“Works” is a dirty word within professing Christendom. One of the earliest lessons I can remember being taught relative to religion was that, having committed my life to Jesus Christ, joined the church and been baptized, the fix was in. Over the years I was repeatedly assured that I was saved and born again, and that Jesus had done all the work necessary to assure my glorious future. I was also told that I had been born a wretched sinner with no hope of being anything else. But not to worry, having faith in Jesus to forgive all future sins guaranteed my departure to heaven at death or the rapture, whichever came first. But even as a child I did not believe what I was being told. God would not allow me to be drawn into Satan’s web of lies. I had my share of spiritual problems, but believing the “sinner saved by grace” theme was not one of them.

So can earn our salvation through our own works? After all, the man Jesus of Nazareth said in John 5:17: “My Father works hitherto, and I WORK.” He also said that He could do nothing by His own (human) power, that He depended totally on the Father’s power to live as He lived (Jn. 8:28). He declared that even the Words He spoke were given to Him by God. The man Jesus had to work extremely hard to be what He was in the eyes of God, but He did not earn His future seat beside the Father in the Kingdom of God through self-generated effort. The man Jesus is our perfect example–the Standard by which we must judge ourselves. In order to join Him on His throne in the kingdom, we must do what He did–overcome Satan’s temptation to sin (Rev. 3:21). As anyone who has fought that fight will attest, this is much easier to say than to do. In fact, the task is impossible using our own power.

Let us determine how to accomplish this seemingly impossible, though absolutely necessary feat by reviewing a scene recorded in the 14th chapter of the Book of Exodus. The children of Israel have watched God send plague after plague upon Egypt. They have heard the cries of Egyptian families as they find that the firstborn of  both man and beast have died at the hands of God’s death angel. Following a period of death and incredible destruction, pharaoh allows them to leave “with a high hand” as they were “payed” for their many years of free labor. Now they find themselves in a wilderness area with the Red Sea in front of them and the Egyptian army closing in on them from behind. The temptation to lose faith, give up and return to Egypt (sin) is overwhelming. Moses is crying out to God for help. Then he hears from heaven and tells the people what he has heard. It is at this point that Moses gives us the key to overcoming sin in his words to the Israelite people: “… stand still and see the salvation of the Lord” (vs 13). Then God told them to “go forward” toward the sea. The key to overcoming Satan’s temptation to sin is a two-fold undertaking: stand still then go forward.

Admittedly, standing still (stop trying) has been by far the most difficult for me. I have always been a “just let me get my hands on it” person. Though in the physical and mental realms I have been able to do things no one thought I could do, I have made many a mess by allowing my self-confidence to take me beyond my abilities in the spiritual realm. Hundreds of times I have determined not to think another sinful thought, or say another sinful word, or commit another sinful act, only to find myself doing what I had determined not to do. Being short of patience, I have spent many an hour agonizing over some thought, word or act. I have at times seriously contemplated suicide. The irony found in this situation is that the sins I have agonized over are committed multiplied billions of times each day by those of professing Christendom without a second thought. The prevailing attitude is that sin as inevitable, that it is as much a part of the Christian walk as going to church. I have been told to my face and from the pulpit that Jesus, knowing that we have no choice but to sin, died to make our sins go away. We are, after all, simply “sinners saved by grace.” Or as one famous false prophet described professing Christians, “a society of sinners.” As the Apostle Jude warned, the Institutional Church has turned God’s grace into a license to sin (1:4). To be continued. L.J.