Our Attitude and Behavior toward Indwelling Sin – Part 1
By John Fast
All deception is bad, self-deception is worse, but self-deception in things pertaining to salvation is the most terrible deception of all. For a person to pretend to be what they know they are not is gross hypocrisy and fraud. But for a person to be persuaded that they are what they are not, and to have what they do not possess, this is common hypocrisy and self-deception. Therefore God uses many tests to prove and try the sincerity of our faith, to see whether it is true or false, genuine or counterfeit, real or imaginary, the product of background, tradition, and upbringing or of a new birth. “The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests hearts….In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ….do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing” (Pv 17:3; 1 Pt 1:6, 7; 4:12). These tests are to faith what fire is to gold.
Perhaps the least appreciated trial of faith is the test of prosperity and the ease and accommodation which attends it. The Israelites were warned of the dangers posed by prosperity, “and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart becomes proud, and you forget the Lord your God” (Dt 8:13, 14). The rich young ruler chose his riches over Christ (Lk 18:18-25). Riches are deceitful because they promise what they cannot deliver, and they choke the word making it unfruitful (Mk 4:19; 1 Tm 6:17). Lusts that before could not be gratified for lack of means and opportunities are now indulged.
The Laodiceans could not have been more self-deceived about their true condition (Rv 3:17). Their self-assessment was the polar opposite of Jesus’ appraisal. They couldn’t have been more wrong. Riches draw the heart away from God and set the mind on earthly things (Ps 52:7). They blind us to our true condition and need. The Bible tells us that from all of humanity there are comparatively few who will enter by the narrow gate (Mt 7:13, 14), and of these few there will be fewer still who were prosperous in this world (Lk 18:24, 25). “Listen, my beloved brethren; did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promises to those who love Him” (Jm 2:5; cf. Rv 2:9)? No one can love, trust, and serve God and money (Lk 16:13). The Bible is chockfull of warnings against the dangers posed by prosperity. It is easy to profess faith in Jesus when that profession is accommodated and even expected, or where that faith is merely a means to some worldly attainment. Prosperity and accommodation fill the church with hypocrites.
Another test of faith is the trial of adversity, opposition, hardship, and persecution. These distinguish true faith from a false stony ground faith which has no root, but is only temporary (Mk 4:17). It is easy, respectable, and even expected to be a Christian in times of ease and accommodation. When no sacrifice and hardship is involved, when there is no requirement to surrender anything, then a selfish heart is easily concealed. It easily feels good-natured toward God and man. However, when sound doctrine is no longer endured by the majority of professing Christians, when it becomes costly to uphold and affirm biblical truth, when false doctrine and false teachers become popular and mainstream, then the hireling will become a changeling. They would rather choose sin than affliction; what is popular and customary over what is biblical; the pleasures of Egypt than the reproach of Christ (Hb 11:26). They would rather compromise and side with evil rather than stand alone with good. They would rather make no distinction between the holy and profane than identify sin as sin and error as error (Ezk 22:26-28). Prosperity and accommodation will fill the professing church with hypocrites, but affliction will drive them from it. Prosperity and ease multiplies professors, but adversity brings them to the test.
A person never knows themselves until they are called to deny self and make significant and costly sacrifices for Christ. Job understood the purpose of all the suffering with which he was afflicted, “When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10). God tested Joseph’s faith with affliction, “They afflicted his feet with fetters, he himself was laid in irons…the word of the Lord tested him” (Ps 105:18, 19). “And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tm 3:12). What we are is to be determined, not in times of ease and pleasure, but in times of trial and adversity.
Of all the tests which God uses to try the sincerity of a person’s faith, perhaps none is more determinative, none sifts us finer, and none shows our true condition more plainly, than a person’s attitude and behavior towards the sin which dwells in us. We may wonder why God permits sin and evil to remain in the hearts of even the best of Christians; why He would permit us to be burdened so. The answer is He leaves them to test us and humble us.
There is no inherent good in sin, but God uses even sin to fulfill His purposes (Ac 2:23; 4:27, 28; Pv 16:4; Lam 3:37, 38). One of those purposes is that by our attitude and behavior towards it the sincerity of our faith may be discerned. “No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious…(1 Jn 3:9, 10). In respect to their attitude and behavior towards sin, the distinction becomes obvious. The children of God and the children of the devil are made obvious, not by their absolute freedom from ever sinning, but by their attitude and behavior towards sin before, or under, or after its commission. How a person relates to sin in five areas will reveal the sincerity of their faith. The difference is discernable. These five areas are:
- In our abstinence and avoidance of sin
- In our hatred and loathing of sin
- In our sorrow and remorse over sin
- In our subjection to the demands of sin
- In our opposition to sin
In this study we will consider two of these five dispositions towards sin which discriminate and disclose the spiritual condition of a person; whether they bear the marks of a child of God or a child of the devil.
