And I want to read this one verse
in chapter one, and then I want to read a verse in chapter four. In James chapter one, we find
in verse 18 that James believed the same thing Paul believed
and Peter believed and John believed. And Jonah believed that salvation
is of the Lord. Not just from the Lord, but of
the Lord. In other words, apart from divine
initiative, there is no salvation. Many times through the years
I've had people tell me, well, you know, I know I need to turn
my life around, but you can't do that. I know I need to get
right." Well, you can't do that. Oh, you can clean up your conduct
a little bit, but if you want to use the term get right, how
right would you have to get? You'd have to get as right as
God is, and that's perfect. That's perfect. So here's our
only hope of His own will. begat he us with the word of truth that we,
such wretches as we are, should be a kind of first fruits of
his creatures, the marvelous, sovereign, amazing grace of our
God. Now in chapter 4 and the last verse, the 17th
verse, James chapter 4 and verse 17. I should take time to back up and
read down to this to get the fullness of the thought, but
to get to the Message this morning, we'll read this one verse. James
says, therefore, to him, he's talking to the Lord's people
now, to him that knoweth to do good. The world don't know to do good.
They know they ought to. But they don't know how to. I don't think it would be abusing
the text to say, therefore, to him that knoweth how to do good, as taught by the grace of God, and doeth it not, to him it is
sin. So that's our subject this morning
is sin. We've heard the statement made
through the years, preachers don't preach about sin anymore.
And of course what they're referring to is for a preacher to rant
and rave about a list of things people should or should not do. And they really do not understand
that the essence of sin is not what we do, but what we are. We do what we do because of what
we are. See? The trouble is not with the outside,
the trouble is inside. Nature. This flesh, this flesh is cursed
with the awful and incurable disease of sin. So embedded in
our nature. that it's taken every single
one of us to the graveyard. People read this verse, him that
knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. They
say, well, that's simple. I'll just do good and not sin. There's a problem with that.
Psalm 14.1, there is none that doeth good. Psalm 14.3, There
is none that doeth good, no, not one. Psalm 53.1, There is
none that doeth good. Psalm 53.3, There is none that
doeth good, no, not one. Romans 3.12, There is none that
doeth good, no, not one. So there's a little problem with
that. How good is good? We've already
said it's as good as God is. And none of us are that good.
Now what does it mean to know that we're sinners? It means more than knowing that you're not quite perfect. It means a real consciousness
of self-regarding motives, all about me, self-asserting,
self-advancing, self-justifying, self-gratifying. To know that I'm a sinner means
seeing that these motives, they Unveil your real self, coming
from the heart, the real core of our person, out of which Christ
said, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil
eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. You say, that's not me. Yeah,
that's you. That's me. Now, I just want to briefly this
morning, we're not going to be too long, look at four scriptures
and make four points this morning. I'm going to ask you to turn
with me to these scriptures. So we'll try to move right along.
And the scriptures I'm going to refer to and the four thoughts
I'm going to make are associated with something that none of us
like, thorns. How many ever got a thorn in
your finger, hand, briar, a sharp point? Well, it's not fun. Well, these four scriptures mention
thorns and they're really all about sin. And the first one,
turn with me to Genesis chapter three. Genesis chapter 3. And my thought here is thorns
as the symbol of sin. This is after Adam sinned. And
let's read what God said to Adam. in verses 17 through 19 of Genesis
3. And unto Adam he said, Because
thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten
of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not
eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt
thou eat of it all the days of thy life. In the sweat of thy faith, excuse
me, I skipped a verse. Verse 18, thorns also and thistles
shall it bring forth to thee. Thou shalt eat the herb of the
field. The sweat of thy faith shalt thou eat bread till thou
return unto the ground for out of it was thou taken for dust
thou art and under dust shalt thou return. In verse 14, excuse
me, verse 17, we read the word cursed. Cursed is the ground
for thy sake. The Hebrew word for cursed here
means to be made something less than it was before. To be defiled,
to be deficient, to be made less. The word is used in Genesis 8
of the floodwaters receding or going down. Genesis 8, 8 referred
to the waters being abated. And that word abating means going
down, becoming less than before. And that's what happened when
sin entered the world. It's not what it was before.
