God will not Partner with Sin

Introduction

The Sins that Remain

Israel’s complaint to God: why is God against us when we are openly worhsipping him? What else can we sacrifice for his favour?

God’s answer: vs 8. “do justice, love with Godly love, and walk humbly with God.”

God’s charge: your sin remains!

deceitful weights

violence and lies

God’s refusal to be corrupted

God confronts Israel’s entitled attitude that they wonder why God isn’t on their side, while they continue to practice what God hates. While they may not realize it, they are treating God like they might treat on of their corrupt offcials. They are trying to bribe him essentially and God’s answer is simply that he is not going to be part of a people that expects him to compromise from his glory.

We see this in the questions God asks: shall I acquit the man with wicked scales? with a bag of deceitful weights?

The Empty fruit of sin

Rather than be a partner in a wicked lifestyle, God works against them to make their sinful life fruitless. He does this sovereignly by:

Making wicked gain short-lived

Making wicked gain hollow and less-than-rewarding.

Making wicked gain devoid of his true blessing, which is the source of all true happiness.

God doesn’t just hold himself back from the parts of a sinner’s life he doesn’t like, he won’t participate with him at all. Although such a person may imagine themselves a friend of God, they are really his enemy and God will have no part with them.

Two outcomes: destruction or repentance.

Destruction is both of the man and his sinful works.

Repentance is the destruction of the sinful works, but the saving of the sinner.

God will work with a redeemed sinner who has been changed by the Holy Spirit in Christ to make war on all sin, but if someone loves their sin and dangerously tests God by resisting the Spirit’s work, we have fearful warnings.

Hebrews 6:7–8 ESV

For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

Let us consider:

The state of our hearts, whether we have been changed to make war with sin.

The state of our lives, whether we have slid back into a callous and passive resistance to the Spirit’s work.

The state of God’s work, whether the Spirit had indeed wrought a work in us or whether we have imagined it.

Test yourself by Scripture. God does not work with a lover of sin.