Avoiding the Agony of Achan, Part 3b

I love what Martin Lloyd-Jones says. He says it very clearly. He says, I don't know of a single scripture, and I speak advisedly, which tells me to take my sin, the particular thing that gets me down, to God in prayer and ask him to deliver me from it, and then trust him. In faith that he will. Now, that teaching is also often put like this: you must say to a man who is constantly defeated by a particular sin, I think your only hope is to take it to Christ, and Christ will take it from you. But what does the scripture say in Ephesians 4:2?

To the man who finds himself constantly guilty of stealing, to a man who sees something he likes and takes it, what am I to tell such a man? Am I to say? Take that sin to Christ and ask Him to deliver you? No! What the Apostle Paul tells them is this: let him that stole steal no more. Just that, stop doing it. And if it is fornication, Or adultery or lustful thoughts again, stop doing it, says Paul. He does not say, go and pray to Christ to deliver you. No, you stop doing that. He says, as becomes children of God, folks, the Bible is so crystal clear.

About what we are to do, we are to be obedient to God, but we find ourselves like Saul partially obeying Him because we want to keep back that which we desire. And instead, we need to be like Samuel and hack it to pieces, cut it up, get rid of it. Make no provision, the Bible says, for the lusts of the flesh.

Don't do it. If you got trouble with pornography, throw your computer in the ocean. Get rid of it. Get off the Internet. Do you really need it? I don't have the Internet. I don't use a computer. I'm still alive. I'm making it. You see, we give all these excus that we have to have this. Told you a story a long time ago about a young man who was in the pastoral ministry and was addicted to pornography. His wife would get up in the middle of the night and she would find him watching cable television and sexually explicit scenes on cable television.

And she was fed up with it. She came to me and she said, What am I to do? I'm saying, this is what you need to do. You need to get rid of your cable. She said, Well, I can't do that. There are too many shows on cable I have to watch. I said, Let me tell you something.

If you want to help your husband, get rid of your cable. Just get rid of it. Make no provision for the lust of the flesh. Just don't do it. But yet we fight against that. We don't want to do what needs to be done. You make no provision for the lust of the flesh by not walking by the magazine aisle. You walk down another aisle. If you got a problem with gluttony, you don't go to the store. You send somebody else to the store. Make no provision for the lusts of the flesh. It's that simple. It's not that difficult.

People say, Oh, I am enslaved to this sin. God's got to deliver me. Does He? Or do you? Or do you? You see, we want to use excuses, but the bottom line is: will we fully obey God, or are we only going to partially obey God? Well, I just say we've prayed, we've prayed, we've prayed, and God hasn't delivered me. I'm going to tell you why God hasn't delivered you. Because you don't need to pray about something that you already know what you need to do. God says, just obey me.

Just do what I say. Stop doing those things. Make no provision for the lust of the flesh. Abstain from those fleshly lusts that wage war against your soul. You're involved in a battle. And you've got to abstain from those things. This is what Jesus said. Just in case you didn't like what Paul said, maybe you'll like what Jesus said. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out. Throw it from you. For it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off. And throw it from you. For it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish than for your whole body to go into hell. He's not talking about physical mutilation, he's talking about the principle of mortification. Getting rid of those things, abstaining from those things, making no provision for those things that cause me to fall into sin. I've got to make the right choice. I've got to decide that God's way is the best way, and I'm going to be fully obedient to Him, not partially obedient to Him, because we've already seen when you are partially obedient to God.

You reject the word of God. That's what God said to the prophet Samuel to Saul. We must obey what God says.

And so, what we're trying to do is help you understand how that happens. And we're going to give you seven principles. We've only given you two. I'll give you number three tonight, and then I'll give you the next four next week.

But you need to understand the principles of scripture. We began last time by helping you understand: listen, if this is going to happen, number one, when cognizant of sin, I must be watchful.

And consider my Savior. When cognizant of sin, I must be watchful and consider my Savior. When I become first aware of sin, I've got to beware of my Savior and consider him and be watchful.

Let me tell you what Paul said over in the book of Titus, 2nd chapter, 11th verse. It says, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness. And world desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. Let me tell you something about the grace of God: it teaches you to do something, it instructs you to deny something.

God's grace teaches you what you need to deny, what you need to put away. And teaches you how to live a goddamn life in this pres age. And then he says, look for the blessed hope. And the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed, and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous. For good deed, the grace of God is so powerful in a life that it teaches you to deny the worldly lusts, it teaches you to deny those things that Turn you away from God, and it teaches you to obey God and to look toward God.

That's what God's grace does. God's grace is a powerful, transforming agent in the soul of a man. And so, when you first become cognizant of sin, when you know that sin's on the horizon, when you know it's there, the very first thing you got to do is you've got to be watchful.

