(So Great a Salvation) Temptation and Sin — Paris Reidhead

The Spirit’s Witness to Salvation

Number six, the witness of the Spirit, all under the theme, so great salvation. Now I want you to go with me just again back to that point that we were considering this morning, namely the witness of the Spirit.

There are two or three things that I would like to have you see. Would you turn, please, to First John, chapter three and verse twenty-four. Earlier we saw Galatians four, the four to six. Now I want you to see First John three, the twenty-four.

The first part of the verse, it really would have well been divided into two verses. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us.

He has given the Spirit of God in that gracious work of regeneration, bringing us out of life into death. And here is how we know that he is in us, by the Spirit which he has given us. Now would you turn to First John four, thirteen, just in the next column.

I want you to see, you remember the gospel of John was written that we might have eternal life. And the epistle of John was written that we might know that we have eternal life. I have had great joy and delight in times past in bringing a series of messages on First John entitled The Evidences of Eternal Life.

And I believe that this is one of the most important portions of Scripture for the earnest servant of God to be totally familiar with. Now, in this fourth verse, this thirteenth, fourth chapter, thirteenth verse, Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.

That's how we know that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he's given us of his Spirit. And it's the Spirit himself that bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Now would you turn to First John chapter five and verse six,.

And this is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. Someone told me today at lunchtime that as a student back at the Baptist College in New York State that the teacher said, Now remember, it is your responsibility to let the Holy Spirit tell this one that you're leading to Christ that he has been born of God.

I'm so grateful that this is not some novel truth that I've discovered and I'm trying to sell. This is something the church has believed since the very beginning, that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of adoption, and he it is the only one that has ever been authorized to tell a human being that they have passed from death to life, and they've been brought out of darkness into light, and that they have been born into the family of God, and they can call Almighty God Abba Father.

Evangelistic Methods and the Spirit’s Authority

If you see this, well, someone asked me a while ago, How has this changed your witnessing practice? When I was a student in Bible school here in the city, we used to have a report chapel on Mondays, and some of us got a little bit tired about not being able to report people we'd won the Lord in the week, and so I went with a friend who taught me how to do it.

You take a handful of nickels, and then you go to a bus stop, and you talk to somebody there waiting for the bus, and you say, If you were to die today, would you go to heaven or to hell? Well, I don't know.

Would you like to know? Yes. Well, how? Well, here. It's a free gift. If you'll accept Jesus Christ, well, I don't know. What do you mean by a free gift? Then you take out your nickel and say, Here's a nickel.

Take it. In the same way that you took my nickel, now you take Jesus Christ. No, you do? Sure. All right, now say this prayer after me. Well, it was marvelous. On Monday, we could report how many people we'd won to the Lord.

We should have reported how many nickels we gave away, but we didn't want to get caught in that. Now, listen, the only one in the universe that has the right to tell anyone they're born of God is God the Holy Spirit.

He's the spirit of adoption, and he's never abdicated that sovereign prerogative. He's never turned it over to anybody else. You know, always we have to face the fact that there are two possible heresies.

The one is the heresy of message, and we are all very well equipped to detect that, or usually are at least. The second is the heresy of method, and that is the most subtle, and that is the most dangerous, the heresy of method.

Many times the message preached is orthodox, but the method is heterodox. I remember going into the home up in Little Falls when I was pastor there of Leo Link, and his wife, Mrs. Link, said, had a book on the table, and I sat down.

The people were coming in for prayer meeting, and they weren't there yet. I was early, and so I picked up this book, and it said, Bible Doctrines Explained, and I started to read it. I turned and opened it at John 3, 16, the new birth, and I was impressed.

It was fine. I read the page on the left hand and the page on the right hand. I turned the page, was down near the bottom of the page on the left hand, and I said, this is pretty good, and Mrs. Link said, where are you?

She said, well, when you turn the page and read the rest of it, I'd like your reaction. So, I read it, turned the page, and it was said, and when after you have had instruction from the local parish priest, and you have been baptized, then you have the certainty of knowing that you too have experienced the new birth, and I found out that it was some one of the societies of the Roman Catholic Church.

