So Lord may graciously help me,
I turn your prayerful attention to a verse you will find in Romans
chapter 12 and verse 9. Romans 12 and verse 9. Romans 12 and verse 9. Let love
be without dissimulation, abhor that which is evil. cleave to
that which is good. It's particularly that second
clause really, abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which
is good. The Apostle Paul is writing to
the Christians in Rome and he's writing to instruct them in the
ways of God and how they should walk. He's given, he's laid up
so much doctrine in the earlier part of Romans, but then he puts
it into practical effect as how this is going to affect their
lives. Well, we spoke this morning of
sin and how that sin needs to be dealt with. Sin, if we are
going to have, if we're going to have blessedness, if we're
going to have fellowship with God, sin is needs to be dealt
with, it needs to be forgiven, it needs to be confessed. And
we therefore need to have a right view of the exceeding sinfulness
of sin. And here in this text we have
before us, abhor that which is evil. That's a very strong word.
Job came to that, didn't he? Therefore I abhor myself and
repent in dust and ashes, and Job was a very upright man, we're
told that. Hast thou considered my servant
Job? He was a very upright man, but
God brought him to show, even in his uprightness, that he was
a sinner, and he came to abhor that. Well, I want to, as helped,
to open out this text, first of all to see that we need to
abhor sin, firstly, in ourselves. And then we need to also abhor
in others. There is also a responsibility
and a command from the Word of God that we abhor it in others
too. And then how is it that we are
going to encourage ourselves in this? In keeping ourselves
from sin and encouraging ourselves in the things Well, firstly then,
abhor that which is evil, thinking first of all personally. Well,
we read together in Ezekiel chapter 36, a precious chapter that speaks
about a new heart, I believe. I'm writing saying it's the only
place in the Bible that talks about the new heart, although
it's a very common phrase that we use a lot, that giving us
a new heart. But this is where it's found.
in the Word of God. And in verse 27 it says, and
I will put, this is Ezekiel 36 verse 27, and I will put my spirit
within you. And a new spirit, sorry, and
cause you to walk in my statutes. Come down, in verse 31, This
is going to be the result. Then shall you remember your
own evil ways and your doings that were not good and shall
loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and
for your abomination. So here we're told in Ezekiel
what will happen to those who have been blessed spiritually.
And it's been pointed out there's really no, there's not going
to be much preciousness found in Christ until there's a true,
sincere loathing of sin. And here you see it's clear. As we read in verse 27, I will
put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues
and you shall keep my judgments. You might think, well, The loathing
must have come before that, but as you read on you see, as that
spirit is within us, and ye shall dwell in the land that I give
to your fathers, in verse 29, I will also save you from all
your uncleannesses, and will call for the corn and will increase
it and lay no famine upon you and I will multiply the fruit
of the tree and the increase of the field and ye shall receive
no more reproach of famine among the heathen. So God's gonna bless
these people. God's gonna bless them with his
spirit and he's gonna bless them practically. See Romans chapter
two picks up this precious point. That the goodness of God leadeth
thee to repentance and God is pouring out his goodness here
in Ezekiel 36. And what's going to be the result?
Then shall you remember your own evil ways and your doings
that were not good and shall loathe yourselves in your own
sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. So here
there's the being cleansed and having the spirit of God in us,
and we can clearly see that having that spirit of God, there is
a loathing of sin. But you see, it's not without
hope. They've been blessed. They see that Christ is precious.
They've been cleansed. Christ has made himself precious.
