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Well, let's turn in our Bibles, please, to 1 Peter chapter 2.
Hope you have your Bibles with you.
We'll be turning to a number of passages that we
commonly do.
Normally, of course, I put the full text in our notes.
I always kind of feel a little guilty, though, that you can read the scriptures in your notes and not have to turn in your Bible.
And so from time to time, I like to just give the reference.
And so you're forced to turn in your Bibles to read with us.
And so we did that today, I think, in your notes.
Well, let's begin to consider what God's word has for us today by reading 1 Peter 2, 11, and
12, which read, Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and
pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.
And I emboldened that, italicized that for emphasis.
Having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they
may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of
visitation, when God visits them.
Here, God set forth through the hand of his apostle the nature of the Christian life in
very few words.
Christians are dwelling temporarily in a foreign place.
I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims.
Christians are pilgrims passing through this fallen world on their journey, as it were,
to their true and final home in which they will dwell with the Lord and with his people forever.
But this passage toward their homeland is not an easy one.
The Christian is battling throughout this journey.
As we read, for the Christian has a foe that would stop him or block his path, if he could,
as he journeys to his promised land of eternal Sabbath rest, which the writer of the Hebrew
sets forth as our destination, our goal.
And this enemy, which we fight against, is our fleshly lusts.
In other words, we've met the enemy and it is us.
It is me.
Our own fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.
These fleshly lusts, as an enemy, would stop his progress, if that were possible, is not
frustrating and defeating him in his journey.
Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against
the soul.
Here, there is, of course, an analogy, a metaphor likened to
Israel in the Old Testament.
Christians are, as Israel, having come out of Egypt, the place that depicts our life in
bondage to sin, from which we are delivered through Christ.
And as Israel journeyed to their promised land, through the wilderness, they met with resistance.
In fact, it was the Edomites who first opposed them and would not let them travel through their land on their way to
their promised land.
And this is recorded in Numbers 20, 14 through 21.
Let's turn there.
There we read, now Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom.
Thus says your brother Israel.
Edom is another name for Esau, of course, and so they were related, really, to the
Israelites.
Thus says your brother Israel, you know all the hardship that has befallen us, how our fathers went down to Egypt and we dwelt in
Egypt a long time and the Egyptians afflicted us and our fathers.
And when we cried out to the Lord, he heard our voice, he sent the angel and he brought us out of Egypt.
And now here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your border.
Please let us pass through your country.
We will not pass through your fields or vineyards, nor will we draw from your walls.
We will go along the king's highway.
That was a major thoroughfare going from Egypt on up to Palestine.
We'll not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory.
And Edom said to him, said to Israel, you shall not pass through my land lest I come out against
you with the sword.
And so the children of Israel said to him, we will go by the highway.
And if I or my livestock drank any of your water, then I will pay for it.
But let me only pass through on foot, nothing more.
And he, Edom said, you shall not pass through.
And so Edom came out against them with many men and with a strong hand.
And thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory.
So Israel turned away from him.
Same idea is found here in 1 Peter 2.
We're pilgrims, we're sojourners, temporarily dwelling in this world.
And we're on our journey through this wilderness of a world on to our final rest.
And yet we have that which would oppose us.
Fleshly lusts which war against the soul.
And so here is just another place, and there are numbers of them, where the Christian life is set forth
as a great war which Christians wage.
A continual war throughout this Christian life.
It's not a physical warfare that we fight, say as the Israelites and the Edomites.
Our Lord Jesus told Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world.
If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I would not be delivered unto the Jews.
But now my kingdom is not from here.
Our conflict, nevertheless, is not less intent because it's spiritual in nature
rather than physical.
In fact, in some ways, we could argue that our spiritual warfare is far greater than any physical conflict
that's ever been experienced in history.
After all, the foe we battle is much greater than any physical foe that could ever take a stand against us.
Moreover, the outcome of our warfare is far greater in importance rather than reaching an earthly
promised land.
Our destiny, of course, is heaven, eternity.
In an earthly battle, the temporal sphere is at stake, but the eternal destiny and well -being of our
souls is the outcome of our spiritual warfare, our spiritual engagement.
And so our spiritual warfare is far more important that we are engaged in.
We've already shown in recent weeks that our spiritual enemies are three in number.
They're all allied against us.
We fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil.
The Apostle John wrote of the Christian's victory in our battle with the world, for whatsoever is born of God
overcomes the world, and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.
And then the Apostle Peter, again in our passage before us, gave attention to the war we wage against our flesh,
which he calls here our fleshly lusts, or sinful desires,
even as we seek to live before God.
Our fleshly lusts, war against the soul.
And then Paul wrote that we should be prepared for a spiritual battle against spiritual forces.
In other words, the devil.
And we'll probably pick this up, begin to pick this up next Sunday, Lord willing.
And so these three passages depict the spiritual warfare in which we wage in our lives, all our
lives.
We're continuously engaging in battle on these three fronts against three enemies
that are allied with one another against us.
