Lars Larson Live Stream

First Baptist Church Leominster iconFirst Baptist Church Leominster

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Christians are dwelling temporarily in a foreign place. I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims.
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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
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Lord and with his people forever. I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims.
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But this passage toward their homeland is not an easy one. The Christian is battling throughout this journey, as we read, for the
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Christian has a foe that would stop him or block his path, if he could, as he journeys to his promised land of eternal
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Sabbath rest, which the writer of the Hebrews sets forth as our destination, our goal.
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And this enemy, which we fight against, is our fleshly lusts.
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In other words, we've met the enemy, and it is us. It is me. Our own fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.
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These fleshly lusts, as an enemy, would stop his progress, if that were possible.
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It's not frustrating and defeating him in his journey.
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Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.
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Here there is, of course, an analogy, a metaphor, likened to Israel in the
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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.
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And as Israel journeyed to their promised land, through the wilderness, they met with resistance.
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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.
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And this is recorded in Numbers 20, 14 through 21. Let's turn there.
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There we read, Now Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom. Thus says your brother
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Israel. So Edom is another name for Esau, of course.
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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
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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.
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And now here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your border. Please let us pass through your country.
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We will not pass through your fields or vineyards nor will we draw water from your wells. We will go along the king's highway.
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That's 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.
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And Edom said to him, said to Israel, you shall not pass through my land lest I come out against you with the sword.
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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
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I will pay for it. Let me only pass through on foot, nothing more. And he,
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Edom said, you shall not pass through. And so Edom came out against them with many men and with a strong hand.
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And thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory. So Israel turned away from him.
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Same idea is found here in 1 Peter 2. We're pilgrims.
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We're sojourners temporarily dwelling in this world. We're on our journey through this wilderness of a world on to our final rest.
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And yet we have that which would oppose us. Fleshly lust which war against the soul.
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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
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Christians wage. A continual war throughout this Christian life. It's not a physical warfare that we fight, say as the
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Israelites and the Edomites. Our Lord Jesus told Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world.
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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.
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Our conflict, nevertheless, is not less intent because it's spiritual in nature rather than physical.
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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.
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After all, the foe we battle is much greater than any physical foe that could ever take a stand against us.
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Moreover, the outcome of our warfare is far greater in importance rather than reaching an earthly promised land.
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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.
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And so our spiritual warfare is far more important that we are engaged in.
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We've already shown in recent weeks that our spiritual enemies are three in number. They're all allied against us.
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We fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil. The Apostle John wrote of the
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Christian 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.
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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.
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Our fleshly lusts war against the soul. And then Paul wrote that we should be prepared for a spiritual battle against spiritual forces.
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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.
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We're continuously engaging in battle on these three fronts against three enemies that are allied with one another against us.
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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.
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And we've shown that the world is primarily in the realm of our thinking. The world is our spiritual enemy.
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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.
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The world is an enemy to us. The world would deceive us. And so we are not to be worldly, but rather godly.
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We are to think like, we are not to think like the world thinks, value what the world values, or seek what the world seeks.
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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.
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It's in the realm of thinking where the world fights against us.
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But today we want to consider the second of this hostile spiritual threesome with which we do battle.
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And this is in the realm of our sinful desires and actions, fleshly lusts, which the scriptures frequently describe as our flesh.
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And here again, Peter referred to in 1 Peter 2, 11 and 12 as our fleshly lusts.
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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.
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And so actually the word flesh has quite a broad range of meaning in the Holy Scriptures, more so in the
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New Testament than the Old Testament. Sometimes flesh is just a reference to the physical body.
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Doesn't have anything to do with sin, but just the physical body. Whether human or animal.
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Like in 1 Corinthians 15, 39, Paul says there's different kinds of flesh. Flesh of humans, flesh of animals, that kind of thing.
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It's just the body. Commonly flesh is a reference, however, to the human body.
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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.
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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.
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And so we read in John 1, 14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory.
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The glory is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
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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.
