2. Born of God and Led by the Spirit
BORN OF GOD AND LED BY THE SPIRIT
We are to study one of the most difficult passages in the Bible--one that is so often misunderstood that some inter-pretations given it actually deny what it says. This is the text: "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." (1 John 3:9.) John says in the next verse that "in this the children of God are manifest, and the chil-dren of the devil." Every man shows what he is by the life that he lives.
Out of the Sinning Business
Jesus Christ came into this world to get us out of the sin-ning business. The apostle Peter said, "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out." (Acts 3:19.) Then, in verse 26, "God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities." We must repent, which means: "A change of mind for the better, heartily to amend, with abhorrence of one's past sins." (Thayer.) Repentance is such a change of mind, and heart, and purpose as will get us away from sin, away not only from the love of sin and from the purpose to sin, but immediately get us away from the wilful practice of sin. It will eventually separate us from the power of sin, and the thralldom of it, and get us away from the powerful habit of sinning, and make us more and more like Jesus as we grow in the Christian graces. That is the purpose of Jesus' coming. Had it not been for this fact, God could have had universal salvation. If nothing is necessary in going to heaven other than just pardon or forgiveness of sins, we could have had that for all mankind, if no conversion were needed. But heaven would have been populated with unconverted people, with wilful sinners, people who love sin and revel in it; and heaven would have been no better than the devil's hell as far as the environ meat would have been concerned. Therefore, heaven would have been spoiled and ruined, just as man has spoiled and ruined this world by sin. Man would have spoiled heaven, too, because God could have raised the bodies of every lost and sinful and wicked man, woman, boy, and girl on earth and given them glorified bodies, if that is all that it takes to get people to heaven.
But man has a soul or a spirit as well as a body. Paul said, "Glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." (1 Corinthians 6:18-20.) The spirit is to become a new creature. Jesus said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; but that which is born of the Spirit"--meaning the Holy Spirit--"is spirit"--our spirit. He says it is the spirit of man that is born again. Materialists do not believe that a man has a soul or a spirit as a living thing. Jesus said, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." (Matthew 10:28.) Here we learn that the soul has life just the same as the body. The body has life, and it can be killed; but the soul has life, and it cannot be killed. So man has within him a living soul, a living spirit that will not die when the body dies. Hence, Jesus said, "Fear him, which after he hath killed"---has killed the body "hath power to cast into hell; Yea, I say unto you, fear him." (Luke 12:4-5.) So man has a spirit; and this spirit must be converted. In its very purposes of heart, it must be turned away from the business of sinning, in order to be fitted for heaven and immortal glory.
Soul Changed in Conversion
All the change that the soul, the spirit of man, will ever receive must be received in conversion, and as we live the Christian life. We must become Christ-like in life, not in the resurrection. It is plainly taught in the Bible that in the resurrection man will get a different body and that will be a miraculous change! Christ shall "change our vile body" and fashion it "like unto his glorious body." (Php 3:20-21.) By His almighty power, God will see to that. "This corrup-tible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality," Paul says. "Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep" we as Christians will not all die, some will be alive when Jesus comes and they will escape death--"but we shall all be changed." There will be a change for the body. "This mortal must put on immortality," but there will be no change at that time for the soul. The soul must get its change in conversion, in growing in grace, in living the Christian life, and as we get ready for heaven by a continual process of conversion. So Paul says to Christians, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacri-fice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:1-2.) We are not through with the process of transformation when we are initially converted.
When I was a young man we used to sing, "O, the best life to live is the life of a Christian, serving the Lord Most High. O, the best life to live is the life of a Christian, ready to live or die." That is a great Bible truth, and we have nothing but pity for people who prefer some other way of life. So, as we live the Christian life, we are being trans-formed and changed and better fitted and prepared for a heavenly society. Death and the resurrection of the body affect the body only; the spirit will not be affected at all. If you are expecting some great miraculous change to take place in your soul and make it fit for heaven when Jesus comes, you have been deceived. So, let us therefore empha-size (as God has emphasized it) the importance of a new birth, and of transformation. This takes place in medita-tion upon God's word and devout study thereof. In spirit-ual worship, our spirit--the whole inward man--is involved in singing, praying, and worshipping out of the overflow, not in a mechanical sort of a worship that becomes a curse instead of bestowing a blessing.
