Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

Whatever Happened to Sin?

Let's see what we have for tonight. I was meditating on a subject that has been something going around in my spirit for a while, and then there was just a casual statement that was made that I heard on the radio just the other day that just kind of set it off. Since we are only going to be here for the one service, I thought I might as well just talk about it now. Here's what I heard on the radio. It was an advertisement for the "lending/credit-challenged". That's not the exact term, but it was an organization-it was an opportunity for those who are the lending-the credit-challenged; in other words, poor money managers. People that don't have any credit, bad risks, bankrupt. Remember when it used to be a stigma to be bankrupt instead of having a financial plan? Today we are living in a society when everybody is a victim, right? Everybody's challenged. So the title of the message tonight is a question: Whatever Happened to Sin? And I want to talk about that in our own lives, because I grew up in the church, from 20 years of age, not as a child like Janet who was-I shared the story-was raised up third generation Pentecostal Holiness. She was raised in a church where there were the buns and the no make-up, just white powder. All the women in the church looked like they'd been embalmed. Nobody could wear any lipstick. You couldn't cut your hair. She was raised in that kind of an environment as a young person. Actually, she and her mother and some of them, were the first ones to actually wear make-up. That spread rapidly, and finally people started to look alive. Like I've said over the years, my philosophy in this has always been, if the barn needs painting, paint it! We've got to look at you, ladies. Do the best you can.

Everything was sin. Everything was sin. They didn't have televisions in their house; TV was a sin. Going to the movies was a sin. Playing board games and cards was a sin. Everything was a sin. We kind of look back at these people now and we laugh very smugly in our new, enlightened liberty, our new walk in the spirit. And we look at these people and we kind of mock them. Don't you kind of look at these people and kind of laugh, because you know there's some of them still around? We'll kind of look at them and say, "One of these days they will be enlightened and they'll get mature and be able to see that we're not under the bondage of the law." And that's the truth. We are not under the bondage of the law. The fact of the matter is, not everything is sin, but the other fact that we have to deal with is this pendulum has swung way too far. Amen? Because nothing is sin anymore! Very frankly, as Christians we have too many liberties in our own perspective; our perspective of ourselves and what we can handle, what we are able to cope with. Many of us have come to the place of deceiving ourselves to the point of using our liberty as an occasion to the flesh. So we need to go back to the Scriptures and say, "What does the Word of God tell us about sin? What is sin?" In a society where nothing is sin, everything is free game; every man doing, the Scripture says, what is right in his own eyes. What does the Scripture tell us about this force, this power called sin? We don't hear about it anymore. But it's pretty important because the soul that sinneth it shall die (Ezekiel 18:4,20). Now this becomes a real important issue, wouldn't you say? The soul that sinneth it shall die. We realize that as we start dealing with this subject of sin, we go back and let's get the definition of sin and that's in the Greek, hamartia means to miss the mark; a coming short. What is the mark, really, that's being missed?

To understand it clearly, we have to go back to what the original sin was. Man was given, of course, the opportunity to fellowship with God. He was given dominion over all of the earth, over everything that lived on the face of the earth. And Father told him to be fruitful and multiply and to replenish the earth. He said, "All of these things are yours." He said, "I just don't want you to partake of the tree that's in the midst of the garden. Now, don't eat of that tree because the day that you do you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:27). The soul that sinneth it shall die. The sin, the missing of the mark, was that deception where Eve was deceived about Who God is; God's care for us, God's love for us, God's intention for us being good. The original sin was, "Has God said? You will not surely die. God is afraid that your eyes will be opened. You'll have the knowledge of good and evil. You'll ascend and you shall be like the most high God. You'll be like God. You'll be a god. You'll know good and evil" (Genesis 3:1-5). And you know, tragically, we've become very knowledgeable of evil. I talked a few months ago about our children and their loss of innocence. Innocence can never be restored. Many of us are losing our innocence and that's sin. I want to tell you something. The loss of innocence is sin. The loss of purity is sin. The knowledge of evil is sin. And the more we partake of it, the more knowledgeable we become, the more comfortable we become-I want to tell you something. Becoming proficient in the world's methods is sin-as we begin to trust in them, and hope in them, and profit from them, instead of God being our source.