And so we fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Now over the last five Sundays, we've been addressing the first of these three, that being the world.
And we've shown that the world is primarily in the realm of our thinking.
The world is our spiritual enemy, and that it's really the culture of this fallen world
in its ideas, its values, and practices that are in opposition to the
will of God.
The world is an enemy to us.
The world would deceive us.
And so we are not to be worldly, but rather godly.
We are not to think like the world thinks, value what the world values, or seek
what the world seeks.
We are not to be conformed to this world, but we are to be transformed.
And that takes place by the renewing of our mind.
It's in the realm of thinking where the world fights against us.
But today, we want to consider the second of this hostile spiritual threesome with
which we do battle, and this is in the realm of our sinful desires and actions, fleshly lusts,
which the scriptures frequently describe as our flesh.
And here again, Peter referred to in 1 Peter 2, 11, and 12 as our
fleshly lusts.
I think we first have to examine the meaning of the term flesh
because the term flesh is used in many, many times, but with
different nuances of meaning in various passages.
And so actually, the word flesh has quite a broad range of meaning in the Holy Scriptures, more so
in the New Testament than the Old Testament.
Sometimes flesh is just a reference to the physical body.
It doesn't have anything to do with sin, but just the physical body, whether human or animal.
Like in 1 Corinthians 15, 39, Paul says there's different kinds of flesh, flesh of humans, flesh of animals, that
kind of thing.
It's just the body.
Commonly, flesh is a reference, however, to the human body, again, without any
respect to sin itself.
And so when the word is used in this meaning, it does not connote the sinfulness of man, but simply his physical body.
Flesh in this sense is also used to depict the physical body of the Lord Jesus.
And so clearly, it doesn't imply in this context sinfulness.
And so we read in John 1, 14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his
glory.
The glory is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
And so this idea of flesh as the human body of our Lord is also conveyed in Hebrews 5.
He also says in another place, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek, who in the days of his
flesh, referring to Jesus, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and
supplications with vehement cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death and was heard because of his
godly fear, though he was a son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered.
So obviously in these instances, flesh does not speak of the seed of sin, because
of course we read of our Lord that it's fitting we should have such a high priest,
holy, innocent, unstained, separate from sinners, exalted above the heavens.
In these instances, the word flesh connotes the physical body,
the Lord's physical body prior to his crucifixion.
On occasion, however, the word flesh is used to describe the weakness that
characterizes us as fallen human beings, frail and fallen human beings attempting to live before God and the
world.
And so our Lord Jesus said of some of his disciples, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
He's not speaking of sin here, a sin principle within you or me.
He was speaking rather of their weakness.
And this is a similar meaning to the word flesh in Romans 8, 3 and 4.
For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by
sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
so that or to the end that or for the purpose that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk
according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
And so I've just shown a couple places where the word flesh can have these different meanings.
And actually I have one of my resources at home.
It's falling apart.
I've used it so much over the years.
Vine's expository dictionary of New Testament words and Vine actually
set forth,.
How many?
13 nuances.
He listed them A, B, C, and he went all the way up to letter M.
And I'm thinking, how many is that?
13 nuances for the word flesh.
It's used 13 different ways in the New Testament.
So you have to look at the context ultimately to determine exactly what is
being conveyed.
And so the immediate context suggests the nuance of the word.
It would be wrong to take the meaning of flesh in one context and impose that upon other
contexts.
You have to look at each individual context to determine the precise meaning.
However, there are places in the scripture in which flesh denotes the sinful principle that continues in the life of every
Christian.
And by the way, it's so common for Christians to talk about the fact that we have a new
nature and an old nature.
I don't use that language anymore, or I try and avoid it.
Because I realized one day, in talking about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, really
he's the only one who has two natures, a divine nature and a human nature.
You and I don't have two natures.
We have a new nature with a sin problem.
And so rather than referring to sin nature, which everybody does and I understand it, I try
to be a little bit more precise and speak about a sin principle that exists in every one of us.
We have a new nature with a real sin problem.
Well, here in, what is it, Romans 7, 14 and following, we have the word
flesh connoting a sin principle within us.
And so Paul wrote, Romans 7, 14, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal,
sold under sin.
For what I'm doing I do not understand.
For what I will to do, what I want to do, that I do not practice.
But what I hate, that I do.
If then I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.
In other words, I realize there's a standard outside of me and I'm not doing it.
I realize that there's something wrong here.
Verse 17, but now, and this is Paul the Christian speaking, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that
dwells in me.
For I know that in me, and then he puts in parentheses, that in my flesh, see here the
word flesh speaks of sin that dwells within me.
He's not talking about his physical body, although the physical body is the way we manifest that
sin principle.
Flesh here is a reference to the sin principle.
I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells.
For to will is present with me.
I want to do what's right, but how to perform that, how to do that, which is good, I do not find.
For the good that I will to do, that I want to do, I do not do.
But the evil I don't want to do, I practice.
That describes the frustration of every Christian.
