(Introduction)(Dial.1)(Dial.2)(Dial.3)(Dial.4)(Dial.5)(Dial.6)(Dial.7)(Dial.8)(Dial.9)(Dial.10)

(Dial.11)(Dial.12)DIALOGUE 13(Dial.14)(Dial.15)(Dial.16)(Dial.17)(Dial.18)(Dial.19)(Dial.20)

SIN IS AN ILLUSION WHICH MAKES ITSELF STRONG

DIRTY_C: You have been telling me that sin is an illusion. Can you explain to me what you mean by it?

CLEAN_C: It is true sin has some strength. But, its strength is a lie. It uses bluffing and lying to keep people captive. It seduces, entices, lies, makes some noise to attract attention upon it, it feigns and uses any means to menace and destroy. If it were really strong and powerful it would never use lies to get hold of the hearts of people. It wouldn’t need to lie. Sin makes sure it creates the mind that will believe it. Then, it manipulates that mind as it wishes. Besides, if it is true that truth sets us free, it means that sin must be a lie or an illusion of some kind. It must be. Why else would truth set us free if sin was not a lie? If sin hadn’t been lying to us, truth would not be able to free us.

DIRTY_C: You mean that we live in an imaginary castle and we are the ones who keep ourselves captive in it?

CLEAN_C: That is more or less what I mean, yes. People also believe sin is a good thing. They seem to believe it is something one is able to enjoy. If sin is seen as something enjoyable, surely holiness must be seen as an unwanted, undesirable thing. The devil has made sure people would prefer sin above peace, since he could not possibly make them choose disaster above joy. He made sure joy and fun is linked to sin and filth. Many people consider certain virtues as crap because the devil has managed to lie to them quite a lot. He assured his ground first. Sins are lies which take hold of the minds, the thoughts and the daily actions of everyone who hands himself over to it and believes it. Sin created its own kind of environment and society with own laws and own ways by which it rules all those who stick naturally to it. People are also told they cannot live holy, not even through God's power. The power of God is linked to miracles and signs, but, not to change lives for real. People in that environment live as if there is no other way to live and their behaviour is pre-established. People believe they are eternal slaves of sin. They are prepared to believe lies. The ground is settled and based upon lies. Slavery inside its bars an outcome and illusion keeps people in it. That is the main consequence of having a heart which easily believes lies. This is why we say that people remain in sin by choice because sin has nothing strong enough to hold them back from real life. Its bars are lies. Slavery to sin is a wilful, stubborn slavery in stupidity and ignorance. “Do you not know that to whom you yield yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to him whom you obey; whether it is of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?” Rom.6:16. That is why the Bible often states that people have a “vain mind” in them.

DIRTY_C: How so?

CLEAN_C: Have you ever seen people who are afraid of everything? Any noise startles them and anything you say is withstood automatically because they just don’t trust anything besides themselves and what they feel.

DIRTY_C: Yes, I know what you mean.

CLEAN_C: Fear is often a great deal of confidence in self and in the flesh. They fear easily each time they suspect the flesh they trust might not support them through anything. Such people are driven and manipulated by vain ideas about many things. They believe every corner hides a danger and their mind and hearts are not available and disposed to see that it is the heart they have which is to blame for their fears. Their heart is what makes them react and act the way they do. It is conditioned to believe the flesh and self only. Just as blind people can’t feel safe without their sticks, so do many feel unsafe without their fears. The fears of people often guide them. And if you have anything besides Jesus guiding you, you are lost.

DIRTY_C: I understand.

CLEAN_C: Their personality is driven and manipulated by the way they feel. They are always on the watch against dangers which exist only in their mind. The same principle is applied to any kind of sin. Sin cries out to say, “Here is pleasure!” And people believe it. It grants people an enticing way out which seems right in their own eyes. Yet, it leads towards death and destruction. The devil shall not cease to use frauds and lies to entice, threaten and mislead people. It works rather well with people who are set to believe lies.