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So obviously in these instances, flesh does not speak of the seed of sin. Because of course we read of our
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Lord that it's fitting we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separate from sinners, exalted above the heavens.
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In these instances, the word flesh connotes the physical body, the
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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.
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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.
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He's not speaking of sin here, a sin principle within you or me. He was speaking rather of their weakness.
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The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And this is a similar meaning to the word flesh in Romans 8, three and four.
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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.
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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.
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And so I've just shown a couple places where the word flesh can have these different meanings. And actually
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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.
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And Vine actually set forth, how many, 13 nuances.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You have to look at each individual context to determine the precise meaning.
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However, there are places in the scripture in which flesh denotes the sinful principle that continues in the life of every
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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.
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I don't use that language anymore. I try and avoid it. Because I realized one day, in talking about the person of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, really he's the only one who has two natures, a divine nature and a human nature.
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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,
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I try to be a little bit more precise and speak about a sin principle that exists in every one of us.
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We have a new nature with a real sin problem.
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Well, here in, what is it, Romans 7, 14 and following, we have the word flesh connoting a sin principle within us.
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And so Paul wrote, Romans 7, 14, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.
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For what I'm doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, what
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I want to do, that I do not practice. But what I hate, that I do.
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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.
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I realize that there's something wrong here. Verse 17, but now, and this is
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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.
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He's not talking about his physical body, although the physical body is the way we manifest that sin principle.
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Flesh here is a reference to the sin principle. I know that in me that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells.
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Nothing pleasant with me. I want to do what's right, but how to perform that, how to do that which is good,
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I do not find. For the good that I will to do, that I want to do, I do not do.
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But the evil I don't want to do, I practice. That describes the frustration of every Christian. Now if I do what
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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.
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The sin 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.
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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.
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Oh, 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.
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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.
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Paul the Christian said, with my mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin.
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And here, flesh is speaking about this sin principle. It still is within him. He no longer identifies himself with that.
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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.
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And so what Paul says here of his flesh, however, cannot be said of our Lord Jesus, can it?
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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.
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The sin of our souls. Which our true self, that new creation which
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God has made us in Christ Jesus, battles every day. Fleshly lust.
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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, the foreign principle of sin that dwells within us.
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Again, this is true only of Christians. This cannot be said of non -Christians. So we want to consider this matter of fleshly lust.
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Flesh. Sin. Within us. As an enemy, a spiritual enemy of the soul.
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So let's consider sins of the flesh. Again, we battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil.
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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
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Christian, we're speaking about the culture of this fallen world. Its ideas, its values, and practices are in opposition to the will of God, and yet it's always pressing upon us.
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Influencing us. Tempting us. Again, worldliness is largely in the realm of our mind.
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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.
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It's probably an oversimplification an oversimplification.
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However, the sins of the flesh involve what we experience through our senses.
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Five senses that we have, of course. Our physical bodies. And so the sins of the flesh are in the arena of our senses.
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What we see, touch, or feel, smell, hear, and taste. And this is where the sins of the flesh are manifest.
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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.
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For example, the sins of the flesh may be in the arena of drug and alcohol abuse.
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Or in sexual licentiousness. Sins of the flesh. See how that's wrapped up in the five senses?
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Sins of the flesh. And when we speak of excesses, we read, for example, in the
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King James, of those who drank in excess. Drank wine in excess.
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Sins of the flesh oftentimes is an excess of things that might otherwise be okay, but not when they're abused.
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And so to be overcome by the sin of the flesh and the sin of the world, we think wrongly and thereby act wrongly.
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Again, Paul wrote in Romans 12 too, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
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To be overcome by the world results in confusion and errant thinking and assessing and evaluating and our aspirations and our planning.
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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.
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Sins of the flesh result in helplessness, self -destruction, slavery, and bondage.
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Being captivated by the world, we think wrongly and therefore act wrongly and desire wrong things.
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But to commit sins of the flesh, we become captivated by them, bound in them to where we become a slave to sin.
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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.
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For when they speak great swelling words, he's talking, 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.
