How Do You Personally Deal with Your Sins?

Now, here we are, brethren, at the last service on the last day of Unleavened Bread. For the past seven days, we have been focusing on putting sin out of our lives. Now, before Cain killed Abel, God warned him that sin desired to overtake him, but that he should instead rule over it. Remember when that sacrifice wasn't quite up to par? And God instructed him. Cain was able to do the right thing and not kill Abel. Yes, I am running off a sermonette that was given in Tulsa not long ago. Some of you heard it. But he chose to attack Abel and ended up killing him, even after being instructed of God. So God warned him that sin desired to overtake him. He was fully warned. And he could have said no, but he became a slave of sin. And as Mr. Riley pointed out, sin is destructive. And we've heard three wonderful messages already today about overcoming, about putting sin out of our lives. Let's go to Romans 6. Brethren, we must not become slaves to sin because Satan the devil, trust me, he wants you to be a slave. He likes to put people in slavery. He wants to rule over you, and he wants sin to rule over you. In Romans 6, let's read verses 12-18 here. Romans 6, where we are admonished not to become slaves of sin. Romans 6, verse 12, Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lust. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but instead present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, coming out of that watery grave, having been crucified with Christ, alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but you are under grace. What, then, shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not! So Paul clearly answers that question, doesn't he? Certainly we should not sin. We are to come out of sin. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one slave, whom you obey, whether of sin which leads to death or of obedience that leads to righteousness? That God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, at one time we were all slaves of sin. We were under Satan's sway, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were entrusted, delivered, or entrusted. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Now that's where we're supposed to be now. We have become slaves of righteousness. We're no longer slaves of sin. We are slaves of righteousness.

Brethren, when we rely on God, He gives us strength and enables us to overcome sin in our lives. And we've heard a lot about overcoming sin in the messages we've already heard. Indeed, if we don't grow spiritually and overcome sin in our lives to a significant degree, we will not be in God's kingdom. Paul warned the Corinthians that fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, drunkards, and the like will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So we must overcome, we must grow, we must rid our lives of sin. And that is a very sobering reality. We must stop making so many mistakes, so many sins in our lives. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, the root word most commonly used or translated as sin really means a myth or a failure, a mistake, a missing of the mark, like a marksman, or someone using a bow and arrow who hits the target, who hits the bullseye. When you miss it, you have made a mistake, or in this case, you have sinned. So therefore, if I use the word mistake in regard to a sin, realize they do have similar meanings. Certainly some mistakes are not sins, but all sins are mistakes. This in no way is meant to reduce or downplay the seriousness of sin, if it's called a mistake. Sin can damage your relationship with God, causing suffering to others. It will bring feelings of guilt and shame upon the sinner and will even bring on the second death, in some cases, if these things are not repetitive. So for the purposes of my sermon today and the manner in which I'm approaching this subject, the term making mistakes lends itself well, and in reality, is still being true to the meaning of the original Hebrew and Greek words for sin.

When you stop and think about it, we all make a lot of mistakes, don't we? I mean, if I go down the road and I'm not paying attention, and I run into a pole, or run over a tire, I've made a mistake. You know, I should have been more careful, should have been more diligent. So we make lots of mistakes, and again, mistakes aren't always sins, but every one of our sins is certainly a mistake.

So as I mentioned, the fact that we must learn and live the lesson of unleavened bread, of course, putting sin out of our lives. Now, this is a sobering reality.

As Mr. Hopper mentioned, after sunset this evening, no doubt some of you will be going out for hamburgers or pizza. Some of you may want to enjoy a big fluffy dinner roll somewhere with a steak, perhaps. Many of you will soon make a trip to the store in the next few days to restock your shelves with bread, with crackers, with various kinds of rolls or donuts, baking sodas. Some of you that drink coffee, you may start going back to Dunkin' Donuts now. You know, you go back to the donut shop. So there's a lesson in this for all of us. Just because we have recently observed the Passover in the Days of Unleavened Bread does not mean that we will be sinless in the coming months, weeks, or perhaps even days.