It's changed. It's gone down. Before sin entered, there were
no thorns, no buyers. But after Adam sinned, verse
18 here says, thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth
to thee. God said the earth is bringing
these thorns to you. Shall bring forth to thee. They're
here just for you. They'll take over the ground.
You'll have to work to till the ground and to grow food. And
this curse was not for a day or a week or a year, but verse
19 said, it's till thou return of the ground. In other words,
as long as you live, the symbol is here. Sin. Thorns. It's a principle. It's a plague.
It's a disease that's with us all the way across life's journey. And he's saying, as long as you
live, You'll have to work to have a vegetable garden. You'll have to work to have a
flower garden. But you don't have to work to
have thorns and briars and weeds. They automatically come as part
of the curse. Matter of fact, you have to work
to keep them out of your garden spot. You can clear it out this
year and have to deal with it again next year. And so it is
with sin, our constant enemy, this plague, this disease. It's with us as long as we're
in the world. So we see, first of all, thorns
here as the symbol of sin. Now, number two. Turn with me
on over to the book of Numbers, the fourth chapter, the fourth
book of the Bible. Numbers chapter 33. Numbers 33. And here we have thorns and the
seriousness of sin. Thorns and the seriousness of
sin. Numbers 33. And I pick up reading
in verse 51. Number 33, 51. Speak unto the children of Israel
and say unto them, when you are passed over Jordan
into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants
of the land from before you and destroy all their pictures
and destroy all their molten images and quite pluck down all
their high places, that is, places of heathen worship. And you shall
dispossess the inhabitants of the land and dwell therein, for
I have given you the land to possess it. You shall divide
the land by lot for an inheritance among your families And to the
more you shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer
you shall give the less inheritance. Every man's inheritance shall
be in the place where his lot falleth. According to the tribes
of your fathers, you shall inherit. The Lord gave this land to the
Israelites. And he said, I want you to make
sure the people that are there now are gone. You get rid of them. You fight
them. You drive them out. You kill
them. You do what you have to do to rid the land of them. Of course, we find further on
after they got over into Canaan in the book of Joshua that they
didn't do that. Not all of them did. Some they
allowed to stay. And it was trouble. Trouble. But he said, don't let them remain.
I want you to tear down their idols, their heathen places of
worship, the symbols of worship. Get them and anything resembling
to them out of the land. And then divide it up by your
families and dwell therein. Now in verse 55 comes the seriousness of sin,
the seriousness of ignoring what God told him to do. But if you will not drive out
the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come
to pass that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks
in your eyes, and thorns, there's our word, thorns in your sides,
and shall vex you in the land wherein you dwell." You know
how it feels to have a thorn in your finger. Here he mentioned
a prick in your eye. Oh my! There's tender flesh in
your side. There's even more sensitive,
more painful, the eye. God says, if you don't obey me,
if you don't do what I say, If you ignore my word, this is going
to be the result. That crowd is going to be like
thorns in your side. We talked all about false religion
in our Bible study, and we're in a day and hour when religion
approves of just about everything the government approves of. When
religion goes along with anything corrupt society wants to do,
you see, God says you're getting your doctrine. You're getting
your thinking. You're getting your textbook and your rule book
from somewhere else besides me. This is what I say. I say have
no part of that. And he said, if you do, it's
going to vex you. It's going to be a thorn in your
side. It's going to be a prick in your eye or it's going to
be painful. It's going to hurt. if you ignore me. Now verse 56, the seriousness of sin. Moreover, it shall come to pass
that I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them. Well, what did
God think to do unto them? He thought to get rid of them
and he told the Israelites, you do it. And he said, if you don't,
I'm going to do to you what I was going to do to them. I'll put you out." And eventually
he did. He did. This world don't want
to talk about God because they don't want to talk about sin. The schools don't want to talk
about God because they don't want to talk about sin. The government don't want to
talk about God because they don't want to talk about sin. But I remind us this morning
God's word will stand when all else falls. I don't care if they
cut off the head of every true believer but you when this thing has run its course.
God's going to have the last word. He is. And when God speaks to our hearts
as a body and as an individual, and brings conviction about a
certain thing that we ought not do, and a certain place we ought
not go, and certain people we ought not run with, of course
you'll be accused of, you know, Being a fanatic, being this holier
than thou. No, that's not it at all. You
and I know, you and I know the very corruption of our own heart.
