(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

All right, so my sermons, actually sermons plural for today, I'll be focusing a lot just on sin. So we do a lot of preaching on sin this morning and this evening. It's kind of a two parter, but I got them separated into two different aspects. But sin as a whole, it's important to go over sin. I like preaching on very specific sins and very specific issues and points. But we also need to take a step back, I think, and just take a look at sin as a whole. And this morning's sermon is titled, The Wages of Sin is Death. And we never should and never want to lose sight of how bad sin really is. Just in general, in our life, we have to have the right attitudes about sin. We can't get real permissive and just be real allowing of sin in our life. And as we go through this, we're going to spend a lot of time in the book of Romans, Romans 5, 6, 7, going through because Romans deals a lot with sin and the destructive force of sin. And we need to just kind of remember this and ratchet things up at home in our lives, whatever, to make sure that we are keeping guard against sin in our lives. I'm going to read for you from Ecclesiastes, flip back to chapter 5. We're going to actually start in chapter 5 of Romans. But Ecclesiastes 9, 18, the Bible reads, wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroyeth much good. One sinner destroyeth much good. It doesn't take much. It's easy to destroy. It's hard to build up. When you're trying to build something, I mean, I don't care what you're building. You're building something physical. You're building a building. Brother Miller, how hard is it to build an actual structure and ability? It takes days, weeks, whatever, depending on how many people you have, to put up the framework, to lay the foundation, to build the frame, all the work that goes into building a house. How hard is it to knock one down, right? Doing a demo job, doing demolition, destruction, that doesn't take much at all. It's actually really easy, a lot easier to tear things down than it is to build them up. And that's the way things work just in life. And especially that's the way that things work in your life. You want to do right by God. You want to live righteously. You want to have a very successful life and a joyful life and a life that's pleasing to God. That's hard work and it's going to take a lot of time and effort and energy to do things right and make sure you're doing it the right way. You know what? All it takes is one sinner to come along to destroy a lot of good. And unfortunately, it doesn't even have to be you that's the sinner, right? Someone else could come along and destroy things even in your life. One sinner, the sin, and we're going to see this a little bit later, how sin has an impact not just in the life of the sinner, but in the people who are around that person as well. And that's the part of the destructive force and nature of sin. So in Romans chapter five, we're going to see here that it's taught very clearly that sin reigns unto death, right? What are we ultimately going to get out of sin is death and, you know, you can't get more extreme. You've got life and you've got death, two complete polar opposites. Sin leads to death. Look at verse number 17 of Romans five, the Bible reads for if by one man's offense, death reigned by one much more, they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Verse 18, therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, and so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. Look at verse 18 there, that very first part again, the offense of one, one sinner. And this is, of course, speaking of Adam, right? Adam sinning, the offense of one judgment came upon all men. So as a result, just one person doing one thing, disobeying God's commandments. Now all of a sudden you've got judgment on all. His impact, his decision, his choice to sin had a much farther reaching ramification than even his own self. And it impacted the entire human race as a result. Now obviously we don't pay for his sin, but we are brought into this world now with this sinful flesh and this sinful nature that we've inherited from Adam and Eve. Now look at verse number 19, the Bible says again, for as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So there's this effect that is, it's not just, you know, obviously it's very destructive, but it's like an exponential growth too, or this ability to reach so many people. Many people are made sinners because of one man's disobedience. And oftentimes it only takes one person to introduce something filthy, something wicked into a conversation, into somebody's life. And before you know it, it starts to spread. That's what the Bible refers to sin as being like leaven, you know, Bible says a little leaven, leaven at the whole lump. Just like bad doctrine, other sin can creep in. And when you allow sin to creep in, and when you get exposed to that, it very easily can start to fester and just spread and infect a lot of people around you. And oftentimes all it takes is people just unsuspecting, trying to do what's right. Someone else comes along and introduces this wickedness and now all of a sudden it spreads rapidly. And this is something that we see, especially with people who are a little bit more unstable, unstable in the faith, whether they be children, right? Because they don't know enough, they don't have as much wisdom, it's easier for their minds to be kind of manipulated and to be more susceptible to sin and to the impact of sin and be like, oh wow, well if this person is doing this or that person is doing that, you know, they start to normalize