There comes a point in our lives when we sense that something bad is about to happen when we assume “invincibility.”
We continue in sin because we willingly abuse 1 John 1:9.
“If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
1 John 3:6 says, “Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.”
For 33 years in masturbation, 10 of these years in pornography, I abused that verse of Scripture.
It became my hypocritical fall back position so that I would “seem” right when it would be time for me to preach and teach the Word of God.
Afterwards, I would resume the sexual addictive cycle of
1. Thoughts/fantasies.
2. Ritual/Provision for the flesh.
3. Acting Out Sexually.
4. Remorse.
There is a difference between remorse and repentance.
Remorse is about you being sorry that you got caught.
Repentance means “godly sorrow that works repentance, leading to salvation not to be regretted...” (2 Corinthians 7:10). You fully grasp that you hurt the heart of the Lord in your sin. It means that you are done forever with that sin according to Proverbs 28:13. Remorse covers sins. Repentance removes sin far from you because you are in God (abiding in Him see John 15:1-8) and so near to God (see James 4:7-10).
Hebrews 12:1 says, “Let us lay aside every weight and the SIN that does so easily beset us…”
James 1:21 says, “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”
Do not get me wrong. God lovingly forgives us freely. That’s His nature. When we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, BUT when we treat God like a walking mat and walk all over the blood that was shed for us because we would not stop sinning, we do not have the terror of God in us.
In 2 Corinthians 5:9-11, Paul says, “Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences.”
The dispensation of grace has been so abused that we now hear convoluted teaching that we can sin and all our future sin is forgiven because Colossians 2:11-15 declares that God nailed the handwriting of ordinances against us to the cross of Christ. Past, present, and future sins are forgiven.
Many people have said as a result that….“God knows my heart.”
Yes, He does know your heart that it“…is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, Who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9
Ecclesiastes 8:11-13, the Preacher said, “Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times, and his days are prolonged, yet I surely know that it will be well with those who fear God, who fear before Him. But it will not be well with the wicked; nor will he prolong his days, which are as a shadow, because he does not fear before God.”
You have to ask yourself if you are a practitioner of lawlessness or not.
Because if you practice sin because you claim that you can’t control yourself, the Lord will tell you one thing.
“Depart from Me you who practice lawlessness.”
When you have the terror of God in you, you will not sin.
When you didn’t get judged for the last time you sinned, nothing happened, you feel that you could get away with it. Again, and again.
The endless cycle continues.
Why?
No fear of God in us.
Many have talked so much about the “fear of the Lord” as if it’s just the reverential, worshipful fear of God when we are in a church service.
After hearing Paul Washer preach on this, my perspective dramatically changed.
I already had a healthy fear of God like avoid the third rail on subway tracks. I already knew about the “flame of fire in the eyes of Jesus,” Revelation 1:14, 2:18, and 19:12.
But to understand the fear or terror of God in the light of your sins is a different perspective.
As I was witnessing with the Abolitionist’s Agitation Signs of murdered babies, a lady was offended that a man would tell her about how to govern her right to choose. She claims to be a professed believer in Jesus, yet, she advocates the murder of babies. She told me that it’s between her and her God. It was bold and blasphemous.
How?
When you stand before the judgment seat of Christ, it is not going to be a Hollywood award ceremony.
Days later, I said to myself, she really do not want to stand before the Head of the Church, if she is genuinely saved, to give an account for what she just said. The flame in His eyes is not a light show. It is the anger and terror of God staring at you and penetrating your entire being. To the degree that you will understand, in no uncertain terms, that He is fully God and fully angry.
It is there, in the Flame of His eyes, that the good and the bad will be judged by Him of all believers that made it into the kingdom. It will be the place where all our deeds will be exposed and where we will render an account before God.
Paul said in Romans 14:10-12, “For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written: “As I live, says the Lord, Every knee shall bow to Me, And every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.”
Then there is the judgment of our works. That is, the things that we believe that the Lord told us to do and built on top of the foundation.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:10, “But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”
The reason why believers sin so easily is that there is no terror in the eyes of people.
Paul said in Romans 3:10- 18, “As it is written:
“There is none righteous, no, not one;
There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
“Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit”;
“The poison of asps is under their lips”;
“Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
Destruction and misery are in their ways;
And the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
If we were really terrified of God, sin would be a quick thing of the past.
There are many people that do not like this kind of God. They would much rather have the loving, soft, forgiving God that understands that we are not perfect and that He understands that we make “mistakes.”
There is a vast different between making mistakes and deliberately sinning against God.
Many believe that this is “sledge hammer preaching.”
No, this is the very nature of God that we never preached about because all of us want to avoid turning people way from what the Bible clearly states.
We avoid these messages because as Todd Friel, Ray Comfort, and Tony Miano said we have erected a god that is not like the God of the Bible.
Many of us practiced idolatry and didn’t even know it. We have shied away from the awesome terrible God that brings judgment upon those that continue in sin. Grace cannot abound when we continue in sin (see Romans 6:1).
Paul tells us “That if we would judge ourselves we would not be judged.”
Every time folk in the church of Corinth took communion, they would get sick and some of them would die because they had failed to discern or fully understand the Lord’s Supper. This means that you understand clearly, and with all gravity that the Body and Blood of our Lord was sacrificed for our sins. To desecrate this celebration is blasphemous and worthy of judgment, up to and including death.
Therefore, we must preach the terror of the Lord because when you are not scared to sin, you will sin as easy as breathing air and drinking water. You will not think twice about going for it. But after you get a revelation of the terror of the Lord, we need to warn others to be very afraid because God is love, but He is also just, righteous, and holy, and God has zero tolerance for sin.
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