Good morning Church!
I welcome you all to the house of the Lord. Today is a beautiful day that God has made and we are glad that He has allowed you and me to praise and worship him.
As we are learning from the series, “Enemy’s weapons”, for past few weeks, today we will study one of the deadliest weapons of the enemy, “Guilt!”
Let me share with you a photograph (Source: “New York Times”.)
The photographer, Kevin Carter, was a South African photojournalist. He was the recipient in 1994 of a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph depicting the 1993 famine in Sudan. He took his own life at the age of 33. Sold to The New York Times, the photograph first appeared on 26 March 1993, and syndicated worldwide. Hundreds of people contacted the newspaper to ask the fate of the girl. The paper said that according to Carter, “she recovered enough to resume her trek after the vulture was chased away” but that it was unknown whether she reached the UN food centre.” In April 1994, the photograph won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. In 2011, the child’s father revealed the child was actually a boy, Kong Nyong, and had been taken care of by the UN food aid station. Nyong had died four years prior, 2007, of “fevers”, according to his family. On 27 July 1994, Carter drove to Parkmore near the Field and Study Centre, an area where he used to play as a child, and died by taping one end of a hose to his pickup truck’s exhaust pipe and running the other end to the driver’s side window. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning at the age of 33. Portions of Carter’s suicide note read:
I’m really, really sorry. The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist. …depressed … without phone … money for rent … money for child support … money for debts … money!!! … I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain … of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners … I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky.
Do you see what this tool of enemy is capable of? Guilt can eat you up and that is what the enemy intends to do. Judas betrayed Christ, yet he threw away the money he received for betraying Jesus and hung himself because of guilt.
Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself.
Matthew 27:3-5
What is guilt according to the dictionary? Well, it is the awareness of having done something wrong accompanied by feeling shame and remorse.
What killed Judas was not the money, sadness, depression, but it was unresolved guilt. There have been instances throughout history where people have asked for forgiveness from the ones who they offended, yet they weren’t able to forgive themselves.
And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.”
Revelation 12:10
You need to be on your guard. The enemy wants to keep people in a cage and does not want people to enjoy this beautiful creation of God. He will use your relatives, family members, friends, colleagues, or maybe even strangers. Telling you that you have done something wrong in the past and you will start condemning yourself. And enemy uses that as a tool, making you feel guiltier for the sins you have committed in your past.
God wants you to live today and tomorrow, however, satan wants you to live in your past. But if you have your hope and eyes fixed on God, He will take care of you and of your guilt. The enemy has come to steal, kill and destroy, but God says that He has come to give life.
According to the encyclopedia of Psychological problems, it points out 10 signs of someone with guilt:
1: False Good behavior.
2: Physical Problems.
3: Depression.
4: Indulgence in sin.
5: Self-condemnation.
6: Self-punishment.
7: Expectation of disapproval.
8: Fault findings in others.
9: Hostility towards others.
10: Compensating for guilt by elevating self.
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
2 Corinthians 7:10
True conviction comes from Holy Spirit and when it comes, it draws you closer to God. The time you fail God and your family, the enemy will be ready to take you down under a bondage of guilt.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
1 Peter 5:8
Humility preserves peace and order in all Christian churches and societies; pride disturbs them. Where God gives grace to be humble, he will give wisdom, faith, and holiness. To be humble, and subject to our reconciled God, will bring greater comfort to the soul than the gratification of pride and ambition. But it is to be in due time; not in thy fancied time, but God’s own wisely appointed time. Does he wait, and wilt not thou? What difficulties will not the firm belief of his wisdom, power, and goodness get over! Then be humble under his hand. Cast all you care; personal cares, family cares, cares for the present, and cares for the future, for yourselves, for others, for the church, on God. These are burdensome, and often very sinful, when they arise from unbelief and distrust, when they torture and distract the mind, unfit us for duties, and hinder our delight in the service of God. The remedy is, to cast our care upon God, and leave every event to his wise and gracious disposal. Firm belief that the Divine will and counsels are right, calms the spirit of a man. Truly the godly too often forget this, and fret themselves to no purpose. Refer all to God’s disposal. The golden mines of all spiritual comfort and good are wholly his, and the Spirit itself. Then, will he not furnish what is fit for us, if we humbly attend on him, and lay the care of providing for us, upon his wisdom and love? The whole design of Satan is to devour and destroy souls. He always is contriving whom he may insnare to eternal ruin. Our duty plainly is, to be sober; to govern both the outward and the inward man by the rules of temperance. To be vigilant; suspicious of constant danger from this spiritual enemy, watchful and diligent to prevent his designs. Be stedfast, or solid, by faith. A man cannot fight upon a quagmire, there is no standing without firm ground to tread upon; this faith alone furnishes. It lifts the soul to the firm advanced ground of the promises, and fixes it there. The consideration of what others suffer, is proper to encourage us to bear our share in any affliction; and in whatever form Satan assaults us, or by whatever means, we may know that our brethren experience the same.
During the stoning incident during Moses times, referring to it Jesus said…
“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
John 8:7(b)
If you have a feeling of guilt, in that situation you need to come down to the feet of The Master, i.e. God. Do not hear what the enemy wants to tell you but listen to what God wants to say.
Good examples are Judas Iscariot and the aforementioned photographer, Kevin Carter.
So that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.
2 Corinthians 2:11
Dear Church, do you think you are living with guilt? Well, if you think you are, then you need to seek Jesus today and ask for His intervention in your life in order to live a guilt-free life.
We hope today’s message has encouraged you. We look forward to seeing you again next Sunday. God bless!