it and accept it as being okay, especially when they look on what other people are doing. But you know, that person could be, that could be a major sin, but when other people are seeing that's, you know, and this is one of the reasons, by the way, why God has the rules that he has and why we manage the church the way that you do. Like in first Corinthians chapter five, there's a standard set that has multiple sins listed off where it says, you know what, when, when people are into this sin, we're going to put that wicked person away from among us. When someone's a railer or drunkard or an extortioner, right? A fornicator. Look, these people are not going to be allowed to stay within the church. Why? Because they can't allow for that normalization of extremely wicked things to go on. What's going to happen when you've got fornicators in church and the kids are going, oh yeah, well, apparently there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, they're coming to church, they're leading soul waiting, they're doing this, they're doing that, you know, everybody loves them, everything's great, everything's fine. What's the big deal? Well, I'm sorry, there is a big deal. And that's why we need to make the difference. The Bible spells out there needs to be a difference. We need to be separated. And when we understand the destructive nature of sin, all the more reason to keep yourself guarded against sin in your life, in your household, and you know what, even within our church. Verse number 20, moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded grace did much more abound. Verse 21 that as sin hath rained unto death, even so might grace rain through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, obviously I'm focusing on the sin. I'm focusing on a negative aspect. The great part about Romans is you've got the positive, you've got all this great news about, hey, well, no matter how much sin there is, grace abounds even more than that. God's grace is able to cover. God's grace is able to save that even though one man could bring so much destruction into the world. Hey, by one man also, he brought life, eternal life and the possibility of salvation. So I don't want that to go completely unstated, but that's outside of the scope of what I want to focus on this morning. So even though we are sinners and even though we've done wrong, you know, thank God for His mercy and for the ability for us to even have righteousness and have eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. One of the biggest takeaways from these verses we just read, though, again, is just when you sin, it's never just you that's affected. It's never just you. And I think too often people have a tendency to think, you know, well, how could anyone else and it may not even make sense to you say, well, how is what I'm doing? How could that possibly impact anyone else? Especially when people have their secret sins, right? Say I know that this is wrong. I know that I shouldn't be, you know, drinking or smoking or, you know, listening to this or that or watching this or what, you know, how does that impact other people? All of those things have impacts built into them. And there's another thing I have to remember, too. Sin has its built in judgment. I'm not saying God's not going to judge, but sometimes God doesn't even have to just because of the judgment that's just built right into sin. When you start doing things that are sinful, there's often times it just comes out that, you know, it's just part of the package. It's a package deal. Satan wants to deceive you. Sin is just a big facade. Anyways, that's all it is. Anything that's sinful is going to look more appealing than it actually is, and it's going to try to hide the repercussions and ramifications of getting involved in that sin. But as I was saying, you know, everything that you do, it's going to have an impact on other people, especially, you know, if you've got a family, you live together with a family, whether you're a child, whether you're a parent, you know, especially husbands, wives, you know, you think that you're just doing something for you and this is just your pet sin, I guarantee you that sin is going to end up impacting the people that you love the most. In a family, you know, your sins, you know, all it takes is for your children to figure out or find out what your sin is, and that's going to have huge impact on their life because they look to you as a role model. They look to you as someone to model and pattern themselves after when they see you doing things, oh, well, mom or dad does this, then I guess it must not be that bad. They're going to do the same things. But not just that, you know, sin is going to distance you and it's going to it's going to harden you and harden your heart more than it ought to be. And not you're not gonna have the proper love for the people in your life. Also, when you start letting yourself get into sin, and that's going to impact your relationship with other people as well. Flip over to Romans chapter six. Verse number 11. We're gonna pick up here in Romans six, Bible reads, likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lusts thereof. So if the Bible is commanding us not to let sin reign, obviously, we have a choice over that. We control whether we're going to walk in the spirit or walk in the flesh. And when you let sin reign, when you let sin just have the rule and have the charge, or another way of putting this is just your flesh, right? You just are obeying the lusts of your flesh. It's going to bring death into your life one way or another. Now, obviously, bad things happen to people, it's