In Our Abstinence and Avoidance of Sin
The reasons and motives for abstaining from sin make the sincerity of our faith obvious. They will distinguish the true from the false Christian, because each one works from, and are motivated by different principles as we will show. False Christians may be motivated to abstain from sin by several reasons.
First, a false Christian may abstain from some sins simply because they are opposed to and inconsistent with other sins. They will avoid one lust in order to gratify another which is stronger. They may trade a more overt and obvious sin for a similar, more secret sin. Gluttony is contrary to vanity. Indulging in internet pornography or social media romances is not as obvious as blatant immorality and infidelity. They will trade ambition for success in a temporal vocation for ambition to make a name for themselves in religion. Competing sins may oppose each other for dominance, but the heart is still enslaved to one or the other. For someone to think they are avoiding sin when they are only denying one sin to gratify another is not abstinence, but hypocrisy and self-deception. Sin is still being practiced. They may call on the name of the Lord, but they do not abstain from wickedness (2 Tm 2:19), thereby making the insincerity of their faith obvious.
Second, an insincere heart may be kept from committing some sins simply by some providential restraint placed upon it by God’s common grace. It is not so much from a lack of willingness to sin, but a lack of opportunity that keeps them from committing some sins. This was the case with Abimelech with regard to Abraham’s wife Sarah, “I also kept you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her” (Gn 20:6). A person may be ready and willing to commit some sin, but God interposes with some providence and hinders them from doing what they will. “Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check” (Ps 32:9). The only thing that restrains most people from sinning is some form of bit and bridle. Remove what restrains them from sinning and nothing will keep them from their sin.
Third, an insincere heart may abstain from some sins, not because he truly hates them, but because he has no particular inclination toward them. The unregenerate heart is “enslaved to various lusts and pleasures” (Tit 3:3). One is enslaved to this lust and one to another; one to this pleasure and one to another. A younger person will be enslaved to different lusts and pleasures than an older person. Some people could not be drunkards if they tried, and to most drugs hold no attraction. Some would never even consider committing the act of adultery. Their abstinence is owing to their natural temperament and personality rather than to a new nature. The old nature at its best is still the old nature.
Fourth, a false Christian may be restrained from some sins because of the home, culture, and background into which they were born and raised and the principles of morality which were instilled in them. The fear of family and peers deters them, not the fear of God. This is the influence of man upon man, not the influence of God on the heart.
Fifth, many abstain from some sins because of fear of the consequences. They imagine what would happen if they were caught, the shame it would bring on themselves and their family, or the punishment involved if found out. They avoid some sins, not because God has forbidden them, but because human laws would punish and people’s opinion would brand them. A few might even avoid because they have a fear of going to hell, but this fear is very rare in our day and holds virtually no deterring power.
These are the motives by which most people are restrained from sin today, even most professing Christians. It is good that sin can be prevented, but to abstain from sin on the basis of these reasons is no indication your faith is sincere and genuine, but rather in this “the children of the devil are obvious”. The greatest judgment God can bring on a people is to remove those things that restrain them from sinning as much as they would, and by giving them ministers that will sanction people in their sin (Rm 1:32). God judges their sin with their sin. This is called being given “over to a depraved mind” (Rm 1:28), and there is no recovery from this condition. They are so far gone that they call evil good, and good evil (Is 5:20). “They display their sin like Sodom; they do not even conceal it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves” (Is 3:9). Once someone sinks this far into depravity, their case is usually hopeless.
The sincere heart, however, is motivated by other reasons which make it obvious that they truly are children of God. First, a sincere heart abstains from and avoids sin because it knows the eye and ear of a just and holy God sees and hears all they do, “He who planted the ear, does He not hear? He who formed the eye, does He not see” (Ps 94:8, 9)? “Can a man hide himself in hiding places, so I do not see him?” declares the Lord, “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the Lord” (Jer 23:24). Their fear and reverence for God will not allow them to willfully, boldly, and presumptuously sin because they live under the awe of God’s omniscient presence. Fear of God is a product of regeneration, the absence of which shows there has never been a new birth, “I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me” (Jer 32:40). God only looks to those who tremble at His word (Is 66:2). “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him (Ps 103:11). This fear of offending a holy God will keep a sincere heart from sinning even when no human eye or ear can discover it, “Who understands the power of Your anger, and Your fury, according to the fear that is due You” (Ps 90:11)? Nehemiah refused to do what former governors had done and use his position for personal profit “because of the fear of God” (Neh 5:15). Those who fear the Lord also turn away from evil (Pv 3:7). For the one who has the fear of God in their heart, the fact that God sees and hears is enough reason to avoid and abstain from every form of evil (2 Thes 3:22).
