Sin Separates us all from God

Isaiah 59:1-8 

1 Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened,
That it cannot save;
Nor His ear heavy,
That it cannot hear.

2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
And your sins have hidden His face from you,
So that He will not hear.

3 For your hands are defiled with blood,
And your fingers with iniquity;
Your lips have spoken lies,
Your tongue has muttered perversity.

4 No one calls for justice,
Nor does any plead for truth.
They trust in empty words and speak lies;
They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.

5 They hatch vipers' eggs and weave the spider's web;
He who eats of their eggs dies,
And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out.
6 Their webs will not become garments,
Nor will they cover themselves with their works;
Their works are works of iniquity,
And the act of violence is in their hands.

7 Their feet run to evil,
And they make haste to shed innocent blood;
Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
Wasting and destruction are in their paths.

8 The way of peace they have not known,
And there is no justice in their ways;
They have made themselves crooked paths;
Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.

Sin separates us all from God, because we have all sinned (Romans 3:23, 5:12).  Everyone.  We are not born good (as some erroneously would have us believe) and then lose our righteousness as we do sinful acts in our lives, but rather are stillborn in our inheritance of iniquity as a state of our dead hearts (Romans 5:8, Ephesians 2:5).  No amount of any acts of penance can rectify this condition; only the atonement of Christ to reconcile us has any effect on sin (Romans 5:15, 17, 18-19).  Even our prayers go unanswered in this fallen state of sin.  God’s hand alone is able to deliver us, which He did abundantly and irrevocably in Christ.  We all are as Israel with guilty hands of blood which handle sin daily and lips of lies and unclean words reflecting the sinful nature of our unregenerate hearts (Matthew 15:18-19).  This is seen in our societies because they are made up of the individuals, where justice is perverted and truth is changed to uncertainty, disregard, and denial.  This is ever more apparent in these latter days we live in here in the Western world today.  Sinful man only ever brings forth deadly immediate consequences like the poison of the viper’s egg and as useless for clothing us as a flimsy spiderweb.  The webs we weave cannot cover the works of a sinful heart motivated by selfish gain and in opposition to God’s word.  They only add to the violence and motivate men to race towards more evil works and more victims instead of keeping the two greatest commandments, to love God and our neighbors (Mark 12:30-31).  It is our hearts and minds which are born in this constant sinful direction.  Apart from being reunited with our Lord, we will not and cannot know peace with God nor exercise true justice or live in a straight path.  We need a Savior who alone can transform our hearts of stone to love His word and be able to follow the ways we were created to do as His image bearers.  We need regeneration, to be reborn as new creatures with new hearts and desires (Galatians 2:20, Ezekiel 36:26, John 3:3, 1 Peter 1:23).  This is the hope for all because we are separated from God and need to be reconciled in a way only God can work for us to give life to our dead hearts and a desire to stop winning when the sin nature is taken away.  Then we have true and lasting peace with God (Romans 5:1).  Amen.