Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Hebrews 12, and reading from
our text, verse 4, though it is specifically the last part,
upon my spirit. The words, ye have not yet resisted
unto blood, striving against sin. And the subject, striving
against sin. In this chapter, leading up to
the words of our text, there are four things that focus our
attention upon the text. The first is a cloud of witnesses,
others of the Lord's people, those who have gone before us,
Those who have conquered, and they've conquered through faith.
They have seen the Lord afar off. They viewed Him in the promises,
in the types, in the shadows. They believed that He would come,
and they died in faith. They walked by faith. Many things
are said about them. Many things that were the effect
of sin. We think of Noah. We think of
Abel. We think of those that are spoken
of here that were tortured, that were persecuted, that all had
in their lives the effect of sin round about them, in them. Those that declared that they
were strangers and pilgrims here below. They sought a country. that was to come. Their path
was not an easy path. Their path was a path of trial,
and each path was an individual path, and their faith was tried
in different ways. But each of them held on their
way their faith that God had given them that was maintained,
and they endured unto the end. And that is the first thing.
that is set before us, following hard on that long list in Hebrews
11. But then we have a turning from
them to us. We have sins, our sin, the sin
that does so easily beset us. We have a race as they had a
race, And it's set before us. They ran it. They ran their race. And we must run our race. How vital that whatever doctrines
that we have, whatever things we believe, whatever view we
might have on others and others' lives, you have a race to run. I have a race to run. I have
my sins. You have your sins. These things
must be brought down to us, our besetting sins, our race, our
faith. So it must be personal, personal
to us. The third thing that's set before
us is our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He is set before us here,
introduced as the author and finisher of our faith. I've often said that wherever
you find the people of God, in the Word of God, you'll find
very close to them their saviour, their redeemer. There can be
no saviour without a people to save. There can be no saved people
without a saviour and a redeemer. And so you have it in this verse
too, we have our Lord, the author and finisher of our faith. And then we have His path, His
cross, His shame, that which He endured. It is what the Lord
Jesus Christ has done, not to save Himself from sin, but to
save His people from their sins. He was sinless, He was spotless,
He was without any cause of death in Him, but He laid down His
life, a ransom, to take it again for His people. That is the foundation
of the hope of the people of God that Christ has put away
their sin by the sacrifice of himself, not by works that we
have done, but that which he has done and finished and accomplished
at Calvary. It is his work, his sacrifice,
his perfect life and obedience. It is what he has done, not what
we have done. and the faith that we are to
have, the faith that saves us, the faith that believes in the
Lord Jesus Christ, the faith that trusts in His cross and
in His sacrifice is given by the Lord. It is all what He has
done, what He has done at Calvary and what He does in the hearts
and lives of His people in giving them faith. All men have not
faith. and faith is the gift of God,
and that is set before us then in the third place. Then in fourth
place, we are to consider Him in our path, in the path that
we walk through, that sometimes seems as if we cannot endure
it another moment, cannot continue in the path at all. Our sins
beset us, Satan tempts us, Sin rises again and again, adversaries
not so much in the world, though there are those in the world,
but in the church, amongst brethren, those that cause us sorrow and
distress and trouble, and we are directed to consider the
Lord Jesus Christ outside of ourselves and unto Him, for consider
Him that endured such contradiction, not just for a moment, but endured
such contradiction of sinners against himself. Remember, we
all are sinners, whatever, even if we are redeemed, even if we
are saved, we're still sinners. And sin is mixed with all we
say and all we do. And our Lord Jesus Christ said
four truths. and there were those, and especially
those in the religious time in his day, that contradicted what
he said, that opposed him in all that he did, spoke opposite,
said opposite, wrought opposite to him in everything he did. And it is said here, we are to
consider him, lest ye be wearied and faint in your if you would know what the situation
is and what the application is for that, considering Him, are
you wearied and faint in your mind? And you will know what
answer you would give on that. When you are wearied and faint
in your minds and what is the cause and what is the reason
of it, and you go through your sin, your life, the things against
you, providence, and in grace, and sinners round about you,
and we are directed to consider our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. And we have, as in the first