Now if I do what I will not to do, it's no longer I who do it, but sin dwells in me.
And here he's referring to it as his flesh.
The sin principle.
I find then a law, or a principle, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.
For I delight in the law of God, according to the inward man.
See, he wants to please God.
If he had his way, he'd never sin again.
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, bringing me into captivity to the
law of sin, which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?
Again, through this body that all this sin has acted out.
I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord.
So then with my mind I myself serve the law of God.
This verse puts an end to all those who would argue the law of God is not the rule of the believer.
Paul the Christian said, with my mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh,
the law of sin.
And here, flesh is speaking about this sin principle that still is within him.
He no longer identifies himself with that.
It's sin that's in me.
Because I identify myself, I want to do the will of God.
I want to keep the law of God.
And so what Paul says here of his flesh, however, cannot be said of our Lord Jesus, can it?
Because the Lord Jesus was without sin.
Here, therefore, flesh is not a reference to the human body, but rather to the sin principle, which is in every one of us.
This flesh is the enemy of our souls, which our true self,
that new creation, which God has made us in Christ Jesus, battles every day,
fleshly lust.
It used to be who we were before conversion, but now because we're in union with Christ, and we
receive new life from him, our flesh is the foreign principle of sin that dwells within us.
Again, this is true only of Christians.
This cannot be said of non -Christians.
So we want to consider this matter of fleshly lust,
flesh, sin within us, as an enemy, a spiritual enemy of the soul.
So let's consider sins of the flesh.
Again, we battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil.
We've already spoken about the sins that are characteristic of the fallen world.
When we speak of the world, a spiritual enemy of the Christian, we're speaking about the culture of this fallen world, its
ideas, its values, and practices.
They're in opposition to the will of God, and yet it's always pressing upon us, influencing us, tempting
us.
Again, worldliness is largely in the realm of our mind.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
That's how you deal with worldliness.
Worldliness is evident in how we think, what we value, what we intend to do or not do.
It's probably an oversimplification, an oversimplification.
However, the sins of the flesh involve what we experience through our senses,
five senses that we have, of course, our physical bodies.
And so the sins of the flesh are in the arena of our senses, what we see, touch, or feel, smell, hear, and
taste.
And this is where the sins of the flesh are manifest.
Sins of the flesh involve the forbidden and excessive stimulation of pleasure or excitement, the
perversion and one or more of the five physical senses.
For example, the sins of the flesh may be in the arena of drug and alcohol abuse.
Or in sexual assentiousness.
Sins of the flesh.
See how that's wrapped up in the five senses?
And when we speak of excesses, we read, for example, in the King James, of those who drank in
excess, drank wine in excess.
Sins of the flesh oftentimes is an excess of things that might otherwise be
okay, but not when they're abused.
And so to be overcome by this enemy of the world, we think wrongly and thereby act wrongly.
Again, Paul wrote in Romans 12 too, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
To be overcome by the world results in confusion and errant thinking and assessing and evaluating in
our aspirations and our planning.
But to indulge in the sins of the flesh results in the loss of freedom.
We're not talking about just error here, we're talking about slavery and bondage.
Sins of the flesh result in helplessness, self -destruction, slavery, and bondage.
Being captivated by the world, we think wrongly and therefore act wrongly and desire wrong things.
But to commit sins of the flesh, we become captivated by them, bound
in them to where we become a slave to sin.
Consider these verses that speak to this matter.
First, Peter wrote of false teachers that were enslaved to the sins of the flesh, who employ the lust
of the flesh to make a spoil of Christians.
For when they speak great swelling words, Peter's talking about false teachers here in the church, for when they speak great
swelling words of emptiness, they abhor through the lust of the flesh, through lewdness, the
ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error.
While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption, for by whom a person is overcome,
by him also he's brought into bondage.
The lust of the flesh, sins of the flesh, will bring you into slavery, into bondage,
where you're committing that sin and you can't escape.
You're a slave to it.
He goes on to say, if after we've escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, Savior Jesus Christ,
those false teachers are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.
They seem to have been set free for a while, but then they're overtaken again.
Paul wrote of our being set free from enslavement to sin through salvation through Jesus Christ.
What then?
Shall we sin because we're not under the law, under grace, but rather under grace?
Certainly not.
Do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves
whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?
But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you
delivered, and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
Every one of us is a slave.
You're either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness.
There's no third alternative.
Paul said, I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.
For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness,
so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
Didn't characterize you.
What fruit did you have in the things of which you are now ashamed?
For the end of those things, the outcome of those things is death.
But now having been set free, released from slavery, from bondage, having become slaves of
God, you have your fruit to holiness and the end or the outcome of that kind of life, everlasting life.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God, the outcome of the life of a slave
of righteousness is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Lord Jesus, of course, spoke about slavery to sin to his detractors.
Jesus said to those Jews who believed him, if you abide in my word, you're my disciples indeed, and you shall know the
truth and the truth shall set you free.
To be set free implies that you have been in bondage and the Lord's releasing you.