Make Preparation Now
Jesus came to fit our souls, our spirits, for heaven. "Pre-pare to meet thy God." (Micah 4:12.) Prepare for the judg-ment; prepare for eternity; get ready. We are here just long enough to make preparation. We are deciding now--today, tonight--we are all deciding where we will be billions and billions of years from now. We therefore should not allow this world to detract, and decoy, and lead us astray, nor cause us to forget the most important thing that there is in life--that is, that we are to get ready to really live with God hereafter. If our souls are not ready, we just can't go to heaven, for God is not going to allow the wicked in heaven to spoil it, like they have spoiled this world and this environment down here. We read in Psalms 9:17, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God."
This being the very purpose of the coming of Christ, the angel said, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins." (Matthew 1:21.) He came to get us out of the sinning business. He came to save us from sin, from the love of it, and away from the wilful practice of it. So it should be our determination and purpose to sin no more. Our purposes and our hearts are pure. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." (Matthew 5:8.) That is what Jesus came to do. He came to turn us away from the love and the wilful practice of sin. He came to get us out of the sinning business, just as a man may make up his mind to get out of one sort of business and get into another which he thinks would be better for him and more profitable. And so he gets out of one business to get into another business. He no longer is wilfully following the old practice, the old business. He is in a new work and a new sort of life, trying to find for himself a richer and better life.
Vocation To Serve God
Man's business is to serve God. Paul said, "Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called." (Ephesians 4:1-2.) Being Christians is our vocation. Everything else is an avo-cation, a sideline, something we may do or may not do. If it is something clean and right within itself we may do it or may not. A physician's business, his vocation, is the prac-tice of medicine. Day or night when he can administer to the welfare of mankind, he stands obligated. He has de-voted his life to serve, so that he will minister to those who are in need of his services. And we stand pledged to God Almighty that as Christians we will, not commit any sin whatsoever. Our purposes are pure; our hearts are clean. We may not perfectly live up to it, but we will do the best we can and then God will do the rest. God wants us to do now that which will keep us out of sin later.
You know sin sometime grows in clusters, like grapes. And to commit one of them is to invite all the others to come in and cluster round about. Unbelief, for instance, is a root sin and out of that sin grows a great cluster of sins .Israel, at first, believed God. (Psalms 106:12.) But by the time you get to verse 24, it says, "They believed not his word." They had lost their faith and with the loss of faith, there came in all the sins that are the products of unbelief. God wants to get us away from those things which cause people to sin, such as the love of sin, and the purpose to sin. Covetousness is a root sin. It brings into our hearts and lives a great variety, or cluster of sins, because they per-fectly fit into and grow in the hot-bed of covetousness. (1 Timothy 6:5-17.)
Preventive Righteousness
We hear much about preventive medicine. The doctors are not just interested in curing diseases, but they are interested in preventing disease. But many members of the church are not enough interested in preventive righteous-ness. We believe in preventing diseases, and we therefore try to eat, exercise, and so live as to promote good health. We want to prevent sickness. We know that doctors can usually cure us if we are sick. But they can also prevent diseases. They have just about done away with smallpox as a result of vaccination--preventive treatment. And ty-phoid has largely been eradicated as a result of preventive medicine--preventive treatment. And so it should be in the religious life. If we are wise in the way of Christian living, much sin can be prevented. "The way of transgressors is hard." ( ) DeWitt Talmadge visited Sing Sing prison, and looking back as he entered the big doors, he saw a big sign: Proverbs 13:15, "THE WAY OF TRANSGRESSORS IS HARD." He said to his guide, "Man, in the name of God, why don't you put that on the outside to keep people from coming in here?" And the reply was given, "You look after those on the outside. We will try to look after those on the inside. We want those in here to know that the way of transgressors in here is hard--that if they do not submit to the rules regulating the prison itself, it will be hard on them. That is what we mean. You put it outside. You advertise it out there. We will emphasize it in here but it is true everywhere." "The way of transgressors is hard."
