Bad To The Bone

Evening Service for 10/17/2010

Proverbs 6:16-19

HoHum:

A. Are people good or evil? 83% in a study said that people are basically good.

B. If we leave a child to himself, what will happen? Will he become good or bad?

C. I think that there are good elements in everyone because we all created in the image of God. However, overall people do not seek out good.

D. On recent billboards- "You can be good without God." Is that true?

E. One Christian responded by another slogan, "You can be good without God but you cannot be saved without Jesus." Better but is that true?

F. Mark 10:18 "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone.

WBTU:

A. It says here that God hates. I thought that God was a loving God. He is but he cannot tolerate sin. Psalm 5:4-5You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong.

B. Are we inclined to good or to evil?

Thesis: Let's look at these 7 and see if we inclined to any of these.

1. A Proud Look

A. Ronald Regan, recalling an occasion when he was Governor of California and made a speech in Mexico City: “After I had finished speaking, I sat down to rather unenthusiastic applause, and I was a little embarrassed. The speaker who followed me spoke in Spanish – which I don’t understand – and he was being applauded almost every paragraph. To hide my embarrassment, I started clapping before everyone else and longer than anyone else until our ambassador leaned over and said, ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you, he’s interpreting your speech.’”Although this was quite an innocent mistake, pride is one of the deadliest sins.

B. “Pride is the only disease that makes everyone sick but the one who has it.”

C. Pride was the first sin in heaven.

D. C.S. Lewis says that pride is mankind's greatest sin. thought too highly of ourselves?

E. Romans 12:6- Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

2. Lying Tongue

-A national survey by Rutgers’ Management Education Center of 4,500 high school students found that 75% of them engage in serious cheating.

-Perhaps most disturbing, many of them don’t see anything wrong with cheating. Some 50% of those responding to the survey said they don’t think copying questions and answers from a test is even cheating.

- Have we every lied?

John 8:44- You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

3. Hands that shed innocent blood

A noted hand analyst from New York asserts that the secrets of our personality are revealed by our fingernails. The size and shape of each fingernail reveals something about the personality of a person. I am not sure about that. However, this much is certain. We reveal our personality by what we do with our hands.

Not that we committed murder but have we ever done things with our hands that we shouldn’t

Mark 9:43- If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.

4. Heart that devises wicked plans (imaginations)

In biblical anatomy, the heart was the center of emotions. It was the emoting, thinking, deliberating center of the personality. It held the place in biblical anatomy that the mind holds in our understanding today. The most neglected part of the body today is the brain, the mental center of our being. Experts suggest that most people in their lifetime use only about 10 to 20 percent of their brain power. Neglect of our brain power is not nearly as tragic as directing our mental powers to perpetrate evil rather than good.

Matthew 15:19- Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

Before the flood- Genesis 6:5- The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

Mankind can get quite creative. Children and teenagers.

5. Feet that are swift in running to evil

The average person takes 18,000 steps a day and walks about 65,000 miles during a lifetime. More important than how far we travel is where we travel. Have we used our feet for good or for evil? Like people on playground going to a fight.