Little Sins are not Little Sins

By Nick Bibile

 

Eph 4:25 Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.

 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 4:24 we see that we are a new man now in Christ Jesus created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. 

 

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 University of Massachusetts, they found out that 60% of people lied at least once during a 10 minute conversation. Jeff Hancock of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, asked 30 students to keep a communications diary for a week. In it they noted the number of conversations or email exchanges they had lasting more than 10 minutes, and confessed to how many lies they told.

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 Israel many times but anger that comes from the flesh, the anger that leads to sin is not good. This is the wrathful anger, hot temper and when they are under pressure they burst into anger which creates all kinds of other sins. Cain had a hot temper and he killed his brother Abel. Apostle is saying, “do not let the sun goes down on your wrath.” Anger must be quickly dealt with before it burst out. If not the devil who is prowling like a lion will see the opportunity and he will come make it a real scene with full of sin. So we need to deal with it fast as the apostle goes on to say, “nor give a place to the devil.”

 

Jas 1:19  Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

 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 4:30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

 

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.”