It was not that long ago that
we were looking at this scripture and focusing on Jesus Christ as our advocate
in the presence of the Father, and I'm returning to it today
not to give a careful explanation or exposition of this scripture.
It's just a jumping off point for a subject I want to deal
with. But before we begin, let us seek the Lord's blessing.
Our Father, we thank you for this opportunity to meet in the
name of Christ, to be with your sheep, to be with you, to have
some time away from this world to rest, to rest from our normal labors
and then, Lord, to rest within our spirits as we are able to be among those
with whom we are in agreement and think upon those things which
strengthen us rather than tear us down, as it is written. It's
good for the heart to be strengthened with grace. So bless us in this service,
Lord. Make your grace known to us,
and we pray it in Christ's name. Amen. 1 John 2, verse 1, my dear children,
I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody
does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense,
Jesus Christ, the righteous one. I want to speak this morning
on the subject of the believer's sin, or sin in the believer. Now, the core of the gospel is
not difficult to understand. People like to ignore it, saying
such things, well, you know, the Bible is difficult and subject
to different interpretations. Well, there are portions of it
that are difficult. There are portions of it that honest believers
differ on what that portion means. But when it comes to the gospel,
it's just plain and simple as can be. We easily understand
the Bible's description of our sinful nature and the sinful
conduct that arises from that nature. And when I say us here,
I just mean us as humans. Now, anybody could open the Bible
and find out what the Bible says about sin, where it came from,
what God thinks of it. It doesn't mean they'll believe
that, but it's not hard to figure out what the Bible says about
it. We easily understand the concept of substitution in which
Christ died in our place, bearing our sin in his body on the tree. Now that's not hard to understand.
People may not believe it, but it's a very simple thing to say
that our salvation from sin was accomplished by Jesus Christ
taking our sin upon himself and presenting himself before God,
the judge of all, as us, our substitute, and in himself bearing
all the punishment that's due to our sins. That's not hard
to understand. You say, people may not believe
it, but they cannot claim that's a difficult thing to understand. And then as believers, It's easy
to understand that we should live our lives in a way that
honors the God of our salvation and seeks to be obedient to every
one of his commands. Now, that's not a hard thing
to understand, hard to do, but there is no problem in understanding
that. So clear and easy to understand
are these concepts that we would rightly question the salvation
of anyone who didn't understand them. It's so simple. But there are
some aspects about sin that a believer has a difficult time understanding. Listen to what Paul says in Romans
chapter 7 verse 15. He's talking about himself as
he was at the time he wrote this. A believer, faithful minister
of the gospel of God for many years. And this is what he says. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not
do. But what I hate, I do. Does that echo in your heart?
Can you say, you got that right, Paul. I know just what you mean. And it's confusing. Every believer wants to do right
and to do good. But that's not normally what
he ends up doing. And even those times in which
he does do right and good in the
human sense of the word, such as his spirit enlivened understanding
of sin and sinfulness, he can't even accept those things as acceptable. No matter what he does, he knows
there's sin in it. And he knows that if something
has any sin in it, it is not of itself acceptable to God. And therefore he groans within
himself. And he says, as Paul did later on in Romans chapter
7, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this
body of death? I thank God through Christ Jesus,
my Lord. Early in my preaching experience,
I preached a message called the three CCs of all believers. My CCs, common confessions. One
is, oh, wretched man that I am. There's a common confession,
there's a common cry. Who will deliver me? And a common
confidence, I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. Notice in all of that, Paul did
not say, oh, wretched man that I am, but I'm getting better.
Oh, wretched man that I am, but boy, I'm striving to do better.
He did not look for anything in himself by which he could
do any better or be any better. He said, who will deliver me?
Who will save me from this? This is part of the mystery of
a believer. I say it's a mystery, but it's not really a mystery,
for it is explained in the scripture. But despite the scripture's explanation,
It simply seems so contradictory to the believer that we who claim
to be believers in God and to have been born of God and to
love the Lord Jesus Christ, that we should find sin so appealing
and temptation so hard to resist. Say, I don't find sin appealing.
