1646 London Baptist Confession - Article 31 Battle with Sin and Suffering

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Well, if you have your confession, we're going to be looking at Article 31.

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But before we read, I want to introduce you to two terms, and you may have used or heard these terms before, you may or may not have.

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I know that they are not common, at least have not been common here.

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I have not used them very often, but perhaps you've heard them elsewhere.

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When we talk about the church, we often discuss the church in two categories.

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We talk about the church militant and the church triumphant.

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The church militant is described as, obviously when we hear the word militant, we think of the word military, we think of battle, we think of people in soldier uniforms and guns.

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When you think military, that's what you think of.

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Well, in this sense, the idea of the church militant is the church that is still in the world.

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The church that is still in the world.

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Okay? So we would say the militant church is the church that is still in the world, and the church triumphant are those who have moved from this life into the next life, and they are with the Lord, awaiting the great day where their bodies will be resurrected and they will be in the new heaven and the new earth.

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But in a sense, they are experiencing a sense of triumph because they're no longer in this world fighting the battles of this world.

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So in the simplest of terms, I'm simply going to say in heaven, if that makes sense.

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The triumphant church is the church that is in heaven.

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Here's the thing.

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Everybody that is in heaven who is a believer is still a part of the church.

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In one sense, they're the body of Christ.

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They're the bride of Christ.

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Stephen, the first church martyr, went from being part of the church militant, he died by stoning, and he became part of the church triumphant, and remember what he saw, is he saw Jesus standing to receive him.

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The Bible says Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father.

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But when Stephen saw him, he was standing to receive him.

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I think about that when I think right now in Afghanistan, there are many brothers and sisters in Christ who will, in the next coming days and weeks, suffer for their faith in a way that they have not because of all of the things that we know that have happened.

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They will go from being the church militant to the church triumphant.

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Praise God that they do have a hope, that their hope is not founded in politics or presidents or even militaries, but that their hope is in Jesus Christ.

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So we certainly want to pray for them in the midst of this.

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The Roman Catholics have a third category.

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This is really not to do with the lesson, I just thought it was interesting, thought you might want to know.

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The Roman Catholics, Brother Andy might know this, having grown up in the Catholic Church, is what they call the church penitent.

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The church penitent are those in purgatory.

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Because they would say they're not triumphant yet, but they're not militant because they're not here battling with the flesh, but they're suffering for their sins.

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You know, you understand the doctrine of purgatory is that they have to go and continue to suffer for their sins.

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Well, we would say that's a big no-no.

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We do not believe in a third category.

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You are either in Christ here or you're in Christ there, but there is no place where you get to become Christ and suffer for your own sins.

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See, that's the problem with purgatory, is that you become the sufferer for your own sins.

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Christ suffered and died for all of our sins, not part of them.

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So the idea of the church penitent, I would say, is a false and unbiblical Catholic teaching.

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But the interesting thing is the term militant, as we mentioned, references what we think of military, and it reminds us that we are at war.

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And I want to ask, and I know at least one of you, I know Miss Anne and I have talked about this before, and you've mentioned this in lessons, so Miss Anne will know if nobody else has.

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What are the three enemies of the soul? The world, the flesh, and the devil.

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Many of you probably already knew that, but I just remember us talking about that one time, right? It's the world, the flesh, and the devil.

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But I like to reorder that just for the sake of, for the lesson tonight.

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I say the three enemies, I always begin with the flesh, and then the world, and then the devil.

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And the reason why I order it in this particular way is because I don't believe that it's three enemies, in a sense, if you remember the old karate movies where Bruce Lee or one of those guys would come out and they'd have three different guys come from, and he was able to whip this one and whip that one, because he had three different enemies coming from three sides.

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The way that I understand it a little differently, you think of yourself, and this is you, that's you, and you live in a body of flesh, which is influenced by the world, which is influenced by the devil.

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So it's not as if there are three different enemies coming at you from three different directions, it's three enemies that sort of compound.