But you see, we live in a world that says, well, you know, you
mustn't think of these negative things because you must think
only positively of yourselves. But here we have a true positiveness
in Christ that they focus on what Christ has done for them
and simultaneously they see a loathing of themselves. They were not
depressed in that sense. There was a balance between seeing
the value of Christ and the loathing of their own sins. And this is
the work of God, you see, to make us. In Galatians, this is
unnatural. This is the work of God. We don't
naturally loathe sin. In Galatians 5 verse 17, it says,
for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against
the flesh, and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that
ye cannot do the things that ye would. There's a loathing
of ourselves. So as we come in our lives, in
true godliness, There has to be this element of loathing of
sin primarily in ourselves. Those of you perhaps who have
read the Pilgrim's Progress recently, there was a character in the
Pilgrim's Progress called Talkative. And to start with, Christian
was quite impressed with this man. He seemed to have a great
breadth to be able to talk about and seemed to be a good traveling
companion. But his friend said, no, it's
all talk and there's no real value in it. It's not real. So he said to Christian, you
ask him about wherein lies the true work of the spirit. If you
ask him about where's true godliness, Well, so Christian said to Talkative,
what will happen in the heart of somebody who God is working
in their heart? How will it manifest itself? Oh, Talkative says, oh, there'll
be a great outcry against sin. Christian says, well, sort of,
but there can be a great outcry against sin without a particular
loathing of it. Potiphar's wife made a huge outcry
against sin, but there wasn't any loathing of sin. And you
see, there can be, if you look in the media, there's tremendous
outcry of sin against this one and against that one. And probably
if you looked in the private lives of the people that were
making the great statements, they're probably no better, if
not perhaps worse. A great outcry against sin, you
see. It's easy to cry out against
other's sins, But the work of the Spirit is to make a great
loathing of sin in our own hearts. Thou art the man. You see, before
David came under the conviction of Thou art the man, he was pointing
the finger at this man who had stolen another man's sheep and
concluded that he deserved to die for taking that other man's
lamb when he had many himself. And therefore, He thought that
was terrible what this man had done. But David had done far,
far worse himself. Thou art the man. You see, so
sin abhor that which is evil. We have to see something of the
exceeding sinfulness of sin and realize how we are to turn away
from it. That's why Christ becomes so
precious. because he is the one that can
deal with sin, as we spoke this morning. The reason forgiveness
is so precious is because sin is so terrible. If sin is not
so serious, then forgiveness is not so important either. But
in reality, if only we understood, O thou hideous, monstrous sin,
what a curse hast thou brought in! All creation groans through
thee, pregnant cause of misery, abhor, that which is evil, primarily
in ourselves. But then, we're not to be unmindful
of sin also in others. Thinking of Psalm 119 and then
verse 136, we read, the psalmist says this, rivers of waters run
down mine eyes because they keep not thy laws. So as the psalmist saw others
going in a wrong way and despising God's laws and despising God's
ways, then that made him sad. That made him sad. And this was
not a self-righteous sadness. This was a genuine sadness for
sin. If I can go back to the illustration
I used this morning, if we genuinely realize that that bleach has
been rebadged as being good for you to drink, and you had people
at work or friends that you had, and you knew, and you knew that
they were sipping away at these cups of bleach, and you knew
it was going to do them no good at all, you'd be sad, wouldn't
you? You'd be sad for them, and you'd
say, don't do it, don't do it, it's terrible for you. Not in
a self-righteous way, would it be? You'd do it because you love
them, you see. We live in a funny topsy-turvy
world that thinks everything is love, but actually, true love
also must have that which it hates. You see, if you really love somebody,
you will hate those things that are against them. So if you love
your children, you will hate them to do those things which
will destroy themselves, surely. You can't love them destroying
themselves and love your children, can you? The two are incompatible
and so is God. God loves righteousness. He loves his people and he hates
sin because sin is going to ruin them and going to wreck them. Rivers of water run down mine
eyes because they keep not thy law. And so we cannot be unmindful
of sin. Of course, the Christian Institute
is very concerned in this way because the laws that our land
have, you can see how much it promotes evil. Once the law of
our land says that a certain way of carrying on is acceptable,
the likelihood of people going down that route is far higher.
You see, the sins that we have about today, none of the sins
that are talked about today are really new sins. They've been
going on through the ages of the world. They're not new in
that sense, but what is solemn today is the embracing of it
in an outward way. And that's the solemn thing.
