why. But remember it's not just external action. You have to be perfect internally as well. Now he hasn't mentioned the end eternal part at all. He's only he's only kind of he's not even really been specific, but it seems to be much more referencing towards external Let's see if he changes that. But now, now let's see what happens here. Let's see what happens here. That's some pretty accurate left handed stone slinging right there. I mean, y'all know what you're talking about, right the sling shot. You're not talking about a sling shot like the kind that you do this with, talking about the like like David killed Goliath. Yeah, And so you've got this this little little leather thing there, and a leather strap on either side of it, a little pouch in there, and you put your stone in that pouch and then you spin it. I can't even simulate with my left hand, but you spin it.

39:47 Well. These guys, the people he's talking about, were left handed. I don't know, they were born left handed. That's the way it works usually. But these guys specifically were left handed. Now there was something about left and there's a whole other you're trying to You just threw a rabbit out there in the aisle, didn't you. Uh, there was something about about left handed that had to do with like, for example, there was one of the judges that was left handed. Now, I do appreciate someone in the audience saying, what's the deal about them being left handed? That is a good question. That is a good question. I do appreciate he's kind of moving on. Well, they were born that way. Okay, I am obviously, But why is the text emphasizing that they were left handed? Why we could possibly do a little cultural investigation, maybe to figure out historical investigation. All right, great, I don't know if this is Maybe this is going to help get us to the definition of sin. I still don't know why we are in Romans three and not Psal. I'm fifty one, which where we started. I don't know. I'm a little perplexed here. But okay, let's let's see where how we're gonna get from the sleek side.

40:56 We're still waiting for the spiritual malpractice. And because he was left handed, because it's generally uncommon to be left handed. Because he was left handed, he was able to hide a dagger on him, because back then they would consider most people right handed. You're going to have that dagger over here. Now it got stuck. I got stuck. It didn't come back. Was that well you're talking about he had? Yeah? Yeah, So you could look. You could look at chapter three of Judges and see how the left handed thing there was a thing. It was a benefit because he was able to sneak and say, hey, King, let me tell you something in your ear. I gotcha, because you usually don't watch somebody's left hand to see if they're going.

41:45 To stab you or shoot you. If you watch the right. Hand usually unless you know they're left handed. But in this case, these guys were left handed. I don't know that it's relevant that they were left handed. What was relevant was they were able to hit the mark within a hair breadth. As I was turning to. This passage, I went like this, and somehow one of my beard hairs ended up in my mouth and I bit it and it pulled it and it didn't come out. So I can't use that as an example. But I was going to show you the example of a hair breadth, and so I could pull somebody else's hair out. That's pretty accurate. Yeah, we could pull one of brother Adam's eyeball hairs out. He has hairs that grow out of his eyeball.

42:31 But you get, you got a hair if I held a hair up right here, if I if I told you I was holding a hair up right here, you wouldn't know whether I am or not because you wouldn't be able to see it, probably from where you are. Oh, this illustration seems to be going way off the track. Okay, just make sure we know if we miss the mark, even by a hair's breath, even if that's the term used by a hair breath or a hair's breath, even if we missed it by the length of a hair, let's say it that way. Even if we missed it by the length of a hair, we still miss the mark. Like God demands, he doesn't say, well, if you get this whole thing going here is just so weird going here.

43:15 This doesn't seem to be I need I need an another translation. I hang on, let me look up, let me look up. I'm gonna look this up because now I'm getting a little irritated. This seems to be going. I don't even understand sometimes where things go. I really sometimes in preaching, all right, judges twenty hang on here, judge is twenty verse sixteen. I'm gonna bring up, like all kinds of English translations. I don't want to say something here that's incorrect, because I want to be all right. Here we go. Among all these soldiers, there were seven hundred select troops who were left handed, each of one of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss. Okay, Now that's like they could either they could hit an individual hair. All right, This would be then perfection. Someone said. Among Benjamin's elite troops, seven hundred were left handed, and each of them could sling a rock and hit a target within a hair's breath without missing.

44:14 Uh could sling a stone at a hair? Okay, without missing? So most of the translations go Okay, they could actually, so this would be then actually hitting the mark. I guess it would be okay. I thought it was like they could come within a hair's length of the of the mark. It sounds like no, they could. They could shoot out a hair or sling out of hair and hit it. So this would be accurate. Okay, so then great, this is so if you go with that idea, then well, so let's state it both ways. If you hit the target perfectly, that's not sin. But you have to hit the target perfectly internally externally and your mind, your thought, your words, your deeds, your desires. All right, you have to hit it perfectly. But if you miss the target even by this, even by this smallest amount, even within a hair's breath of the bull's eye, you're just a little off. Sorry, That's not God's standard. God's standard is perfection, right, So we'll go with both ways, just to make sure I'm being accurate.