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The first enemy is the flesh, that enemy is influenced by the world, and that enemy, of course, is influenced by the devil.

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So that's why I like to put it in that particular order.

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And having said all that, now I want us to read the Confession with sort of that in mind, because when it says human afflictions, that is the subject of this article, but it's not just afflictions, it's afflictions brought about by sin.

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You'll notice, they make the point, the reason why we suffer is because we live in a world that is broken, a world of sin.

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So let's read it having thought about those things.

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All believers in the time of this life, notice that, in the world, and I point that out, all believers in the time of this life are in a continual warfare and combat against sin, self, the world, and the devil.

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It's kind of interesting that they designate sin and then self as two things.

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We're going to talk about why I think that is in a moment.

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Again, I don't have these guys' phone numbers, so I can't call them and ask them, so I have to, you know, sometimes you have to kind of use a little sanctified imagination.

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But they do make a distinction between sin, self, which I think, again, is dealing with flesh, world, and the devil, and are liable to all manner of afflictions, tribulations, and persecutions, being predestined and appointed thereunto.

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That's comforting.

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That's what it says, isn't it? We are predestined thereunto, and whatsoever the saints possess or enjoy of God spiritually is by faith, and outward and temporal things are lawfully enjoyed by a civil right by them who have no faith.

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That last sentence kept me up for a while.

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I really had to think about what they mean.

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In fact, I'm so glad they actually cite Deuteronomy 2, because it helped me understand what they were saying.

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But let me outline the confession, and we'll deal with that part last, since it is the last part.

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So the way that I see this portion of the confession is I see it, one, is the believer's battle with sin.

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So we'll call that, one, the battle with sin, and two is the battle with suffering, and then three is the believer's blessings versus the unbeliever's blessings.

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That's where I get this.

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So we'll just say blessings for the believer and for the unbeliever.

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So let's look at number one, the believer's battle with sin.

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It says all believers in this time are in a continual warfare and combat against sin, self, the world, and the devil.

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Let me ask the question, is that true? Is it a continual battle? Yep.

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Some people believe that once you are saved that the battle is over and you receive a new sanctification whereby you no longer sin.

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In fact, there is a belief, you might not know this, but it actually comes out of the Methodist tradition in what is called the second blessing.

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The second blessing is a special form of sanctification which allows you to live without any sin.

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If such a blessing exists, I have yet to experience it, and I don't know anybody who has.

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This says that we believe that all believers in this time of this life are in a warfare and a combat against sin, and I noted this.

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I put in my notes, I said sin in two ways.

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We have the sin that we deal with in ourselves and then in others, and let me ask you this, what bothers you more, your sin or other people's sin? Don't you be a bunch of pious gasbags, you be honest.

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Mostly other people's sins, right? Because you justify yourself, right? I know why I did what I did, but I don't know why he did what he did.

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I can't imagine somebody acting like him, but I know why I do what I do, right? So we tend to justify ourselves, and we tend to vilify others.

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But we live in a world of sin, and therefore it's our sin and their sin, and we have to deal with that, and some people, as I said earlier, believe that as a Christian we no longer sin, and then there are some people who believe that as a Christian our sin no longer matters, meaning that we just live any way we choose, and that way can be as debauch or as sinful as we want, and we've seen that, right? The people who mock Romans 6 and literally go out and sin so that grace will abound, and I know a guy who said that very thing.

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I've told this story before, so I'll make it short, but there was a guy who was a roommate of my friend from high school.

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When they went to college, he was a roommate, and he watched TBN on television all the time, but then he would make calls onto these chat lines and meet girls that would sleep with him, and he would leave to go sleep with these girls who were promiscuous, and he would say on his way out, I'm going to sin so that grace can abound.

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That was his literal words.

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My friend, call me.

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Can you believe he would say this? I'm like, no, I'd move.

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He might get struck down beside him.

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He's playing with fire.