part of our text, he did resist unto blood, he did die, he did
lay down his life to take it again, he did shed his precious
blood, and without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. But your blood, my blood, will
not avail to put away one of our sins, let alone another sin's. But that precious blood of the
paschal lamb appointed by God, when I see the blood, not any
blood, the blood, not the blood of bulls and of goats, but of
the great antitype, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. When the Lord sees that sin,
that blood I will pass over you. He was made sin for us, who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Our Lord then resisted unto blood. And the path then is set before
us. Being in a world of sin, Sin
within us and sin about us, how are we to act? How are we to
go through this world? We have a warning, lest any be
hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. And the way that is set
before us here is a resisting and a striving against sin. What does it mean to resist? The definitions of it, refrain
from doing what we attempted to do, resist that temptation
to sin, withstand the action or effect of it. Resisting. The opposite would
be going along with it, agreeing with it, Falling in with it. Resisting is going against it. What is it to strive? Make great
efforts against. Not just feeble efforts, we feel
them, we've sung it in our hymn. Our feeble resistance, weak resistance. We feel it so. What is said before
us here is that there is to be an effort against it. Just these two words, it gives
a picture of the life of one that is awake to what sin really
is, that hates sin, that does not want to go the way of sin,
It is a life of resisting, sometimes many, many times a day or an
hour, and striving, striving against it. Really just these
two words in our text would take away any thought for a Christian
of a life of ease, a life of peace, a life where there's no
opposition. If there is to be resistance,
there is something pushing against us. You know, if we were to hold
or carry along a piece of board, say a piece of perspex or whatever
it be, a sheet of something, and there was a strong wind blowing,
You'd know what it was to have a real resistance against that
wind. We would have to walk trying
to push against it. Sometimes the wind can be so
strong you don't need to carry anything. It's just so strong
it nearly blows you off your feet. Know what it was to be
walking from an aeroplane on Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne
and across to the main buildings and hardly knowing how to stand
up. so strong and know what it is then to have a resistance
not even seen, but you feel it and you know what it is to have
to push against it if you make any progress at all. And so this
word, it takes away the idea that the life of a Christian,
life of one that will follow the Lord and serve Him and obey
Him is anyway a life of ease. It takes away the thought that
those that are forgiven and pardoned and whose sins are put away by
the precious blood of Christ, that they don't have trouble
with sin. They do. In fact, really it is
the only people that have trouble with sin. Because if we are still
dead in sin, then yes, the consequences of sin, the effects of it, we
see it all around men, we must die, sicknesses, illness, wars,
troubles, conflicts, disputes, breaking up of families, terrible
things that happen, all of these are the fruit of sin. Thorns,
thistles it shall bring forth, Sin is seen in our gardens, it
is seen in the animals, in the birds, in everything. Sin affects this whole world
because when sin entered into the world, death by sin. God must justly condemn man to
dying. The day that thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die. In dying thou shalt die. The
consequence of sin, of the breaking, of the holy, Law of God is death
and all that accompanies it, a fall from grace, a fall from
the Lord, a separation from Him and allegiance with Satan. Striving against sin. Well, I want to confine our thoughts
to three points this morning. Firstly, That sin is an enemy. And secondly, that sin is to
be resisted and striven against. And thirdly, forgiveness with
God. I want to end on that note. But firstly, sin is an enemy. God has given us each a conscience. And whether we have fallen or
not, we still have that, that has not been destroyed through
the fall. But a conscience is governed
by something. Paul says in his letter to the
Romans that the Gentiles, their conscience either accusing or
excusing themselves. And we can have a conscience
that is governed by wrong things, by tradition, or by something
that is taught to us other than the Word of God. But a conscience
that is guided by the Word of God in an enlightened mind, those
that are quickened by God's grace, then the Word of God is the authority
in the conscience. Of course, a child that is brought
up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, where the word of
God is well known and taught and enforced in the home, then
their consciences also would then act according to what they've
been taught of the word of God. But sadly, our consciences may
become hardened. Now we might spend an hour or
