[Biblemat] A> That You May Not Sin

[Steven C. Harper]

From: TRUTH & REASON, a bulletin of the Glendale church of Christ, Glendale, AZ. 
Editor: Steven Harper 
October 21, 2007
That You May Not Sin

 

   One of the great promised blessings of being a child of God is the care of God for those who are His. Under the Old Law, God told His people, "If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in His eyes, and give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer" (Exod. 15:26). Though it was conditioned upon their obedience to Him, God promised His care and protection to the Israelites, who were His people. Later, He would tell them He was sending His angel before them and "if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries" (Exod. 23:18). Again, though it was conditioned on their obedience, God promised His care and deliverance from their enemies.

   In the New Testament - to the people of God who are now called Christians -God has promised He "will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it" (1 Cor. 10:13). That promise of God to His people is just as sure and trustworthy as any other made by Him, and we do not have to doubt that it will be so. But as we consider this great, comforting promise, let us not think that He is going to do all the work while we sit back and do nothing. Just like many of His promises to His people before, it is a conditional promise, dependent upon us doing what we must. The question is: What has God given us that we will not be tempted beyond what we are able to bear - what is that "way of escape"? The answer to that important question - not surprisingly - is found within His revealed word, the Bible!

   The Written Word of God. (1 John 2:1) Yes, it is the word of God itself which serves as a means of escaping temptation! We probably already know this if we know anything about the temptation of Jesus. It was then that every time the devil tried some new means of tempting Jesus that Jesus replied every time, "It is written." (Matt. 4:1-11). Every time the devil threw something at Him, Jesus was prepared and he answered with the one thing that would deflect the temptation and provide for Him a way of escape. Jesus didn't simply ignore those temptations, but answered them. This is important! You see, if you never answer temptation, when it comes again, you will be just as unprepared as the previous time and, eventually, you will fall to the temptation. Temptation must be answered and it must be defeated or it will come back to try us again and again.

   But let me now point out that this "way of escape" is entirely dependent upon our own willingness to know God's word and our willingness to put forth the effort to diligently study it to find the answers to those inevitable temptations. Just because the written word of God exists doesn't mean all my worries are over; I must take it up, open it up, and soak it up [study it]. Though the answers to every temptation are found within God's written word, I will not know what those answers are or where they are unless I have studied God's written word!

   Let me also now point out that simply knowing what God's word says is not enough, either. In that same occasion when the devil tempted Jesus, he used Scripture as a means of trying to get Jesus to do his will (cf. Matt. 4:6), but he did not use it properly. This is why you must "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15). When we handle God's word improperly, we will either (1) misinterpret it, (2) misapply it, or (3) both. Just knowing what the Bible says is not enough to answer temptations; we must know what the text means and we must know how to properly apply it to avoid sin. There are some brethren right now who are saying a different application of certain passages of Scripture is only a matter of "scruples" [personal moral standards that restrain us, such as the eating of meats addressed in Romans 14], but they fail to see the great danger in their error in that the "different [improper; erroneous] application" of the word leads to sin! Until they see the "difference in application" leads to sin, they will continue in their error!

   It is in God's word that we learned of our own sin (Rom. 3:23) and the need for a Savior because we could do nothing to remove the stain of sin (Gal. 2:16; 3:11). It is within God's written word that we read of God Himself - His great grace (Rom. 3:24; Titus 3:5) and of His great love (Rom. 5:8). It is there we find that we must repent of our sins and be baptized (Acts 2:38) that the precious blood of Jesus can wash away our past sins (Rom. 6:3, 4). Now in Christ, we have the blessing of knowing that when we sin and we confess and repent of those sins, God will forgive (1 John 1:9; Acts 8:22). God's word not only gives us the way of escape before we sin, but also the way of escape should we fall!

            Within God's word, too, we find another answer to temptation:

            Fear of God. (Exod. 20:20). When Israel came to Sinai to receive the word of God from Him, the sight was terrifying, to say the least. When God came down to speak to them, the people saw "the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking" (v. 18) and they "were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off." They then asked Moses to do all the speaking from then on, and not let God speak to them again lest they die (v. 19). It was then that Moses told them God had come to them in this way "to test you, that the fear of Him may be before you, that you may not sin."

            No doubt, if those who witnessed the great and terrible display of God's awesome power and might [then, at Sinai, or any of the other times when He demonstrated His power and might] kept that day in mind, they would not sin! If they had remembered the great display of God's might, who would have dared transgress the will and command of the Creator of the universe and the one who spoke and caused everything to be created from nothing? The problem was [and is] that men forgot, and they lost that fear [respect] for God. When they lost that fear, they sinned!

            It is no coincidence that the wise writer said, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Prov. 1:7), and, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (9:10). It is also no coincidence a wise writer concluded that the whole purpose of man was to "Fear God and keep His commandments" (Eccl. 12:13). But let us not sell this "fear" short of what it truly is; it is respect, but it is also a respect that must be demonstrated by the way we live because we respect and honor Him. The wise writer again adds an important point about the proper respect for God: "The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil" (Prov. 8:13).  One cannot properly show respect for the Lord unless and until he has a proper hatred of evil. God and evil cannot co-exist in the life of any man (Psa. 5:4), and we cannot pretend to serve two masters (cf. Matt. 6:24); that would be the ultimate show of disrespect to God!

            When we truly hate evil [therefore, when we hate sin] we will have no desire to practice it and when those temptations come, we will see it as an attempt to disrespect God and we will rightly abhor it (Rom. 12:9), avoid it, and cling to what is good in the sight of God. Seeing how close we can get to it without falling into sin is foolish, at best!

    These are the promises and blessings of God to help us to not sin; now, will we take the way of escape?        -- Steven Harper
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