Author: bonniefaurote

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SIN AGAINST A HOLY GOD

“Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment” (Ps 51:4 ESV).

“David does not deny that he has sinned against the others, but here he is going a step further. He realizes that his actions are not simply actions in and of themselves. He sees that they not only affect and involve other people, but their real essence is that he has sinned against God” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Dec 28th).

“[L]ook at sin as an offense against a holy God, instead of a personal defeat. It is only as we see His holiness, His absolute purity and moral hatred of sin, that we will be gripped by the awfulness of sin against the Holy God” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p20).

“Why has God revealed Himself in Jesus? To demonstrate the exceeding hatefulness of sin, and to show that nothing short of such sacrifice could remove it and be consistent with the glory of the divine nature and the honor of the divine government. Each sin, then, is a blow struck at this transcendent truth. If we avert our eye from it, sin appears a trifle; it can be looked at without indignation, tampered with without fear, committed without hesitation, persisted in without remorse, confessed without sorrow. But when divine justice is seen, requiring the very heart’s blood of God’s only Son in order to satisfy its infinite requirements, how fearful sin against this holy Lord God becomes! Cultivate a constant, ardent thirst for holiness” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, July 24th).

“God does not require a perfect, sinless life to have fellowship with Him, but He does require that we be serious about holiness, that we grieve over sin in our lives instead of justifying it, and that we earnestly pursue holiness as a way of life” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p36).

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SCRIPTURE

“Let us learn from this single fact if we learn nothing else. [T]he high authority of the Bible and the immense value of a knowledge of its contents. Let us read it, search into it, pray over it, diligently, perseveringly, unweariedly. Let us strive to be so thoroughly acquainted with its pages that its text may abide in our memories and stand ready at our right hand in the day of need. The Bible is indeed a sword, but we must take heed that we know it well if we would use it with effect” J.C. Ryle (ref#374, p13).

“Learn to meet Satan’s suggestions, to answer his arguments, and to repel his temptations by the ‘sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God’ . . .He too can quote and apply Scripture, only to misquote and misapply it” Octavius Winslow (ref#381, p42).

“Our whole life is beset with temptations. Satan watches all opportunities to break our peace, to wound our consciences, to lessen our comforts, to impair our graces, to slur our evidences, and to damp our assurances, etc. Oh! What need, then, have we to be always upon our watchtower so that we keep close to God and His Word” Thomas Brooks (ref#379, p35).

“Lend not your ear for a moment to a temptation that comes clad in Scripture authority. Suspect Satan. The Word of God is very pure. It is on the side of holiness, of uprightness, of goodness, of love. It teaches the protection, the sufficiency, and the sympathy of Jesus. It unfolds many exceeding great and precious promises; announces many gracious and free invitations; and it is designed to support the tempted, to comfort the mourner, to soothe the sorrowful, to hold out the promise of pardon to the guilty, salvation to the lost, and to reveal the hope of glory to all those who humbly and simply believe in Christ. The moment, then, beloved, that a text of God’s Word is suggested to your thoughts in favor of sin, of distrust of God, of disbelief of Christ, of self-injury, repel it” Octavius Winslow (ref#381, p42-43).

“If you would not be taken by any of Satan’s devices, then walk by rule [of the Word]. When men throw off the Word, then God throws them off; then, Satan takes them by the hand and leads them into snares at his pleasure. He that thinks himself too good to be ruled by the Word will be found too bad to be owned by God” Thomas Brooks (ref#379, p32).

“Labor to remember what you read, Satan would steal the Word out of your mind. [R]eading brings a truth into our head, meditation brings it into our heart. The only cause why you forget so fast as you hear is because you went from sermon to dinner, and never thought any more of the matter” Henry Smith (ref#225, p246).

“He Who was ‘fully of the Holy Ghost’ was yet not ashamed to make the Holy Scripture His weapon of defense and His rule of action” J.C. Ryle (ref#374, p13).

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PEW SITTERS

When brought up in a Christian family and taught morality, sin doesn’t make such an impact. It gets watered down to: “churchgoers don’t have sin problems and non-churchgoers do.” They are bad and need to be saved, thus the emphasis is on evangelism—getting people into the church. Sin is so much in the background and not considered that scripture addressing sin is looked over in favor of the “Great Commission.”