They answered him, we're Abraham's descendants and have never been in bondage to anyone.
That is ignorant and ludicrous that they would even make that assertion.
And so they said to Jesus, how will you, you will be made free?
How can you say that?
Jesus answered, most assuredly I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.
And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.
And therefore, if the son makes you free, you should be free indeed.
There's no slavery like being enslaved to sin.
And there's no freedom like being rescued and released from the
dominion of sin.
In this reading, we see only the Lord Jesus can set people free from sin.
We also see the response of the Jewish leaders, the common attitude and self -assessment of people who are enslaved to
sin.
They don't see that they're enslaved to sin.
They think they're free because they can do anything they want to do.
And who are you to tell me I can't or shouldn't?
They think they're free.
No, they're not.
To indulge in a sin of the flesh results in slavery to that sin.
The modern world calls it addiction.
The Bible calls it enslavement, bondage.
After people give themselves over to sin, they're brought into captivity by that sin.
They cannot escape the bondage they're in.
And even if and when they become aware of the serious condition in which they find themselves, they cannot escape.
And we, of course, understand the word of God, the scriptures to teach us that Jesus Christ is the only savior of
sinners who can both pardon and deliver his people from the power of sin.
Interestingly, Alcoholic Anonymous, formed in 1935 by two professing Christian men, by the way,
Bill Wilson, Bob Smith, and Akron, Ohio, they attempted to set forth principles from the
Bible to be applied to the world, including non -Christians, in their
efforts to deal with alcoholism.
Now, aside from stripping the biblical message of Jesus Christ as the only savior of mankind, these
men did glean certain principles from the Holy Scriptures that have helped men and women to a
degree in the battle with alcohol.
Their 12 -step program includes an acknowledgement of helplessness and personal
inability to break free from the bondage of alcohol.
They got this right.
And I put down the 12 -step before you in your notes.
Here are the original 12 steps.
I think it's been modified somewhat.
I'm gonna look at number one.
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.
Basically, step one is to acknowledge that you're in bondage to this sin.
They don't call it sin, of course.
Second, you came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Third, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
And that's their italicized words.
Four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Five, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Six, were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Seven, humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.
Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed, became willing to make amends to them all.
Nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Ten, continued to take personal inventory when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
Eleven, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him.
Prayed only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
And then 12, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics
and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Those are the 12 steps.
Of course, they've been applied to just about everything nowadays, 12 -step programs.
And again, lest anyone misunderstand, I do not advocate AA or any similar 12 -step
program in order to fight against sin.
Jesus Christ is the only Savior.
Any plan or effort to fight against sin that does not look directly and clearly to the person of Jesus Christ alone is not of God.
It's a moral renovation.
Maybe using biblical principles, but Jesus Christ is the only Savior of sinners.
Nevertheless, the founders of AA did rightly identify several important principles that the word of God teaches regarding the
Christians' battle against the sins of the flesh.
And the first of these is to acknowledge, I'm helpless, I am bound by this.
And that's a truism.
Some Christians have not come to this realization.
They think they've got a handle on it.
They think that they're not bound by sin.
Oh yeah, it's a problem to them, but they still think they've got a handle on it.
They either think it's not a real problem or they think that they can manage it on their own apart from Christ or apply a few principles
here or there.
Well, they're as foolish as these Jewish leaders whom our Lord rebuked.
We've never been in slavery to anyone.
How can you tell us that you'll set us free?
Let's consider the descent into sin.
Sin doesn't stand still, does it?
The old adage, you're either moving toward God or away from Him is probably truism.
When a person commits a sin of the flesh, he sets himself on a course that leads to a certain inevitable ruin,
destruction, and damnation unless the Lord sets him free.
A progression, or perhaps better, digression, invariably takes place over time.
Where has our society come in the last generation?
It's self -evident, isn't it?
There's digression.
And this is due to several spiritual realities about the nature of sin.
And so we might attempt to set forth these in number and development, and so let's consider sin's degradation.
Here's the process that commonly takes place when one commits the sin of the flesh.
First, the initial sin may seem to be a trifle thing, an indulgence that is not seen to be a
serious infraction.
It's a compromise, perhaps.
A yielding to temptation.
Perhaps it's in the viewing of a movie, the reading of an enticing narrative, the click of a mouse on a
website that has enticing images.
And so it happens.
And you know, when that happens, that you've done what you shouldn't have done.
Perhaps there's an accompanied sense of guilt and remorse, perhaps a word of confession.
But if true brokenness is not experienced and full repentance does not occur, that initial
sin will not be the end, but only the beginning of sorrows.
Sin does not stand still.
We've not yet addressed the devil.
We'll begin to next week, I think.
The fact is that he knows how to tempt us in ways that, you know, we follow.
He knows how to entice anyone to sin against God.
And if we yield to his temptation and commit his initial sin that he puts us onto, we're set on a
course that will be increasingly difficult to reverse or from which
to recover.