And so that is the other reality. So today I'm going to talk about two realities, and a lot has already been talked about this first reality. We must overcome sin.

The second reality is yet we're not going to do it perfectly. We're still going to make some mistakes. We're still going to sin because we're still in the flesh. And as long as we're in this flesh, we will continue to sin, hopefully to a much lesser degree, as we become more spiritually mature. We will put sin out of our lives. We will be overcomers. So that's something that we have to admit and deal with in our Christian lives, the second reality that we are sinners. Now, the same Paul who warned us of the sin that would keep us from entering the kingdom of God also showed us his frustration in Romans chapter 7. And we've read it many, many times. Remember, he said, O wretched man that I am, who's going to deliver me from this body of death?

So he described his battle with sin. He described his struggle with the flesh.

So then, if we are all going to continue to make mistakes, if we're all going to continue to sin in the future, if it is inevitable that we will sin from time to time, then let's ask the question, what are we going to do about that? What are we going to do about it when it happens again? How do you personally deal with your sins? That's what my sermon is about today. If you like titles, how do you personally deal with your sins? I know how I deal with my sins.

How do you deal personally with your sins? On this last day of Unleavened Bread, it is important that we consider how we personally and individually deal with our sins. Even though we desire to never sin again, we know that as long as we are in this flesh, there will be moments of temptation, there will be moments of weakness, when we will decide, because it is a decision, we will decide to walk in the flesh. Instead of walking in the Spirit, where we should be walking, so how do you personally deal with your sins? Do you practice ineffective ways of dealing with sin, which actually leads to more sin? Or do you effectively deal with your sins, leading to growth and overcoming your sins, and really putting them away for good? Should we just shrug our shoulders and say, I blew it again? Should we just go on living as if nothing that bad really happened when we sinned? Or should we grovel in self-pity? Should we become overwhelmed by guilt and overwhelmed by grief? Should we avoid God for a while until he hopefully cools down? Is that what we think when we sin? Are we afraid of a lightning bolt that will come down from the sky or the earth opening up to swallow us? Or, brethren, should we try to analyze what went wrong? Why did we get into the temptation? Why did we sin? Is it possible to learn from our mistakes? Is it possible to learn from our sins? Can we perhaps do something to right the wrong in the future? In this sermon, it is my purpose to show from both biblical examples and scriptural instruction that there are many ways of dealing with sin. Some are good and some are not so good. Some are effective and some are ineffective. So how should we respond or react after having sinned? After having made a spiritual mistake? A sin! What should we do when personal sin comes to our attention and our consciousness? I think we're going to see in the next hour that certain actions may be very helpful, may be useful, may be beneficial, while other actions or approaches will be counterproductive and they will be harmful to us spiritually. Furthermore, I sincerely believe that how you and I conduct ourselves after we have sinned is perhaps as important as our efforts to avoid sinning in the first place. They're both very, very important. They're two realities. We must overcome sin, but we must also deal with sin personally in our own lives.

Again, I want to remind you of those two realities. We have to be cognizant of those two realities. We need to put sin out of our lives. This is what the days of the leavened bread are all about. But despite all of our best efforts, and even with the help of God's Spirit, to a degree, frankly the problem is we don't really get the help from God's Spirit because we're not really going there. We're not relying enough on God. We're not close enough to Him. But that is a reality. We will all fall short at times because we're human beings, and we're not perfect. We're not God yet.

So first, let's see what some of the bad approaches are. Let's talk about some of the bad approaches, some of the wrong ways to deal with the sin in your life. And I must tell you, I'm going to give credit to Fred Whitlark for a good amount of this sermon because we stayed with him this weekend and he knew I was busy. And I just flat out asked him if he had given any sermons that might be helpful for the days of Unleavened Bread. I mean, I could have gone back to my 19 years and I would have come up with something, but he sent me five or six and this is the one I chose, and it's a good sermon. So I will give him much credit for this. I'm the messenger. I agreed with what he said. I believe it. I endorse it. And now you're going to hear it. So we're going to go through some ineffective ways of dealing with sin.

