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Transcript 242A — Our Ongoing Fight with Sin
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Good evening, Mr. Camping. You had some people who were asking questions about how to live a Christian life working for non-Christians. And you made a comment further on in your discussion about a Christian and his witness. And you gave an example of a Christian who had a bad temper. And you said that if a Christian would lose his temper frequently, you felt that he should take a close look at himself, whether or not he was born again. Now did I quote you correctly?
HC: Yes. Any time we have a besetting sin that just goes on and on and on, then we have to ask ourselves, how can this be if I have become born again? Why am I not getting victory over sin in my life?
CALLER: Oh, so it's the lack of victory?
HC: Yes. We do have an old nature, We do have a body that has not been saved as yet. But the difference between a born again believer and an unbeliever is that in the case of the unsaved person, he will continue in his sin and he will excuse his sin. He will rationalize his sin. It's just part of his whole being. But in the case of a born again believer, when we sin we are deeply troubled. We don't want to sin anymore. And increasingly we will be troubled by it. And over a period of time we will be casting around...how can this be? How can I get victory over this? And eventually the question will come, how can I be saved and still live this way?
Now after we get victory over a sin, a specific sin, we're going to find that it was covering up some others, and then we can go to work on those. The path of the Christian is a growing in sanctification, as we exercise more and more control over our bodies.
CALLER: I guess it's hard to put a time limit, or something, on this. But I would like to take the rest of this on the air, if I could. Would you please explain some signs for us to start really examining ourselves, how to cope with these type of sins in our lives that are repetitive and are part of the old nature.
HC: Yes. Our caller has asked a very practical question. How can we recognize a real problem in our life in regard to sin, so that we might wonder if we're really saved? How can we cope with these sins? What should be going on in our life?
First of all, let me read from Romans 7, because we want to get the whole picture here. In Romans 7 the apostle Paul, after he had been saved for many many years, had this to say in verse 21: "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, but I see in my members 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?"
In other words, the apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is saying that no matter how hard he tries, no matter how much he longs for perfection, the potential for sin is always present in his life, because his body is still unsaved. In his soul, or in his mind, as he uses the expression here, or in his inmost self, he always wants to do what is pleasing to God. But in his body there is this lusting after sin.
However, we mustn't think for a moment that Paul was speaking here about an ongoing walking in adultery, or an ongoing walking telling lies. That is not possible, because we read in I Corinthians 6:9 that the immoral, the adulterer, the fornicator, the thief, and so on, shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. But you see, the problem is that when we are saved, when we are born again, every time we read the Bible we're confronted with the perfection of God's holiness. We are given the standard of perfection, and we find again and again little areas where we don't quite measure up. And of course, the more we read the Bible, the more we're sensitive to the will of God, even those little things that we thought weren't sins at all now begin to loom larger.
There was a day when I may have thought that to be a little impatient, that isn't sin. But when I continue to read the Bible, I finally discover yes, to be impatient is a sin. There may have been a day when I thought that to lash out at someone when they hurt me was not a sin. But when I study the Bible more carefully, as I grow in grace, I find that yes, that's a sin, too. And so every place I turn I find that there are rough edges of sin potential within me that have to be worked over.
Now if I find a besetting sin . . . And every born again believer is confronted with this. You find a sin that especially besets. It may be a temper, it may be that you just have a terrible time with gossiping. Certain friends call up, and the next thing you know, you're gossiping a blue streak. Or it may be that you're having trouble with evil desire. In your life you're just attracted to pornographic literature. Or it may be, well, you can name it. You can think of your own sins. There's a whole host of them that you can catalogue.
Now if I'm unsaved, both in body and soul I am essentially and ultimately in rebellion against God. And while I may know that I'm a bad boy because I do certain bad things, as long as I'm not going to get caught or as long as I'm not going to get hurt by it, I will continue in it because I like sin. With my whole being I like sin. There's something enjoyable about sin. And I will continue. If anyone reminds me of it, I will excuse myself. I will make alibis. I'll say, "I know that you're telling me I'm a sinner. But look, I'm not nearly as bad as the other person over there. And did you read in the newspaper about 'so and so', what they're doing? He's way more guilty than I am." Or, "I was tired, and when I get tired then I don't have the strength, and then I fall into sin," or whatever it may be. We excuse ourselves. Now that's the life of an unsaved person, even though he may call himself a Christian.