So, we realize that sin is missing the mark. The mark is innocence. The mark is fellowship with God. The mark that's being missed in all sin is dependency upon the heavenly Father for everything that we have need of in our lives. Or as the Scripture says-we want to look at a couple of different portions of Scripture here that I believe will help us. Turn to 1 John, Chapter 5, verse 17, a passage that many of us are very familiar with. But, let me give you some of the biblical definitions of sin. Most of us here, [when] we talk about sin we're thinking about drugs. We're thinking about sex. We're thinking about stealing and lying on our income tax. We're thinking about deceiving our spouses, committing adultery, whatever, all of these heinous actions-so many of us feel fairly comfortable. Sin doesn't have dominion over me. The Scripture says in Romans 6, "don't let sin have dominion over you," and so we feel pretty good. We feel safe that we're not in that arena, that we might be damaged, that we might be destroyed. For the day that you partake of that independence, you'll die. The day that you become self-governing, you will die.

Sin is the choice to govern self, and sin is the choice to minimize God. Sin is the choice to exalt and promote and to think more of ourselves. 1 John, Chapter 5, verse 17 says, "All unrighteousness is sin." So as you get this in your notes and we begin to give a definition, all unrighteousness is sin. Let's just ask ourselves a rhetorical question. Does that mean then, to do anything that doesn't make me more like God is the fruit of sin? And the answer to that, of course, is yes. But there are secular things that we can do, there are mundane things, there are those type things that we do that are pretty much amoral. Then we have to come back and say, "Let's qualify that." Because what we're talking about is what we hope in, what we trust in, what we're partaking of in abundance, what becomes our treasure, what becomes our idol. Where we get into trouble is, we try to identify things as being moral and immoral, and we assume that all amoral is acceptable. But I want to tell you something: anything amoral that robs you from becoming righteous is sin, because all unrighteousness is sin. Anything that makes me less righteous is sin.

So we're going to go into 1 John and qualify these things, and look at the specific definition of these things, and the application of these things, as we go on. But I want you to catch these things and realize that we minimize way too many things. "Oh, there's nothing wrong with that." In and of itself, no; but what's the value you've placed upon it? Is it an idol in your life? Is it a treasure to you? Is it, in fact, bait or guile that is being used to entice you and seduce you away from what is right? Because the Scripture makes it very clear in James 4:17, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is [say it] sin." So we begin to see that knowing to do good and not doing it is sin. Many of us are under the bondage of purposing to do good. "Well, one of these days I'm going to do good. I plan on doing good. See, its right here on my priority list, number four." Number four. "Please self" is number one on the priority list. Sub-title: "go to Cold Stone." I got to go yesterday. I was loving it. I haven't been in a long time; went to the one up in Baltimore. We went up and saw the [new church] building, to check all of that out; to see Pastor Jim and go through the facility there. Things are looking great. Praise God! Continue to pray for them and the work that's going on. And of course, then it was necessitated by a trip to Cold Stone. The Lord was directing our steps. Here on this priority list was knowing to do good, and so we were at Cold Stone having to make the decision: do we get back for the Deacons' meeting? Cold Stone vs. everybody's problems. Well, we made it for the Deacons' meeting because, he that knows to do good, and doesn't do it, it's what? Sin. There's no sense in sinning over ice cream, so we came on back. "You mean you abstained from the ice cream?" No, we ate it quickly!

So, we realize that all unrighteousness is sin, 1 John tells us. He that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Now, what we know to do is to be righteous, and all unrighteousness is sin, and he that knoweth to be righteous, to seek righteousness, to hunger and thirst after righteousness and doesn't do it, to him it is sin. What do you have an appetite for? Where is your treasure? We've given ourselves so many liberties, and we've placed values on things around us of possessions: the new car, the new clothes, the new house, the new job, the new-you name it, whatever it is. We're distracted by all of these things: the new relationship, the new heartthrob, whatever that is in our life at this particular time. Many of these things can be blessings of the Lord. Is it occupying your life to the place where the amoral, the mundane, is robbing so much of your thought processes, your time, your strength, your energy, that you are in fact, becoming less a lover and pursuer of righteousness? But, we justify it by saying it is amoral, there's nothing really wrong with this. And you know what? It might not be wrong for 80% of the people in here, and it might not be wrong for you 80% of the time in your life, but what about now? Amen? We are living in a society though, that wants to justify everything. We want to be able to excuse ourselves because, see, we're all victims of time and circumstances. We live in a world where everyone has become a victim, and we see ourselves as victimized by the devil, victimized by sin. I want to tell you something. Sin shall no longer have dominion over you. Amen? We are not victims. We are more than conquerors. But we have to identify the enemy that we're fighting. I have found the enemy and he is me, or I am it, or it is I.