And you will see that there are negative, great negative consequences. If you deal with the sin in these manners, you will pay the price for it. First of all, denial. Denial.

And we don't mean the river in Egypt, by the way.

Remember, we are to come out of Egypt.

Slowly, you're slowly... some of you got it right away, but...

Denial. D-E-N-I-A-L. Not denial, but denial.

Okay, we're to have come out of Egypt already. We earlier talked about God warning Cain about sin.

In picking up that story, we note that Cain has killed his brother Abel. But when God asks Cain where Abel is, Cain answers, I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper? What was he doing?

He was lying, for sure. And that's actually another point that we'll get to. He was denying, in many respects, that he had anything to... you know, he kind of knew what... I think he probably knew what God was getting at here. And by the way, he really is his brother's keeper. And he blew it big time by not taking care of his brother. Let's go to 2 Kings 5, where we read an account that clearly shows this man denied that he had sinned, and it caused him a real problem for the rest of his life. 2 Kings 5, and many of you are familiar with this story, but I do want to go through these verses, beginning in verse 20. 2 Kings 5. 2 Kings 5. Verse 20. But Gehazi the servant of Elisha, the man of God, said, Look, my master has spared name in the Syrian. Remember Naaman?

And Naaman was no longer leprous. He was healed. And he was very, very grateful for that, and he wanted to shower gifts upon Elisha. But Elisha said, No, I don't want your gifts.

But Gehazi was of a different spirit. So, Look, my master has spared name in the Syrian, while not receiving from his hands what he brought. But as the Lord lives, I will run after him and take something from him.

So, Gehazi pursued Naaman, and when Naaman saw him running after him, he got down from the chariot to meet him, and he said, Is all well? And he said, All is well. My master has sent me... Hmm. That's not true, is it? My master has sent me, saying, Indeed, just now two young men of the sons of the prophets have come to me from the mountains of Ephraim. Please give them that talon of silver and two changes of garments. So Naaman said, Please take two talons. Take even more. Naaman was very happy to give, and he urged him, and he bound two talons of silver in two bags, with two changes of garments, giving him more than he had asked, and handed them to two of his servants, and they carried them on ahead of him. And when he came to the citadel, he took them from their hand and squirreled them away. Oh, he stored them away. He stored them away in the house. Then he let the men go, and they departed. Now he went in and stood before his master, and Elisha said to him, Where did you go, Gahazi? Hmm. It's a moment of truth, isn't it? What is he going to talk? Well, master, I went after Naaman. I went after him, and I decided that, you know, you should have taken some of that, some of those goods. He didn't do that. He said, and he said, Your servant did not go anywhere. Then he said to him, see, that was a big denial, wasn't it? Your servant didn't go anywhere. It's a lie. It's a denial. Then he said, Did not my heart go with you? When the man turned back from his chariot to meet you?

Is it time to receive money and to receive clothing, olive groves, and vineyard, cheapen oxen, male and female servants? Therefore, the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you in your descendants forever. So the leprosy that Naaman had, and he was cleansed from that, he dipped into the river, remember? Seven times. And he was cleansed, but instead, Guihazi went out from his presence leprous as white as snow. Okay, that's what could happen to you or to me if we deny that we sinned. It could be that bad if God chooses. It was a sin. He lied. He denied. He was covetous. He was greedy.

