Perseverance - Part II

Jeffrey Johnson's sermon "Perseverance - Part II" emphasizes the importance of maintaining enduring faith and not relying on past experiences or initial zeal. He begins by sharing a personal story about a young, zealous seminary student who eventually fell away from faith despite initial fervor and theological soundness. This serves as a cautionary tale about the danger of presuming one's salvation based on past experiences.

Johnson then discusses the concept of apostasy, explaining that departing from faith is not uncommon and is often warned against in the Bible. He highlights several biblical examples of individuals who fell away, like Demas and Alexander, and draws parallels to the Israelites who, despite experiencing God's miracles, did not enter the Promised Land due to unbelief and disobedience.

The core message of the sermon revolves around Paul's warnings in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. Johnson identifies five key pitfalls to avoid in order to persevere in faith:
1. **Relying on past experiences**: Do not depend on past religious experiences or milestones for assurance of salvation. True faith is ongoing and present.
2. **Being presumptuous**: Avoid the attitude of assuming you are secure regardless of your current spiritual state. This includes lusting after the world, engaging in idolatry, sexual immorality, testing Christ, and complaining.
3. **Carelessness**: Do not be overly confident or careless in your Christian walk. Recognize your weakness and the constant need for God's grace.
4. **Discouragement**: While acknowledging the real and present dangers of falling away, Johnson also offers hope. He reassures that God is faithful and provides a way to endure temptations.
5. **Flirting with idolatry**: Actively flee from sin and idolatry rather than merely avoiding them.

Johnson stresses the need for a present and enduring faith, a continuous reliance on Christ, and a lifestyle of repentance and belief. He concludes by encouraging immediate repentance and returning to God, emphasizing that true perseverance involves ongoing faith and vigilance against sin.

Transcript

0:00

We'll be reading the first 14 verses of this chapter. This is part two on perseverance. Many years ago, in fact, I think it's about five or six years ago, some of you who were with us that long ago remember we had a young seminary student that had moved in to Conway from Minnesota that was zealous for the Lord. He became, to me, I have a special love for the young men, especially those who are pursuing ministry, and he was one of our earlier students. In fact, in one way he was one of the students that led to the beginnings of our seminary, and I had a special interest in him because of his zeal. He had zeal for the Lord, unlike Mimi. He was evangelist. He would go out and preach. He'd go out and evangelize. He would write tracts, little tracts, gospel tracts. He would have me review them, and they were solid and sound. I remember writing a little gospel tract on justification by faith alone, and I was so impressed with it that we had many of them printed up so we could hand them out, and we even had them at our church to hand out. They were so theologically accurate and precise, and the man was zealous. He was saved out of a life of drugs. He was saved out of, well at least he claimed he was saved out of life of being in a gang. Just a young man, and in the process of his pursuing ministry and pursuing the Lord, he ended up following away. It was a tragic event. He ended up making a few mistakes, and I would counsel him. In fact, many of the pastors counseled him for many hours, but I spent hours after hours trying to help them be restored back to faith, and what do you have to do when you sin, and how to repent, and eventually he says, "I don't want to repent," he told me, "and I just want to go back and have fun." It was devastating. We end up doing church discipline on them, and it was a hard time for the church, but it was a hard time for me, in particular because I was watching this young man leave the faith. It's like, how does that happen? And he's not the type of person you would think would have done it. Now when you look around at your neighbor sitting next to you, you don't think, and we shouldn't think this of people. We shouldn't have this suspiciousness of,"You're gonna be one who departs from the faith," but you definitely wouldn't have thought this young man would have done what he did. In fact, it's been multiple years now, and he's still out in the jungles doing who knows what. He told me, it was shocking, he told me, he says, "Jeff, I know I'm gonna go to hell, but I don't care. I don't care. I want my fun now. I know it's gonna cost me." But you know, seeing people leave the faith is not just a random thing. It's not just like something that just happens every now and then. There's a lot of people that do it. The Bible calls it apostasizing, departing from the faith, leaving the faith. In the New Testament, the church is young, the church is young, and there's already numerous names. Used to be professing believers who no longer professing Christ that depart. We know of Demas. Paul says, "Demas has forsaken me. He loves this present world. He's forsaken