Praise God.
I'm going to continue our study this morning
on the subject of genuine repentance.
And I received an email last week from
a dear brother who kind of gave me
a little bit of encouragement talking about Jeremiah.
In the 25th chapter he starts talking about
how for 23 years he preached the subject
of repentance to the people.
And I think about what that would be
like every week going to the Lord, Lord
what's the word for the hour, repent.
Goes back next week, what's the word, repent.
He goes back and he does this for
23 solid years.
How many different ways did he tell them
to turn?
How many different things did he say to
them?
And we get to the end of his
life and what we essentially see happening is
everything he prophesied starts to happen.
You know what, if the word is to
repent, we need to repent.
We live in a society today that is
growing more wicked by the moment.
It used to be by the day, but
I think it's by the minute.
We're starting to see things that are just
unbelievable.
And if I could title this particular message
this morning in the subject of genuine repentance,
it would be Victory 101.
Victory 101.
You want to have victory over sin?
See, that's what I feel God, if there's
any undercurrent of teaching God has ever had
on my heart from square one, it's to
try to lead people to be able to
live a victorious life over sin, to mine
the scriptures for victory so that it can
be taught.
We need to repent.
The foundation of repentance, the foundation of repentance,
the foundation of any structure is the base
on which that structure is built.
It is the support for the walls and
the other components of the building.
No building is any stronger than its foundation.
If the foundation is not properly placed, the
entire structure will be in question.
So you don't matter how beautiful the building
is, it doesn't make any difference how strong
the structure is from the ground up.
If the foundation is weak, the whole structure
is in question.
If it is not placed deep in the
earth, that being the foundation, it will be
carried away by the elements.
If it is not laid strong, it will
not support the weight of the structure.
See, what is God wanting to do in
your life?
What is God wanting to lead you into
in terms of ministry?
The foundation of repentance in your life will
only support what it's capable of supporting and
no more.
So the strength of that repentance will dictate
what can be built on top of it.
Repentance from dead works, faith towards God, and
the accompanying elements of these two serve as
the foundation of our relationship with God, Hebrews
6, 1 and 2.
The Bible tells us, do not keep laying
again the foundation from dead works and repentance
and faith towards God and all that.
Don't keep relaying that foundation.
In other words, lay it, lay it right,
and then begin to build on it.
See, but until that foundation is properly laid,
we can't move on with the building program.
If I look up and I see this
wall is about to buckle, we can't start
putting in the floor joists until that's fixed.
So you can't go on.
See, we'd like to just say, well, you
know, we're running behind schedule.
We need to get this thing going.
But if the foundation is weak, the building
will collapse.
It is the foundation that we are told
not to be laying over and over again.
It is a foundation that is to be
laid and then built upon.
Unfortunately, many never really take the time to
ensure that the foundation of repentance and faith
towards God is properly laid.
And then in turn, they end up in
the situation Jesus talks about in Luke chapter
6.
Let's read about it.
And why call you me, he says, Lord,
Lord, and do not do the things which
I say.
Whosoever cometh to me and hears my sayings
and doeth them, I will show you to
whom he is like.
He is like a man who built a
house.
He digged deep and laid the foundation on
a rock.
And when the flood arose, the stream beat
vehemently upon that house and could not shake
it.
See that?
Flood could not shake the house.
Why?
Because the foundation of repentance and obedience was
laid so well, the flood could not shake
the foundation for it was founded upon a
rock.
But he that hears and does not do
is like a man without a foundation.
They build a house upon the earth against
which when the stream beat vehemently, immediately it
fell.
Do you think of the difference?
The difference between the two.
On the one hand, it could not be
shaken.
On the other one, it immediately fell.
And the ruin of that house was very
great.
See, there is a lot of things that
we can try to build in our life
and we think, man, this is a beautiful
structure.
But all of a sudden, the earth gives
way and the foundation was weak and everything
that you had built just comes tumbling down.
So you see why it is important to
make sure the foundation of repentance is properly
laid in your life.
Digging deep, digging deep.
Genuine repentance is a radical change of life
that results in God gloriously transforming a person
from death to life, from darkness to light,
from the power of Satan and to the
power of God.
See, that's genuine repentance.
That's deep repentance when it takes place.
I was talking to some construction workers who
was building some real tall skyscrapers downtown Kansas
City and I just couldn't resist asking them,
how is it that you keep that building
from toppling over in high wind?
How do you do that?
