THE WAR ON SIN

THE WAR ON SIN

Deuteronomy 7: 16 - 26, "And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them:  neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be snare unto thee. v. 17 If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them? v. 18 Thou shalt not be afraid of them:  but shalt well remember what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt; v. 19 The great temptations which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the stretched out arm, whereby the Lord thy God brought thee out:  so shall the Lord thy God do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid.  v. 20 Moreover the Lord thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed. v. 21 Thou shalt not be affrighted at them:  for the Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible.  v. 22 And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and litte:  thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upn thee.  v. 23  But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed.  v. 24 And He shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven:  there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them.  v. 25 The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire:  thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein:  for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God.  v. 26 Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it:  but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing."

The plight today to be found in the church and in individual Christian lives is found in the battle between sin and holiness.  On the side of the Lord is purity and undefiled holiness.  He is found without sin in all His ways.  On the other side is found Satan, and all his evil and maliganty of sin.  Everything against God, yea, we can say, all that is about him and for him is anti-God.  We, here of this earth, every soul born is offered a choice to make of either, 'unto the Lord' or 'unto sin and Satan'.  To reject the one, means you embrace the other.  There is no in between, there is no half for one and half for the other.  Christ taught us, 'No man can serve two masters, for either he will love the one and hate the other.'  OUr life is filled with evidence of who or Who's we are.

Once a person becomes a Christian, the battle is really on.  Satan has lost a follower and his rage is 10X greater.  He sets out to attack; and as  we should know the verse, 'Our adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.'  His desire is not to maim, or hurt, or injure, it is to destroy and devour.  He will be happy with nothing less than wrecking every Christian and every church.  He sets out to destroy all that is for God.  The battle in every Christian is not one and done. 

We know the Scriptures that teach us, our being born again is 'in a moment' we are brought out of darkness into light.  IN a moment, we are rescued from hell and granted access into heaven.  WE are no longer children of hell or darkness, but children of heaven and light.  WE are no longer sinners, but Christians, saved by grace and His precious blood.  We know the work of salvation by Christ and His atonement and the 'power of His resurrection' is found in delivering sinful flesh and soul into a translated soul where 'old things are cast away and all things become new.'  Everything is new in Him and by Him.  OUr self-righteousness is replaced by Christ robe of righteousness.  Our old ways are forgiven and cleansed by His atoning blood.  The sins of our flesh are pardoned and we are set anew in Him. 

We know all this is paradox in our daily living.  That even though we are born again in Him, yet we still live here, away from Him.  To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord; but to be present in this body is to not be present with the Lord.  And although He abides within us, yet we are still of our own.  Sin is found here on this earth, not in heaven.  And until we get to heaven, sin still remains the possiblity here on this earth in each one of us.  'My little children, sin not; but if you do sin, you have an Advocate, Whos is Jesus Christ'.  Desiring to be there with Him, yet we are here to fulfill His purpose and will.  And as Paul goes through this in Romans 6 - 8 we see the victory that even thought we be in the flesh, there is victory over the flesh.  It is that battle which I desire to look at in this reading.  The battle of sin vs. holy. 

The main verse that I wish to use here on this 'The War of Sin' is found in verse 22, "And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little:  thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee."  The life long pursuit of a Christian is to be glorify the Lord in all our ways.  WE have the command in Deuteronomy, 'Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God.'  We have the command in Matthew 5 from Jesus, in the sermon on the mount, 'Thou shalt be perfect as thy Father is perfect'.  And a Christian's simple definition is to be Christ-like.  Christ was perfect and one with the Father and that is what He prayed in John 17 for us as well.
But found in Scripture is God's supremem desire for us.  And also found is God's knowledge of us, 'They are prone to wander'; 'oh, that there was such an heart in them.' 

Here God is helping us and directing us to that final end of driving out the inhabitants of the land and making us to finally enter into the rest He intended.  Was God able to destroy and wipe out all the inhabitants of the land?  Yes, 'nothing is too hard for the Lord.'  Is God able to undo and remove all sin in our live and cause us to be holy and without sin the rest of our days?  Absolutely, God is God and can do abundantly above all that we ask or think.' 

What is the reality of most, yea, all Christians daily living?  Is sin not found in your life? Is sin not in my life? Is sin not in the church for every generation since the book of Acts?  The reality of our situation is that even though saved, still sin exists and abides within us.  The magnitutde and degrees of how much we allow or let sin have dominance over us is in direct relationship to how much we abide in Christ and allow for Him to work in us.  The more carnal, less desiring Christian will flirt and play with sin.