DIRTY_C: I understand. But, there is something I can’t help thinking about. Why do people state we have been born in sin and there is nothing we can do about it?

CLEAN_C: Even if it is true that people are born in sin, it does not mean sin isn’t an illusion. It means people are born into illusion and lies. It cannot possibly mean illusion is reality or that a lie is truthful. The fact is that God promises that it is through truth that we shall be completely free. We should distinguish between what we are as an original creation, and the place where we are born into.

DIRTY_C: You mean we are made according to God’s image and are born where sin and lies rule.

CLEAN_C: The world created an environment where lies are easily believed. The way people go after the opposite sex makes them forget God, and not desires, joins people and because they will rather trust the flesh to join them. They might believe God if they can assume God also uses fleshly means to join people. Also, the way people drink, curse and smoke makes them believe they need never fear God since He is seen as a good God who will never cause any harm to them. The devil has prepared his ground quite well, indeed. Every deed and thought is settled around a false idea of peace and pleasure which cause people to live around an illusion as a never ending circle. If people are found preparing themselves to get out of sin, they start believing they are leaving something valuable behind or that they it is useless to try to run away for their lives because sin is too powerful and too smart to let them go. The devil made them believe any effort in the direction of true freedom is in vain. People love to believe that what sin offers is either worth fighting for or useless fighting against. They will rather believe that sin will be fulfilled and not God’s words. I suppose one of those reasons is what made Loth’s wife look back. People start missing sin even before they have left it behind. It offends God greatly because is has nothing in it to hold us back. There is nothing in sin which should be able to make feel nostalgic about it and its domain. Then, we get into church secretly believing these things and we see how those ways and means the world upholds have settled themselves around the pulpits. It seems sin is eating from the tree of life. They say it is possible to live in sin and in Christ at the same time. However, the Bible says expressly, “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity!” 2Tim.2:19. However, people will rather believe lies than the Bible. Pastors and preachers around the world preach the gospel through the same spirit the world proclaims its illusions. They assimilate the language and the ways the world uses. They interpret the Bible according to their worldly mind. And we read that our whole mind should be serving God wholly and not flirt vain ideas. People learn the ways of the world better than what they hear what God has to say to us. An example teaches more than words, whether the example is good or bad.

DIRTY_C: I see you as a revolutionary kind of man. You seem very critical about today’s Christianity and pastors.

CLEAN_C: You promised before you wouldn’t misinterpret my words again.

DIRTY_C: That’s true. I am sorry.

CLEAN_C: You said you are sorry? That’s a change! You should learn to ask for forgiveness from people and to God about all your past sins as well. You think you can?

DIRTY_C: I have too many sins. It would be an endless task, I think. But, let’s talk on the subject of sin and illusions and why you have so many things to say against pastors. Let’s not change the subject to confession of sin again, please.

CLEAN_C: I am not changing the subject at all. I have been aiming at confessing all your sins all the time and on putting them all in the Light for a change. "If the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of his sins which he has committed shall be remembered against him...", Ez.33:15,16. The fact that sin is an illusion is one more reason to convince you to do it right away. You can no longer delay such an important thing as putting your whole life, past and present, fully in the light and ask for forgiveness. That is a more important issue than to speak about my views against the ways churches have preferred lately.

DIRTY_C: We can talk about confessing my sins later on. Please, tell me why do you attack pastors so much?

CLEAN_C: I believe you are postponing something you should not delay one single day anymore. You should cleanse your whole life immediately. Besides, you are running into conclusions which I have not made statements about.

DIRTY_C: I would prefer that you explain to me why you state pastors are misleading people. Maybe, you are wrong about many pastors and ministers. Maybe it is my chance to exhort and correct you about this. You shouldn’t be talking against the servants of God.

CLEAN_C: My attitude is not critical. I mean only to put truth on the table, so it may be visible and clear before our eyes - your eyes. We should clearly see what is going on around us. If I don’t do it the right way, God won’t be happy about me. I wouldn’t want God angry at me.