Consider your Savior. Remember, we talked about Peter last week in the Garden of Gethsemane when Christ said, Watch and pray with me. But they were unable to watch. Why? Because they did not consider Christ. Above themselves. They could only consider themselves. They never took into account the Savior of the world. And that's why they weren't watchful, and that's why they fell into temptation. But Peter would learn because he would write 1 Peter chapter 5, verse number 8. And he said, be sober, be vigilant.

For your adversary, the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He says, Be watchful, be on the guard, be on the lookout. Because I wasn't, he says. And Satan goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And then he says, res him steadfast. In the faith. How do you deal with the devil? You resist him steadfast in the faith. And that's why the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3:18, that when we spend time beholding the image of God in the Word of God, the Spirit of God transforms our life from one level of glory to the next level of glory.

How do we consider the saved? We look and peer into the mirror of the perfect law of liberty, and as we do and see God in all of his glory, the Spirit of God uses that and transforms our lives and causes us. To look more and more like our Savior who is in heaven. When you become cognizant of sin. You ought to be watchful and consider your Savior. Number two, this is a review from last week: when you are contemplating sin.

Now you're more than cognizant of it. You're more than just aware of it. You're thinking about doing it. When contemplating sin, be mindful of the consequences of sin. Be mindful of the consequences of sin. And we talked about all those people last week who experienced the negative consequences of sin. You see, the problem with The problem in society is this, you know, God is so gracious, so kind, so lo that when we sin, we don't die. We deserve to die as soon as we sin. But God is graceful and mercy.

He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. The problem with that is we presume upon his grace, and because there are no consequences immediately because of my sin, then I take it. Another step, and then another step, and then another step t I find myself entrapped, ensnared in that whole sin, and then all of a sudden the world comes crashing down around me because of the consequences of my disobedience to God. And I wonder, what happened? What happened? What happened was that when you were contemplating that sin, you were not mindful of the consequences of sin.

Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also re. Last week we took you to the book of Proverbs and explained to you all the different elements that were there concerning sin and what happens with the one ensnared with the other. Adulterous woman, that he will not go unpunished. The book of Proverbs says these words. Listen to these words: Proverbs chapter 6, verse 7. Now then, my sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house.

This is the adulterous woman. Lest you give your vigor to others, and your years to the cruel one, lest strangers be filled with your strength, and your hard-earned goods go to the house of an alien. How many times do you find someone who gets ensnared by the evil woman, who gets ensnared by the adulterous woman, and all of a sudden he loses everything? Not only does he lose his family, his income now is divided between the woman he lost. And the woman he had an affair with, you lose it all. And the book of Proverbs is that book of warning that says, look, don't even go there, don't do it.

Verse 11, and you groan at your latter end when your flesh and your body are consumed, and you say, How I have hated instruction, and my heart spurn reproof. And I have not listened to the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to my instructors. I was almost in utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and the congregation. He says, look, I didn't listen to my teachers. I didn't listen to my pastor. I didn't listen to my Sunday school teacher because I didn't think that I would Would have to face the consequences of my sin.

And yet, and yet, the Bible says there are consequences. Let me tell you something. I admire you for being here. I really do. Because it's not easy to come and hear these things. It doesn't really, you know, excite your life to come and hear about sin and its consequences. I understand that. And I know that you could go to another church and they'd never even mentioned sin. And that, you, you could go and receive some kind of cozy, cute little sermonette for Christian and be okay. So you'd think.

I understand that. But you know what? My concern is your soul. I'm not concerned whether or not you like me. I want you to like me, but if you don't, that's okay. My concern is your soul. My concern is how sin affects your soul. A hundred years ago It was J. C. Ryle who wrote these words: How the church must somehow learn to safeguard sound doctrine. He was concerned 100 years ago that the church had gone away from sound doctrine and protecting the solid doctrines that the church is founded on. And he said, in order to protect the sound doctrines of the church.

You must recover the doctrine of human depravity. Listen to what he says. A scriptural view of sin is one of the best antidotes to that vague, dim, misty, hazy kind of theology which is so painfully current in the pres age. This is a hundred years ago. It is vain to shut our eyes to the fact that there is a vast quantity of so-called Christianity nowadays which you cannot declare positively unsound, but which, nevertheless, is not full measure, good weight, and sixteen ounces to the pound. It is a Christianity in which there is undeniably Something about Christ and something about grace and something about faith and something about repentance and something about holiness, but it is not the real thing as it is in the Bible.

Things are out of place and out of proportion. As old Latim would have said, is a kind of mingle mango and does no good. It neither exercises influence on daily conduct, nor confronts nor comforts in life, nor gives peace in death. and those who hold it often wake too late to find that they have got nothing solid under their feet. Now I believe that the likeliest way to cure and mend this defective kind of religion is to bring forward more prominently the old scriptural truth about the sinfulness of sin.