This is probably one of the main reasons that the generation that is big on evangelism sees the next generation not interested in evangelizing even themselves. To them, their parent’s religion seems just another way of being bigoted.

“It is not opposition of the world that most endangers the church of Christ. It is the evil cherished in the heart of believers that works their most grievous disaster and most surely retards the progress of God’s cause. There is no surer way of weakening spirituality than by cherishing envy, suspicion, faultfinding, and evil surmising” Ellen G. White (ref#331, p549).

“[A] believer may lead a fairly normal Christian life on the outside while wrestling with a steady barrage of sinful thoughts on the inside: lust, envy, greed, hatred, apathy, etc. I see about 65 percent of all Christians living at this level of spiritual conflict” Neil T. Anderson (ref#90, p107).

“[H]ow many lives are wasted by people who believe that the Christian life means simply avoiding badness and providing for the family. So there is no adultery, no stealing, no killing, no embezzlement, no fraud—just lots of hard work during the day, and lots of TV and PG-13 videos in the evening (during quality family time), and lots of fun stuff on the weekend—woven around church (mostly). This is life for millions of people. Wasted life” John Piper (ref#2, p119).

“[W]e do not just have to submit and resign ourselves in order to be made perfect. [I]f I am a child of God, God has started to work in me. He will go on, and He will bring it to perfection. But He does so by opening my mind and understanding; He reveals sin to me; He tells me to put these things into practice, to press on and to strive; and He gives the final assurance that if I confess my sin He is faithful and just to forgive my sins and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness . . .” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#211, p80-81).

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TEMPTATIONS

“Temptation itself is not sin; but temptation is the invitation to sin, and the wages of sin is death” Jeff Pollard (ref#372).

“A temptation in general, is anything that for any reason exerts a force or influence to seduce and draw the mind and heart of man from the obedience that God requires of him to any kind of sin. In particular, it is a temptation if it causes a man to sin, gives him opportunity to do so, or causes him to neglect his duty” John Owen (ref#373, p4).

“Temptation plays to the evil desires and idolatrous cravings that still live in my heart. Temptation appeals to my selfishness and greed. Temptation targets my laziness and impatience. Temptation hooks my materialism and discontent. Temptation goes after my desire to have my own way and write my own rules” Paul David Tripp (ref# 190, Nov 29th).

“Every man is haunted with special temptations—temper, sex, age, custom, calling, company, course of affairs” Thomas Manton (ref#375, p15).

“For all its pretty lies, all temptation is the original promise that cannot be kept. The devil’s temptations are always thoroughly man-centered and custom-crafted for the individual” Jeff Pollard (ref#372).

“The heart is corrupted by objects that we take in by the senses, as it corrupted Eve. [It] dealt with her first by the sense: the forbidden fruit was full in her way, then the devil sets upon her. He knows how to tempt by awakening the inclinations of our own body against us” Thomas Manton (ref#375, p14-15).

“[L]et the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isa 55:7 ESV).

“When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions. Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple” (Ps 65:3-4 ESV)!

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COME LORD JESUS

“The babe in Bethlehem is a denial of the lie of Satan. He says, ‘I am here because God loves you.’ He has come to undo the works of the devil; He has come to contradict the lies of Satan, and His very appearing and coming . . .is in itself an undoing of the original lie—it is proof that God loves us” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#332, p322).

“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb 2:14-15 ESV).

“A human Savior was necessary, because human beings (children) are in need of a propitiatory sacrifice and a sympathetic high priest. Jesus was fully human as the ‘children’ are and as the high priest had to be. Jesus’ death, by cleansing his followers of sin, destroys the death grip of the devil and gives hope and deliverance to those who were in slavery to the fear of death. Satan’s power is not absolute, but is under the control of God, who ultimately rules over life and death. Nevertheless Satan ‘was a murderer from the beginning’. [H]e does have power to harm people to some extent. Satan has power to work in the realm of death, and to incite people into sin that leads to death. However, the emphasis is not on Satan’s power but on Christ’s triumph over Satan and over death” ESV Study Bible (ref#125, p2364).

“Christ came into this world in order to conquer Satan and his kingdom and in order to introduce His own kingdom. [T]he Bible is the story of the conflict of the two kingdoms—the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#332, p 318).

