>If I was to recommend that Christians read only one book besides the Bible then it would be Justification & Regeneration by Charles Leiter (forward by Paul Washer). It is a book that has been life changing for myself and many others who have had the blessing of reading it. Brother Leiter explains essential doctrinal truths in such plain and easy to understand language. I not only recommend every Christian reads it, but get your Pastor to read it too. You can buy it HERE from Granted Ministries and read chapter one below:
Sin
Man’s Ultimate Problem
A proper understanding of both justification and regeneration, we must begin where the Bible does, and that is with sin. All sin flows from man’s perverse desire to put himself in the place of
God—to be the center and measure of all things and to “know” for himself what is good and what is evil.(Genesis 3:4-5) According to Titus 3:3-7, men in their natural state are “foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved to various lusts.” Their lives are characterized by “malice, envy, and hate.” Far from recognizing this state of affairs, lost men imagine themselves to be “basically good,” unless God in mercy reveals to them the true condition of their blackened hearts. Sin is the ultimate and only problem of humanity. It is my ultimate and only problem and your ultimate and only problem.
A Biblical View of Sin
The Bible has a lot to say about sin. If we are to rightly understand sin’s true nature, we must let the light of this Biblical revelation illumine our darkened minds and soften our calloused hearts. Just think of it! According to the Bible, sin is—
Absolutely Universal
Sin is absolutely universal in the human race. “All of us like sheep have gone astray; each of us has turned to his own way.”(Isaiah 53:6) “There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12) You and I may not have met each other, but of one thing we can be certain even before our introduction— both of us are sinners. Every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth, no matter how old or how young, is a sinner. Even small children, when allowed to go their own way, are capable of the most exquisite cruelties to animals and to one another.
Race and nationality likewise offer no immunity from sin; the most cultured of nations are just as capable of genocide as the most barbaric. The gas chambers of the “civilized” are merely sophisticated forms of the machetes wielded by the “uncivilized.” Neither is there any such thing as a “noble savage” or “happy heathen.” In the words of one former missionary, “I went to the
mission field to keep a bad God from sending good men to hell. When I arrived, I discovered that they were monsters of iniquity.” The question is not whether men have had an opportunity to “accept Jesus.” The question is whether they have had an opportunity to mistreat the missionary and reject his message—for, apart from the special working of the Holy Spirit, that is what they will surely do.(Matthew 22:1-6)
Sin is universal in the human race.
All-pervasive
Not only is sin universal; it is all-pervasive. Every aspect of the human personality and of human existence is affected by it: The mind is blinded. “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see…”(2 Corinthians 4:4) The will is corrupted and incapacitated. “The wickedness of man was great on the earth, and…every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”(Genesis 6:5) “You will not come to Me that you might have life.”(John 5:40) “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.”(John 6:44) The emotions are disturbed and perverted. Some hearts smolder with constant anger and hatred; others are tormented day and night by senseless fears. Multitudes laugh at things that ought to make them weep, while others burst into tears for no apparent reason. Such are the deep and all-pervasive disturbances to the human personality caused, either directly or indirectly, by sin.
Irrational
Sin is irrational. Many a priceless birthright has been bartered for one bowl of soup;(Hebrews 12:16) many a marriage and family thrown away for one night of illicit pleasure. For the temporary thrills of illegal drug use, the highest powers of the human brain are routinely and permanently destroyed. A moment’s reflection on the sins of our own past is enough to confirm that none of them makes any sense. Such was the insanity of the prodigal son’s actions that his
repentance involved nothing less than “coming to his senses.”(Luke 15:17)
There is no wise sin.
Deceitful
Sin is deceitful. The Bible speaks of being “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”(Hebrews 3:13) As with all deception, the victim is unaware of his deceived state. At the very time he thinks that he is “rich, and has become wealthy, and has need of nothing,” he is in reality “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked”!(Revelation 3:17) He “professes himself to be wise,” but is actually a “fool.”(Romans 1:22)
Hardening
One of the most fearful things about sin is its power to harden the one who practices it.(Hebrews 3:13) The deeper a man goes in sin, the less sin bothers him. According to the Bible, man’s very conscience becomes “seared as with a branding iron.”(1 Timothy 4:2) Every sinner finds himself now committing sins that he once despised, and the sins that he now despises, he will someday find himself committing. It should shock us to remember that Adolph Hitler was once a little boy playing with toys just like other little boys. Man knows the beginning of sin, but no man has ever known the end of sin.
Enslaving
Sin enslaves those who practice it. “Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.”(John 8:34) None can free himself or escape from sin’s bondage. Sin “reigns” over the sinner and rides on his back like a tyrant until it eventually brings him down to the pit of destruction and death.(Romans 5:21) If you are not a Christian, you have a chain around your neck far worse than any physical chain. You may be able to quit one sin, but another sin will immediately take its place—often the sin of pride or self-righteousness for what you imagine you have accomplished in reforming yourself. Sin is enslaving.
Debasing
Sin sinks the highest and noblest of men and women to the depths of shame and degradation. The young man who once wore a fine suit and sat in a leather office chair now lies unshaven in his own vomit as a result of sin. The young girl who was once clean and beautiful and innocent is now cheap and sensual and dirty—again, because of sin. Men and women made in the image of God, created to dream immortal dreams and to think the long thoughts of eternity, are reduced by sin to groveling in the muck like pigs for a piece of bread. Sin turned angels into demons (Matthew 25:41); it turns men into “unreasoning animals.”( 2 Peter 2:12; Jude 1:10) Sin is debasing.
