Short Answers To Common Questions 4 Series

Short Answers to Common Questions 4

1. Some problems have no solutions. One blogger writes, “Today, my roommate confided in me that she hadn't been taking showers while at school because she was afraid of being in the shower when the fire alarm goes off. She goes home once every month, and will only shower there. I have to live with her for the rest of the year.”

2. How can you fix that? But other questions have answers, and we are enjoying discussing those answers. Well, at least I am.

Main Idea: Once again we are going to ask three questions on different subjects and seek to answer those questions from a Scriptural context.

I. I have confessed my sins to God, but why do I still feel GUILTY?

A. The difference between OBJECTIVE guilt and subjective guilt

1. Sometimes we are guilty and sometimes we feel guilty — may not be same

2. Some people feel guilty because they cheated on their diet, and some people don’t feel guilty about cheating on their spouse.

3. Objective guilt is based upon violating God’s Word.

4. Not all guilt is easy to define, there can be gray area involved

• We do things that unintentionally hurt others, and we feel guilty for that.

• Sometimes it might be due to neglect, but the neglect had amplified consequences…. Example, forget turn signal and get in an accident

• Sometimes it might just be something that we could not help… accidental death or injury to another…. Sliding on ice while not speeding.

B. There are at least FOUR possible reasons why we might feel guilty, even though we have repented and confessed our sin.

1. DOUBT: we must count on the truth of God’s Word (I John 1:9).

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I John 1:9

If we have sinned against another person, we apologize or do what we can to make restitution for our wrong.

2. SATAN is the accuser and seeks to cripple believers with guilt.

Revelation 12:1-10, “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.” [This is a midrash of Zechariah 3:1-10].

Romans 8:33-34, “Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

3. PRIDE: we hold ourselves to a higher standard than we hold others.

4. FEAR: we are afraid by feeling forgiven, we are giving permission to ourselves to sin again.

Application: If we confessed our sin, took responsibility, made what restitution we could, then we need to accept by faith that we are forgiven. When tempted to be strapped by guilt, we must look and the cross & need to say, “Get behind me, Satan.”

II. Who is the ANTICHRIST and is he alive today?

A. Many antichrists, but then there is THE Antichrist.

I John 2:18, “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.”

B. He has many TERMS that describe him.

1. Prince who shall come (Daniel 9:26)

2. Man of Lawlessness (2 Thessalonians 2:3)

3. The Little Horn (Daniel 8:9)

4. The Beast whose number is 666 (Revelation 13:8)

5. The Son of Perdition/Destruction (2 Thessalonians 2:2)

B. Quick answer: ruler of a revived Roman empire who will promise to protect Israel for seven years, but VIOLATES the treaty after 3.5 years.

C. He will demand to be WORSHIPPED and persecute Christians and JEWS

D. He will be possessed by SATAN himself.

E. He may or may not be ALIVE.

Application: Whether the Antichrist is alive today or not, it is obvious that we are getting closer to the End Times. Israel is in the land, Europe is united, the technology to purchase with a number — the stage is set. It may be years?

III. Why Are There So Many Bible TRANSLATIONS?

C.S. Lewis said, “The less the Bible is read, the more it is translated.”

A. All good translations are from the HEBREW and GREEK.

According to TheWeek.com, “Thesauruses exist mainly for English. Few other thesauruses are compiled for other languages. (Japanese is a notable exception.) Why is this?

The richness of the English vocabulary and the wealth of available synonyms means that English speakers can often draw shades of distinction unavailable to non-English speakers. Modern English has an unusually large number of synonyms or near-synonyms, mainly because of the influence of very different language groups: Germanic (Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse, the main basis of English), Romance languages (Latin, French), and Greek. There are many sets of triplet synonyms from Anglo-Saxon/Latin/Greek and also Anglo-Saxon/Norman French/Latin-Greek like cool-calm-collected and foretell-predict-prophesy. Peter Mark Roget's intent was to catalog words by meanings, but he ended up inventing a new form of reference book.”