You evidently find lying appealing. Because you just did. I realize
some people, outwardly speaking, it doesn't look like they have
as much trouble with it as others. But the one who knows the heart
knows the sinfulness of all his actions. No matter how much we
may understand the dual nature of a believer, that he is flesh
and spirit, no matter how much we may understand the principles
of the gospel, our sin works in us a fear of condemnation,
a questioning of whether we really belong to God. That's our knee-jerk reaction.
particularly when we sin in a more notable way than is usual for
us. You know, we kind of get accustomed
to a certain level of sinfulness, and if we get a blip or something
like that, you know, then it shakes us up. We are all legalists
in our flesh, and that legalistic way of looking at things works
in us a sense of condemnation. And we have to confess, don't
we, that apart from the grace of God in Christ Jesus, we are
worthy of condemnation and would get condemnation. Add to this that there are many
in Christendom ready to heap on condemnation, to heap it on
those who are struggling and failing and falling. They stand
ready to do so. It's natural for us to think
that whether or not we are saved can be determined by what we
do. And many people do that. But
if you say to them, don't judge, they say, oh, I'm not a judge.
I'm just a fruit inspector. Well, fruit inspectors judge
fruit. It's what they do. And anyway, they're misusing
the scriptures that speaks of, by their fruits, you shall know
them. They don't understand even what that means. But there are many people who
do careful self-examination, trying to correct every flaw
they find. They make it their goal to quit
sinning. The problem is, Those who immerse
themselves in such self-examination eventually turn their examination
on others and begin condemning. I'll tell
you this, I don't have to do a very close examination of me
to find sin. Finding sin in myself is as easy
as finding sand on the seashore. It's there. was born there is
still there. Actually the Lord did speak of
a way that unbelievers can detect believers. Look at Matthew chapter
5, now here's an interesting thing. We who understand sin and we
who understand the perfect righteousness of God, we would never boast
of anything righteous or good in us. But the world can see
something in a believer that it does not find in other places. The Lord says in verse 14 of
Matthew chapter 5, You are the light of the world. A city on
a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp
and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand,
and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way,
let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds
and praise your Father in heaven." He says to these disciples, you
are the light of the world. That sounds strange. I don't
feel like light. Well, we are light in this world
the same way the moon is light in this world. You see, in another
place, Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Then he says to
his disciples, you are the light of the world. Why is that? Well, the disciples of the Lord
Jesus Christ reflect the light of Christ. That's all we're doing. Christ shines on us. We have
seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and the
light of that glory reflects off of us, and the world sees
it. Now it does not say here, let
your light shine before men, meaning whenever you do good
works, make sure everyone notices. That's not the light he's talking
about. The light he's talking about is the light of truth.
The light of true doctrine, the light of faith, the light of
actually believing God and living like someone who believes God. Now, it's not something that
we're trying to make a show of, but we certainly are not to hide
it. We don't hide the fact that we believe God. We don't hide
the fact that all our hopes are founded upon the Lord Jesus Christ
and what he has done. trying to be secret about this. But what's the result? Well,
it says that you let your light shine before men, you let it
be known that you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and
what that means. And when they see your good deeds,
now notice this carefully, It does not say your righteous deeds. It doesn't. Why? We're incapable of those. In
the absolute sense of the word, we're incapable of righteous
deeds. This here, this word that's translated
good, strictly speaking, means beautiful. deeds. Do you remember that woman who
anointed the Lord's feet with a precious ointment, beautiful
perfume and people got upset, you know, well that could have
been sold and used to feed the poor. Yeah, it could have been.
And you know something, that would have been a beautiful thing. But He said, She has wrought
a beautiful work on me. Now, the Greek word for beautiful
here, kalos. And there's only one English
word I know of that has it in there, and that's the word calligraphy.