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So we have two extremes, right? And like Brother Andy says, a lot of times you've got to watch out for the ditches.

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The ditches on either side, right? The ditch of somebody saying you will not sin as a Christian, and then the ditch of saying that your sin doesn't matter, right? Paul gives us a different picture of that.

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Paul tells us that as believers, we will fight a battle with sin, and the battle really is between the spirit and the flesh.

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I mean, didn't Jesus even say to his disciples, the flesh profits nothing? And what did he say? The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, and there is a passage in the book of Romans which is highly debated, and I know this is one that Brother Mike holds a very strong position on, Romans chapter 7, where Paul talks about his battle with the flesh.

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Brother Mike and I have had conversations on this many times, and he holds a more dogmatic position than I do.

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I know he believes that this is Paul speaking in the historic present, meaning he's talking about his time as a Pharisee, where he would have seen himself as being good, but not being able to do the good that he wanted to do.

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And I understand that position.

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I still am of an unsure position, and when I'm unsure, I tell you I'm unsure.

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I don't know exactly what Paul is referring to in Romans 7, but you'll notice the confession does point to that passage.

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It points to that in regard to the battle with the flesh, so the men who wrote the confession did take the position that Paul's writing from the position of a believer.

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But here's the passage that I would look at if I were going to say, let's just not argue about Paul's position in Romans 7, because there are good men on both sides, and again, I don't know if you remember Brother Richard, he used to be one of our elders here.

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He took that same position, and I remember us having many conversations about it.

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So I know there are good, godly men on both sides.

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But if you'll...

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What's that? Oh, okay.

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I'm sorry.

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I thought you said something.

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But in Galatians chapter 5, Paul makes a very similar argument, and in that case he is talking about believers.

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So if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Galatians 5, and this would just maybe can clear up if we want to know at least Paul's position on the battle between the flesh and the spirit.

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Let me see here.

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I'm sorry.

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I went to 2 Corinthians.

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Excuse me.

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See, that's what you get for using a digital Bible.

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Sorry.

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Verse 16, Galatians 5, 16, he says, but I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

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Notice there, he makes a distinction between the spirit and the flesh.

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But then in verse 17, he says, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

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So right there, Paul is making for the believer.

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He's saying there are things you want to do and your flesh doesn't want to do them.

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There are things that you want to pursue in Christ's name, and your flesh will make you lazy and dumb and, I'm trying to be nice, your flesh is bad news in that sense.

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It causes many bad things.

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And that is not to, we shouldn't be as the dualists who say all matter is good and all spirit is bad.

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No, that's not the point.

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The thing is the flesh is influenced by our relationship to Adam.

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We still carry the sin in the flesh that we have to deal with.

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And that is not to say that our flesh is completely corrupted, because we know one day the flesh will be renewed.

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Christ will renew it, right? But while it's corrupted, we still have to deal with this battle.

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So how do we deal with the battle according, again, looking to the confession.

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It says we're in constant combat and warfare against sin, self, the world, and the devil.

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What passage do they cite? They cite Ephesians 6.

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Why do they cite Ephesians 6? The armor of God, right? If we're in a battle, we've got to have some tools.

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And so they cite Ephesians 6.10, which is the armor of God, and you might not know it from memory, but the armor of God, it's sort of easy to remember if you remember what each one of them does.

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The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the shoes that are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, the shield of the faith, and the sword of the spirit, right? These are the armor of God, and each one of them analogizes or becomes something that we need as believers.

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We need righteousness to protect our heart, right? We need truth to hold everything together, right? We need a shield, which is our faith.

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We need a sword, the only offensive weapon, and that is the word of God, the helmet of salvation.

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How do we deal with the doubt of the devil that he puts in our mind is with the reminder that Christ has saved us and that salvation which is on our mind, and wherever we go, our feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

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So each one of those, I don't have time to go through them all tonight, but each one of those has an analogy to how we fight the battle, because what does Paul say in Ephesians? We fight not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the spiritual forces.