“He takes hold of us one by one; He rescues and delivers us out of this world and from Satan one by one. As we believe the message of this gospel, we are translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light—the kingdom of God’s dear Son. He is building up His own kingdom; he is drawing men and women unto Himself out of the world; He is going on with the work. He is in glory seated at the right hand of God, and He must reign until His enemies shall be made His footstool; He is going on until the number of the elect shall have been gathered in. And when that has happened, He will come again. He will return into this world as King and Lord, and He will finally finish the work. He will come with a mighty sword, and not only evil and sin but Satan himself and all his cohorts shall be cast into the lake of fire and will finally be banished from the sight of God for all eternity. And our guarantee of all this is the glorious fact of the Resurrection: He ‘was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil’.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref# 332, p324).

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PRESENT HELP

“It’s the evil inside me that connects me to the evil outside me. God’s grace is grace for the heart” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Mar 7th).

“Every moment in which we do not love God with all our hearts, we sin. Every moment in which we do not love our neighbor as ourselves, we sin. Every moment in which we do not exercise faith in Christ, we sin. When we do not set our affections on things above, we sin. When we are not constantly influenced by the fear of God, we sin. When we do not rejoice in God, we sin. When the contents of God’s Word [do] not properly affect us, we sin. When we do not forgive and love our enemies, we sin” Edward Payson (ref#362, p29).

“Sin is a matter of our nature before it is ever played out in our behavior. [S]ystems of behavior reformation won’t work for us because our problem is deeper than behavior. Systems of self-help won’t work because we are our own biggest problem. The grace that placed our iniquity on the Savior, so that we could be both forgiven and delivered, is more powerful than our sinful natures. Our cure is not a system; it is a person, and his name is Jesus” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Aug 2nd)!

“Our struggle with sin is so deep that it was not enough for God to forgive us, so he also unzipped us and got inside of us by his Spirit” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Oct 4th).

“He gets inside us, working within us, because there is no possibility that we will desire and do what is right without the inner working of his power. [W]e cannot take credit for any aspect or any instance of our obedience, because apart from the Spirit’s presence, we would have neither the motivation nor the power to obey. He has come, and his convicting and enabling grace is his moment-by-moment gift to you” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Oct 4th).

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SHEEP OR GOATS

“The power of Christ will be manifested in all, by the destruction either of sin or the sinner. The hearts which now yield to the impressions of His Spirit are broken only in order to be formed anew, and to become vessels of honour fitted for the Master’s use. Those which continue stubborn must be dashed in pieces by the stroke of eternal vengeance” George Horne (ref#333, p292).

“Either God or sin must die in my life” Oswald Chambers (ref#7, June 23rd).

“People conceived and brought into life by God don’t make a practice of sin. How could they? God’s seed is deep within them, making them who they are. It’s not in the nature of the God-born to practice and parade sin. Here’s how you tell the difference between God’s children and the Devil’s children: The one who won’t practice righteous ways isn’t from God, nor is the one who won’t love brother or sister. A simple test” (1 John 3:9-10 MSG).

“[H]e that has slight thoughts of sin, had never great thoughts of God” John Owen (ref#225, p298).

“[W]icked men cannot sigh for heaven” Robert Rollock (ref#333, p115).

“[S]in is horrible because I crucified the Savior. It is an awful thing to insult God to His face” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, Nov 2nd PM).

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OVERCOMING SIN WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT

“The Holy Spirit strengthens us to holiness first by enabling us to see our need of holiness. He enlightens our understanding so that we begin to see God’s standard of holiness. Then he causes us to become aware of our specific areas of sin” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p72).

“Though you become greatly sanctified by the Holy Spirit, expect that the great dog of hell will still bark at you” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, Feb 20th PM).

“As you would not be taken with any of Satan’s devices, take heed of vexing and grieving the Holy Spirit of God. It is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ that is best able to discover Satan’s snares against us. Man is a weak creature and no way able to discover Satan’s snares nor to avoid them, unless the Spirit of the Lord gives skill and power” Thomas Brooks (ref#379, p32).

“If you would not be taken with any of Satan’s devices, then labor to be filled with the Spirit. It is not enough that you have the Spirit, but you must be filled with the Spirit; or else Satan, that evil spirit, will be too hard for you, and his plots will prosper against you. [L]abor for abundance of the Spirit” Thomas Brooks (ref#379, p33).