I mean, the foundation of that thing would
have to be just immense.
You know what they said they do?
They go down into the earth and they
dig down and down until they hit bedrock.
Then they will blast or they will somehow
make ports into that bedrock, pour concrete pillars
and fasten that building in the bedrock.
And then they begin to build a foundation
on that.
And from that, it makes it impossible, nearly
impossible to topple over.
So not just is the foundation sitting in
the earth deep, but it's in the bedrock
as well.
And that's the kind of repentance, that's the
foundation we need to lay in our Christian
lives.
It is a deep process.
It requires a tremendous amount of convincing and
conviction.
See, oftentimes as ministers, we get up to
try to convince people to repent.
I mean, God will lay a message on
our heart to convince people to repent.
Then the Holy Spirit will bring the conviction.
The minister brings a message to convince and
the Holy Spirit convicts of sin.
The two are in most cases totally dependent
one on the other.
The Holy Spirit has been known, however, to
bring great conviction apart from a person hearing
a sermon.
But certainly no minister can bring conviction without
the Holy Spirit.
See, I can get up and preach a
message or teach a lesson or whatever.
And if God does not bring conviction, it
will profit me nothing.
The fact is, we need the Holy Spirit.
Deep conviction that brings godly sorrow leads a
person to repentance.
Deep repentance is not sorrow for the consequences
of sin that occurred because of your disobedience.
That's not repentance.
See, a lot of people are sorry about
a lot of things.
I'm sorry about what I did to you.
I'm sorry about what happened to me.
I'm sorry.
But sorrow does not equate with repentance unless
it's a godly sorrow that leads you into
life.
But it is sorrow that is brought about
by God himself and makes God the center
of repentance.
See, I've sinned against the Lord.
That's what you would say.
It's between me and him.
I've got to turn back to him.
God is the one who we sinned against.
God is always the primary offended party in
all sin.
God is the one to whom we must
turn to for relief from our sins.
There are but a few aspects of genuine
godly sorrow that leads to life.
Now, on the contrary, there are many that
believe that they have repented when all they
have really done has been sorrowful and sorry
for the sin or what it caused, or
they were sorry that they got caught.
And that's different.
See, I could spend an entire lesson just
talking.
I really felt like I was going to
do that this morning, but God had other
plans.
I was going to talk about the seven
myths of repentance.
See, there's a lot of people that would
say with their mouth they repented, but the
reality is they didn't.
They were just sorry for they got caught
and they didn't ever really turn.
Genuine and deep repentance is the condition in
which a person sees their sin as God
sees it, changes their mind about it, repulsively
forsakes it, is sorely vexed because of it,
and turns from it to God for relief
from it.
There's the progression.
Right there.
See, we've got to turn to God for
relief from our sin.
Once we see our sin as it really
is and it really brings you to a
place, you're like, I can't believe that I
did that.
I can't believe that's me.
The only hope that you have is to
turn to God for relief.
Repentance is turning from trusting in yourself, which
results in sinfulness, to trusting in God and
His righteousness.
Salvation that does not include true and genuine
repentance is no salvation at all because it
has no foundation.
You see, a person who don't genuinely repent
is a very high-maintenance Christian.
You've got to call them every time you
turn around.
You've got to constantly wonder, where are they?
Where are they at?
But listen, when you truly get radically saved,
you will certainly need to be treated as
a babe in Christ, don't get me wrong,
but that hunger and thirst and desire will
be there.
You will want to serve God.
You don't have to be called every time
you turn around to be in the house
of God because you know what?
You have a heart and a desire to
want to be there.
Salvation that does not include true and genuine
repentance is no salvation at all because it
is the foundation.
Genuine repentance leaves a person feeling such about
their past sin that they will also seek
to make restitution and reconciliation whenever possible for
the things they've done.
It's what you do.
You know the story of Zacchaeus.
He come out of the tree and said,
a half of my goods I give to
the poor.
Immediately said, the half of my goods I'll
give to the poor.
If I've stolen anything or taken anything wrong,
I'll restore fourfold.
They also realized how vile their former behavior
was and immediately they will seek to impress
on others that they have forsaken the old
life.
You think about it.
You see yourself the way you really are
in the way you start to think, man,
I need to put some distance between me
and the old man.
I need to let some people know I
ain't that anymore.
See, that's what happens when you genuinely repent.
This is quite different than the person who
is embarrassed to say they repented.
