WWUTT 448 Sin that Leads to Death?

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June 7, 2017

Reading 1 John 5:13-21 as we finish up our study of the book of 1 John and understand what sin leads to death. Visit wwutt.com for all of our videos!

00:01: John says, if anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will give him life.
00:08: Well, what is this sin that leads to death? It's not as complicated as you might think when we understand the text.
00:25: This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.
00:30: Thank you for subscribing and if this has ministered to you, please let others know about our program. Here once again is
00:36: Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. Today we will conclude our study of the book of 1
00:41: John. We're in chapter 5 and once again I'm going to start in verse 13 and read to the end of the chapter.
00:49: John says, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.
00:58: And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
01:06: And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of him.
01:13: If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death.
01:25: There is sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.
01:36: We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.
01:47: We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
01:53: And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true, and we are in him who is true, in his
02:03: Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
02:09: Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Coming back again to verse 13, we'll kind of summarize some of the things that we talked about yesterday.
02:20: I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
02:26: It's really the theme of the whole letter. And so, as we're wrapping things up, as we're coming close to the end,
02:32: John is kind of summarizing these things for you again. What's his reason, his intention and purpose of writing this letter?
02:38: To rejoice in the common faith that is being shared by those who are reading from the apostle the things concerning the gospel of Jesus Christ.
02:49: We are celebrating together in this life that we have, and we communicate these things to one another.
02:55: I am speaking to you. I am addressing you so that you would know that you have eternal life.
03:01: The more time that we spend in the word of God, the more time we spend with the people of God, the more certain we are of the eternal life that we have with God.
03:10: But if our Christianity is a nominal thing, if your faith is just something that you do on occasion, if it does not have regularity in your discipline, in your steadfastness, in your perseverance, then it's going to be a lot more difficult for you to be certain of the salvation that you have.
03:30: But the more regular we make it, and the more we ask and appeal to God for a sure conscience, then the more likely it will be that we will have that certainty of salvation in our hearts.
03:47: Verse 14, and this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
03:55: And how do we know the will of God? By reading his word. This is talking about the revealed will of God that we have in the
04:03: Bible. And if we are praying to God and asking him for things according to what we read in scripture, then we know that we are asking according to the will of God.
04:13: And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of him.
04:21: So, if you ask God for forgiveness, he will give it to you. Because the scriptures say, ask and you will receive.
04:28: If we ask God for a repentant heart, he will give us a repentant heart.
04:34: If we ask God for deeper understanding in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, he will give us those things.
04:42: This is what the scripture says that God will grant to us according to his will.
04:48: If we ask for joy, he will give us joy. If we ask for a peace that surpasses all understanding, we will have it.
04:55: Peace with God in Jesus Christ our Lord. If we're asking for material goods, for houses, for cars, for wealth and advancement and these kinds of things, personal advancement, these are not the kinds of prayers that are in accordance with the will of God.
05:12: Now, you might want to say, well, if it's God's will for me to have them, then
05:18: I can pray for them. It's God's will, so it's okay. But that's not
05:23: God's revealed will. Whatever is going to happen in the future has not yet been revealed to us.
05:29: Whatever has happened in the past has been revealed to us and has been written down for our instruction that through the scriptures we might have hope.
05:38: That's the Apostle Paul writing in Romans chapter 15. So this is the revealed will of God in the
05:46: Bible. And it is according to this that we should pray. If we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of him when we ask according to his revealed will in the
06:01: Bible. Now, when it comes to things in the future that we do not see, can we pray for those things?
06:07: Sure. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And John gives us something that we can pray for, the outcome of which we do not yet know.
06:15: And that's here in these next couple of verses, 1 John 5, verses 16 and 17.
06:21: If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death.
06:33: There is sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that.
06:38: All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. Now, these are a couple of verses here that we get quite a few emails about here when we understand the text, asking us why we haven't done a video on that yet.
06:51: And I'm sure there is a video that is forthcoming. I want to say we even did a script on that some time ago, and maybe
06:58: I just never recorded it. I don't know. I'll have to go back to my folder full of scripts.
07:04: But what is John talking about in these couple of verses, 1 John 5, 16 and 17?
07:11: I think a lot of the confusion here stems from people trying to figure out a specific sin that he is talking about.
07:17: But John is not talking about a specific sin, at least not a sin that we could say he's talking about murder or he's talking about homosexuality or he's talking about lying.
07:26: OK, that's that's not how we pinpoint what it is he's he's talking about here. This is really any unrepentant sin.
07:33: But more specifically, middle part of verse 16, there is sin that leads to death.
07:41: So what sin is that? Well, it is whatever that final sin is that a person commits, that God has it with that person and finally judges him with death.
07:52: This person who is unrepentant, who is not trying to follow in righteousness, who is not ask
07:58: God for forgiveness, doesn't even think that he needs God, doesn't think he needs saving from anything or thinks that his religiosity is enough to save him or his good works and the things that he does is is enough to sustain him.