We are interested in prevention. We are interested in pre-vention concerning poverty. Henry Ford made the great statement that he had rather give people an opportunity to work so they could earn a livelihood, and prevent poverty, than to give millions to the poor. It seems that we are right on the border of inflation. Our citizens and statesmen are frightened. They don't want us to get into another depression, and we don't want the experience. Isn't it so much bet-ter and wiser for us to prevent a depression than to get out of it?
I had pneumonia in 1910. I got over it but I would have been so much better off if I had not had it. I have a scar on one of my lungs now nearly as big as a dollar that I did not know I had until less than ten years ago, when I had my lungs X-rayed. You can sin. You can get forgiveness provided you can obey--provided you can repent. Don't trifle with sin. Don't expose yourself and have pneu-monia unnecessarily. We now have penicillin which will cure pneumonia in nearly all cases. We had no real cure at the time I had it. One out of every three who had pneu-monia in 1910 died, and that is a narrow risk to run, isn't it? So it is much better not to have pneumonia, not to have a scar, than to have the disease and get over it. It is so much better not to sin than to sin and get forgiveness, even if you could be sure that you would be good enough of heart to repent and to obtain forgiveness.
Can Fall Away
There are those who can't repent. People can go to the point where they can't get well of some disease. They can abuse the body where they can't live longer as a result of such abuse. They can go so far in sin that they can't turn back. You can go past the "point of no return." When Colo-nel Lindbergh was flying in his initial flight over the great Atlantic in his Lone Eagle plane, he felt somewhat safe and secure as long as he had gas enough that he could turn around and come back. Finally he passed what he called the "point of no return" and there his life was at stake. He knew that he must make it from there to the other shore on what gas he had. We can pass the point of no return. We can get to the point where we can't turn back and we need to know that.
In Hebrews 6:4-6 : "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away," (the American Standard Version says, "and then fell away"--that it is impossible) "to renew them again unto repentance." If it is impossible to renew them, it is impossible for them to be renewed, and thus people can reach a point where they can't come back. They have fallen away and it is impossible to bring them back. Now, so long as one has not fallen "away"--has not given up faith.,-he can come back. (Luke 8:13.) He can be renewed. He can be restored. Jesus said to the church at Ephesus that had left its first love but still held on to faith in Christ and to the di-vinity of the gospel and of the church and of their religion, "Remember therefore from whence thou art fall-en, and repent, and do the first works." They had fallen --could return. But when they "fall away" that is different. If a man falls on the deck of a ship, he may get up. But if he falls overboard and "falls away"--the word "away" dis-connects him from the ship--then he may not be rescued. And so when people simply fall--fall into sin, still believe in God, still believe in Christ, have their faith yet--they can come back and they can be renewed. But there is that danger that we may go beyond the point of no return, and therefore he pleads with people not to do that. We read of some who had gone beyond the point of return in their wil-ful practices of sin, "Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin." (2 Peter 2:14.) When people get to where they cannot quit the sinning business, they are gone! They are lost forever. There isn't any hope for them if they get where they can't cease from sin. So people can get so in love with sin that all sense of honor, and of the spiritual has been destroyed within them, with their hearts so hard-ened, and their consciences so seared the gospel won't reach them.
