When God Comes Sin Is Exposed — Mose Stoltzfus

I greet you all in the name of the Lord Jesus. It's so good to be here. I could so relate to that testimony that was given to us here tonight. And I thought I would just make a few comments on it. Just a little bit on baptism.

Believer’s Baptism and the Cost of Obedience

I guess I have desired over the years to be a little merciful on people to know what a big step that is when you've been baptized into a church and you get born again and we start discussing the issue of a believer's baptism, which is the only biblical one that's right.

But I know what a cross that is and what a cost that is many times to people. And I'd just like to say this, that over the years I have preached for a number of groups that some have been willing to face that and some have not.

And I wish I could show you the difference today. There's a group in the Midwest here that I have preached and been in and out of for five, six years and worked with. And they said, if we do that, that will cut us off from our people.

And so they chose not to do it. They were scared of it. Even though there were three men, maybe some women, but at least three men I believe that were longing to be baptized. And to get this thing of the answer of a good conscience toward God.

But the leader said, nope, no way. And then God led us to another place and we laid it out very clear. And what the Bible teaches and kind of presented it in a similar way, maybe a little stronger. And they chose that they're going to do it.

And I remember one of the couples got pulled out of bed the next morning by the preachers at the door. Monday morning, living in a colony in Manitoba and given until noon to get out of there with everything they had.

Of course, they can't take anything but their furnishings, but that was the price and the cost that came upon them for the obedience. But two years later, that church has an attendance of 200 and has been one of the fastest growing groups that we have ever experienced in our history of revival work.

And that's an amazing thing to me to observe those two differences. The other group is still wallowing around to try to decide whether they want to serve God or not. And it keeps us scratching our heads as to whether they're even born again.

Because they're not willing to pay the price to walk with God and to do what He says. And I come from a background where many Amish Mennonites or people who have come from there have wrestled with this issue.

And now after 40 years of being a Christian, I do have the blessed opportunity to go back and watch this thing and see who has prospered and who has gone on and done great things for God and who is still wallowing around.

Not too much progress. And maybe with their children have slipped about as far back as the advantages that they have made coming out of an old order setting. It's sad. But anyway, baptism is no small issue.

Well, I also believe it's a blessing to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus. And I've had the privilege to do that a few times in my life. And I say it's a powerful strengthening element in our Christian life.

Now, don't you pass it up and compromise because of a peer pressure and all those things that they throw at you. We're still on behind when it comes to suffering for our Lord. Way on behind. Paul knew that and he said that.

I'd like to catch up a little, he said. I'd like to catch up that which is behind in the suffering of the Lord. Something to that effect there. Well, we have another subject tonight again, When God Comes.

When God Comes, Sin Is Exposed

We're still on that subject. And we are very grateful that we can continue to think of revival issues and salvation issues and look at the whole picture of when God comes. When God comes. And tonight's message will be that sin is exposed and revealed and made known and confessed and forsaken.

I just have the title Sin is Exposed. I don't know what the best sounding title is, but I've thought of some others too and maybe there's a better one that fits as I go along and see how the message unfolds.

But when God comes, when God comes, then sin becomes exceedingly sinful. And if I could portray the burden of my heart tonight, it will be in this very vein. That I am distraught. I am distressed. I am at loss for words.

I don't know where to turn or what to do concerning the acceptance of sin in the lives of professed believers. I am distressed. I am perplexed. I don't know what to do. But I do know one thing. Historically, historically, when God comes, sin comes to the surface.

Sin is exposed. Sin is revealed. If you allow me to be crude enough, I'll even say sin is coughed up in order that it can be skimmed off of a man's life and he can get free from the stuff. That's what caused Brother Laverne to be able to give the testimony that he could give.

He knew he was laden with sin. And when he comes to Jesus, the whole thing comes up. The whole list is long. And God is in the great, great delight and business to sweep that thing and skim it off and let a man go free.

And that is what my message is all about. In Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12, the Bible says, for the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to dividing the thunder of soul and spirit, and is a discerner, a revealer, a manifester of the thoughts and the intents of the heart.

