The Threefold Folly of Sin

I imagine a man on the bank of a lake, it's early spring morning, in his hand he's holding a rod and reel, casting it into the lake, plop into the water, reeling it back to him, again casting into the lake, plop to the water, reeling it back to him.

What is that plopping in the water? Well, he uses what we call a lure.

Of course, he doesn't use the end, right? Let me put it to you this way.

He doesn't throw into the lake a plate of fried fish and hush puppies, right?

He doesn't throw a picture of the end of what's going to happen if a fish were to bite that Instead, he throws out this enticing thing, this enticing meal, if you will, to the fish.

The fish sees the lure and says, well, this looks good. It looks like something I should do.

You know what? I think I'll eat that and let's see what happens. Of course, you know what happens.

A fish bites it and then he's hooked. Now, sometimes the fish is able to understand right at the beginning this isn't right.

He spits it out much to the chagrin of the fisherman. Most of the time he bites on the fisherman, sets the line and what happens?

He's hooked. What he thought was a tasty meal winds up being his death.

And here we have an analogy, beloved, for sin. Nahum chapter one, we're going to talk about today the threefold folly of sin.

We come upon maybe a not not really a difficult passage. I don't want to say that it's just a little bit difficult to translate.

And it's a little bit difficult to ascertain the meaning. But I think that if my interpretation is correct,

I've arrived at a meaning that is quite relevant to today. And that is the folly of sin.

So would you stand with me? Nahum chapter one, we'll read verse 10, the threefold folly of sin.

We're preaching verse by verse through Nahum. And verse 10 is the next verse.

We don't always do this, but we'll take it by itself today. For they that is the

Ninevites are like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink.

They're consumed like stubble, fully dried. Father, we need help.

Would you help us to understand this text? Would you help us to understand the danger and folly of sin?

How it ensnares us like thorns, deceives us like strong drink.

We pray, O God, that the church today would be serious about guarding ourselves against sin.

Lord, if there are unbelievers in our midst, we pray that they would understand this morning the folly and error of sin.

Lord, if there are any in our midst who are deceived, we pray that today would be the day that you would awake them out of their stupor and that they would run to Christ.

Let us rejoice and see that the answer to these woes is the finished work of Jesus.

We pray that Christ would be exalted today. Lord, we pray these things in the name of your son.

Amen. You may be seated. So we've moved on there. We've spent a few weeks there on verse seven and the goodness of God.

And God is good to those. God is good to all mankind, but he knows those who take refuge in him.

And so we move on from that now to this prophetic doom of Nineveh.

And Nahum uses poetic language here to describe now the situation of the

Ninevites. And as I said, most commentators find this a little bit difficult to translate from the

Hebrew. What exactly is being communicated there in verse 10? For they are like entangled thorns and like drunkards as they drink, they are consumed like stubble, fully dried thorns and drunkards and stubble.

What is being communicated to us in the text? And so here's my take.

I think that we have a description of the spiritual state of the Assyrians.

And I think that their spiritual state is going to this morning teach us an important lesson about sin important enough.

I think that as I meditated and thought through this, important enough to give us a sermon from this one verse.

So the threefold folly of sin. First, sin results in being imprisoned by iniquity.

Number one, sin results in being imprisoned by iniquity.

Trapped, caught by sin. They are, the text says, like entangled thorns.

Nahum uses a poetic device that we're familiar with in English. It's called a simile. That is a hey, listen, boys in the back, because you're my boys.

I'm not afraid to say this. You will pay attention. OK, thank you. Sin is used here as a simile, making a comparison of the people of this city to entangled thorns.

So what does Nahum mean here? I think that what he's communicating to us here is that the people are tangled up in sin.

So let me use it this way. I've you most of us are most of the guys in here do have done some sort of deer hunting.

And there's been too many times, more often than I care to admit, that I've been out either putting up a stand or on my way to the stand, or maybe just out in the woods or maybe tracking a deer or something like that.

And you kind of get your leg maybe caught in a briar or you just keep going.

And there's a group of briars and you just kind of press through. And all of a sudden, before you realize, you think these things are nothing.

They won't stop my pursuit. And all of a sudden, you're caught up in them. You try to turn this way, you're caught up.

You try to turn that way, you're caught up. They scrape your skin or they're grabbing your clothes. And all of a sudden, before you know it, you're just you're trapped.

