Lessons About Sin

The point: Unless it's clearly and indelibly inscribed upon our hearts that the God of the Bible often permits the triumph of evil for a time, when we come into a similar situation, we'll be tempted to curse God and turn away from …

Martin describes the narrative of 1 Kings 21 as a 'five-scene or five-act play' to help listeners understand its structure and flow.

In our last study of this passage, we spent some time trying to set clearly in our minds the fact, of the narrative. I'll not do that again. We looked at it as a five-scene or five-act play. There are these five paragraphs, each one focusing upon some aspect of this very intriguing and at places downright sordid tale of one of the events in the life of the prophet Elijah.

7:41 - 8:13 Read in full sermon

The point: Unless it's clearly and indelibly inscribed upon our hearts that the God of the Bible often permits the triumph of evil for a time, when we come into a similar situation, we'll be tempted to curse God and turn away from …

Ahab and Jezebel thought they had committed the 'perfect crime' until Elijah appeared, illustrating that God sees and knows all sinful acts.

And we came up with four distinct principles, and I will only mention them, and then we shall move on to another question tonight and seek to answer it going through the same passage. This passage reveals, first of all, that the God of the Bible, the God with whom you and I have to do, is a God who sees and knows the details of all the sinful acts of all men. Ahab thought, along with Jezebel, that they had committed the perfect crime until he sees that hairy, rugged prophet, and he's suddenly reminded that God saw the whole sordid intrigue. Second principle.

8:33 - 9:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Unless it's clearly and indelibly inscribed upon our hearts that the God of the Bible often permits the triumph of evil for a time, when we come into a similar situation, we'll be tempted to curse God and turn away from …

Martin quotes the saying, 'the mill of God grinds slowly, but it grinds surely, and it grinds to powder,' to emphasize the certainty of God's eventual judgment.

It was fulfilled in Ahab and in Jezebel, and then in 2 Kings 9 and 10, where the prophecy was fulfilled concerning his sons. And though many months and years elapsed, every last prophecy of judgment was literally fulfilled. That's the God with whom we have to do, whose judgments may slumber. As one has said, the mill of God grinds slowly, but it grinds surely, and it grinds to powder.

10:21 - 10:49 Read in full sermon

The point: It is for our profit to scour this chapter seeking to discover what it says about the nature of sin, whether we be outside of Christ tonight or the children of God.

The analogy of John eating the scroll, sweet in the mouth but bitter in the stomach, is used to explain that all of Scripture, even difficult truths about sin, is for our profit and must be consumed whole.

It was a delight to go through the chapter asking, what does it reveal about God? But as I said this morning, based upon Revelation 10, when God held the roll to John and said, eat the whole of it, and it was sweet in his mouth, but bitter in his tummy, it wasn't up to John to tear some pages out of the roll. And so, it is not up for us to pick and choose our diet, and all of Scripture is given for our profit. And so, this is for our profit, whether we be outside of Christ tonight or the children of God.

13:02 - 13:31 Read in full sermon

The point: It is for our profit to scour this chapter seeking to discover what it says about the nature of sin, whether we be outside of Christ tonight or the children of God.

Martin contrasts modern entertainment's distorted view of sin, which inflames passions, with biblical realism, which shrivels the roots of sin and instills holy fear.

Come to a passage like this and you confront stark, naked, biblical realism. You see, the thing that supposedly justifies all of the filth that's paraded in the modern theater and in modern literature is, we want to be realist. Now, it isn't realism, for they paint the picture of sin in such a way that people drool and vicariously enjoy it.

14:00 - 14:25 Read in full sermon

The point: It is for our profit to scour this chapter seeking to discover what it says about the nature of sin, whether we be outside of Christ tonight or the children of God.

Martin's son felt sick to his stomach hearing about the dogs licking Jezebel's blood, illustrating that God's realism about sin evokes appropriate revulsion.

This book in its realism always has the effect of shriveling and withering the roots of sin, not watering them. Always putting holy fear not on holy desire. And so when we, when we come to the realism of 1 Kings, it is realism. My son said last Sunday night, a week ago Sunday night, he says, Daddy, when you read that part about Jezebel and the dogs licking, he said, I felt sick to my stomach.

14:47 - 15:12 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Sin is a consuming fire and an unquenchable thirst within the heart of a man.

Ahab, the king with immense wealth, pouting over not getting Naboth's vineyard is compared to a grown man pouting over a lollipop, highlighting the ridiculous and consuming nature of covetousness.

Verses 1 to 4 tell us a story that if it were not so tragic, it would be comical. Suppose you came to my home tomorrow. You saw me sitting on the couch with a long look on my face. And you said to my wife, what's wrong with him?

15:53 - 16:08 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin shifts focus to what the passage reveals about sin, asking 'What is sin like?' He describes sin as a 'consuming fire' and an 'unquenchable thirst' within the heart, using…

Sin, particularly covetousness, is likened to a consuming fire that is intensified, not quenched, by adding more fuel, illustrating its insatiable nature.