The message was orthodox, but in my book, the way I understand the Word of God, the message, the method was heterodox. Now, we're striving for both orthodoxy in our message and in our methods, and therefore, the difference, the question I was asked was, what do you do differently than you used to do?

Well, the difference is this. Now, I try to tell people how holy God is, and from the Word, try to get them to see how sinful they are, and then try to show them what God has done in love and grace, justice, to make it possible for them to be forgiven and pardoned, and then what they must do, and then I will have to tell them, now look, when you do what God's Word commands that you do, you will be born again, and when you are born again, you will have the witness of the Spirit, and when you know that you have passed from death to life, you come and tell me.

You see, I can't tell them. I stand outside. I'm easy to con. I'm easy to convince, but the Spirit of God is truth, and He knows when one has passed from death to life, and so the only one that has the right to tell a person they're born of God is God the Holy Spirit.

Assurance, Joy, and Peace in Believing

Now, I want you to notice something else. That is within. Someone says, is that emotion? No. Is that feeling? No. That's knowing. The same part of you that knows you're here and not somewhere else knows whether you're born of God or not.

If I say, are you married, and you have to look to see if you have a ring on your finger or feel around for a wedding certificate, then I think you have got a problem. If you don't know that you're married or not married, then you do have a problem.

Well, have you been born of God, and you're not sure? Well, you've got a problem, and it's a very important problem, and one that if I were in your place, I wouldn't rest until I'd settled and found out exactly what my state is.

Now, there is something else. Not only is it within where His Spirit communicates with our spirit, we're the children of God, but there's another. Will you turn to Romans chapter 15 and verse 13? Now, I'm asking you to do Bible drill because I think it's often very good for you to see the scripture that's being referred to, and to mark it to indicate that you've been there once before.

Chapter 15, verse 13. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost, and one of the blessed fruits of being born of God is joy and peace in believing.

Not only the witness of the Spirit. The witness of the Spirit is not joy. The witness of the Spirit is the witness of the Spirit. It's knowing, but joy follows the knowing, and peace follows the knowing.

The Christian Carries Old Appetites and Habits

Now, I want you to move on to the next line, the next section, which is number seven, and I have entitled this temptation and sin. Temptation and sin. Born again, the witness of the Spirit to the new birth.

Joy and peace in believing through the power of the Holy Ghost. Let me ask you, what did you carry with you into the Christian life? What did you carry? The same body? When you were born again, did you receive a glorified body like unto his own body of glory?

No, you received the fact that you're going to have it, but you didn't receive it. If you had a scar from where you fell into the lawnmower and cut your knee, when you looked at your knee in the morning, you still had the same old scar.

You haven't received a glorified body yet. You still have the one you came with when you came to the cross. Well, what else that's old came with you into the Christian life? What about your appetites, your drives, your urges, your propensities, if you please?

When God made man, he gave to him an appetite for food, because that's how he was to be sustained, an appetite for knowledge, and because that's how he would learn, line upon line, precept upon precept, an appetite for status, because he was to rule over God's creation, an appetite for pleasure, because God had given so many marvelous things for the one he'd made.

Have you ever thought about it? Look at how he painted the sunrise in the morning and the sunset at night. He didn't have to do that. It could have been just gray, but he gave us all those marvelous colors and the ability to recognize and to enjoy them.

And then something else. Have you given much thought, meditation to the watermelon? Have you? You ever thought about it? We don't need it for nourishment. It's not indispensable for vitamin. He just threw it in, gave it to us, gave us the ability to enjoy the color, to see the green and the white from the seeds, and to taste it and the odor of it and all.

Just an appetite for pleasure, and then God just threw in so many extra things for us to enjoy. And then he gave us an appetite for sex, because by this means he was to increase this family. And he looked at the being that he had made, and with all these appetites and urges, and what did he say?

That's terrible. Is that what he said? No. He said it is good. There's nothing wrong with the appetite. And he gave adequate way by which they could all be supplied and satisfied within his will to the best interests of himself and others and the being and each individual.