08:11: That person that is continuing to live in self -righteousness, not worshiping God, continuing in sin without faith and does not repent.
08:19: God finally has it with that individual and inflicts judgment on him by taking him from this world, by snatching life right out of him.
08:28: That last sin that person commits, that's the last straw and then they're dead. That's the sin that leads to death.
08:35: And it could be any sin. So it's not not one specific sin as we go through the list of sins.
08:41: Oh, it's this one that leads to death. And some people try to connect this with the unforgivable sin that Jesus talks about in the
08:47: Gospels. But that's that's not really what's being addressed here. It's very simply the last sin that a person commits that leads to God finally snatching the life right out of that person.
08:57: If anyone sees his brother committing a sin, not leading to death. So you see your brother sinning and they're not dying.
09:04: So the judgment of God has not yet come upon that person. Well, then you should ask of God, ask of God for forgiveness to that individual.
09:14: And God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death.
09:20: So we can still be praying for other people, whether they are brothers and sisters in Christ, or they're people who are not yet our brothers and sisters, but are continuing to persist in sin.
09:31: We should pray for them that they would repent and God will give them another breath that leads to life so that they have that opportunity to repent.
09:40: But if we see a person commit a sin that leads to death, we can't pray for them anymore. No prayer that we can lift up for that person will save them or will lead to their repentance.
09:52: For they have sinned. It is led to death. And that is it. So if we see a brother committing a sin, not leading to death, we shall ask
10:01: God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death.
10:08: There is that last sin, that last straw that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that.
10:14: In other words, we should not be praying for the life to be snatched right out of a person. God, just let that be the last sin that person commits.
10:22: Bam, he's gone. We got we got rid of that person. We're done. And now we can go on in righteousness.
10:28: That's not the way that we should appeal on behalf of another person for the sins that they commit, but rather that God would save them, that he would grant them forgiveness, that they would have a repentant heart.
10:41: And this is the way that we should pray. This is a very similar conclusion to this letter as to the way that James ends his letter.
10:50: When James says in James, chapter five, the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
10:58: My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins and carry that over into what
11:11: John is talking about here in 1 John 5, 16 and 17. It's it's fairly the same thing that we would see somebody sinning, that we would point out their sin, that we would pray for them to have a repentant heart, that they would repent of their sin and continue on living in the path of righteousness rather than straying from that path before they were confronted in their sin.
11:32: There is sin that leads to death, John says. I do not say one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin.
11:39: So anything you see somebody doing that is wrong, that is disobeying the word of God, disobeying his commands, that's all sin.
11:49: All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. So we could see a brother sin.
11:55: It doesn't lead to their demise. And so we have an opportunity to call them to repentance and return to the path of righteousness.
12:02: And we should take that opportunity. Now, in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, the apostle
12:08: Paul confronts the Corinthians for misusing the Lord's table and some of them coming to the
12:15: Lord's table and misusing it, eating of the bread and drinking of the cup while there is unrepentant sin in their heart, or there is division in the body, or there is there's pride in any number of things, sexual sin that was that was going on in the church in Corinth.
12:31: Some of them were getting sick and dying, Paul said to the Corinthians, because they were misusing the
12:37: Lord's table. So, yes, the Lord still does work in such a way that a person in their sin can be punished physically with illness, with with stress and even to death.
12:52: So let us confront those that are in sin, that they would repent and come back to the path of righteousness and live, live forever, that they would that they would not fall into the hands of the living
13:07: God, but that they would be spared his wrath and his judgment because of their sin and receive the forgiveness and the righteousness of Christ.
13:16: That is how we should be praying for one another. So so once again, in case I rabbit trailed too far,
13:23: God will judge a person in their sin with death. That could very well be a judgment against a person.
13:29: And we know that the wages of sin is death because we have sinned in these bodies.
13:34: We are still going to face death because all of creation has been subjected to futility. But all those who are in Christ Jesus, the grave is not our final resting place.
13:44: Our spirit will go to be with the Lord forever. And then on the day of Christ's return, even our physical bodies will be raised up out of the graves and will be transformed to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.
14:02: Amen. Hallelujah. Maranatha. Looking forward to that day. Verse 18.
14:07: Now we know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him and the evil one does not touch him.
14:18: So there are sins that we will commit. We'll still do wrong. We'll still make mistakes.
14:24: We will still sometimes give in to those passions of the flesh. The difference between a person who is saved and a person who is not is the person who saved when they sin will feel just horrible, miserable, guilty over their sin and will beg for God's forgiveness.
14:41: There is repentance. And so, therefore, it is a godly kind of grief that they experience.
14:47: But there's a kind of a grief that a person experienced that leads to death. The Apostle Paul talks about this in Second Corinthians, chapter four.
