What makes a person relapse?
What makes a person return to their vomit like a dog? What
makes a man visit websites he shouldn't go to? What makes a
man take what isn't his? What makes a man fashion earthly
ideas into little gods? What makes a man think that he's
better than the neighbor? What makes a man touch a child
when he shouldn't? What makes a man cheat on his
taxes? What makes a man do all these things even after he's
saved and has a profession of faith? See, the indwelling sin
from our genetic gene pool, Adam, is still there in the flesh.
Like that wild ass's coat, it's not going away. It's going to
buck, it's going to bronco, it's going to do everything to throw you
off as a spiritual being. But it's hard because we have
this flesh, and in my flesh dwells no good thing. And I understand
that. I understand that in total. Someone
asked me one time, what's the worst thing you ever did? And
I said, what, you think I've reached my potential? Maybe I got more
bad things to do. I don't know. I hope not. But
you understand the point of it. See, we're kind of like a moth
that's drawn to the light. The moth doesn't take directions
and look at the GPS and say, you know, I think I'll avoid
the light. Why does the moth run to the light? Because his
genetics tell them, run to the light. That's what we're like
when we run to our sinful behavior and our sinful inclinations.
We're like the moth who's doing exactly what the moth has the
genetics to do. Our genetic gene pool, spiritual
gene pool, tells us to run to the light. And you've seen all
the little commercials, don't run to the light. And the little
moth's running. It's like, don't run. Oh, crap, he ran to the
light. Yeah, he ran to the light. See,
we run away from the light to run to the light. And that's
a problem. The believer must understand
that the Christian life is a struggle. A state of sinless perfection
will not be obtained by salvation, by faith, or gradual obedience
in this life. The total eradication of the
sinful nature from the believer's earthly experience is never taught
in scripture. While the scripture calls the
believer to be more like Christ, each day he can become more obedient,
he will never reach the point where he will completely obey
until he is with Christ either in death or at the rapture. There
still remains in the believer unsubdued tendencies towards
sin which are in constant conflict with the new man. Constant conflict
with the new man. The spirit is willing and then
my flesh puts on a set of boxing gloves or MMA gloves and wants
to do battle constantly. And there's no corner man. There's
no bells going off. There's no scantily clad girls
holding up round three. It is constant struggle all the
time.