What happens when a Christian sins?
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There Is A Story About A Former Prizefighter That ...
Contributed by Brian Harvison on Sep 12, 2008 (message contributor)
There is a story about a former prizefighter that had been converted and thought God had called him to preach
The only problem was, while he thought he had the gift of preaching, nobody else had the gift of listening
So he couldn’t get a church
He got a little pulpit, found a street corner and preached to passersby in Chicago
He had two-or-three hangers on, friends that liked him
Two-or-three that hated him
And he had one man, a professed atheist who said
“I don’t believe any of the Bible”
These two would get into arguments
One day the preacher was ready for him
He said to the atheist
Listen if I can prove to you just one verse in the Bible is true will you apologize to me?
This so called atheist said “Yes I indeed would”
With that the former prizefighter reached out and took the man by the nose and twisted it so severely that blood ran down both nostrils
And then with a smile on his face he read Proverbs 30:33
The churning of milk produces butter, and wringing the nose produces blood
Then he said I want you to apologize to me because I proved to you at least one verse in the Bible is true
Just as surely as the churning of milk brings forth butter and just as surely as the wringing of the nose brings forth blood
We are all surely bound to sin
For the choir director. A psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him after he had gone to Bathsheba. 1 Be gracious to me, God, according to your faithful love; according to your abundant compassion, blot out my rebellion. 2 Completely wash away my guilt and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I am conscious of my rebellion, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you—you alone—I have sinned and done this evil in your sight. So you are right when you pass sentence; you are blameless when you judge. 5 Indeed, I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me. 6 Surely you desire integrity in the inner self, and you teach me wisdom deep within. 7 Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. 9 Turn your face away from my sins and blot out all my guilt. 10 God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not banish me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore the joy of your salvation to me, and sustain me by giving me a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach the rebellious your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Save me from the guilt of bloodshed, God— God of my salvation— and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. 15 Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 You do not want a sacrifice, or I would give it; you are not pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God. 18 In your good pleasure, cause Zion to prosper; build the walls of Jerusalem. 19 Then you will delight in righteous sacrifices, whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.
What was it about David? He lived during the Bronze age. He fought in war. He saved his people. He loved his friends. He wrote Psalms. He also committed adultery. He had his friend killed in battle. He disobeyed the law against the census.
But one thing David never did. He never abandoned Yahweh. He never turned to another God, nor did He turn away from God. He did cloud his relationship. That he did not abandon Yahweh because the moral and holiness codes made his choices inconvenient. He never went looking for other gods of convenience or self. He may have felt separated from Yahweh, but he never forsook the faith or the Lord.
First, Sin Banishes you from Fellowship with the Lord. (v. 11)
God’s Laws do not change based on culture or your preferences; neither will the consequences. God and His Word do not change.
Sin poison’s your relationship with Him. (v.4; all sin is against God first and foremost).
Sin weighs your conscious down. (v. 3)
You feel the pressing of guilt.
Lady Macbeth, as has become her wont, sleepwalks through the royal castle. As her waiting-woman and her doctor listen in, she mutters fragments of an imaginary conversation that recalls the night she and her husband conspired to murder King Duncan [see A SORRY SIGHT]. The hour is two o'clock; she upbraids her husband for his bad conscience; she insists that there will be nothing to fear once they've grabbed the crown; she marvels at how much blood Duncan had to shed. As Lady Macbeth replays this scene for the eavesdroppers, she not only incriminates herself, but also reveals the pangs of conscience she had ridiculed in her husband.
Doctor:
What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands. Gentlewoman:
It is an accustom'd action with her, to seem thus
washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of
an hour. Lady Macbeth:
Yet here's a spot. Doctor:
Hark, she speaks. I will set down what comes from her, to
satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. Lady Macbeth:
Out, Darned spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then
'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and
afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
pow'r to accompt?—Yet who would have thought the old man to
have had so much blood in him?