You see, it's the rebranding of it. It used to be understood
to sort of be evil, but it went on behind closed doors, and it
went on knowing it was evil, but quietly on the background
it went on. Not that that was right, but
it was understood to be wrong. But you see, now there's a rebranding
of these sins. There's a rebranding of these
sins, so these things are to be commended. How can we commend? That which we know is directly
going to ruin our children, our loved ones, our work companions,
our neighbors, our friends. How can we be neutral to that? Oh, we're told to be neutral.
We're just to be, everything's fine. But how can we be neutral
to things that are ruining those people, are for their ruin, and
they will be judged eternally for those things? How can we
say sin doesn't matter? We believe the word of God, you
see. We have to be faithful with souls. I want you to look just
briefly then at, in Revelation chapter two, we have the spirit
of God speaking to the churches. And first of all, it speaks to
the church at Ephesus. And this is what it says. It
commends them for love. It then says in verse four, nevertheless,
I have somewhat against thee. because thou hast left thy first
love. So they'd been very busy, but
they'd drifted away from finding Christ to be the center goal.
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, repent and do
the first works, or else I will come upon thee quickly and remove
the candlestick out of the place except thou repent. But then
he goes on in verse six of Revelations two, but this thou hast that
thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans. Now, I think it's
really important here. It doesn't say, this thou hast
that thou hatest the Nicolaitans. Thou hatest the deeds of the
Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Now, I understand that there
was a great deal of immorality that was amongst the Nicolaitans
and idolatry and mixing that with the so-called Christian
faith. And this was hateful to God. And you see here that the people at Ephesus were
commended for their hating of that sin. We must hate sin. We must hate... I keep coming
back to this illustration, but we must hate drinking bleach. It's terrible for anybody. How
could we have any of our loved ones and say, go ahead, drink
that bleach and really have a nice time? You'd say that's horrible.
How could you be human and do that? That's devilish to do that. But that's what we're doing when
we give a green light to our loved ones, to our friends, to
those around us and say, enjoy. Go ahead and enjoy. Go ahead
and fill your full. Fill your glasses full of bleach.
Drink it to the full. That's what we're doing. Abhor that which is evil. Cleave to that which is good. See, Jesus was very faithful. As he spoke in John chapter eight,
he spoke to the Pharisees and those around him. You see, some people think that
the problem with the Pharisees were that they were so holy and
God didn't like that. That's just not true. He didn't
like the hypocrisy. You see, these people in the
Church of Ephesus were commended for their hatred for sin. not
the hatred of the Nicolaitans, but for the deeds of the Nicolaitans.
I stress that, and we need to be very concerned with those
people, let's say homosexuality, and people who are that. We need not to hate them, but
we need to hate the sin, because it's ruining them. And the sadness
is, of course, if it's going out and being commended as being acceptable and good.
And that's the solemn thing, and that's why the work of the
Christian Institute is so important to stop. Because you see that
once the legal law says it's fine, people think that it is
fine. People think that provided the
law of the land has nothing to say against it, it's fine. But
the law of God is far more important. The word of God is what we, this
is our standard, not what the law of the land says. we need
to think of what God says. But in John chapter eight, he's
talking to the Jews who pride themselves in the fact that they
are offspring of Abraham. Oh, they were very proud of the
fact that they were Abraham's descendants. But Jesus was not
impressed with that in and of itself. because he's saying true
Christians, they need to be like Abraham. They need to have that
faith of Abraham. I know that ye are Abraham's
seed. This is John 8, verse 37. I know that ye are Abraham's
seed, but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place
in you. Jesus was very frank with these
people, and later on, He goes on in verse 44 of John 8, ye
are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father
ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning,
and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When
he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar,
and the father of it. So Jesus told them very clearly
that trusting in themselves and doing
their own thing and trusting in their pedigree was not sufficient. They needed to abhor evil. They
needed to cleave to that which is good. And so as we look at
this, we need to be concerned in others. They were very worried
about others' sins, like that woman taken in adultery. Jesus showed that he was without
sin. Let him cast the first stone
and they all had to go out. They were all guilty themselves
too. And that's the point, we're all guilty. Paul shows in Romans
that we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. And
therefore, we all need forgiveness. We all need to do that which
is right. In Proverbs, I wanted to just
mention something in Proverbs chapter 27. Proverbs 27 verse 6 says this,
faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are
deceitful. You see, we're encouraged to,
as it were, give kisses to everyone. Just agree with everybody that
they're all on the right way, that they're all going right.