We look at having to answer that question, whatever happened to sin in our life? You know the people that we kind of make fun at, and wink at-oh we don't want to come back under the bondage of the law. There is a without-the-law righteousness. We can't live a good enough life to be accepted. We're saved by grace through faith. The letter kills. We understand all of those principles. We've spent many, many months bringing about the comprehensiveness of God's grace, and the liberty that we have in the spirit. But in the process of this, many of us have been seduced by the satanic, the antichrist spirit of lawlessness, that I would venture to say that many of our standards have been lowered as to what we would see as sin, challenge as sin, address in somebody else's life. Now don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not saying to go to work tomorrow and to talk to your unsaved co-workers and say, "That's sin." They're sinners; they're supposed to sin. Many of us want to go and tell sinners that they're not supposed to sin. They're serving their lord. You ought to commend them. Say, "You know what? You're the best sinner I've seen today. You are doing a good job for your god. You know that? I don't know that I've seen anybody more perverted than you. You're the greatest God-hater that I've seen today. I want to congratulate you. You are really doing a good job for your god." I wouldn't advise doing that. You might get decked.

What are the standards? You used to pray an hour and now you're more spiritual, so you only need 30 minutes. No! You need an hour and a half. Amen? Because, he that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Now what brought you to the knowledge that you were doing good; things were growing and you were growing spiritually? You were being obedient. You were praying an hour. And now you begin to set your own value system. You begin to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. You begin to minimize; because you're mature, you look at the law, the schoolmaster that you used to be under, and now you've matured beyond that and think that now you have no standards. The standard has just become higher. You've graduated, now, into adulthood. You're no longer under the law. You're no longer under bondage. You're no longer under dos and don'ts. You have now become a responsible adult to make choices, knowing that they affect others that are around you; choices that would encourage others through living to where you can say, "Follow me as I follow Christ;" to come into that higher realm of innocence, of death to self, of, "its no longer I that live, but Christ."

So we begin to see some of these definitions. Let me give you a couple more so that we can begin to apply these into maybe some more practical aspects. 1 John, Chapter 3, verse 4 "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law." This is just what I was making reference to. As we become mature, as we become spiritual, as we become free, we are not free from the law. We are free to keep the law. Amen? And to keep it, no longer trusting it for our righteousness, but keeping it because we are the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. The law can't make you righteous, for what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh for sin and condemned sin in the flesh, the Scripture tells us (Romans 8:3). Our trust is in Him. The law told me I can't do it. I can't make-listen-I cannot make the decision as to what is acceptable, not acceptable; what is sin, what is not sin. God's already made it in the Word. Amen? I'm looking now for His standard, not setting my own. The world is not going to set my standard. The current Christian fad is not going to set my standard, but the Word of God, for sin is transgression of the law. Am I keeping what the Word of God requires of me to keep?

What does the Word of God require for me to do? "Well, the Word of God requires me to pray and fast." Men ought always to pray. We're to fast. We're to fulfill our role in the body of Christ where we've been placed. Are we content with where God's placed us in the body of Christ or is ambition trying to make you go higher, to be more recognized, to get a more acceptable position? "I don't want just to be a nursery worker. I want to be a soloist." Are you content to fulfill your role in the body of Christ? See, these are the things that the Word of God requires of us. Are you content in your role as the young person now, as we've taught in the last couple of weeks, to be obedient to parents, wives to be submissive to your husbands, husbands to love your wives, to teach your children and train them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, to love them as Jesus loves you? That's what the law requires of you. And it's not the bigger and better home. It's not the fancy university. You see, to be caught up by all of those things and leave the weightier things undone of making a righteous family, of setting an example of denying ourselves so that we can become more Christlike, it's sin, men, in our lives. "Yes, but I'm working hard. I'm providing for my family." These are the requirements that the law has on you: to love your wife, to teach your children, to not forsake the assembling of yourselves, to be engrafted into the body of Christ, seek the good of others and not your own, and to edify and to lift up hands that are hanging down; all of these things.

