Little Sins are not Little Sins
By Nick Bibile
Eph
26 Be ye angry, and
sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
27 Neither give place to the devil.
28 Let him that stole
steal no more: but rather let him labour,
working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him
that needeth.
29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
30 And grieve not the holy Spirit
of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
31 Let all
bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and
evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
32 And be ye kind one
to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake
hath forgiven you.
As we are going through the book of Ephesians in chapter 4 and 5 we are going to see much on Christian conduct as Christians we are called to be the lights of the world. Before we became Christians we were living according to the passions of our desires as we were dead to God and alive to sin but God in his grace he made us alive in him brought us from darkness to the light.
In Ephesians
When we are born again, renewed back into God’s image in true righteousness and holiness, the power of sin is broken. The dominion of sin is broken but the presence of sin can never be abolished in our life nor the influence of sin. Just because we are Christians we are not immune to sin.
We are living in a fallen, wicked, sinful world. Our flesh is our greatest enemy then we have Satan and his demons, the unseen real fallen spirits working night and day against the true Christians. The true Christian realizes that he is in a battle field. For the non Christians these are not sins but weaknesses of man, the reason why they are not sins is because they don’t believe in the moral law of God, then for others who call themselves Christians outwardly these are little sins not to be taken seriously then for the true Christians these are real sins that tempt them daily.
Also each of these sins can be linked in one way or the other to the Ten Commandments.
Verse 25) speak of putting away lying.
There was a research done on
lying by the
Hancock then worked out the
number of lies per conversation for each medium. He found that lies made up 14
per cent of emails, 21 per cent of instant messages, 27 per cent of
face-to-face interactions and a whopping 37 per cent of phone calls.
This is very alarming. No one can ever say I have not lied, all have lied in one way or the other. Lying is a result of our sinful nature, if you look at an infant you will see how innocent the baby is but the baby has a sinful nature, then the baby grows becomes an child, then a teenager to an adult we see the sin inside gets ripened, we see the exercise of sin.
Lying begins when you are small, it begins when you can speak. Kids lie to their parents to get out of trouble and when they want something. There are people who lie to protect them selves or to gain something.
The reason why people lie is to cover up their sins to get out of trouble. Christians can fall into this temptation and the apostle is saying we need to put away lying as we are to speak the truth, we are members of one another.
I believe these sins, lying, anger, stealing, corrupt talk comes when a Christian is tempted under pressure. This life is like a journey which ends at the grave but to the Christian the grave is the exit to heaven and to the non Christian the grave is the exit to hell. In this life long journey there are all kinds of temptations that will come our way, God in his providence takes us in different routes, bring situations, difficulties although it seem hard and tough, it’s a spiritual education for our maturity.
We see in history Christians were persecuted, crucified and given their bodies alive for the wild lions to be eaten. Before they did that they were given the chance to deny their Lord, yet they did not lie for what they believed. Many lie under pressure but here we see true men of God stood firm under pressure. Remember Satan is called the Father of lies as he deceived one third of the angels and our first parents.
What about anger. The righteous anger is not a sin, the Lord
Jesus showed his righteous anger many times, God in the Old Testament showed
his righteous anger against
Jas
20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth
The eight commandment says, “You
shall not steal.” You may say this does not apply to me, as I am not a thief. This commandment applies to the
thieves, who break homes, banks, involve in armed robbery etc., We see
this commandment horizontally from the perspective of man, from man’s standard
and we believe, thank God I am not a thief.
But look at
vertically before God many of us have sinned as we have behaved like thieves
before God. We steal from God when we fail to worship him as we ought and we
set our own interests, we steal from him as we fail to honor him by our lives.
What about stealing
time from your employer. You clock out five minutes before lunch and clock in
five minutes after lunch. How about ministers stealing money from people? There
are many church thieves today, they make money out of
the Bible and from the people. They are smooth talkers, they will use the word
of God and may look innocent as they are good actors and they are very good in
persuasive talk. They will strip your wallet, and make you convict and guilty
if you do not give money to their ministry or church. They seldom preach the
truth to the people. They will starve the souls to death while they will fill
their stomach and live in luxury.