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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.
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The lust of the flesh, the 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.
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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.
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They seem to have been set free for a while, but then they're overtaken again. They're sent to sin through salvation through Jesus Christ.
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What then? Shall we sin because we're not under the law, under grace, but rather under grace? Certainly not.
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Do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey, you are that one slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?
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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 to righteousness.
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Every one of us is a slave. You're either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness.
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There's no third alternative. Paul said, I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.
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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.
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For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have in the things of which you are now ashamed?
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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.
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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, the
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Lord Jesus of course spoke about slavery to sin to his detractors. Jesus said to those
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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.
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To be set free implies that you have been in bondage and the Lord's releasing you. They answered him, we're
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Abraham's descendants and have never been in bondage to anyone. That is ignorant and ludicrous and so they said to Jesus, you will be made free?
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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.
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There's no slavery like being enslaved to sin and there's no freedom like being rescued and released from the dominion of sin and in this reading we see only the
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Lord Jesus can set people free from sin. We also see the response of the
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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.
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They think they're free because they can do anything they want to do and who are you to tell me
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I can't or shouldn't? They think they're free. No, they're not.
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To indulge in a sin of the flesh results in slavery to that sin. The Christian world calls it addiction.
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The Bible calls it enslavement, bondage. After people give themselves over to sin, they're brought into captivity by that sin.
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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
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Savior of sinners who can both pardon and deliver his people from the power of sin.
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Interestingly, Alcoholic Anonymous formed in 1935 by two professing Christian men, by the way,
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Bill Wilson, Bob Smith, and Akron, Ohio. They attempted to set forth principles from the
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Bible to be applied to the world including non -Christians in their efforts to deal with alcoholism.
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Now aside from stripping the biblical message of Jesus Christ as the only Savior man 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.
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Their 12 -step program includes an acknowledgement of helplessness and personal inability to break free from the bondage of alcohol.
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They got this right and I put down the 12 -step before you in your notes.
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Here are the original 12 -steps. I've clarified somewhat. I'm going to look at number one. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable.
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Basically step one is to acknowledge that you're in bondage to this sin.
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They don't call it sin, of course. Second, you came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
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Third, made a decision to turn our will and our lives as we understood him.
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And that's their italicized words. Four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
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Five, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Six, were entirely ready to have
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God remove all these defects of character. Seven, humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.
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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 that would injure them or others.
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10, continued to take personal inventory when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. 11, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him.
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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.
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Those are the 12 steps. And of course they've been applied to just about everything nowadays, 12 step programs.
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And again, lest anyone misunderstand, I do not advocate AA or any similar 12 step program in order to fight against sin.
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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.
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It's a moral renovation, maybe using biblical principles, but Jesus Christ is the only savior of sinners.
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Nevertheless, the founders of AA did rightly identify several important principles that the word of God teaches regarding the
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Christian's battle against the sins of the flesh. And the first of these is to acknowledge I'm helpless.
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I am bound by this. And that's a truism. Some Christians have not come to this realization.
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They think they got a handle on it. They think that they have, they're not bound by sin.
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Oh yeah, it's a problem to them, but they still think they 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.
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And while they are as foolish as these Jewish leaders whom our Lord rebuked, we've never been so foolish that we've never been in slavery to anyone.
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How can you tell us, you know, that you'll set us free? Let's consider the descent into sin.
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Sin doesn't stand still, does it? The old adage, you're either moving toward God or away from him is probably truism.
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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
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Lord sets him free. A progression or perhaps better digression invariably takes place over time.
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Where has our society come in the last generation? It's self -evident, isn't it?
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There's digression. And this is due to several spiritual realities about the nature of sin.
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And so we might attempt to set forth these in number and development. And so let's consider sin's degradation.
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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 it's not going to be a serious infraction.
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It's a compromise perhaps. A yielding to temptation. Perhaps it's in the view of the movie, the reading of an enticing narrative, the click of a mouse on a website that has enticing images.