Now, the graphy part, graph, it's from the Greek word meaning
to write. But calligraphy is beautiful writing. Have you ever
seen someone do something and it didn't seem appropriate to
call it righteous or even just to say it's good? You just say,
that's beautiful. What they did was beautiful.
That's what he's talking about. That they may see that, and they
can be things like works of charity. In fact, a beautiful work is
simply anything done from the motivations of love, kindness,
and for the glory of Christ. That's a beautiful work. And
they see that in believers. Now, we live in a culture that's
been greatly affected by the gospel, and it's not as obvious
That is, there's not as much a difference between the way
believers behave. There's charitable organizations
that have nothing to do with, you know, they're not run by
people that believe, they're not, the folks working there
are not necessarily believers. But imagine the culture into
which this was spoken. When you had these Pharisees
who were all together about righteousness, and they were so righteous. The Lord said of them, you plunder
widow's houses, you steal, you deprive people
of what they need, and you won't lift a finger to help anyone. You see, when people think of
sin in a believer, they immediately think that the answer to sin
in the believer, sinful deeds, is righteous deeds. Well, it's
true. We do and must endeavor to do
what is right. But we're never in this life
going to get it perfect. We must endeavor to suppress
and restrain the outbreaks of fleshly desires. But we're never gonna get it
complete in this life. Can't be done. Rather, our attention
is turned to doing that which is beautiful. Or another time, it will use
a word that means good, and yet it means good not in the sense
of righteousness so much as in the sense of usefulness and kindness, doing stuff that's helpful. The
Scriptures say that God purified a people for himself, zealous
to do good, useful, helpful, beautiful works. You see, the gospel raises us
to higher things than the law ever could. We don't deny the
righteousness and justice of the law. We don't deny the fact
that whatever God has commanded us, whatever is right, that's
what we ought to do, and what's wrong we should avoid. But the gospel takes us out from
under that system. whereby everything is judged
in terms of righteousness and unrighteousness, and says, do
what is good. Remember the parable of the good
Samaritan, a priest and then a Levite walked right past that
fellow. And what they did was righteous. What that man needed was something
good. And the Samaritan, Not concerning
himself with the righteous restrictions of the law, which forbade touching
what they believed was a dead man. He went to that man and
did what was good. And that's what we are called
to do. Pursue good. Pursue that which to any reasonable
mind would be beautiful and useful. Let's make some observation then
about sinful conduct as it applies to the believer. I think I got
three or four things here. Sin is bad. And the believer
should do all he can to avoid doing it. That's easy. I mean easy to understand, simple.
Put it that way, that's simple. Make no mistake about it. Grace
does not remove the sinfulness of sin. God saving you did not
mean that sinning was okay. It's not. And if God has saved
you, you know that. Sin is as wicked in the believer
as it is in an unbeliever. In fact, I can say in some sense,
it's even more wicked because we're not simply sinning against
God, the judge of all, we're sinning against the one who redeemed
us by his grace. It's one thing. to be mad at
a judge who condemns you and spit in his face. It's another
thing altogether, to be upset at the judge that lets you go
and you spit in his face. See what I mean? Of all the people
in the world who have no excuse for sin, it's us. While God in grace forgives sin,
he never excuses it. Sometimes our understanding of
things is helped if we make distinctions between words, but sometimes
we act like they mean the same thing, but they don't. An excuse
differs from forgiveness in this way. Forgiveness says, that was
a sin, but I will not hold it against you. An excuse says,
even though that may have broken a rule, it was not wrong for
there were circumstances that made it unavoidable. For example,
a kid doesn't go to school. Well, the rule says kids are
supposed to go to school every day. The school is in session. Well,
if they just skipped school, that was wrong. But if they were
sick, it's excused. Now, the school is free to forgive
a kid skipping school and not Punish them for it, but I'm sure
the school will recognize and want the student to acknowledge
that skipping school is wrong. Now that's forgiveness. But mom
calls and says, so-and-so won't be in school today, they're sick.