Secondly, that initial sin may have been committed in the face of a sensitive conscience.
You knew better than to go there, but you went there anyway.
But the second occasion to the same sin in the same manner comes easier.
And then the third and then the fourth.
Perhaps initially there's a violation of one's conscience, but maybe not to the
degree of that first transgression.
It gets easier, doesn't it?
But already a pattern may have established and a return to that sin becomes increasingly frequent.
There's a hardening of one's heart to the gravity of sin with the ongoing commission of sin.
Like the prostitute in Proverbs, after she does her thing, she wipes her mouth and says, I've done no
wrong.
And then thirdly, the second, even third occasion of sin leads to more egregious sin.
It's not just the same sin repeated.
For interestingly, we mistakenly think that indulging in a sin will satisfy a craving,
completely satisfy a longing to sin, but it doesn't.
It may do so temporarily initially in the short term, but actually sin indulged leads one
to be tempted to commit more egregious sin than before.
Sin doesn't stand still.
It's like a drug junkie needing more of his drug to obtain the high that he no longer receives from the
same dose.
Sin leads to more sin, greater sin, more frequent sin, more egregious sin.
There's people committing sin today that if you would have told them 10 years ago, they're doing today what they're doing, they would
have never believed you.
And of course, fourthly, the consequences of sin affect the spiritual well -being of his soul.
He does not have the same desire for the Lord and the things of the Lord he once had.
His interest and delight in the people of God are not as they were formerly.
Perhaps the outward show of piety remains or continues and perhaps for a prolonged period of time,
but eventually he arrives to that place that the Lord once addressed, this people honors me
with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
And so he comes to justify himself.
Perhaps he's quick to discover the failures in other Christians about him, thereby justifying his own behavior.
They do the same things that I do.
And then fifth, it may be that a sense of guilt becomes quite acute at times.
He makes resolutions to change his ways.
He confesses his sin.
He sheds tears, perhaps prays, but he increasingly becomes aware
I'm in bondage and I'm not getting out.
He cannot break away for he keeps going back to his sin repeatedly, maybe feeling miserable even while he
surrenders to it.
He's in despair and he finds little hope for he now has little faith, if any.
This is the progression, digression.
This is the course it always takes.
Perhaps a man in the iron cage in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the most scary narrative I can ever think of, imagine.
It was 10 years ago, I think, that we last called your attention to this.
Here you have Christian, who's on his journey to the celestial city, who's in the house of the interpreter, and the
interpreter is escorting him through various rooms of the house in order, and each one has a little different scene that
illustrates some biblical truth that will help him on his Christian journey.
And so he comes into a room and he sees this man in an iron cage
and he engages conversation.
You have it there in your notes.
Now, said Christian, he's speaking to the interpreter, let me go hence.
In other words, let me continue my journey now.
Nay, stay, said the interpreter, till I show thee a little more, and after that thou shalt go on thy way.
And so he took me by the hand again, led me into a very dark room where there sat a man in an iron cage.
Now the man to look on seemed very sad.
He sat with his eyes looking down to the ground, his hands folded together.
He sighed as if he would break his heart.
Then said Christian, what means this?
At which the interpreter bid him talk with the man.
Then said Christian to the man, what art thou?
The man answered, I am what I was not once.
Christian, what was thou once?
The man said, I was once a fair and flourishing professor.
In other words, I once was a bright and professing Christian, both
in mine own eyes and also in the eyes of others.
I once was, as I thought, fair for the celestial city.
That was my destiny.
I had eternal life, or so I thought.
And I even had joy at the thoughts that I should get thither.
Christian, well, what art thou now?
The man in the iron cage, I'm now a man of despair and I'm shut up in it, as in this iron cage.
I cannot get out.
Oh, now I cannot.
Christian, but how camest thou into this condition?
Here it is.
The man in the iron cage, I left off to watch and be sober.
I laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts.
I sinned against the light of the word and the goodness of God.
I have grieved the spirit and he is gone.
I tempted the devil and he has come to me.
I have provoked God to anger and he has left me.
I have so hardened my heart, I cannot repent.
I know people that have gone this course.
Then said Christian to the interpreter, but is there no hope for such a man as this?
The interpreter said, ask him.
Then said Christian, is there no hope, but you must be kept in the iron cage of despair?
The man in the iron cage, no, none at all.
The Christian tries to encourage him.
Why, the son of the blessed is very pitiful.
Jesus is very merciful.
Man in the iron cage, I've crucified him to myself afresh.
That's a reference to Hebrews 6 .6.
I despised his person, Luke 19.
I despised his righteousness.
I counted his blood an unholy thing.
I've done despite to the spirit of grace.
And therefore I've shut myself out of all the promises.
And there now remains to be nothing but threatenings, dreadful threatenings, fearful threatenings, of certain judgment
and fire indignation, which shall devour me as an adversary.
He didn't have faith, he couldn't.
Christian, for what did you bring yourself into this condition?
Here it is, man.
For the lusts, the pleasures, and profits of this world.