me for this world. He wants this world." You have Alexander, who also forsook Christ. I mean, walked with Christ for a while and doesn't finish. We've talked about last week about the seeds that are sown in the thorns. They spring up with joy and endure for a season, but in the end they don't produce long-lasting fruit. They go back the way they come. The Lord tells us, He told the 12 when He sent them out and then the 72 when He sent them out, He says, "I'm going to send you out like sheep before wolves, and you're going to be hated, and you're going to be despised, and you're going to be tempted to forsake me. You're going to be tempted to deny me, but if you deny me before unholy men, I will deny you before my holy angels." Then He says, "It's those who endure to the end that shall be saved." You think about salvation as a journey. Now, I know once you're justified in the initial moment you believe you're secured in the hands of God, but the knowledge of our security is not in some, as we'll see, in some past experience. It's a present faith that we must have. It's an enduring faith. We must live by not a past faith, but a present faith, and thus we're not to take this journey presumptuously and think, "Hey, I'm good to go. I've got my ticket punched." There are many who start that don't finish, and we think about the Christian life. It's a scary thing to think that you or I may be one of the many who begin the race but don't finish. That's a scary thought, and we need to be sure. We need to make our calling election sure. We need to work out our salvation. There is some sense of fear and trembling so that we don't become presumptuous and think, "Well, it doesn't matter how I live. I can do what I want, and I'm just going to rely upon grace. I'm going to send that grace may abound." If that's the attitude we have, it's not an attitude of preservation and perseverance. And think about, as we'll look at this text, we'll think about how many came out of Egypt but very few entered into the Promised Land. And it wouldn't it be nice just the moment you believe, the moment you were justified, you were zapped out of this dark evil world and all the temptation that would bring you back, you were zapped right into heaven. But we're not zapped immediately into heaven. There's a journey for us to walk, and Satan is out to get you and I. Satan is trying to bring us back to himself. He's not going to leave you alone, and he's going to tempt you, and he is tempting you, and he's going to try us. And unless we're fully committed and we're striving to enter in the narrow way, unless we're fully committed and we truly believe, and we have the faith, not a temporary faith, a short-lived faith, but we have a faith that endures to the end, a faith that will not allow us to forsake Christ. We cannot, we will be proven not to be a true child of God. And I don't want that for you. I don't want it for myself. So let's read with me. Paul is, we saw last week, he's talking about what he does, what he is doing, or what he did to endure to the end, and he took it seriously, disciplined himself. Now he turns in this text to the Corinthians, and he warns them, and we got to remember the Corinthians are doing a lot of things that put their life kind of in some form of doubt. They're the things that he says you got to be careful not to do, fall into sexual immorality and idolatry, and all these things where the Corinthians church were flirting with all these things. And so he's warning them, he's warning them, and let's read starting in verse 1. "For I do not want you to be unaware brothers that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, all drunk the same spiritual drink. For they drunk from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as an example for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rolled up to play. We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and 23,000 fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents, nor grumble as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation is overtaking you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he is not, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. Therefore my beloved flee from idolatry. Now this is a warning to them, and I think it's a warning for all of us to take seriously. And so what he's going to do, he's going to give five things for them to avoid if they want to persevere in the faith. Five things to avoid, five things not to do. If you want to fall from grace, or fall from the faith, if you want to depart the living God, as many have done, then void these things. Paul says in 1st Timothy 1 verse 19, "We're to hold fast to the faith with a good conscience, which some have rejected, and have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith. Among them are harmonious and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme." We don't want to be like these two men who did not hold fast to the faith. They let the things that they once believed slip, and they departed from the faith. They left the faith, made sick rep of the faith. We don't want that of our lives. We don't want that of our spouse's life, our children's life. We want to be rather those who endure to the end, and we believe and continue