And that was a very ineffective way of dealing with sin. You would have been far better off had he just admitted it. Well, to tell you the truth, I went after Naaman. I've got all these goods. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it. Had he done that, things would have gone much better for him. I don't know if he would have ended up with leprosy or not. I mean, he still sinned, but he surely would have been better off had he not denied that he had just sinned and gone against his master's wishes. His master, Elisha, did not take these goods. It was not proper for him to do that, to go around and go ask for these goods. That was clearly not his master's choice. So he went against him, and then he denied it. So one thing that we can do is to deny that a problem exists. We can deny it. Oh, I didn't say that. I didn't do that. I didn't think that. I didn't, you know. And that's something that can quickly come out of a person's mouth. We can deny that we sinned when we have sinned and we know we've sinned, and we can lie about it, and we can put sin upon sin that way. So you simply lie to yourself and you lie to others about your sins and mistakes. That's the first one is denial. A second one is to cover up, and Mr. Riley also mentioned that a bit in his sermonette. A close relative of denial, perhaps a cousin, is the cover-up. In 2 Samuel 11, there is the story of David and Bathsheba. Mr. Riley alluded to that story in regard to Uriah. We know that David had illicit relations with Bathsheba, Uriah's wife, and then he tried to get Uriah to sleep with his wife because she had become pregnant. So he was beginning to try to cover this up so that he would not be found out, so that he would not be guilty. Then he tried a second time after attempting to intoxicate Uriah, who was a fine person. He was not going along with some of these ploys that David was using. And then finally he plotted his murder in battle.

That was a huge cover-up, and it came back to bite David very hard. In Genesis 37, it gives the account of Joseph's jealous brothers who sold him into slavery.

And then they lied about his death with a coat of many colors. Remember the goat's blood and the coat of many colors? They claimed that he had been ravaged by a wild animal. They covered it up. They lied about it. It came back to haunt them later on. Thankfully, Joseph was very merciful to them. It could have been a lot worse for them. God had something in mind there.

You know, one of the greatest scandals in American history is called what? Watergate. That's one of the biggest cover-ups of all time. President Nixon and his top eight got into a heap of trouble, didn't they? The original crime was not so horrendous. In some respects. But it was the denial and the huge cover-up that operation that followed was toppled the nation's mightiest man, the world's mightiest man, during the summer of 1974.

So these cover-ups, it's not a good way to deal with sin. If you've sinned, don't try to cover it up. But that is a human tendency to try to cover it up because we want to look better. You know, when we sinned, we don't want to look like we sinned because we know we shouldn't have sinned and we don't want people to think ill of us. And so we try to cover it up and then we end up sinning more. And then it's a bigger problem for us. So it's very important to try to avoid or remove the bad effects of one mistake. It's very stupid to try to avoid or remove the bad effects of one mistake by making yet another a worse mistake. So if you've sinned, own up to your sins. Admit your sins. In fact, you should have already been on your knees to God about it. That way, when a human being comes and asks you about it, you'll be able to say, yeah, sorry, I repented about that already. I've talked to God about it. I should have never done it. And you children, when you get in trouble with your parents and you've done something wrong, it's best to just admit it. Admit that you did something you shouldn't have done. Trust me, it will go better for you than if you try to lie about it or cover it up in some way or another. Trying to minimize or avoid the penalty for one sin may lead you to do something else of a sinful nature and get you into much more trouble than in the first place. So try to use a little wisdom here as well. Don't be quite so stupid.

Really, it's stupidity. Be sure your sins will find you out. Now that's a verse. That's a scripture. It's for real. Your sins will find you out. If you sin, don't put sin upon sin. Another one is running away. So we have the denial. We have the cover up. Now we have running away. Let's try running away. That's smart. Let's run away from our sins. Let's do a Jonah. Let's jump on the ship to Tarsus. Let's take off. Let's try to hide from God. Now, Adam and Eve tried to hide from God, didn't they? In the garden, Genesis 3. Let's look there for a moment. Did that work? You know, we keep trying to do the same thing. Six thousand years of history and we still haven't wised up yet. In Genesis 3, so when the woman saw that the tree was good, I mean, verse 6. Genesis 3 verse 6, the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise. So she took of its fruit and she ate it. She also gave it to her husband and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves some coverings. They were ashamed, is what happened. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden of the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees. Of the garden. And so they tried to cover things up. They tried to lie. They tried to pass the buck. No, they didn't just admit it right away either, did they? You know, they tried to run away from God. They tried to hide from God. Let's not follow that example in the future. And we're all very familiar with Jonah, who got on a ship and took off because God was sending him to Nineveh. And God was telling him what to do and he should have done God's will. It's a sin not to do God's will. He knew what he was supposed to do. He headed the other direction, tried to run away from it, and of course almost drowned. He was in the belly of a great fish. How would you like to spend some time in a great fish? Learn your lesson. It doesn't work to run away from God. God knows what's going on down here. He knows what you've done from the very first time you've sinned. He knows what's happened. So you're not going to hide it from him. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't help to run away. Another way that sometimes we personally deal with our sins, and you have to ask yourself, do I ever do this, is to justify and to rationalize. Justification and rationalization. You could justify the mistake of the sin.