Wretched, wretched, wretched as we are. It's not about us
being better. It's about listening and obeying
what God Almighty says. See, that's where we are. That's
where we are. And it's a very serious matter
to ignore God and go against that heart conviction we know
is right. But the world is so attractive.
Sin is so attractive. False religion is so attractive.
The very thing we know is wrong will look so nice and can be
made to look so right and so innocent. And just go ahead,
join in. Come with us, go with us. Join
with us. God said that thing will become
a thorn in your side, a prick, a sharp object in your eye, very
painful. And you'll wish a thousand times
you'd listen to me. instead of listening to somebody
else. You wish a thousand times you'd listen to me instead of
satisfying your own sinful nature. I'll tell you a little story
quickly. I read this in the coal mine
country of West Virginia years ago. A sophisticated woman was
visiting the area And she was quite impressed with a lot of
things and the poverty and a lot that she saw. And she was really
dressed like a sophisticated lady, a beautiful white dress.
And she wanted to go in a coal mine. And the man told her, he
said, I'll take you in. But she said, you can't go in
dressed like that. And she was kind of offended.
And she said, what's to keep me? from wearing a white dress
into the coal mine. And the man said, Dear Lady,
there's nothing to keep you from wearing a white dress in. There's
plenty to keep you from wearing a white dress out. Adam disobeyed God, and all his
posterity, including you and I, is plagued with sin to this
day. The Israelites disobeyed God
and there was conflict in Palestine from that day to this. I know it's said a lot nowadays
that people won't listen, children won't listen, they have to learn
the hard way. What I want to say to you this
morning, whether you listen or not, it's my responsibility to
tell you that God is right. about everything, and nobody gets by with ignoring
His Word. Nobody avoids trouble, heartaches,
and sorrow and suffering that ignores His Word. Thorns and the seriousness of
sin. Number three, thorns and our
struggles with sin. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
12. Our struggles with sin. This is not something we deal
with just one time, once a year. No. It's every moment of every day. that our enemy, Satan, would
destroy our lives. 2 Corinthians 12. In the early
verses of this chapter, Paul the Apostle had a vision. He said he was caught up in the
paradise. And he heard unspeakable words, which is not lawful for a man
to utter. He goes on to say, it would be
very easy for me to glory in that, about how special I am
and how spiritual I am, that God would do this for me and
show me such high and holy things. and not show you. And he goes
on to say in verse 7, and lest I should be exalted above measure
through the abundance of the revelations. In other words,
lest I should be lifted up in pride, lest I should think myself
something special, something better and above other people.
lest I should get the big head. He goes on to say in verse 7, there was given to me
a thorn, there's our word, a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of
Satan to buffet me lest I should be exalted above measure. Now, I've heard people through
the years talk about, argue about, heard preachers give their crazy
ideas about this thorn in the flesh in the middle of verse
7 that Paul had. And some say, well, maybe it
was some kind of a physical infirmity. Maybe it was his eyes, he couldn't
see well, and all that kind of garbage. No, he tells us in the
beginning of the verse, lest I should be exalted above measure,
He tells us at the end of the verse, look at it, lest I should
be exalted above measure. He's talking about lest I be
lifted up in pride. Pride is the enemy. Lest I think
myself something great and something special. There was given to me a thorn
in the flesh. It wasn't pleasant. It was miserable. I hated it. In verse 8 he says,
for this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart
from me. But he said there was a thorn
given me. Given, given. It's a gift. Sometimes
thorns are a gift. That's what he says. Not that Paul liked it. Not that
we like it. But our all-wise God knows when
we are in danger of shipwreck. He puts things in our lives.
He takes things out of our lives. He arranges troubles, sorrows,
painful things, damaging things, heartbreaking things. disgraceful
things, because He knows we need these things, thorns to guide
us out of one path and into another. This is so with all of us, adults
and children. Oh, we really need to pray for
our children. They're in such a godless society
under so much pressure. And some of them that we know
don't have parents that are much help in the matter. Things are
not perfect at school. Things are not perfect with the
teachers, with the classmates. Things are not perfect at home.
