Day 12/21 – Sin and Law

Thoughts from the Diary of a Desperate Man by Walter Henrichsen
Sin and Law
Day Three Hundred Fifty-five

“I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.” Romans 7:9

Law is the only source of the knowledge of sin, whether it is a crime against the state or against God. The government cannot charge the citizen with violating a law until the law is established. So its is with God; you cannot define sin against God by any other standard than that which God gives. Paul said that if you take away God’s Law, he did not sin. Once he met the Law, he recognized that he was a transgressor and was condemned.

The Law is like a x-ray machine or a MRI. It can expose the cancer called sin, but it cannot cure. “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.'”453 You cannot blame the MRI for exposing your problem; without it you would not have known that you had a problem.

Paul shows that the revelation of your sin, so that you are aware of your lostness and alienation from God, is a work of grace accomplished by the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life. God’s grace also reveals the solution to your problem; the propitious death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t blame the Law of God and its revealing the sin in your life for your problem, and don’t try to solve your problem by trying to keep God’s Law. Both approaches cause you to miss the mark. Acknowledge the place of Law in your life, recognizing that you were made aware of it by the same Power that is able to heal you.

453 Romans 7:12

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Micah 4-5 Revelation 12 (New King James Version)

Micah 4-5
The Lord’s Reign in Zion
4
Now it shall come to pass in the latter days
That the mountain of the Lord’s house
Shall be established on the top of the mountains,
And shall be exalted above the hills;
And peoples shall flow to it.
2
Many nations shall come and say,
“Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
He will teach us His ways,
And we shall walk in His paths.”
For out of Zion the law shall go forth,
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
3
He shall judge between many peoples,
And rebuke strong nations afar off;
They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into [a]pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war anymore.
4
But everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree,
And no one shall make them afraid;
For the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
5
For all people walk each in the name of his god,
But we will walk in the name of the Lord our God
Forever and ever.
Zion’s Future Triumph
6
“In that day,” says the Lord,
“I will assemble the lame,
I will gather the outcast
And those whom I have afflicted;
7
I will make the lame a remnant,
And the outcast a strong nation;
So the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion
From now on, even forever.
8
And you, O tower of the flock,
The stronghold of the daughter of Zion,
To you shall it come,
Even the former dominion shall come,
The kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem.”
9
Now why do you cry aloud?
Is there no king in your midst?
Has your counselor perished?
For pangs have seized you like a woman in [b]labor.
10
Be in pain, and labor to bring forth,
O daughter of Zion,
Like a woman in birth pangs.
For now you shall go forth from the city,
You shall dwell in the field,
And to Babylon you shall go.
There you shall be delivered;
There the Lord will redeem you
From the hand of your enemies.
11
Now also many nations have gathered against you,
Who say, “Let her be defiled,
And let our eye look upon Zion.”
12
But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord,
Nor do they understand His counsel;
For He will gather them like sheaves to the threshing floor.
13
“Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion;
For I will make your horn iron,
And I will make your hooves bronze;
You shall beat in pieces many peoples;
I will consecrate their gain to the Lord,
And their substance to the Lord of the whole earth.”
The Messiah Will Be Born at Bethlehem
5
Now gather yourself in troops,
O daughter of troops;
He has laid siege against us;
They will strike the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek.
The Coming Messiah
2
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Though you are little among the thousands of Judah,
Yet out of you shall come forth to Me
The One to be Ruler in Israel,
Whose goings forth are from of old,
From [c]everlasting.”
3
Therefore He shall give them up,
Until the time that she who is in labor has given birth;
Then the remnant of His brethren
Shall return to the children of Israel.
4
And He shall stand and feed[d] His flock
In the strength of the Lord,
In the majesty of the name of the Lord His God;
And they shall abide,
For now He shall be great
To the ends of the earth;
5
And this One shall be peace.
Judgment on Israel’s Enemies
When the Assyrian comes into our land,
And when he treads in our palaces,
Then we will raise against him
Seven shepherds and eight princely men.
6
They shall [e]waste with the sword the land of Assyria,
And the land of Nimrod at its entrances;
Thus He shall deliver us from the Assyrian,
When he comes into our land
And when he treads within our borders.
7
Then the remnant of Jacob
Shall be in the midst of many peoples,
Like dew from the Lord,
Like showers on the grass,
That [f]tarry for no man
Nor [g]wait for the sons of men.
8
And the remnant of Jacob
Shall be among the Gentiles,
In the midst of many peoples,
Like a lion among the beasts of the forest,
Like a young lion among flocks of sheep,
Who, if he passes through,
Both treads down and tears in pieces,
And none can deliver.
9
Your hand shall be lifted against your adversaries,
And all your enemies shall be [h]cut off.
10
“And it shall be in that day,” says the Lord,
“That I will cut[i] off your horses from your midst
And destroy your chariots.
11
I will cut off the cities of your land
And throw down all your strongholds.
12
I will cut off sorceries from your hand,
And you shall have no soothsayers.
13
Your carved images I will also cut off,
And your sacred pillars from your midst;
You shall no more worship the work of your hands;
14
I will pluck your [j]wooden images from your midst;
Thus I will destroy your cities.
15
And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury
On the nations that have not [k]heard.”
Footnotes:
• Micah 4:3 pruning knives
• Micah 4:9 childbirth
• Micah 5:2 Lit. the days of eternity
• Micah 5:4 shepherd
• Micah 5:6 devastate
• Micah 5:7 wait
• Micah 5:7 delay
• Micah 5:9 destroyed
• Micah 5:10 destroy
• Micah 5:14 Heb. Asherim, Canaanite deities
• Micah 5:15 obeyed

Revelation 12
The Woman, the Child, and the Dragon
12 Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. 2 Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.
3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. 4 His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. 5 She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
Satan Thrown Out of Heaven
7 And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, 8 but they [a]did not prevail, nor was a place found for [b]them in heaven any longer. 9 So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
10 Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. 11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. 12 Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”
The Woman Persecuted
13 Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. 14 But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. 15 So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. 16 But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus [c]Christ.
Footnotes:
• Revelation 12:8 were not strong enough
• Revelation 12:8 M him
• Revelation 12:17 NU, M omit Christ