And the school says, okay. That's an excuse. You're excused
from it. Grace does not excuse sin because
there is never an excuse for sin. We may find reasons for
it. We may be able to discover why
our propensity to sin looks different than someone else's, but still
it's just sin. A person is simply ridiculous
if they think that they can excuse their sin by saying, well, I'm
just a sinner. What else am I going to do? Imagine
a guy on trial for murder. And he said, judge, I'm sorry,
I'm just a murderer. What else am I going to do? And you say, nobody would ever
say that. I've heard professed believers say something like
that. And it's a denial of the grace
of God. And I won't judge their heart because Christians are
quite capable of believing foolish things. But if they said it in
my hearing, I would say, no, that's not the way it is. Someone
says, well, you know, I've just got a bad temper. Okay. I don't mean it's okay that you
got a bad temper. But I'll accept that fact, you got a bad temper.
It doesn't excuse you from when you blow up at somebody. That's
still wrong. And we ought to do what we can
to restrain that ill temper or restrain that covetousness. Say, well, you know, we're all
gonna, all God's people will be saved in the end. That's true. So it doesn't matter how we live.
Brother Tim James straightened that out so well in a way that's
so characteristic of him. He said, yeah, righteousness
matters. Our conduct matters. It just
doesn't count. It matters how you live. It should matter to you. But
if it doesn't matter to you, and you know, a lot of times,
let's face it, we can get in a state of mind, we just don't
care. But if it doesn't, if your conduct doesn't matter to you,
listen to these to whom it does matter. It matters to the world
who looks for every reason to heap abuse on God. And one good
way One way they do that is point fingers at believers and find
fault with them. Remember when Nathan the prophet
came to David about David's sin? And here was the, at least the
way it's worded in the scriptures, it seems to me that he's saying,
here's the very worst of your sins, David. You have given opportunity
to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. So it matters to the world. If
you do profess Christ, the world watches. It matters to those
who are affected by your sinfulness. If you steal, your sin certainly
matters to the one from whom you stole. So it matters to those against whom
you sin. I realize that essentially our
sin is against God. David said that even with regard
to his sin with Bathsheba and against Uriah. He said, against
you and you alone have I sinned. And that all sin is ultimately
against God. But our sins against God are
offensive to others. They cause others trouble. And
therefore, in some sense, we have sinned against them. It
matters to them. Here's another one. It matters
to your children how you act. I'm not saying your children
are saying, boy, I sure wish mom and dad would act better.
I'm saying it affects them. They see your example. And anyone who's had much experience
at raising children knows this. What you say doesn't have half
the effect. And if you tell your children, and
you should, if you are a believer, I believe Christ. And yet your
life is such that it regularly contradicts that. What do you
think your children are going to do? Or here's what they'll
do. They will interpret that love for Christ is what you're
doing. And so you say, I love Christ,
I believe Christ, but they know things that go on that shouldn't.
They're saying, well, I guess that's, that's what being a Christian
is. It matters to your brethren in
the Lord who become disheartened in their
battle and struggle with the flesh when they see you freely
indulging your flesh. and seemingly happy in it. It matters, and it matters to
God, who hates sin so much that he
created hell to deal with it, who hates sin so much that he
sent his beloved son into the world to pay the penalty of it
in behalf of God's people Because God hates sin so much, he won't
bless anybody till the sin question is taken care of. And he hates it in believers
as much as he hates it in unbelievers. Because he hates it, because
it's sin. Listen carefully. Do not ever
be deceived into thinking that grace has rendered sin an irrelevant
matter. In the scriptures we find that
there were those who would say, let us sin that grace may abound. There were those whom the apostle
said turned the grace of God into lasciviousness, that is,
took the concept of the grace of God which forgives sin and
said, well if my sins are going to be forgiven then I may as
well just give free vent to my flesh because in the end it's
all going to be the same. Now I think if someone actually
believes that, yeah their end is going to be the same, but
it's not going to be the one they thought. You'll see why in a minute. Paul never said the spirit and
flesh are always at war and you will never experience complete
victory in this life so just give up knowing that in the end
you'll be made perfect. Why sweat it now? No, he said
that the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit lusts
against the flesh. Now our translation says wars.