Gospel Only Power God Uses
God has no other power that he uses in reaching men other than the gospel. God has miraculous, creative power. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." (Genesis 1:1.) But he does not use that miraculous power in converting men. God has proposed to convert us through the persuasive power of the gospel. Paul said it is the power of God unto salvation. (Romans 1:16.) God has other power but he doesn't use it in saving men. He deals with us as free moral agents, as creatures of responsibility and ac-countability and hence he appeals to us to be saved and he has stipulated that salvation must be upon certain con-ditions and these conditions are not for God's benefit. They are not meritorious. They do not earn salvation to any de-gree. It is entirely of grace in the sense that we don't pay for it. It is conditional on our part. And it is not all grace in the sense that it includes our obedience; but our obedi-ence is itself also of grace in the sense that the gospel pro-duces the obedience. God through his revelation has brought us to salvation, the gospel has brought us there, and hence faith is a part of grace in that sense; and repentance, con-fession, and baptism are all parts of grace--God's divine means that are graciously bestowed to bring us to Christ. Salvation is actually as much then a gift of God as if it had been unconditional. The reason that it is conditional is that the conditions are for our benefit, not to pay God for salvation. They fit us for heaven, and if it were not conditional on our part and God were to save us uncon-ditionally, he would simply be pardoning and forgiving spiritual criminals and turning them loose on the society of heaven eventually to spoil heaven. This is the same con-clusion we reached awhile ago from another reasoning viewpoint.
And so you can see why it is we have the gospel, why we have the church, why we have Christianity: it is to get us away from the sinning business and to get us fit for heaven. It is a prepared place, therefore, for a prepared people. If we don't prepare, we just can't go. He won't permit us to spoil it and ruin the place with sin. And we would be miserable there anyway if we had not been converted. People who don't love services like this, who do not love the praise of God in song and prayer, who do not love to worship God and serve him now, would not be changed one whit by being in heaven. They would still hate righteousness if they were in heaven. They would want the old gang, they would want the old sins, and the old lust satisfied, for the spirit would still be the same. It would not be changed.
The new birth, then, is to get us out of the sinning busi-ness, make us new, make us over, so that we won't wilfully sin. That is what John is teaching in our text. I have laid this background so that you can appreciate 1 John 3:9.
Consider Context May I suggest that all passages of scripture should be studied in the light of the entire revelation of God. We should study any given statement in the light of all that God has said from the first verse of the Bible to the last one. Our conception of its meaning and interpretation thereof should be in harmony with all that God has ever revealed and said concerning the matter under consideration. And then we should study a given statement, and especially one that is hard to be understood, in the light of the book in which it is found. For each book of the Bible had a general purpose--an overall sort of a purpose for its very existence. And then the statement should be considered in the light of its own immediate context as well. What is being said at the time the statement is made? What is he there talking about? To whom is he speaking? And who is speaking? And under what circumstances is he speaking? All of those things will help us to understand difficult passages of scrip-ture. And we should study any word of the text that may be difficult to understand.
A Difficult Text
1 John 3:9 : "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin." I think the hard word here, the key word to unlock the situation and give us understanding, is the word "com-mit." "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin." What did he mean by it? Well, the word commit is from a Greek tense that is in the present indicative. It means to "practice," as in the Living Oracles and other transla-tions. "Whosoever is begotten of God doth not practice sin; for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin; because he is begotten of God." Well, what is the meaning? "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." (Mark 16:16.) When you trust in that promise, you are risking everything in this world and in the world to come on it. That is faith and that's what he is talking about. Now then, when a man has done that and has repented of all his sins, has faith enough to turn from sin, he will say, like Noah said to the old world, "Goodbye." (That's what he was saying by every-thing he did in building the ark. "Goodbye old world--I'm going to be done with you, I'm turning my back on you. I'm going to enter the ark and through the ark, I'm going to come into a new world. So, goodbye old world.") And until a man says that, he has never repented. He isn't fit to be baptized. Many people get nothing but a wetting when they are baptized. They go down into the water dry and come up wet. That is the only change they get. They go right on living the same old life, telling the same lies over again and again, committing adultery and stealing and defrauding and being dishonest and hating, hating God and the Bible and showing their contempt by the very lives that they wilfully live and by continuing on in their wil-ful and purposeful practice of sin itself. They're in the sin-ning business and they're not born of God and John is tell-ing us that when he says "whosoever is born of God doth not practice sin." If you say you are born of God and you are the same old sinner still, you are not born of God. That's what he is telling you.