so or more a day in our closets, reading the Word of God and in
prayer. And we may have our week evening
services and our meetings in the house of God. But when you
add all those up, they are but very short times compared with
the long time that we are exposed to the world and the things of
it. and it has a hardening effect. Things accepted today or heard
on the news or seen hardly affect us, but years ago they would
have profoundly affected us. Gradually, gradually we can become
hardened and not think upon sin and evil as it really is. I believe one thing that is very
precious with a newborn soul, is that the Lord makes sin to
be sinful. And the Apostle says that when
the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And that sin was
brought to be exceeding sinful. And we are not to forget how
we first viewed sin. and how he first resisted it,
how he first hated it, how he first saw it. But we have to
remember that sin is an enemy. Sin is not a friend. Sin is the
transgression of the law of God. Sin is a defiance against the
God of heaven and of earth. Sin is that which, if God along
with sides with Satan and goes against the Lord. The Apostle
Paul, after having set before the Romans in Romans, the early
chapters of Romans, how that we are justified by faith in
Christ and saved by grace and grace alone, he asked the question
in Romans 6, what shall we say then shall we continue in sin
that grace may abound. And in chapter 6 he deals with
the matter of sin in a believer, sin in a justified person, and
he uses many arguments so that we may get a right estimate of
what sin really is. He asks the question in verse
2, How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? A living in sin, that is going
on in sin, that grace may abound. He reminds that those that are
baptised into Christ were baptised into his death, buried with him.
There's identification with our Lord in his death. Our Lord's
sufferings were because of sin, our sin, because that rather
than the justice of God be injured, the Lord would pay the full debt
and the full price. To go on in sin were to be holding
in contempt the sufferings and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so he speaks of us being
crucified with him. Crucifixion is a long, a slow
death. And we have about us sin. We
live, as it were, a long, slow death. A sin, one day, shall
be completely dealt with when we die. And our bodies are laid
in the grave, and our spirit returns to God that gave it. And we are to account ourselves
as if we are dead. And then he says that we are
to reckon ourselves to be dead unto sin but alive unto God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Now he reminds us and says again
that we are not to let sin reign in our mortal body, to obey it
in the lust thereof. And he says in verse 16 of that
sixth chapter, Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants
to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether as sin
unto death or obedience unto righteousness. And he says that
ye were once the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from
the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being
then made free from sin, he became the servants of righteousness. So when we're thinking of sin
as an enemy, we have sin that is competing and that wants our
heart, that we should serve Satan. We have it right from the very
first temptation, in man in his innocency, on one hand there
was God's word, in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt
surely die. On the other hand was Satan's
word, ye shall not surely die. And our first parents chose Satan. And the effect with God's children
is to be that they are to remember how sin entered into the world
and death by sin, and that by his grace they say to Satan,
I'm not serving you, I will serve the Lord. I'll obey the Lord
and not you. That is what is at stake, who
we are serving. And it centers around sin, the
transgression of the law of God, going against the Lord's word,
going along with Satan. Sin is an enemy. Sin is an enemy
that is brought in death, which is the last enemy. And sin is
an enemy to God's children, because it is a rebellion against God. It separates between God and
them. It is the cause of all the woe
that this world ever known. Cause of all the sorrows in families,
in churches, in the world, amongst brethren, amongst nations. And
it is sin. Sin is an enemy and we are to
know that, we are to remember what an evil, bitter, terrible
thing that sin is. Surely it must be one thing then
that is vital that we be convinced of it as an enemy and instead
of being in harmony with it, living peaceably along with it,
then we view the action that is set before us in our text
as being vital, striving against sin. You've not yet resisted
unto blood, striving against sin. So I want to look then secondly
at sin that is to be resisted and striven against. Firstly we may ask why? Why? Well Christ's example is our
first example. How did the Lord react? Why did
the Lord come? Why did He choose, rather than
just pass by over sin, that He should choose to become man,
to lay down His life, to suffer, bleed and die, to put away sin? If our Lord viewed sin like that,
should not we? If our Lord resisted unto blood,