Now doctors tell me, or I understand physicians, have an extreme difficult time to divide between the joints and marrow. If you take a cross-sectional view of a bone, an animal bone, hopefully that you saw through, and look at where the dividing line is between the joints and the marrow, you will have extreme difficulty to draw the pencil line of where it is.

But I want to tell you that God's Word has the ability tonight to make that distinction and to do the job and to do it right. Oh, I know what else I wanted to say something about. And that is the Standard Book.

He alluded to that and talked a little bit about the Standard Book. And I know that a lot of people desire to keep out the world by the Standard Book. But I just say, my book's just a little thicker than yours.

That's all. My book's just a little bit thicker than yours. And that is the one that is quick and powerful and sharp enough to discern as to what sin is and what isn't. And instead of us trying to figure out what sin is, not knowing the motive of a man's heart, you know how it is.

We, in times past, I was in churches where they made a clear standard not to go to the fair. Well, we had that in our standard. You can't go to the fair. And so all my life long, I didn't go to fairs.

But in the latter years of my Christian life, I started going to fairs. And so I was direct disobedient now to a former standard that I had. But I go to a fair for a very different reason than I would have went to a fair or what other peoples go to a fair for.

Because now I go to preach the gospel or to witness or to pass out texts or to talk to people about the Lord. And so you see, how can you make a standard that you can't go to the fair if you want to go to the fair to preach the gospel?

See, it's the motive of the heart that makes the difference. So, to make a standard that nobody can go to the fair is not the issue. The issue is deeper than that. And it's only that which is the Spirit of God which is able to discern between the joints of the marrow and is a discerner, is a revealer, is an exposure of the thoughts and of the intents or motives of the heart.

And only God's Word and God's Spirit are able to do that thoroughly in our life and experience in our Christian life. You know, I was reading today as I studied for this message about sin and my burden about sin and how sin needs to be exposed and come to the surface so it can be skimmed off.

The Word of God Exposes the Heart

And I come across that scripture, inventors of evil things. And I had to think about the inventions that have come up in my past six years or ten years or maybe even two or three years. And I had to think, you know, if you would want to write all those things down and try to discern what the inventions of evil are which are detrimental to the Christian life, and you become a busy man.

You become a busy man to write all the things down that Satan and the world are hatching up to be a detriment to the Christian life. Who would have thought of what an Internet was twenty years ago? We wouldn't have had the faintest idea.

Who would have had any idea what some of these newfangled temptations are to people? You know, and the modern inventions of sin and all these different things. But, oh, I just want to preach tonight again that when God comes, that sin has to come to the surface.

Sin has to come to the surface. You know, it's also interesting for me to look at the Old Testament versus the New. Back there, you don't have any man judged for lust. And very few for envy and jealousy and anger.

And it was a common mistake in the Old Testament times. But in the New Testament, that standard is so enhanced and so lifted up by the Spirit of God as He broods over the people of God and brings all of those things that are down in there into the human heart and brings them to the surface and deals with them in ways we could never have dealt with them in the Old Testament.

The Bible also tells us in the New Testament, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. And so we notice that it's not only the sins of the flesh we must look at when we look at sin, but it's also the sin of the Spirit.

And that's what happened in the Sermon on the Mount, is that for once the Lord Jesus Christ began to point His finger at the intent or the motives or the attitudes of a man's heart, and not only his acts.

And you know, in the Old Testament, judgment didn't fall until he had committed the act of sin. But in the New Testament, the very thought of sin becomes sin. The very lust in the heart is brought up.

And the Bible teaches us, Paul teaches us to put off anger, lust, wrath, malice, all those things, evil communication out of your mouth. And he's saying these things need to go under the shining light, the penetrating light of God and the Spirit of God in our hearts and lives.

These things have come to the surface and they have to be put out of our lives. But something very terrible is happening today. Something very awful. Something which I cannot describe. And that is that this whole matter of sin and open wretched wickedness is becoming acceptable to the people of God.

Our minds are being numbed. Our minds are being dumbed down. Our whole concept of sin is being eroded away from us. We have new terms for sin. We are constantly changing all kinds of words. And we have today alternative lifestyles.