How do you quench a fire? Not by throwing more fuel upon it. A fire that has more fuel thrown at it, increases in its power to consume. Covetousness and sin are like a raging fire.

17:26 - 17:42 Read in full sermon

The point: Everything that's true of sin, as seen in this passage and elsewhere in the Word of God, though its power and influence is basically broken in regeneration, it is not completely driven from the life and the heart. And si…

Sin is compared to alcoholism and drug addiction, where partaking only intensifies the craving rather than satisfying it, showing sin's unquenchable thirst.

That's what sin is like. It's a spiritual addiction. The alcoholic does not quench his thirst with alcohol. He simply intensifies his addiction.

18:28 - 18:43 Read in full sermon

The point: You start feeding those brush fires and they'll become raging forest fires.

Sin is likened to Pharaoh bringing the whip down on the backs of the people of God, illustrating its cruel, lashing, and enslaving nature.

It is a lashing, cruel taskmaster. When sin is Lord, it always acts like Pharaoh in Egypt who brought the whip down upon the backs of the people of God in bondage and drove them and made their lives miserable. Here, notice Ahab. Lashed and whipped into a state of emotional and mental imbalance until he's like that man I described, the grown man pouting for a lollipop.

22:09 - 22:43 Read in full sermon

The point: Haven't you found this true? Do you know what it is to be lashed into a state of emotional and spiritual disturbance because some Naboth wouldn't give you a vineyard? Something you set yourself upon and said, if I get th…

Martin quotes a man saying 'the devil is no Christian and no gentleman' to describe the cruel mastery of sin once one sells oneself to it.

But there's a reality behind it. Here's a man who gave himself up to be the willful servant and slave of the devil. And he found out, as one man said in the hearing of several of us a few weeks ago, that the devil is no Christian and no gentleman. And when he had sold himself out, hoping that from that master he'd find success and find pleasure and fulfillment, he found that that master was cruel.

23:22 - 23:56 Read in full sermon

The point: Any man who's learned to write the grace of God learns it in such a way that he fears sin in the process. You give yourself over even as a child of God to the mastery of sin in any area of your life and you'll find sin a…

Rutherford's statement about 'the house devil that we carry with us in every place, the remains of our own corruption' is quoted to emphasize the constant danger of indwelling sin.

Job, car, good looks, whatever it is, you found that sin is a lashing, cruel master, never able to give what it promises, and always giving things that it never mentioned when it asked us to sell out to its lordship. I hope tonight there comes a holy dread in our hearts on the matter of sin. Any man who's learned to write the grace of God learns it in such a way that he fears sin in the process. For the grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, that's how grace is taught by the Holy Spirit, never comes in such a way ...

24:48 - 26:13 Read in full sermon

The point: Any man who's learned to write the grace of God learns it in such a way that he fears sin in the process. You give yourself over even as a child of God to the mastery of sin in any area of your life and you'll find sin a…

Haman, despite all his blessings, was miserable because Mordecai would not bow, serving as a parallel to Ahab's distress over Naboth's vineyard, illustrating sin's cruel mastery.

and you'll find sin a lashing, cruel master. This is what Ahab found. Those of you that want to look up a parallel reference, check Esther 5, verse 9 and following. We don't have time to go into it tonight.

26:13 - 26:28 Read in full sermon

The point: My friend, if you give brain to sin, it'll do exactly that in you. You young people, you know what it's like. You give yourself up to a lie and then isn't it amazing how your mind can work and you figure out all these be…

Jezebel's quick and ingenious plan to frame Naboth is compared to the skill of a 'great administrative genius' or a 'president over the general motors,' showing how sin perverts human intellect.

All of these things like a great administrative genius. She could have been president over the general motors. What does it do? It takes all of those powers that should be subject to God and His revelation to think His thoughts after Him to subdue His world and to accomplish His will and sin takes them and makes that crowning creature a veritable scheming fiend.

28:29 - 28:59 Read in full sermon

The point: Some of you husbands, some of you wives, some of you adults. How you've schemed and you've covered up your sin and you've left no footprints, you've left no disturbed earth. It all looks so well, doesn't it, huh? How ing…

David's elaborate schemes to cover up his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah illustrate how sin turns even a man after God's own heart into a 'scheming fiend.'

You read the story of David's fall with Bathsheba and then how David, whose mind was such a wonderful gift to the church in thinking lofty thoughts of God that become the very blessing that we experience every time we read the Psalms. He schemes and plans how he can put that man up to the front of the battle and make it look as though it was just the normal course of the events of war which is no respect. He schemes and schemes and schemes and when one scheme doesn't work he tries another. What turned this man after God's own heart into a scheming fiend?