should not we resist? Our Lord is to be our example
in that. It is to be resisted because
it is full of hatred against God, against all that is good. May it be that which we really
pray that the Lord will make us to see the true nature of
sin. I feel that this lies at the
root of all indifference, a lack of resistance, a lack of striving,
is there is not that deep conviction, there's not really seeing the
full nature of it, not really hating it, not really seeing
what it is. Men don't like to realise that
sin is mixed with everything. All our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags. The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Is none that
doeth good? No, not one. and we should resist and strive
against it because of its fruits, because of how it separates,
because it is rebellion against God, because we shall be the
servant to obey it as we obey it and go along with it. Whosoever will be a friend of
the world or a friend of sin is an enemy of God. One of the things that is said
of any commander or any army, know your enemy. Don't be ignorant of your enemy. We're told in the word of God,
we are not ignorant of Satan's devices. We mentioned going right
back to the fall. What an old thing is sin. He's
been in the world right from the beginning, right from the
fall. And Satan is just the same then. He was subtle, he came
with his temptations, and the temptations were to sin. And those temptations are still
the same. And Satan has 6,000 years plus
of experience in human nature, in tempting and in hatred against
the Lord. Know your enemy, how crafty,
how subtle he is. Know how active he is. We read with our Lord, where
we only read three of the last temptations of 40 days in the
wilderness, but he leaveth him for a season. intimating that
there was many, many other times throughout our Lord's sojourn
upon Earth that he was attacked by Satan. Know your enemy. Satan doesn't weary, doesn't
give up. Comes from one tack and then
comes from another and he takes in and tends to it. Our hearts, they're inclined
to that sin. what fishermen would think to
go fishing for a fish and use the wrong type of bait. He chooses
the bait to rightly catch his fish. Anyone that's tried to
catch anything will know that they've got to get the bait right.
And not only that, they've got to hide the snare, hide the hook,
make it not look like to be any danger. We're aware of that. We're used to those illustrations, and yet we tend to forget that
sin, that Satan, who tempts, and sin itself, never appears
at first in all its ugliness, in all its evil, but is dressed
up in something that's plausible, something that's nice, that is
attractive to us, something that we're drawn to, and we're to
know our enemy, realize that this is what it is, that it's
not some weak thing either, that sin is something that is very
powerful and very strong. The Apostle speaks in Romans
7 of that which is within him, he says, The good that I would,
I do not. The evil that I would not, that
I do. O wretched man that I am. He feels that sin within him.
But he says this, if I do that which I would not, is no more
I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. And he recognizes that
sin in his members, that sin there in spite of the new man
of grace. But that sin that is felt to
be there because of the new man of grace, and because of the
new man of grace, there is a resistance within. And however much he desires to do
good, yet he still falls, and there's sin mixed with everything,
even in our prayers against sin, even in our resisting against
sin. there is sin. And how often that
can be, in religious ways, we can have a wrong spirit, a wrong
way of dealing with things. I remember reading a lovely little
book of Suki Hawley and her pastor, James Bourne. And she had a way,
if she was in conversation and things she discerned weren't
right, then she would just turn away, she'd be angry, as it were,
or act in a righteous indignation, she used to call it, or something
like that. And her pastor had to make her
to see that the way she was actually dealing with it was in an angry
way, in a way that was not in a gracious way, and actually
doing harm. And we can work in that way,
stand by thyself, I am holier than thou, or come not neither
than me. And there is a way of dealing
with sin that actually adds sin to sin. Now our Lord Jesus Christ
never sinned in how he dealt with sin. He never sinned in
how he reacted to those that contradicted him. He was sinless. in all that he did. But know
our enemy, how movable are his ways. And you know if you look
on one side and you try to deal with it on that, then he comes
in another way. And of ourselves, we have no
strength, no power, no mind, and we do well to join with dear
Jehoshaphat, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are
upon Thee. If we truly know our enemy, then
no man will seek to resist and strive in his own strength at
all. So then how should we strive
and how should we resist? Well the first is to really seek
from the Lord a true conviction of sin. If we're not truly convinced,
say if someone had a disease in their body, they weren't really
convinced that they had it. Someone said, you should go and
see the doctor. Yeah, I think I have got this.
