Fighting Against Sin

“In the deceitfulness of our hearts, we sometimes play with temptation by entertaining the thought that we can always confess and later ask forgiveness. Such thinking is exceedingly dangerous. God's judgement is without partiality. He never overlooks our sin. He never decides not to bother, since the sin is only a small one. No, God hates sin intensely whenever and wherever He finds it.”

- Jerry Bridges

12 Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God.

13 You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.

- Hebrews 3:12-13

There are times when I find myself confronted by my own depravity. While I’d like to think that I am inherently good, it does not take long to determine that just the opposite is true. I am a sinner.

It is so easy to be deceived by sin and get caught in its trap. We are bombarded daily by the things of this world. Thoughts and images pass by us so quickly, they soon become commonplace and acceptable. We fall into the ways of the world before we even realize what has happened. We become such experts at lying and justifying things that we even deceive ourselves.

However, when we take a step back and see things from a wider and clearer perspective and we allow the Holy Spirit to do His work in us, it does not take long to recognize the sin in our lives, regardless of how innocent it may look. Former Bishop J.C. Ryle put it this way, “We may give wickedness smooth names, but we cannot alter its nature and character in the sight of God.”

In Hebrews 3:13, the writer exhorts us to warn each other every day of the deceitfulness of sin. Some translations use the word “encourage” rather than “warn.” Either way, the responsibility is there for each one to warn and encourage each other to walk closely with God and avoid sin.

We, as Christ-followers, often find things to disagree and fight about, things that in the big picture are trivial and even meaningless.

If we want to fight, let’s fight together against the true enemy. As Billy Graham said, “If we the church want a cause to fight, let’s fight sin.”

Pastor Ken

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