not always just a direct result of sin. And I preached on this before, too. But you know, there's there's, you know, in this life, bad things happen for a whole multitude of reasons. And you can't always look to any one reason always as to what a purpose is as to why bad things happen, bad things happen, you know, and we're not always even gonna understand why they always happen. I am a big fan of and I think what we ought to do in general, in our own lives is look at things and say, well, when bad things happen, is it a result of my sin? Like am I am I involved in something I shouldn't be? Am I maybe reaping something that I've sown? Am I being chastised or punished as a result of something that I did? That's what I like to do first and foremost, just to make sure Hey, am I right with God now? Oftentimes, you may be like, yeah, I don't I mean, I don't have any like real major thing going on in my life. I'm not just off into some horrible wickedness. Then obviously, there's also plenty of other reasons why bad things can happen. Sometimes it happens because other people are real sinful, even just maybe not associated with you at all. Some, you know, people do bad things. I mean, there's murderers out there that end up killing innocent people. You know, it doesn't mean that that person that their victim did anything wrong. It doesn't mean that they're being judged for their sin. It just means that there's sometimes there's other wicked people that are out there. And you know, so just part of life, too. There's a lot of dangers and things that happen in life. And so I don't want to, you know, obviously, we shouldn't get to a point where you're just always thinking everything is your fault. But it's a good, humble place to start and to look at yourself and to self analyze and say, Hey, you know, these bad things are happening. Am I in sin? Am I doing something? Because as we're going to continue to see here, sin is going to bring about, it never brings out anything good ever. It's always destructive. It's always bad. And it's something to just keep our minds focused on to be able to make sure that we don't allow sin to reign in our body. Verse number 13 says, neither yield to your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we're not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. Again, how many times is sin being just associated with death? So if you yield yourselves servants to obey, if you yield yourselves servants to sin, it's sin unto death. Verse 17 says, but God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you. Being made free from sin ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness unto iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. Verse 22, but now being made free from sin ye become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. Verse 23, very famous passage, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. How many times does the Bible have to tell us the end of those things is death, the wages of sin is death? Death came upon all men. Death is a result of sin, and this is getting hammered home in every single one of these passages here in the book of Romans. Romans 5, Romans 6, we're going to see it in Romans 7, flip over to Romans 7, verse number 5, the Bible reads, For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. In our minds, we should have this equivalence, sin, death, sin, death. And when you lead your life, just remember, when you start opening up that door to sin, what you're doing is just opening up the door to death. You say, pastor, that just sounds really extreme. I don't see how, look, the end of sin is death. That's what it's going to lead to. Verse number 6, But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid, nay, I had not known sin, but by the law, for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, for without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death, for sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it slew me. So this is kind of this personification of sin, saying sin deceived me and then slew me. It killed me. Sin is deceptive. I was talking about that earlier. It's a facade. It's going to try to make you think, oh man, this is real great. Oh, you know, drink this booze. Everyone's having a good time. Everyone's laughing and enjoying themselves and having so much fun. Oh, look at how great this is. Isn't it great? I want to be part of that. I want to have some fun too. I want to have fun with everyone else. That's a deception. That's a deception. Because what's the end of that result, the end of that sin, the end of drinking booze is it's going to, first of all, it's poisoning your body. So the death may not come into it. It may come into it. Maybe it comes when you get behind the wheel of your car and you get into a wreck and you kill yourself because you're drunk. That might happen. It might happen because you've poisoned your body excessively and you die from alcohol poisoning. That death can easily come. It could be a slower death where you just poison your body a little bit slower so you don't get so intoxicated that you die immediately. But just over the years, you start getting disease in your body just because of the constant sin that you keep on bringing that junk in your body. Look, it's damaging. It's destructive. It doesn't help. When we eat the food and the vegetables and the things and the meats that God gave us, that's for our sustenance, what does it do? It benefits our body. It helps us. It provides function. It provides energy. It provides nutrition. It provides the things that we need to be productive, to work, to do things. But you know what happens