Guilty or Not? 

In the spring of 1959 a United States Air Force Major entered a Texas
mental institution for the second time. Twice he had tried
to commit suicide' and he had been arrested for forgery and robbery. He
had been drinking heavily for years, and his marriage
was demolished. Fifteen years before he had been a model officer headed
for a promising career.
 Why?  He had flown in the Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on
Hiroshima
 People are constantly dealing with feelings of guilt. They are
reflected in such statements as "You ought to clean your
plate. Just think of all the children in the world that are going to bed
hungry tonight?  Anyone ever heard that? Anyone ever said
that?
 At this point you might be feeling a little uneasy. or might be
wondering what a subject like this had to with the Christian
life and the word of God.
I want to show over the next few talks that the type of psychological
guilt that we often let motivate us is not encouraged.
Christians are not commanded to live in fear of punishment, a sense of
worthlessness or a feeling of rejection.
 As a matter of fact, I believe in all of these cases the Bible
encourages just the opposite.  The word encourages us to
rejoice in our judgment (We'll talk about that more later) It teaches us
that we are infinitely valuable, that  we are accepted.
Unfortunately religion has tended to use the Devil's tool of
psychological guilt to bind people to certain beliefs and doctrines.
And I must confess that certain of those who hold our faith have used
the same techniques. And being human, we all will have a
tendency to use guilt manipulation to move others to follow our ideas,
approve of us, or otherwise modify their behavior.
The only problem with that is that it tends to backfire on the person
using those techniques.
Then there are those who cannot say no to any cause our of feelings of
psychological guilt.  And which of us husbands or wives
has not given the other a gift after being particularly hard to get
along with? And how many parents have given their children
money instead of the attention they really wanted. And how about
exchanging gifts. If anyone really wants to prove he's free
from psychological guilt, let him not give any gifts this Christmas to
those that he had always given gifts to.
We also have the constant critic. This dear soul is often trying to
cover his own guilt by loudly proclaiming the guild of anyone
else.
One area in our society that gets to all of us is in the area of money.
even among us too often the judge of a person is his
financial status The successful man has money. A husband feeling
financial pressure may feel guilt for being an inadequate
provider. When a wife asks for nicer things it is taken to mean, "You
are not a good provider."
  In almost every area of our life we confront the wreckage caused by
guilt. It binds us down, It pressures us, It robs us of
freedom and joy. And none of us is free of guilt's influence. Look
around. See the aggressive, driven businessman, the
insomniac, the obsessive straight A student, and the constantly
searching religious person, all partially motivated by hidden guilt.
Each of these is trying somehow to develop a sense of self acceptance.
If you were to ask several hundred people how they reacted to feelings
of guilt you would find 3 predominant reactions: a fear
of punishment, feelings of depression and worthlessness and lowered self
esteem, and a feeling of isolation and rejection.
What brings these feelings about? What influences shape our emotional
lives.
To state it briefly, we get feelings of guilt when our thoughts or
behavior falls short of our ideal situation. From birth we
develop goals, behaviors, ideals, and hopes. We learn the desired
behavior from our parents and society. These are generally
good directions but they may not be.
One other force shapes us and it is inescapable. The Bible indicates
that there is some kind of universal awareness of basic moral
standards. Paul talks about this in Rom 2:14  "for when Gentiles, who do
not have the law, by nature do the things in the law,
these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves,"
Rom 2:15  "who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their
conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves
their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)"
 We have guilt feelings when we work against this innate revelation of
the will of God in us. So we learn from our parents, our
culture, and our inborn knowledge, a knowledge of what we feel that we
should be, at our optimum performance. When we do
not live up the these things we experience guilt.
We learn from these three factors also to expect punishment for wrong
doing. Our parents usually reinforce this in us,  when we
look at the story of the fall of Adam and Eve, I'm sure that part of the
reason that they hid themselves was that God had
promised them that if they partook of the tree of knowledge of good and
evil that they would surely die. They had fallen short of
the standard that they had been taught and they expected some kind of
dire results. We are no different than our first parents,
because each time that we fall short of one of the  standards that we
have grown to perceive as normal or right, we learn to
expect punishment.