You could rationalize it. You could make excuses for it. King Saul provides us with two examples in 1 Samuel chapter 13. So let's go to 1 Samuel 13 and let's take a look at what Saul did here. King Saul was the first king in Israel. 1 Samuel chapter 13.

For a while, he did okay, even though they should have never rejected God and wanted a human king. Then God gave them Saul. 1 Samuel chapter 13. 1 Samuel chapter 13 verse 5.

Then the Philistines gathered together to fight with Israel. 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen and people as the sand which is on the seashore and multitude, and they came up and they encamped in mick-mash to the east of Beth-Avon. And when the men of Israel saw that they were in danger, for the people were distressed, then the people hid in caves and thickets and rocks in holes and in pits. And some of the Hebrews crossed over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul, he was still in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling. Then he waited seven days according to the time set by Samuel. The Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattered from him. So Saul said, Bring up her an offering, and peace offerings here to me. And he offered the burnt offering, but this was not lawful for Saul to do. Saul was not a priest. He was a king, and the king did not have the authority to do this. But he became impatient. Samuel wasn't there yet. So it happened as soon as he had finished in verse 10 of chapter 13 of 1 Samuel, as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering, that Samuel came. Samuel showed up right after that, and Saul went out to meet him that he might greet him. And Samuel said, What have you done? It seems like these men of God kind of already know what's happened. Amazing. Saul said, When I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered together at Micmash, so he's starting to justify. He's coming out with a story now. Then I said that Philistines will now come down on me at Gogal, and I have not made supplication to the Lord. That seems like, yeah, you know, you should make supplication to God, right? Therefore I felt compelled, and so I offered a burnt offering. And Samuel said to Saul, You have done foolishly.

You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which he commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Eternal has sought for himself a man after his own heart, and the Eternal has commanded him to be commander over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you. He had specific instructions, and he did not follow them, and then he began to justify and to rationalize why it was okay to do what he did. But that didn't fly with the man of God, and it certainly did not fly with God either. In 1 Samuel 15, we see God's plain command here, another incident where Saul justifies and rationalizes. 1 Samuel 15 verse 1, Samuel also said to Saul, The Eternal sent me to anoint you king over his people, over Israel. Now therefore heed the voice of the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, oxen sheep, camel and donkey. These were the clear words of the Lord. Heed the voice of the words of the Eternal. Thus says the Lord of hosts, Go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. Don't spare the animals, don't spare the men and women, the infants, the nursing child. Those were the instructions. If we go down to verse 7, And Saul attacked the Amalek from Havelah, all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt. He also took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and they end the best of the sheep, the oxen, the phatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed. So you see, they were, again, covetous. They were trying to keep that which was good that they thought they would benefit from, and they did not do as God told them to do. Verse 10, Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king. For he has turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments. And he grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night. So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul went to Carmel, and indeed he set up a monument for himself, and he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal. Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, Blessed are you of the Eternal, I have performed the commandment of the Lord.

I have performed the commandment of the Lord. Know as though he had done exactly what he was supposed to do. But Samuel said, What then is the bleeding of the sheep in my ears? Again, these men of God that God chose here seem to kind of understand what's going on. What then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the loaning of the oxen which I hear? And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites.