"Out, darned spot" is a prime example of "Instant Bard," tailor-made for ironic jokes and marketing schemes. But the "spot" isn't a coffee stain, it's blood. One motif of Macbeth is how tough it is to wash, scrub, or soak out nasty bloodstains. Macbeth had said that even the ocean couldn't wash his hands clean of Duncan's blood; Lady Macbeth, who scorned him then, now finds the blood dyed into her conscience. The king and queen persist in imagining that physical actions can root out psychological demons, but the play is an exposition of how wrong they are.
Our culture suffers from a great onslaught of PSYCHOLOGICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES. The uptick is alarming.
But it comes from the elites and power brokers removing God and His morality. Telling people to do as they please so they will be pleased with what they do!
But you can’t go against design and nature.
There’s a push by Drs and pharmaceutical companies and social workers and psychologists to affirm gender reassignment in kids at 12 years and even younger.
Their plea is would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son? Because if you don’t affirm their confusion, you are murdering them. What they don’t tell you that the highest suicidal ideation in those suffering from gender identity comes 7 years AFTER surgery!
You can’t wash adultery out with blue dawn. You can’t use a brillo pad to scour away murder. You cant scratch away the scabs of the conscience from lying, hatred, swindling, swearing, fornication, lust, greed. You need Someone greater than you to clean you up.
You will feel depression.
If you don’t experience those things, you are in deeper trouble.
Friend of Tim Stratton that lost his sense of smell from chemistry.
1 Now the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, 2 through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared.
Seared to be insensitive, deadened nerves, sense of smell, morality, spiritual. You are dead to God and His ways.
Abbey Johnson, the woman who inspired the MOVIE UNPLANNED portrays a powerful picture of a seared conscience. She blinds her eyes to what goes on in the back rooms. She keeps her focus on the money she makes and the bonuses. Then one day she goes back and sees what really happens and her conscience becomes awakened.
The same today. It takes 13 years of secular indoctrination and another 4 and 5 years of Institutional social programming to infect the minds of those who now push hormone therapy and medical surgery on children at 12 and even younger now. They never consider that they may have a confused morality and worldview.
Those born of God cannot be happy in sin.
One of the saddest stats shared in “What is a woman” concerns the lies of the progressives and the Left. Even Fox News recently aired a segment during Pride Month extolling a family that encouraged and supported the “transition” from female to male.
They touted the trope that gets used as a causative REASON to deny the reality.
The Drs said and the mother received it, “Would you rather have a dead daughter or an alive son.” Well when a vulnerable person is presented with the logical fallacy of either/or about such a stark contrast, that’s evil first off and the information is scientifically and medically incorrect.
People suffering from body and/or gender dysphoria suffer from a number of other psychological issues. Some may be organic, some psychological, and some spiritual.
But, what we do know today IS that those who suffer in this confusion have the highest LEVELS of suicide attempts and ideation SEVEN YEARS after getting surgery.
WHY? It’s very simple, you cannot deny reality. Reality, God’s design will never bend to our confusion, the sin of others, it will always bounce back.
What happens is that these people were offered and promised a FALSE CURE. And thus after SEVEN years of trying to grin and bear it, they are not happy.
Just look at what we see in the news. They may put on a happy face for a short segment, but look at the outbursts and distress observed regularly as people interact and mean no harm, but the anger, the anxiety the moment a little thing doesn’t go their way.
It’s sad to see them suffer.
But it doesn’t matter if it’s adultery, stealing, lying, greed, occultism, lust, foul talking, or murder. You don’t want to do it. You don’t want to live in it. and you don’t want to have your conscience seared.
You will experience discipline.
5 And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly or lose heart when you are reproved by him, 6 for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and punishes every son he receives. 7 Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline—which all receive—then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
1 John 5:16 (CSB)
16 If anyone sees a fellow believer committing a sin that doesn’t lead to death, he should ask, and God will give life to him—to those who commit sin that doesn’t lead to death. There is sin that leads to death. I am not saying he should pray about that.