And then he said, gave prohibition. He said, you don't satisfy your appetite this way. You don't do that. He established law and rule. Now, when we repented of our sin and savingly received the Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Spirit of God, with the witness of the Holy Ghost that we'd been born again, with joy and peace and believing, we're now inside the Christian life.

And what did we bring? We brought an appetite for food and for knowledge and for pleasure and for status and for security and for sex. All the appetites that we'd had, we carried right with us. They're all there.

And what else did we bring with us? We brought with us all of the learned ways of response. Those habituated, if you please, response patterns that we developed in our days without Christ. And they've come because we're told that when you do something over and over again, you sort of put a path in your brain between the brain cells.

So, it's a line of least resistance, and it happened. Now, here you are. You've been born of God. You're only two or three weeks old in the Lord. You've repented, and you said, God, I'm going to please you and everything.

And if you'll forgive me, I'll never do these things again. My purpose is to please you. It was genuine and sincere. But what did you carry with you? You carried appetites, and you carried habituated ways of response.

Temptation and Sin Defined

Now, what are you going to encounter? You're going to encounter temptation. Now, we've got to stop for a definition. When I use the word temptation, what do I mean by it? I'll tell you. Temptation is the proposition presented to the mind to satisfy a good appetite in a forbidden way.

Now, if you don't think I can back out of that garage and get in it again, I'm going to probe it to you. I'm going to give you that definition again. Here we go. Temptation is the proposition presented to the mind or the intellect to gratify a good appetite in a forbidden way.

Now, temptation isn't sin. Temptation is a proposition, an idea presented to the intellect. Our Lord Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. Temptation isn't sin. Temptation is the proposition, the idea presented to the mind to gratify an appetite in a forbidden way.

But that leads us to sin, doesn't it? Now, what's the definition for sin? You got it. Here it comes. Sin is the decision of the will to gratify a good appetite in a bad way. It's not the gratifying of it.

It's the decision to do it. He that hates his brother, hatred is the intention to hurt and harm. He that has decided to hurt is already a murderer. He that has the mind to commit adultery is already guilty of it.

The decision to do it before the act is complete gives to the act the character of transgression. Sin is the decision of the will to do something. Opportunity may not have yet been presented, but the decision constitutes the essence of sin.

Decision to gratify a good appetite in a bad way. Now, what takes place? Here you are, a new Christian, born again, and you're tempted. Maybe it has to do with some trait of your personality, because you carried as a part of your baggage from the old life to the new was all of those traits and tendencies and attitudes that characterize you.

Maybe, for instance, you found that you didn't like criticism, and when anybody criticized you, you just gave them what for. And you're here, a Christian, and somebody comes along and comes up on your blind side and says something to you, and you turn and you just give it to them.

Well, now that's part of the thing that you repented of. You said to God you were going to please him, and now here you've displeased him. What is it? Well, you've responded. You've carried these traits and tendencies and habituated responses, and you've done the thing you promised God you'd never do.

You've sinned. Now, there's all the difference in the world between sin in the life of a believer, born again one, and someone that's a spurious counterfeit professor, a child of God that sins, did something he hates and doesn't want to do, but he did it.

He was overtaken in a fall, let aside by his appetite. Now, the scripture is very practical and very direct and realistic, and if it says if we say we have no sin or haven't done it, we're liars. We have.

And God wants us to be totally, completely honest with him. And God recognized this was going to happen. He realized we were back in the world where we were, and we're there as babes, and therefore, now we have done something, said something that grieved God.

And we have grieved us, because we told God we wouldn't. Now, we've got to look at it. What happens when a child of God sins? What's the result inside that child? What takes place? I've heard people say, well, I'll lose my reward.

Five Effects of Sin in the Believer’s Life

Honey, you're going to lose a lot more than your reward. You better just face that. There's a lot of things going to happen to you between now and reward time, and you better get acquainted with them, because the word's very explicit about what takes place when a child of God sins.