A person who genuinely repents is embarrassed for
her who they used to be, not for
who they are now.
See that they're embarrassed for who they used
to be, not for who they are now.
See, because when you see your sin for
what it really is, you'll be ashamed of
what you used to be and you want
to distance yourself from that.
So I'm not that anymore.
I don't do that.
That's the old man.
He's dead.
He's buried.
That's what it will be.
A foundation on the rock.
Jesus Christ must be the chief cornerstone of
any foundation that we lay down.
In genuine repentance, we turn from sin to
righteousness, from the power of Satan to the
power of God.
It's that simple.
So you can't hang on to both at
the same time.
You have to turn from the one to
the other.
The life that we now live is in
accordance with the teachings of Jesus Christ.
That's it.
Question is, do we live Christ like?
Do we obey his commandments?
Do we keep his word?
We do not simply call him Lord, Lord,
but he truly is the Lord of our
life.
Think about this for a minute.
We confirm this by doing the things that
he says.
That's it.
You know, we can say all day, you
know, he's the Lord.
But is he the Lord?
Is he really the Lord?
If he's in authority, you'll be obedient to
that authority.
We exalt him to his rightful place of
king.
And in that submission, we are made citizens
of the kingdom of God.
See, the king in our land is king
because or say the president, because he's been
appointed.
But the kingdom of God is not something
that is tangible.
The way that the king becomes the kingdom
in our midst is because we are obedient
to him.
He's the Lord of us.
We've made him king.
Therefore, we are in the kingdom.
You see that our submission to Christ is
what allows the kingdom of Christ to come
near to those to whom we minister to.
See, if I'm not submitted to Christ, how
can the kingdom of God be in the
midst of someone I'm trying to minister to?
Because if he ain't king in my life,
the kingdom ain't near.
You see that?
If we don't submit to God and his
authority, how could we ever be ambassadors with
his authority?
It's kind of like Paul, I know Jesus,
I know.
But who are you?
In other words, he's in submission to the
king.
Therefore, he is a genuine ambassador.
But who are you?
Who are you?
Foundationless faith, second section.
In Luke 6, 48, we read, but he
that heareth and doeth not is like a
man without a foundation, without a foundation.
I was looking at a house the other
day and it was weird because they built
the foundation.
They didn't have a foundation.
Actually, they built the front porch in the
dirt.
You know what happens when you do that?
Termites get right up in there and just
eat that thing up and it ain't long
before it fell out.
You can't do that.
You can't do it.
And he that heareth and doeth not is
like a man without a foundation.
Repentance that does not result in obedience to
God is not genuine repentance.
Disobedience is regarded with disdain in a truly
born again person's life.
See, being disobedient to God is not your
nature when you're genuinely born again.
If you do not hate sin, you have
no real foundation for which to talk about
obedience.
You know that?
You should hate sin as a Christian.
I didn't get a lot of amens, but
you should hate sin.
If you don't hate sin, there's something wrong
with you as a Christian because we should
be repulsed by sin.
We should see the effects of sin and
think, man, turn from sin.
If we live in denial that you need
to repent and you have not hated your
sin as you should, you think about it.
That's what it is.
It's denial.
When David saw his sin for what it
was, he did not react in denial.
He made no excuses.
He gave no explanations.
He knew that sin, as it were, watch
this, comes in many flavors.
You know that?
Sin comes in many flavors, Church, but it's
only one substance, and that's rebellion.
It's rebellion.
See, ice cream can come in rocky road,
chocolate chip, strawberry, but it's all ice cream.
Rebellion is sin, and it can come in
a lot of different flavors, fornication, covetousness, hatred,
bitterness, but it's all still rebellion.
See, the devil can flavor the sin to
make it attractive to you.
But you must understand it's still rebellion.
But the core substance is rebellion against God.
That is the substance of sin itself.
The flavor is immaterial.
It is all the result of the rebellious
law of sin that is in our members
that desires to rebel against God's law simply
because he decreed it.
Many times I've used this illustration, say if
God said to the children of Israel, I
don't want you to work on Saturday.
I don't want you to do a single
thing.
See, only a people that are full of
rebellion would kick against such a ruling when
we're lazy by nature.
Think about it.
People who are lazy by nature are going
to suddenly say, no, I'm not going to
keep that law.
Something wrong with that.
That's when you're just wanting to rebel for
the sake of rebellion.
Because any other time people want to get
some rest.