He is trying to keep these brethren from being deceived and deluded into thinking they are children of God for some other reason than being born again--born of God. That is why children of God are new people. They have a new love, new affection. They have new ambitions and aspirations. They now have a new hope for they have a new life. Hence, inwardly, they are Christlike now. They hate sin and they love righteousness. They hate their own sins. They hate the sins of the wife or the husband. They hate the sins of the children. The children hate the sins of the parents. They're against the sinning business every-where. All you have to do is identify a thing as sinful and a faithful child of God is against it.
Be Against Sin
President Coolidge was a man of few words. One Sunday his wife was sick. He went to the denominational church of which he was a member. When he returned, the follow-ing conversation took place, "How were the services?" "Good." "How was the sermon?" "Good." "What did the preacher talk about?" "Sin." "What did he say about it?" "He was against it." That was the end of it. He was of so few words; but he said a mouthful, didn't he? He said the preacher was against sin. You can't say that about some church members, can you? They are not against the sin-ning business. They are against certain sins. They are against all sins except their pet sins. You know some people have pet sins. And they say, "You can preach all you want to--just stay off my pet sins. But when you get on my sins, then I don't like it." Well, what does he like? He likes his pet sin, and he is a wilful sinner.
Now I want to say this, and I'm not just a young preach-er saying this because it came to mind. I've been saying it for nearly 50 years. A man who will wilfully practice one sin is going to hell if he does not repent of it--if he does not correct it and get away from that purpose--he is going to hell. You say not many people are going to heaven. I don't think you are right about that. I think there are liter-ally millions of people who really are not wilfully practic-ing any sin. It is not my purpose to ever sin. David swore to it that he would not commit sin. And yet I can't get a lot of my brethren to even promise themselves, much less promise God, that they won't sin. There isn't a sin in the catalog that I am willing to ever practice or ever commit a single time. Now you say, "You claim perfection!" Oh, no. But all the defect has got to be in my inability, in my' weakness, in my ignorance, it has got to be somewhere other than in my heart. I'm not going to be a wilful sinner. I don't know of a commandment in God's word that I am not doing my best to obey and I don't know of anything he has forbidden that I even want to practice.
A man said, "You need the second blessing." I said, "What do you mean by the second blessing?" He said, "You need to reach the point where the 'want-to-sin' is taken out of your heart." I said, "Conversion did that for me. I got that blessing when I got what you call the first blessing." That is what conversion does for a man. It turns him away from the desire to sin and from the purpose to sin and the will to sin and makes him pure and clean in his very heart. A heart that says, "Lord, I'll give up all my sins but my alcohol, I'm not going to give that up," or "I'll give up all my sins except adultery," has not repented--he is not con-verted. He may have been baptized, but he just got wet. He is not saved. And if he goes on living like that, he is deluded if he thinks he is a child of God. God doesn't save men who have the purpose to commit any sin. If he could permit a man to purpose to commit one sin and be a child of God, he could permit another to commit two sins and another three' and another a thousand and another all the sins in the catalog, and let them be children of God. No, God doesn't want us to come to the judgment with the love of sinning in our hearts. So people need to be converted. You can see what John means, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin" he doesn't practice sin.
The word "commit" here is from the Greek word used in James 4:12-14, "Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomor-row we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." "I'll go to such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell. . ." "Whoever is born of God doth not commit sin"--doth not "continue" in sin. And that is the truth of the passage, 1 John 3:9. That means then that if we are Christians, if we are really children of God--have been born again--that we're not continuing in sin. We gave it up when we obeyed the gospel.
