Page 8 - Overcoming Addiction

Chapter 1 - Slaves to Sin

brother in Christ who attended a local Bible Study with me made the
Afollowing insightful remark. He said, “In order to get people saved today, you
first have to convince them that they need saving.” He went on to explain that he
had found that most men and women do not understand their sinful condition.
They had not come to a place of honesty where they would confess that they were
enslaved to desires and impulses that they could not control.
It is necessary in leading you to understand the enormity of what God has
done in sending His Son to earth to become the Savior of mankind, to clearly
present how desperate man’s condition is. You must come to agree with God’s
testimony concerning your condition. You must understand that you are a slave
to sin, and without the least hope of being able to break free of this captivity
through any human means. Willpower cannot break the bonds of sin. No amount
of instruction will set you free. Twelve step programs that proclaim a generic view
of God and a works based solution will not loose the bonds of sin. Only Christ can
set men free from the bonds of sin.
We must back up a step further, for, in order to understand the salvation
that God offers, you must agree with God that your addiction is sin. Many have
not admitted even this basic truth. Psychiatry and the medical profession today
most often classify addiction as a sickness, or a disease. Yet they cannot tell you
how a person contracts this disease, nor how it can be scientifically identified.
Neither can they prescribe a cure. They can only suggest a treatment, and this
treatment is not promised to cure anything. It must be continued all the days of
one’s life.
The reason that the medical profession lacks a clear diagnosis and remedy
for addiction, is that it is not actually a sickness at all. At least it is not a physical
sickness. Addiction is merely a symptom of man’s sinful condition. Addiction is
the fruit of our first ancestor’s transgression of the will of God while in the
Garden of Eden. In his letter to Rome, the apostle Paul share the following points
(Romans 5:12-19):

· through one man sin entered into the world, and death
through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned...
· by the transgression of the one the many died...
· the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in
condemnation...
· by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the
one...
· through one transgression there resulted condemnation to
all men...
· through the one man's disobedience the many were made
sinners...

Let us examine what is said here to be sure that it is understood thoroughly.
In the opening book of the Bible we read of God creating the first man and