DIRTY_C: But, pastors talk about God. They dedicate their lives to preaching the gospel.

CLEAN_C: Of course they talk about God. However, most of them miss the whole point! They use a deceitful heart to aim at the goals of God which are not deceiving. The lack of power in their lives shows us just how far God is from them and how much of the strength of the flesh they use to proclaim something spiritual. Most of them don’t live the truth they so easily preach about. When sinful people come into church they already treat them as brothers. They treat sinners who dishonour God in a way which tells them they are not dishonouring God! It is unacceptable! That is not love they are showing towards them at all!

DIRTY_C: But, if the bars and the dungeons are illusionary, why do we refuse to get out of them?  

CLEAN_C: That’s a good question. Perhaps, if our enemy had been real and visible, it could be easier for us to run away and hide in the Lord. Perhaps, then, we could fight it openly. However, being invisible and surreal, sin became a strong myth in the minds of people. It built strong lies in the minds of people. It has taken hold of the whole mind. It seems people look at it as invincible and a life without sin as unthinkable!

DIRTY_C: Do you think sin is a myth?

CLEAN_C: I believe it is, yes. Paul says, “And they will turn away their ears from the truth and will be turned to myths”, 2Tim.4:4. In fact, all the foundations of sin are built upon myths and lies. This is why only truth is able to free us from them. It has always been a fight between lies and truths, realities and unrealities. And it will become worse and worse. “For a time will be when they will not endure sound doctrine, but they will heap up teachers to themselves according to their own lusts, tickling the ear” 2Tim.4:3. What sin promises as lies appeals a lot to a heart used to lie to itself. And, unfortunately, people are the ones who create the pastors they want and it is not the pastors who change people any longer. Pastors preach what people love to hear.

DIRTY_C: And why won’t truth reach the heart of people easier than lies do?

CLEAN_C: Because lies are too bold in words. Most people that start becoming truthful are usually not as bold as liars are. And liars are not ashamed. They fight to the end because the flesh backs them up easily, even if it is the flesh of others that do so. The worst part of it is that lies are so obvious! Yet, people accept it easier than truth. “Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird”, Prov.1:17. People seem to be greater fools than birds. And we cannot say God created us that way at all.

DIRTY_C: It is true. However, I believe the greatest struggle of any bird is after it is entangled in the net. The worst fight starts only after it is caught. It is not that easy to get loose. I believe the same happens to us after we are caught up in sin. The more we struggle to free ourselves, the more we are entangled.

CLEAN_C: When a bird is entangled and caught up in the net, it is unable to stay quiet and still. It should be still to call upon God. Jesus can free us of any sin or any sin’s network. We should discredit the feelings of hopelessness sin keeps us captive with and hand ourselves to the Lord as we are. The feeling of loss drives people to do crazy things. As someone said once, “we need to be still so God can untie the knot we have made upon ourselves”.

DIRTY_C: It is true. But, in the case of sin, what is the net and what is not?

CLEAN_C: Let’s use an example. Suppose the devil uses someone to irritate you. After that, he gives you or the person some problems and tempts you through irritability. We have reason to believe that when the devil strikes, he often uses many things in one single strike. That is a kind of a net spread in front of you. You need to deal with your heart exclusively and try to use the whole situation to make yourself a better person, rather than to try to change the situation. God can use such situations as well. If you look at it, you could easily see it is a net which has been laid out before your eyes. And such a net has many ways to catch you. Then, you should react as any woman would with a skirt were the wind blowing: she would rather hold her dress instead of trying to hold back the wind.

DIRTY_C: Does the devil have that much power over people?

CLEAN_C: Yes, he has, even though it was God who allows him that power. However, once I heard a person say something like this: "Oh, there is a banana skill on the floor! There will I fall again!" John says the whole world lies under the power of evil. Many give up after having been caught up and start believing there is no hope for them anymore. They seem to say, “Oh, I just don’t care anymore! It is useless fighting sin”. They talk like that because the only source of strength and power they know is the flesh's and it seems useless. They have only the arm of the flesh to hope upon. That is when people start becoming melancholic about the times they used to fly around in sin instead of becoming hopeful in God and His new way to make alive. We should not offend God by assuming we are hopeless since Jesus died for us. We should instead cry out to God and find the way out of the net the devil has thrown over us. “Deliver yourself as a gazelle from the hunter's hand, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler”, Prov.6:5. We should remember that Jesus came to change our hearts and not turn circumstances better for us in the world of sin.

