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The Deceitfulness of Sin

Allan W. Lambert H.D
(26/1/2003)

I am Irish.I came from an Irish showbusiness background of a wellknown travelling drama and variety show,constantly playing from town to town and village to village around Ireland some 50 plus years ago.

My family were strict diehard Roman Catholics and loved God sincerely even though like many had moments of "lapses" through some members going on the drink every now and then and then keeping the pledge.Mass was the centre of my Mothers life especially (when possible) daily communion. I loved the smell of incense and the reverence and the Latin and the whole atmosphere of going into"the house of God".

When not at school I loved running across the green fields of Ireland and climbing the hills and even mountains and exploring the bogs and rivers and lakes and beachs and with my little glass jamjar praying to God that He would let me catch the 'pinkiens" that swam in the weirs and cool streams of our then unpolluted rivers of my homeland.I constantly fell into muddy and wet situations and consequently suffered many a stinging bottom from mother for missing dinner.BUT To me it was paradise,even in winter when we went to school with wind chaffed legs and breadpoltice covered boils on the back of our knees and chilblained toes from shoes or hobnailed boots that felt like a divers boot to walk in let alone to run in,but nevertheless I never doubted for one minute that God was not watching and that God always was listening to every word and every thought that I carried in my head.

Unlike many testomonies you may hear I was not a big sinner and neither was I forgetfull of God and His goodness.He was constantly with me everywhere I went and I spoke to Him as a son would adress his Father in those days of fear and respect. I never doubted either God's real existance or His love but I also was aware of His anger against wrongdoing. My conscience also bore wittness to how I lived.

My parents always believed I would become a priest. I was born in a caravan,breech and covered in a "cawl". When ever we revisited the town I was born in everone referred to me as " Doctor O's miracle baby ". My mother had origionally been told she could never have children due to a previous car accident where a gearstick had wrecked her womb. My brother had been a still birth and my sister only lived a few days,so I was "special" and the "cawl" was thought of as a sign of God's special calling to seperate me unto His work.

My family always accepted both the good and the bad as being from God. It was like Islam we were fatalists and a very superstitous people.My mother used to heal warts by waving her wedding ring over the wart while repeating the Names of the Trinity and many other beliefs she had which "worked".None of this type of magic was regarded as sin and even today many Catholic people practice such black arts not realising it to be part of what Christ died to save us from. So with this background of faith in God, deep religiousness, superstition and ( unknown to me )occult practices and constant travelling and making new friends and different schools I had regarded myself as a "very special person". As you can imagine I was "humble and proud of it" A contradiction no doubt. So my sins were not of the criminal kind but of pride and class,both intellectually and religiously so much so that in order to increase my mothers future hope of priesthood and not have me end up in a business which was dying out through filmshows and amature drama "locals".

I was sent to Blackrock College Dublin. There I learned many things,very good things and made many friends but also enemies,especially of class and pride and it was there I discovered that I was not so special after all and soon became lost in a sea of instutionalisation and only one of a number and a "pecking order of social structure. Four years on my Father had a serious stroke and my days at Blackrock were over. I never even got to say "by" to my friends.I was pulled out so quick before anyone could "tutt tutt " are our financial problem of nolonger being able to afford the fees . In all this I somehow "lost God" even though religion was a daily part of College life and we were exposed to rubbing shoulders with priests and bishops and services and various rituals constantly.

My mother realised it was not good for me to see my Father slowly die being paralised in speech and movement and the cost of College was now diverted to having a German Doctor flown in to Ireland who tried out a new drug to possibly help restore some kind of life to my Father who was now imprisoned in his own body.What a fate for such an intellegent and artistic man.God seemed very distant to me then and after another 12 months of witnessing this lingering death and wondering why God had allowed this I was sent away from Ireland to one of my mother's sisters in London.

So in a sense back in my College days when afer evening meals I used to look out from the College wall overlooking Dublin Bay and wonder what lay beyond the horizon of Howth Head I now would get to realise this question mark....In London I quickly settled into a large Irish Parish that had no altar boys and a very kind elderly lady taught me how to serve mass and also High mass,which although being in Blackrock I had only been a number and no oppertunity had presented itself for me to do such. As time went on I served Cardinals and Arch bishops in this Parish in London and became a Deacon in the Order of St. Stephen,but at the same time I was growing up and was corrupted by the Media news and its pictures and stories which thought nothing of nudity/smutt/lies/slander or the effects it has on young Irish men who had never been exposed to such in our Land.