The sinful nature is gratified by rebellion.
It is the flesh's meat.
What gratifies the flesh?
The flesh is gratified by rebelling against God.
And when you go to commit some certain
sin, you're thinking, I'm doing this.
You're thinking the chocolate chip, the rocky road,
the strawberry.
No, what you're doing, you're being fulfilled by
the rebellion.
This is one of the things I was
trying to talk and explain to some guys
last week.
You got to understand when the kid slips
around the back of the school and gets
himself a cigarette, it's not the smoke and
the cigarette that's fulfilling him.
It's the rebellion.
Hmm.
When he slips out and grabs a can
of beer, it's not the beer that's going
in his mouth, making him want to gag,
that's fulfilling him.
It's the rebellion making him want to disregard
the taste and fulfill himself in that rebellion.
Sin is rebellion.
It is the flesh's meat.
The meat of the born again believer is
to do the will of God.
It's a difference.
Your meat will be to do God's will.
That's what fulfills you.
Understanding this point is a main key to
gaining the victory over sin and hating sin
as we should see when you stop seeing
the picture of the devil paints and start
seeing what's really behind the picture.
You'll start hating the sin.
You'll start hating it when we stop focusing
on the flavor, as it were, of sin,
the covetousness or the fornication or the hatred
or whatever.
And he on in on the very substance
of sin, we realize the sin we've committed
is only gratified the flesh because it rebelled
against God.
That's what gratifies the flesh.
It doesn't matter.
The flesh don't care how it gets some
sins, as long as it gets some.
It don't matter if it gets it in
Rocky Road, chocolate chip or strawberry, just as
long as it can rebel.
That's why you'll notice if you get a
certain vice in your life, right?
The devil then try to slip in and
get you with something else.
Why?
Because he wants you to partake of the
substance, doesn't care what flavor it is.
See, the flesh is always jonesing for sin.
You understand that that's the term for people
who are drug addicts.
They're constantly needing a fix.
The flesh is constantly needing a sin fix,
church, and they don't care how it gets
it.
They don't care.
They don't care how it gets it.
The sinful nature is gratified by rebellion.
David understood this clearly and he answered the
prophet when he came to him.
He said, I have sinned against the Lord.
Notice he didn't say I've sinned against a
bunch of people.
They were the innocent bystanders of what was
going on.
We could sit here and say, well, he
sinned against Bathsheba or he sinned against Uriah.
He sinned against the nation.
He sinned against his parents.
And we could go through that whole list.
But the reality of it was what was
gratifying him was the rebellion against God that
comes when we get in the flesh.
And he recognized that.
He said, I've sinned against the Lord.
He'd find no pleasure in flesh within dissenting
against an individual.
This thing is between us and God against
God alone.
Psalm 51, for have I done this evil
in his sight.
The foundation of repentance is only as strong
as our hatred of sin and our desire
to walk in obedience to Christ.
Only as strong as it is.
How bad do you hate your sin?
You know what?
When you see your sin as it really
is, when you allow God to just strip
back the lies and the blinders and you
see the sin for what it really is,
you will hate that sin.
But the unfortunate thing is, so oftentimes we're
looking ahead and the devil's like, you know
what?
Sin's going to be like this.
And it's like an oasis.
And when the time when you get there,
you realize there ain't really nothing to it.
But in hindsight, you utterly hate it.
But do you remember that?
Do you remember how bad every time you
sin, the devil disappointed you?
It's amazing how quick people forget that you
go off in your sin and you think
it's going to be something and then later
you go back and you think, man, that
was horrendous.
I'll never do that again.
How many people say that stuff?
I mean, we've all said I'll never do
that again.
That'll never happen again.
Why?
Because the thought of how disappointed you were
is fresh in your mind.
But in time you forget that.
And in that forgetting, you go back to
it again like a dog to his vomit.
So you got to see sin for what
it is.
Take that sin.
And in doing so, it'll go a long
way in helping you remain in repentance, loving
righteousness and hating iniquity.
When you have genuinely seen sin as God
sees it and your mind is properly changed
about it, that change should result in utter
disdain for sin.
It'll be a hatred based in the knowledge
that your sin was against the God that
is wholly good.
Think about it.
When you really start to think about how
good, when we watch the Passion movie and
we see how much God loves us and
then to go out and sin and then
to realize what the truth, core substance of
sin is, just to rebel against God and
to somehow get at him, you will view
your sin, you will view it as malice
projected at the God that has bestowed upon
us every good and perfect gift.