when you drink alcohol? It damages your body. It's going to damage your liver. That's why there's these diseases like cirrhosis. Because of the damage done by the poison that you've ingested in your body. Oh yeah, it looks real fun, but you know what? The end of that is death. And talk about a sin that has more impacts on just you, the Bible tells us, which also matches up with reality, that when people start getting drunk, when people are drinking, they start uttering perverse things out of their heart. Their heart's going to utter perverse things. Their eyes are going to behold strange women. So instead of keeping themselves pure, maybe unto their wife or unto their husband, now they're getting a little bit more loose, a little bit more flirtatious, and they end up committing adultery as a result of their sin of drinking booze. Or how about the people that just get a little bit angry and get a little bit violent when they drink, because there's plenty of those people out there as well, getting in fights and bad things happen. Coming home, taking out their emotions on their family because they're not in control of themselves anymore because they're drunk, because they're intoxicated, because they can't handle themselves. So the stresses and problems that they deal with, they've lost more control. So then they end up taking it out on their kids or on their wife. More destruction, more problems, more misery, and then it just starts impacting more and more people around you. It's not just impacting you. Verse number 12, wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. So what he's saying here is the law is good. Now there wouldn't be any sin if there was no law, because sin is a transgression of the law. So if God didn't have any law, so you say, well, wait a minute, isn't God then responsible for sin? Because if He just didn't make any laws, then we wouldn't have any sin. That's foolishness. It's stupidity to say that. No, the law is good. The law is telling us this is the right way, this is what you want to do. Sin, because when you sin, it has the built-in consequences of sin anyways. The sin is going to bring you to death, and God loves you, and He doesn't want you to die. He wants you to have life. He wants you to have eternal life. He wants you to be with Him. So He's telling you, hey, follow this way. This is the good way for you. You're the one who chose to broke the law. You're the one who chose to go against God. You become the sinner. And that which is good made death unto me, God forbid. But sin, that it might pierce sin, working death in me by that which is good. So what sin does is it takes what's good, right, and turns it against you, because obviously when you break the law, then there's also the punishments associated with breaking the law. So the sin works death in you by that which is good. The law is good, the sin is bad, and the sin uses the law against you. And sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that do I not. Now this is kind of a confusing verse, verse 15. But it's really not complicated at all. It's worded a little funny, but when you break it down, what he's saying is, that which I do, I allow not. So he's like, I do things sometimes I don't want to do, that I don't allow. I make rules for myself, but then I end up breaking them. Right? Can anyone here say the same thing? Yeah. Okay, look, we do that sometimes. And he's saying, for what I would, what I would means what I want. So there's some things I do that I don't want to do, but then the things that I want to do, I don't end up doing those things. But what I hate, that do I. If then I do that, which I would not, would, again, would means want, if I do the things I don't want to do, I consent unto the law that it is good. He's saying, regardless, you know, I want to follow the law. I want to do what's right, but I end up finding myself not doing that. Right? I end up finding myself breaking the law, which is what I don't want to do. He says, but I still consent that the law is good. The law is still good. There's nothing to do with the law. Now then, verse 17 says, now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me that is in my flesh. And this is an important clarification here of what he's talking about, right? Because he's not absolving all responsibility of himself, but what the whole point of this is doing in this passage is to just show us how bad sin is, and how damaging it is, and how much influence sin has, and, well, let's just keep reading, or keep reading verse 18. For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do. Now if I do that I would not. It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. So he's referring to our flesh. We have a sinful flesh, which is passed down from Adam, right? This is a sinful flesh that we have, that's why we started reading in Romans chapter 5. And he's saying, I'm always finding myself, you know, I'm finding myself doing things I don't want to do, and the things I do want to do, I don't end up doing them. And he says here that if I do the things I don't want to do, it's not me that's doing it, but it's sin that dwells in me. He's allowing the sin in his life to basically make the decisions. He's allowing his flesh to start making the decisions, or following, you want to call it the advice of your flesh, the lust of your flesh, giving in to that desire. He's saying, it's my flesh that's causing me to sin. And this is a truth, and I don't want to get too far deep into this, because when we're born again, we are that born again, right? When you're born once, you're physically born, that's our flesh. When you're born again, it's