Have you made an appointment yet? No, no, no. I'll make it
tomorrow. And there's no real urgency. Why? Because they don't really
believe the disease is there. They don't really believe there's
any trouble at all with that. There won't be. If we are not
truly convicted, there won't be the urgency. So may we ask
the Lord. May we see sin as thou dost see
it. May we view it as the scriptures
portray it. Grant us a tender conscience
again. make us truly to see it in its
real light, and to view it with a hatred, a real hatred to sin. It may be the other side, that
we have the opposite, a love to God, a love of holiness, a
love of righteousness, a love of purity, a love of obedience. Remember, our Lord was obedient,
unto death, even unto the death of the cross. And sin, in nearly
every way, will be the opposite to obedience. And seldom is one
sin on its own. A sin indulged not only is indulged,
but it is a time wasted, it is going against God, there is added
many things to it, and one leads to another. as dear David, man
after God's own heart, knew what it was. A look first, adultery
next, murder next, covering up the next, one thing after another. And so, the other way, how we
are to resist the very first motions of it. And you know,
I speak to myself in all that I'm saying this morning. Even
if it's not to you, it is to me. It's what I need, that's
why I'm bringing it. And I know that everyone's heart
is the same. And if you're like me, then you'll
have need of this same word as I do. There's what they term
the thin end of the wedge, where a little gets in, and then a
little bit more, and a little get more, and the gap gets bigger
and bigger. How oft we can say, is it not
a little one? That doesn't matter. Just a little
indulging that thought, or that look, or that thing that we're
going to do, or that action, that plan, that scheme, that
hatred of a brother, that hardness of heart towards another, that
using of a time for this or that, that we know and conscience says,
is wrong and we shouldn't be doing. Here's the first little
thin end of the wedge. That is where the resistance
and the striving should be, not when it gets so far along the
way, it's like if we had someone to say to us, come, let us go
to the cinema, let us go to one of the clubs, the evil clubs
in London, And you say, oh, yeah, I'll just go and see what it's
like. And you get there, and the door
doesn't look too bad. So you go in, and the people
in there don't look too bad. And then you get right in, and
then you suddenly see the evil of the place. And you say, now
I'm going to go out. Oh, no, no, you've come this
far. You should stay in. The first resistance should be
the first invitation. Asking to go, that's when it
should be. Not going along so far and then
suddenly realizing, well now it's gone so far, now we must
really get out. So it's those first things. The other is avoiding temptation. I'm sure if we're honest with
ourselves, we will know the situations where we're most likely to be
tempted what we're doing, what we're looking at, where we're
going. Many of the Lord's dear people, they feel they couldn't
go to the beach nowadays. Why? Because of what they would
see and what they'd be tempted to. And there's many other scenarios
or places where we feel surely in that situation I would be
tempted. Dear Job, he says, I've made
a covenant with my eyes Why then should I think upon a maid? And often we look at things,
provoking images, hear provoking words, things that stir up the
tongue, that stirreth up all the fire of nature, as James
puts it. So how, how do we then resist
and strive? Avoid. And then prayer. Prayer. One said either prayer
will stop sinning or sinning will stop praying. How many of
us have proved that? We stopped praying because we
wanted to indulge some sin. Prayer. One of the things the
Lord has given to his people, weak as they are, is that they
have the authority from heaven to resist and strive. I know
I've mentioned it here before, but in the book of Esther, where
we have the sentence of death against the Jews, when that first
came, there was great distress. They understood what it meant.
Then when Esther made intercession, And though that sentence couldn't
be taken away, the same as a sentence against sin can't be taken away,
yet there was the authority from the king that they should stand
for their lives and resist and fight against all that came against
them. We have that in the gospel, resist
the devil and he shall flee from you. The authority of heaven
He will not suffer you to be tempted above that which ye are
able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape that ye
be able to bear it. Our Lord shows the pattern in
his temptations in the wilderness. Each time Satan came with his
temptation, the Lord resisted him. What with? With the Word
of God. It is written. It is written.