Now, this is the state of Nineveh. There was, if you remember, a revival in Jonah, a revival of sorts some 100 years prior.

At least for some in the city, there was a revival, but apparently it doesn't last.

And so many quickly they run back to idolatry and immorality and disobedience, and they reject

God. And what does this get them? Well, the text. Now they're like the hunter, they're trapped.

They're like the fish grabbing the lure. They're trapped. They're entangled in thorns. They are, the point, imprisoned in iniquity.

The text says, for they are like entangled thorns. If this interpretation then is correct, the meaning is this.

And listen carefully. Sin is always a snare. Sin is always a trap.

Sin will close around you like thorns until you can't move, until you can't escape, until the life would be choked out of you.

And then if I may mix the metaphors, you're like the man who's caught in the hole. And so the way that you try to get out of the hole is you want a shovel.

And you take the shovel and you keep digging. And you think, if I just keep digging, one day I'll get out of the hole.

When the reality is you're only digging yourself even deeper. This is the imprisonment of iniquity.

Sin traps you. Sin grabs hold of you. It catches you and it won't let you go.

And something else to consider. Look what the text says. Is it in the singular or the plural?

You can look. You can look at your verse and you can ask yourself, is it just speaking of one person or many?

Well, the text says they. And here's a thought.

There is something about group sin that seems to breed even more folly.

When sin becomes a culture's norm, the outward restraints fall off.

And the whole society becomes knotted up, as it were, entangled in sin.

There is more entanglement. It just seems like everyone is given over to sin and disobedience.

And there are no more warning bells going off. They just seem to stop in society. And everyone just begins to do what is right in their own eyes.

And this is the reality of sin. This is Romans 1. This is what's going on in real time here in this analogy in the city of Nineveh.

You just keep sinning and sinning and sinning. And you look around at the person on your left and they're sinning.

And the person on your right, they're sinning. And the whole society just says, hey, nothing's ever going to happen.

And I'm telling you this morning, it's a trap. It's a trap.

Another interpretation of this simile might be this. They are like entangled thorns.

It might be that the city has wrapped themselves up in these thorn bushes to repel any help and to stave off any judgment.

That's what some commentators think. Well, there's theological truth there as well. So the idea is most people caught up in the briars, they don't want to escape.

They kind of feel safe. They kind of feel impregnable, if you will, in a measure of security in the life that they live in the thorns.

They're caught up in sin, but they like it. So it reminds me of an old story when I was younger. Brer Rabbit, you remember? Now, don't throw me in the briar patch.

That's what he says to the fox. Please, you can burn me. You can skin me alive.

Please don't throw me in the briar patch. Please. And what's the fox do? He just thinks and he throws him in the briar patch.

And this is what Brer Rabbit says. Born and bred in the briar patch. That's me.

I told you not to throw me there. In all the world, that's the place I love the best. He loved the briar patch.

It's where he wanted to be. Well, listen, friends, this is true of sinners.

It's where they want to be. They love sin. Though sin has them trapped and though they think, well, these thorns, they'll just repel the judgment of God from being able to judge them.

That's where they want to stay. Of course, in a minute, we'll see that's not true.

They can't repel the judgment of God. But for now, let me offer this warning to our congregation. I speak to you.

If you're a member of our church or just a guest or you're a believer, if you're an unbeliever, you listen to me and you play with sin, it will entangle you.

It will trap you. It's just one look, preacher. Hey, I just kind of pause in the commercial there.

I just one, one look. It's just, just one click. Let's go back and watch that video there one more time.

That's that one sneaking behind my, my parents. They won't know. They said, come on, man.

Hey, hey, I know what I'm doing. I'm okay. And before you know it, the R .G. Lee quote comes to mind.

Sin will take you farther than you wanted to go. It will cost you more than you wanted to pay.

And it will keep you longer than you wanted to stay. Very, there's no need to say names and stuff at this point.

Maybe one day we'll talk about it. But someone who I admired and look up to had a fall into scandalous sin.

Think of preachers who fallen into scandalous sin. Unwatchful, unwary, prideful, a little corruption or a little compromise.

Hey, just a little bit of letting your guard down, just a little bit here or there. And then all of a sudden, it's like the bear who presses his paw into the trap and he sets the trap.

Boom, snap, you're caught. And it's over. Like thorns.