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And so it happens. And you know when that happens that you've done what you shouldn't have done.
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Perhaps there's an accompanied sense of guilt, 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.
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Sin does not stand still. We've not yet addressed the devil.
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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.
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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.
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Secondly, that initial sin may have been committed in the face of a sensitive sense of repentance.
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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.
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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.
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It gets easier, doesn't it? But already a pattern may have established and a return to that sin is increasingly frequent.
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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,
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I've done no wrong. And then thirdly, the second, even third occasion of sin leads to more egregious sin.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Sin does not stand still. Sin leads to more sin, greater sin, more frequent sin, more egregious sin.
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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.
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Sin doesn't stand still. And of course, fourthly, the consequences of sin affect the spiritual well -being of his soul.
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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.
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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
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Lord once addressed, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And so he comes to justify himself.
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Perhaps he's quick to discover the failures in other Christians about him, thereby justifying his own behavior.
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They do the same things that I do. And then fifth, it may be that a sense of guilt comes to him at times.
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He makes resolutions to change his ways. He confesses his sin. He sheds tears, press praise, but he increasingly becomes aware.
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I'm in bondage and I'm not getting out. He cannot break away for he keeps going back to a sin repeatedly, maybe feeling miserable, even while he surrenders to it.
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He's in despair and he finds little hope for he now has little faith, if any. This is the progression, this is the course it always takes.
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Perhaps a man in the iron cage in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the most scary narrative I can ever think of, imagine.
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It was 10 years ago, I think that we last called your attention to this. Here you have
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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.
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And each one has a little different scene that illustrates some biblical truth that will help him on his
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Christian journey. And so he comes into a room and he sees this man in an iron cage and he engages conversation.
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You have it there in your notes. Now, said Christian, he's speaking to the interpreter, let me go hence.
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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.
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And so he took me by the hand again, led me into a very dark room where I could not see much.
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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.
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Then said Christian, what means this? At which the interpreter bid him, talk with the man. Then said
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Christian to the man, what art thou? The man answered, I am what I was not once.
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Christian, what was thou once? The man said, I was once a fair and flourishing professor.
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In other words, a bright and professing Christian. Both in mine own eyes and also in the eyes of others.
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I once was, as I thought, fair for the celestial city. That was my destiny. I had eternal life, or so I thought.
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And I even had joy at the thoughts that I should get thither. Christian, well, what art thou now?
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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.
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I cannot get out. Oh, now I cannot. Christian, but how camest thou into this condition?
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Here it is. Man in the iron cage, I left off to watch and be sober. I laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts.
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I sinned against the light of the word and the goodness of God. I have grieved the spirit and he is gone.
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I tempted the devil and he has come to me. I have provoked God to anger and he has left me.
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I have so hardened my heart I cannot repent. I know people that have gone this course.
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Then said Christian to the interpreter, but is there no hope for such a man as this? Interpreter said, ask him.
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Then said Christian, is there no hope, but you must be kept in the iron cage of despair? Man in the iron cage, no, none at all.
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Christian tries to encourage him. Why, the son of the blessed is very pitiful. Jesus is very merciful.
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Man in the iron cage, I've crucified him to myself afresh. That's a reference to Hebrews 6 .6.
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I despised his person, Luke 19. I despised his righteousness.
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I counted his blood an unholy thing. I've done despite to the spirit of grace and therefore
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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.
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He didn't have faith. He couldn't. Christian, for what did you bring yourself into this condition?
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Here it is, man. For the lust, the pleasures and profits of this world and the enjoyment of which
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I did then promise myself much delight, but now every one of those things also bite me and gnaw me like a burning worm.
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And that's the condition of a guilty conscience throughout eternity of the lost man, right? Christian, but can't thou now repent and turn?
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Man in the iron cage. God had denied me repentance. His word gives me no encouragement to believe.
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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
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I grapple with 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.
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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.
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Sir, is it not time for me to go on my way now? Horrific narrative.
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But again, I see this played out in people's lives over the years. Is there hope for someone like this?
