#7: We Will Reap What We Sow II

I. Last week we began talking about the consequences of sexual sin. Today, we will continue on this theme.
A. According to the gospel of Jesus, sinners are saved by grace through faith, apart from works. One of the great questions raised by this gospel is this: If God is forgiving, why not sin?
1. This is a common thought pattern for people struggling with sexual sin: “I know my salvation is not based on works. I know that God forgives when I sin. So I’ll go ahead a do this.”
2. So is this a big problem? How should we think about this?
B. Last week we talked about the discipline of the Lord (Heb.12:5-11).
1. God knows our pressure points. He knows how to get to us, how to hit us where it hurts. The One who created pain, does He not know how to introduce intense pain into our lives?
2. Anyone who has had natural childbirth or kidney stones or a hundred other kinds of pain knows that there are places which hurt more than seems reasonable.
3. And it gets worse than that: it’s even worse to see your child in pain.
4. “All things betray thee who betrayeth Me.” — “The Hound of Heaven” by Francis Thompson
5. All things are in play when it comes to God’s discipline: our health, relationships, loved ones, career, possessions, mental health. Everything.
6. It’s sort of a take-off of Rom.8:28: “He works all things for our good, including our discipline.”
7. Proverbs 13:21 “Disaster pursues sinners, but the righteous are rewarded with good.”
8. When we sin, we are inviting the discipline of God — perhaps even permanent consequences.
9. It might even include others. It might watching your loved ones, your children suffer. Isn’t that what happened to David?
10. He doesn’t specify what discipline you’ll receive like parents sometimes do. But you can bet that it will be something that will make you regret what you did.
11. Proverbs 28:14 Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.
12. And usually this discipline isn’t immediate. The fool thinks, “I’m sinning but getting away with it!” One day they will be thinking: “I was such an idiot!” as they drink the bitterness of regret.
C. When you sin, you are cooperating with the devil. You are saying yes to the enemy of your soul, the one who wants to destroy you.
D. Sin easily leads to addiction. An act often turns into a habit.
1. Proverbs 11:6 “The righteousness of the upright delivers them, but the treacherous are taken captive by their lust.”
2. And just like any addiction, it steals time for other things. It diverts our attention from and our passion for other things, especially the important things in life.
3. It drains our strength – a funky monkey on our back.
4. And once you’re addicted, it often comes back to haunt you in the future even after you’ve given it up.
5. Not only is sin addicting, especially sexual sin, but sexual sin tends to spiral downward. Step by step it often descends in worse and more deviant temptations.
E. One of the worst consequences of sin is that it removes us from the sweetness of our fellowship with Christ, it cuts us off from our connection with our precious Savior, our communion with the One who is our life.
1. In Christ we have happiness and freedom, but sin takes those things away.
2. Prov.29:6 “An evil man is ensnared in his transgression, but a righteous man sings & rejoices.”
3. When we give ourselves to sin, we are cutting ourselves off from our source of joy!
4. Remember David’s experience when he sinned:“When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day & night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” – Psalm 32:3–4
5. In John 14:21–23 Jesus tells us what we enjoy when we walk in His commandments: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him...If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” And this also tells us what we miss when we do not walk in His commandments!
6. When we give ourselves to sin, we are drinking from a broken cistern (Jer.2:11-13 “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.). It’s not only wrong, it’s unhealthy. Think about a dirty pool of water in the hot middle east. You have no idea what’s in this water, you have no idea what it’s going to do to you. And yet that’s what we drink every time we partake of sin instead of partaking of Jesus.
F. Sexual sin does damage to marriage.
1. I read an interview with a woman who is an expert on pornography. The final question was: “What would you say to a man who views porn?” Her answer: “You’re contributing to your demise. And to your family’s demise, and your wife’s.”
2. There are many ways this happens. There’s loss of respect, there’s comparing and fantasizing when with your spouse. There’s making your spouse feel undesirable.
3. The damage is done even if you’re not married yet. You are building up or tearing down your marriage right now, even if you haven’t even met the person you’re going to marry.
G. You are hurting those whom you love.
1. It’s not just a matter of discipline. It’s a matter of influence.
2. E.g. the Bible talks a lot about the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children.
a. Exodus 20:5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.
b. Exodus 34:7 Keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.
c. Numbers 14:18 The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.
d. Deuteronomy 5:9 You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.
3. Now I’m not sure I understand everything about what these verses refer to, but they definitely mean something, and they’re clearly given to us to motivate us to live righteously and not to live in sin.
4. And there’s clearly truth to it even in our experience today. We have people in this congregation who are fighting with sins handed down to them from their parents. In fact, maybe all of us are.