For the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed it. Now we've utterly destroyed it. Then Samuel said to Saul, Be quiet. And I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night. And he said to him, Speak on. See, there's an arrogance that Saul has. He's arrogant. He's not humble about this at all.

He's justifying what he's done. He's rationalizing what he's done. And he's being arrogant. So Samuel said, When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Eternal anoint you king over Israel? Now the Lord sent you on a mission and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the Lord?

In other words, why did you keep some of the spoil? Some of the bounty, some of the booty, some of the goods? Why did you not utterly destroy them, as God had said? And Saul said to Samuel, But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. He's justifying himself. But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. Yeah, he obeyed parts of the voice of the Lord.

He just didn't obey all of it. And I've gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. You know, God sent me on this mission. I obeyed and brought back Agag, the king of Amalek. I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder. See, he's passing the buck on to the people. It was the people's fault. He was the leader of the people. He was to guide the people. He was to direct them.

He was to stand up and be strong and fulfill the words of the Eternal. But the people took of the plunder, the sheep, and the oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed to sacrifice to the Lord your God and Gilgal. So, Samuel said, Has the Lord his great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry, because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king. Then Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people.

He feared the people. And perhaps that's true to a large degree. Maybe he did fear the people. And I obeyed their voice. Maybe they were making a big play for all the goods and the spoils. And he was going along with them. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me, that I may worship the Lord.

And Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord. And the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel. And as Samuel turned around to go away, Saul seized the edge of his robe and it tore.

And Samuel said, The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you. Of course, speaking about David. And also, the strength of Israel will not lie nor relent, for he is not a man that he should relent. Then he said, I have sinned, yet honor me now, please, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the Lord your God. So Samuel turned back after Saul and Saul worshiped the Lord.

Then Samuel said, Bring Agag, the king of the Amalekites. Remember, he was supposed to kill Agag. That was what God told him, but he didn't do it. So the priest of God, I won't read it, but he hacked him up right there. He killed him. But he fulfilled the words of the Eternal. He followed through. He wasn't afraid of the people. He wasn't afraid of doing God's word, and we must not be afraid of obeying God and following him.

So we should not rationalize, and we should not justify our sins. Things could have turned out differently for Saul, had he not rationalized and justified everything. It would not have been nearly as bad for him. So his kingdom was taken from him. I don't have time to go to the instant of Aaron and the golden calf. But do you remember what Aaron said?

We put this in here, and out came this calf. We took all this stuff from the people, all their jewelry and all that. We melded it down. We threw it in here, and out came a calf. No, Aaron molded that calf. Aaron was to blame. He molded the calf. He was complicit along with the people. It was a joint effort here. It's usually a joint effort. When there's a problem, it's not just the leaders. It's usually the people, too. And it's not usually just the people. It's the leaders. So there's usually a joint responsibility in these types of things, and they all bear a responsibility. Okay, let's go on to another one. This is blaming others. Blaming others. And we saw some of that. You know, we already saw that, where Saul was blaming the people.

So this is another thing that you might do after you made a spiritual mistake or a sin. You might blame others. You might pass the buck. It's closely related to justifying oneself or rationalizing. We won't take the time to go to Genesis 3 again, but Adam blamed Eve. And then Eve blamed the serpent. And they tried to pass the blame on. Instead of just admitting that you're right, I sinned. I did. You know, I'm sorry. I repent. They tried to blame others.

So we need to be careful that we don't play the blame game. Let's just admit it when we sinned. Don't blame it on your husband. Don't blame it on your wife. Don't blame it on your kids.

You know, don't blame it on anyone else, but take responsibility for your sins. Another way that sometimes people personally deal with sin is by having excessive guilt. Guilt is a good thing, and you've heard me say that before. We should feel guilty because we are guilty when we sin. There should be remorse. We should feel badly. But there's such a thing as excessive guilt that might even immobilize us and cause us to do things that will bring us further away from God. So another negative thing that you can do about sin is to wallow in guilt. You can become depressed. You can have a pity party. And you can just wallow in the fact that you're such a dirty, rotten scoundrel. Now that may be true, but you don't have to sit and wallow in it. God doesn't want you to do that. He wants you to get back up. You know, the Scriptures talk about people who fall down seven times. They have to get back up. They have to get moving again. So when you sin, you don't have time to have a lot of pity for yourself and the condition that you're in or how bad you are or anything like that.