Now see, we're doing a pretty good job in a lot of those areas, as we've been instructed and taught of the Lord. But where we're beginning to miss it some is we're doing some of those things, so we want to reward ourselves with some of these little peripheral amoral biscuits that are, very frankly, little foxes. It's bait, the Scripture calls it, guile of the enemy that we have to guard ourselves against, because not the world, but the church now has said, "There's nothing wrong with that. Everybody's doing it. It's acceptable. In fact, you know what? That's how we'll get more people in here." And the broad way, the broad definition of what is acceptable to God-I want to tell you something, Romans 14, verse 23 "...for whatsoever is not of faith is sin." Whatever happened to sin? Whatever happened to living by faith? What about the sin of not living by faith? We've got Christian doctors. We've got ORU (Oral Roberts University). We've got the seeker-friendly marketing program that we're using. We're just networking. And some of us would even sit here and look at those things and be kind of like, "Yeah, you know. How much networking have we done?" The Scripture talks about being engrafted, it talks about being intertwined, but that's for the purpose of strengthening others, not drawing off of others. What kind of a contribution are you making? Whom are you strengthening? Whom are you preferring? Are you living by faith? Is God your source? If everybody else here walks out on God, are you standing? For me to live is Christ. Do you draw your strength from the vision of others, from the momentum of who you're hanging with, or does your strength come from an audience with God? Because, if you're not living this life by faith, you're living it under the influence of the power of sin, the fruit of that tree in the midst of the garden, the knowledge of good and evil; the knowledge of God, but a self-governing life, still afraid. Having to defend ourselves, "Somebody's going to get ahead of me. I'm not going to get what I want. I've got to protect myself," instead of the absolute of vulnerability, of believing God, trusting God, loving, forgiving seven times seventy, no bitterness, no hatred, no guile, trust and innocence, praise God, that says, "The Lord's going to take care of me!" Amen? And everything else is sin. Everything else is missing the mark for what Jesus died to make us absolutely-to restore us to innocence, absolute dependency on God. Without Him I can do nothing! Isn't that neat? Do we live there?

How much can you do with out Him? Doctrine says, "Oh, nothing without the Lord." Okay, good doctrine. How about practical living? How much are you doing without God? How many decisions did you make today without taking God into consideration and saying, "Lord, what would You really have me to do?" I told you the scheduling and stuff didn't work out the way that I wanted it to for these next couple of weekends. So, I'm to the place right now where I was telling Greer, "I'm not having a check in my spirit, but I know where I am. I don't like this. I don't like being gone for three Sundays in a row." It happens very seldom over all of the 30 some years that we've been here. To me, all the Lord has to do is tell me, "I don't want you to go." It doesn't make any difference to me if I've have tickets or if I've got plans. I'm going to do whatever God wants me to do. I've said, "Father, if I've messed this thing up somehow, if I made a bad choice over there that has to be rectified over here that I'm not aware of, just tell me what You want me to do." I don't know what I'm doing. I'm making decisions. I think I'm doing the right thing, the acceptable thing, the wise thing here, and I'm going this way. But I firmly believe that God orders our steps. I firmly believe that we can hear that still, small voice that says, "This is the way." I am 100% amendable to God's voice at any time saying, "Stop right there," and I'm stopping right-you're going to run into me if you're following me. Those of you that have been around here a long time know that I'm a person-if it means turning something 360 degrees on the dime, that's where we're going. Take one spin and we head that-"Well, we're going the same direction. Why'd we spin around?" "Because. God said to." Amen?

What am I talking about? Living by faith; innocence. You don't have to understand it all. You don't have to know the plan. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof (Matthew 6:34). Amen? What a great way to live. Can't it make you look stupid sometimes? "Well, yeah, but we are stupid!" A lot of times it just gets us a revelation of ourselves, right? You look back and say, "Boy that was dumb!" We've applied that to our children sometimes. We look at our kids and go, "Oh, man!" It's all genetic. They got it from you. Why are we amazed when our kids do stupid things? Faith. Since we're talking about definitions, faith is trust, reliance, assurance, and whatever is not of faith, anything that we're trusting in other than God, His Word, is, say it, "sin." Whatever happened to sin?