But if we are a born again believer, and that besetting sin occurs, let's say it's the sin of a temper, and the situation develops and we feel the hair stand up on the back of our neck, and we feel our face get red, and we lash out, afterwards you know the remorse. "Oh, I did it again. Oh, Lord, strengthen me. How does it have to be that I keep committing this sin?" And this is one of the evidences of being born again, when we have this heartfelt sorrow in our heart that we have rebelled against God again.
We're bound to have that heartfelt sorrow, because in our soul we have become a new being. We have become a resurrected person. We are a new creation. We don't sin anymore in our soul. And so we are violating our soul every time we sin this way. And so of course we feel very terrible.
More than that, we have become related to God and we love Him. And the evidence of loving God is that we want to keep His commandments. So we pray, "Oh Lord, forgive me. Oh Lord, forgive me." And oh, how we mean that. But even as we're praying, "Oh Lord, forgive me," we know that tomorrow, when the situation develops again, we're going to commit that sin all over again. Now what has gone wrong? Why doesn't God forgive and take that sin out of my life? I've been praying for it. Why don't I get victory?
Well, there's one of two things. I might not be born again. Or it may be that I am born again, but I'm not following God's program. God's program calls for repentance. Now what is repentance? It means to turn away from that sin. The whole problem is, we like that sin and we feel deep in our hearts that yes, it's terrible to commit this sin. It's an affront to God, to Christ our Savior. And yet deep in our heart we enjoy that sin and we don't really want to give it up. And so as we pray, "Oh Lord, forgive me," we mean that with all our heart, but what we're really asking is, "Oh Lord, let me continue in this sin as long as I want to. And You just take it out of my life without asking me to give it up." And God doesn't work that way. God works through repentance.
And so if we really mean business with a sin in our life, whatever it may be, we first of all recognize it, that it's dirty, rotten sin. It's active, open rebellion against Christ our Savior. It's a reproach to God, it's a reproach to the work of grace that's within our life. And that sin has got to go. And at that point we're going to quit pitying ourselves. We're going to recognize, "I like that sin, but I've got to make a choice. Do I like that sin more than I like Christ?" That's really the choice I have to make. "No, I love Christ. I may like the sin, but I love my Savior." Then the sin has got to go.
The Bible tells me that sin's power over me has been broken. I'm no longer a slave of Satan. So he can't make me sin. The only reason I'm sinning is that I have not surrendered to Christ. And so the giant step I must take is repentance. I must turn away from it. I must deal with this very ruthlessly. I must give myself no quarter. It's got to go. I cut it off. If it means that I have to quit reading magazines for the rest of my life, I'll quit reading magazines, if that's what's going to tempt me. If it means that I have to cut off friendships because through that friendship I'm getting tempted, cut off the friendship. The friendship isn't worth anything if it means that every time it's going to tempt me into sin. Cut it off. You're not doing your friend any good, and you're not doing yourself any good, because every time you commit that sin the likelihood is you're dragging your friend into the sin also. And who wants to make your friend guilty before God? And so you cut it off. You give yourself no self-pity of any kind.
Now if you really mean business with the Lord, and you're really honest with yourself, "I like this, but it's got to go," and you begin to cut it off, crying out to God for mercy and for strength, and when that sin begins to needle in your mind you begin immediately to ask God for forgiveness, "Oh Lord, I don't want to move in that direction again," then you're going to find that you'll get victory. You will get victory. And that victory will be a vast encouragement that after all, God does mean what He says, that the power of sin has been broken.
Now when you've gotten victory over that sin, then you can go to work on the next one and the next one and the next one, and the next one. And that's really what growing in sanctification is.