Remembering Rahab, Part 2b

Now what I want to do is I want to give you some principles to hold on to. Because I think that this is so important, you need to understand how it is you teach your children to live a pure and holy life. How you yourself need to maintain a pure and holy life. Give you some principles that you can sink your teeth into and begin to digest and to understand what needs to happen in your own personal. Personal life. These things need to be a part of your life, just like they need to be a part of my life.

But how does one develop a pure and holy life? How does one maintain a level of purity? How does one maintain his commitment to a pure and holy life? How is it we please God? How is it we make sure that we fulfill the will of God by living a life that abstains from sexual immorality? How do we do that? It's one thing to command people, don't do it. It's another thing to tell them, this is how you refrain. And that's what I want to do with you in the time we have remaining this evening. Number one is this: you need to make sure.

That you understand a pure life requires unfailing obedience to the Word of God. A p life requires unfailing obedience to the word of God. The Bible says you are made clean.

Through the word. John 15. Verse number 3. You are made clean through the word of God. The word of God is a cleansing agent. The Bible says in Psalm 119, verse number 9: How shall a young man keep his wife pure?

You know the answer to that by taking heed to the word of God. Verse 11 says, Thy word I have treasured in my heart that I might not sin against thee. In order to maintain your commitment to a pure and holy life, it requires unfailing ob to the Word of God. You need to obey what God says.

Romans chapter 6 says this in verse number 12. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as if. Instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive and the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. Verse 15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?

May it never be, Paul says. Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as a slave for obedience, you are? Slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness. But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. And having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Folks, we are slaves of righteousness. And we need to serve the Lord God.

And we need to recognize that our body is no longer our own. You have been bought with a price. We need to stop thinking that our bodies are our own. We can do whatever we want to with our bodies. Because you are a slave to righteousness. You've been bought by the precious blood of the Lamb. Your life is no longer your life, it's God's life. And the reason we begin to live immoral, impure lives is because we see ourselves as owners of our lives. This is my life. I can do whatever I want. If it feels good, I'll do it.

If I want to do it here, I want to be here, I just do it. No, that's not the way it is. We are slaves of righteousness. Because we serve the true and living God. It was Jeremiah Burroughs who said these words. It is a very evil choice for any soul under heaven to choose the least sin rather than the greatest affliction. Better be under the greatest affliction than be under the guilt or power of any sin. There is more evil in sin than in outward trouble in the world. More evil in sin than in all the miseries and torments of hell itself.

Sin is evil. And it takes you further and further and further away from God. And we need to understand that a pure life requires unfailing obedience to the word of God. Will you fail? There are times you will fail. Yes. But the heart's commitment is to follow God and to serve him. We sees the point number two.

And that's this. A pure life recognizes the consequences of my choices. A man who's committed to purity recognizes the consequences of his choices. Folks, we need to understand Galatians 6. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows. That he will also reap. That's the law of the harvest. There is no unless clause in there. There is no exception clause in Galatians 6, 7, and 8. It is a statement of fact. But so many times we are deceived. I can do this, I can do that. No one will know.

It'll be okay. And the Bible says in the book of Numbers, be sure your sin will find you out. This is crucial to our understanding of pure and holy life. Remember Hebrews 13, verse number 4? Marriage is honorable. And the married bed is undefiled. But fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. He will. He will judge them for their sin. And therefore, we must understand the consequences. Over in Titus chapter 2, verse 11, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness.

And worldly desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. When the grace of God appears, It teaches us something. When we understand God's grace in our lives, when we understand that our name is conceived in spirituality and characterized by integrity, the grace of God teaches us to do something. It teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly pleasures. See, we forget that. We forget the power of the grace of God. We forget the power of the Spirit of God in our lives. It teaches us to say no.

Say no. To sin and to say yes to God. So, one who is committed to purity requires Unfailing obedience to the word of God. Number two, it recognizes the consequences of my choices.

And number three, Which goes with number two, it results in making the tough decision. A pure life results in making the tough and difficult decision. Folks, you need to make the right choice. You must, to make the right choice, you're going to recognize the consequences of the wrong choice. You sit and think about what that means. Remember Joseph? Genesis 39? Ap wife came after him? How can I do this evil and sin against God. Now there is a man who understood the consequences of his choices. There's a man who understood what it meant to make the right choice.

And there's a man who understood how to make the most difficult choice. Now, let me explain this to you.

In life, there are two paths: one going this way and one going this way. Okay? One this way, one this way. This path is the path of pleasure, and this path is the path of pain. Because right in the middle is the crossroads. It says, I got a choice to make. I got to make a decision. I'm going to choose. Pleasure, or I'm going to choose pain. What will I choose? Now note, pleasure is temporary. Pain is temporary. Why is that? Because at the very end of pleasure is death. For the wage of sin is Death.

