Here is what I believe the Bible teaches.
1. We are all sinners--some of us are saved (saved by grace), and some are unsaved--but all are sinners.
2. According to 1John 1:10 the one that denies that he is a sinner or doesn't sin is calling Christ a liar, and God's Word is not in that person.
3. Titus 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;
--God cannot lie; but man does, and no doubt he does every day, whether he realizes it or not. For the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it (Jer.17:9).
4. Does God allow one to continue in evil. He may. He allowed Lot to continue in all sorts of evil, and yet Lot was a just man. Many of the Corinthians continued in evil, but eventually paid for it with their lives. (1Cor.11:30), but that doesn't' happen all the time. A true child of God will face the chastening hand of God. But another man (like yourself) cannot condemn or know what that chastening will be, for you sit not in the place of God. God has his own purposes in what he allows and what he doesn't. That is up to him.
5. 1John 1:9 teaches that all believers should confess each and every sin they have every day. It is this daily confession that keeps us close to God. The closer the walk that one has with God, the more he realizes that he is a sinner saved by grace.
6. By way of illustration, John Newton saw the enormity of his sin as a slave-trader. It was horrible--human trafficking at its worst. He had committed some of the most heinous crimes and he knew it. When confronted with the Gospel, and convicted of his sin he found Christ. He was the one who wrote Amazing Grace.
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me....
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.[/FONT]
Newton knew that even though he was saved, he was still "a wretch."
Oh, that man would see his sinfulness before a holy God!
2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
It is a sad day in our nation when God's people won't be humble enough to admit that they even have wicked ways to confess.