Like thorns. Sin will entangle you. It will entangle your soul.

It will trap you and you'll be caught up in it. And sin will ensnare an entire society.

We're talking about Nineveh here. It will trap the whole city. It'll ensnare a group of friends.

There's courage, right? When you have a few people on your side. And so you think, we'll just do this together.

We'll just disobey together. We'll just do a, yeah, we're just young now. Maybe we're old now.

Hey, no one will know. We'll do this, whether it's a young group of guys deciding that they want to just pursue drunkenness or it's an older group of guys deciding they want to pursue embezzlement.

Whatever the case may be, you got a group of people together and you think, hey, we'll be okay. We'll do this together.

We'll disobey together. No one will know. And all of a sudden, it spirals out of control.

And you're trapped. Let me offer this before moving on to the next point.

As I said, most people trapped in sin, it's their home. They don't want help.

They want a shovel. They can just keep digging and do their own thing. But as I say this first point,

I can't help but wonder, what if there's someone here? What if God is stirring your soul today?

What if you're listening to this and you're like, that's right. That's right. He's right. I'm entangled in sin.

I'm like these people here. And the thorns have wrapped around my heart. They've wrapped around my soul.

What must I do? Well, if you're wrestling with that in your mind, maybe you're thinking, well, if I come clean, if people know, if I admit the truth, it'll just be too much for me to bear.

There will be consequences. Well, friend, I'll tell you this. I'm going to just give it to you straight. There may be consequences.

There may be serious consequences. I don't know. I just, let me just throw this out there. There could be jail time, right?

I don't know what you may be dealing with. There could be consequences at school. There could be consequences in your marriage.

There could be consequences in home. Whatever the case may be, there may be consequences. I understand that.

And I lay it out there. I don't pull the punches on that. But listen carefully here. The consequences for fleeing sin now are far less severe than you thinking that the answer to your situation is to double down on your sin.

What are you caught in today? Maybe it's very serious. Maybe it's drugs. Maybe it's embezzlement.

Maybe it's pornography. Maybe it seems less serious. Maybe you're just caught in social media addiction.

Maybe you're caught in worldliness. Maybe you're just caught in fear of man or laziness. But remember our text.

What happened to Nineveh? They pressed on and on and on in sin until God judged them.

I tell you today, you're going to reap what you sow. Your sin will find you out.

There is no hope for your situation today apart from confession of sin and asking for help.

But if you continue to go in this way, then there will be no escape.

Sin results in being imprisoned by iniquity. Secondly, sin results in being drunk by depravity.

So here's another simile. For they are like entangled thorns.

OK, secondly, like drunkards as they drink, like drunkards as they drink again.

So we ask the question, what is the meaning? Well, there are several interpretations here. I think the point seems to be a numbing effect of alcohol, a deceitfulness of sin.

So oftentimes a drunkard in his drunkenness, he's numb to the things going on around him.

He won't even admit that he's drunk. And he stumbles around and he keeps doing foolish things.

And he doesn't maybe feel his shame, but those who look at him see his shame.

But he keeps on pressing in his folly. And furthermore, if you think about it, the drunkard has no ability to stand against God's judgment.

He's staggering around and helpless, but he's still in love with his condition.

Now, there's a warning I'll give here about alcohol. The abuse of alcohol is foolish.

Drunkenness is foolish. If this happens to be the sin that you are entangled in, you must repent.

I warn you today that drunkenness has destroyed many lives, destroyed them.

It will destroy your life too, should you choose to persist in it.

But you understand that drunkenness is just the analogy. There's a bigger picture that Nahum is teaching.

The bigger picture is that this is what sin does to you. It makes you like a drunkard.

You continue to do foolish things. You continue to do wicked things.

And your conscience is numb. So, maybe you're like, well,

I'm not a drunkard. How does this apply to me? No, listen, that's the analogy. You're not a drunkard, but you persist in sin oblivious to its consequences.

Maybe it's big things that no one knows about, like I've already mentioned. Or maybe it's things that everyone seems around here to be okay with, like materialism or not caring about the worship of God or whatever.

But whatever it is, you persist in disobedience to God. You understand that's sin.

Sin is doing what God says not to do. And sin is not doing what

God says to do. So, to persist in sin is simply to persist in disobedience to God.

And the text says this is your condition. You are like a drunkard.

You're not only entrapped in sin, in the thorns, but you're deceived by sin.