“The Spirit of the Lord is your counselor, your comforter, your upholder, your strengthener. It is only the Spirit that makes a man too great for Satan to conquer: ‘Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world’” Thomas Brooks (ref#379, p33).

“For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom 8:13 ESV).

“We are controlled not by our sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in us. ‘Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature’ (Galatians 5:16)” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p71).

“He has given us His Holy Spirit to live within us. [T]his is another way of looking at our union with Christ, for His Spirit is the agent of this union. It is He who gives spiritual life and the strength to live that life. It is the Spirit of God who works in us that we may decide and act according to God’s good purpose (Philippians 2:13)” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p71).

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HOW TO OVERCOME SIN

“We must recognize that we have developed habit patterns of sin. We have developed the habit of shading the facts a little bit when it is to our advantage. We have developed the habit of giving in to the inertia that refuses to let us get up in the morning. These habits must be broken but they never will till we make a basic commitment to a life of holiness without exceptions” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p92).

“Jesus was tempted in the same way that we are: although Jesus was tempted, He never sinned; therefore, it is not necessary for us to sin. Jesus was a man, and if one Man endured these temptations and did not sin, then in His power, the members of His body may also refrain from sin. There is no sin in being tempted, only in yielding to temptation” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, Oct 3rd PM).

“The Christian should never complain of want of ability and power. If we sin, it is because we choose to sin, not because we lack the ability to say no to temptation” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p80).

“We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom 6:6 ESV).

“[W]e must have conviction. [C]onvictions are developed through exposure to the Word of God” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p85).

“The Holy Spirit is the effective Helper. Men may employ the aids of inward rigor and outward severity, and they may for a time stifle and suppress their evil habits; but unless the Spirit of God work in us, nothing can amount to true mortification. The Christian is not passive, but active in this work. We are bidden to ‘cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit’ (2 Cor. 7:1). We are exhorted to ‘build up yourselves on your most holy faith’ and ‘keep ourselves in the love of God’ (Jude 20, 21)” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p114).

“[N]ot allowing sin to reign in our mortal bodies—is something we have to do” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p52).

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HOW TO MORTIFY SIN

“’Am I willing to give up a certain practice or habit that is keeping me from holiness’?” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p91).

“The action we are to take is to put to death the misdeeds of the body (Romans 8:13). ‘Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature’ (Colossians 3:5). The King James Version uses the term mortify. According to the dictionary, mortify means ‘to destroy the strength, vitality, or functioning of; to subdue or deaden.’ To put to death the misdeeds of the body, then, is to destroy the strength and vitality of sin as it tries to reign in our bodies” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p84).

“Mortification is a task to which every Christian must address himself with prayerful and resolute earnestness. Nevertheless it is a task far transcending our feeble powers. It is only ‘through the Spirit’ that any of us can acceptably and effectually (in any degree) ‘mortify the deeds of the body.’ He it is who works in us a loathing of sin, a mourning over it, a turning away from it. He it is who presses upon us the claims of Christ, reminding us that inasmuch as He died for sin, we must spare no efforts to die to sin” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p115).

“The believer died to sin once and he has been translated to another realm. It is because we were in this realm of sin, under its reign and rule, that we began to sin from infancy. Because we were slaves we acted like slaves. We developed sinful habits and a sinful character. Even if we were what the world considers ‘good,’ we lived for ourselves, not for God. Our attitude toward Christ was expressed by the words of His enemies: ‘We don’t want this man to be our king’ (Luke 19:14)” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p54-55).

“True mortification consists in weakening sin’s root and principle. True mortification consists in suppressing the risings of inward corruptions: by turning a deaf ear to their voice, by crying to God for grace so to do, by pleading the blood of Christ for deliverance. True mortification consists in restraining its outward actings: ‘denying ungodliness,’ (Titus 2:12)” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p114).

“Because we are dead to sin, through our union with Christ, we are not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p53).

“[P]resent yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instrument for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” (Rom 6:13-14 ESV).

“Departing from iniquity is the lifelong calling and pursuit of true Christians. Are you intimately involved in this pursuit? Do you long and strive to walk in the King’s highway of holiness on a daily basis” John Calvin (ref#164, Nov 10th)?