Sometimes, people ask what would be the unforgivable sin? The only sins we see in the community of believers that warranted instant death dealt with rebellion or grumbling against God in the desert. Talking back to Moses and questioning him doing his job for the Lord. Then money or greed with Achan, Judas, and Ananias and Sapphira.
But how many social problems, school issues, financial problems could be solved.
How many divorces could be prevented if people looked at holiness first instead of thinking happiness is the goal of life. Happiness comes as a by product of living for purpose, it can’t be achieved by expecting it and demanding it.
So many times, I’ve listened to people talking about difficulty in marriage. Each partner shares their view. And if you didn’t know their names or who they were married to, most often based on their perspectives, you would never guess they knew each other or were describing each other. If they would assume they are sinners and start from that perspective, then seek God, His purpose, I know many marriages would be saved.
Our society poisons everyone with self-assertion and self-actualization and self-realization when the Lord talks about self-sacrifice and think of others more than yourself. That’s the lure of sin. It appeals to our flesh, it appeals to desire. But what happens as one drinks and dines on sin, you get food poisoning. It tastes good going down the gullet, but then it mocks your appetite and does not fulfill you.
We may feel 1000 miles from God, but He can cross that distance in an instant when we come repentant and contrite.
What is the unforgivable sin? Can I sin too much?
Knowledge of the
2. You must seek cleansing from the Contamination of sin. (v. 1-2)
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. 6 If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. 7 If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
a. Confess your sin directly and clearly. Agree with God.
Don’t beat around the bush.
b. Pray for and receive Christ’s cleansing power.
Illustration. It’s not enough to be near Jesus or the church. David had Nathan. David lived near the Temple. He had to have an intimate discussion. He had to go back to having Jesus interact with his soul. Only then did the cloud disappear.
c. Daily contemplate the beauty and joy of Christ’s light and perfection.
1 How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers! 2 Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
Action plan:
Meditate on this verse:
13 No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it.
David could have avoided gazing at Bathsheba. Where do you need to avoid temptation?
Child had been caught dipping into the cookie jar without permission. The mother put it out of the way on top of the cabinets so not to ruin his appetite for supper. She went into another room to take care of some choirs. Things became very quiet which every parent knows means somethings up. She peeked around the corner to see her son having made a makeshift platform of chairs and boxes to be able to reach the cookie jar. She said, “Son, what are you doing?” He responded, “Mom, I’m resisting temptation.” LOL
14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.
When you find yourself in temptation, what path of escape does the Lord give you?
Spend time in the Psalms praising God for His holiness.
Lord get rid of the cobwebs of sin. No Lord get rid of the spider I keep in my closet.
Contamination
The soul gets the dark blot
Left unchecked, it deadens your soul to the danger of sin.
Tim Stratton shared during Covid19 that he could relate to a friend who lost his sense of smell as college chemistry student. He chose to smell a chemical compound he shouldn’t
There’s a sin unto death.
The only specific incidences of sin resulting in death would be those who mishandled money and chose greed as an apostle and in the early church.
The love of money is the root of all evil.
Separation from fellowship
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. 6 If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. 7 If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
I remember someone saying that you can live under the same roof but live separate lives. That’s what happens when you live in sin.
Dark Cloud Spurgeon.
Sin Clouds the mind. It causes you to dwell on it and to not see God and His way clearly. It’s why Eve and Adam sinned.
4 Against you—you alone—I have sinned and done this evil in your sight. So you are right when you pass sentence; you are blameless when you judge.
Guilt and Sorrow Depression
14 The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling seizes the ungodly: “Who among us can dwell with a consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with ever-burning flames?” 15 The one who lives righteously and speaks rightly, who refuses profit from extortion, whose hand never takes a bribe, who stops his ears from listening to murderous plots and shuts his eyes against evil schemes—
All the godly men and women who experienced God’s glory shrunk back in terror as they realized their own sin. Moses, hid his face at the burning bush. Isaiah cried woe is me. John fell on his face!