You actually believe that you're going to get away with it. You actually believe in your heart of hearts that what's going on in your life is no big deal, that you won't answer to God for it, that you just continue on.

As we shared the gospel and preached the gospel yesterday, there were, we had some very encouraging people.

People coming by and encouraging us and shaking our hands and saying, praise God for what you're doing.

Then we had some conversations with some other people and passed out literature. But, you know, you always kind of have those people who sneer at you and laugh at you and just ridicule you.

In their mind, they actually believe that if they continue on in this condition, they will not stand before a holy

God. They are deceived. You're like a drunkard.

Sin has immobilized you toward God. It has dulled your hearing so that you can't hear him.

It has blinded your eyes so that you can't see him. It has deadened your heart so that you have no spiritual feelings, spiritual appetite for him.

And this is the condition for those in Nineveh. They are imprisoned by iniquity and drunk by depravity.

They are trapped. A drunk has what you call foolish courage. A drunk will do foolish things because his senses are numbed.

And so the Ninevites here are brazen in their defiance of God. Notice what they do.

They keep on drinking like drunkards as they drink. So they're drunkards and they keep on drinking.

And maybe today you're sitting out there in the congregation and you have a faulty courage too.

You're going to sin. You've sinned. Nothing's happened. You've not had to deal with the consequences.

No one's known about it. You haven't had to face God. God hasn't judged you. In fact, your life's going good. You've sinned and you've got a nicer vehicle now.

You've got nicer things going on at school or in the home or whatever the case may be.

You've sinned and you've not met consequences. You say, hey, I'm okay. And you press on in the faulty courage.

Your sin will find you out. You must repent. And that leads me to our third point.

Sin results in being imprisoned by iniquity, drunk by depravity, thirdly consumed by corruption.

Consumed by corruption. For they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink.

They are consumed like stubble fully dried. Now when I say consumed by corruption, I sort of have a double meaning as a preacher.

First, I mean that sin will consume you. Sin all of a sudden consumes you. It consumes your thoughts, your heart, your actions, your free time.

You'll desert your family or I mean you may be present with your family, but in your heart you've deserted them.

Sin consumes us and renders us less than what we were created to be by God.

But we're also consumed in this way, as the text says. That is consumed like stubble fully dried.

Now, what is the point there? Well, you need to understand that first that sin is an abhorrence to God.

The chief evil of sin, you understand, the chief evil of sin is not that you miss out on things in life.

Though you do miss out on things in life. But the chief evil of sin is that it is against the

God spoken of in verse 7. Remember? Verse 7, you remember that? The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble.

He knows those who take refuge in him. This is the God who created the universe. This is the

God who makes his sun rise day and night. This is the God who sends the rain. This is the

God who gives breath to your lungs. This is the God who causes your heart to beat. This is the God who made your taste buds and when you eat certain things it's just so wonderful.

This is the God who gave you eyes to see and all the colors and wonderful things on a fall sunrise.

Or when you're sitting in the deer stand and you see the big buck. This is the God who made all of these things.

And when you sin, you spit in his face. And you say,

I don't want you to be my God. I'd rather be God. And if I could, I would kill you.

And that happened 2 ,000 years ago. But the point here is that he is going to have the final say against your sin.

Now, this God is ready to forgive, the scriptures say. He is ready to forgive.

This is his disposition towards Perryville. This is his disposition towards the

United States. This is his disposition to the nations. He's ready to forgive.

Patient, kind, long -suffering, ready to forgive. And we despise him.

And so the text is. They will be consumed like stubble fully dried.

That God and his holy wrath will consume sinners like a fire consumes dried stubble.

Nineveh will be consumed by God's judgment. That's the meaning of the text. And so it is.

And so they were consumed in 612 B .C. Now, listen,

I can't read that and not think about our own nation. What do we think,

Americans? What do we think will happen when we keep pressing headlong into sin?

What do we think will happen when we press into the desecration of marriage? What do we think when for political expediency, we compromise on abortion?

What do we think will happen when we press on in the killing of unborn children? What do we think will happen when we continue to abuse our bodies with drugs and drunkenness?

What do we think is going to happen as a nation if we continue to say evil is good and good is evil?

When we see the effects all around us today. We're entangled in the thorns. We are as a society like drunkards as they drink.

