Dabbling with sin

By: American Decency Staff

Yesterday our email alert raised the question of how those who name the name of Christ can also choose to be entertained by immorality such as the themes of “Desperate Housewives”. Following are a couple of responses from some of you who share our concern. In addition, please read below the powerful quotes from John Piper’s book “Future Grace” regarding the danger of dabbling with lust and the danger of holding a cavalier attitude about sin within a Christian’s life. First, these responses: ******************* “Brother Johnson, keep preaching it. I tell our church all the time the ungodliness on the TV and internet are off limits to Christians. If they can’t control the knob they should get rid of the TV or the internet. Lord bless you, Pastor ..” ************************* Dear American Decency: “What bothers me the most about the truth you are speaking is that it is not coming from the pulpits of our churches. It has to come from a funded, non-profit organization. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind sending a mass mailing to the evangelical pastors of some of the mega churches (and also the medium-sized churches) letting them know how many of us feel. The viewing habits of the pastors and the people of God DIRECTLY EFFECT the morals (or that lack thereof) of our society. The truth MUST come from the pulpits. It may be true that you cannot legislate morality. However, we can be the current-day prophet’s voice and remind church leaders that what they do in their private lives will impact how effectively they disseminate truth. … If you really want to make a difference in re-establishing the morals in this society, I suggest you start where God would begin–with His people first. “If MY PEOPLE who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways–THEN will I hear from heaven and HEAL their land”. Thank you for your time. I will, as always, continue to support the American Decency organization.” A.G. And this important admonition from Pastor John Piper: “On July 20, 1933, Donald Wyman was clearing land near Punxsutawney, Pennyslvania, as part of his work for a mining company. In the process, a tree rolled onto his shin causing a severe break and pinning Wyman to the ground. He cried for help for an an hour, but no one came. He concluded that the only way to save his life would be to cut off his leg. So he made a tourniquet out of his shoestring and tightened it with a wrench. Then he took his pocketknife and cut through the skin, muscle, and bone just below the knee and freed himself from the tree. He crawled thirty yards to a bulldozer, drove a quarter-mile to his truck, then maneuvered the standard transmission with his good leg and a hand until he reached a farmer’s house one-and-a-half miles away, with his leg bleeding profusely. Farmer John Huber Jr. helped him get to a hospital where his life was spared. “Jesus knew that humans love to live. So he appealed to this passion in order to show the importance of purity. Just as Donald Wyman cut off his leg to save his life, Jesus commanded that we gouge out our eye to escape the fatal effect of lust. “Everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:28-29). Of course, if you gouge out your “right eye,” as Jesus says, you can still see the magazine with your left eye. So Jesus must have something even more radical in mind than literal mutilation. “A few years ago I spoke to a high school student body on how to fight lust. One of my points was called, “Ponder the eternal danger of lust.” I quoted the words of Jesus — that it’s better to go to heaven with one eye than to hell with two — and said to the students that their eternal destiny was at stake in what they did with their eyes and with the thoughts of their imagination. “I tried to counteract the prevalent notion that personal, sexual morality, including the life of the mind, is of minor moral significance. Idealistic students (and adults) often think that what they do with their bodies and their minds, on the personal level is no big deal. If it’s sin at all, it’s sin with a little “s”. “Shouldn’t we just get on with the big issues like international peace, and global environmental strategies, and racial reconciliation, and social justice, and health-care initiatives, and the elimination of violence? “Sleeping around is simply no big deal, if you are on the picket line for justice and flipping through Playboy is utterly insignificant if you are on your way to peace talks in Geneva. “I stressed that Jesus sees things very differently. Those global issues are important. But the reason they are is because they all have to do with people — not just statistical aggregates, but real individual people. And the most important thing about people is that, unlike animals and trees, they live forever in heaven glorifying God, or in hell defying God. People are not important because they breathe. They’re important because they have the capacity to honor God with their hearts and minds and bodies long after they stop breathing — forever. “What Jesus is saying, therefore, is that the consequences of lust are going to be worse than the consequences of war or environmental catastrophe. The ultimate scourge of war is that it can kill the body. But Jesus said, “do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who after He has killed has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5). In other words, God’s final judgment is much more fearful than earthly annihilation. “After my message in the high school auditorium, one of the students came up to me and asked, “Are you saying then that a person can lose his salvation?” In other words, if Jesus used the threat of hell to warn about the seriousness of lust, does that mean that a Christian can perish? “This is exactly the same response I got a few years ago when I confronted a man about the adultery he was living in. I tried to understand his situation and I pled with him to return to his wife. Then I said, “You know, Jesus says that if you don’t fight this sin with the kind of seriousness that is willing to gouge out your own eye, you will go to hell and suffer there forever. ” As a professing Christian he looked at me in utter disbelief, as though he had never heard anything like this in his life, and said, “You mean you think a person can lose his salvation?” “So I have learned again and again from firsthand experience that there are many professing Christians who have a view of salvation that disconnects it from real life, and that nullifies the threats of the Bible, and puts the sinning person who claims to be a Christian beyond the reach of biblical warnings. I believe this view of the Christian life is comforting thousands who are on the broad way that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13). Jesus said, if you don’t fight lust, you won’t go to heaven. Not that saints always succeed. The issue is that we resolve to fight, not that we succeed flawlessly. “The stakes are much higher than whether the world is blown up by a thousand bombs, or the ozone layer is depleted, or AIDS sweeps the nations. All these calamities can kill only the body. But if we don’t fight lust we lose our soul. … “In Galatians 5:19, Paul mentions immorality, impurity and sensuality and says, “‘Those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:21).  -Taken from “Future Graceâ” by John Piper =========================================================== Let’s encourage one another and strengthen one another to be more like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. American Decency Association Bill Johnson, President P.O. Box 202 Fremont, MI 49412 PH: 231-924-4050 www.americandecency.org

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