Away From the Purpose To Sin
We died to the love and the practice of sin. We resolved to turn from it and to get out from under it, as fast as God could work through us and get us out. That is our purpose. And so, in Romans 5, the closing verses, Paul said, "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," meaning that the more people were sinful, the more they needed the favor and grace of God through Jesus Christ and the more they needed a Saviour. He knew somebody would jump to the conclusion that, if we want the abundance of God's grace, we would have to be awful sinners to get it; hence, the doctrine of the Bible would promote the sinning business. So he says, "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid." That is, God forbid that we jump to such an unscriptural conclusion. "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" (Romans 6:1-2.)
Yes, Christ came to get us out of the sinning business --away from it. And if we will worship and serve God as we ought, if we will study the Bible and fill our hearts with it, learn from one another, be encouraged by each other, and if we make our fellowship sweet and complete, it will help us to stay out of the sinning business. We get out of more and more of it through experience, and practice, as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and as we are changed into the image of Christ, from glory to glory, from one state of glory to a higher state of glory. (2 Corinthians 3:18; 2 Peter 3:18.) All of that is involved in it. Getting out of the sinning business is the purpose of conversion, and the purpose of our worship. It is the purpose of prayer and the godly life--the whole of the Christian life is to help us get more and more away from sin, and into the work of the Lord. And that work itself also helps us to get out of the sinning business.
We are away from the purpose to sin. We want to do right. "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1:7.) Cleanseth means God keeps us cleansed. "Cleanseth us from all sin."
Away From Wilful Sin
Sometime ago, I was preaching in a gospel meeting and the brother who opened the services that day prayed that God would "forgive us of our many, many sins." I thought, "That is not the way Christians ought to pray, is it? If this group is guilty of 'many, many sins' since they prayed last night or this morning, they must be wilful sinners, and are involved in the sinning business." And I just didn't feel that I was a part of that sort of a group of people. I just did not believe that represented that group properly. Then the next ,brother who led a prayer had caught on to that same old expression and he prayed likewise that God would forgive us of our "many, many sins." I thought, "What have we done that is wrong, and so much of it, since we prayed a few minutes ago? Just what have we done? Did he pray in faith? Did the first man? Did the audience pray in faith when they asked Him to forgive their many sins? What are those many sins that they have committed in the last few minutes? And they are now in worship. If they sin in wor-ship like that, and commit other 'many, many sins' out of worship, they must be wilful sinners." And I'm afraid the doctrine that people can be wilful sinners, and be Chris-tians, is growing to be popular. And then the brother who prayed at the table, instead of giving thanks, prayed that we might be forgiven of our "many sins," so that we would be fit to partake of the Lord's Supper. I don't believe God is chalking up sin against me every day, much less every two or three ticks of the watch like that.
God Will Keep Us Clean
I've heard denominational preachers say, "Churches of Christ teach the doctrine that you're saved this moment; but the next moment you will be lost, and you will be in need of pardon again." If you prayed a hundred times per day would you need to pray for God to forgive you of your "many, many sins" each time you pray? Jesus taught his disciples to pray, "Forgive us our debts," our "sins" (Matthew 6:12; Luke 11:4); but he had reference of course to all of the sins down through life as we are penitent and humble and prayerful--just keep us forgiven; keep us justified all the way to heaven. That is the Christian life. Thus, "if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." God will keep us cleansed be-cause we are praying for him to keep us cleansed, to keep us forgiven, and that is a penitent, humble, pure, clean at-titude toward God. And a person like that ought to go to heaven because he hates sin--his own sins. And he wants God to keep him justified and saved and on the way to heaven.
Try To Be Perfect
There are extremes. One is that a child of God can't sin at all. Well, that is a false interpretation of John's state-ment. This same apostle said in the next verse, "If we say that we have no sin"--that is, that we never do anything wrong, why then--"we deceive ourselves and the truth"--God's truth, God's word--"is not in us." We are ignorant of the Bible if we say that. God says, "There is no man that sinneth not." (1 Kings 8:46.) And in Ecclesiastes 7:20, "There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not." In other words, there are no perfect people. There is no man who is entirely out of the sinning business, when it comes to the momentary acts of life. But a faithful Christian wants to be perfect. "Let us go on unto perfec-tion." (Hebrews 6:1.) Let us have maturity and perfection in mind.