Would you pray tell what that is? Or we have a pro-choice. Could you help me what pro-choice is? When it is the absolute opportunity for you to murder your baby, tear it to pieces limb by limb, out of the womb without any protection for the child, the child able to defend itself, it is the most horrendous murder that there ever was in the face of the earth.

If one man was an enemy of another and they put up a good fight in a one-one, that was a little bit more understandable. At least the man had an opportunity to defend himself, but not so an abortion.

And we go and call it pro-choice? And that is how the whole thing is so watered down and so mellowed out that we hardly know what to call sin anymore. It is like the man said, you know, preachers still preach about sin, they just do not know what qualifies anymore.

And that is so, so sad. You know, John the Baptist, and I think many Christians cannot see straight anymore in this thing. And I must say, I am a reader, you know, and I like to know what is going on in the world.

I check the news a bit, and I try to find out, especially the religious news. I get a lot of periodicals in my ministry and in my home, you know, and I read them, and I want to know what people are thinking, and how they are looking at this thing.

And I watch that thing, and I observe, and I see how they mellow that whole thing out, and how they excuse sin today, and how they make it sin not to be seen as sinful. And in that way, they are playing right into the hands of the enemy.

And they are dumbing us down, and trying to pull us down, and get us so used to sin, that sin is not exceedingly sinful anymore. In fact, it hardly matters. We wink at sin, like they did in the Old Testament, and just let it go by.

And that is taking its toll on our lives, on our morals, on our honesty, on our businesses, on our relationships in our family, with our wives, and how we treat each other in the churches, and all these things.

I call it, you can call it, the dumbing down of America. And there is a number of issues that we are being dumbed down today. But one of them is concerning sin. It is concerning sin we are being dumbed down and numbed out, that we can hardly know what it is, identify it, and get the thing skimmed off of our lives, because we hardly know what it is.

Sowing and Reaping in Society and the Church

The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 8, verse 11, chapter 8, verse 11,. Because a sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, the heart of them that do evil is strengthened, is the idea of it. I thought I was going to turn to it here and read the verse, but here it is.

I want to get that right. Because a sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. And that is exactly what we have in our high schools, in our colleges, in our cities, in our nations, in our homes, and in our churches.

Because there is no execution of a sentence against the evil work that is going on in the place among the young people, and it is not lifted up and judgment brought upon the individual, whether it is in or out of the court system.

You can't expel a student before you have their parents on your back. You can't bring an issue to judgment for years after the crime is committed today because of all the defense system that is out. They rob the nation poor, incarcerating them in prisons, while they wait to bring them to judgment.

And it is like it was in the Old Testament times. There is no judgment in the land. And because a sentence on an evil work is not quickly meted out, or speedily executed, then the heart of those who have done the evil is strengthened in the sin that they have committed.

Because the sin does not have any consequences. And that is wrong with our home. Because there is no spanking and no thorough discipline of a child because they have done wrong, therefore their heart is strengthened to do it again.

It has no consequences. And if you let your children get by for the evil and the wicked things they do, then they are hardened in that thing because you don't do anything about it and it is your fault.

It is your fault that their heart is hardened and that they are doing the things. And when they grow older and they do some of the horrible things that they are doing nowadays, some of that is your fault.

It is because you have not executed speedily judgment upon them for the wrong they have done. And that was the whole problem back in Israel. Eli, a big overweight priest, back in the Bible times, was sitting around there and letting his sons rob the people of the meat and eat all the choice cuts that were coming up that should have been offered, but they were demanding it of the people.

Plus, they lay with the women and committed adultery with them. And Eli would just sit there and not do anything about it. And then the Bible says judgment was brought upon Eli from God because he knew the wicked works and he restrained him not.

He wouldn't do anything about it. And that brought an Eli syndrome of deadness and lethargy. And the man was eating too much and drinking too much and sitting there fat and lazy as a priest of God. And he should have been up and watching what was going on in the house of God.

And he should have been bringing judgment upon his sons and that is a hard thing to do. But a man has to do it or else their heart is hardened to do evil and wicked. And they get used to it and they think there is no judgment.

