WBS.284
Q&A
– WHY DO BELIEVERS STILL SIN? - 3
John 8:34 Yahushua answered
them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant
of sin.
Wrong
thinking is just one of many reasons why believers still sin; but it is perhaps
the most important one. We can never
rise above our wrong thinking.
In the Old Testament,
when we first read of the devil, he appears in the Garden of Eden as “the serpent.”
Genesis 3:1 Now the
serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which IAUE Elohim had made.
And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree
of the garden?
The Hebrew word for
serpent is nakhash.
It means “to hiss, or to whisper.” Note, also, that he is especially described
as being “more subtil” than any beast of the
field. This word, subtil, (aruwm)
in only here translated as “subtil.” It
is elsewhere translated 8X as “prudent” and 2X as “crafty.” The word means “cunning,” in the sense that
he is a thinker, a planner, a deviser of strategies. He is not one who acts spontaneously. He is calculating
in his actions. He is like a chess
player who thinks several moves ahead of the game, understanding that whatever
move he makes is calculated to force his opponent to make the very moves that
will cause the game to fall into his hands as victor.
In the New Testament,
we find him first described as a tempter and a devil.
Matthew 4:1 Then was Yahushua
led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
This word “tempted” (peirazo)
means to test or to try something to see what can be done. If you ever had a chemistry set as a child;
do you remember mixing different chemicals just to see what would happen? You put them to the test to see what would
come of it. It is what we refer to as “experimenting.” The devil experiments with man, and has for millennia. He is always examining different was to reach
a desired end. By the way, this word “devil” (diabolos) means “to slander, to falsely
accuse.”
Later in the New
Testament, we see him described as our “adversary.”
1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant;
because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking
whom he may devour:
This word “adversary”
(antidikos)
means “an opponent in a law suit.”
Let us not be
distracted. We are not doing a study of
the devil. We are discussing why, after becoming
new creatures in Yahushua Messiah do his disciples still sin. It is imperative to recognize the nature of
the enemy of our souls as we further examine this question; so let’s take a
look at what we have stated about him.
The devil is a whisperer,
a schemer, a planner, a devisor of strategies designed to enable him to win
victories against mankind (not just the saints) on any and all levels. He is a
false accuser and a crafty litigator always seeking to find the proper legal
ground to be able to put down his targeted opponents. It is safe to assume, since he is a singular
being and not described as being able to occupy more than one place at a time
(not omnipresent), that he has working at his side legions of demonic spirits
who are ready willing and able to do his bidding; allowing him to function as a
crafty master planner on a world-wide scale; while his minions work out the
details of his strategies. Paul tells us
in Ephesians 6 that they are arrayed in military fashion by ranks of authority
and position: principalities, powers,
rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in heavenly
places. As such, they follow orders and
are effective warriors working out the details of the master plan of Satan.
Herein lies the
problem. We do not see the devil nor his
minions with our natural eyes. As a
consequence of our living in a natural world ruled by what one may see, smell, hear,
taste and feel, we tend to live our lives oblivious to that which is
unseen. This allows the devil to work
around us unobserved and unobstructed, for the most part. Yahushua was not so inclined to live his life
unaware of his surroundings. He
recognized the work of Satan in men’s lives.
He took authority over the work and effect of demons in the lives of
men, women and children. The Scripture
even says that he came to destroy the works of the devil, as if to declare that
it was a specific calling of IAUE upon his life. Yahushua was never unaware or unconscious of
the invisible world of the spirit. He
was alert to the nature of the spiritual life around him at all times.
[Consider radio
waves. There are potentially hundreds of
different frequencies of radio waves that are bombarding us all day, every
day. We are oblivious to them because we
cannot see them; but with the proper receiver, we can tune in to them and learn
what messages they are broadcasting. The
world of the spirit is not unlike radio waves.
Demons and angels exist in a different spectrum of light than the very
narrow band that our natural eyes are able to see. The reality is, just like radio waves, they
are around us all the time. With the aid
of the Holy Spirit, we may detect their presence and their intention.]
When we live our lives
essentially oblivious to the world of the spirit, we find ourselves simply
going along with the flow of the enemy’s strategies. We do not make counter moves on the spiritual
chess board to resist his objectives and defeat his cunning plans for victories
against Adam’s race.
Let’s revisit Peter’s
words.
1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because
your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may
devour:
9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith,
knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in
the world.
Peter commands us to
be sober and vigilant. Why? BECAUSE.
This is a cause-and-effect matter.
BECAUSE our adversary does not take a nap; BECAUSE he does not leave us
unattended; BECAUSE he does not stop planning our demise; BECAUSE he is
tireless in his efforts to gain an advantage against us, we need not to be
stupid and unaware that he is plotting against us to devour us and render us
useless against his strategies.
This leads us directly
to our question. How does this relate to
disciples of Messiah continuing to sin once we have been forgiven of sin,
delivered from bondage to sin, and invested with the very life of Yahushua
within our newborn spirit? In a word, we
are lazy. From a military perspective,
we cease standing watch for the activity of the enemy. From a boxer’s perspective, we drop our guard
and allow the enemy to strike us.
The enemy chips away
at us bit by bit gaining whatever advantage he can. One of his most effective ways is the very
first way we see him described in the Scriptures. He WHISPERS to us. There is not a single one of us that can deny
not having that occasional whisper…that seemingly random idea that pops into
our thinking, an idea that did not originate with ourself. “Do
this.” “Do that.” “Wouldn’t this be nice?” “No one is looking…no one is around…you could
do this or that.” “That person deserves your anger, wrath, malice, calculated
reaction to undermine or hurt them.” The devil makes sin appear to be our idea, so
he may disavow any personal responsibility for it; then once we commit sin, he
pounces on us to drive home hard a sense of guilt. Guilt is a principle tool of his to render us
ineffective against him.
Peter command us to be
“sober” (nepho) – to be calm, collected,
dispassionate; and to be “vigilant” (gregorio) – to be watchful; alert. In other words, we are to understand that
this is our life. We are in a war; and
the enemy does not rest; so we can never relax our guard. We must dispassionately be on the watch to
detect the enemy’s movements and to take action as the need demands.
One of the worst elements
of a disciple’s maturing process is working through this very stark reality
that the devil and his hordes do not rest.
Our flesh likes rest. It likes
not always having to fight, or even to be watchful. Well, the reality is that we are commanded to
be sober and vigilant not just for ourselves but also for our brothers and sisters
in the faith, “…the same afflictions are
accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.”
Disciples still sin
because they are lazy. They are not
watchful. They are not attentive to what
is going on around them in the world of the spirit; and yet all that is
required is to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and follow His lead.
Until we recognize the need to be vigilant, we are easily led astray to
catering to the desires of the flesh and deal with the guilt and consequences
after the fact. This laziness and
inattentiveness to the nature and strategies of our enemy render us vulnerable
not just to our commission of sin but also to the subsequent defeat of heart
and soul and mind from the enemy’s accusations that follow our disobediences,
because we are inclined to agree with him that his accusations are true.
The greatest
commandment that is to rule our lives is to love IAUE our Elohim with all our
heart and soul and mind. When we make
our heart, soul and mind vulnerable to the accuser because of sin; can we not
see the measure of evil that is wrought by his every whisper?
1 Corinthians 15:34a Awake to righteousness, and sin not.
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