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Well, there's always the possibility for a sinner to come to Jesus Christ for salvation. Our Lord has promised.
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Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven to the children of men, whatever blasphemes they utter.
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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,
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God himself made purpose not to save him. There's such a thing as the
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Lord judicially hardening people who refuse repeatedly his warnings and exhortations.
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Isaiah is quoted. I won't read that, but it's from Isaiah 13. This is one of the reasons
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Jesus spoke in parables, not only to teach truth to his disciples, but hide truth from others.
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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, could be in the area of alcohol or other areas of the flesh, pleasure, anything that has to do with senses.
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Let's talk about sexual sin. In particular, we live in a culture that has abandoned its
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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.
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Talking about the early 60s, I remember that. Adultery was viewed as a terrible, egregious sin by everybody in society.
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Everyone believed that sexual relations were only legal and righteous for the husband and wife within the marriage relationship.
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Premarital sexual relations happened, but it was always viewed as a defect of character and a cause of shame.
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Today, there is no sexual sin forthrightly condemned in our society apart from some of the more bizarre and debased practices.
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While as Christians, we attempt to hold forth God's laws, a standard by which all human behavior should be evaluated and judged, the world has digressed from norms that have been condemned in Western society since AD 500.
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I won't go into detail there, but there was a prostitute who married a
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Roman emperor and she was converted. Although he was not a godly man through her influence, he established laws in the empire regarding marriage and divorce and sexual sin.
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Those became part of our Western culture until this last generation.
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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.
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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
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The View on there. It was Valentine 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
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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.
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Christians are now viewed as hard -hearted, insensitive bigots who don't celebrate these things.
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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
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Holy Bible, God's authoritative word to all people at all places and all times, and so without going into graphic detail,
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I think in the few minutes the whole truth about this matter of sexual sin and I do so with reluctance, frankly.
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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.
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First, God created and established sexual relations between a husband and wife as a lawful, legitimate marriage in the sight of God is blessed of God.
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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
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God -ordained marriage is sin against God. It's a transgression against God's law.
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The scriptures declare, let marriage be held between the immoral and the adulterous, fornicators and adulterers,
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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.
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God will damn them in his judgment who transgress his law unless they repent and believe on the
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Lord Jesus Christ alone as their Savior. God has declared that all men commit adultery and that's all encompassing sexual relations outside a legitimate marriage.
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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?
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What is a legitimate marriage in a civil ceremony before witnesses? Roman Catholicism teaches that marriage is one of the seven sacraments of the church.
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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.
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Even non -Christians have the right and responsibility Secondly, a legitimate marriage in the sight of God is only between a man and woman who have not previously been married.
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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.
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That's pretty clear. It is God's purpose that he and his mother hold fast to his wife and the two should become one flesh so they're no longer two but one flesh.
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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.
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The second marriage 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.
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The one exception immorality. Now it's a bad but very common thing that every church contains marriages that have not conformed to certain matters.
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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.
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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 the faith in Jesus Christ and then without justifying your past action seek to hold forth
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God's biblical ideal for marriage before others. God is in the forgiveness and restoration business.
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He brings beauty from ashes. He restores the days of the locust. By the way in my experience of 40 plus years now in the ministry
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I've noticed that some of the most strongly proponents of the biblical marriage ideal that we've set forth have been people that have not had that in their lives 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.
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Third, to envision and fantasize committing sexual sin is itself sin that must be acknowledged and repented of before the
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Lord. Jesus said, I say unto you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her will be a man.
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I'm not talking about 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.
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The availability of it, pornography. I wanted to have some details but I said no, no.
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Even if I tried to do a search on my computer about the ravages of pornography in society
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I didn't know what would come up and so I didn't go there. who lusts after a woman is having sin against him.
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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.
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It's always more serious to act out sin than just conceive sin in your heart, always.
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Each is a damning sin, but the actual sin, physical sin of adultery is much more egregious.
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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.
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If that were the case, then probably every Christian woman that's ever been around had a cause for divorce at some point in her time.