Can we not see today, church, the great folly of sin? Is there sin this morning in your life?

You must not coddle it. You must kill it. This is what it looks like to walk by the

Spirit of God. We mortify the deeds of the flesh. We take sin seriously because we see the disastrous effects of it in our text.

They are like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink. They are consumed like stubble, fully dry.

Here's a question I have, though, for the rest of the sermon. You know, you got the three points quick and you're like, oh, I got more.

Is there hope, though? Like you're here today and you're like, but that's me. You've pegged me, preacher.

Well, it's not me. It's been the Spirit of God because I don't know what you're dealing with. So is there hope for those imprisoned by sin?

Is there hope for those drunk by depravity? And the answer, of course, is yes. Yes, of course, there is. It's foreshadowing.

It's Jesus. But before I get to that, I thought of this as I was wrestling with the text.

You see, sometimes we can think we're helping people in sin when really we are not. We try to help things, but all we do is just end up handing them a shovel.

We think we're helping them by handing them a shovel, but all they do with the shovel is make it worse.

Dig the hole deeper. So you have people here caught in sin. You have people drunk in sin, deceived by sin, trapped in their shame.

And in our text, God is going to judge them. His wrath is coming upon them. And the reality is this, of course, happened, but it's also true of our world today.

Now, suppose that the people in Judah, they hear this message from Nahum, and here's what they decide.

They become full of compassion and they decide, you know what? We're going to send boxes of food to Nineveh.

We're going to send boxes of toys for the children in Nineveh. Or we're going to send a mission trip team to Nineveh and they'll have bouncy houses for the kids or we'll build a well or we'll help repair a house or whatever the case may be.

And I'm not saying, don't misquote me, I'm not saying those things in and of themselves are bad.

I'm just saying this, it's not helping their soul and it's not averting the judgment of God.

Or let me make it more personal to you. You've got that person in your life.

It's a child. It's a grandchild. It's a grandparent. It's an aunt. It's an uncle. It's a cousin. It's a neighbor.

Whoever, you know who I'm talking about. I don't, but you do. You've got that person in your life and you're at your wit's end.

You're always helping them and they just won't seem to change.

They're caught in the thorns of sin. They're drunk in their sin and you spend a lot of financial capital or emotional capital and you're just like, but it's not helping.

Let me put it to you this way. This is going to sound harsh at first, but hear me out. You can't help them.

You can't free them. You can't sober them up.

You cannot. It's not that you're not trying hard enough. It's not that you're not spending enough money.

It's not that you're just, there's something wrong with you. It's this. You don't have the power to do what needs to be done.

You can't help them. But I'm not going to leave you there, right? Listen, I'm not leaving you hopeless.

You can't help them, but Jesus can. And that's who we turn to now.

We must give them Christ. Stop giving them a shovel.

Give them Christ. Let's turn in our scriptures for a moment to Luke chapter 4.

Do I keep Nahum? I'll come back to that in just a moment, but turn over in the Bible to the New Testament.

Luke chapter 4. I think this is fitting as the antidote to our text, if you will, the solution to our text.

Now, it's not speaking directly of Nahum, but it is quite relevant. Luke chapter 4, verse 16.

Luke chapter 4, verse 16. And he, that is Jesus, came to Nazareth where he had been brought up.

And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet

Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written. This is Isaiah 61.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind.

To set at liberty those who are oppressed. To proclaim the year of the

Lord's favor. Now, hear me, the plight of Nineveh, it's over. They met

God in judgment and they still, if you think about it, lie under the wrath of God some 2 ,600 years later.

And they will continue to face the wrath of God for all eternity. But I'm telling you this morning, as we think about being trapped in sin, being drunk by sin, as you think about maybe that applies to you, maybe it applies to your family,

I'm telling you today, I'm proclaiming to you that there is a way out. There's someone who opens up the eyes of the blind.

There's someone who sets the captives free. There's someone who takes the thorns and tears them away.

There's someone who takes the drunken man and sobers him up. There's someone who takes the dead and raises him to life.

His name is Jesus Christ. Are you entangled in the thorns of sin? Listen to me, friend.

There is one who wore a crown of thorns upon his head. Are you drunk by depravity?

There is one who drank the cup of God's wrath. Down to the last drags for sinners.

You see, sin ensnares us, binds us, blinds us, hardens us, deceives us.