See, you thought we were going to talk about watching TV shows. That's part of it. How many of you have been desensitized? How many of you can watch TV programs that you didn't used to watch because you're more mature now? No. You're hardened. You're hard. Don't you want your innocence back? Don't you want to be offended again by that kind of talk, or that kind of action, or that kind of ideology that's being promoted? You see, God can give us our healing, and cleanse us and purify us, and reestablish our standards and our values, if we'll trust Him; if we're amendable to Him. You know, the Scriptures tell us that we just need to flee sin. Isaiah Chapter 55, verse 7 says, "Let the wicked forsake his way, [and immediately our minds go these vile people, these idolaters, these adulterers, fornicators. But we've already established what sin is. Forsake that way] and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Whatever happened to the desire to be other than the majority of the world; to make our boast in our separateness, that holiness that God has called us to? Now remember, holiness, sanctification, literally just means being set apart for God. But not just set apart for God, it means to be set apart, what? Exclusively, entirely for God-now that's a heart issue. That's a life, a relationship issue. Many of us that are not involved in full-time service, priesthood type things, are involved in secular. You can still be holy. You are God's holy instrument, sanctified exclusively, set apart for Him. He's taken you and placed you in that role that you're in for His glory and His purposes. Have we become tainted? Have we become distracted? Have we become disillusioned? Have you given up on folks that you've been trying to evangelize? We need to let God stir our hearts again in faith for those souls that are under the power of sin.

Had a man sharing with me the other day, he was just grieved that he'd lost some of his testimony. People at his work used to not tell dirty jokes around him. In fact, a new guy came, and at one point the owner of the company told him, "Hey, don't you talk that way in front of this man. He's a man of God." But through compromise and lowering of different standards, a failure to stand up and boldly speak for what the convictions were, because of different areas that all of us run into of just a little bit of apathy-have you lost your testimony? Do you want it back? Let God reestablish what sin is, what you will accept and what you won't accept as God's representative; not putting it off on them. A lot of people say, "Hey, I'm a Christian. Don't swear in front of me." They have a right to swear if they want. If they swear I'm just going to quote Scriptures. Tell them, "You know what? I'll make you a deal. Every time you honor your god, I'm going to honor mine. You cuss; I'm going to quote Scripture to you. Meet you at noon." No apology. Just recognize-say, "I know what you're doing is natural. That's your god. That's how you guys live. I'm going to show you how we live so you'll have a choice." Everything that guy is doing is natural, acceptable and normal to the majority. You're going to be weird. That guy is weird. The pervert is normal. That Holy Joe guy is weird. We serve a holy God. Amen? And He'll have no other gods before Him.

As we come and we reevaluate where we are and how we see sin, not in the world, in our lives; the standard that we're going to live, the goals that we're going to have, the treasures that we're going to seek are all determined by how we see sin, what we see sin to be. I'll end with what we were starting with. Sin is the devaluing of God, the overvaluing of self. Sin is independence. The wages of sin are death. The soul that sinneth it shall die. We've seen that all unrighteousness is sin. Sin is transgression of the law. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. He that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. We need to return and understand the rock from which we've been hewn. We need to choose the old paths. We need to go back to the Word of God and let it set our values, our course, and our treasure, and then sin will no longer have dominion over us.

Father, we do thank You for Your Word tonight and we just ask that You would stir our hearts. Cause us to run to You and to Your Word and to be refreshed, to realize that we're living in a world where man justifies himself on every hand. And we've been vexed. The standards have been lowered, the liberties have been broadened and they were being used as an occasion to the flesh. So we just ask, Father, that You would reestablish the course, the standard, our purposes. Renew our hearts and minds to seek You, to be like You. Cause us to guard ourselves from the need to understand, the need to know, and to live by faith. For whatsoever is not of faith is sin. We live in absolute reliance upon You, trust in You, assurance that Your Word will be established for a thousand generations. That we rest in Father in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Before you go, turn to somebody next to you. Say, "Don't let sin have dominion over you." Amen. Go in peace, God's love go with you.

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