And that's okay, but I like the idea when it says lust, particularly
if you understand the Greek word, it's a word that means a desire
that will not rest until it is satisfied. And that's why he
said, you have this flesh lust against the spirit, the spirit
and the flesh so that you do not do what you want. So what does he mean by you do
not do what you want? Neither nature is ever satisfied,
but neither nature ever gives up. Your flesh will always push
you to sin. And if you've been born of God,
your spirit will always be pursuing that which is right and good
and beautiful. And neither one of them is going
to give up. until you're dead. And then the flesh gives up because
it's dead, and the spirit lives on. And God will eventually raise
that old nasty flesh and change it, make something beautiful
out of it, and it'll cooperate. But until then, there will be
no cooperation between flesh and spirit. If there is no such
struggle in you, I do not advise that you start struggling. Rather,
I advise that you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that you
might be saved. If there is no such warfare within
you between flesh and spirit, it's not because you don't have
flesh. It's because there is no reborn spirit in you. The flesh is always what it is.
And if there is nothing in you that opposes the flesh and its
sinfulness, it's because there's no living spirit within you to
put up a fight. And see, that's one of the problems
with those who want to examine believers according to their
righteousness. Because what they'll do is say,
you know, if you don't give up that sin, well, you'll perish. And so, professing believers,
you know, who have, someone's pointed out some sin to them,
they'll say, oh, well then I gotta give up that sin so I can still
go to heaven. Wait a minute. If your sin proves that you're
lost, quitting that sin is not going to make you saved. It won't. There is a struggle in the believer Without it, he's not a believer. I can say this, I think, without
ever being contradicted in scripture. If you do not hate sin, you do
not love God. You say, that's awful harsh.
No, it's not, it just makes sense. Now, there's a part of you that
loves sin too. But if there's not something
in you that hates sin, then there's nothing in you that loves God.
Now, that's the hard part. What do we do about it? I mean, we sin, we know we do. We dare not deny it, do we? And even if we give great effort,
not doing it. We still do it. What should we do about the sin
in our lives? Well, we're to try to avoid letting
our natural sinfulness break out into transgression. We cannot
change what our flesh is. We're not looking to improve
on the flesh. The only thing we can do is restrain it. It's like a wild animal. You probably can't tame it, you
know, but you can try to put it in
a cage, do something like that. And really that's all, that's
all we can do. You, you can't, a believer cannot
improve his flesh. because it's unimprovable. I
mean, it's just a mess, it's broken, it's destroyed, it's
dying, that's all that's gonna happen to it. And he can't improve
his spirit because God has recreated that and created it flawless.
All he can do is strengthen himself in his spiritual self by focusing
on Christ and his grace, becoming what Paul says, strong in the
Lord. and then just try to restrain the flesh, at least in its worst
outbreaks. But how are we gonna do that?
Are we gonna, all right, today, no sin. No, that ain't gonna work. You
know why? That's a fleshly determination
and all you're gonna end up doing is arm wrestling yourself. It's
the flesh trying to restrain the flesh. You cannot, by fleshly
will, religious fleshly will, or fleshly religious will, however
you want to put it, restrain fleshly sin. Sometimes it does
just mean saying no, as Titus 2, 11, and 12, it says, for the
grace of God which brings salvation has appeared unto all, teaching
us to deny all ungodliness. And he goes on, you know, to
say that we should live our lives decently. He uses several words
to describe it. But notice something here. It
did not say the law of God that threatens unto condemnation teaches
us to deny ungodliness. It said the grace of God teaches
us that. You bind yourself under a law,
going to do is increase your sinfulness. That's what Paul
said. Look at Galatians chapter 5,
verse 16. The fundamental method of resisting
the outbreaks of our flesh, of our sinful nature, is this. Galatians 5, 16, so I say, live
by the Spirit. Actually, the word live there
is walk, but it's using walk as kind of a metaphor of how
we live. So walk by the Spirit or walk
in the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. What's he mean by that? Well,
the desires of the flesh are still gonna be there, but you
won't be bringing them out. You'll not be gratifying them. I like that word. Our translation
says gratify. The word actually is the same
from the same root word as when our Lord said it is finished.