Second, a sincere heart is motivated to abstain from sin not only by the fear of God, but also out of love for God. “Hate evil, you who love the Lord” (Ps 97:10). “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments….He who does not love Me does not keep My words” (Jn 14:15, 24). Love for God is a great restraint from sin to a sincere heart. Like Joseph a sincere Christian will say, “How then could I do this great evil, and sin against God” (Gn 39:9)? Is this the gratitude I am to show for all His kindness toward me; to use the blood of Jesus as a cloak and license for my sin and lusts?
Third, just as love for God, so is the intrinsic evil of sin a motive for its avoidance, “Abhor that which is evil” (Rm 12:9). One mark of an unregenerate heart is “he does not despise evil” (Ps 36:4), whereas the sincere heart says, “I hate and despise falsehood, but I love Your law” (Ps 119:163). A sincere heart loathes sin, all sin, because they see sin for what it really is, a deadly and deceitful enemy, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against your soul” (1 Pt 2:11).
Fourth, the new nature of a true Christian and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit restrain sin and produce an avoidance of sin. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (Rm 8:14). “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please” (Gal 5:17). Why can’t you do them? Because it would be against your new nature and opposed to the Spirit within. All who have truly been born again know this to be true by experience. They know that they were once slaves to sin, but are now slaves to righteousness (Rm 6:18).They no longer run in the same “excess of dissipation” (1 Pt 4:4).
Fifth, the experience and remembrance of sin’s bitterness motivates a sincere heart to avoid sin, “Your ways and your deeds have brought these things to you. This is your evil. How bitter! How it has touched your heart” (Jer 4:18; cf. Jer 2:19)! All of sin’s promised pleasures cannot entice a person to once again experience sin’s bitterness, “The heart knows its own bitterness,” (Pv 14:10; 5:3, 4). Sin’s pleasures are momentary, but its bitter consequences can last a lifetime. Only those who have experienced the bitterness of sin, truly know the bitterness of sin, and so avoid it. If a person thinks of sin fondly, they have never known its bitterness. Peter wept bitter tears for having denied Jesus, but he never denied Jesus again. David never again committed adultery.
Sixth, the suffering of Jesus for sin is a powerful restraint in a sincere heart for avoiding the willful commission of sin. “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me….Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 2:20: 5:24). Sin is what caused the suffering and death of Christ, so the death of Christ becomes the death of sin in His people. Hereby the children of God and the children of the devil become obvious, and that is in the motives and reasons for their abstaining from sin.
In Our Hatred and Loathing of Sin
This also makes a clear distinction between the children of God and the children of the devil. No false or insincere heart can hate sin as sin. There are several things about sin which an unbeliever may hate, but they cannot hate sin as sin.
First, they may hate sin in others, but not in themselves, “And do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment upon those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God” (Rm 2:4). A proud person hates pride in another; a greedy person hates greed in another; a critical person hates to be criticized. They are quick to discern the faults in others, even though they are but a speck in comparison to the log in their own eye. Among all a person’s good attributes, they are quick to find, pick, and poke at the speck. By this the children of the devil are obvious.
Second, an insincere heart may hate the effects and consequences of sin, but not sin because it is sin. There are many in prison who hate that they were caught and convicted, but not the sin which they have done. It is not sin they hate, but sin in connection with its consequences. If sin could be separated from its consequences, then nothing could separate them from sin. Today our society is engrossed with finding ways to avoid the consequences of sin without giving up the sin they love, even to the point of murdering their own offspring. We live in a culture that is obsessed with living in sin without bearing the consequences of sin. Many have turned sin into a virtue. Most of the professing church is intent on offering salvation without the relinquishment of sin. It is futile to think you can separate sin from its consequences. “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap”….”As you have done, it will be done to you, your dealings will return on your own head” ….The wages of sin is death” (Gal 6:7: Ob 15; Rm 6:23).
Third, a false heart is selective in its hatred of sin. It will hate this sin but not that sin. It will hate one form of immorality but not another; one form of dishonesty but not another. He/She will hate sins that are harmful and destructive to their own interests, but not those that are profitable and pleasurable, “You love evil more than good, falsehood more than speaking what is right” (Ps 52:3). They will hate open sin, but not secret sin; sins that will discredit them, but not those that make them appear righteous before men. They will redefine sin, or give it respectable names, or call it a disease or disorder in order to absolve themselves from its guilt and plead ignorance to its nature as sin, “what is our iniquity, or what is our sin which we have committed against the Lord our God….How have we despised Your name” (Jer 16:10; Mal 1:6)?