How about taking advantage of your neighbor, stealing money from the government, getting into huge credit debts and cannot pay, purchasing things and cannot pay, dishonest merchants. The golden rule is to be content what you have.
1Ti 6:6 But godliness with
contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry
nothing out.
8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
The Greek word for corrupt is ‘sapros’ It means rotten. Again we see people in the
world they use corrupt talk all the time, they curse God, filthy language, they use the word God and holy in their corrupt speech all
the time. Many times even Christians they don’t talk this way yet they can be
partakers of their sins as they watch movies where the actors and actresses are
using nothing but filthy language which is very harmful to the soul. Will you sit with Jesus
and watch a movie like that? You are called the temple of the Holy Spirit and
fall into this sin as they take it very lightly.
Again when the
pressure comes even how many Christians use rotten language? This is not edifying at all. From a corrupt
heart comes corrupt communication. Christians should be gentle, under control
in pressure, this can happen when you abide in Christ and not in yourself.
"Let your speech be seasoned with
salt." (Colossians 4:6)
There is no
comparison between a Seraph that is flying high above the skies and a crawling
worm. In the same way there should not be any comparison between the true
Christian and the ungodly. The believers should live in direct contradiction to
the unregenerate. The life of the Christian is above as the life of the unsaved
is from below. We should compel our critics that moralists are not good by our
lifestyle. We should shine as a peculiar people in the midst of the world.
1Pe 2:9 But ye are
a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people;
that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath
called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
The princes of evil
cannot draft us as we are not Satan’s servants. The prince and the power of the
air will tempt the child of God in every direction but we are not to follow his
worldly direction. The people of the world say, we must do as the others do, we
must swim with the tide, we must move with the crowd but the believer is not
from below as he is born from above our citizenship is in heaven not below, the
believer should say, “No, I shall not fall into the customs of this world, I am
in Rome but I shall not do as Rome does as I am an alien, this earth is a
foreign land to me, I am a soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ!. I am enlisted in
his army to serve him, I will not bow down my knee to
Baal.
Eph
The context in
Greek is do not have the habit of grieving. The sins we mentioned, like lying,
anger, stealing foul talk can become a habit and can be very unhealthy for our
growth and sanctification. If you keep on doing these sins then we are doing
contrary to God’s will and the Holy Spirit is grieved. Remember you are sealed by
the Holy Spirit and then conduct your life as you are being sealed by the Holy
Spirit.
A believer can backslide like King David and Peter
but God’s grace will show the believer of the sin and there is continuous
repentance in this life.
The believer, like a man on shipboard, may fall
again and again on the deck, but he will never fall overboard."' -C. H.
Spurgeon
Ps 94:14 For the LORD will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.
Lord’s people are his special and peculiar people,
whom he has loved, chosen, redeemed, and called, his "foreknown
people"; these he never casts off.
Jer 32:40 And I will make an everlasting covenant with
them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my
fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.
It is an everlasting covenant, flows from
everlasting love, and founded on an everlasting purpose; consists of promises,
which God, that cannot lie, made before the world began; and of grace, and
blessings of grace, given in Christ Jesus our mediator of the new covenant.
31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger,
and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
32 And be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath
forgiven you.
Thirst for God not
for the worldly things. If you have tasted his words you will thirst for more.
It is not the world that can satisfy you but Christ, yet you will thirst for
more and more, you will become godly, Christ like you will be kind to one another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, people will see a great change and Christ
like behavior.
If you only see the
love of Christ just like the deer was thirsting after the water brooks so you
will thirst after him. If you say, I don’t have a desire to know Jesus then you
don’t love him. Because love always wants to be closer to the one he loves.
Absence from Christ is hell but presence with Christ is heaven. When we come
nearer to him we come nearer to heaven. I pray that you may come and drink the
spring of eternal love. “To him be glory now and
forever. Amen.”