Just agree with everybody. It says faithful are the wounds
of a friend. You see, we are to be faithful
to those around us and to call sin, sin, to not rebadge it with
the current thinking that this is acceptable and society has
embraced this as a new way of life and a new way to carry on
and it should be accepted and we should endorse it and we should
promote it. Faithful are the wounds of a
friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. And you
see, if we then add our assent of approval to what they're doing,
all we are doing is encourage them. It's like people walking,
as it were, to Beachy Head and making their way towards ever
closer to the end of the cliff. And we encourage them, yes, you
go on, have a nice time, have a nice jump. No, you see, it's
very solemn where to be faithful and say, this is not the right
way. Not in hatred, not in self-righteousness,
but in genuine concern for souls. And this is the point. You see,
we should be concerned for souls, concerned for the truth. Concern
for the rising generation that they may hear that sin is sin
and sin needs to be dealt with. Sin doesn't need to be rebranded,
it needs to be dealt with. It needs to be forgiven. And
the whole work of Christ is to forgive sins. His great work
is to pay that great ransom. But if you rebrand sin as not
sin, then the work of Christ is of no need. There's no need
for it, but there is a need for it. because sin is sin, and sin
will cause death. Faithful are the wounds of a
friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. May we then,
as Christians, this is a challenge, isn't it, that we be faithful
to those around us, not in a self-righteous way, in love to their souls,
to say that sin is sin, and that sin is a transgression of the
law, And if we carry on without Christ in our lives, without
coming seeking for mercy, we are on the road to eternal destruction. Well, you see, this will make
us unpopular. It made Christ unpopular. If
you look in 1 Peter and chapter 2, this is what it ended up with
for Christ. 1 Peter 2. And chapter two, we read this,
the first epistle of Peter, chapter two, sorry, and it says, verse
19, for this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward
God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. And you see, people will say
that embrace these things, they say, well, you see, you're unkind,
but they would falsely accuse us. But if we actually realise
what sin does and how it will ruin, if we understand the awful
effects of drinking bleach, we will never countenance the drinking
of bleach. We will not countenance the rebranding
of it. We will not do that because we
are concerned for the people that are drinking it. Because
we're concerned for the rising race. We're concerned for those
around us. is against the Holy God. Well,
so we've sought to show that there needs to be a concern of
sin in ourselves, and as the Lord blesses us in our hearts,
there is that realisation of the abhorrence of sin in our
own hearts primarily. But that will also have a concern
for others, same as that in the pilgrim's progress with Christians.
When he heard about the fact that they were living in the
City of Destruction, he didn't say, well, that's fine, my family
can live in the City of Destruction, I'll go off to the Celestial
City. You'd say, what a heartless man. No, he had a concern for
his family. He was concerned that they also
were living in the City of Destruction. He had a concern for Pliable
and for the other man, obstinate, who sought to bring him back.
And he talked with them and showed them, yes, you're in the city
of destruction, come with me and I will do thee good. But
they didn't want to, you see. But he had a concern for others.