your spiritual birth. That spirit that's born within you is called the new man, the new creature, and the Bible says in 1 John 3 that that cannot sin. That whosoever is born of God cannot sin, but doth not commit sin. So that new man is a perfect creature, because that's that new creature, that new spirit that is born of God, that is born of the word of God, it's born of the seed of God, and that is the spirit that basically is going to continue and live on forever. That's the eternal life through that spirit that we receive, and is without sin, but now that spirit is dwelling within our flesh right now. So we still have this flesh that only knows sin, and it's going to drive us to sin, and that's why he's saying it's not odd to do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. In verse 21, he goes on to say, I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. So the spirit wants to do good all the time, but the problem is the flesh wants to do bad all the time. So we've got this duality and this contradiction and this problem within ourselves that part of us wants to do good, like verse 22 says, for I delight in the law of God after the inward man. So that new man, the inward man, that wants to do good. I love the law of God. I want to do what's right, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. And again, the reason he's saying this, well, it's not me that do it, sin that dwelleth in me. It's not to just absolve himself from all responsibility and just be like, oh, well, don't have this attitude and turn to his verse and say, well, I mean, I sinned, but it wasn't really me anyways, right? It's just my flesh. Like whatever, yeah, it wasn't me. And just allow yourself to just keep walking in the flesh. He says the will is present with me. That's why he stated that first. You know, there is an ability to choose. We have ability to decide what we're going to do, but it is a problem that we have and you're never going to reform your flesh. You can walk in the spirit more. You can choose to do what's right by walking the spirit, but your flesh is still the flesh. And not until God changes our flesh is that going to change. And because, I mean, it wouldn't, it would be great if we could just reform our flesh. Wouldn't that be nice? But the only way that you can, you can get the victory over the flesh is to walk in the spirit and strengthen the spirit and do things that way because the flesh is always going to be there. What also needs to, with that understanding, keep us on guard against our flesh. That those desires are always going to be there. Now remind you, this is the apostle Paul speaking. These are the inspired words of God, right? These are spoken through the power of the Holy Ghost, but what a great soul winner, what a great evangelist, what a great person, Christian, the apostle Paul was. We know that he had a lot of sins prior to his conversion. We know that he persecuted the church, but what do we see after that? We see him doing so many great mighty works of God and bold preaching and winning people to Christ. I mean, you want to talk about a good godly example and a leader and someone to follow and someone to look up to and be like, wow, the apostle Paul, what a great guy, all the great things that he did. If I could live my life and just get anywhere near anything that he did, wow, what a huge success story that would be. But look at what he's saying here when he's describing sin because he's a human being as well. He chose to walk in the spirit a lot, but you know what, he still had the flesh as well. He says in verse 24, oh wretched man that I am, I'm a wretch. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? We are stuck in this sinful body and he's saying, I can't, you know, the things I want to do, I don't end up doing them. It's like, really? Because you've done a lot of good things, right? He still doesn't do them, but that's where his mind is. His spirit wants to do more, but his flesh is saying, no, no, no. He's saying he ends up doing those things. The apostle Paul sinned. He was a sinner. And we are too. And you know what, that's not to just make everything okay, but it's just to understand how powerful the flesh is and how powerful sin is. Verse 25, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin. Turn if you would to Hebrews chapter nine, Hebrews chapter nine. So in Romans five, six, and seven, one of the biggest takeaways that it wants you to walk away with out of these three chapters is just how closely sin and death are tied together just over and over and over and over again. I'm going to read for you from James one, basically the same, basically the same thing. Another summary of what we already saw in Romans, James one 13 says, let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempted to any man, but every man is tempted when he has drawn away of his own lust and enticed that then when lust has conceived, it bring it forth sin and sin when it is finished, bring it forth death. The end of sin is death. And this gives us just a real quick summary of how that happens. First your body has a desire as a lust, your flesh, right? Your flesh has this lust. And when that lust has conceived, when you actually give any attention to that, to that lust and allow that to come to any type of fruition, it brings forth sin. So we're going to have these desires of the flesh, but we need to keep them at bay. But when you allow that lust to conceive and you actually act on it, you actually start doing it, that brings forth the sin. Now all of a sudden you've sinned. So the flesh itself, the flesh is going to be the one saying, Oh man, I just, I just