See, the goodness of God leads you to
repentance.
When you finally survey the wondrous love of
God and the extent to which his anger
has been restrained from consuming you, you know,
the Bible said because of God's mercy that
we're not consumed.
And his divine providence in sustaining you at
the same time, we ought to pour contempt,
church, on all of our pride.
What we ought to do, as Paris Reid
once said, our preaching is not to convince
good men that they're in trouble with the
mean, bad God, but it's to convince bad
men that they deserve the wrath and anger
of a good God.
That's the difference.
See, God's a good God.
And when we realize what we've done against
him, we'll see our sin as it is.
And in that moment of understanding the true
meaning of sin as a whole, you should
hate your sin no matter what flavor it
is.
The realization of the enormity of your sin
against God and his holiness, the revelation that
not only was God a God you were
sinning against in his infinite holiness, but he
was willing to take upon himself the very
penalty of your sin.
And it ought to convince any sinner that
they utterly deserve hell.
You think about it.
I think about something Brother Tony mentioned and
I have to wholly concur about when we
got saved.
You know, when I got saved, I was
sitting about two rows in front of TJ
right there.
And I was watching the passion play play
out.
And I remember sitting there thinking how horrific
of a sinner that I was.
And I was sitting there thinking, God, will
you ever take me back?
Will you ever take me back, God?
I think I've done stuff bad.
I don't know if the Lord will take
me back.
I remember not thinking, follow what I'm saying.
I remember not thinking I need to accept
the Lord as much as I was thinking,
I hope he will accept me.
I hope he'll accept me.
And in hearing that he would accept me,
I just ran at the opportunity.
It's a whole lot different.
When you truly see who you are in
the light of his wondrous love and grace,
you'll sit there and say, I hope the
Lord will take me back.
I hope he will.
And as soon as the opportunity is given,
you'll run to the altar.
Why not to marvel at how a God
as holy as he is would be mindful
of sinners that are bent on profaning everything
that is holy.
That's what sin's about.
See, the devil just wants to profane things.
He wants to defile all that is sacred
and holy.
That's that's what he wants to do.
He's like a graffiti expert that goes up
to a brand new bridge with a can
of spray paint.
He just wanted to defile everything of God.
See, that's what sin does, that wants to
profane the holy.
A sinner seeks to sin simply before the
fulfillment of desecrating that which is not yet
tainted with sin, so that in that defilement,
the flesh can be gratified.
See, that's why the devil wants you to
destroy yourself.
That's why he wants you to defile yourself
when you're holy.
You think about it, the more clean you
are after you've just freshly got up from
the altar, it's some of the greatest times
of temptation in your life.
Why?
Because God has washed you white and clean.
And the devil wants this can of spray
paint to use on you again.
Think about it.
He's wanting to profane you again because you
are now holy and clean.
When you realize this one fact, you will
hate sin as it is.
The enemy's whole strategy is to camouflage the
true nature of sin and to present it
as something that it is not.
But sin is rebellion against God.
That's what it is.
It's rebellion.
It's rebellion against his word.
And that's what it is.
When you're gratified because of sin, the flesh
is meat is to sin and be gratified
in that way.
Last little paragraph.
Genuine repentance has a cultivating effect upon the
heart.
You want to stir up the fallow ground
is your hard heart.
Can you not cry anymore?
You come to the altar and you can't
cry, you can't weep, you can't even weep
over your sin anymore.
Your heart needs to be stirred up.
The fallow ground needs to be broken up.
It's important because when some Brother Birch or
someone gets up to preach or you're in
Sunday school or whatever, the seed just goes
on that hard ground.
And then the enemy comes and steals it
away.
Why?
Because the ground's not chilled up.
It's not chilled up.
But genuine repentance has a cultivating effect upon
the heart, going through our lives at times
and earnestly seeking God to reveal areas of
our life where we have refused to repent
will point us to areas of hardness that
have come about by sin.
How many times has Brother Birch said it?
Holy Spirit, turn the searchlight on from heaven.
Why is that?
Because there's areas of hardness in your life
and God wants you to turn that over
and repent so that he can plant a
seed there, allowing God to show us places
where we quench the spirit and harden ourselves,
will stir the fallow ground when we repent
of those things.
So we've got to stay in a continuous
state of repentance, turn back to God.
That's what we have to do.
