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Transcript 232A — Does Our Struggle with Sin Ever End?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Good evening. You were talking about becoming a new person and living in accord with the Word of God. And I had some questions about that. I and maybe some other people have the same experience. I call myself a Christian, because I believe in God and I believe that Christ died for my sins. But I find that there are still a lot of times in my life when I'm doing things that I know aren't right. And it's almost like I'm kind of fighting God.
And yet there are a lot of times when I'm doing things that I don't want to do. And I say, "Well, I'm not going to do that because I know it's wrong." Does there ever really come a time when all of these things stop happening, when a person can really live completely in accord with God's Word? Or is the fact that I'm not doing it an indication that I'm not really a Christian, that I'm not really saved?
HC: The question that's been raised is a very practical and a very good question. How can I know when I have really become born again, or born from above? And when this happens, does there ever come a time when I'm no longer struggling with sin?
Now first of all, we must realize that when we become saved, our salvation, while judicially is entirely complete, so that from now on every sin that we would ever commit has been covered by the blood of Christ and can never threaten us with hell, nevertheless in actuality our salvation is only half complete.
You see, we are essentially a body and a soul. The apostle Paul spoke in II Corinthians 5, "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord," and he was speaking about himself in his soul existence. At death, in our souls we leave the body and go to live and reign with Christ in Heaven, if we've become saved.
Now before we're saved, both in body and soul we lust after sin. We like our sin. We will only pay lip service to the laws of God. We may try to live like a Christian because we're thinking that in this way we're going to be right with God. Actually we're in rebellion against God. We're trying to design our own salvation program. And all of this is sin? and it's all going to end us up in hell.
But at the moment we became saved, the transformation occurred in our souls. Now in our soul we became a brand new creature, and we read in I John 3:9 that "That which is born of God cannot sin." Now that's a truth that God is giving us. That means that from now on, from the moment I was saved there ought to be an ongoing earnest desire in my life to live for Christ, which was not present at all before I was saved.
But that only happened in my soul, because my body was not changed. My body is still subject to sin. And so while on the one hand there is this earnest desire to live for Christ, on the other hand there will be this lusting after sin. We never had that struggle like this before we were saved. But now it's an ongoing struggle.
Now let's see what happens when I sin. Before I was saved, if I would sin, both in my body and in my soul I was very comfortable with my sin. This was the nature of my body and soul, that I loved sin. I was by nature in rebellion against God. And while in my conscience I sensed that it was sin, because God has put His Law in my heart to that degree, nevertheless I did not have a great struggle with sin, because I like my sin both in my body and my soul.
Now I'm born again. In my soul I've become a brand new creature. And now I begin to sin. Well now immediately conflict is set up, because in my soul, which is as real a part of me as my body, I feel violated. I'm doing something that's contrary to my new nature that God has given me, that is, my new soul. And so I begin to feel depressed. I begin to feel oppressed. I realize that I can't go on this way.
And it isn't long at all before I'm coming to the Lord, "Oh Father, forgive me. How can I go on this way? I don't want to commit this kind of sin." Now that doesn't mean I'm going to get victory over that sin in five minutes. I may struggle with that sin for a long time, because I may not understand repentance as well as I could.
But every time I commit that sin it's going to leave me unhappy and upset because I have been violated in my soul. And that's an experience that I never would have really had before I was saved. That's one of the major differences between the one who is saved and the one who is still unsaved.
Now one of the best accounts of this struggle that goes on in the life of the believer is recorded for us in Romans 7. Now we must bear in mind that the apostle Paul, as he spoke these words under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was not just a brand new Christian. He was a Christian of long standing. But he had become very sensitive to the Word of God.
And it doesn't mean, either, that he was still living in gross sins of the flesh, like the world does. But he had become sensitive to the Law of God And the more we read the Word of God, the more we sense that so many things are sin which before we never looked upon at all as being sin. And so in that sensitivity he says in verse 21 of Romans 7, "So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the Law of God in my inmost self [that's in his soul, where he has experienced the new birth]. But I see in my members [that's his body, that hasn't been saved as yet] another law, at war with the law of my mind, and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?"
You see the struggle that's going on? Now the path of the believer, however, is a path of growing in sanctification. The Bible constantly warns us, "Crucify the flesh and its desires." Exercise control over your body. Put to death that which is fleshly within you. We are to pummel our bodies, or to beat our bodies, so that these sinful things will not gain the ascendancy.
And so, to put it in plain language, when we see a sin that continues again and again, we are not to live with that sin. We're to get victory over it. We are to repent of it, to turn away from it, and ask God to strengthen us that this sin might not continue. And God will give us that victory if we mean business.
Now once we get victory over that sin, we're going to find other sins that we can go to work on. And this will be the story of our life. As we grow in the Lord, we will get victory over this sin, and that sin, and the other sin. But as we do this, we will become more sensitive to the will of God, and we'll see other things that we can get victory over. And we'll do this right up until the time that we die.
CALLER: It seems like every time one gets taken care of, every week and every year there's a new one. That's I guess why I've been feeling really discouraged lately, thinking, "Are all these new things going to keep cropping up? Have I really been saved?" because it seems like there's always just something else.
HC: The whole question boils down to, what am I doing about the sin in my life? The unsaved person will sin as long as he can get away with it. The greatest deterrent to sin in the life of the unsaved person is the problem of being found out, or the problem of being caught, or whatever.
But in the life of the believer, the greatest deterrent to sin is that in his own life he will feel violated, and God Himself will begin to deal with him if he would continue in sin, because his body has become a temple of the Holy Spirit. We have been bought by Christ. We belong to Him, and God will not permit us to go on this way.
CALLER: I think the problems that I have the most trouble with are not things like going out and stealing or cheating someone, or something like that. But there are things in my head and things in my heart, the rebellion in my thoughts.
HC: All right. Now when you have these rebellious thoughts, look upon them as they are. This is sin. And immediately go to the Father, "Oh Father, how can I sin this way? How can I have these rebellious thoughts? Father, forgive me. I don't want to live this way." And in order to strengthen yourself, read the Bible. Read the Bible. This is where your strength will come from.
I find in my life that if I am busy with everything else, and not reading the Bible, for even a comparatively short period of time, I find that my thinking is not nearly as clean and wholesome as it is when I am spending time in the Word.
CALLER: Thank you. And thank you for your program. It's sure a help.
HC: Thank you for calling.