Fourth, the false professor may hate sin in a moment of conviction, his sin may lay heavy on his conscience, or when he is in fear of his sin being found out, so he assuages his guilt and fear by promises of reformation, restitution, and vows of never to do it again. Before long, however, the conviction and danger passes and he is again reconciled with his lust, “A dog returns to its own vomit, and, ‘A sow, after washing, returns to wallow in the mire” (2 Pt 2:22; cf. Pv 26:11).
A sincere heart, however, hates sin for different reasons, and it is this hatred for sin which distinguishes the children of God from the children of the devil. First, since sin is opposed to all that is God – His nature; His commands; His Word – a sincere heart hates and opposes sin because sin is opposed to the object of its greatest love and affection. “I will set no worthless thing before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not fasten its grip on me. A perverse heart shall depart from me; I will know no evil” (Ps 101:3, 4). All that is opposite to and against the holy nature and law of God cannot help but be abhorrent to a sincere heart because the law of God is in their heart, “I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart”….For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man” (Ps 40:8; Rm 8:22).
Second, a true Christian hates sin in himself more than he hates it in others. When Isaiah saw himself in light of God’s holiness, he did not justify himself by pointing to others who were more sinful than he, but cried out, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips,” (Is 6:5). When Job was brought to a greater and truer understanding of who God is, he repented in dust and ashes (Job 42:6). When Peter was confronted with the power of Jesus, he begged, “Go away from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Lk 5:8). A true Christian has an acute awareness of his own sinfulness and hates it, “Wretched man that I am” (Rm 7:24). An unbeliever may admit they are a sinner, but they will not admit or loath the fact they are sinful.
Third, a sincere Christian hates not simply this or that particular sin, but he hates all sin as sin; everything that is sinful. A person who hates snakes hates every kind and size of snake. True hatred hates everything associated with sin, “hating even the garment polluted by the flesh” (Jude 23). They do not insist there is some good to be derived from what is sinful and evil; they do not attempt to gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles (Mt 7:16), but understand that if the tree is bad, so is its fruit. “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil”….”I hate every false way” (Pv 8:13; Ps 119:104). He hates sins that are pleasurable, entertaining, and profitable as well as those that are harmful, offensive, and destructive; sins that are secret as well as sins that are open. He will not “participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness” (Eph 5:11, 12) on any level. Sin holds no entertainment value. This is a test which no false Christian can stand because they always indulge some known sin, either actually or vicariously. They willingly harbor this lust because they are still slaves of sin. There is a sin from which they refuse to be separated that is as dear to them as their own eye or hand (Mt 5:29, 30).
Fourth, a sincere heart hates sin with an irreconcilable hatred. Every time God delivered Israel into the hands of those who oppressed them, they would cry out to Him for deliverance, “But as soon as they had rest, they did evil again before You;” (Neh 9:28). Many will leave their sin and cry out to God for mercy in a time of personal tragedy or national disaster, but when the danger passes they go right back to their sin and idols. “Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who repeats his folly” (Pv 26:11). Ask any true Christian if they would go back to what and where they once were. Would they go back to running with the same friends? Would they again be pursuing the lusts of the flesh and the things of the world? A true Christian would never shrink back to what they once were, “But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul” (Hb 10:39).
Fifth, a true Christian hates sin with an unparalleled hatred. They hate it more than any other thing in the world. “Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord?…I hate them with the utmost hatred” (Ps 139:21, 22). If a Christian must choose between suffering or sinning, he chooses, “rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin” (Hb 11:25). He would rather have the worst of suffering than the best of sin.
Finally, a sincere Christian’s hatred for sin is so intense that the thought of being fully delivered from the presence and power of indwelling sin by death is sweet to them, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain….having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is much better” (Phil 1:21, 23). Whatever evils we may escape in this life, no one can escape their death. For the sincere Christian death is the time when they will be freed from this body of death, never to be entangled, defiled, or distressed with it any more. “The righteous man perishes, and no man takes it to heart; and devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from evil, he enters into peace; they rest in their beds, each one who walked in his upright way” (Is 57:1, 2). To contemplate death is never pleasant, but to think of being parted with sin, that is pleasing and joyous.
How dismal are the prospects of those who imagine there is no future state to look forward to, but only annihilation. How miserable is the condition of those who flatter themselves with false hopes of a happy hereafter yet have never felt any hatred for sin as sin, but instead still practice some form of lawlessness and take pleasure in wickedness (Mt 7:23; 2 Thes 2:12). How tragic will be the end of those who profess to love God, but really live for and love their life in this world. By their hatred for sin, the children of God and the children of the devil are made obvious.
In our next study we will consider the three remaining dispositions toward indwelling sin – our sorrow and remorse over sin, our subjection to the demands of sin, and our opposition to sin – and how they distinguish the sincere from the insincere, the child of God from the child of the devil.