to believe no matter what temptations we face. And if that's what we want, which I'm sure it is, here's five things for us to avoid. First, avoid relying upon your past experiences. Don't live off yesterday's faith and yesterday's experiences. You know how many people will you talk to as well? You know they're not living for the Lord. They're not even in church. They don't have any desire to be holy, but you ask if they're saved, they'll repeat something about they were baptized when they were younger, or they walked the owl when they were younger, or they made their peace with God sometime when they were as a child. And this is what they're relying upon. This is what giving them their assurance of salvation. They wrote the date of their conversion in the Gideon Bible, and they look at that date and go, "This is my salvation. This is why I know I'm going to go to heaven." And they're relying upon something that took place in the past. And we're thank God for our past experiences, but we can look here that here all the Israelites had many of the same experiences as Joshua who made it into the Promised Land. But with most of the Israelites that came out of Egypt, most of them God wasn't well pleased with them. They came out of Egypt, but they didn't make it into the Promised Land. Think about some of the benefits that they endured, I mean they experienced. One, they were delivered out of Egypt. They came out a bondage. And Jude tells us in Jude 5, he says, "But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterwards destroyed those who did not believe." You see, they came out, but they were end up destroyed by God Himself. God wasn't pleased with them. He destroyed them. He delivered them initially, but destroyed them in the end. They, we see verse 1, "They were all under the cloud. For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud." You know, he led them by miraculous science. There was a pillar of fire by night to lead them. Then there was a cloud, a watery cloud that protected them from the sun during the daytime and led them. It was a shade to them. It was God's divine blessing upon their lives. And they can look at this and say, "Look, God is with us. God is with me. Look what He's done for me." Not only did they have the cloud to lead them and to protect them, they all passed through the sea. I mean, the whole group came out of Egypt and they all went through the Red Sea. And this speaks of their baptism. Here they have a wall of water on one side, a wall of water on the other side, and a wall of water above them. They were all, if you were, baptized. They were baptized by this watery judgment. And that's what baptism represents, that it brought judgment upon the Egyptians but delivered them out of judgment. And so they can look at their past and say, "Look, God loves us. God cares for us. We're good. We've been delivered. We can see our past experiences." And that's what some people do today. They look at their water baptism when they were 12 years old or 10 years old and they go, "Look, God has saved me and I know I'm good. It doesn't matter how I live today. It doesn't matter if I really trust the Lord today and walking with God today. I have this assurance based upon my experiences." Look, not only they were baptized, they were all protectors of the Lord's Supper in some sense. Look at verse 2, verse 3, I mean,"And all ate the same spiritual food." I mean, God fed them miraculously with manna from heaven. They all ate from it. And not only did they have food, they had water because remember they were out in the desert. God protected them and took care of them and not only brought water out of the most unlikely place in the world, a rock. Water gushed out of that rock and no matter where the Israelites walked, they walked this way, the river followed them. They walked that way, the river followed them. That river coming out of the rock followed them wherever they went. This is God's divine power being manifested among their lives and they were able to drink from this water. They were able to eat the manna from heaven and in a sense this rock represents Christ. They were partaking of spiritual realities. They were tasting of the powers of the age to come. They experienced it with their own eyes and tasted it with their own mouths and they were enjoying these things. And you would think, there's any people that are the people of God, it would be the Israelites. It's not the Egyptians. God's working against the Egyptians and He's working in favor of the Israelites and thus they can be certain they're going to make it into the promised land. So it would seem but Paul says past experience is not something for us to put our assurance in. Look at verse 5, "Nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness." Drew to auto me 2 verse 15 says, "Indeed the hand of the Lord was against them to destroy them from the midst of the camp they were all consumed." The point of this is in our desire to persevere, don't look at your past and go, "I'm good." I mean you can look to Christ, in fact you see that's our only hope is to look at Christ today. But don't say, "I looked to Christ yesterday." If you're not looking to Christ today, don't rely upon some experiences. We need to be convinced