How much more when you as a child of God truly see God’s glory will you feel the weight of your sin.
Contrary to the Wests modern quest for meaning, it will not be found in pursuing a happy feeling for yourself. It comes in seeing God’s holiness and that you have been created to image Him!
Whenever we sin and refuse to repent, we once again RAISE THE VEIL that separated the Jews from the Holy of Holies. You remove yourself from the privilege of sublime intimacy.
Your purpose comes in reflecting Jesus. Everytime you smudge the mirror, Jesus will either cleanse you or you will be clouded, distorted and out of sorts!
8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
David and the lamb thief.
Adrian Rogers shares a story about a small church. And all small churches have self-styled watch dogs. These are people who think they are God’s appointed and annointed to to amke sure everythign goes right in their church. This man opened the door toa broom closet, and there were five brand new borroms. He went to the treasurer to demand why have we spent so much money on five brooms? We are not meeting budget and there are Five brooms in that closet.”
The treasurer couldn’t pacify him. So went to pastor. Pastor said, I don’t know, maybe a sale; maybe we use a lot of brooms. But don’t fall out of fellowship over five brooms.
Later the pastor had coffee with the Treasurer and said he couldn’t understand all the fuss over 5 brooms. Treasurer said, “Well pastor it’s easy to understand. How would you feel if you saw everything you gave to the church over the past year filling that broom closet?”
they produce Suffering
Sin Steals Joy
Lady and boa constrictor. It’s sizing you up for your next meal.
Disgraces you and the Lord
God sees you.
3 The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, observing the wicked and the good.
A reputation can take a lifetime to build and a moment to destroy.
We know of people who have made good from bad. Chuck Colson.
We also know
The path will be either Repentance and restoration or further wickedness
1 How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers! 2 Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
or hardness
The worst type of person feels less and less guilt
heart of stone.
Continual sin
Gang members have to commit small crimes and then murder.
We are not left without a witness of right and wrong. But we can seer our conscience
2 Completely wash away my guilt and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I am conscious of my rebellion, and my sin is always before me.
Water iodine cleansing with bleach
9 holding the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.
2 through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared.
15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. Their consciences confirm this. Their competing thoughts either accuse or even excuse them
18 They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts.
12 They made their hearts like a rock so as not to obey the law or the words that the Lord of Armies had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. Therefore intense anger came from the Lord of Armies.
10 God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
"Break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness on you" (Hosea 10:12)
Here are two kinds of ground: fallow ground and ground that has been broken up by the plow.
The fallow field is smug, contented, protected from the shock of the plow and the agitation of the harrow. Such a field, as it lies year after year, becomes a familiar landmark to the crow and the blue jay. Had it intelligence, it might take a lot of satisfaction in its reputation: it has stability; nature has adopted it; it can be counted upon to remain always the same, while the fields around it change from brown to green and back to brown again. Safe and undisturbed, it sprawls lazily in the sunshine, the picture of sleepy contentment.
But it is paying a terrible price for its tranquility; never does it feel the motions of mounting life, nor see the wonders of bursting seed, nor the beauty of ripening grain. Fruit it can never know, because it is afraid of the plow and the harrow.
In direct opposite to this, the cultivated field has yielded itself to the adventure of living. The protecting fence has opened to admit the plow, and the plow has come as plows always come, practical, cruel, business-like and in a hurry. Peace has been shattered by the shouting farmer and the rattle of machinery. The field has felt the travail of change; it has been upset, turned over, bruised and broken.
But its rewards come hard upon its labors. The seed shoots up into the daylight its miracle of life, curious, exploring the new world above it. All over the field, the hand of God is at work in the age-old and ever renewed service of creation. New things are born, to grow, mature, and consumate the grand prophecy latent in the seed when it entered the ground. Nature's wonders follow the plow.
There are two kinds of lives also: the fallow and the plowed. For example of the fallow life, we need not go far. They are all too plentiful among us.