And they do more and more and more and the funnel just goes down. And pretty soon we have a wretched mess in the whole situation of God's people. And that's what happened. And then God has to come. God has to come.

And instead of Him coming in revival and coming to bring salvation, He comes in judgment. Terrible judgment and destruction. And that's what the Old Testament says from cover to cover. Now, in Lamentations, we have a picture of it in chapter 2, verse 9, where the Bible says, her gates are sunk into the ground.

He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princess are among the Gentiles. The law is no more. Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord. The elders of the daughters die and sit upon the ground and keep silence.

What just breaks my heart tonight is the fact that these things are going on and nobody says anything about it. You can't get people to open their mouth about it. The brother was saying something tonight and I don't want to contradict him here openly, Brother Laverne, about no persecution when you go out in the street and preach the Gospel.

Well, I have to say that depends on what you say. That depends on what you say. And you can go into a lot of churches and you'll get persecution if depending on what you say too. You see, because I believe right now that it would be considered a hate crime.

It's already on the books of Washington, D .C. that it's a hate crime to speak out against the sin of homosexuality. And if you'd go on the streets of any major city, I don't think you'd be standing there so peacefully if you start shouting the Word of the Lord out concerning the sin of homosexuality.

I don't think so. You can try it if you want, but I believe just pretty shortly you may spend the night in jail. And then maybe a couple of months in jail for doing something like that. And then maybe ultimately they'll throw the key away.

I don't know. That's the way the nation is going. They are lifting that up that for you to think that your way is right and that kind of lifestyle is wrong is terrible in their mind. And that's a hate crime.

And they already have the laws in place to deal with you for having a hate crime. You don't have to make them. It's already done. Now, Clinton put that in motion while he was in office. And a lot of people don't realize that and haven't done anything about it.

And also in verse 14 of Lamentations 2. So anyway, here we have, The law is no more. For prophets also find no vision from the Lord. The elders, the elders, the bishops, the overseers of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and keep silent.

They won't open up and speak and preach against the sins of the people. And that's why we're in the mess we are in. Now, when I just want to talk about sin here tonight, and I don't know how far I'll get, but I would like to capitalize a bit on the moral issues and the moral sins of the church and of America and of our people.

David, Bathsheba, and the Consequences of Sin

I recognize people do not understand what's going on. They are so blind. They do not understand. They do not know. And when they do not know, then they cannot take a position against it many times. Especially so with the youth.

They do not know at 13 and 14 and 15 the consequences of immorality. They have no idea what all is involved in those things until they get caught, until they get pronounced with a debilitating disease of some kind, until children are in their lap that they hadn't planned for and are making them grow up before their time with responsibilities that they had never hoped for and bargained for.

And their life is many times almost ruined by these things. And especially the brightness of a beautiful future that God would have in mind. Now to talk about this tonight, I would just like to use the example of David and his great sin.

When King David fell into sin with Bathsheba, he was a king and the pride of his heart was rather great. He thought, I can have who I want and I can do what I want and he did not think of the consequences of it.

But I want to tell you that the history of that man David, though he was a man after God's own heart, for that one terrible mistake that he made, the law of sowing and reaping that went through that man's life is one of the most incredible stories in the Bible.

First of all, you know, man looks at it like, well, what is wrong with showing some love, as they see it physically, you know, between the opposite sex? You know, here was a woman, her husband was in the army, she was not at home, and you know, the devil throws things like that at people and they begin to reason with this thing and think, what would it hurt?

What would matter? There's nobody will know, we'll do this thing in secret and everything will be fine. But, of course, then we know she sent word to him after the whole thing was over and said that she's with child.

And therein lies the crux of the matter on the moral issues of life. And I think many times it's difficult to speak plainly and boldly on this subject, but I think people don't understand, they are not thinking, young people don't understand, and that's why so many times they play around with fire and don't realize that they're playing with dynamite and explosives that will wreck and ruin and the consequences of it will last for generations.

And the reason is simply this. God has so ordained and so designed it, that when male and female come together in a physical union, that out of that union, children are born. Souls, eternal souls, are brought into the kingdom.