The first thing that happened is fellowship with God is broken, interrupted. He said in 1 John, that first chapter, if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.

But then it says, but if we walk in darkness, that fellowship is broken. And say we're walking in the light, we lie. We do not do the truth. Fellowship with God is interrupted when a child of God sins.

Now, we better know that. We better realize it. But you see, friend, if we'd never had the witness of the Spirit, and joy and peace in believing through the power of the Holy Ghost, and if we're the products of easy-believe-ism, we're never going to know whether fellowship was interrupted or not, because we never had any.

You see why it's so important that people should start out right? They should understand that it's the Spirit of God that tells them that they have joy and peace in believing. Why? Because that's their spiritual nervous system.

And if they don't have that, they're like a leper that can put his hand in the fire and never flinch, because the nerves are dead. So, it's so very important that the child of God should have begun right with the witness of the Spirit, and joy and peace in believing.

So, they know when fellowship is broken, when the Spirit of God is grieved. Now, the second thing that happens when a child of God sins is this. Prayers are not answered. In Psalm 66, 18, David said, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord doth not fear me.

If I, it hasn't even gotten to my lips yet. It hasn't even gotten to my hand yet. If I regard it in my heart, hold it there. If I've decided to do it and haven't had an opportunity yet, God won't hear me.

Prayer goes unanswered. And Peter said, Now, husbands and wives, don't fuss with one another. Don't argue. You dwell together in peace, so that your prayers won't be hindered. And how many families have had fussing and then wondered why their children got all torn up by the adversary, and why their prayers for them weren't answered?

Now, listen. God said it because he meant it, and he meant it when he said it, and you better believe it, because if you don't, you're going to pay just as big a price as if you did believe. And he said that if we regard iniquity in our heart, he won't hear us.

Now, the third thing that happens when a child of God sins is this. God won't use him. Oh, he may go on using God, and the people may never know the difference, but God won't use him or her, because the scripture says, Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.

And when we tolerate in our hearts and lives that which grieves God, whose name is holy, then you can be sure this, he won't use us. F. B. Meyer illustrated it in his little wonderful little book, The Christ Life for the Self Life.

He tells how he bought the first fountain pen that came out in Britain. It ain't London. He got one of them, thought it was a great idea. He'd had to carry a little bottle of ink and a little bottle of sand or a blotter and a pen and some steel nibs, and there was a pen that had the ink in it, and he thought that was great.

It was pretty good, pretty good idea. We don't carry many steel nibs anymore. The only problem was this first pen. It got some ink out the point, but it leaked everywhere else too. And when he finished writing, he had fingers that were blue up to the second knuckle, and he just kind of said, that's not so good.

So when another pen came along, he bought it, and he still kept the first one, put it in the drawer, and he said when he'd get ready to go on a trip, by this time he had quite a few pens, he'd reach in the drawer to take the pens on the trip that he was going to make for his writing, and he would feel that first pen.

Instead of taking it, he'd just nudge it further back in the drawer. And he said, if that little pen could talk, it might say something like this. I wonder what's happened. Once I always went with him wherever he went.

Once I knew his thoughts before others. Once he used me to communicate with people. Now I'm still in his drawer, but he doesn't use me. I wonder why. And F .B. Myers said, oh little pen, little pen, I can't use you, because every time I use you, you get me dirty.

Listen, God never uses the life that gets him dirty. You better believe it. The third thing we find in Ephesians, fourth thing, in Ephesians chapter four, verse 27, where the scripture says, give no place to the devil.

Now, do you know why the scripture says, give no place to the devil? Well, I got a secret for you. The reason is, because if you give place to the devil, the devil will take it. Now, how do you give place to the devil?

The word is so clear, isn't it? It says, the angel of the Lord encampeth about them that fear him. It's like living inside of a yard with a high board fence, and the dogs outside can't get in because the fence is tight.

The angel of the Lord makes a fence around the believer, the believers, the families, and the loved ones, and the work, and the ministry. But we give place to the devil. Why? It's like going up to that high board fence and deliberately taking your foot and kick until you got the board loose.

