Someone objects, "Why should I repent on behalf of Peter when he denied Christ before the rooster crowed once? That's his sin, not mine; I wasn't even born then!"
Here's the secret of the lukewarmness that permeates the church worldwide--the sin of not knowing. But even if we don't know, it's still ugly sin. "Thou ... knowest not" is our problem (Rev. 2:17). Evil of all kinds is buried deep where we don't know. When you get your eyes open, you will see that of yourself you are no more righteous than Peter that early Friday morning. When the Bible says of us, "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," it says, "all ALIKE have sinned" (Rom. 3:23, NEB).
The one sin that is our human common denominator is the sin of hating and crucifying Christ (vs. 19). "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" asks the hymn. Yes! We were there--"in Adam." How can this be? The answer: "The carnal mind is enmity against God" (8:7). "Enmity" is hatred, and John adds this insight--hatred has murder buried within it (1 John 3:15). The human race is fallen "Adam." We share their corporate guilt at the cross.
When the inspired prophet Elisha cried tears and told the gentleman Hazael the horrible things he would someday do when he became king, he sincerely objected. He had never dreamed he could be such a monster: "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?" Elisha sadly said yes. Hazael went home, promptly committed unprovoked assassination, and thus began his "career" as a royal criminal (2 Kings 8:7-15). He didn't know what was in his heart.
When our Lord says, "Be zealous therefore, and repent" (Rev. 3:19), He means business; go back all the way to Calvary, yes to Eden. "The truth shall make you free," for it says that you are also corporately one "in Christ" (John 8:32; Gal. 2:20). Believe it!
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 30, 2003.
Copyright © 2012 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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