There is a way which seemeth right into a man. Which way is that? It's the way of pleasure. But the ends thereof are not the way of life, but the ways of de. But when you choose the difficult way, the path of pain, the end result at the end is always pleasure. Psalm 16, 11, At thy right hand are pleasures forevermore. So, when you choose pleasure in the immediate, you end up in pain. When you choose pain in the immediate, you end up in pleasure. Folks, that's what you need to understand. Illustration of that, Hebrews chapter 11.

By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing. Rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. There came a time in Moses' life, he had to make a choice. Pleasure or pain? Am I going to choose to endure ill-treatment with the people of God? Or the passing pleasures of sin. You see, sin is pleasurable, right? Sin is blissful. If it wasn't, we wouldn't choose it. And so sin has to be attractive. The problem is, it's so deceptive because at the end, it's death.

At the end, it doesn't lead you to God. It leads you away from God. In the end, it's devastating. And the man who's committed to purity is going to think about his choice. He's going to make the proper choice. He's going to make the tough decision. And the reason it's a tough decision is because it's a painful decision. Joseph is that classy example. It was painful for him. I mean, he made the right choice, but he was thrown in prison, right? Because he chose to obey God. You see, obeying God is always the difficult choice.

But it's always the best choice. And it's always the right choice. Because the results are not immediate. They're down the road. When you choose sin, It's immediate, the pleasure. But down the road, it's devastating. And that's why you need to understand. The choice. That's why the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6:18, flee immorality.

2 Timothy 2:19, excuse me, 2 Timothy 2:2, flee youthful lust. 1 Timothy 6:11, you, O man of God, Timothy. Flee all the sinful activities. Flee. It's the word fuego. You get an English word fugitive. Run away. When it comes time to make a choice, run the right direction. Don't run the wrong direction. We find ourselves running toward the pleasures of life. We find ourselves being pulled and lured in every way toward the pleasures of life. And the Bible says, you got to To choose to go the other way, as Moses did, and of course, Hebrews 11 is the hall of faith, and Moses is in the hall of faith, and his name is a memorial name to be remembered forever and ever and ever because he made the right choice.

The right choice. Are you committed to a pure and holy life? So much so. That you know that it requires unfailing obedience to God. It recognizes the consequences of my choice, and it results in making the tough decision. It results in making the tough dec. You know, it was Jerry Bridges who said these words in his book, The Pursuit of Holiness. It says one day I was studying 1 John chapter 2 and I realized that my personal life's objectives regarding holiness was less than that of the Apostle John.

He was saying, in effect, make it your aim not to sin. As I thought about this, I realized that deep within my heart, my real aim was not to sin very much. Can you imagine a soldier going into battle with the aim of not getting hit very much? We can be sure if that is our aim, we will be hit. Not with bullets, but with temptation over and over again. We just don't want to be hit that much. But yet, our aim should be not to sin, to make the right choice in order that we might follow our God. That's why the Bible says.

In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, that we are to abstain from every appearance of evil. Every app of evil. A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity during our missions conference because I wasn't speaking. Our associate pastor Greg was to go speak to your young people, your kids, your high school and junior high kids. So I took the opportunity to talk to them concerning their lives and their future. And I brought up a topic that maybe you need to know about. That growing website, my. Date NBC has said that that will soon become the fastest growing pornographic website on the internet.

Soon, if not already. And you know what? We have people, a lot of parents, who don't even know their kids are on the internet, don't even know what they're doing. They go into this my. situation. They post pictures of themselves. They talk about themselves. And pedophiles begin to pick up on all this stuff. We forget about that. And they're very keen on how they do this. We have our daughters and our sons just sitting in their rooms with their own computer on my. And before you know it, it's going to come back and it's going to bite you.

You better know everything your child does on the Internet. You better check it over and over again if you've got to sit with them e there. Because if you don't, there will be those who will find a way to contact them. And once ensnared, it could be devastating results for you and your family. We live in the high-tech age. We think it's just so great to be high tech. That's why I'm staying low-tech. And we just think that faster is better and quicker is better. And hey, listen, I like things fast too.

I like things quick. Except my sermons, I like them slow and long. But we need to be careful. And you also need to be careful because, you know, if your children use your computer, they're going to know what you have. Been seen. They'll know. And you know what? We just need to be very, very careful about the choices we make. Sometimes we just don't sit and think before it's too late. Well, ex me, to my fourth point. And that is this. Pure life refrains from evil occasions and evil associations. It refrains from the evil occasion and the evil association.