14:54: And so the the person who is not asking God for forgiveness does not know the seriousness of their sin.
15:01: But the person who does know God realizes that what they've done is despicable in the eyes of God and will seek his forgiveness and it will be granted.
15:10: But they don't live a lifestyle of sin. So there's not something that they are pervasively still in absorbed in or that just has a hold of them that they are enslaved to and they cannot help it.
15:23: And every time temptation arises, they give in every single time. OK, that person is still enslaved to their sin and has not been set free and living in the righteousness of Christ.
15:34: But the person who mourns over their sin, who struggles with it, who desires to leave it, who begs for God's forgiveness and asks for a repentant heart and to be given the steps of righteousness.
15:48: This is the person who has been saved, who is born of God, who is protected by his spirit.
15:55: And the evil one does not touch him. John 10, Jesus said, My father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of my father's hand.
16:06: I and the father are one. So those who are sealed in the Holy Spirit, who are in the hands of Christ, who are in the hands of the father, cannot be snatched away by the evil one.
16:15: He cannot even touch us. So so I pray for a heart.
16:20: I even when I don't think that there is anything at the present time that I need to ask forgiveness for,
16:26: I've not committed some sin that grieves me that I need to ask forgiveness for. But I will pray and ask
16:32: God for a heart that has not lost its conviction. God, give me conviction, because I know that when
16:38: I no longer have that conviction, I'm a person who's become comfortable in my sin. If I'm not convicted anymore, that doesn't mean that I've stopped sinning.
16:46: It means that I've become comfortable in my sin and I need to be grieved over the sinful nature that still exists in me.
16:53: Now, it's been suppressed by the Holy Spirit of God within me. But that sinful nature is still there fighting to get back to the surface, fighting to get out, fighting to have its way.
17:03: And so I'm asking God for a convicting heart, a heart of conviction, so that when
17:09: I give in to those temptations, I will be convicted and grieved and beg for the forgiveness of God.
17:15: Remember, we read at the start of the chapter, John is kind of bringing things full circle again here. We read at the start of the chapter that whoever thinks that he does not sin is a liar.
17:25: He's made God out to be a liar and the truth is not in him. So may we understand those sins that we have committed against God and seek forgiveness that we will be given in Christ Jesus.
17:38: Verse 19, we know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
17:45: Ephesians chapter two, verse one, and you were once dead in your sins and your transgressions walking in the course of this world, following after the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.
18:05: And we're by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Everybody was like that.
18:11: The whole world, the whole world of men lies in the power of the evil one. But those of us who are in Christ, who are a heavenly people, a kingdom people, we've been set free from the power of the evil one.
18:25: John said earlier, the reason why the son of God appeared was to destroy the work of the devil.
18:32: And so we have been set free in Christ and we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
18:39: Verse 20, and we know that the son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true and we are in him who is true in his son,
18:52: Jesus Christ. If you're hearing this letter read and you understand the words that I am saying about Christ being the son of God who died on the cross for our sins, who rose again from the grave, who ascended to the right hand of God, the father who is coming back again to receive us to himself, to judge the living and the dead, to usher in his peaceful, peaceful kingdom.
19:11: If my talking to you about these things just makes you fall in love with God all the more and rejoice in his name, it's because you understand what
19:19: I am saying to you and you're looking forward to that day. You want nothing of this world. You're tired of sin.
19:24: You want the righteousness of Christ. You want to be with him forever. You have that understanding because God has given you that understanding.
19:32: It's because you have the Holy Spirit of God in you so that we may know him who is true and we are in him who his who is true in his son,
19:41: Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Don't let anyone ever tell you that the
19:48: Bible doesn't say that Jesus is God. It absolutely says that Jesus is God. And here is one of the places where it does.
19:55: Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life. And the final statement that we have from the apostle here at the very end, little children, keep yourselves from idols.
20:08: The apostle Paul says in Colossians chapter three, verse five, that covetousness is idolatry.
20:14: Whenever we desire something that does not belong to us, we desire something that we think will fulfill us because God is not enough.
20:22: That's sin and that's covetousness and that's idolatry. We are worshiping idols.
20:28: And when it comes down to it, all sin is idol worship, because whenever we sin, we're not satisfied with God.
20:35: He is not enough. I need this other thing. God, I need to do this in order to be satisfied. We're worshiping idols.
20:41: We're sinning against God whenever we're not fully satisfied in our savior. So may we pray to God and ask for a heart that understands as the psalmist prayed in Psalm 23.
20:53: The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He is my provision.
21:00: He has given me all good things in Jesus Christ, my Lord, including life everlasting.
21:07: And so let our gaze continue to be focused on heaven, the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth.
21:15: For we have died and our life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, we also will appear with him in glory.
21:25: Amen. This has been When We Understand the Text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt
21:37: .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com
21:45: and let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word when we understand the text.