need a drink or I want to do this, or I want to do that. Or I want to watch this. And I want to put this wickedness in front of my eyes. That's going to be there. The flesh is the cause of that. The flesh is going to be driving those types of desires and lusts after you. But when it's you that decides to act, that allows that lust to conceive, right? So when you actually act on it, then now all of a sudden you've got sin and you just got started in sin. But you know what? It's finished. It's bringing death. Hebrews chapter number nine, because sin brings death, it requires death to cover sin. And again, I'm really just focused. The title of the sermon is the wages of sin is death. Not a pleasant topic to deal with, right? But it's just an important thing that we need to have just driven home in our minds of how serious sin is and what God had to do in order to even bring us any type of redemption and forgiveness of our sins, because it's so bad. The only thing that could be done is the shedding of blood. The Bible says in Hebrews nine, look at verse 22, and almost all things are by the law purged with blood. So purge is going to be made clean, made right, right? It's purged with blood and without shedding of blood is no remission. So because sin is so bad, because sin is exceeding sinful, because of the destruction and death of sin, the only thing that's going to even be able to cover that is more death. It requires death in order to even have that shedding of blood in order to have any remission, in order for those sins to have its end, right? The end of sin is death and it needs to have that end in order to go away as it were. Look at how the priests operate in the Old Testament with the animal sacrifices. There was a lot of blood shed every year because of man's sins. And there's a lot of symbolism in the Old Testament, and you think about that. We learn a lot from it too, and just imagine living, and this is why I think God does these things is to teach and to help us understand and learn and you actually stop and think about it. You're living in a culture, in a society with the children of Israel, where it was a normal part of their life where they, oh man, I sinned, now I got to bring a sacrifice, I got to bring a sin offering, right? And now you're bringing an animal and you're witnessing this animal having its throat slit and blood poured out, and they got to sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat every year and all this stuff, all the different sacrifices that are being made every single day. You've got the morning sacrifice, the evening sacrifice, you've got the sin, you've got all these various different types of sacrifices being made. That is a lot of blood being shed. And seriously, take a step back and think about that because we are much farther removed from even processing the food that we eat and stuff like that, the meat that you eat. We go to a grocery store, pick it up. Most people are really far removed from how that actually even works. And the amount of blood that comes out of an animal when you have to deal with that, and that's just for food. Now imagine for our sins, just all this blood being shed. And that is a picture showing us of how bad our sin is. Man, we just got to keep shedding this blood, we got to keep shedding this blood, we got to keep shedding this blood, we got to keep on killing these animals, we got to keep on shedding this blood. Now we know, and Hebrews tells us, it's not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to save us. It's not that their blood is literally cleansing you, but what it's doing is it's teaching you one about sin, it's teaching you how destructive it is, and showing you that God's saying, you got to do this, you got to bring your sin offering, you're shedding blood constantly, and then ultimately, it's a picture representation of Jesus Christ who had to come and shed his blood and die for your sins. Because you decided to break God's law, you're the one who went and broke his laws and committed whatever sins you've committed, now Jesus Christ had to come and shed his blood on the cross to pay for you. Don't lose sight of that. Thank God he's willing to love us and make a sacrifice for us. But don't downplay, that had to happen to cover your sin. Your iniquity, it is that bad. Flip over to chapter 10 in Hebrews. The last point I want to make on this subject. Hebrews chapter 10 continues in this thought of, remember in chapter 9, we saw without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. So continuing thought of remission of sins because of Christ's sacrifice. Verse number 16, the Bible reads, this is a covenant that I will make with them after those days, said the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. So he's talking about that final payment of Christ, right? Hey, once that payment's been made, once there's remission, then you don't need any more offering for sin. And when Jesus Christ made the sacrifice, there's no more animal sacrifices we need to make either. That's done. Now with this in mind, jump down to verse number 26, because this is where we get into willful sin. Sin itself is destructive. Just finding yourself a sinner, obeying the lust of the flesh, doing things, you know, that's bad enough when you sin in a way that you don't maybe necessarily think about it or you don't realize it until a little bit later, and you're like, oh, man, I shouldn't have done that. That was wrong. That was a sin. You find out about, that's bad enough, but you know what? That needs bloodshed to cover the sin. That needs death. The end of that sin is death, but you know what's a lot worse? When