It'll swing on the upper nail, but it's loose at the bottom. And the devil's dogs go sniffing around, and they find that loose board, and push it in, and push with their muscles, and they get in, and they tear up everything.

Why? You see, the fear of the Lord is the basis of the angel of the Lord encampeting about us. But the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. And when we come to the place that we don't hate evil, then we've given place to the devil.

And when we tolerate in our lives that which grieves God, then you can just be sure that the devil's dogs are going to sneak in and tear up everything that's precious to you. Well, those four results of sin in the life of the believer, how's it sound?

As though you can, nothing to worry about until you get there to lose your reward? Sounds to me like you're in trouble. We're in trouble already if we permit unconfessed, unforsaken sin in our life. There's a fifth one, and this ought to just tilt the balance if there's any question.

And that is, if we permit sin in our lives, we fall into the chastening hands of God. And I've been told in the Scripture that it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. In fact, I think I've got a few scars here that I could show you that confirm that.

But you see, there's something marvelous here. I've heard people say, you know, I know some Christians living in sin and they're not being chastened or dealt with by the Lord. No, you don't. All you know is some professors of faith in Christ who are getting by with it.

But here's the secret. God never lays a finger on the devil's family, but he chastens every child and scourges every son. Why? Because with his own children, this is all the hell they're ever going to know.

And when they die, it's going to be heaven forever. But with the devil's family, this is all the heaven they're ever going to have. And when they die, it'll be hell forever. And if they've traded their soul for a mess of pottage, God doesn't go around throwing gravel in it to make their teeth grit on it.

If that's what they want. When you find somebody living in sin and not being chastened of the Lord, all you found is someone that God says, well, he's not mine. He's not born in my family. So you better look.

Chastening isn't pleasant, but I'll tell you, it's a kind of a frightening thing to have God tell us you're not mine. Dishonest. Well, these are the five effects of sin in the life of a Christian. Now, what are we going to do about it?

What are we going to do about it? I want you to go back to John 15 in verse 3, and I want you to look at a verse that is just wonderful. It's God's prescription for the problem we're discussing. John 15, 3.

Now said the word, said the Lord Jesus, you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Clean through the word. Born into the Father's family, something has come into the life that grieves God.

What are we going to do about it? And the Lord Jesus said, you're clean through the word. Now, what does he refer to? I think, and this is my opinion. I haven't any exegetical support for it. I think he's referring to the labor in the tabernacle in the wilderness.

Do you remember the tabernacle? Do you remember what you learned about it? That inside the gate was the altar of burnt offering, and off there was the tabernacle with the holy place and the holiest of all.

But between the altar of burnt offering and the holy place was the labor. Now, we don't know how big it was. There's no dimensions given. We only know it's big enough for all the needs of all God's children.

And we know a little about how it was made. It had brass, and then the inside was flat and lined with mirrors, and it was filled with water. Now, it had a twofold function. First, it was to show the Levites and the priests where the soot and dirt was on their faces.

And secondly, it was to provide the means by which they could wash the dirt off of their faces. And the Lord Jesus said, now you are clean through the word. So, we expect the word to have a twofold function.

To be a mirror to the soul, to show us what's in us that grieves God, and to show us how to deal with what we discover in us that grieves God. Now, let's look first how we use the word as the mirror to our hearts.

I want to give you just a few scriptures, and there'll be many, many others. I have a list of about 55, and I think these growth portions are going to be enough. Will you turn, please, to Proverbs, chapter 6.

Proverbs, chapter 6, and I want you to see verses 16 through 19. And remember, we're talking about this now as a mirror, a mirror to our hearts, a mirror by which we can see deep within us. It's an x-ray machine, if you please, to show us what's there.

Now, the 16th verse begins by saying, these six things doth the Lord hate, and the seventh is an abomination unto it. So, you can know full well that if you have permitted in your life anything that God hates, or especially the one that God abominates, you're in trouble.

Now, let's look. A mirror will only show you what you got there. The Spirit of God never wants to depress us. He only wants to cleanse us. And so, we look at this, and you might say, well, there was a time when I had this in my life.