Now, we're going to get down to the
main thrust of this message.
You start talking about Victory 101, we need
to talk about radical repentance, Birch.
When you radically repent, your zeal for God
combined with your hatred of sin will cause
you to take aggressive steps in fortifying yourself
against sin.
Just take some aggressive steps.
Josiah was a radical individual when it comes
to repentance.
He destroyed the groves and the high places
in Israel.
See, a lot of the kings in the
past never would do that.
Oh, well, we'll try to get the people
back a little repentant.
No, he's like, that's not good enough.
We've got to get rid of the very
core of this sin.
We've got to make sure there are no
stepping stones back to the sin so that
we can be fully delivered.
I think about my dad, and I hope
he doesn't mind me telling a little bit
of his testimony.
When God delivered him of some 25 years
of alcoholism, first thing he did was rolled
out into the garage and opened up the
fridge, got out the trash can and dumped
out all the beer into the can, toted
it out to the curb.
He didn't put the bottle in his back
pocket, talking about, I'm going to show the
devil how strong I am.
Not only that, he took a different route
home.
Didn't go by the liquor store anymore.
You don't drive that way anymore.
So you've got to take steps like that.
When you truly hate your sin, you're like,
I ain't going back to that forever.
I guarantee you.
If I got to take two miles out
of my way to get home, I ain't
going by that liquor store.
It's tempted me for the last time.
Amen.
You don't go by it.
And then in time, it's a weird thing
because it's almost like, I want you to
think about it like this.
The devil had that refrigerator like a gun
of temptation.
And then the liquor store was like a
knife.
But then when the devil didn't have that
anymore, he would try to take out my
dad with a knife pick.
So how'd he do that?
Try to tempt him with that wine collection
he had since the 70s.
He don't like wine.
He hates wine.
So what'd he do?
Well, things becoming a problem.
Have to part company with it, too.
After the curb, it went.
After the curb.
See, listen, the devil will kill you with
a hangnail if he can.
Anything he can get to remind you of
your sin.
So then you thought, well, that's pretty much
it.
No.
Come over one day, he done rolled out
a whole big, huge crate or cart full
of albums in 45.
Where you going with that?
Remind me of the days when I used
to drink.
Can't be thinking about that.
Abstain from the very appearance of evil.
You say, man, brother, that's right.
No, that's somebody that don't want to go
back to their sin.
That's somebody who hates their sin.
They don't want to be caught up in
it.
But you know what?
We got so many people talking about, well,
I can handle it.
No big deal.
Yeah, you can handle it.
No, you're going to be handling it and
then it's going to be handling you.
That's right.
That's true.
Not only did he hate the sin, but
he hated, as it were, the very garment
spotted by sin.
That's Jude 23.
What does that mean?
He distances himself from sin as much as
is in him.
The facilities of sin, the vehicles of sin
are utterly forsaken.
The stepping stones to sin are removed.
I'll tell you something.
I can tell if you really wanted to
repent or not.
If I can ask you, did you get
rid of the stepping stones back to your
sin?
Oh, I know.
Well, then, you know what?
In the back of your mind, you're still
thinking, well, if anything goes wrong between me
and God, I'll just go on back.
Listen, you need to burn the bridges.
You need to burn the plow and the
oxen in your life.
Failure to remove the facilities, vehicles and stepping
stones is ultimately an indicator that you are
not really interested in victory, but in word
only, not in deed and in truth.
See, many talk repentance, but few are willing
to go through their life and eliminate the
provisions and the stumbling blocks for their sin.
The Bible said not to make provision for
the flesh to fulfill its lust.
They convince themselves they can handle certain weights
that allow sin to close the gap in
the race they are running, and then it
knocks them off track.
Hebrews 12, let us lay aside every weight
and the sin that does so easily beset
us.
Did you know the Greeks understood this?
They understood this.
I want you to think about this for
a minute.
It started out in their life, well, you
know, well, we really can't run in combat
boots.
So pretty soon they're running barefoot.
And then that wasn't enough.
So then somebody gained an advantage.
So they pretty soon they're in very little
clothing.
Did you know that the Greeks finally got
to the place to where they would have
to close off the Colosseum and only let
men to come in because the men were
running completely nude?
Because they knew that winning or losing a
race could be the difference between having a
pair of shorts on or not.
And what do you think if he's running
with something over his shoulder?
You know what the devil just does to
people like that?
He just walks up to you and just
kicks your feet out from under you.