We say to ourselves, "When I do wrong, I'll be punished. This makes me
anxious and upset. Once my punishment is over, I'm
again at ease. I've paid my debt and can operate without fear."
To speed the process of finding self-acceptance, we find many ways to
punish ourselves.  This can be an emotional process, or a
physical one.
Let me cite two examples of what I am talking about. You have all heard
of the great reformer, Martin Luther. When fairly
young he became convinced that he was evil and was going to burn in the
fires of hell. This was the sort of belief that the church
did nothing to discourage, for fear of punishment by an avenging God was
one of the best sources of income. In his quest to find
peace in his soul, he studied, fasted, beat himself until he fainted,
and in short nearly killed himself. He reports on his feelings of
hopelessness and worthlessness. In studying the theology of Luther it is
extremely important to remember this point.
 While the first reaction to the guilt emotion is expectation, there are
two others.
 One of these is loss of self esteem, the other is a fear of reject and
isolation. One of the surest ways of getting a
required behavior from any one that you love or that loves you is to use
the withdrawal of love to enforce the desired behavior.
Unfortunately for true love, we all have probably practiced this at
times. And unfortunately, too often we see God as loving us
in the same way. Is it any wonder that there are so many with an
unhealthy images of God.
 But this is not the God that my Bible describes. My Bible tells of a
God who loved and loved and loved, even to the
point of loving those who were killing him. And while my God allows
things to happen that are the direct result of our sinning, I
believe that he sorrows over the suffering we have because of our own
actions. Even when he must step in and finally stop the
sin and destruction in this world, he does so in sorrow, but he knows
that the actions that he is taking are the only ones that can
cause the removal of sin for eternal
Guilt being a way of life, as it is with all of us to some extent, we
try to make the most of it. Have any of you ever used a guilt
trip to get something from someone else? You know, we have guilt games
that we play. and if we study these we find that they
fall into four basic categories, or games.
 First is "I'll just give up."  When this happens, you will become
depressed.
Second is  "I'll show you."  This one is played in different ways. One
may be to say yes, and then do nothing. If you recall the
parable that Jesus told about the two sons that were asked to working
the vineyard, you remember that one of the sons agreed
to go and work. But he didn't do it.
Another way that someone may "show them" particularly in the field of
religion, is to become the super Christian. They follow
the standards to the dotting of an i or the crossing of a t. But as they
push on, on their own, they see that they cannot measure
up, and their guilt becomes greater, so they become agnostic, or
atheists and live it up. "If you can't beat it join it, right?"
Others rebel by giving verbal assent to the Christian faith but fail to
get really involved with it. Paul talks about rebellion against
the law with those strange texts in Romans 5:20 and 7:7,12 that tell us
that the law came that transgression might increase. Lets
turn to those texts and read them.
You might compare the law to a "WET PAINT DO NOT TOUCH sign. The
immediate response is to make us want to touch
the forbidden spot. God knows that we are inwardly rebellious even when
we don't recognize it, and the law exposes our
rebellion in outward sins. That doesn't mean the law creates something,
but rather that it drags our rebellion out into the open so
that we can realize it's presence. Paul explains how threats of the law
and guilty feelings often bring about increased rebellion.
 The third basic reaction to guilt feelings is to deny them.
In this routine begin to rationalize away our faults. I couldn't help
that. I just can't quit that. I've tried and its too hard. You
know how it is. I did the best I could. Well, I did a lot better than so
and so did.
Our grandfather Adam was a good example of this. Saul, when he preserved
the lives of the Amalakite king and the flocks
blamed it on the people, and besides he was doing it for the Lord.
The fourth guilt game is begging forgiveness, and trying to avoid
punishment.
Are we trying to avoid punishment, or are we really sorry? Isn't much of
our confession done to relieve our sense of guilt rather
than to alter our behavior for the good of others?
All of this brings us to the conclusion that guilt does not work. Let's
look at a little chart that may help us see this.
 

But there are some who will say, "The Bible promotes guilt." They will
go on to point out the many things that have happened
in their lives that will support that conclusion. But why would a God of
love want us to live in that kind of an emotional state,
when it is counterproductive and sick?
We need to understand the types of guilt.  There is a civil guilt or
legal guilt that is the violation of human law. When we rob a
bank we are guilty of breaking the law, whether we feel guilty or not.
The robbery is a fact, it is not a feeling.
The same applies when we discuss God's law. When we break God's law that
action is a historical fact of which we are guilty,
regardless of the way we see it. Of course we know that the Bible
teaches that each of us sins and falls short of the divine will.
Isaiah puts it so accurately when he says, stall we like sheep have gone
astray, every one to his own way. We may not feel this
condition consciously, but the Bible teaches us that  is our nature. So
we are legally guilty before God.
 The guilt which we have discussed so far today is psychological guilt.
As we all know, it is a feeling, it is the realization
that we have fallen short in some area. However it is possible to be
legally free of guilt and go around as if we are guilty and
punish ourselves with all sorts of semi-destructive acts. Or we may be
guilty theologically and legally and run around feeling no
psychological guilt.
 There is an option to the psychological guilt. If there were not we
would all be doomed. That is what one man has
termed constructive sorrow. There are two good examples of this in
scripture. The first is in the 51st Psalm The other in 2
Corinthians 7:9-10. These are the only kinds of a reaction to
wrong-doing that produce lasting change for the right reasons. No
games are played.
And it is very interesting, that as we go through the word of God we
find discussion of legal guilt. We find discussion of
theological guilt, but nowhere does the word encourage the follower of
Christ to feel psychological guilt.
True we have texts like James 2:10 That tells us anyone who keeps the
whole law but is guilty in one point is guilty of all, but
that is a theological fact of guilt. Jesus said in the sermon on the
mount that whoever said to his brother you fool, would be
guilty enough to burn at the end of time. These and many other passages
show an accountability for the violation of divine law.
We are all theologically guilty.
But not once does the Bible encourage believers in Jesus Christ to
accept a psychological guilt trip. Never once are we
commanded to have a fear of punishment, a sense of worthlessness, or a
feeling of rejection. This is Good News which we will
look at closer later. In fact as we study, I think that we will discover
that the Christian is told to take just the opposite tack when
he is looking at himself. For the Lord takes away our fear of
punishment. Our sense of worthlessness, and our feelings of
rejection. If you want to know how, tune in next week.
In summary, the Christians feelings of psychological guilt are always
destructive. This guilt is one of the major causes of
spiritual deadness and defeat. Often in our desire to help people break
away from their problems, we unknowingly heap guilt
upon them, leading them to deeper wrong or more self-deception.
 At first this may seem real far out. Most of us have been brought up on
a steady diet of guilt.
 If we haven't been told that God makes us feel guilty, we have assumed
that he did. and I suppose that suggest that this
guilt does not come from God might cause some of us to lift our
eyebrows. But I believe that as we study further in to the plan
of salvation more carefully, that we will find that psychological guilt
has been masquerading among Christians for centuries as a
wolf in sheep's clothing, and we need to be freed.
I believe that instead of creating psychological guilt, the Bible offers
the resolution of the human guilt dilemma in the life death,
and resurrection of Jesus, Christ. Not only that, as we understand
better the processes that are going on as we near the end of
time, we will discover that God is indeed creating a way so that his
people can live victorious lives as they are freed from the
bondage of guilt. and I say, that's beautiful, don't you.
Isa 6:5  "So I said: "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of
unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of
unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts.""
Isa 6:6  "Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live
coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar."
Isa 6:7  "And he touched my mouth with it, and said: "Behold, this has
touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your
sin purged.""
Isa 6:8  "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: "Whom shall I
send, And who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I!
Send me.""
Isa 6:9  "And He said, "Go, and tell this people: 'Keep on hearing, but
do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.'"
Isa 6:10  ""Make the heart of this people dull, And their ears heavy,
And shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear
with their ears, And understand with their heart, And return and be
healed.""

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