But I would say to them, as I do often, God is not aware of anything. God is not aware of any of this
you're going through. And we'd say the same to adults. Things are not perfect with the
marriage. Things are not perfect with the
job. Things are not perfect with the
relatives. Things are not perfect with the neighbors. Things are
not perfect with our health. Things are not perfect with our
finances. But God is not in the dark about
any of it. See, we need to major on Him, not us. He has you where you are right
now to prepare you for where He wants you later. Because of sin, People don't
do right. Sometimes we're mistreated. Sometimes
we mistreat. And many things in life are not
fair. That's one of our big sayings.
It's not fair. God never promised us it would
be. He did promise to be with us. We all have our battles. We all
have our heartaches. We all have our struggles, and
it's so different with everybody. Sin is so deceitful, so deceitful. I'll give you this one little
illustration, then I've got to hurry. There was a woman, I read this
story, a very gracious Christian woman who had a godly husband. with a tremendous testimony, but they were not so well off
financially, struggled year after year. And this dear lady gave
her testimony and confessed that she was sometimes embarrassed
coming to church in the same old clothes she'd worn year after
year after year. And she confessed to being a
little envious, seeing some of the other ladies coming in with
new stuff and dressed so nicely. But said after that, she gave
that testimony. Four different widows came to
her. Widows. and told her my heart aches,
missing my husband. And I must confess, I'm a little
envious when I see you walk in every
morning, every Sunday morning with your husband. And I think how blessed she is. You see, Sin is so deceitful. Satan is so deceitful. She was
worried about her clothes and what the other ladies were thinking.
They weren't thinking anything about her clothes. They were
thinking about how blessed she was to have a godly man, a husband. So it's a different path for
all of us. It's the devil's business to
make the grass look greener on the other side. It's the devil's
business to make you think you've got the worst deal of anybody
in the world. How do I know that? He uses it
on me every day that dawns. That's his business. That's his
business. Thorns. and struggles with sin. All these troubles are thorns,
really, designed by God. But Paul said, and we know, Romans
8, 28, and we know, we don't have to wonder about this, we
know that all things work together for good to them that love God. Who are they? Them who are the
called according to His purpose. We've quoted this little line
before. Life is a bed of roses, thorns
and all. And I've thought of that many
times. Look at a rose bush. The leaves
are only for a season. They're starting to shed now. The beautiful blooms are only
for a season. But the thorns are there year-round.
And they're there year-round in our lives. But God. Number four, and we'll be through.
Thorns and our salvation from sin. Turn with me to Matthew
27. Matthew 27. Thorns and our salvation
from sin. Matthew 27. Verse 27, Then the soldiers of the governor
took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole
band of soldiers, and they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet
robe. And when they had plaited a crown
of thorns, they put it upon his head and
a reed in his right hand they bowed the knee before him and
mocked him saying hail king of the Jews a crown of thorns this
must have been so very painful and not just painful physically
but it was blasphemous mocking He says he's a king, let's give
him a crown. They thought he was their victim.
How wrong they were. He was the victor. He was a king
delivering his people from their sins. Not with an army of the
people, but all by himself on a cross he conquered sin. Satan, death, and hell. A lot of folk, a whole lot of
folk need to forget about their religion and just think of him
who died to take away our sin and to make
us accepted with God. And that's what he did. All of
today's do-good religion to impress God and impress people, it's
absolutely worthless. God was impressed with His Son, wearing a crown of thorns, hanging
on a cross, shedding His blood for the sins of His people. And
He was so impressed with what His Son did for us, He now looks
at us in His Son and says there is no spot in thee thou art all
fair my love and revelation said we are perfect we are faultless
we are blameless before the throne of God oh yes and because of that there's
a better day coming dear folks an eternal day As the song says,
when all the ransomed Church of God is saved to sin no more. And in that day, blessed day,
eternal day, let me give you one more verse and we're through.
Here's what it's going to be. Isaiah 55. Isaiah chapter 55,
12 and 13. For you shall go out with joy
and be led forth with peace. This is what the Lord's people
have in Christ, joy and peace. You shall go out with joy and
be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills shall
break forth before you into singing. And all the trees of the field
shall clap their hands. Now watch this verse. Instead
of the thorn shall come up the fir tree. And instead of the briar shall
come up the myrtle tree. It's going to be paradise foliage. It shall be to the Lord for a
name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. Blessed, blessed eternity. with
our Lord. Sin is a problem. The Savior dealt with the problem. Bless His holy name. Let's stand
together. Thank you for being here.