In the enjoyment of which I did then promise myself much delight, but now every one of those things also bite me
and gnaw me like a burning worm.
And that's the condition of a guilty conscience throughout eternity of the lost man, right?
Christian, but canst thou now repent and turn?
Man in the iron cage, God hath denied me repentance.
His word gives me no encouragement to believe.
Yea, himself has shut me up in this iron cage.
Nor can all the men in the world let me out.
Oh, eternity, eternity, how shall I grapple with the misery that I must meet within eternity?
And then said the interpreter to Christian, let this man's misery be remembered by thee and be an everlasting caution to
thee.
Well, said Christian, this is fearful.
God help me to watch and be sober and to pray that I may shun the cause of this man's misery.
Sir, is it not time for me to go on my way now?
Horrific narrative.
But again, I see this played out in people's lives over the years.
Is there hope for someone like this?
Well, there's always the possibility for a sinner to come to Jesus Christ for salvation.
Our Lord has promised, truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of men, whatever
blasphemes they utter.
But it's true, however, for those who have intentionally sinned against the grace of God in the face of clear knowledge of him and his truth,
God himself made purpose not to save him.
There's such a thing as the Lord judicially hardening people who refuse
repeatedly his warnings and exhortations.
Isaiah is quoted.
I won't read that, but it's in Matthew 13.
This is one of the reasons Jesus spoke in parables, not only to teach truths to his disciples, but hide truth from
others.
Well, let's consider the sins of the flesh and the digression and bondage of sexual sin.
Now, you know, we talked about earlier lust of the flesh can be in the area of alcohol
or other areas of the flesh, pleasure, anything that has to do with senses.
Let's talk about sexual sin in particular.
We live in a culture that has abandoned its Christian heritage regarding sexual sin as it set forth in the Holy.
Scripture.
I can remember when the occurrence of a divorce in a community was a rare event and it was regarded as a great scandal.
Talking about the early 60s.
I remember that adultery was viewed as a terrible, egregious sin by everybody
in society.
Everyone believed that sexual relations were only legal and righteous between a husband and wife within the marriage relationship.
Premarital sexual relations happened, but it was always viewed as a defect of character and a cause of shame.
Today, there is no sexual sin forthrightly condemned in our society, apart from some of the more bizarre
and debased practices.
And while as Christians, we attempt to hold forth God's law as a standard by which all human behavior should be evaluated and judged,
the world has digressed to embrace norms that have been condemned in Western
society since AD 500.
I won't go into detail there, but there was a prostitute who married a Roman
emperor and she was converted.
And although he was not a godly man through her influence, he established laws in the empire
regarding marriage and divorce and sexual sin.
And those became part of our Western culture until this last generation.
Paul wrote, now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness and lewdness.
And this is what characterizes our society today.
The other day I was in a waiting room in the hospital down in Worcester and the TV monitor was on and they had the program The
View on there.
It was Valentine's Day.
And so they were showing pictures of couples, you know, loving, kissing, hugging.
And everybody was cheering when it happened.
And sure enough, they showed two homosexual men embracing with a long, passionate kiss
on the TV screen.
And everybody cheered.
What a wonderful thing.
They loved each other.
Our society has changed significantly.
And now we as Christians are viewed to be the problem in that we don't celebrate
and rejoice in these things.
Christians are now viewed as hard -hearted, insensitive bigots who don't celebrate these things.
We're seen to be the bearers of hate within our society.
And hostility toward us is only going to worsen with the passing.
Of time.
But we resolve, as God enables us, to be true to God's word, as he enables us, to
declare the truth of the Holy Bible, God's authoritative word to all people at all places in all.
Times.
And so without going into graphic detail, I think in the few minutes that we have remaining, I want to affirm
some biblical truth about this matter of sexual sin.
And I do so with reluctance, frankly.
I'm not going to go into detail.
Scripture says it's a shame to speak about those things that are done in private.
And so let me just affirm several things.
First, God created and established sexual relations between a husband and wife as a lawful,
beautiful, enjoyable act of love and commitment.
Sexual relations between husband and wife of a legitimate marriage in the sight of God is blessed
of God.
It's a wonderful and beautiful thing, a gift of God.
Secondly, all sexual relations or sexual activity that would tempt or lead to sexual relations
outside of a God ordained marriage is sin against God.
It's a transgression against God's law.
The scriptures declare, let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled
for God will judge the sexually immoral and the adulterous, fornicators and adulterers.
God will judge.
Yes, it's possible for defilement to take place in the marriage bed, but it's clear that all sexual relations
outside of marriage is fornication and adultery.
God will damn them in his judgment who transgress his law unless they repent and believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ alone as their Savior.
God has declared the seventh commandment.
Thou shalt not commit adultery and that's all encompassing sexual relations outside a
legitimate marriage.
Well, thirdly, since this is true that God will damn those who commit sexual acts outside the marriage relationship that he deems
legitimate, the important question must be answered.
What is and what is not a legitimate marriage in the sight of God?