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This is the battle, and this is the warfare.

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This is how it's fought.

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And so we first battle with sin in ourself, and then we battle with sin in others, and that is the confession's reminder that if anyone were to say we have no sin, he is a what? He is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

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I've been reading 1 John every day.

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That's my reading this month.

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I just remember that when that passage comes up, any man who says he has no sin is a liar, the truth is not in him.

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No one can say he is without sin.

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In fact, we remember the story of Jesus had the woman thrown at his feet.

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What did he say to the people surrounding her? Those of you who are without sin, cast the first stone.

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You know what he was doing when he said that, right? He was writing on the ground with his finger.

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It doesn't tell us what he wrote.

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I always like to kind of imagine maybe he was writing the names of their girlfriends.

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Come on, that's a good joke.

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You don't know what he wrote.

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Some people think he wrote the Ten Commandments, because that would be a reminder, let he who is without sin.

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Here's Deuteronomy, where the men are stoned too.

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That's right.

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Yeah, maybe he wrote, where's the guy? We don't know what he wrote with his finger, but whatever it was, it says one by one.

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They dropped their stones and went away.

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So all believers in this time are in a continual warfare and combat against sin, self, the world, and the devil, and are liable to, and this is the second part of my outline, the battle we have with suffering.

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Because we had the battle with sin, world, self, devil, but now we have the battle with suffering.

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He says they are liable to all manner of afflictions, tribulations, and persecutions, being predestined and appointed thereunto.

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As I said, that's not altogether comforting, but here's the thing that we should remember, at least I hope we would remember this, is that all suffering in this world is the result of sin, but let me quickly clarify, not all individual suffering is the result of an individual's sin.

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So, we look at the Bible and it tells us when God created the world, it was created very good, and then sin entered the world and corruption entered with it, death, disease, and destruction are the result of sin.

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So if we have dealt with disease, which we, boy haven't we, if we have dealt with death, if we have dealt with destruction, if we have dealt with pain, if we've dealt with suffering, we can know that this was averse to how God created His good world.

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This is opposed to the goodness that God created.

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This is the result of sin, but one of my favorite passages in Luke chapter 13, if you haven't read it in a while, I encourage you to go back and look at it, but it's where the people came to Jesus and they said, Jesus, there were some men who were killed by Pilate and their blood was mingled with the blood of the sacrifices.

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What probably happened was they were probably zealots, which were religious people, they were probably hiding in a place where they thought they were safe because they were hiding among the religious people, and Pilate's soldiers just came in and slaughtered them and mixed their blood in with the blood of the sacrifices just to mock them.

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And here these guys come to Jesus and they say, look Jesus, here are some people who suffered and died in a horrific way, wanting Jesus to give an answer.

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And think about it, that's not an uncommon thing for people to do, when they see something with suffering happen, where's your God now? How many of you ever heard that question? People will come up, I've had many people ask me that question, people will come up and they'll say, you know, well why would God allow all this suffering in Afghanistan, why would God allow all this suffering in China, why would God allow all this, 1400 people died in Haiti last Saturday, an earthquake hit, 1400 people, 30,000 homes were destroyed, another 30,000 are broken and having to be repaired.

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We're looking at a complete destruction here.

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And they say, well what, you know, did they do something? What did they do to deserve this? That's the question, right, that everybody always asks, what did they do? And Jesus says, I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

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And then Jesus used an example, he says, what about the people that the tower of Siloam fell on, right? Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

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And he says, were they worse sinners than you? I love that question.

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Were the people in Siloam that the tower fell on, and we don't know what happened, all we have about that really is Jesus' testimony that apparently a tower fell on some people.

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And you know what everybody saw, they probably said, oh well, God was getting them for whatever they did wrong.

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And Jesus said, unless you repent, you'll all likewise, are you worse sinners, are they worse sinners? No.