you know in advance, yes, this is sinful, but I'm going to do it anyways. You want to talk about the level of destruction from a willful sinner. One sinner destroys much good, and when you already know better, things get even worse. Look at verse number 26 of Hebrews chapter 10, the Bible says, for if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. So why is there no more sacrifice for sin? Jesus Christ has already made the sacrifice for sins. That's done. He did that once forever. So in the Old Testament, you can go and every time you sin, you'd go and bring an offering or bring a sacrifice. There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. All that's left when you start sinning willfully, and before you're saved, you can accept that sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and that's going to provide the atonement for you. This is where work salvationists like to twist this. This isn't saying you lose your salvation at all, but what this is teaching is that you still do receive punishment and disciplining by God when you sin willfully. Because honestly, the wages of sin is death. I believe the wages of sin is death physically and talking about hell. The second death, physical death as well as the spiritual death. Now Christ has paid for that second death payment, but when you get off into sin and sinning willfully, you can very easily lose your life as a result. The Bible says here there remains no more sacrifice for sins, look at verse 27, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversary. So all you have left to look for now when you start sinning willfully is just look to God for judgment and fiery indignation. Just because you see the word fiery there doesn't mean it's hell, it just means God is really angry. He's got a fiery anger. Anyone can have fiery indignation, it doesn't mean you're casting anybody into hell. Judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries, verse 28, he that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. So again, people who they knew Moses' law, these would be people who committed something that's worthy of death, you're saying well they died under the law of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified. Again this is talking about someone who's saved because it says he was sanctified. He was already set apart with the blood of the covenant, with the blood of Jesus Christ, but counting that blood an unholy thing and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace. Because I'll tell you what, when you are choosing to sin, when you are just sinning willfully and going off and doing your own thing, that is what you're doing. You're treating the blood of Christ as an unholy thing. You're doing despite unto the Spirit of grace, knowing what Jesus has done for you, knowing the sacrifice that he made, knowing that he shed his blood on the cross for you, and then you still choosing to say no, I'm going to keep sinning anyways. And I know this is wrong, but I'm going to do it. You are cheapening and treading underfoot the Son of God himself, who came down and made that sacrifice for you. It's like, here, let me step on you a little bit more. I know you made this great sacrifice because of my sins, but you know what, I'm going to keep doing more and more and just keep adding that on. Now obviously we know he paid for all sin one time, but we are living in time. And every single day, you know, you have the choices to make. Don't be adding that sin unto Jesus Christ for that, just the extra payment to keep paying for all these sins that you want to do, because now you're treating it as it's just you're despising the Spirit of grace. For we know him that hath said, vengeance belongeth unto me. I will recompense that the Lord, and again, the Lord shall judge his people. Again, this is talking about the people who are saved. It's talking about his people, right? God's going to judge his people. Don't forget about that judgment. Vengeance belongs unto God. God's going to repay. God's going to make things right. God is a just judge. Yes, you may be saved. Yeah, you're never going to go to hell. But you know what, when you sin willfully, watch what you're doing, because it is a fearful thing, as the Bible says in verse 31, is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. We need to have that proper fear of God and understanding of sin and how bad sin is. And sin bring forth death and that destruction. And sin is like 11. And you know what, when you get involved in sin, it oftentimes will lead you into other sins and other sins and other sins. You're going to start off small, just dabbling into something, oh, I like this, oh, I like that. And it always ends up leading. When you start opening up the door, because here's the thing. The problem with sin is it's the heart problem. When you start, especially when you start doing things willfully, and say, well, I know it's wrong, but I'm just going to do this one little thing, as soon as you give that open door, you just want to open up a crack, like, oh, I'm just going to let a little bit of sin in. It's just, you end up, doesn't take long at all, before you're going to find yourself in many different things, many different areas. And I'll testify to this, you know, music for me has been a real big problem in general in my life, because it has such an impact on me. I love it so much. I'm talking about worldly music. And every time I would find myself, even after I destroyed my music, I'd like to say right now that, yeah, when I decided I was done with all the worldly music, and I destroyed it and put it in the trash, I'd never listen to it again. I