And they are brought into the kingdom where they need a mama and a daddy and need to be brought up and cared for and overseen and watched. And they need to be fed and nursed and cared for. And that is why this thing is so absolutely important, that this act is not a free-for-all and cannot be messed around with.

This is a great sin before Almighty God because He has designed it for the cementing together and the enjoyment of the marriage and the marriage alone. And there it is sanctioned and right and holy. But outside of that, when it brings children into the world that were not planned for, and they don't have a mama, and they don't have a daddy, then we have absolute chaos.

They don't know who their relatives are. They can't find their uncles and their aunts. When this thing goes through a generation, through a society, and permeates a society, it causes such wreckage, such debauchery, such absolute chaos, that whole societies have disintegrated totally because of it.

If it goes far enough. And ours is on the heels of it. We are losing our strength. We are losing our moral. We are losing our backbone. We are losing our decisive powers because we are dumbing ourselves down with committing adultery and fornication and sin and all kinds of moral debauchery.

And oh, the consequences of it. Alright, after David committed his sin, then you know how sin begets sin. Did you ever see that? How, you know, usually when young people fall into sin like that, then they lie to cover it up for a while.

And finally, when they can't lie about it, I remember of a young lady that I was related to, and you know, she was six months pregnant and still denying that anything had happened. And still trying to lie her way out of it.

But the baby was continuing to grow in her womb and there was simply absolutely no way to lie her way out of it. And finally, of course, she had to fess up and admit and confess. But she had lied and lied and lied in that whole thing.

And that's just what so many people do. But David, he did the same thing. You know, one sin beget another. Then trying to cover it up, he called Uriah home and tried to cover it up that way. And that didn't work because Uriah was devoted to the war and he wouldn't go down and take a vacation.

And therefore, David sent him into the front lines and had the soldiers back away from him when he was in the front. And there were shooters on the wall and he got hit and he got killed. And then, of course, another great, great sin had taken place.

Now, we don't only have adultery. Now, we have murder on top of it. At some time also, in David's life, things started falling apart in his home. Now, the Bible says, Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.

That shall he also reap. And this law of sowing and reaping cannot be bypassed, cannot be short-circuited. This is a living reality in the world, in the church, in America, in Europe, in Russia, and everywhere.

And the consequences that are coming down upon society on the laws of sowing and reaping. But what burdens me and hurts me the most is even though they are reaping and they see their society degenerating right in front of them, they still won't change their minds.

The heart of them has been set to do evil so strongly and so terribly that they will not turn. Well, we have Amnon raping his half-sister, taking her by force. And then, immediately thereafter, he hated her with as much a greater hatred than the love that he had for her.

A common thing that happens in fornication or rape. Somehow, that is not the way God has intended for this thing to happen and for the two to come together like that ever, ever. And somehow, it becomes so repulsive, even to those that have been involved in it, that a hatred comes out of it greater than the lust that was there before.

Then Absalom gets on the warpath and he hides this thing in his heart. For two years, he carried with a terrible hatred to Amnon because of what he did to Tamar. He was another one of David's sons. Absalom, a rebel at heart too.

And then he goes and has a party and brings the sheep shearers together, you know, for a party or there was a party and he didn't want to go and he plotted this whole thing that he could get Amnon by himself and he had him killed because of the jealousy that reached in his heart another sin that was produced by the rape.

That brought the jealousy. That brought the animosity. We have the hatred for Tamar. We had her humility. She put her hand on her head and went crying through the streets after she was humbled and we have sin upon sin upon sin down through that family because of it.

Now we have a boy dead. David and his sons mourned and wept with a great wailing and lamentation for a son that lay dead because of the whole calamity of the whole thing. Where did it all start? It started in the sin of David when the morals of his home and the protection of God were broken down because of his immorality.

Next, not only do we have rape, we have incest. We have murder. Then through Absalom, he fled for his life through the whole thing for a while and stayed away from David because he feared of what would happen of the reprisal maybe David would have on him because he had killed his brother.