that our experiences can be deceptive. They can be fabricated or they can just be temporal. So relying upon something that took place in your past as your guarantee for your future is not a safe security. So persevering is not looking backwards. It's not looking backwards. It's not trusting your childhood or your experiences. It doesn't matter what you went through. Second thing, based upon this first one, don't be presumptuous. We see this in verses 10 through 6 through 10. Here we're warned not to follow the example of the Israelites. Look at verse 6, "Now these things took place as examples for us." And then verse 11, skip down real quick, "Now all these things happened to them as examples and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the age have come." God had this happen and He wrote it down for it to be a warning to us. And the thing we need to see here, He's warning true Christians that will persevere. He's warning some that are not true Christians that might not persevere. But the warning is for all of us to take heed. It's for you to take heed. I know this is for you to personalize yourself and not look to your neighbor. This is for you to go, "I need to take heed of this." This happened for my example. This was to admonish me. This was to instruct me. This is to remind me not to be presumptuous. And this is what the Israelites were doing. They were be presumptuous. They were the children of Abraham and because of that they were going to be secure. They've had all these past experiences. They thought they're going to be secure but there are several temptations that came upon them that led to them to depart from God. Look at verse 6, "They were tempted to lust after this world." Verse 6 says, "Now these things take place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did." Here they are. They were brought out of Egypt but Egypt wasn't brought out of them. They still loved this world. They still lusted and craved this world. Their hearts were constantly going back to Egypt. Their bodies were out but their hearts were still fixed upon this world and the things of this world. And that is what we have to avoid. If your heart is fixed upon carnality and selfishness, those love of the world, love of pleasure, money, riches, fame, all these things that captivate humanity, all these things that alert us and tempt us, the love of this world, the pride of life, these things will cause us to go back to the world and they're tempting us. Come back, come back. Don't you miss us. Don't you want us again. They were tempted to lust after this world. Secondly, they were tempted to idolatry. Look at verse 7, "Do not be idolaters as some of them were. As is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play." Now we know that they made a golden calf and they actually had real idols in their lives but in this example it wasn't the golden calf, it was just rising up and playing. It's just rising up and living for this world, just making their life in this world. It's not as pilgrims and strangers and think, "Hey, we're not, we're in this desert. This is not our home. We're pilgrims and strangers. We're looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. We're looking for that heavily dwelling place. That's our home. That's where our affections are located. That's where we're living for. We're trying to strive to get there." No, they were still in Egypt and they in this journey, in this long journey, this 40 years journey, they just sought to entertain themselves through playing around and we see it was worse than that. They fell into sexual immorality. In fact, that's the third thing they were tempted to do. In fact, our friend that I mentioned at the beginning, that's what he fell into and didn't want to give it up. Look at verse 8, "We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did and 23,000 fell in a single day." I mean, how many people have fallen this, how many preachers have fallen? Seriously fallen with this sin and some of them have never been rescued from it. Some have fallen and are rescued out of it. Think the Lord that there's grace for those who sin and there is a way out of those who fall into grievous sins. But many don't come out. They get ensnared in them and they end up being destroyed by it. They tempted, the fourth thing they did, verse 9, it says, "They tempted Christ. We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and was destroyed by serpents." Here, the Lord was feeding them and giving them drink, water from a rock, a manna from heaven. And what did they do? They complained and they got tired of the manna. They got tired of God's provisions. They wanted more. They didn't want to live off every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. They wanted to live off meat and they craved meat and so they tempted the Lord because they complained and finally God gave them what they wanted. He says God filled their bellies but the Psalm says they had leanness of soul and eventually destroyed them in the wilderness. It's amazing those who go after the world go back to the world. They find that this world is not what they were looking for. They're all the more miserable and then they got nothing but destruction afterwards. You see, fifth, they were tempted