for others to help him and support
him? What does the Lord mean when
he say, lest a worse thing come upon thee? Before we answer that question,
let me say this. Sometimes people hear what we
say and what we believe about being a sinner. Sometimes people
hear that and because the Lord has not revealed to them their
sinful nature, they think we're referring to some gross lawless
living. You keep saying you're a sinner,
what are you doing? They might think that we are
excusing or justifying bad behavior when we say that we're sinners. They can't understand what we
mean when we agree with the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 7 and
say, in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. They
can't understand what we mean when we agree with our brother Job and
say, after the Lord has revealed himself, behold, I am vile. And they think that we're justifying
some sort of disobedience and lawless living. When the Lord Jesus Christ reveals
himself to the heart, we come to one simple conclusion. There's
nothing in me like him. We come to believe that everything
that we put our hands to, every thought, every imagination of
the heart, The more we inspect our motives, the more impure they become. The more we see that everything
about us falls short of his glory. And as soon as we try to find
something in ourselves that might be without sin, oh it's like
It's like going down in a well, isn't it? The deeper you go into
that well, the darker it gets. And we see the tentacles of our
unbelief and our self-righteousness and our self-promotion in everything
that we do. In answering this question, what
did the Lord mean when he tells us, sin no more lest a worse
thing come upon thee? I don't want to defend the gospel against the
accusations that are made against us of being lawless. I've heard men do that and I
think I've even said, made this statement, grace is no license
to sin. That's not a good statement because
believers don't believe at all that grace is a license to sin.
That's, they've never thought that. And when we make those
sort of statements, we're just defending ourselves against those
who accuse us of being antinomian. But we run the risk of doing
this. When we argue against one error, we
run the risk of error in the other direction. And so if we If we haven't been accused of
being antinomian, we've not preached the gospel. Because what I've
been trying to say is that men by nature are legalistic, men
by nature are self-righteous. And when we preach the gospel
of God's full and free grace in the glorious person and accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ, They say, well, if I believed
what you believed, I'd live like the devil. And you must be lawless. And what they're doing is they're
exposing themselves as being lawmongers. They're exposing
themselves as the law is for the lawless. And so they can't understand
what it is we mean. No, believers don't have to be
told that grace is no license to sin. Believers hate their
sin. Believers, if they could, would
never sin again. Paul also said in Romans chapter
7, to will is present with me. What was he talking about? To
live a sinless life. to will is present with me, but
how to perform that which I desire, I find not, because that which
I would, I do not, and that which I would do, that I don't do.
It's like the more I try to find some evidence of sinlessness
in my life, the more sin I discover. Who shall deliver me? from the
body of this death. And then thank God, through Jesus
Christ, we've been made free. There is
now therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ. Perfectly sinless. No, somebody sent me recently
a pretty lengthy article that I
read where a very popular Calvinist preacher is refuting easy-believism. And in refuting easy believism,
easy believism is what we hear the Armenians, this free will
promote when they say just pray this prayer, make this decision. The truth is there's nothing
easy about believing God. Matter of fact, believing God
is not only not easy, it's impossible. It is absolutely impossible.
Apart from the grace of God, apart from the awakening of his
spirit and the new birth, we'll not believe God. And believing
God is not a decision. It's not something that we decide
we're gonna do. There's no such thing as easy
believism, pray this prayer and you go to heaven, is a lie. But his defense against that
was lordship salvation. And he swung the pendulum in
the opposite direction and erred just as much in what he was promoting,
which ends up being legalism. You know, you have to prove that
you're saved, not because you can identify a time when you
prayed a prayer, made a decision, that's easy believism, but you
have to prove that you're saved. And ultimately this man promotes
himself as the standard of evidence of salvation you may you made
Jesus Lord of your life and you're you're following him as Lord
and you're and you can see evidence of his lordship in your life
then that's the proof that you're saved and so he's he's refuting
antinomianism with legalism and we will do that what does the Scripture say, sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon
thee. Now some have understood this to mean that the Lord is
saying to him, believe on me and you will be without sin before
God, you'll sin no more. And there's some truth to that. There's some very clear truth
to that. Turn with me to 1 John chapter
three. Look at verse nine. whosoever is born of God. This man had been born of God.
I think the evidence is clear in the story. The Lord's speaking
to a believer and he's speaking to his children now when he says,
sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee. Whosoever is
born of God doth not commit sin. For his seed, the promise was
made to Abraham and his seed, Not seeds, but seed. And that seed is Christ. So what
the Lord's saying here is that he that is born of God does not
commit sin for Christ is in him. And remaineth in him. And he
cannot sin because he's born of God. In this, the children
of God are manifest, and the children of the devil, whosoever
doeth not righteousness is not of God. He that loveth not his brother,
what is it to do righteousness? It's to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is all our righteousness before God. But he is a full
righteousness before God. And we stand in Christ before
God Almighty as He is, without sin. Is that what the Lord's
saying? Go and sin no more? Well, if that be the case, then
what does He mean by, lest a worse thing come upon thee? Is He suggesting
that maybe we could lose that salvation? That maybe we could
stop believing and maybe we could Unbelief is the root cause of
all sin, no question about that. It's expedient for you that I
go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come.