30:17 - 30:57 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin argues that sin makes a person an 'unprincipled, moral jellyfish,' using Ahab's passive complicity in Naboth's murder as an illustration. He applies this to believers who…

Martin Luther's 'Here I stand' declaration is used as an example of a man whose moral life is captive to God's will, contrasting with the 'moral jellyfish' produced by sin.

You and I made in his image that receiving his revealed will we should from the heart embrace it at any cost. There's beauty in a man whose moral life is held captive by the revealed will of God. A man like Martin Luther who faces the great bastions of that imposing religious rule with its system, with its anathemas, with its armies, with its tortures, with its heresy trials and says, Here I stand so help me God I can do no other. That's a man being a true man.

33:22 - 34:04 Read in full sermon

The point: Every time at the job when you see evil being perpetrated and you know you ought to rebuke it and you're silent what has happened? Sin has made you a moral jellyfish. More afraid of your own reputation and your own pocke…

A recent Harris poll on US morals, reported in Time magazine, is cited to illustrate how society has become a 'nation of moral jellyfishes,' acting on expediency rather than God's revealed will.

Always looking for the path of expediency. This is the day of the double standard. It was interesting. There was a Harris poll taken recently and written up in this past week's Time magazine on the morals of the United States in the present hour.

35:01 - 35:18 Read in full sermon

The point: You fellows and girls at school those times when the teacher asks you point blank why don't you this? And you sneak behind. Well, my parents don't like it. My church, you're a moral jellyfish. You know what you ought to …

Peter's denial of Christ, despite his earlier confidence, is used to show how sin can turn even a strong believer into a 'moral jellyfish' in a moment of weakness.

Great old Peter. And a little servant of God comes along and flashes her eyes and says uh-huh, I think you're one of them. And out pour this torrent of oaths. I have nothing to do with him.

37:01 - 37:17 Read in full sermon

The point: Listen to me young people. Know who your best friends are? Not those kids at school that'll tell you the latest dirty joke. They're not your best friends. Those perhaps in our own church fellowship that'll snicker under …

The fact that no one names their child 'Ahab' illustrates how sin perverted his judgment and left his name synonymous with evil.

Sin will so pervert your judgment and your affections that your worst enemy you'll regard as your best friend. For the scripture says that it was this wicked woman that stirred him up to all the wickedness that meant the frustration of his ambitions the death of his sons and his own ignominious death and defeat. And go down in record so that the very name Ahab drips with the very connotation of evil. I've named my son Joel.

39:37 - 40:07 Read in full sermon

The point: Who's your best friend? Oh you say those preachers that tell us smooth things. Those preachers that just always tell us God loves us and that the Lord is kind and patient. Well that's certainly in the Bible and when it's…

Robert Murray McShane's quote, 'your best friend is the man who tells you the most truth about you,' is used to explain that true friends confront sin, rather than offering smooth platitudes.

But as Robert Murray McShane said your best friend is the man who tells you the most truth about you. Your best friend in ministry is not the man who makes you feel good week after week. It's the man who tells you the truth of God about you and if there's unconfessed sin and he tells you that that sin is like a cancer and he'll eat at the vitals of your soul he's doing so because he loves you and wants to see grace cut the cancer out not spread the vaseline of religious platitudes over that wound and that terrible cancer. But sin will pervert a man a woman, a fellow or girl that he'll look at ...

43:17 - 44:18 Read in full sermon

The point: My friend beware. Beware whenever scriptures are suggested to your mind when you're contemplating some way to excuse sin or cover up sin or avoid repentance. Beware. If the devil could quote verses verbatim to Jesus he c…

The devil's ability to quote scripture verbatim to Jesus is used as a warning that he can suggest verses to our minds to excuse sin or avoid repentance.

My friend beware. Beware whenever scriptures are suggested to your mind when you're contemplating some way to excuse sin or cover up sin or avoid repentance. Beware. If the devil could quote verses verbatim to Jesus he can suggest them to your mind and to mine.

47:07 - 47:37 Read in full sermon

The point: May God grant that if you are here tonight as one in whose heart that fire of sin rages that cruel axe his whip you can't deal with that fire to quench it of yourself you can't depose that master but one who is mightier …

The scene from Pilgrim's Progress where a fire burns brightly despite water being thrown on it, because oil is being poured from behind the wall, illustrates the Holy Spirit's continuous supply of grace sustaining believers against indwelling sin.

with Ahab. May God grant that if you are here tonight as one in whose heart that fire of sin rages that cruel axe his whip you can't deal with that fire to quench it of yourself you can't depose that master but one who is mightier than the strong man is come and has bound him and he can spoil his goods in your life. The Lord Jesus is the mighty deliverer I plead with you cast yourself upon him tonight hold up before him that raging heart of pride and say Lord Jesus I cannot quench that flame by the blood that flowed from Calvary and by the power of the Spirit Lord thou art able. Dear child of ...

51:25 - 52:54 Read in full sermon