You see, when you talk about sin, and the sinfulness of sin, and the consequences of sin, and the wickedness of man, and the wretchedness of a soul, the holiness of God. The grace of God, the salvation of God, sounds oh so good. Do you ever wonder why you talk about the Lord and his salvation, his grace, his mercy, his loving kind, and there's just basically no effect on people's lives? You ever talk to somebody, no matter what they're going through, no matter who they are, and explain to them God, His great attributes, and who He is, and it has no effect on them.

It's because they have no realization of the sinfulness of their sin. Because once you understand that All you want is God. All you want is His grace, His mercy. All you want to understand is His love. All you want to see is Him and nothing else. And you see, so many times we just brush over sin, its consequences, because we don't want to offend people, we don't want to hurt people, we don't want to call their baby ugly, we don't want to meddle in their lives. We don't want to do those kind of things.

We don want to do that. Yet Jesus was always dealing with the heart of a man and always showing how sinful that heart was. Principle number three.

Principle number three is this: when combating sin, We are in a battle when combating sin. Be dut and clasp your sword. Be dutiful and clasp your sword. Folks, when you are in the midst of a battle. You take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, the only offensive weapon in the armor of God in Ephesians 6, and you wield it proficiently. When you go to Matthew chapter 4, in a few weeks, we'll be in the temptation of Christ in Luke, in the Gospel of Luke, because we're going through that on Sunday mornings.

We'll be in the temptation of Christ. You will see. That in that temptation, our Lord would wield the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. It is written, it is written, it is written, he would say to Satan. And you know how that whole story ends? The whole story ends with this phrase, and the devil left him. How and why does the devil leave? It's because the sword of the Spirit is wielded in such a proficient manner, he cannot win. He can't. And Christ sets for us that great example when combating sin, in this case, it was the temptation that was before him.

Be dutiful, and that is to maintain your duty as a soldier of Jesus Christ and clasp your sword and proficiently wield it because that is the only solution. In the midst of your battle, that's why it's so important that you know God's word. That's why you need to praise God that you come to Christ's commun church. Because the Word of God is open, it's expounded, that you hear it, that you know it. God have mercy on the souls of those people who go to churches. They get a 20-minute sermon ed about stories and drama presentations, but the Word of God is never open.

The people have no idea how to handle their sin. None. They have no idea how to pick up their sword and wield it because they don't know what the Bible says.

When the Bible says the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, it's called the Rhem of God. Not the Lagos. Lag meaning the word, generally speaking, but it's the Rhem of God. There is a specific word. There is a specific. Precept: There is a specific commandment that you use when temptation comes your way, when you are combating sin, that if you were to wield it in such a way, you would defeat. Satan and all of his emissaries. That's why Paul or Peter said in 1 Peter 5: I resist him steadfast in the faith.

How do you resist Satan? Because of the faith that you have in Jesus Christ, which is based on the revealed written word of God. That's why the Bible, how many times have you heard it said, you know, this book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the book? Simple as that, right? Or the one that Spurgeon used to say that dusty Bibles lead to dirty lives. That's true. That's true. That's what a psal said: Wherewithal shall a young man keep his way pure and clean by taking heed to the word of God.

Thy word I have hid or treasured in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. It's the word of God. That dwells in my heart, that treasure, that's the treasure of my life, that fills my heart. Listen, my heart is either filled with sin or filled with scripture because the Spirit of God rules there. And when the Spirit of God fills my heart with Scripture, and I know how to wield that sword of the Spirit, let me tell you something.

I resist him steadfast in the faith. And I need to understand that. And I need to know what God's holy word say. I need this more than anything else. So you've got to ask yourself the question: how proficient are you at wielding your sword? If you're going to be a soldier in the army of God, then you've got to know that the main weapon you use is the Word of God. And you've got to know it inside and out. Or you will lose your battles. When it comes time for warfare, you'll be defeated. And if you're going to hack Agag to pieces, if you're going to slaughter Amalek.

which is an an of sin and its influence. Because Amalek kept raising its ugly head over and over and over again because one man would not do what God said. And because he didn't do what God said, it conquered him. It ultimately killed him. And we have to go back and ask ourselves: what is it God has asked us to do that we are not doing, that we are partially obeying Him in? Because that partial obedience will lead one day to our destruction. Folks, this is so important. We need to know what God's Word says on the issues we face day in and day out.

When combating sin. Be dut. And number one, clasp your sword. And number two, cultivate self-. And I'll pick that up next time. Let's pray together. Our most gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, the truth that's there. And we pray, Lord, that we as the people of God would be consumed, cons with the Word of God. I pray, Lord, that you would help every single man and woman, boy and girl in this room, that, Lord, they would understand. That Lord, without your word, without your spirit energizing our lives, we will always go down to defeat.

May we be mindful of the consequences of sin. May we cons cont our Savior. May we clasp the sword of the Spirit in such a way that when we wield it, we are able to hack whatever sin is in our lives. Because we don't want it to raise its ugly head again. May we be that committed, Lord. So that we don't engage in partial obedience, but in full obedience to our great God and Savior and coming King, Jesus Christ our Lord. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.