And even among Christians, this is not clear.
First,.
A legitimate marriage in the sight of God is one in which a man and woman are joined in marriage in a civil ceremony before
witnesses.
Roman Catholicism teaches that marriage is one of the seven sacraments of the church.
They're wrong regarding this.
Martin Luther rightly corrected this belief in practice, declaring that the scripture set forth marriage as a
creation ordinance, not a church sacrament.
Even non -Christians have the right and responsibility of entering marriage and God honors that marriage.
Even among non -Christians.
Secondly, a legitimate marriage in the sight of God is only between a man and woman who have not previously been
married.
Our Lord Jesus taught quite clearly, whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.
And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.
That's pretty clear.
It is God's purpose and ideal for one man to be married to one woman for life.
The Lord Jesus declared, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, hold fast to his wife, and the two should become
one flesh.
So they're no longer two, but one flesh.
What therefore God has joined together.
Let not man separate.
There are of course, however, cases when a legitimate subsequent marriage, second marriage, third marriage is
legitimate before God and may be blessed by him.
A man or woman who's been widowed may remarry of course.
And moreover,.
The Lord Jesus made allowance for a legitimate divorce and remarriage in the case of sexual sin on the
part of the spouse.
As Jesus declared, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality
and marries another, commits adultery.
And whoever marries her who is divorced, commits adultery.
The one exception, immorality.
Now it's a bad, but very common thing that every church contains marriages that have not conformed to
the just set forth.
How are Christians in those marriages to think and respond to the knowledge of the will of God in these matters?
Can my marriage not be blessed?
Of course not.
Shouldn't think that first, if you've determined your marriage was not entered into legitimately, that doesn't
leave you in a place in which you cannot hope for and enjoy the blessing of God upon your marriage and your
family.
It does not mean that your marriage is cursed and therefore doomed, but it is important as a married
couple to acknowledge before one another and before the Lord of your failure in the past and seek the forgiveness of
God through confession of sin and faith in Jesus Christ.
And then without justifying your past action, seek to hold forth God's biblical ideal for marriage before
God is in the forgiveness and restoration business.
He brings beauty from ashes.
He restores the days of the locust.
And by the way, in my experience of 40 plus years now in the ministry, I've noticed that some of the most strongly
proponents of the biblical marriage idea that we've set forth have been people that have not
had that in their lives, but they've come to see it and they speak firsthand of the difficulty and ravages
they've had in their life.
And they hold forth the biblical ideal of marriage, design that for their children and for others
around them.
And that's a good thing.
Third, to envision and fantasize committing sexual sin is itself sin.
That must be acknowledged and repented of before the Lord.
Jesus said, I say unto you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery in her heart.
I didn't even touch on the matter of pornography here.
It's a scourge and it's not just a problem of men.
I read one place up to a third of women have a problem with this nowadays.
The availability of it, pornography.
I wanted to have some details, but I said, no, no.
Even if I tried to do a search on my computer about the ravages of pornography in society, I
didn't know what would come up.
And so I didn't go there.
Won't do it.
God regards the man who lusts after a woman as having sinned against him.
But a point of clarification is important here.
Although lusting after another who's not your spouse is sin, it's not as egregious as physically committing
an adulterous act.
It's always more serious to act out sin than just conceive sin in your heart.
Always.
Each is a damning sin, but the actual sin, physical sin of adultery is much more
egregious.
And secondly, I've known a wife or two here and there who has wrongly thought she has biblical
grounds for divorce because her husband lusts after other women or say is caught into pornography.
If that were the case and probably every Christian woman that's ever been around had a cause for divorce at
some point in her time.
I don't want to be so negative and graphic, but no.
The exception clause for fornication speaks of an actual violation, breaking
of the marriage covenant through fornication, adultery.
Fourthly, and I'd make this, I want to make this point because I don't hear anybody saying it.
It's a great error to believe that what people do in private does not have an adverse effect on others in society.
Well, I don't care what they do in private.
That's their business.
That's not true, folks.
No sin is a private matter.
It has influence and effect on others and society.
Now, please don't, I'm not advocating, you know, that we begin to execute people, you
know, for these gross sins that they did in the Old Testament times.
We're for people's souls.
We desire them to be saved through the gospel.
Jesus Christ died for sinners.
But the idea that somehow it doesn't matter what people do in private, that's their business and it doesn't have an
impact or influence upon society is a lie of the devil.
It matters what a society and nation declares to be
righteous and true.
And it used to be that way until a generation ago.
And then, of course, this matter is so important.
Homosexual behavior, incest, bestiality, are set forth in God's word as warranting God's
unrelenting wrath.
Some sins are enormously evil in God's sight.
Here's a common misunderstanding regarding the nature of sin and gravity before God.
Every sin is alike in God's sight.
That's not true.
There are some sins that are much more egregious than others in the sight of God.
In the Old Testament, when an Israelite committed a sin, sometimes it required restitution or a
sacrifice.