And now we have that animosity and that separation and his rebellion and then him plotting to overthrow the kingdom and to kill his dad with a bunch of men. And you have attempted murder there. And they almost got it done except by the grace and power of God which protected David.

Absalom would have taken the kingdom and killed him. But it stopped short of that. But anyway, all of these sins came out of sin. Sin begets sin. And finally we have such an awful picture and such a carnage.

And David was a bloody man and was not allowed to build the temple because he was a man of war and because of all these things that had taken place. I have some dear friends, dear friends that have been in sin like this.

And the consequences are terrible. As I was studying for this message my phone rang. I was sitting there in a chair this evening around 5 .30 and my phone rang and it was one of these dear friends in Canada.

And he said, I'm in trouble. And here's the story. He was a young man. I don't know how many children. I believe there was over 10. It seems to me there might have been 13 children in the family. I'm not sure.

And his father ran off to Mexico and cohabited with a woman in Mexico and left his wife and the mother of these 13 children to sit with the entire family. They had a terrible time of it. He worked and dropped out of school, the oldest boy.

And he worked hard in the tobacco fields of Ontario to try to make a little living for his mama so they had bread to eat. They suffered hard times. And that father neglected and stayed away to this day.

He is in Mexico even though this is probably about about 12, 14 years now already or something like that. He simply left the entire family set. Praise God. God has brought a number of them to the faith and they have traveled to Mexico to witness to their dad.

But here's the problem. Here's the oldest son. He didn't have a dad because there was not a father and there was not a mother and there was not a restraint. So he got into trouble and he starts drinking and he starts carousing with a boy and he starts going out because mama was soft and she had a whole bunch of babies to take care of and there was no restriction and no man in the house to restrain these sons from doing evil.

And I remember he gave me this story and I can't even give you a fraction of what all he got into. But I know he was standing alongside of the Niagara River and I think he even was in the water up to his hips about.

And he debated and he debated back and forth as to whether he wanted to end it all and jump into the Niagara Falls and go down over and end everything. But somehow the hand of God had mercy on him and kept him.

Well, he fell into immorality left and right. Started running with girls and drinking and this and that. And all at once, here he was in his low twenties somewhere and fell into sin and pregnancy occurred with a 15 year old girl.

She was a sinner. She was a hardened one. Now, all at once a baby came into the world and the mother, 15, 16 years old now she was when she had the baby brought it over to him at 22, 23, 24 years of age and said, here, take it.

I don't want it. And praise God he had enough of moral uprightness in him that he took that little baby and he cared for that baby. It was unreal. He would come to brother's meetings in the church and he would change the diapers.

He would carry the baby. He would be over in the nursery while we were gathering together in brother's meetings in the church up there. In this whole thing he got converted. He tried to lead her to Christ.

She refused it. Rejected. Began to keep on running with boys and he had to cut all relations. And she didn't want to have anything to do with this little fella. Every now and then she did but then she didn't.

She didn't want the responsibility and she went right on out into sin again and left him set to mother the baby. Well, tonight he's three years old and now we have a terrible mess on our hands. Now she's grown a little older.

She may be 19 tonight or 20 and the child is three and she has that motherly instinct that she'd like to have this child. She's living with another man by now but she remembers she has a son somewhere and she'd like to have this boy.

And he says, this thing will make or break me if she comes to get this boy. He has poured his very soul into this boy. He has cared for it. He has brought him up until where already he's a good young boy at three years old.

In the meantime he gets married to a single young lady and she adopts the child and cares for the child and that's the way they're living. You know, and trying to patch the lives up and the messes up that they have caused in the past.

And now she's on the track to get this young boy and it's tearing him apart. He says, I don't know what I'm going to do. Have the people pray for me down there. Have them pray for me. He said, if the authorities come to my door and come and tear this boy out of my arms, he said, I don't know if I can take it.

I don't know what I can do. Knowing what kind of sin and debauchery that they will take this boy back into because of the lifestyle of the mother. Yet she is the mother. She is the biological mother. And the courts will probably give her the opportunity.

And you say, how did all this happen? Where do we have this carnage? And it's all because of this matter that we don't understand why the high standard of moral uprightness is held by the voice of God where it is.