The evil occasion. Because sometimes we think it's just an occasion. It's just one little piece of pornographic literature. One little piece of pornographic website, one little imp thought, one small impure deed. But the pure life refrains from every ev occasion and even the evil association. Who we associate with. The Bible says a bad company corrupts good morals.

The Bible says one sinner destroys much good. The Bible says one little leaven leavens the whole lump.

The Bible says if you associate with the sinner, you become like the sinner. You got to be careful. And therefore, you need to make sure that you do the right thing and not the wrong thing. And so you refrained from evil occasions. Psalm 119. Verse number three talks about the blessed man, the righteous man, the one who walks blamelessly.

They also do no unrighteousness. They walk in his ways. They don't want to do any unrighteousness. They walk in his ways. Psalm 119, verse 16. I hate and despise falsehood, but I love thy law. I hate and despise falsehood. Psalm:. Hate evil, all you who love the Lord. Hate evil. Thinking about that, I was reading what A. W. Pink said when he talked about the unregenerate man and how his hatred for sin is defective. I thought about this and I thought, wow, man, that's the characteristic of the unregenerate man.

But listen to this. This is powerful. The unregenerate man cannot say, I hate every false way. They may hate gross sins such as the state penalizes, but wink at lesser ones. They may hate open wickedness, but not secret faults. They may abominate theft and uncleanness, yet make no one conscious of pride and self-righteousness. They may hate those things which are cried down by people among whom they now live, and yet enter into the same heartily if they move to another part of the earth. They may hate an unprofitable sin, but refrain not from those which bring them in a revenue.

They may hate a sin which is contrary to their peculiar temperament, but not that which is agreeable to their constitution. They may hate others' sin rather than their own sin, as Judas complained of the prodigality of Mary. But such hatred is directed rather against the persons than the sins of others. Their hatred is superficial. It is not with all their heart. It reaches not to the corruptions of their nature, nor is it accompanied with mortifying endeavors. Mortifying endeavors. Remember what Christ said in Matthew 5?

You've heard what that says, you should not commit adultery. But I say unto you. That if you look after a woman and lust after her in your heart, you have already committed adultery. So, if your right arm offends you, cut it off. If your right eye offends you, pluck it out. It'd be better for you to go through life maimed than to enter the fires of hell. It says, take drastic measures. Do whatever you got to do to mortify the flesh. Do whatever you've got to do to get rid of those things that are going to cause a stumbling block, going to cause you to fall into sin.

You see, we just don't want to sin that much. We haven't come to the point where we say we don't want to sin. We just say we don want to sin that much. So we allow things to trickle into our lives. We allow things to rise up within us and say, yeah, that's okay. Anyway, I can deal with that. To him who thinks he stands, take heed. The Bible says, 1 Corinthians 10, lest he falls.

See, we always think we're bigger than that. We always think we're bigger than the temptation. We always think we're bigger than the object of our affection, that we can handle it. You can't. You can't without the Spirit of God moving in and among you and giving you the strength and power to overcome it. You know, Peter, great apostle of the Lord. All deny you, not me, I'm the man. I'm the fisher, and I can do anything. And I 'm not going to deny you, Lord, because I am the man. All else might fail you.

The other 11, they're not nearly as strong as I am. They're not near the man I am, but I'm not going to fail you. Well, we know the story of that one, don't we? We have this elevated view of ourselves. Somehow, we think we're going to make it. And we don't need to do anything drastically in our lives because we can handle it. Let me tell you something.

If you knew, if you knew that one thing could destroy your family, what would you do about it? Would you get rid of it? I had a friend who was in ministry. Who had trouble with pornography. And I told him, I, You know, you need to get rid of your HBO, your Show, all those things, you need to rid all that stuff. His wife said, I'm not doing that. I like some of those shows that are there. I not going give it just because my son, my husband, can't handle his temptation. I'm not going to get rid of something I like.

Really? You like it that much? That you're willing to allow that area that has become such a great temptation for your husband to remain in your home. This is a small example. You got to take drastic measures. Drastic ones. Cut it off. Get rid of it. Whatever it may be for you. I don know what it is for you. You know, though. I don't have to tell you. You know what it is. You got to deal with those things. Psalm 119, 13 should be something we pray every day, which says Establish my footsteps in thy word, and do not let any iniquity have dominion over me.

Do not let any iniquity have dominion over me. Establish my footsteps in your word. That's the person who's committed to purity. That's the person who's committed to a holy life. And I pray that's you. I pray that's me. I pray that that's our desire so that we would live a life that makes such a powerful impact. On those round about us, those closest to us, and that our Lord in heaven is pleased with how we live our lives.