And if we've rightly understood the exceeding sinfulness of sin,
surely there'll be a concern in our hearts for others, that
others may come to see the beauty of Christ too. that others may
come to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, not go and rebrand it,
not go and stick another label on it, but that they may realise
that sin is exceeding sinful and sin will land us in eternal
state of hell. Just how can you calculate the
awfulness of an eternal state in hell? I want you to think
of what are the people going to come to us and say that perhaps
now will hate us or because of our stance on sin. But when they realize the consequences
of it, surely there'll be a realization that those people had a concern
for our souls. They had a concern and love for
us. We didn't understand it. But you see, as in Peter, it's good if the will of God
that you suffer But you see, the Lord Jesus suffered, but
he committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. And so we
are to do the same, we are to be upheld. So if we live close
to sin, if we embrace sin in our lives, then it really demonstrates
that we're far from God. And if we are sensitive to sin
in our lives, You see, as we grow in grace, I believe there
should be an increasing insensitivity to sin. And that's why we then have to
mourn. As I said in Ezekiel, what we
read in Ezekiel, it was when the Lord had blessed them and
when the Lord had helped them and upholded them and cleansed
them, then they looked back and saw the awful nature of their
sins. They saw it freshly. freshly
the awfulness against the Holy God, the one that had been so
kind and gracious to them, then they had that fresh abhorrence
of sin. Well, if these things are so
serious, you see, in Jeremiah 11, we have a word that talks
about our attitude to sin. If our attitude to sin is wrong,
In Jeremiah 11 verse 15 it says, what hath my beloved to do in
thine house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many? So
wrong relationships, going after other gods, spiritual idolatry,
and the holy flesh is passed from thee. When thou doest evil,
then thou rejoiceth. So when we sin, do we think it's
fun? Do we think sin is fun? Do we
rebrand sin and say when God says it's evil, do we then rebrand
it as good fun, enjoyable, much to be desired? Well, let us look then, lastly
really, at what we, how are we going to live our lives then? What motivations are we going
to have to live godly and to hate sin and to love God? See
in 1 John 3 verse 18, I just want to read that. 1 John 3 and
verse 18. Sorry, three verse eight, sorry,
not 18. It says, he that committeth sin
is of the devil, and the devil sinneth from the beginning. For
this purpose, the Son of God was manifest that he might destroy
the works of the devil. So if we continue in sin, that
grace may abound, if we as Christians think that, well, sin isn't that
bad, every time we're cozying up to sin, We're demonstrating
a union with Satan. I want you to think about that.
Every time you're sinning, you're bringing in a union with Satan. You're in a pact with him. Of course, this was so with Eve,
wasn't it? Eve and Satan had had this discourse
regarding that the fruit of the tree And this was the great thing
that Jesus said, God said that first gospel promise, and I will
put enmity between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed. There had been an unholy unity
between Satan and the human race in Eve. There had been a pact,
there had been an agreement against God. And the great promise of
the coming savior was that he was going to break up that union.
Break up that union. And that's a great blessing.
And so as we walk, that we may have a concern to think about
how we're walking. As we walk and embrace it in,
what we're basically saying is, Satan, you're my friend, and
God, you're my enemy. And may this make us then tender
and concerned that this is an awful thing to do. The exceeding
sinfulness of sin. You see, I believe that in one sense a Christian can sin more painfully against
God than an unbeliever. In this sense I mean it. God
has a relationship with his people, he loves his people. If you think
of it in a family situation, if you love your father, you
think of somebody who you really look up to and you really respect.
I don't know who it was, it'll be different people for each
one of you, perhaps. Think of somebody you really
respect. And then, if you then did something that really hurt
that person and really upset that person, that would be That
would hurt you, wouldn't it? The fact that you'd hurt somebody
and made somebody upset that you so much look up to and admire. Well, when we sin against God,
we're sinning against one who has loved us, who's laid down
his life for us, who's died to set us free, and we're sinning
against that one. Surely this is a great incentive
to be concerned about seeking not to live ungodly lives. Sin is exceeding sinful, and
as we then live in sin, as we continue in sin, and embrace
sin, and laugh at sin, and mock at sin, and enjoy sin, we are
basically saying that Satan, you're our friend, and we will
go with you. against the one that we love,
against the one that has saved us. In Romans 2 verse 23, we
have this word, and changed, sorry, thou that makest thy boast
of the Lord through breaking the Lord dishonorest thou God.