45:16 There we see a. See Okay, you could see that was a lie. You can't. I I was. Pulling it all out, but you can barely tell. These guys could hit the mark even left handed and not miss. You're not getting away from those guys. With God, everything that is not absolutely perfect is sin. Okay, we're in agreement there. Everything that is not absolutely perfect is sin. With God, we are in complete agreement here. Okay, it's the only thing right now. I'm just having like more like structural issues and preference. Like wait, you started in Psalm fifty one. We need to look at the definition of sin there. He went to Romans three to borrow the definition from sin from there, and now he's built everything around it, with all of his illustrations, from archery to hair around basically Romans three, not Psalm fifty one.

46:24 So that's just kind of like, you know, that's maybe just a preference. Right, that's not spiritual malpractice. Let's see if we can get to spiritual malpractice. That's a fact. We can go into lots and lots and lots of definitions of the word sin, but that is the most simple, most straightforward definitions of sin, and that is that with God, everything that is not absolutely perfect is sin. Now, I'm going to say something that a lot of people have a wrong concept of sin. All right, here we go. Now, he's going to start by preferencing everyone else. A lot of people have a wrong concept of sin. Everyone else has it wrong. Not everyone else, a lot of other people have a wrong concept of sin. He's going to give you the right concept of sin. Now, if he's right that everyone else has or that other people have the wrong concept, then other people would be guilty of spiritual malpractice. However, if he is wrong, he will be guilty of spiritual malpractice.

47:29 This is not an either or this is I mean, this is like it's one or the other. Like it can't just be well, you can just have your way or my way. No, someone is right, someone is wrong, all right. It is very definitively in a sense, I guess either or. I'm like, I'm saying that in a dogmatic way, like it's either that or it's this. It's not both, all right, So let's see here we go. He's going to give his This is where I think spiritual malpractice enters in. You get to make the determinant, you get to make the final judgment. People think that because everything that's not perfect is sin, that it is not possible to live without sin, I say, and God says otherwise.

48:16 God commands us not to sin. God would not command us to do something that we could not, by his grace accomplish. Did you hear that God would not command something that, by his grace we cannot accomplish. So when you read in scripture be holy as He is holy, then he will not command it that, apart from his grace, you cannot do it. Now, this whole thing, this is a complete like, that's complete spiritual malpractice because you're telling everyone that, by God's grace you can be sinless, you can be perfect.

48:58 And if you're not perfect, well, then whose fault it is? It's yours because God's grace can get you to perfect. So just rely on God's grace to get to perfection. What is your problem? So two thousand years of church history should be filled with two thousand years of perfect Christians, but yet I've yet to find one single one. Because this is complete spiritual malpractice, and this destroys people's faith. It leads people disillusioned, just distraught and just ready to give up. Now, what God demands, we can't do. That's the whole point. The law says you can't. The law shows you your inability, and then it says, when you find yourself and despair, what do you do? You hear the words of the gospel, but Christ did now in Christ Jesus because of imputed righteousness. The entire basis of us not being Catholic is our belief in imputed righteousness, not infused righteousness. Imputed righteousness does not give me the ability to do what God commands. Imputed righteousness gives me the obedience of Christ to God's law and imputes it to my account. So in Christ, I am declared to be that which I'm not. In practice, he just turned Christianity into God gives you now the ability to do what He demands. No, the whole point of Christianity is God saves you because you can't do what He commands.

50:26 It's about finding salvation. And Christ who did what God demanded, he obeyed the law perfectly. I'm not saying that we're all that I'm perfect. Okay. What I am saying is if I'm not, it is sin and it is a problem. Wait, so we can be perfect, but I'm not saying I'm perfect. Well wait, why are you not saying you're perfect? Every time I hear people say this, well, we basically can be. Well, I mean, I'm not saying I'm perfect.

51:09 Why not? If by God's grace you can do what God commands, then you should be able to do so be perfect. In fact, Jesus says, be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, And the Sermon on the Mount he says, be ye holy as he is holy. That's repeated in Leviticus and in the New Testament. Well, God would never command Oh what we can't do? Oh, yes he can. He commands you to believe. We can't believe unless God grants us faith. He tells us to repent. We can't repent unless He grants us repentance. I know this goes straight back to the Augustinian Pelagian dispute and fight in church history. It's never been resolved. What he's going with is almost a complete Pelagian that's straight almost.

51:54 I don't even know if we can say it. It's almost. That's Pelagianism. This is spiritual malpractice. And how dare you tell people that you can be perfect? But hey, I'm not perfect? Well, then everyone's sitting there in that church should be like, raise your hand. Wait wait, wha, wha, whah wait, you're not perfect, By God's grace, you can be. I don't know if I want a pastor who's not perfect when he can be by God's grace, because a pastor should be more turned into tuned into God's grace than a non pastor. So I'm gonna go, We're gonna get. Rid of you. We should be able to find a perfect pastor, right, I mean, if you can be perfect, find me a perfect pastor. But he just immediately canceled. I'm not that I'm not it. I mean, we can be it, but I'm not that.