We live in it, we bask in it, we enjoy it. It's where we want to be. All the while we stumble like a drunken man toward God's eternal judgment until we are consumed.

But Jesus is the answer. He's quoting here in Luke 4,

Isaiah 61. He is the promise of the law and the prophets. He is the liberator of the people of God.

And surely you understand today that what you need to be liberated from is not the Democratic Party.

What you need to be liberated from is not your financial woes. What you need to be liberated from is not evil

Iran or whatever the case may be. What you need to be liberated from is your sin. And that's what

Jesus came to do. The Son of God, born of the

Virgin, the seed of the woman. He was never caught by the deceitfulness of sin.

He fulfilled all righteousness. He's beaten with whips containing bone fragments and shards of glass and metal, a cat of nine tails upon his back.

His hands and feet receive the nails affixing him to a cross of wood.

Some people think perhaps Nahum 110 is all about the wrath of God. It's the wrath of God that has entangled them.

It's the wrath of God that has caused them to stumble. And it's the wrath of God that will consume them.

Well, what if Nahum 110 is referring all to God's wrath like this? Well, then the answer would still be

Jesus. He's taken it all upon himself.

He is suspended between heaven and earth as a sacrifice. And there

God pours out his wrath. Jesus is our substitute. He dies the death that we deserve under the wrath of God that we deserve.

And he rises again on the third day. And this work purchases forgiveness for all those who trust

Jesus by faith. Who see the wretchedness of their sin and turn from it and rest in his saving work.

But for today, let me also say this. The work of Jesus also sets you free.

Jesus was consumed by the wrath of God on the cross so that those who are imprisoned by iniquity can be set free.

So that those who are drunk by depravity could be given new life and wisdom and righteousness and sanctification.

I can't free you from your sin. I can't free you from your shame.

I can't tear the thorns away that have entangled you and entrapped you. But I'm proclaiming to you today the one who can.

And his name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, King of the nations. All our hope is in him.

This is the hope for your children, your family, your neighbors. It's Christ.

Yeah, but if I just got them a little bit better place to live. If I just got them a little bit better car.

If I just got them a little more education. Maybe if their health care was taken care of. If I could just along the way throw breadcrumbs, throw breadcrumbs, throw breadcrumbs.

And then one day, you know, over the course of 20 years, then maybe they'll see the beauty of Jesus. False!

You must give them Christ! It's only Jesus that rescues us from our plight.

You say to me this morning, yeah, but preacher, you don't understand. My situation is bad.

I've been doing some bad things. I've been looking at things on the computer.

It's actually illegal. If people found out, it just couldn't be the same.

If I confess my sins, I would be crushed. The weight would crush me.

And I say to you again, listen, there are, I'm not. If you've committed a crime, then there are consequences.

There are consequences for sins that we still have to face in this life. So I'm going to tell you, there may be pain to confession.

But I am promising you this. Under the authority of God, this is not my words.

These are God's. Jesus came to bind up the broken hearted.

The pain of you staying in your sin. The pain of you staying today in that drunken state.

The pain of you staying in those thorns is by far more eternally disastrous for your soul than you saying today,

I will make a break with my sin. And I will turn to Christ who promises to free me. Who promises to heal me.

Who promises to clean me. Who promises to forgive me. Who promises to be with me to the end.

I turn it over and I trust Christ. The pain you may have to face today for earthly consequences is eternally better than staying in your sin and facing

God and his judgment. What you are too weak to do.

What you are too powerless to do. What you cannot do. Jesus can.

He can make you right with the holy God. He can give you freedom over sin.

You don't have to live in your thorns and your drunkenness. But we must trust him.

You understand the reason people, Nineveh, they lived there because they wanted to. They continued in sin because they wanted to.

Today, if you choose to continue in sin, no one's making you. I'm not making you. The church isn't making you.

God's not making you. You want to do that. But I am telling you today that God is offering you a way out.

A way out. Here is Christ. Too late for the

Ninevites. Not too late for you today. Here's Christ. Repent and believe the gospel.

Now, church, you may say, well, is this just a message for the lost? But it's a message we need to hear today too, isn't it?

Because we still deal with sin. You're going to raise your hand today if you never struggled with sin this week, right?

If you didn't struggle with sin this week, raise your hand. Don't raise your hand because you'd be lying. We need to remember

Romans 6 14. Sin will not have dominion over you. So I'm encouraging the church today.