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Unless you repent, you'll all likewise perish, right? So the point in this is simply to say, suffering is something that we're all going to deal with because of sin, but we can't look at somebody's individual suffering and say, ha ha ha, God is getting you, just like the man who was born blind.

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And the disciples asked Jesus, what did they say? Was it he or his parents who sinned that he would be born blind? And Jesus said it was not he or his parents who sinned, but that the glory of God might be displayed this very day.

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You know, I could talk about this forever and I don't want to, but I just keep thinking of biblical examples.

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And you remember the lady who touched Jesus' garment? She had had an issue of blood, right? And there was another man in this scenario, Jairus, who had come to Jesus to heal his daughter, who was dying.

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And one of the things that people often overlook in that story is one of the gospel writers, and I believe it's Luke, but I have to go back and double check this, but only one of the gospel writers makes the point that Jairus' daughter was 12 years old and that woman's issue of blood had gone on for 12 years.

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That both of these issues, if you want to call the little girl an issue, you understand what I mean.

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Both of these started at the same time.

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And both of them were healed on the same day.

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So God had a plan 12 years before for a little girl who was going to be born and was going to be raised on this day.

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And God had a plan for this woman whose issue of blood began 12 years before, who was going to be healed on this day.

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God has a plan even then for what's going on now.

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That's why I love the brothers, they say, you know, the afflictions, the tribulations, the persecutions have been predestined and appointed.

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Why? Because God is going to glorify himself in it.

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We don't know how, and sometimes we won't know until the end, but God will glorify himself in it.

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Finally, we see the believers and the unbelievers' blessings.

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And as I said, this may seem odd to include.

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I thought so when I first read it.

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I read it several times, but I think that I understand it, and I'll give you what I think, and if you think I'm wrong, I'm always open to correction, but here's what I think.

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The brothers are pointing out the fact, one, that our blessings are spiritual blessings, not always temporal blessings.

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Notice what he says.

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Whatsoever the saints possess or enjoy of God spiritually is by faith, and outward and temporal things are lawfully enjoyed by a civil right by them who have no faith.

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Let me ask you a question.

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Is it wrong for an unbeliever to own a house? Is it wrong for an unbeliever to have a good job? Is it wrong for an unbeliever to have wealth or health? No.

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In fact, the brothers say it's a civil right.

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You've heard the term civil rights, right? It's a right of men to own a house and do these things, right? But here's the thing.

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All of those blessings are temporary.

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Without the Lord Jesus Christ, whatever blessing any man has will one day turn to dust and be burned to ash, in the other order, be burned to ash, then turned to dust, but you understand the point, that there are sufferings that we deal with, but there's also blessings that we have, and whatsoever blessing we have, we enjoy by faith.

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And yes, unbelievers do have a certain type of blessing.

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We call it common grace.

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They enjoy the ability to make a living and have a family, but as long as they remain unbelievers, they will not possess that spiritual blessing.

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And whatever blessings they have will one day come to nothing.

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So you say, how did you get there? Well, the passage they cited was Deuteronomy 2.5.

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This is what it says.

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It says, Do not contend with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.

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Notice what it's talking about.

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God's talking about the land and what he's given to the Israelites, and he says, but I'm not giving you this.

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That's for Esau.

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Esau is who? He's the one God hated, according to Romans 9.13, but that's his.

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That's his.

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Interesting point.

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Even as believers, we don't have the right to take away the unbelievers' property, because by civil right, by right of being image bearers of God, they have certain things that they can have, but the one thing they can't have is peace of mind and peace with God without the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Well, the brothers certainly cite many passages that we don't have time to go through tonight, but I would encourage them to your reading.

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I always go through and print them out and read through them, and most of the passages that they have cited deal with either the fact that we will be persecuted or deal with the fact that we will deal with sin, as I said, Romans 7, Ephesians 6, Hebrews 2, those passages referring to things that we battle with in this life.

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All right.

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Are there any questions? There's a lot to deal with, a lot to take in.

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All right.