And when Satan used the word of God to tempt, as he will do,
out of context, the Lord said, it is written again, and compared
scripture with scripture, and Satan's temptations were resisted. Our Lord did not go along with
Satan's temptations. We might think, well, how easy,
he could have proved he was the son of God. He didn't need to
prove that to Satan or to anyone else. His miracles, His testimony
from his father on his terms, his conditions, set forth who
he was. The works that I do in my father's
name, they testify of me. And our Lord was not to be a
servant of Satan. You know, many times when they
came men to trip him up in his talk, very seldom did the Lord
go along with how they wanted things. He asked his own questions,
he gave his own answers, he turned it about the way he wished, not
going along with men or not going along with Satan. Along with
prayer is watchfulness. Watch and pray, how those two
things go together. Really watching the motions of
our hearts, watching providence, watching how sin is acting. Be mindful often, not just go
on blindly, carelessly. Another thing is constantly. Remember our Lord said that men
ought always to pray and not to faint. Continue in prayer
and watch in the same with thanksgiving. Yes, there shall be cause of
thanksgiving. When the Lord answers our prayers,
the hymn writer says, oh, the happiness arising from when King
Jesus is in view, when the soul is realizing conquest over death
and sin. And then there is, as Paul says
in Romans 8, if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of
the body, ye shall live. That is doing the contrary. If we are tempted to pride, the
opposite is humility. If we are tempted to hatred,
the opposite is love. If we are tempted to bitterness,
then the opposite shall be a tenderness. And all of those fruits of evil,
fruits of sin, they have the opposite, and we are to walk
in positive ways, not in evil ways, and not to be a void, an
emptiness. While we remain to fight with
sin, you can be sure we won't prevail. But it is to be replaced,
replaced with that which is good. If we had, say, water in a jar,
and we wanted to get that water out, you might as well just tip
it out. But then you set the jar up again
and water could come in it again and fill it up again. But if
you got some sand and you poured in the sand, and as the sand
poured into that glass, then the water would all go out. And in the end, you'd have a
glass full of sand with no room for water. Yes, it'd be damp
sand, but you couldn't pour out whole glass full of water because
it was filled with sand. And however much more it rained
or you poured water on it, you couldn't fill up that glass with
water because it was full of sand. And we exhort her to be
filled with the Spirit, filled with that which is good and pure
and holy. And then we'll have no appetite
and no desire for that which is sinful and evil." One of the
Ways that they used to help those that were trying to get over
the habit of smoking was to make them, after the meal time, and
they'd normally go for a cigarette, to brush their teeth for five
minutes or so. Nice, clean teeth, clean breath. You didn't want to then pick
up a cigarette and taste that, and it defiled your mouth. And
they used that. to take away the desire to have
a cigarette. Another way was to, at a time
when they were smoking, to stub out those cigarette ends, put
them in a glass, put a bit of water on it, put the lid on it,
and whenever they attempted to, a cigarette, to take off the
lid and to have a whiff. And when they smelt the whole
horrible cigarette, it would take away the desire for it And
sometimes we need to be reminded of how evil, vile, putrid sin
is. And when we have been with the
Lord, and been in His house, and been in His Word, then it
is an antidote. We won't desire that which is
evil. It's the most solemn thing when
we are left to. We're returned to our wallowing
in the mire. that which is pure and holy for
us. Well, what then in the third
place is to encourage us and what better than that forgiveness
with God. If it was said to us, well, all
your salvation, it relies upon your perfect striving and perfect
resistance and your dealing with sin. we are to know that what
the Lord Jesus Christ has done upon Calvary is that he might
give repentance and remission of sins unto his people. Now, in the context here, immediately
after our text, it speaks of something that has been forgotten
in our text. It's what we have not yet resisted
unto blood, striving against sin, And then it goes on, and
ye have forgotten. And what does it go on for? It
goes on chastening. The Lord has said, when His people
sin, then you chasten them, you correct them. And what is set
before us here is the exercise under chastening and abowing
before Him, and that that in itself, however painful it is
and how long it goes on, is actually a sign of sonship. You know,
with David, King David, the Lord said, The Lord hath also put