But what it means is, is you will not bring to fruition or
to perfection or to completion that which the flesh tries to
get started. You just won't do it. And here's
what I like too. It does not say, um, live according
to the Spirit's commands and you will not gratify the desires
of the flesh. Well, that would make sense.
I mean, if it's just saying, live by these good commandments
and you don't do these bad things. Well, that isn't, that doesn't
take any wisdom at all to understand and there's really nothing gospel
in that. What does it mean to walk by the Spirit or walk in
the Spirit? Well, it means to live one's
life in the knowledge of Christ and the grace of God in him,
always looking to Christ for every good thing, and not relying
at all on your own strength. Do you know when we do this the
best? I shouldn't say we, me. Right
here. Gathering like this. Why? Because when we gather like this,
the Spirit is among us, Christ is among us, and the things of
Christ are being declared to us, and the Spirit's making them
powerful in us. And consumed in our minds and
hearts with Christ, the flesh just can't find a way in. And
we're not even trying. Think of that. Here we sit. I'm not saying no
temptation is coming to you while you're here. I'm talking in general
principles. But for the most part, when we've
gathered for worship like this, it's a holiday from the flesh. In the sound of the gospel, we
are moved to walk in the Spirit. And when you're walking in the
Spirit, you just don't fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Look down at verse 18. And people
still think that we need to have these laws, that that's how believers
are sanctified. You got to give them laws, you
got to tell them what to do. Verse 18, if you are led by the Spirit,
you are not under law. Do I need to read it again? If
you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. Yeah, because
if you're being led by the Spirit, you know, He's got His commands.
No, then you're still under law. You're just under law, mediated
by the Spirit. He says, if you are led by the
Spirit, you're not under law. Why? The law is for the unrighteous,
says Paul. And we are righteous in Christ.
We're led differently. The law leads by threats. The Spirit of God leads by showing
us the glory of God in the face of Christ, by showing us FORGIVENESS
AND OUR REDEMPTION. WHAT SHOULD WE DO? IF WE GO BACK
TO OUR ORIGINAL TEXT, WE DON'T HAVE TO TURN THERE, BUT I JOHN
2, 1, IF ANY MAN SIN, WE HAVE AN ADVOCATE. NOW, WE'RE GOING
TO TRY NOT TO SIN, BUT IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN. What do we do when
we sin? Say, okay, next time I won't
fall for that. I promise to do better. I used
to do that so often. Never got anywhere with it. You
go to the advocate. We have an advocate. And I love
the name that John gives him. Jesus Christ, the righteous one. I'm unrighteous, I need a righteous
advocate. And I like that, he's the righteous
one. There's only one who in himself
is righteous and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. All the rest of
us are unrighteous and we'll remain that way until we are
with him and made like him. Well, what should the preacher
do about sin? Well, he should exhort believers to avoid sinning
and I do that. I don't harp on a lot, why? I
don't feel the need to. I know you all pretty well anyway. I realize you live pretty decent
lives. I'm not thinking you're ever
going to be perfect, so I'm not going to keep hounding you until
you are. And anytime the preacher thinks
that it is his job to make the people act righteously, before
long, he's just like a slave driver with a whip. That's all
there is. We exhort, point it out when the scriptures point
it out. And then what's a preacher to
do about sin? He along with the whole church
is to remove anyone within the church who is guilty of especially
wicked sin and are unwilling to hear the testimony of the
Spirit and repent. And don't go and threaten. know
if you keep doing this you're going to go to Hell." No, that's
not what the Church says to a professed believer who has fallen in sin. Paul dealt with it in the Corinthian
epistles, 1 Corinthians. A man was carrying on an affair
with his stepmom. Paul said, not even the Gentiles
do that. Notice he didn't say someone, you know, well he cheated
on his taxes, got to kick him out. You know, not the things
that we would consider the lesser sin. This was serious business
and it was bringing disgrace upon Christ and upon the church.