Defiling
Finally, sin is defiling.(Mark 7:20-23) Sin is not a trifle; sin is not “cute”; sin is not funny. Sin is exceedingly wicked and perverse; it is “utterly sinful.”(Romans 7:13) All sin is twisted and ugly and vile. We should be shocked at how wicked men are and how callous we have become to that wickedness. We are used to it! The first baby ever born grew up to murder his own brother.(Genesis 4:8) And human history ever since has been one long stream of constant warfare, lust, hate, torture, rape, perversion, abuse, and brutality. It is a blessed thing that we do not know in detail the sins that were committed just last night in our own town or city. Such knowledge would be too defiling to bear. Yet, we must face the fact that the world is not the way it is because it has a few bad people like Hitler; the world is the way it is because it is made up of multitudes of people just like us! There is deep wickedness in each of us. Sometimes God will use something seemingly “little” to show us this wickedness. For Augustine, it was not so much his immoral lifestyle, but the wanton stealing of pears from a neighbor’s tree in his youth—not for hunger, but for sport—that revealed to him the utter depravity of his own heart. Sin, just for the delight of doing evil, without reason and without reward, flows from within the human heart and defiles us all.
The Two Sides of Man’s Sin Problem
Sin is the ultimate and only problem of humanity. But this “sin problem” has two distinct aspects—one internal and the other external.
The Internal Problem—A Bad Heart
According to the Lord Jesus Christ, man himself is corrupt and vile. “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil
thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”(Mark 7:20-23) This is the condition of every human heart, apart from Christ. If a motion picture of even our past thoughts, let alone our past actions, were to be played on a large screen before our family and acquaintances, every one of us would run from the room in shame. Every non-Christian is—in his person—more repulsive to a holy God than he can ever begin to imagine.
But man’s problem with sin is even deeper than this. Suppose that by some miracle, the sinner could become a new person and never sin again for the rest of his life. He would still most certainly go to hell. The routine murderer who sincerely decides never to murder again must still pay for his past crimes. In other words, man’s problem with sin has another dimension besides the internal. Man not only has a bad heart ; he also has a bad record in the eyes of God’s law.
The External Problem—A Bad Record
Every sinner is a fugitive from justice. Regardless of the present condition of his heart, he has objective guilt, outside himself, in the eyes of God’s law. He may not have any “guilt feelings,” but he stands “guilty” or “condemned,” nevertheless. All his past crimes cry out for their penalty to be paid and justice to be satisfied. This cry is anchored in the very character and being of God, in His attribute of justice or equity.
It is because of the sense of equity or justice that God has written deep within the human heart that we feel immediate moral outrage when the perpetrator of a crime is allowed to go unpunished. Why is it wrong for the rapist-murderer to receive only a tendollar fine? We cannot prove that he deserves more, but we know that he does. This inescapable knowledge within us is something more foundational and certain than any theoretical “proof.” It is something absolutely basic to the human constitution—a reflection of God’s very nature.
Much could be said about God’s attribute of justice, especially in this day when the very concept of justice seems to be almost lost in society at large. There are three basic reasons why a crime
should be punished: First, for the satisfaction of justice (i.e., because crimes deserve to be punished and ought to be punished); second, for the good of society (i.e., for the prevention of further crime); and third, for the good of the offender (i.e., to cause him to change his ways). Of these three, the satisfaction of justice is primary and foundational to the other two. If the punishment for a crime is not itself just and deserved, it will neither deter future crime
nor reform the offender.
In our day, the primary and foundational reason for punishment— the satisfaction of justice—has been almost completely suppressed and denied. Only the second and third reasons remain, and these have been reversed in importance. The “reform” of the offender is now primary, and prisons are no longer called prisons, but “correctional facilities.” Even those who still believe that crime must be punished for the good of society maintain that murderers should be sentenced, not because they have murdered, but only in order to prevent future murders. Such a philosophy is wicked and false, and is based on the lie that men and women are not truly
responsible for their actions.
It is not difficult to understand how this state of affairs has come about. Because men want to be God themselves,(Genesis 3:4-5) they hate the thought of a sovereign Lawgiver to whom they must give an account. They seek to suppress the inescapable knowledge of God that is around and within them,(Romans 1:18f) and say instead that there is no God.(Psalm 10:4; 14:1; 53:1) This denial of God’s existence makes it easier for them to pretend that there is no such thing as right and wrong. Instead of being guilty sinners, men and women are viewed as helpless
victims of their circumstances. In such a setting, punishment in order to satisfy justice becomes unthinkable. Man is free to do as he pleases and answers to no one.
But no matter how much men may try to suppress it, there is still an indelible knowledge in the human heart that right and wrong are real,(Romans 2:14-16) that men are responsible for their wrongdoing, and that sin deserves to be punished.(Romans 1:32) Deep down, all men know that the scales of justice must be balanced at last.(Acts 28:4) If you are not a Christian and are reading these lines, the scales of justice are very unbalanced in your life even now, and you can be certain—on the basis of God’s very being and just character—that He will never rest or relent until you are in hell. The whole moral fabric of the universe would collapse if He did not put you in hell.
It is in this context that the Bible speaks of the “wrath of God.” God’s wrath is not a temporary loss of self-control or a selfish fit of emotion. It is His holy, white-hot hatred of sin, the reaction and revulsion of His holy nature against all that is evil. God’s wrath is tied in directly with His justice. It has to do with His righteous determination to punish every sin, to balance the scales of justice, and to make every wrong right. That is why the wrath of God “abides on” every unbeliever.(John 3:36) The more men persist in sin, the more they are “storing up wrath for themselves in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”(Romans 2:5) God’s wrath will eventually be “poured out”; He is a righteous judge and will not allow sin to go unpunished forever.
Charles Leiter