away thy sin, thou shalt not die. Yet there was a consequence,
and sin would not depart, or the trouble due to sin, the chastening
of it, would not depart from his house. Sword shall not depart
from thy house. when he had Absalom come against
him, when he had that which happened before that with Tamar, all of
those things, David would have viewed these troubles in his
life, in his family, as a consequence of his sin. A sin put away, but
a sin that the Lord would say, I'd have you know what an evil
thing that sin is. So if the Lord chastens us for
our sin. We know we're not to be in that
solemn position of being so hardened, so reckless in our sin. There's
no striving, there's no resisting. All we say is that we know our
sins are forgiven, sins are pardoned, and we rest on that. We abuse
grace and That chapter in Romans 6, we can easily fall into that,
and we are to pray against it and pray that sin might always
be an evil thing to us. But Paul, he speaks here of the
exercise, unto them that are exercised thereby the peaceable
fruits of righteousness. And we have a beautiful invitation
in Isaiah 1, And verse 18, Come now and let us reason together,
saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient,
ye shall eat the good of the land. But if ye refuse and rebel,
ye shall be devoured with a sword for the mouth of the Lord. are
spoken in. But what a beautiful word, beautiful
promise. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow. We are not to be left in any
doubt that there is forgiveness with the Lord. We are not to
say the Lord won't forgive because he has said most assuredly that
he will. In Isaiah 55 and verse 7, let
the wicked forsake his way. not just say there is no hope,
Israel did say that, and the unrighteous man, his thoughts,
does that gather us in there? And let him return unto the Lord,
and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon. How many times The disciples
asked the Lord, shall my brother sin against me and turn again
and repent and I forgive him till seven times? No, says the
Lord, till 70 times seven. And we are to be strengthened
in that. In 1 John chapter 1, if we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And it deals with the other matters
of sin. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. We do have
sin. We do have that which is a constant
resistance, a constant enemy, a constant battle. If we say
that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his sin is not
in us. If we say, well, we never ever
have sinned, There are many that have no idea of what sin is,
but for God's children, it will be, and as in our text here,
a constant adversary. Don't ever dream of it being
any otherwise, and your heart will constantly be siding with
it and going against the Lord. It is deceitful above all things,
desperately wicked. In this chapter, Hebrews 12,
We have the New Testament, Gospel, the covenant in the Lord Jesus
Christ and in his blood. He says, you have not come unto
the mount that might be touched, that picture of Sinai and the
judgment and the broken law. But you've come to Jesus, the
mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling
that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse
not him that speaketh, for if they escape not who refused him
that spake on earth, how much more shall we not we escape if
we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. It is a blessed
thing, the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is for
sinners. His name shall be called Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. And we're not
to just think, well, that's just putting away their sin of Calvary
and bringing them to heaven. No, it's a lifelong saving His
people from their sins. Their sins that are theirs. Their
besetting sins, those sins in verse one of our chapter here. Delivering from the power and
dominion of it. Delivering from being hardened
beyond ever being recovered. Delivered from being alienated
from the Lord so that there's no enjoyment of the sweets and
comforts and blessings and enjoyment of the gospel and the loveliness
of Christ and communion of saints. Striving against sin. Dear friends, is it something
that we, as it were, don't know much of at this present time? The resisting. Are we grown so
hardened that we have ceased to register? And you say, I don't
have much sin really to resist or to strive against. May the Lord bring it again.
So sin is sin. And that we are brought into
that sweet communion and fellowship with the Lord. He who suffered,
bled and died on Calvary's tree to put away our sin. May we then
be renewed in resisting it and striving against it. And I can
truly say that I have known not just one, but many blessings
where the Lord has followed that striving and come in and delivered
and blessed my soul. I need to be brought back to
that. And that is the way of blessing. I know it is. And may
you know it too. The Lord add his blessing. Amen.