Other times, if they committed the sin, the death penalty was their dessert.
It matters.
Some sins are more egregious than others.
Yes, any one sin warrants God's wrath.
But to say every sin is equal in degree of evil before God is not true.
Homosexual behavior, incest, bestiality are set forth in God's word as warranting God's
eternal wrath.
Leviticus 20.
The man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the
adulterer shall surely be put to death.
He goes on to talk about a man lying with close relatives.
Same fate.
Verse 13 of Leviticus 20.
If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.
There's an aggravated sin here.
They shall surely be put to death.
Their blood shall be upon them.
If a man mates with an animal, the Bible, you know, addresses all
aspects of life.
He shall surely be put to death.
You shall kill the animal.
If a woman approaches any animal and mates with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal.
You shall surely put it to death.
Their blood is upon them.
But it's now come to pass in some nations, the free nations supposedly in the
world, that the law punishes and fines those who would even read or advocate what I've done in just
the last two minutes.
I could be fined and jailed.
In Canada.
And other places too.
And it's coming here as well.
It's inevitable.
Unless the Lord returns first or he sends revival to our land.
But the threat of government or the ilk of friends and family, for that matter,
in no way mitigates our conviction or damages our resolve to proclaim the truth of
God's word to our world.
John the Baptist said to Herod to his face, it's not lawful for you to have that woman.
And we need to be just as bold and clear.
And in our declaration, people have to know what sin is or they're not going to escape it
through the Lord Jesus Christ.
No, we don't advocate putting to death these egregious transgressors of God's law.
We desire the salvation of their souls.
And for God's mercy and grace to bring them to salvation.
And so we desire to proclaim the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ to them.
He's a great savior of great sinners.
And he's able to deliver from the power of sin, pardon them.
And he's able to enable them to escape the damnation of their sin, restore them to a life of holy
living before him.
Paul could write to the church at Corinth, you know, you know that no fornicators or adulterers
or homosexuals or sodomites will inherit the kingdom of God.
And that was just a partial list.
He gave a whole long list.
They will not have salvation.
But then he could say, such were some of you.
And I could name names now of good friends of me and Mary that we've known over the years.
One flaming leftist liberal lesbian
who is married in one of the most devout
evangelistic Christians I've ever met.
She speaks Christ to everybody that moves.
Has three children, married to a wonderful man.
Lives in Scotland, a long way away.
I know another young man who was saved out of the, you know, the homosexual
lifestyle.
Wonderfully saved.
And he was in it for years.
God's in the saving business.
And we have the power in Christ and the gospel to present to them a way out,
a way of deliverance from their slavery.
I can remember back in the early 80s there in Sacramento, a single mother,
middle -aged, visiting me.
Please go see my son.
And I made a number of visits to this young man in his mid -20s.
And at the time, it was before AIDS or any of this was known.
But he began to tell me that he had this sickness and would have these sores break out.
And he'd sit in the bathtub all day long.
And he told me a story.
He and a friend were basically flown.
All over the world.
And they were hired and paid big bucks to entertain men in
homosexual bars as they opened up in the big cities of the world.
And he had contracted, you know, the HIV virus and had AIDS and died.
But I was able to sit there and talk with him one -on -one, repeatedly, and telling him of
salvation in Christ.
And, you know, we've got a message of hope for sinners.
And, you know, thank God I was never involved in anything like that.
But God saved me out of sin and continues to do so.
You know, we have hope in Jesus Christ.
Such were some of you.
It's very clear that our Lord has given our world over to egregious sin.
It's in a downward slide of darkness and debauchery.
Romans 1 is played out.
I wanted to read the passage.
We don't have time.
But it's clearly a fallen world in which we live.
And who knows where we're going to be in 20 years?
Who knows?
Again, unless the Lord brings revival.
And he has in the past.
I suspect that the Lord doesn't come soon.
Within, you know, 75 years, we're all going to be under Sharia law.
And, you know, just from the birth rate alone, I suspect that we're going to be living in a Muslim world
in which, you know, all this debauchery and sin isn't going to be put up with.
It'll be a terrible, terrible time, you know, of evil and persecution.
But this world cannot continue to go in this course without the wrath of
God being fully manifested in it.
Thank God for Jesus Christ.
And I think about our children and our grandchildren and the world that lies before them.
The only hope and the certain hope we have is in Christ and his gospel.
Amen?
Let's proclaim it.
And we'll do so unashamedly, regardless of the consequences.
Let's pray.
Thank you, Father, for your word.
And we pray that you would help us, our Lord.
You've called us at this time in history to be in this place, to represent you
in righteousness.
And we pray that you would help us to do so, Lord.
To do so, Lord, with courage, with boldness, and yet with compassion and concern for
those that are lost and bound in sin.
And we pray, our God, that you would just turn loose the gospel and that we would see many, many
people come to salvation in Christ.
May you glorify yourself, our God.
You're a great savior to great sinners.
And we desire to see that manifest in our day.
For we pray in Jesus' name, amen.