DIRTY_C: What you say makes a lot of sense to me. But, sometimes I would rather have God save me from the person who irritates me than save my heart from irritation having that person still around. I understand better now what salvation is all about. Jesus saves us from irritability, from impatience, from lust and so forth and not so much from the temptation people bring over us. I am starting to understand you. Is that what salvation is all about?

CLEAN_C: Yes, it is. And we should also know we must never use the arm of the flesh to annihilate the flesh. Its strength won't work against itself. It just doesn’t. It simply refuses to harm itself! Your eye can’t see itself; your ear can’t scratch itself; the flesh can’t kill the flesh either. And we need to start through the Spirit in such a way that we shall go to the end through His power only. We need to reach the goal set there for us by avoiding ending in the flesh. We may never give up along the way and if we try to do away with the person who irritates us, we have already abandoned the way and we are neglecting the transformation of our hearts. That is one way of giving up. Getting entangled in the wrong battle means we have given up the only thing which is asked of us. That is to say, we have forgotten it is our hearts Jesus is aiming at, along with its transformation. If we get involved in the wrong battle, the Bible says “Even the young shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall”, Is.40:30.

DIRTY_C: But, when I don’t like someone, it is very hard to me to admit I am the one who is wrong. Anyone who annoys me is wrong, but the way I react to it makes me feel bad, especially if I react through irritability.

CLEAN_C: It is not that hard to admit before God your heart is being tempted to sin. You should just try it. Afterwards, you will need to keep doing it because many expect to get rid of the problem by admitting instead of by getting rid of the heart they have. They believe the trial shall be lifted up by admitting. But, it will depend on God’s will. “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me. Yet not My will, but Yours be done”, Lk.22:42. Their aim is not holiness, but rather getting rid of the problem. However, if you diagnose the real problem correctly, you have greater chances to receive the best prescription for it. One of the reason people do not get answers to their prayers when they are in deep in trouble, is the wrong diagnosis they make of their situation. They should admit (in case they are clean before God) that the situation they’re in, can achieve some kind of change in them or in someone else. We must learn to rest in God and fight for what God is fighting for in us. If God’s aim is the change of the heart, we should know how to gather with him instead of trying to change our circumstances. “To whom He said, ‘This is the rest; cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing’. Yet they were not willing to hear”, Is.28:12. Every trial has an obscure capability and we need to find out what it is, if we can. After we find out and if we find out, we must cooperate with God towards what He intends to achieve in us. If not, we should remember to remain quiet and close to God. It shall become immediately easier for us.

DIRTY_C: It makes sense. But, it doesn’t seem that easy to me. It is easier said than done! As you said, making a good diagnosis of the whole situation makes it easier for us. We wouldn’t want God to say to us, “Yet, they were unwilling to hear!” Would we?

CLEAN_C: No, we wouldn’t. If the bird gets impatient against the net, he becomes more entangled. It should look away from the net and look up to God for help. If a bird ceases to be sober and it starts fighting against the net which holds it, its situation shall become worse and worse by the hour. Anger and dreaming about revenge can’t free us from any kind of trap. We cannot fight sin through sin. We should be able to deny ourselves at times like these. The goal of the devil is to kill us, surely. However, God is able to use it to achieve the best in us.

DIRTY_C: Could you give me an example? Perhaps I would understand it better.

CLEAN_C: Let’s talk about sexual problems.

DIRTY_C: I feel ashamed to have a talk about such subjects, especially with you.