But when he comes, he will reprove, he will expose you as a sinner
because you believe not on him. So is the Lord saying to me and
you, Believe on me and you will be without sin. I don't think that's the context
of what our Lord's saying here. The passage we just read in 1
John, sin is a noun. It's a noun. And so he's speaking
of what we are before God. Here, It's a verb, and it's actually
in the active verb tense, which means that the action of the
verb is performed by the subject. Who is the subject? He's the
man that the Lord's talking to, you. Sin no more, you're the
subject. Lest a worse thing come upon
thee. The Lord is admonishing this
man as he admonishes all of his children to a life of obedience, to following after him, to guarding
against sin. This is not legalism. This is
not putting the child of God under the law. This is a loving,
merciful heavenly father who knows that we're made of dust.
He knows what we are. He knows how frail we are. He
knows how prone we are to sin. He knows every thought and desire
of our sinful flesh. And he's admonishing us. to be
on guard against. He's not saying to them now,
this grace is no license to sin. We already know that. We don't
want to sin. But this is not, this is not
sin as it is a noun in our nature. This is a sin as it is a verb
in our behavior. It's the same thing the Lord
said to the woman that was caught in adultery. When he said to
her, after he rode on the ground, and all the accusers left, and
he looks up and he sees the woman standing there by herself, where
are thou accusers? Is no man here to accuse you?
No man, Lord, neither do I accuse thee. Go and sin no more. It's the same thing that John
speaks of in 1 John 1 when he says, my little children, I write
these things unto thee that you sin not. I've given you my word, I've
given you my instruction, I've revealed my love, I've shown
you my work of redemption that you sin not. And then he goes
on to say, if any man sin, it's just as soon as he says that
you sin not. When you sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous one. So these things, two things go
together. Sin not, and we have an advocate when we do sin. But our Lord is saying to us,
brothers and sisters, Be on guard. Don't be lax about this thing. So what is the worst thing that
could come upon the child of God as a result of their sin? Are they going to lose their
salvation? Is that what he's talking about?
A worse thing could come to you if you go, if you continue in
your sin, your worst thing's gonna happen, you're gonna go
to hell. No, that can't happen. If the Lord's speaking to his
children, if he's speaking to believers, admonishing us, encouraging
us, as we find in so many places in the scriptures, to be watchful
about our sinful nature. And what is the worst thing that
could come upon us? The child of God is more hurt by grieving their Heavenly Father,
quenching the Holy Spirit, trampling underfoot the blood
of Christ, losing their sweet fellowship
with their Savior, suffering the chastisement of their Heavenly
Father. And most of all, most of all,
the fear of being a reproach in the eyes of men to the gospel
of God's free grace, is that not what fear, as a sinner, as
a person who can make no contribution to their salvation except for
their sin, is that not our fear? And the pain of these things
is worse than any physical affliction. Here's the truth, brethren. The
child of God, the child of God can bear any affliction that
God gives them if he be with them. If he be their side, if he speaks
peace and hope and comfort and joy to their hearts, they can
do whatever affliction God may see they need. but they can be completely without
affliction and enjoy all the benefits of this world. And without the sweet presence
of the Lord, they're miserable. They're miserable. And so our Lord says to you and
me, Go. Sin no more. He's not talking
about sinless perfection. He's talking about the same thing
he's talking about there in 1 John when he said, I write unto you
that you sin not. He's talking about the same thing
he said to that woman caught in adultery. I don't accuse you,
you're free. You're forgiven. And it's the
free forgiving grace of God that becomes the The motivation, if
you will, the restraint for our sin. The law doesn't restrain
sin. You see, left to ourselves, we'll
try to restrain these sinful desires and passions that we
have. Left to ourselves, we'll run
to Mount Sinai, we'll run to the law, we'll put ourselves
under the law. And that's what man-made religion is all about.
Trying to curb men's behavior. It's like when you're speeding
on the highway and you see the police car in your rearview mirror.
What's the first thing you do? You let your foot off the gas.
Why? Because the law has a restraining
effect on outward behavior, but it doesn't change the heart.
It doesn't change the heart. Our Lord's speaking to our hearts. Oh, the spirit of grace. The law of liberty, James calls
it. I'm free. I'm free from the curse
of the law. I'm free from the rigors of the
law. I fear not the judgment of God. Christ is my advocate
with the Father and it's He and His mercy and grace and love. It's the love of Christ that
would constraineth me. I don't want to sin. Can I go a moment without it? It's there, it's always there.
Lord, don't let it break out. That's what our Lord's talking
about. And if you're a child of God, that's your desire, isn't
it? That's your heart's desire. Lord,
I don't want these things to, I don't wanna be under the, under
the power of these things or deliver me. And as soon as our Lord says,
go and sin no more, lest the worst thing come upon thee, the
heart of the child of God flees to Christ. Oh Lord, I don't want
that to come upon me. Now the Lord said, I'll never
leave you nor forsake you and he won't. But is it not your
experience that when you are disobedient, when you're rebellious
against God, does not the Lord withdraw the sweetness and the
awareness and the fellowship of his presence? Does not your
sin separate you between you and God? Is there any worse thing that
a believer can experience than that? All right, let's take a break.