So there's a relationship to Satan it shows. As we sin, we
get closer to Satan. and his hellish hosts, and the
only wages for being close to Satan is to be with him in the
lake of everlasting fire. You see, Christ has plucked us
from that, a brand plucked from the burning. Surely we should
serve our new master with gladness and with godly fear. Thou that
makest thy boasts of the Lord through breaking the law dishonorest
thou God. So we dishonor God as we break
the law, as we go through the bounds, and that was what Nathan
said to David when he sinned with Bathsheba. He told David
this, how thou hast despised the commandment of the Lord.
When he went with Bathsheba, he knew what was right, he knew
what he should do, and he basically put it to one side. I'm going
to do it anyway. I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going
to have my fill of sin. Wherefore hast thou despised
the commandment of God? And he talks about it in Hebrews
6, of the solemnity of crucifying the Son of God afresh. and putting
him to an open shame. So we, as Christians, we need
a great fear of sinning, a great fear, a bore, that which is evil,
cleave to that which is good. We need to cleave to that which
is right and pure and holy, and we need to seek after that, and
we need to turn away from all that is sin. is also against our new nature. We have been given that new heart
that hungers and thirsts after righteousness. Interesting, in
our reading, family reading, just before we came out, we read
Romans 7, which is where we got to in Romans, but it's a very
applicable chapter because here Paul is dealing with this great
subject of this battle that's going on between the old man
and the new. and how that sin is seeking constantly
to bring him down and yet the new nature is hungering and thirsting
after righteousness. In Romans 7 verse 22 he says
clearly, for I delight in the law of God after the inward man. Can you say that? Can you say
that? That there is something in you
that loves the law of God, that loves the commandments of God,
that would love to be free from sin. would be loved to be free
from this body of sin and death. For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man. But I see another law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members." Paul knew this battle. He knew this battle. But he looked
to the Lord to deliver him from this battle. And he cries out,
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And then he says, I thank God,
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself
serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin. Paul was not there for excusing
sin. He was not saying, well, that's my old man, so that can
carry on. He says, what I do, earlier in
the chapter, what I do, I allow not. He doesn't allow sin. He
doesn't say that sin is acceptable. He condemns sin, abhor that which
is evil. And as we see, it rears its ugly
head. You see the gospel, it is a realization of seeing that
evil when it rises up and going to the fountain. We spoke this
morning, in that lovely Psalm, Psalm 32. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. But we need to call sin, sin,
otherwise there's nothing to cover. There needs to be an acknowledgement
that sin is sin. There needs to be God's standard
applied here. Then, blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven. whose sin is covered. Blessed
is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. God does, that takes, when we
realize that sin, when we hate that sin, God is able to deal
with that sin. But it doesn't mean, therefore,
that we can continue to live in sin. We can continue to embrace
that sin because we know there's a way back. No, we are not to
use forgiveness in that way. But you see here, blessed is
he whose transgression is forgiven. But I didn't really quite finish
the psalm this morning, but it says in verse nine of that Psalm
32, be ye not as the horse or as the mule that have no understanding. I think there's something of
a sense here of we're not to just go after sin, we're to seek
to control ourselves, we're to seek to be Careful, and to walk circumspectly,
not as fools, but as wise. We're not to just let ourselves
go and see what happens. We're to be careful. We're to walk humbly before our
God. We're to seek the Lord would
keep us, and that the Lord would not leave us to sin against him,
although we do fall at times. Be not as the horse or as the
mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with
bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee. Don't be constantly
trying to go after sin and God constantly having to pull you
back and your desire seems to be after it. Know that there
may be a sense ourselves that we don't want to grieve the Lord,
we don't want to sin against Him, we don't want to run away
from Him, but our desire is to serve Him, to honour Him. Many
sorrows shall be to the wicked. but he that trusteth in the Lord,
mercy shall compass him about. The mercy of the Lord encompasses
his people, those that put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ,
those who see sin to be exceeding sinful, those who condemn it
in themselves and are concerned that others around them may not
drink in that iniquity and be bringing it for themselves a
tremendous destruction. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice
ye righteous. So we are to be glad. There is
a way back to God. There is a way that God has made. It is a way of truly hating sin,
truly abhorring sin in ourselves, in those around us. in a self-righteous
way, but in a way of concern for souls, concern for the honor
and glory of God. And that's why the laws of our
land is so solemn, when laws are made to make things much
more easy. For example, adultery used to
be a problem in our land. It used to be, as it were, that
people could get in trouble for it, but not now. It's not a problem in the eyes
of our English law. Very solemn. Because the problem
in God's eyes, and you see people then think, well it's not a problem
with the law, it's not a problem with the police, so it's not
a problem to me. But it's a problem before God.
Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice ye righteous. Shout for joy all
ye that are upright in heart. There's something to rejoice
in. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven. whose sin is covered. You might say, well, you've talked
about the blessedness of whose sin is covered, but you spent
most of the time exposing sin. I just want you to take you to
that dear character, one of my favourite characters, I have
to confess, in the word of God, Joseph. Joseph and his treatment
with his brethren. He was very concerned to bring
those brethren to realize their own sin and to confess their
sin, he dealt with their sin and then he showed them tremendous
love. He dealt with it and then he
covered it in the sense that the king, pharaoh, the newspapers
in Egypt never got to hear about that sin because Joseph had dealt
with it with his brethren, in love, in faithfulness, and that's
how God deals with his people. Not to expose them and to put
them on the headlines, but to make sin exceeding sinful in
their own estimation, not in the national newspaper, in their
own estimation. So it was with Joseph's brethren. He said, we be barely guilty
that they fell before Joseph and confessed that they were
totally unworthy and that they were willing to be, Judah was
willing to be a slave for the rest of his life so Benjamin
could go back to his father, that they confessed all of this.
Sin had become exceeding sinful to those 12 brothers Those twelve
sons of Jacob. Amazing how they were such wayward
men and God brought them back and made sin to be exceeding
sinful. And therefore we have Israel.
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven. It's not forgiven
because it was never mentioned. It's forgiven because it's been
exposed between them and God, as it were. It's been dealt with. It's been paid for at Calvary.
There's been a substitute. And now you see, there is then
to be the love of Christ to those. As Joseph then poured in that
love to those brethren, they couldn't understand it. They
could never get round it. Even when Jacob died, they still
thought, surely he's going to hate us. But you see, the love
kept flowing and kept flowing. And that's a picture of the love
of Christ to his people. It never ends. But sin needs
to be dealt with first. Sin needs to be exposed in all
its awful depravity and vileness, and then Christ and his glorious
gospel becomes everything to the people of God. This is all
my salvation, all my desire. You see, it's sin and salvation. And this is what's so precious,
as we have this truth of God, the forgiveness of our sins,
dealing with sin, not covering it so that So the brethren of
Joseph had covered their sin for something like more than
20 years. They'd lied to their father Jacob
for 20 years. But there came a point that that
sin had to be exposed and dealt with. And then there was reconciliation. Then there was love. Joseph couldn't
deal with them as it were. He loved them, but he couldn't
show his love so much until there had been a dealing. with sin,
and so it is with our Heavenly Father. There needs to be, if
we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The most serious thing then is
not that we've sinned, but that we've not confessed the sin.
The vital thing is to confess it, to acknowledge it before
God, and that honors God. It honours his justice to say
this is a, we indeed justly. Then to know that forgiveness
that there is in Calvary, that this one that absolutely hates
sin is also one that also is incredibly merciful, so that
he loves, as Joseph loved his brethren, and ye meant it for
evil, but God meant it for good. And may the Lord then bless us
with that confession, honest, guileless, that means not deceitful
confession of our sins, that God would grant us true forgiveness. And this is the way, the Bible
tells us, this is the way to be blessed, to be happy, to be
eternally Satisfied.