52:38 What it's not? Okay, Sin is not a mistake. Sin is a crime against God. And you choose to sin? Now there is there are some examples of. We may choose to sin. But let's make it very clear. Why do I choose to sin? Because I'm born with a nature. I'm born with a nature that's already sinful. I did not become a sinner by sinning, but I sin because I am a sinner. I'm a sinner before I ever commit a sin. Well, you choose to, Well, I choose to because I'm choosing to operate according to my nature, which is sinful. And now I guess if he's full blown Pallasia and he doesn't believe we have a sinful nature? Is my will? Now this is a very important question. Is my will free to choose not to sin? If you say that I sin because I simply choose to, well, then you have to believe the will then is free to choose not to I don't believe the will can choose not to stop sinning, because we're always going to sin. There, do I really do? I.

54:02 You can try to talk about moral choice, but if my will is already impacted by my sinful nature, then my choice is, by at least at the minimum you have to say, is limited because I have a sinful nature which impacts the will. Unless this has to be full bloombleagianism. This said, I don't even know if we can get around this. We'll just go a little bit further. Like unknown sin or sin that that you didn't like, it was ignorance. You sin in ignorance, like you didn't know that God said no about that, and then you well, once you know, now it's iniquity, which is another discussion here in just a moment, but sin. Here it says in the Old Testament the law was God's perfect standard, and the New Testament the Lord Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the.

54:48 Law, is God's perfect standard. So for every for everything in your life. That is not exactly what Jesus would do. Yep, But why did he have to fulfill the law. He had to fulfill the law because we never will. We will fulfill the law when we're lost. We will not fulfill the law. When we're saved, we will live in a perpetual state of disobedience to the law. We will never be in conformity to the law, will never be in conformity to Christ. We are always going to fall short and thought, word, deed or desire. Now I'm going to stop right there.

55:32 We're almost at an hour. I didn't plan on going this far, but it took a lot longer to review that than I wanted. I just wanted you to hear whenever I talk about how the church is so filled with this idea and when you become a Christian you can do it. When you become a Christian, you can do it. When you become a Christian. You basically can be sinless when you can. This one just goes so far to say, Hey, God will not command what you cannot do by his grace. So if God commands it, you can do it by his grace. And they throw in by his grace you know a little thing, But isn't an amazing even though they even with God's grace, Well, that pastor isn't perfect? Why not? See the issue shouldn't be, well, why do we send The issue should be why are we not perfect? Then forget why do we sind? Why are we not perfect? What is holding you back from perfection?

56:22 What is holding you back for perfection? And it should just be expected. And so guess what the standard should be for church discipline? If everyone can be perfect, it should be everyone in this building is perfect. And if you're not perfect and you God's grace can make you perfect, that means you don't want to be perfect, so you're willfully doing We're gonna dis discipline everyone. But I guess, I guess you can believe that God wants ever, that God that you can be perfect by his grace. But then you can just submit to everyone from the pulpit. Oh I'm not perfect. Well, you know why he has to admit from the pulpit he's not perfect, because everyone in that church knows he's not perfect, probably including if he has a family, the family sitting there in the pew.

57:06 In fact, they know we've been better than the people in the rest of the congregation. I just wanted you to hear that. Look, I'm so sick of that teaching in American Christianity. It is complete spiritual malpractice because guess where that leaves people. That leaves people either with option one, pretend that they are perfect. Option two you kind of start minimizing or lowering the standard so that you can somehow convince yourself you're fulfilling it. So you either have to pretend you have to lower God's standard, or three you just have to throw up your hands and say either well one, God's grace doesn't actually work, or maybe I'm just not saved, and you end up with a great just despair, despondency, discouragement, deconstructing. You're done, that's malpractice.

58:03 You're hurting people. You're not helping people. You're not helping them. Understand. No, God's law is perfect, and it shows us that we are guilty of it, that we cannot keep it, breaks us, leads me in a pit of despair. And then I come and bring the beautiful word of the Gospel, and saying you cannot, you could not, you will not. But Christ did for you. He fulfilled the law perfectly. Put your faith in him. His obedience to the law is imputed to your account. So then in Christ you are holy as God is holy. In Christ, you are a new creature in your position. You're perfect, you're holy, You're righteous.

58:45 That is the whole point of us not being Catholic. Catholic you're infused, you're infused. When we're not infused, it's imputed, it's credit in my account, meaning I am positionally something I will never be in practice and practice, I will be a perpetual sinner. And for some weird reason, the American Church, over and over and over sells this fraudulent idea to the ultimate, not the short term, the ultimate detriment to anyone who is honest and serious with themselves.

59:27 They will find themselves saying either Christianity doesn't work or just giving completely up. Thanks for listening, everyone, have a great Sunday. God bless