" My God My God where are you " ?? God was far from me then and I thought even with all the wonderfull ability I had in serving Him ( as I thought)my life was unfullfilled and empty. .........Time marched on and my restlessness eventually continued into the Merchant Navy and eventually into marriage and children and settlement in Australia where after many a year in as I now call " the Roman's Chapter 7 man experience" God found me and had mercy on me and reaveled Himself to me.

How was this ? I was at this time of my life a maintenance Electrician in a large teaching Hospital in Sydney Australia and had already bought a Bible simply to refute my brother in law's beliefs and slanders against the Catholic Faith. He denied the fact that Jesus Christ was actually God Almighty become man and other things and although I had long ceased to believe that God could ever use me in any capacity for His work seeing as I was incapable of giving up sin and being " perfect". I even bought Thomas Akempists book " Imitation of Christ " which I studied thoroughly yet even after going weeks "without sinning" I slipped and everyone around me got blamed. The more I fought it the more I drowned just as some one in quicksand seals his fate by trying to save himself.All this hurt me deeply that I was not worthy to defend Christ Jesus who I knew as God.

One day in work another tradesman threw a new testament Gideons Bible on my bench which he had fished out of a rubbish bin which some graduating nurse had thrown away. It was a King James Bible . I being Irish was confronted with this "English Version" and knew it was a "Protestant Bible" and all the background of my life opened up in my mind ,not realising that satan is a real person and will do literally anything to hinder the working of God's Spirit upon a person.

Being descended from Feinians and Catholics and thinking thinking about all that Cromwell had done to my people and he was a supposed "Christian " of the Protestant faith I was on the brink of a cliff,satan threw all this at my mind to cause me to resist reading or even opening this Bible .It was as if a force was preventing me from touching it and I had bad "feelings" but "something" drew me to the back page which said these words " If YOU Confess with your mouth that Jesus IS LORD and believe WITH ALL YOUR HEART that God raised Him from the dead YOU will be saved".......

Now the words were King James but this is HOW they came across to me,NOT King James at all!!!!!!!!......I knew Jesus was Lord and I knew He died and rose again BUT HE WAS NOT MY LORD. I was challenged that He was not MY LORD. How could I miss something so simple as this ? All those years and rituals and confessions and prayers and fastings etc.I had lost that simple trust I once had as a child through ? Sin? No! Even as a child I had not thought of Jesus as being MY LORD only as THE LORD. The "distance " between us was my fault not His . I had never submitted to Him PERSONALLY and FINALLY. It was all MY EFFORT and MY CHOICE.I cannot CHOOSE HIM. I could SURRENDER TO HIM But HE COOSES US!!!!!!! and WE RESPOND. We are to OBEY the Gospel call.... How then could He be my Saviour IF He was not my LORD ???????........

The rest is now history. It took two weeks for the Holy Spirit to give me the boldness to actually SIGN my name to the request at the bottom of that back page. In other words to SURRENDER MY WILL WITHOUT HAVING TO "DO" SOMETHING FIRST. We think we need to "clean our act up first" but this denies that He is the One to do the cleaning up!!!!!!. So WHEN I CEASED to WRIGGLE and let God save me HE DID!!!! and WHEN that happened my eyes were really opened to His Scriptures....From that time on many shackles have fallen off me and even shackles I was not aware of are now gone.

I later realised that Romans Chapter 7 is where I was at and could never pass to Romans Chapter 8 where all Christians must come to for we are not to ask any more " WHO shall save me from THIS BODY DOOMED TO DEATH " but now we are to say " for the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus HAS SET ME FREE FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH ". For ONLY IN HIM IS LIFE and WITHOUT HIM WE CAN DO NOTHING !!!!

So dear reader if you yet do not know WHO can save you then the answer is there for you......If YOU Confess Jesus IS your Lord. >>YOUR LORD<< and that NOW IN HEAVEN THERE IS JESUS BODILY PRESENT ALIVE FOR YOU AS YOUR SUBSTITUTE then you can rest assured He WILL SAVE YOU from ALL that No Religion nor person nor ritual can save you from ending up in eternal fire. God WANTS YOU TO GAIN HEAVEN and avoid hell. Thats How MUCH HE LOVES His CREATION and YOU IN PARTICULAR. The WORST SIN IS PRIDE and that is Why I said at the beginning I was not a big sinner BUT in fact I WAS A HUGE SINNER. Religious Pride is the ULTIMATE BARRIER TO COMING TO GOD. For as scripture says " GOD RESISTS THE PROUD BUT GIVES GRACE UNTO THE HUMBLE "

Like many religions and righteous people I was " humble and Proud of it "..This is satan's sin. he is the Father of Pride.... Thank God for His Mercy........Allan Lambert May God richly Bless you as you seek Him with all your heart