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We Can’t Save Ourselves
When it comes to what we can actually do about our sin problem we find that human efforts won’t work. We must ultimately look to God for His solution.
Did you know that He has a solution to our sin problem? Do you believe that He has a solution? He does. One-half of the solution is principle 3: We are helpless to save ourselves from this dilemma of sin and death.
Please don’t give up here. There is good news coming but we must endure this principle and understand it before we move on to the real answer from God.
We must acknowledge to God that we are sinners and that we know we can do nothing before Him to make ourselves right or righteous in His sight. He is Holy—the most Holy!!
Some people believe that good deeds or works can earn them points or merit before God. However, there are passages in both the Bible and the Qur’an that contradict this concept of merit through goods works.
Towrah
Proverbs 14:12—There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.
That is a scary verse to me. If you do not have verified truth to cling to, you could follow a teaching all your life that leads only to death. Death here is existence apart from God.
Zabur
Psalm 125:5—Those who turn to crooked ways the Lord will banish with the evildoers.
Injeel
Titus 3:4-5—God our Saviour…saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
Qur’an
Cattle 6:70—Remind hereby, lest a soul should be given up to destruction for what it (the soul, your soul) has earned (or deserved); apart from God, it (the soul) has no protector and no intercessor; though it offer any equivalent, it shall not be taken from it (the soul).
What Cattle 6:70 is saying, in other words, is “Beware lest you receive the destruction your sinful soul deserves because of what you have done. Outside of God, you have no hope of being saved—no protector and no one to intercede for you. Though your soul tries to offer something ‘big,’ nothing is equivalent to what is necessary to save you. Nothing can save you but God.”
Men plan to remove their sins by being good--pileing up good deeds on one hand to outweigh bad deeds. They attempt religious works, actions that benefit mankind and political activity. But men forget that the only righteousness he can produce comes out of an unclean life, since he is a sinner. So, self-produced righteousness is also unclean. As the Towrah says in Isaiah 64:6, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”
Wearied and miserable due to sinful living, a man decided to take the long walk to ask advice of a godly friend. When he arrived, he immediately explained that guilt, frustration, and fear were tormenting him day and night. He asked his friend, “What works can I do to relieve these feelings, and find peace of mind and happiness?”
Before answering, the friend ordered his servant to bring a cold drink for this exhausted visitor. The servant soon returned with the drink. But before offering it to his friend, the host added a large drop of ink, blackening the drink. The guest asked, “What are you doing?”
“Just answering your question,” he replied, “You won’t accept this drink because I spoiled it with a drop of ink. Yet you want a pure and holy God to accept your good deeds when you have defiled them with the filthy sins of your heart and mind!!!”
The man understood the lesson. Right then and there he asked God for His pardon and cleansing. Understanding the bad news of sin led him to seek out the good news of God that effectively deals with that sin.
Video: God Has a Plan for You -- Part 3
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