to complain against God. Look at verse 10, "nor grumble as some of them did and was destroyed by the destroyer." I know at least 10 times in their journey out of Egypt they complain. When they got to the Red Sea they complained because the Egyptians are behind them. They complain. They got after past the Red Sea they complained because there's no food. They complained about the manna and they complained about Moses, their leadership. In fact, I think probably this is what he's talking about when they begin to be disgruntled with Moses. Then God sent a destroyer and thousands of them were swallowed up. The herbs just swallowed them whole. They complained and complained and complained and so we got to be careful as Christians that a complaining grumbling spirit doesn't take over us. We're always complaining and disgruntled. It's not a healthy method of persevering. Hebrews 3 tells us in verse 16, "For who having heard rebelled indeed was it not all who came out of Egypt led by Moses, now with whom was he angry for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpse fell in the wilderness, and to whom he did he swear that they would not enter into his rest? But to those who did not obey so we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief." So here we're told here to look at the Egyptians, I mean the Israelites coming out of Egypt and take heed and not be presumptuous. Don't just take this for granted. Don't just say I'm on auto auto pallet, I'm good to go. Especially, especially if you find yourself living in sin. Especially if you find yourself craving this world. If you're craving this world and you don't hate this world and you're not pursuing Christ, I'll take heed. In fact that's my third point. To avoid falling away we need to be careful. Don't be hairless. We see this in verse 11 through 12. Again in verse 11 we see that these things were written down for our instructions to admonish us, to exhort us, to remind us of these things. Now which of these temptations were the Corinthians not in danger of? In fact the various things the Israelites were doing you can see the Corinthians were mimicking in some small way. They needed this warning. All of them needed this warning and I would say even us it's good for us to be reminded of these things. Who does need to take heed to these warnings? We may be thinking everybody else does and if that's our initial thought someone else needs this warning then you need it because he who thinks he stands right? Take heed. That means all of us need to take heed. I mean I think I stand but that doesn't mean I don't need to take heed. He who thinks he stands verse 11 take heed. Verse 12 I mean. It's not just those who are on the verge of falling away it's those who are overly confident especially in themselves. Overly confident. You see pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before fall. My dad relayed to me one time that he was talking to another pastor. He's a pastor and he was talking to a pastoral friend and they were talking about another pastoral friend who just committed adultery and my dad's friend as they were discussing the shock of it said I will never do that. I will never do that. How dare he do that. My dad said it was within a week or month couple months don't remember the time frame. He got caught committing adultery. You say the Titanic will never sink. I will never do that. I'm above that. I will never fall away. I'll go with you Lord. I'll go and as Peter said to Christ I'll go and die with you. Next thing you know you're denying Christ three times. Brothers and sisters you and I are very weak. You and I are very weak and it would take just God's restraining grace to be removed in the right temptations for you and I to fall away. We stand by God's grace not my restraint. Take heed of presumptuous take heed of self-confidence take heed of this attitude that I'm good I'm good I'm strong I'm a strong Christian I've walked with the Lord for a long time. It takes down preachers it takes down missionaries we know a missionary that we supported that we've loved we prayed for who not only left his wife but bought a brothel. After money much much support and prayer make whole shatbrick of the faith. He was my age I would never thought it would take place. I had a pastor friend the one I looked up to older than me he's between my dad's age and my age and he was a mentor to me he ends up getting caught with a young girl. What happens? It's like well this doesn't happen it's a rare thing it's not rare and we're not above that. A haughty spirit of thinking that we're not going to happen to us is a dangerous place to be. You're only as strong as you realize your weakness. You're only as strong as you realize that it could happen to me and I need to take heed I need to be careful I need to be on guard I need to keep my eyes on Christ I need to have present faith not just past faith I don't need to be presumptuous I don't need to be flirting with sin and think it's all as well it could cost us our soul. Peter tells us therefore dear friend since you have hurt have been forewarned be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawlessness and fall from your secure position do not think that you can willfully go on sinning let me