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I don't wanna 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.
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Fourthly, and I wanna 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.
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Well, I don't care what they do in private, that's their business. That's not true, folks.
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No sin is a private matter. It has influence and effect on others and society.
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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
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Old Testament times we're for people's souls. We desire them to be saved through the gospel.
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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.
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It matters what a society and nation declares to be righteous and true.
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And it used to be that way until a generation ago. And then of course, this matter is so important.
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Homosexual behavior, incest, bestiality are set forth in God's word as warranting
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God's unrelenting wrath. Some sins are enormously evil in God's sight.
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Here's a common misunderstanding regarding the nature of sin and gravity before God. Every sin is alike in God's sight.
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That's not true. There are some sins that are much more egregious than others in the sight of God.
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In the Old Testament, when an Israelite committed a sin, sometimes it required restitution or a sacrifice.
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Other times that they committed the sin, the death penalty was their dessert.
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It matters. Some sins are more egregious than others. Yes, any one sin warrants
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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
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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.
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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.
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There's an aggravated sin here. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.
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If a man mates with an animal, the Bible, you know, addresses all aspects of life.
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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.
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You shall surely put it to death. Their blood is upon them. But it's now come to pass in some nations of the free nations, supposedly in the world, that the law punishes and fines those who would even read or advocate what
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I've done in just the last two minutes. I could be fined and jailed in Canada and other places too.
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And it's coming here as well. It's inevitable unless the
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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.
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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 gonna escape it through the
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Lord Jesus Christ. No, we don't advocate putting to death these egregious transgressors of God's law.
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We desire the salvation of their souls and for God's mercy and grace to bring them to salvation.
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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.
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Paul could write to the church at Corinth. You know that no fornicators or adulterers or homosexuals or sodomites will inherit the kingdom of God.
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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.
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And I could name names now of good friends of me and Mary that we've known over the years.
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One flaming leftist liberal lesbian who is married in one of the most devout evangelistic
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Christians I've ever met. She speaks Christ to everybody that moves. Has three children, married to a wonderful man.
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Lives in Scotland, a long way away. I know another young man who was saved out of the, you know, the homosexual lifestyle.
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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.
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I can remember back in the early 80s there in Sacramento, a single mother, middle -aged, visiting me.
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Please go see my son. And I made a number of visits to this young man in his mid -20s.
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And at the time it was before AIDS or any of this was known.
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But he began to tell me that he had this sickness and would have these sores break out. He'd sit in the bathtub all day long.
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And he told me a story that he and a friend were basically flown all over the world. And they were hired and paid big bucks, all right, to entertain men in homosexual bars as they opened up in the big cities of the world.
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And he had contracted, you know, the HIV virus and had AIDS and died.
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And I, but I was able to sit there and talk with him one -on -one repeatedly and telling him of salvation in Christ.
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And, you know, we've got a message of hope for sinners. And, you know, and, you know, thank
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God I never was involved in anything like that, but God saved me out of sin and continues to do so.
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You know, we have hope in Jesus Christ. Such were some of you.
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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.
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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.
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And who knows where we're gonna be in 20 years? Who knows? Again, unless the
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Lord brings revival, and he has in the past. I suspect that the
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Lord doesn't come soon. Within, you know, 75 years, we're all gonna be under Sharia law.
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And, you know, just from the birth rate alone, I suspect that we're gonna be living in a
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Muslim world in which, you know, all this debauchery and sin isn't gonna be put up with.
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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.
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Thank God for Jesus Christ. And I think about our children and our grandchildren and the world that lies before them.
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The only hope and the certain hope we have is in Christ and his gospel. Amen. Let's proclaim it.
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And we'll do so unashamedly, regardless of the consequences.
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Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. And we pray that you would help us, our
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Lord. You've called us at this time in history to be in this place, to represent you and righteousness.
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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.
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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.
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May you glorify yourself, our God. You're a great savior to great sinners. And we desire to see that manifest in our day.
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For we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. ♪