Last time, we began the ninth season: the season of temptation. Flavel brought us three helps: (1) worldly pleasure is deceptive and destructive (of far less satisfaction than forcing oneself to eat gravel), and satisfaction in God is infinitely better in every way; (2) secrecy is not a mask for temptation since both God and you witness your evil; and (3) the idea that yielding to temptation can bring advantage is illusory, since all true advantage is found in singular loyalty to Christ. There are three more helps for this season. Here is number 4, where Flavel continues confronting the lies that we often use to justify giving into temptation:
4. Perhaps the smallness of the sin is urged as a reason why you may commit it; thus: ‘It is but a little one, a small matter, a trifle; who would stand upon such niceties?’ But is the Majesty of heaven little too? If you commit this sin you will offend a great God. Is there any little hell to torment little sinners in? No; the least sinners in hell are full of misery. There is great wrath treasured up for those whom the world regard as little sinners. But the less the sin, the less the inducement to commit it. Will you provoke God for a trifle? will you destroy your peace, wound your conscience, and grieve the Spirit, all for nothing? What madness is this!
I have heard this reasoning used many times in our culture. Many do not think that these “acceptable” sins are even worth mentioning! Yet, sometimes this reasoning can become our own, and we are called to realize that there is no such thing as a “small sin.” The Bible teaches that the worst sins come from within; that is, from the heart. It is not what goes into the body that defiles a person, but what comes out (thoughts, desires, and motives). Just the act of following this lie shows that this so-called “small” sin is a heart issue, so we can know that there is no such thing as a small sin! Either we are keeping our hearts on God towards singular loyalty to Him, or our devotion is divided. Can divided loyalty be a small thing? Never! God jealously guards His holiness and jealously seeks our complete obedience (for His jealousy is the only sort that can lead to life, godliness, goodness, and love). As with the lie about pleasure, following this lie also destroys, debases, and stifles our communion with Him.
5. An argument to enforce temptation is sometimes drawn from the mercy of God and the hope of pardon.—God is merciful, he will pass by this as an infirmity, he will not be severe to mark it. But stay: where do you find a promise of mercy to presumptuous sinners? Involuntary reprisals and lamented infirmities maybe pardoned, “but the soul that doth aught presumptuously, the same reproacheth the Lord, and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.” If God is a being of so much mercy, how can you affront him? How can you make so glorious an attribute as the divine mercy an occasion of sin? Will you wrong him because he is good? Rather let his goodness lead you to repentance, and keep you from transgression.
This can be an easy lie to hear, and may sound initially convincing until we read what the Bible has to say about it. Intentionally sinning and presuming on God’s grace is to act as though we have never received it. That is why those acting “presumptuously” are then “cut off from among His people” in the Old Testament. These are people who willfully plan and act against God’s covenant, showing that they do not, in fact, hold to it. Are we such people who do not hold to our covenant with Him, that we plan out our evil, seek to justify it upon His grace, and then carry it out? Paul addresses this very issue in Romans 6:
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 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. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (ESV).
The only option Paul leaves for those considering presuming upon God’s grace for sin is to kill the sin, because we ourselves have been made dead to sin in Christ. We are slaves to Christ and are no longer to serve sin. Why seek to justify serving another master? Do we too reject our covenant with the Lord? Presuming on God’s grace is thus another deadly lie.
6. Sometimes Satan encourages to the commission of sin, from the examples of holy men. Thus and thus they sinned, and were restored; therefore you may commit this sin, and yet be a saint and be saved. Such suggestions must be instantly repelled. If good men have committed sins similar to that with which you are beset, did any good man ever sin upon such ground and from such encouragement as is here presented? Did God cause their examples to be recorded for your imitation, or for your warning? Are they not set up as beacons that you may avoid the rocks upon which they split? Are you willing to feel what they felt for sin? Dare you follow them in sin, and plunge yourself into such distress and danger as they incurred? Reader, in these ways learn to keep your heart in the hour of temptation.
A sister lie to presuming upon God’s grace is holding ourselves not to the standard of Christ, who was without sin, but to fallible believers who do sin. Sin can only lead to destruction. If we see a seemingly mature believer stumble, should we then take note to stumble as he has, or take note to avoid the same? If a person were to walk off a cliff, should we then do the same? Certainly not! Yet, people who excuse themselves of those sins are not those who accidently stumble or fall, but those who actively cast themselves down! Such are looking for excuses to do evil. Can it be possible that such a person is not regenerate? It is a good indication that he is not saved if this searching characterizes him. Rather than seeking out evil—whose fruit can only be death—we ought to see all examples of sin and evil as something to avoid, and all true good as what we are to seek. This lie too leads to death, and many live by it. We all sin, but the difference between someone saved and someone unsaved is that the saved fall into sin, while the unsaved jump headlong into it. May we examine our hearts and keep ourselves from this evil.
Next time we will be looking at season 10: the season of doubting and of spiritual darkness.