just read some stuff to you just take take this to heart Hebrews 2 therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard lest we drift away Hebrews 3 6 but Christ as the son over his own house whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of hope firm to the end Hebrews 3 12 beware brother lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God for we become protectors of Christ if we hold that the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end Hebrews 4 1 therefore since a promise remains of entering his rest let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it I mean we're not to fear right one to just be relaxed and Hebrews 4 11 let us therefore be diligent to enter into that rest let's anyone fall away to the same example of disobedience Hebrews 6 verse 4 for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the ages to come if they fall away to renew them again to repentance since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame and then in verse 11 and we desire that each one of you should show the same diligence to full assurance of hope until the end be diligent take heed work out your salvation with fear and trembling he who thinks he stands take heed unless he falls this is a warning for us to not be careless in our Christian walk not to grow weary and well-doing and give up and allow things to slip so let me give you a quick word before I give you a little bit of encouragement if one of you are here and you have allowed some things to slip into your life and you're flirting with sin maybe you're maybe it's in your mind right now it's not you haven't maybe it's an emotional adultery and it's not a physical one yet maybe it's some pride in your life that you know that it's kind of starting to snowball on you now's the time to check it now's the time to repent of it it is not the time to knowingly knowingly to willful sin to go say hey it's all gonna be well I can sin that grace may abound now God is gonna protect us but doesn't mean we need to be presumptuous and I'm convinced that he keeps his people through these warnings it is some way of keeping his people he warns us and it's through the act of ongoing faith is how he's keeping his people but we need to be careful because some fall away who knows if it's not us next who knows it's not us but we see here the fourth thing is we're not to be just overly discouraged here Paul is not trying to beat down the Corinthians so they think well we're all gonna fall away we're all gonna fall away no he's giving us some hope in verse 13 that though we're gonna be tempted to fall away and Satan is trying to pull you back to himself he's trying to get you to stumble he's trying to get you to fall he's trying to shift you he wants you he hates you he hates Christ he hates everything he stands for he's against you he's against your marriage he's against your testimony he wants to defame you he wants to discredit you he wants you for himself he wants to devour you and you don't war with flesh and blood you war with this Prince of power of the air and he it's a real enemy and you have to really fight you have to have the full armor of God to endure but with this he's gonna tempt you but God's gonna make sure that in the temptations that you endure and face that you're gonna be able to have a way of escape look at verse 13 no temptation is overtaking you that is not common to man God is faithful he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability that is these temptations are testing your strength is testing your resolve is testing your faith is testing your commitment to him the Bible tells us in 2nd Peter 2 9 if all this is sold then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the upper righteous the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment but he knows how to preserve us he knows how to keep us and he's not gonna protect us from all temptation now what a prey do not leave me in temptation we need all thing meant it the other reason I haven't fallen is because I haven't been tempted to the greatest extent and we also need that pride I mean humility someone might have fall over here say to yourself I would have done the same thing I'm prone to do the same thing if it wasn't for the grace of God it was only by restraining hand of God and he protected me from even greater temptations but when we are tempted and we will be tempted and the temptation is forced to deny Christ to do sin to forsake Christ and temptation is a temptation to not believe ever sin is a sin of unbelief when you're tempted to go after this world is because you don't believe Christ but with every temptation God has promised you and I that there's going to be a door of escape he's not going to tempt us beyond the ability so you can never say to yourself well I just couldn't help it I couldn't help it no there's a way out yes the temptation may be right in our face but there's a door of escape behind us it's somewhere look for it there's a way of escape that you might endure this see God's is gonna keep us his people at least he's gonna keep his people and he's gonna have a way of escape and then when we do fall there's a way of forgiveness and restoration there's a way back to the experiential fellowship with Christ my