We serve a Jesus who sanctifies his church. God grows us progressively in the likeness of his son.

And one of the ways that he grows us in the likeness of his son is to remind us of the hope of the gospel.

Your hands got you into your sin, but they ain't going to get you out. But Jesus does.

And go to him again, right? Well, I messed up, so I got to fix it. You can't fix it.

But Jesus can. He already has. That's the gospel. His life, his death, his burial, his resurrection.

You're struggling with sin today. You're a Christian. You fell in sin this week. You're struggling with it. Hey, just give me a few more weeks and I'll dig myself out of this hole.

You won't. But Jesus will forgive you.

He's already dealt with your sin. Go to him again. Be reminded of the gospel.

All our hope is in Jesus. So live free now in Christ. Live by constant interaction with his word.

Live by constant involvement in the local church and in fellowship and in worship and prayer.

Rest again in his grace. You can't do it on your own. But Jesus can. And he works in your life by the means of grace.

The scriptures and the local church and fellowship. He works through these things and he sanctifies you, dear

Christian. You don't have to live caught in sin. In fact, if you're a

Christian, you can't live forever caught in sin because Jesus is too powerful for that. He won't allow that to happen.

Will you hear the Lord today? Let me speak to the Christian for a moment. Has sin numbed your conscience?

There was a time in your life that you wouldn't dare do or look or say this thing. Have you grown comfortable now in what you once knew was wrong?

Like a drunkard who thinks he's fine while he's staggering around. You see those cop videos and the man, he can't even get out of his car.

He's like, I'm not drunk. Is that you in your sin?

That's the one thing I used to be. No, I would never touch it. I would never watch it. I would never look. But today, now you're deceived.

You're fine with it. What sin today has wrapped itself around your heart?

Maybe it's anger. Just angry, frustrated at this situation, at the

America situation. Just mad all the time. Maybe it's bitterness.

Maybe it's lust. Maybe it's pride. Maybe it's forsaking worship.

I'm telling you, don't live there. Jesus can set you free.

Maybe there's a Christian here today caught in egregious sin. Maybe if the church found out about it, it would bring reproach upon the name of Christ.

Even in this town, it would bring reproach upon the name of Christ. But I tell you today, if you press on in it, it will only be worse.

You must own it. Turn to your Savior who will set you free.

You don't have to carry the weight of your deceit and your guilt and your shame. You don't have to carry those things because Jesus carried them for you.

Turn to Him. Repent and turn to the one who sets us free. Confess your sins. Repent and rest in the grace of God.

Rest in the finished work of Jesus. God is ready to forgive. I tell you, Providence Baptist Church, God is ready to forgive.

And remember this too. God has given us a church family. You don't have to fight alone.

You need people close to you. People in your life. Not afraid to help you battle sin.

Not afraid to help you with accountability. Not afraid to speak warning into your life. Not afraid to speak grace.

Into your life. That's why we have the local church. And then we need this reminder again.

I've said it a lot in this sermon, but let me just say it again. Church, the hope for our country, the hope is for our friends, for our family, for our neighbors.

It's not anything that we can do. But we can proclaim to them the one who can set them free.

Who can set them free from sin. Now who can set them free from the judgment that is to come upon sinners.

We can tell them about the goodness of God in the face of Jesus Christ. For they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink.

They're consumed like stubble, fully dried. How foolish is sin.

It results in being imprisoned by iniquity, drunk in depravity, and consumed by corruption.

But we've been reminded today that Jesus is our hope. Our sins, they are many, but his mercy is more.

So I'm asking us today to take seriously the warnings that we have heard. To flee it all.

Big sins, little sins, flee it all. Confess our sins one to another.

Let us here at this church make war on sin. Let us not treat sin in a cavalier manner or in a light manner.

Let us also remember to have compassionate hearts on those who are caught in sin. We don't look down our noses as though caught in sin.

We shake them. We help them. We pray for them. We also have compassion because we know this. If not for the grace of God, that's mean.

And so in all these things, with the power of the gospel, we proclaim the

Lord Jesus as the hope. I don't know today.

If you're that fish. Who swallowed the liver. And you're fighting.

But slowly, slowly, slowly, you're being dragged to the shore. If nothing changes.

One day you'll be caught in the net. You'll be too late forever. But you see,

I told you today about the way out. You see,