5. And yet...Proverbs 20:7 “The righteous who walks in his integrity— blessed are his children after him!”
H. Living in sin ruins our ministry to others, in many ways.
1. It is ruined by our poor example.
2. We are not able to confront others in their sin when we are in sin.
3. Proverbs 12:26 “One who is righteous is a guide to his neighbor, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.”
I. Sexual sin influences people to see others as sex objects, not as human beings – as images or shapes for my eyes to devour as opposed to those created in the image of God and in need of the Lord.
1. It prevents you from loving your neighbor as yourself.
2. 1Timothy 5:2 ‘Treat the younger women as sisters, in all purity.”
J. In Luke 6:46–49 Jesus tells us what it does when we live in sin: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”
1. Living in sin means that you won’t be ready when the storms of life come.
2. When the flood comes to your house, instead of standing firm on a rock foundation, your house will be brought to great ruin.
II. But we still haven’t talked about the worst consequence: apostasy (falling away from Christ).
A. In 1Timothy 6:10 it talks about the possibility that love of money could lead a person away from Christ: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” Doesn’t this mean that it’s also possible for sexual sin to do the same?
B. Listen to Ephesians 5:5 “You may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”
1. “You may be sure of this!”
2. “You may be sure of this, that everyone..” Everyone everyone!
3. What is meany by sexually immoral or impure? The Greek words are PORNOS or AKATHARTOS (unclean). (These two are linked in Rev.17:4, making it likely that impure means sexually impure.)
4. “has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”
5. There are two other passages which say basically the same thing:
a. Galatians 5:19–21 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
b. 1Corinthians 6:9-10 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
(1) Covetous = materialism, focused on and gripped by earthly things, see Eph.5:5 above
(2) We talked about these passages in the January 10 sermon. We saw that they were lists of sins which involve being ruled. Jesus said no one can serve two masters.
6. If you have a sin which rules you, it means Christ isn’t your Lord.
C. God wants people who are ruled by sin to feel uncomfortable about their salvation. In particular, He doesn’t want professing Christians who are living a lifestyle of sexual sin to feel confident about their salvation.
1. If you are living in conscious, unrepentant, premeditated sin, if you are ruled by sin, you ought to be struggling with the thought that you might not be a true believer in Christ.
III. Last week we talked about Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-come therapy. Here are some visions of a future of reaping the consequences of sin which the Bible gives us to motivate us to forsake sin:
A. Lake of fire - Rev.19:20
B. Unquenchable fire – Mat.3:12; 13:42; 18:8; Mark 9:43
C. Weeping and gnashing of teeth - Mat.8:12
D. Cast into the outer darkness - Mat.22:13; 25:30
E. Worm not dying - Mark 9:48
F. Torture - Rev.14:11
G. Rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:23, 25, 28: place of torment, anguish, flames
H. Hiding under the rocks — “The kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?’” Rev.6:15-17 (cf. Is.2:19, 21) TERROR!
IV. Sexual sin and salvation
A. In much of the Christian world, it is believed that, although sexual immorality is wrong, it is not a sin that threatens one’s salvation. People are sexually active outside of marriage without repentance. People are addicted to pornography without fear. And all without a thought that the Bible clearly says in at least three passages that the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God.
B. And there’s plenty more passages which say similar things:
1. Eph.5:6 “because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”
2. “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience.” (Col.3:5-6)
3. “Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” (Heb.13:4)
4. 1Thes.4:3–8 “This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we solemnly warned you.”
C. You can’t live in sexual immorality and keep thinking confidently that you’re a Christian.
D. It’s not that sexual sin is so bad that it can’t be forgiven.
1. “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” (1Cor.6:11)
2. David was forgiven of adultery with Bathsheba.
3. Proverbs 28:13 “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”
E. And I’m not saying you can be truly saved and lose your salvation. But the Bible is clear that people can look saved and not truly be saved. And the Bible is clear that people can think they’re saved and not truly be saved.
F. In 2Peter 1:10 we’re told, “Brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.”
1. The “qualities” he’s referring to include virtue and self-control (see 2Pet.1:5-9).
2. By living in the way of Christ, you make your calling and election sure.
3. But by choosing to sin, you are making your election UNsure.
4. Assurance of salvation is not for everyone. It is for the truly repentant.
V. Conclusion
A. God can certainly help you. The question is, Do you WANT Him to help you?
1. If you don’t want Him to help you, if you’d rather continue in your sin, you have to ask yourself, ‘Do I really know Jesus?’ Maybe you haven’t been washed, sanctified, and justified in the Lord Jesus (1Cor.6:10).
B. If you do want Him to help you, He is an ever-present help in times of trouble.
1. Repent of your sin and cry out to Him. He will forgive you and come to your aid.