A little child taking its first piano lesson would say, "I want to play perfectly," and will do its best. But the teacher says in her heart, "He made an awful mess of it," but gives him a good grade-100 or an "A" or whatever the method of grading the student--because he did his best. God is not going to say at the judgment, "Well done, thou good and perfect servant. Thou hast been perfect over a few things, I'll make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joys of the Lord." If my Bible read like that, I'd want to cry forever! There would be no grace sufficient to save me and I don't think it would reach all of you either! But it is by the favor of God, his mercy and forgiving grace, that we are saved and kept saved and kept on the way to heaven. If lightning were to strike you and you had not had time to pray since this morning, what about it? You would go to heaven because if you hate sin and hate the sinning business you are not wilfully living in sin. I'm liv-ing in obedience to God. It is my all-consuming and rain-bow purpose and plan in life never to commit a single sin. That makes me a Christian. What about the practice of sin? Like the little child, the practice is not up to the standard. Thus, we grow into maturity and the life may never reach that standard of perfection. "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin," that is, he does not practice sin or wilfully sin. He is a changed man. He is a new creature. But that does not mean that he is sinlessly perfect. It only means that he hates sin, his own sins; and is trying to get away from sin, and that he is no longer in rebellion against God.
To Whom God Will Not Impute Sin
Little children do wrong. They violate the word of God just the same as adults. A little child, when he lies, does wrong. God would be displeased if you parents were to tell your children that it is right for them to lie, just be-cause they are not accountable and responsible before God. What is the difference? God does not chalk their sins up against them. He does not chalk lying up against a child for it is not accountable and responsible. It is not able to do any better than it is doing. God does not chalk up steal-ing against a little child. But the very day that a youth becomes accountable before God, and responsible, God starts chalking up sin against him and then he is lost, and is a sinner before God. He will be eternally lost, just as any-one else, if he dies without obeying the gospel and without becoming a Christian. But God does not chalk up sin against the faithful child of God. He keeps us justified. He keeps us pardoned and forgiven of our sins. That is what Paul meant when he said in Romans 4:8, "Blessed is the man to whom God will not impute sin." The American Standard Version says, "to whom God will not reckon sin." What does reckon mean? It means to count it, to chalk it up, to put it on the record against one. "Blessed is the man to whom God will not impute sin." The Bible says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8.) Everyone has sins, but he does not have to be a wilful sinner. He will have enough of them if he is sinning only through weakness and when doing the best he can to overcome sin and to obey God in all matters. He will still have some sins, but if he is penitent and pure and clean in heart, in purpose of life, and is doing his best to be like Jesus, then God will keep him cleansed and that is the man to whom God will not impute, not reckon, not chalk up sin.
It is encouraging to the Christian to know that he can live the Christian life in spite of his weaknesses, and mis-takes. If he is pure in heart, hates his sins and wants to live right, God will see him through. So I do not hesitate to tell the alcoholic that he can be a Christian. I do not hesitate to tell the thief and the robber that he can become a Chris-tian. I tell everybody that if he will obey the gospel, God will forgive him and save him, and will keep him cleansed so long as he is not wilfully sinning, so long as he is pure in heart, he will see God. And God will not chalk up his sins against him, because he is praying for continued for-giveness every time he prays. Not, I've sinned so many sins here in the last few moments, or in the last few days; but, I want forgiveness for whatever sins I may commit while not in the sinning business. That is what John means. (1 John 1:7-8.)