Great. It's not there now. The Spirit of God is going to focus on the thing that's there now to be dealt with at this time. So, listen. Look at it. It's a mirror. See if it reflects in your heart. These six things doth the Lord hate.

A proud look. God hates pride. He hates racial pride. He hates facial pride. He hates financial pride. He hates educational pride. And I think the one he abominates most is religious pride, the kind that wraps itself up and says, thank God I'm not like others are.

He hates a proud look, and he hates a lying tongue, misrepresentation, and deception in speech, and hands that shed innocent blood, the intention to hurt somebody, and heart that devises wicked imaginations, immorality on the mental level.

Feet that be swift in running to mischief, gossiping, tail-bearing, backbiting, a false witness that speaketh lies, misrepresenting the facts. And the one that he abominates above all others is he that soweth discord among brethren.

Oh, that God could cure the body of Christ of that. Now will you turn please to the second scripture, Romans and chapter one, first chapter of Romans. And we're going to look at the mirror again. Look at something else here.

In the 32nd verse, we're beginning in verse 29. It says, Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

So you know that if you or I have permitted in our life anything that makes people worthy of death, these five things are already starting to operate in us. We better look at it. We're going back to verse 29.

It says, and here's the mirror, look at it, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, that's meanness, envy, and murder, and argumentativeness. Did you ever know that in God's eyes, he can put murder right alongside of envy and argumentativeness?

Well, he does. Deceit, malignancy, oh, here it is again, whisperers and back biters, right next to haters of God. You'd think he'd have a little better discernment than to put the white ones next to the black ones, wouldn't you?

But he didn't. He put them all together. You know, you can always tell you're in revival when you feel the same way about the things that only God hates and the community doesn't, as you feel the same way that God has felt all along.

Now, that's when you're in revival. When the things that only God's concerned about concern you, you're right, you're there. Now, look at it. Despiteful, proud, oh, it came back again, didn't it? Boasters, inventor of evil things, disobedient to parents.

That's what God used to show me how lost I was. Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. Well, that's the mirror. Let's go to Galatians chapter 5 and verses 19 to 21.

Just take a quick look here at this mirror. Now, do you see how I use the mirror? You look at it, you look at it, see whether it's there. 19 of Galatians 5. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, which is the same as stubbornness, and witchcraft, which is as rebellion, hatred, variance, always fussing, arguing, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, of which I tell you before, as I've told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

And we're to come daily to the mirror, and whenever we've sensed that we've grieved God, we're to come to the mirror of the Word, and to permit the Spirit of God to speak to our hearts, and show us from the Word what it is that he wants us to deal with, that he has seen what we must deal with.

This is what we're doing every day of our lives. We're walking through a wicked world, and we should come to the mirror, just as the Levites always went to the laver before they went into the holy place.

You wouldn't think of going out to meet your friends. People have known you for years. Without going to the mirror, you've got too much respect for them. You're not going to go out disheveled, and unshaven, and without proper preparation.

You just aren't. I was at a whole happy camp meeting of the Christian Missionary Alliance in western Pennsylvania, and I made that statement years ago. None of you here, everyone here, went to the mirror before you came to church.

And when it was over, a little boy about 12 with a map of Ireland all over his face, he came up and he put his hands on his hips, and he looked me right square in the eye, and he said, Preacher, you were wrong today.

I said, well son, I've been wrong before. Tell me, where was I wrong? He said, you said that everybody here went to the mirror before they came to church. I haven't seen a mirror wash my face for two days.

And I said, and I believe you, because I can see egg on your face for breakfast. He said, that was yesterday. So I'd like to just make a general statement. I think all of you have been to the mirror before you came to church.

But how long has it been since you've been to the mirror of the Word? And you've opened your heart to the Spirit of God to search you through the Word. Now you are clean through the Word. And it's the Word that shows the attitude, and the relationship, and the action, and the motive, things we've said or done that we've thought through, that reflects back to show us where our deed is.