You're running, you're stumbling, you know, and then
there's your weight.
They fell in front of you.
You're grabbing them up.
And while you're grabbing them up, he's right
behind you and just kicks your legs out
again.
And then you go picking them up.
Oh, I can handle these things in my
life.
I can handle it.
There went your feet again.
But what would happen, Church, if you just
dropped it all to the floor?
Boom, took off running.
Empty handed, made a beeline away from your
sin.
What would happen?
But see, we're so busy picking up the
things that we think we can carry that
got us caught in the first place.
Knocks us off track.
What happens?
We can handle it.
Famous last words of a Christian.
I can handle this.
You can't handle it.
They convinced themselves they can handle them.
Josiah knew that if the groves in the
high places remain, that Israel would keep stumbling
over and over the same old sin.
You know that?
He knew to get rid of it.
If you want to stop plowing iniquity, you've
got to get rid of the equipment.
You want to quit plowing iniquity?
Get rid of the equipment.
It's that simple.
Exercising your senses.
In Hebrews 6, we learn that we are
not to be laying the foundation of repentance
over and over again.
We're to go on to perfection.
In the closing verses of chapter 5, we
read that growth towards perfection requires that we
move from the milk to the meat of
God's word.
This can only happen, the passage says, if
we exercise our senses.
You have to take control of your five
senses.
You've got to control your eyes.
You've got to control your ears, so on
and so forth.
You have to train your senses to discern
good and evil.
This is how a person moves toward Christian
perfection.
That's how you do it.
Say, what are you talking about?
I'll tell you what.
You know what?
I can take off and start heading down
the highway and immediately, I'm going to start
having to turn from sin.
There's sin up on the billboard, I've got
to turn from it.
There's sin up, I've got to turn from
it.
You're forever having to be turned from sin.
Somebody turns on the radio, I've got to
turn my ear from that.
Turn from sin.
You're constantly having to turn.
You've got to exercise, you've got to control
your senses to keep turning yourself away.
Because when you sit there, you'll let the
devil just keep seeding your eyes.
He's just seeding your eyes.
He's seeding your ears.
He's got a funnel in your ear.
You're listening to all this mess.
He's got a funnel in your ear, a
big bag of seed, just dumping it down
in your ear.
Just seeding your heart up, and you're wondering
why you can't control yourself.
Listen, you've got to keep turning.
You're driving.
There's sin in your face.
Turn.
Keep turning from sin.
Keep turning.
Be self-controlled, and keep turning from your
sin.
You've got to exercise your senses.
When a person controls their senses as they
should, it will make it easier, watch this,
to control your tongue as you should.
The one who controls the tongue, Scripture says,
is a perfect man, James 3.2. But
the tongue can no man tame, for it
is unruly evil, full of deadly poison, James
3.8. When you begin talking about, when
you begin talking, rather, listen, your heart is
exposed.
It's like a printout.
You start talking, it's like somebody could read
your heart condition.
The Bible said, out of the abundance of
the heart, the mouth speaketh.
Say, well, you do real good in public.
What are you saying in private?
What are you saying in secret?
That's why I was saying a few weeks
ago, don't ever talk nasty.
You want to open up the door, and
the devil come into your life in a
way you've never seen, you can just start
using your tongue to talk some mess.
He'll come in your life with both feet.
Before it's over with, you won't know what
hit you.
The tongue can no man tame.
When your heart is exposed, what comes forth
is the good treasure of it, and that
is what has been carried in through your
senses.
He carries the mess into your heart through
your senses, because we don't guard our heart
with all diligence, for out of it are
the issues of life.
The tongue coats out what the senses take
in.
You hear that?
The tongue coats out what the senses take
in.
Last section, in the middle.
When you radically repent, you will hate your
sin to the place, as much as it's
in you, rather.
You will fortify yourself against the onslaught of
temptation.
You'll recognize that if Timothy needed to flee
youthful lust, so do you.
If Paul needed to bring his body into
subjection, lest when he preached to others, he
himself would become a castaway, so do you.
So do I.
We all do.
We won't reach the level when we don't
need to do these things.
You'll never think you stand, but you will
take heed, lest you fall.
You'll be on guard.
If you're not on guard, you're just, you
know, the devil's already really got you.
If you're not on guard, he's already got
you.
So you need to be vigilant.
You need to be sober, because your enemy's
like a roaring lion's already roaming about trying
to devour you.