This is a field that is not being cultivated as it should be. Many become discouraged. But some fellow may say, "Why you preachers are hypocrites. You preach that if we will obey the gospel we will be saved. What good will that do us when the very first sin we commit we will fall from grace, and Paul said you can't be renewed unto repent-ance." And he says again, "If we sin wilfully, that there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin." They interpret this to mean there is no more forgiveness. I had a debate with one who affirmed this proposition: "The scriptures teach that a child of God must succeed in living a perfect and sinless life, in order to see God in peace, and go to heaven when he dies." Now you just think of a proposition like that! The scriptures teach that a child of God must succeed in living a perfect and sinless life in order to see God in peace and to go to heaven when he dies. My first argument in reply was that if that were so, every sin that a child of God may commit, even through weakness, off-guard, or under the stress and strain of some great temptation, in a moment of great weakness--the weakest link in his char-acter maybe--and that if he yields, it would be an unpar-donable sin and that every sin that a child of God commits would be an unpardonable sin. Thus, there would be no hope for anybody, and we might as well cry forever. That is exactly what the doctrine is. He quoted 1 John 3:9 to prove that doctrine. That passage does not teach it. It sim-ply teaches that we, as Christians, are out of the sinning business.
Then there is another extreme, that one can wilfully sin and die in murder, or in adultery, as a man did in Numbers 25, and still go on to heaven--die robbing a bank and go to heaven--die drunk and go to heaven. This is the impos-sibility of apostasy, and is another extreme.
Three Kinds of People
Now we close with this suggestion. There are three dif-ferent characters, in God's sight, as far as responsible beings are concerned. There is the wilful sinner, the man who has become accountable, responsible, and has not been saved, never obeyed the gospel. He may have gotten drunk one time, just once, and he may have said, "I will never get drunk any more." And he may have prayed for God to for-give him, but he did not forgive him. He may even be peni-tent. But God does not save a man piecemeal-fashion, like that. God never forgives a man of drunkenness to leave him guilty of all his other sins. That is not God's plan of salvation. It is a perverted doctrine. He won't forgive you of any sin, until you repent of all sins, and resolve to obey God in all matters, to the best of your ability. Your heart is not even pure until you reach that decision. God chalks up all sins against the alien sinner, and leaves them chalked up against him until he obeys the gospel. If he never obeys the gospel they will all remain chalked up against him, and be imputed at the judgment bar of God, and will damn his soul forever. They will remain piled up mountain-high against him, millions of them--every impure thought, every sin he ever did, even his sins of weakness, will be counted against him for he had no forgiveness in his impenitence and his life of wilful sin. So he is lost.
Then there is the backslider. God also chalks all of his sins up against him, from the moment that he backslid, from the moment he made up his mind to wilfully sin, and go into sin, God started chalking them up against him. "If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins." (Hebrews 10:26.) Christ has made the only sacrifice that will ever be made, and if you do not obey the terms of the Lord, the second law of pardon, which involves repentance, turning from sin, and prayer, that sacrifice Christ has made will avail you nothing as a child of God. You will be as lost as if he never had died for you if you backslide and wil-fully or impenitently sin, and go back into sin. The Scrip-ture says nothing remains "but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." (Hebrews 10:27.) There is no hope for the backslider if he dies in his sins. He is a wilful sinner. He is impenitent. He sins wilfully and he stays in sin, if he does not confess his wrongs. He can come back if he hasn't gone beyond the point of no return. Hence, we are warned not to harden our heart, nor to sear the conscience.
Then there is the third person, the faithful Christian, who himself is imperfect. If, at the close of the construction of a great skyscraper, the impartial judge should put his hand upon the head of an old father who had had fifty years of experience in constructing great skyscrapers, and his other hand on the head of the son who had little experience in such work, and is just an apprentice, the judge might be able to say to both of them, "Well done, ye good and faithful servants." The son can be just as faithful as the father. But if he were to put his hand upon the one who is most nearly perfect, it would likely have to be on that old father's head. A new member of the church can be faithful. He can stay with God and stay with the Christian life, and do his best, just like anybody else, and he will be lost eter-nally if he does not do it. There are some in the church more nearly perfect than others, some more mature, of course.
We're going to sing a hymn of encouragement. You can be a Christian. Don't you see you can? Will you come to-night while we stand and sing the hymn of invitation? r