IT IS SIN TO BLAME SIN

“And Cain said to Jehovah, My punishment is greater than I can bear”, Gen 4:13 

It is true that God (and good sense) demands that we realize and recognize our sins. But, there is a useful and common preaching and sermon arranging which makes people blame themselves so as to be entitled to buy earthly bread (or any other) off and that from God. The fact is that God demands recognition of sin only so men do realize they are sinners, especially when they say they are only halfheartedly; and since they never acknowledge to the fact that all misery, sins (consequent ones), death and trouble have their origin in sin WE have committed against God which drove us from the face of the Lord as happened to Cain, God demands it. There is no virtue in blaming oneself, for it is only self lying to itself so it can gain back whatever it lost and not recognizing logically and sternly what made it to loose and so it can turn to God. Cain wanted to be able to enjoy all this earthly life could offer because of the heart he had and that was all he got from God by blaming and blackmailing God into pitying him. All he wished for was not to die. Had he wished to die because of having sinned and not because of the loss it brought on him, he might have lived eternally. He cried instead because he would die and loose all upon this earth. In here we find no mentioning of his killing his own brother.

It is so interesting to notice that the preachers who preach so much that we are sinners are the very first ones to oppose a practical, thorough, factual, real and detailed confession of all sins (of any sin whatsoever). Were they meaning what they say, they would gladly and promptly take a pen and paper and write down all their misdeeds, pinpoint them one by one, and find John the Baptist to pray for (with) them. The arrangement they fixed within their own souls is to blame sin generally so they may duck away from confessing it in detailed outlining and openly. All there is to that kind of preaching is nothing but self trying to be excused for having sinned or self saying it is a sinner believing it is all Adam's fault so it can escape humbling itself for real. To skip confession of all sins individually and thoroughly is the main reason why people profess to be sinners – it has always been. "They return, but not to Him that is on high; they are like a deceitful bow", Hos.7:16.

An escaping kind of preaching is quite often used so one can get away as innocent by proclaimed himself as a sinner. Beating in the chest and tearing our clothes instead of our hearts is but the most sophisticated language of any kind of hypocrite. All sinners do that due to what they loose by sinning (or because of the fear of it) and never because of the kind of sinning they may have incurred their souls into. “Yea, tear your heart, and not your robes; and turn to Jehovah your God”, Joel 2:13.

Since people are unbelieving because they cannot see God, their hearts being defiled and sinful, they near God as they would near a man who sees as far as their outside and tears, treating God as man. They never realize that this Great God sees all “And there is no creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to deal”, Heb 4:13. People try first to be able to deal with sin as they would, had they sinned against a man or were a man to forgive them – just as Eli knew how to do it so well, 1Sam.2.

This common preaching which so easily leaves sin in its origin untouched, often uses truth to bury guilt away in a self made grave within their properly outlined, excused, protected and hidden graveyard. They quite often say from a pulpit, “we are sinners, brothers”, yet deny a public confession of any particular sin they may have committed, which behavior is often avoided by claiming their congregation is not fully prepared to see their minister as a practical sinner – only as a sinner on account of Adam, blaming another for his own sinning. Adam is the origin of sin on earth, but not the cause of it. The human heart is both the household and the settlement of all sin. If the congregation is never ready to hear a minister confess, why not state, then, “I am holy brothers” instead of “we are sinners, brothers”, trying to tell people they are sinners by assuming a false humility by including himself in his statements against them? That would turn his assumption truthful after all. Since the congregation is not ready to assume the minister as a practical sinner, it should be assumed it would  rather be fully prepared to take such as a holy man. The fact is that congregations usually do not accept men as holy when they are, nor as sinners when they honestly profess and confess it. And preachers usually think of pleasing people first and God eventually, if it does not hurt people to do so. Preachers say they are sinners because they can never avoid people looking at their lives to assume most of the things the Bible talks about does never work out in their own lives. Burying sin does not kill it for it breathes underground much better since sin and darkness are always the perfect match. Why do they so eagerly claim all sins are forgotten? Is it not because they wish to either dilute them or to blot them out before they confess them? Is it not right for the Lord to sate, “And they consider not in their hearts that I (still) remember all their wickedness: now have their own doings beset them about; they are (still) before my face”, Hos.7:2? Amen.

José Mateus
zemateus@msn.com