last point as we come to a conclusion if you want to persevere in the faith don't flirt with idolatry this is what seems to be Paul's conclusion therefore my beloved flee from idolatry it doesn't say walk away from idolatry when you see it if you understood the dangers behind idolatry if you understood the the words of Christ that says depart from me I never knew you and he's like wait a minute I went to church I even preached some sermons and I was baptized I took the Lord's Supper I did all these things and the Lord will say to you hey I never knew you to part from me you workers of iniquity what a careful thing and therefore if we see the end of sin we see how dangerous it is we would flee it we would run from it we wouldn't flirt with it probabr 7 talks about the fool walking by the harlot's house you know I'm just gonna walk I'm not gonna go in I'm not gonna look in I just want to walk by there it's more convenient route and the curiosity of just like well there's a harlot lives there and then next thing you know you're in the house and you've fallen and been destroyed we need to be careful that we're not flirting we're to chop off our hands and pluck out our eyes we need to have a desire to whatever it takes to kill sin because sin will be killing us according to John Owen kill it run from it Lee it don't don't just think the Christian life is gonna be easy you've got a persevere and you have to work in faith run to the Lord and run away from any form of idolatry this is what it means to persevere it's like it's not I used to run from the Lord I mean run from sin it's presently running from sin and I'm exhorting you I'm exhorting myself today is not the day to slow down today today is not for us to go I've done that today today look to Christ run to Christ with all your heart some of us what we need to do the way back is repentance the way back is acknowledging Lord I've drifted I've slipped I've gotten easy I have wondered and I didn't mean to but that's no excuse and here I am flirting with the things I used to despise I'm entertaining the things I used to put away Lord forgive me I'm sorry and look by faith to the returning will work of Jesus Christ you see it's by grace that you're saved it's not that you have to clean yourself up I love this about the gospel I love it so one of the most precious things to me about the gospel is that you don't clean yourself up to get back right with God you don't have to like have 20 days of idolaty free living before you can pray what you do you come to Christ with your sins and confess them you come and say this is what I've done Lord I know it's wicked but please forgive me and by his grace if you confess your iniquities you forgive forgive your for forsake them and confess them he is just and he's righteous to forgive you and here's a here's a closing word for those who have flirted with sin this has been the thing that's helped me so much and I hope it helps helps you back in my young days I was struggling with a particular sin that young men struggle with old men struggle with it too in fact women struggle with it from what I've been told and what would happen after I'd I was my guilt would get to me and I would feel so discouraged I was in college and I was feel so discouraged I would wait a day or two before I could pray because I wasn't worthy to go to the Lord and he was upset with me I knew it and so I would I would sit there in my pity and my guilt my shame and I would try to have a few days of clean clean thoughts so that he would be happy with me again right everybody's experienced this where you where you just where you just feel like you need to clean yourself up then the Lord's gonna receive you well that was my mindset and I would find that I would going back to the same darn sin again and repeating the process with no victory no victory no victory and finally either someone counseled this to me or I don't know someone told me this I don't know how I saw it but I said the next time I sin I'm going to go straight to the Lord I'm not gonna wait to clean myself up I'm going straight to the Lord even before I'm done sinning now you can't keep going you can't keep sinning if you go straight to the Lord you can't you can't do both things and I found myself I mean even before I was finished I'm praying Lord I'm so sorry and I found that God gave me through that method of coming to the Lord with my sins not because I'm clean but with my sins he forgave me and gave me victory over my sins brothers and sisters if you want to persevere in the Lord with the Lord with faith come to Christ believe the gospel keep believing not because you used to believe but believe today I've heard I've been told this and I believe it's true when people hear the gospel when Christians hear the gospel they get converted all over again not because they need constant conversion but it's almost the spiritual side of it it's like I believe again I believe again I repent again and the Christian life is a constant life of repentance and a consistent life of believing so today believe his word for the forgiveness of sin and maintain a life of repentance and belief in the gospel this is the method of preservation let's pray Lord keep your people protect us from sin this we pray amen