The man of fallow life is contented with himself and the fruit he once bore. He does not want to be disturbed. He smiles in tolerant superiority at revivals, fastings, self- searching, and all the travail of fruit bearing and the anguish of advance. The spirit of adventure is dead within him. He is steady, "faithful," always in his accustomed place (like the old field), conservative, and something of a landmark in the little church. But he is fruitless.
The curse of such a life is that it is fixed, both in size and in content. "To be" has taken the place of "to become." The worst that can be said of such a man is that he is what he will be. He has fenced himself in, and by the same act he has fenced out God and the miracle.
Broken To Bring Forth Fruit
The plowed life is the life that has, in the act of repentance, thrown down the protecting fences and sent the plow of confession into the soul. The urge of the Spirit, the pressure of circumstances and the distress of fruitless living have combined thoroughly to humble the heart. Such a life has put away defense, and has forsaken the safety of death for the peril of life.
Discontent, yearning, contrition, courageous obedience to the will of God: these have bruised and broken the soil till it is ready again for the seed. And, as always, fruit follows the plow. Life and growth begin as God "rains down righteousness." Such a one can testify, "And the hand of the Lord was upon me there." (Ezek. 3:22).
Corresponding to these two kinds of life, religious history shows two phases, the dynamic and the static. The dynamic periods were those heroic times when God's people stirred themselves to do the Lord's bidding and went out fearlessly to carry His witness to the world. They exchanged the safe of inaction for the hazards of God- inspired progress. Invariably, the power of God followed such action. The miracle of God went when and where his people went. It stayed when His people stopped.
The static periods were those times when the people of God tired of the struggle and sought a life of peace and security. They busied themselves, trying to conserve the gains made in those more-daring times when the power of God moved among them.
Bible history is replete with examples. Abraham "went out" on his great adventure of faith, and God went with him. Revelations, theophanies, the gift of Palestine, covenants and the promises of rich blessings to come were the result. Then Israel went down into Egypt, and the wonders ceased for four hundred years. At the end of that time, Moses heard the call of God and stepped forth to challenge the oppressor. A whirlwind of power accompanied that challenge, and Israel soon began to march. As long as she dared to march, God sent out His miracles to clear a way for her. Whenever she lay down like a fallow field, God turned off His blessing and waited for her to rise again and command his power.
This is a brief but fair outline of the history of Israel and the Church as well. As long as they "went forth and preached everywhere", the Lord worked "with them...confirming the Word with signs following" (Mark 16:20). But when they retreated to monasteries or played at building pretty cathedrals, the help of God was withdrawn 'till a Luther or a Wesley arose to challenge hell again. Then, invariably, God poured out His power as before.
In every denomination, missionary society, local church or individual Christian, this law operates. God works as long as His people live daringly: He ceases when they no longer need His aid. As soon as we seek protection out of God, we find it to our own undoing. Let us build a safety- wall of endowments, by-laws, prestige, multiplied agencies for the delegation of our duties, and creeping paralysis sets in at once, a paralysis which can only end in death.
Miracles Follow The Plow
The power of God comes only where it is called out by the plow. It is released into the Church only when she is doing something that demands it. By the word "doing", I do not mean mere activity. The Church has plenty of "hustle" as it is, but in all her activities, she is very careful to leave her fallow ground mostly untouched. She is careful to confine her hustling within the fear-marked boundaries of complete safety. That is why she is fruitless; she is safe, but fallow.
The only way to power for such a church is to come out of hiding and once more take the danger-encircled path of obedience. Its security is its deadliest foe. The church that fears the plow writes its own epitaph. The church that uses the plow walks in the way of revival.
Editor's notes: A. W. Tozer went to be with our Lord in 1963, his life and spiritual legacy continues to draw all who read his works into a deeper knowledge of God. It is impossible to read his writings without a little self-examination that exposes fallow ground, especially in our prayer life. -WCM