So do not allow that to happen because Satan uses depression. He uses self-pity. He uses these things to immobilize us. Again, it's successive guilt that I'm talking about. Not guilt should bring us to our knees. Proper guilt brings us to our knees, and we ask God to forgive us for what we've done. For lying, for stealing, whatever it is we've done.

And we go to God and we ask for forgiveness for that, but we don't wallow in it. Now, Judas became extremely depressed and distraught after betraying Jesus. And I'm sure we can identify with why that would be. Jesus was a wonderful person, and Judas had to look back and realize that. And he just sold him out. So Judas was overwhelmed with guilt. And he went out and killed himself. Committed suicide. That isn't what God wants us to do when we sin. He doesn't want us to take it to that extreme.

He wants us to repent of our sins. He wants us to get down on our knees and admit that we have sinned. But he wants us to get back off of our knees, and he wants us to start living again. So don't be victim to excessive guilt. Don't play the victim here. Sometimes we like to play the victim. Don't do that. And don't allow that to be the case for you.

There's another way that we personally deal with our sins, and we'll call this repetition. It's another counter-productive method for dealing with our sins, and I think it works actually two ways. Sometimes we just go on repeating our sin. We say, I'm weak. I'm frail. God understands. I can't control myself. I'm just going to keep doing this. So years later, we're still doing the same old thing, because we're just too weak. To overcome.

That is a dangerous, that is a dangerous, dangerous thing to do. To repeat your sins, thinking that you can overcome. Thinking that you have no chance. There's no way. You're too weak. You know, just don't be party to that. Fight against your sins, and never stop fighting against them. Don't give up on them. Know with God, all things are possible. You have to have faith in that. Particular sins can be overcome, and some people just continue to repeat the same sins over and over and over again, making excuses. All the while. All the while.

So don't repeat your sins.

You know, it's kind of an interesting example in 2 Kings Chapter 1.

2 Kings Chapter 1. This is kind of an interesting example here. It has to do with Elijah. 2 Kings Chapter 1. Let's go there for a moment. And this is when Elijah had actually spoken against the king, and the king didn't really appreciate it. The king had gone to the god of Ekron. He was inquiring of the god of Ekron, and Elijah said basically, well, he shouldn't do that. It's not the right thing to do. So the king heard about it, and he wasn't pleased. So he sent a captain along with 50 men to bring Elijah back to him. So let's pick up the story here.

Now, let's pick it up in verse 9. Then the king sent to him to Elijah a captain of 50 with his 50 men. So he went up to him, and there he was, sitting on the top of the hill. There's the man of God, Elijah. He's on the top of the hill.

And he spoke to him, the captain dead. He said, man of God? He knew he was a man of God. Man of God, the king has said, come down. So Elijah answered and said to the captain of 50, if I am a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 men. And the fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50.

Okay, that's not the end of the story, though. Then he sent to him another captain. The king sent another captain of 50 with his 50 men. And surely this second king must have known what happened to the first captain, and he must have known what happened to his 50 men. And he answered and said to him, he's going to get tough with him now. Man of God, so says the king, said, come down quickly.

You come down quickly. Wow, not a smart thing to do. It doesn't help to get tough when you're dealing with a man of God.

Again, he sent a third captain. Okay, then, well, what happened? Elijah answered and said, look, if I'm a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 men. I'm not coming down quickly. In fact, I'm not coming down at all.

And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him, and it consumed his 50 men. Okay, is that the end of the story? No, that's not the end of the story. Again, the king sent a third captain. He didn't have much regard for his captains, did he?

Or his 50 men. So he sends a third captain, and the third captain of 50 went up and came and fell on his knees. