Obtaining Victory Over Sin - NetBibleStudy.com

Victory Over Sin 14One needs to be extremely sensitive when thinking along these lines. There arethose who have suffered physical and emotional abuse and feel justified with theirfeelings, actions and lifestyle as a result of being abused. Others have simply followed alife of sin due to the warped values of their parents. To some extent, we are all productsof our heredity and environment. But even allowing for these facts – we know thatcivilized society cannot long exist unless there is an assumption of individualresponsibility for one‘s actions.Romans 14:12, “So then every one of usshall give account of himself to God.”We are all accountable to family, employer, society, church, and ultimately toGod. Every mature person needs to stop blaming and begin taking full responsibilityfor what he is – past, present, and future!A prominent American said of the one who assassinated Robert Kennedy, “Weshould not blame him, it was society that produced him.”I cannot over exaggerate the harm that has resulted from the teaching ofSigmund Freud – the teaching that those who behave badly are not responsible, becausethey are sick. Freud taught, “We would not hold people responsible for catching the flu,measles, or having cancer, therefore we should not hold those who misbehave responsible. Wehave hospitals, not prisons, for the physically sick, simply because they bear no moral blame fortheir illness.” The reprehensible Freudian implication is clear – if we are not responsiblefor physical illness, why should we be blamed for crimes that are only a symptom ofmental illness?To say that a rapist, murderer, or thief is sick -- is to conclude that he should notbe subject to punishment. After all, he simply caught a strange disease –- he is thevictim of forces beyond his control.One television interview with a doctor, argued that the peculiarities of ourbehavior stem from our birth experience. If a baby is born in a noisy, bright, andseemingly unfriendly delivery room, he will develop hostility in his adult life. It followsthat no one should be blamed for hostility.If a teenager is in trouble, it’s the parents’ fault – they were too strict or toolenient. Or perhaps it was his environment – he was brought up in a wealthy home.After all, everyone knows that wealth spawns boredom and boredom breeds crime. Orthe teenager’s problem stems from the fact that he came from a poor home and is notresponsible because of poverty. After all doesn’t poverty drive a person to drugs, sex,and crime? Even in a prison, it is hard to find a person who considers himself guilty.The schools of modern psychiatry based on this unbiblical principle have faredpoorly in helping with emotional problems. Such psychiatrists have become