I have a message from God in my heart

    concerning the sinfulness of the wicked:

There is no fear of God

    before their eyes.

You may have heard the story about the person who went home from church one Sunday, and was asked by a family member, ‘What was the sermon about?’

‘Sin’, came the reply!

‘And what did the preacher say about it?’

‘He was against it!’

Well understandably, but it won’t necessarily earn you any popularity points for saying so.

In an article in ‘the Spectator’ this last week, Gareth Roberts asked, ‘Who is Sandi Toksvig to lecture Justin Welby about sin?’He was referring to the critical, open letter she recently sent to the Archbishop. Roberts says that he is an atheist and a homosexual, but he found what she said ‘insufferable.’ The truth is the Judaeo-Christian tradition believes that certain things are sinful, and whether we agree or not, like it or not, there’s no point denying it is so.

In the Bible’s understanding, sin is both falling short of a standard and deliberately crossing a boundary. In both senses we are all sinners, and we need to understand what we are and that we are in need of the Saviour, Jesus.

Recently, we heard a young man tell his conversion story in one of our church services. He said he heard a preacher speak about the holiness of God, and it caused him to realise the great gulf that existed between God and himself. It broke his heart and brought him to repentance, and made him cry out to the Lord for salvation.

Bu without that overwhelming experience of conviction of sin, the ‘dedicated sinner’ carries on down his/her utterly.ruinous route