wish I could say that to you, but that would be a lie. Because I still have the flesh that wants to, that has a desire and a craving, and this lusty desire to be gratified, and, oh, man, I just want to listen to that again. I love that stuff, man. I want to listen to that. So the flesh speaking, and when you give into that flesh, and I've noticed this time and time again in my own life, when I would give into that and say, okay, yeah, I'm just going to listen to this. Oh, I'm just going to listen to this a little bit. Other things start to then happen and lead into other sins. And I can't even explain it, because they don't even necessarily have to be tied one to another, but it just happens, and it causes more problems in your life. And this is just, you know, and again, sorry, this last point isn't like, I'm not just taking the scripture and proving it to you. This is just experience. This is just the way it works. And you can believe me or not on this, but I hope you believe me. Because I see a lot of people, I think, are like, yeah, I know, this happens. We need to recognize that. And when you open up that door, and you say, you know what, I know this is wrong, but I'm going to do it anyways, your heart is open more to receiving more sin. You've already crossed a line, and we're going to do this later this evening. You cross the line, things you wouldn't have done, well, I mean, once you once you go over that line, oftentimes, like you don't just stop and make a new line. It's just kind of like, oh, well, forget it. I mean, I already just did this now. I might as well just continue. And that's what happens is that you make up these rules, and you make up these lines, and then you cross it. But then it's like, you get this this thinking of, well, I mean, I've already done I may as well just continue. I mean, I've already sinned. And that's the mindset. And that's the sinful mindset that continues. And that's what gets people backsliding and backsliding and backsliding further and further away. Because you start thinking, well, I guess I already did it, like, no, just stop. You find yourself, you know, backsliding, you find yourself, you know, first of all, don't open that door willfully. Don't just get into willful sin, because it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Understand that sin brings death and destruction, and no good ever comes out of it. And this is real vague, right? Sin, there's so many different areas you can sin in, but apply it to yourself, whatever your sins are, whatever it is that your flesh is craving and desiring after and just really wants, you know what they are. And the thing is, with sin, sin applies to all sin. Everything we've been reading about sin bringing forth death, it's not only the really bad sins. It's sin, it's breaking God's clause, breaking His commandments. That is sin. So whatever your sin is, it doesn't matter in the context of everything that was preached this morning. Sin bringing forth death, destruction, not, you know, not anything we should want to be a part of at all. And having that in remembrance, we need to remember how bad it is so that we can keep ourselves from sinning. Tonight I'm going to cover the shame of sin. So if you could make it back for this evening sermon, great. If you can, try to tune in because there's just so much to cover, I mean I could go on and on and on for weeks. I don't like getting into real long series though on some of these things, but I mean sin, we need to be hitting on this. We need to hit on the specifics. We also need to hit on the generality just of sin in general to make sure that we can keep ourselves. We have work to do for the Lord. We want our lives to mean something. I know I want to be able to look back on my life however long I live and be able to say, you know what, I actually did something meaningful and I didn't just waste my time and I helped as many people as I could and I did as much work for the Lord as I could and actually feel somewhat fulfilled at that and not real empty going, well, I did my best, but my best was almost nothing because I just couldn't overcome that flesh and I just kept allowing myself to do this and do that and do this and never really ended up doing anything because I got caught up and distracted with all this sin. And that's what it is. It's a distraction. I mean, there's so many facets of sin that just get you out of the race. You're going to have to deal with the judgment, you're going to have to deal with the death that brings sin, you know, the strained relationships, you know, the waste of time, all that goes along with it. The wages of sin is death. We need to keep our testimony. We need to be able to show other people, say, hey, you know, the Bible's true. Not only do we need to lead people to Christ so that they can receive that atonement, but also teaching them and instructing them and discipling them to live a righteous life and persuade them, hey, get this in and get right with God. Start doing and living the way that God has told us to so that you can be blessed too Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for giving us the instruction for your law, dear Lord, for showing us the right way. I pray that you would help us all to overcome the sins in our own life. And I pray that you would just help our church to grow, help us to retain a strong testimony, dear Lord, and that you would just use us, forgive us, dear Lord, help us to retain a humble attitude and not get stiff-necked and just engulfed in our own sins, dear Lord. Help us to get the victory over our sins. Strengthen us, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.