CLEAN_C: Well, we need to face sin – any kind of sin. This is no time to feel ashamed about anything at all. We cannot afford not to let light shine upon anything that is able to take us to hell or away from God. Only by having all in the light are we able to be free of the sinfulness people threw on sex. Sex, in the minds of people, is not what God made it to be at first, anymore. God created it and made it holy. People, however, perverted it completely.

DIRTY_C: How so?

CLEAN_C: This kind of sin is what makes the best example of what we have been talking about. Unless we are able to put sex in the light God made it to be, we won’t easily find out what about it is sin and what is not. It is obvious people shall curse something meant to be a blessing. 

DIRTY_C: Please, explain more to me. I am interested.

CLEAN_C: Many people do crazy things because of sex. Some do crazy things against it and some for it. The great majority of people gets involved in illicit sex because they feel empty and dry inside. They seek adventures and try to boast about it so that they won't feel guilty. Boasting is, often, a remedy for guilt. Afterwards, they marry and find out they are as dry as they have always been before marriage and marrying did not change a thing in them at all. They feel disappointed in the partner they chose and start doing crazier things such as finding an illusionary satisfaction in adultery. And sex cannot give more to people than what it is meant to give. God created it only to reach a certain purpose and no further. However, people conceived many things around and about sex, all of them illusionary. We can say the same things about riches and many other things. It can’t give man more than it is supposed to give. It cannot fill man inside at all. Only God can.

DIRTY_C: You are right about it. All amounts to illusion, right?

CLEAN_C: Yes, it does. Afterwards people start fighting for those things their minds tell them is worth fighting for. And illusion is an addiction. People become easily entangled in it. And the worst part of it is that people find themselves fighting against God instead of fighting what is illusionary. They are unaware that they are found fighting God and truth. Some even say the devil is against them and not God! This is why the Bible says that every man who fights in favour of sin is fighting against God and truth. “Why do the nations rage, and the peoples meditate on a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers plot together, against the Lord and against His anointed”, Ps.2:1-2. People conceive war and their imaginations are always found in a fighting mood. They can’t understand peace because of it. “I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war”, Sal.120:7. Every sinner is always ready to war against God. That is part of the heritage of sin. Part of what we get by sinning is being at war against God without knowing about it. The flesh is enmity against God. It is enmity itself.

DIRTY_C: I understand.

CLEAN_C: Under such circumstances and thoughts, it is easy to see that any kind of sin does us wrong. Many find themselves pleading and praying to God to satisfy their deceit and lust. Sin is blind and does not easily become aware God is against it! It always assumes God shall be with it.

DIRTY_C: And what can we do to get free of that net sins launches over us? It seems to me that kind of warring mind is intensified by the net in which we are found.

CLEAN_C: At first, we need to do and to carry out a certain task which you seem unwilling to carry out. And it must be carried out faithfully.

DIRTY_C: What do you mean? What is there I don’t want to do? I would gladly live for the Lord!

CLEAN_C: You would really live for the Lord? And why won’t you clean up your past sins immediately? You need to hand over to the Lord all the weapons you learned to use. You need to surrender to the enemy of the flesh once and for all after you have cleansed each sin. Full surrender is what is required from you straight away!

DIRTY_C: It feels very risky to me to hand all my defences away like that. How shall I know I am handing them over to God and not to uselessness?

CLEAN_C: It is not risky at all! I think living the way you live is what is risky and not surrendering yourself fully to God once and for all. You cannot dare to have a fighting spirit in you, not even against sin. We should unlearn resisting God and conviction. Even God says “resist not evil” for that purpose. We must unlearn to resist. We may fight evil only by surrendering ourselves to God once and for all. Do it at once. Delay it no more, please.

(Introduction)(Dial.1)(Dial.2)(Dial.3)(Dial.4)(Dial.5)(Dial.6)(Dial.7)(Dial.8)(Dial.9)(Dial.10)

(Dial.11)(Dial.12)DIALOGUE 13(Dial.14)(Dial.15)(Dial.16)(Dial.17)(Dial.18)(Dial.19)(Dial.20)