Are you on guard this morning?
Are you on guard?
Are you the watchman of your own soul?
The context of this passage is temptation.
Matthew Henry comments saying, He that thinks he
stands should not be confident and secure, but
upon his guard.
You think you stand?
You think you're good to go?
Others have fallen, and so may you.
Others have fallen.
Greater men of God than I may ever
be have fallen in the face.
You know that?
I can fall just like them.
I can fall in a minute.
We are most likely to fall when we
are most confident of our own strength, and
thereupon we are most asked to be secure
and off our guard.
You're not on guard.
I'm good to go.
I mean, God's just like that.
No, you better get on guard.
You better get on your post.
You better make sure somebody's watching you and
vigilant and awake or sober.
Distrust, watch this, distrust of himself.
Do you trust yourself?
I don't trust myself.
I don't trust myself as far as I
can throw myself.
Not in my flesh.
Not in my flesh, church.
If you trust yourself, you're already deceived.
Because the fact of the matter is, you'll
lead yourself down the wrong path.
So many people, the Bible said, deceiving your
own self.
You can deceive yourself in a minute.
If it was true then, it's more true
today.
Distrust of himself.
Putting him at once upon vigilance and dependence
upon God is the Christian's best security against
all sin.
Be vigilant.
Be sober.
Realize what the devil's doing.
The Bible said we're not ignorant of the
devil's devices.
Finally, victory 101.
I got one minute.
Victory 101.
The attitude of genuine repentance is found in
the psalm of David who wrote this.
I will set no wicked thing before my
eyes.
I hate the work of them that turn
aside.
It shall not cleave unto me.
That word cleave, there is a unique Hebrew
word.
It means to catch me and knock me
off track.
Catch, overtake me and knock me off.
Think about that.
To set your sin in front of you
is to keep laying the foundation of repentance
over and over.
Because you know what?
You can't handle your sin.
You can't handle it.
No one is strong enough to keep access
to gross sin in their midst and continue
to keep resisting temptation.
No one's that strong.
Nobody is.
You know, there's certain limitations to what I
can allow in my own life because I'm
particularly vulnerable to certain things at certain times.
But if I take that stepping stone out
and then by the time I get my
pants on to get to some sin, the
distance between them and their sin, they want
it real close to them in case.
Well, you know what?
I just say, well, I fell again.
No, you didn't.
Put the thing out there.
Make it a long shot for you have
to get to it.
Make it so you've got to swim across
the ocean to get to your sin.
And by the time you get there, you'll
be like, man, I need to get back
to the other shore.
But when you've got your sin so close
to you to step right there, it is.
How could you have time to come to
yourself in three feet?
Get the sin out of your face.
Get it out of your face.
Unfortunately, many have already subconsciously planned to return
to their sin.
They would reject the notion if asked and
defensively would react about it if they ever
were mentioned.
But the truth is, when you have allowed
the stepping stones to your sin, you'll be
setting sin to remain in the place.
When you could remove them, it is evidence
that backsliding remains an option.
It's not an option for me or not
an option.
It's not an option.
Everyone needs a certain distance between them and
their besetting sin.
The distance between you and your besetting sin
is proportional to the length of your desire
to repent.
How far did you cast your sin from
you?
That's how bad you want to repent.
You got it still in your face.
You don't really want to repent.
It's evidenced by the closeness of your sin
to you.
David said, I'll set no evil thing before
my eyes.
See, he was like, you know what?
I'm not even tempted to sin.
David said, I will set no wicked thing
before my eyes.
Why?
Because he knew that he was weak at
times.
He was vulnerable to sin.
He guarded himself.
He said wickedness would not cleave to him.
That Hebrew word means to catch by pursuit.
If I set something wicked before my eyes,
the enemy will catch me by pursuit.
But if I don't do that, I can
be like the Greeks and run uninhibited and
keep some distance between me and sin.
I can press toward the mark of the
prize of high calling.
I can cross.
I can finish my course, keep the faith
and run a good race.
But I can't do it if I keep
telling myself I can handle this because you
know what?
You can't handle it.
Let me ask you guys a question.
Let me go back to my analogy.
I'm going to show you how true this
is.
What would happen if my dad would have
left that beer out in that refrigerator?
Where would he be today?
What if what if when the spirit of
God said you need to get rid of
that wine collection at the point of contact,
the devil is trying to get you and
he has left it there?
Or what about the record?
Where would he be today?