And he said, when you all are together and I'm with you in
spirit, turn him over to the devil, turn him over to Satan
for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit might be preserved.
And the best I can understand he's saying is you get together
and you withdraw your protection from him by way of prayers, of fellowship, because they continued
to fellowship with this fellow. And encouraging and all that.
They said, OK, you've told him it's wrong he won't admit it,
back up. And let Satan deal with it for
a little while. You know Satan is God's agent. And you know what happened? That
fellow did repent. He found out what it was like
to be separated from the people of God and the fellowship of
Christ. And he found out he wanted what
was good far more than he wanted what was wicked. And then here's the most remarkable
thing, and we'll close with this. Turn over to Isaiah 40. Now,
you know, when it comes to what we're supposed to do, we don't
rely on our own wisdom. We got a Bible full of things
telling us how to react to things. What's the preacher supposed
to do about sin in a believer? Isaiah 40, verse one, comfort. Comfort my people, says your
God. speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed,
her sin has been paid for, and she has received from the Lord's
hand double for all her sins." Now, this word comfort, I believe it's pronounced na-ha, It's what Lamech said when his
son was born. He said, your name is Noah, for
you will give us nocha from the curse, from the hard toil, because
of the curse that God has put on the ground. Noah's name That's
where it came from, comfort, rest. And what is a preacher
supposed to tell the people of God? We come in here, don't we,
often down in the dumps, discouraged, and we're discouraged about our
sinfulness, among other things? Comfort, rest. Why? Because sin's okay? No, because it's been taken care
of. Speak tenderly, that means speak
to the heart. Literally is what it says, speak
to the heart of Jerusalem. Proclaim to her, her hard service
been completed. Oh no, you gotta go around with
your chin on the ground and you gotta be miserable about your
sin for so long before you can be happy again. It's been completed. She's received from the Lord's
hand double for all her sins. That doesn't mean God punishes
twice. It's just saying, understand,
the bill's paid in full. And then it goes right to this,
verse 3. a voice of one calling in the desert. Prepare the way
for the Lord, make straight in the wilderness a highway for
our God. Every valley shall be raised
up, every mountain and hill made low. The rough ground shall become
level, the rugged places a plain, and the glory of the Lord will
be revealed, and all mankind together will see it, for the
mouth of the Lord has spoken." Who's this talking about? John
the Baptist, he was that one crying out in the wilderness,
make a level path for the Lord, fill up the valleys, tear down
the hills. And it said here, the glory of
the Lord will be revealed. Do you know how John did that?
Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. People said, or the scriptures
say, John preached a baptism of repentance. He preached Christ, and that
brought about repentance in the heart of many. He pointed to Christ, said, there's
the answer for your sin right there. It's the only answer there
is. Are you weighed down by sin? The sinfulness within you and
the outbreaks of sin in your life. It's a shame that we sin. It's a shame that it seems we're
unable to be done with it once for all. But if you are, let me give you
this word of comfort, rest. Your sin's been paid for. I'm
speaking to believers here, because it says, comfort my people. It's
not up to me to determine whether or not you're his people. I'll
say the words and see if the Spirit secures them to your heart.
Be at rest. Understand, all your sins have
been paid for. All your hard service is done. There's a voice crying out. Behold,
the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. There's
a finger pointing. Look at who it's pointing to. And that's how you deal with
sin in your life. And if God gives you grace to
do that, it'll put away your sin and it will actually work
within you an ability to restrain the flesh. Well, I'll just quit there. And once again, I didn't ask
anybody ahead of time to help with the Lord's table. Scott
and James, you all ought to just kind of figure, you're on call. If you'd please pass out the
Lord's table for us. You take out your chorus books
and turn them to number 15. Stricken, smitten, and afflicted,
number 15 in the chorus books, and you can remain seated.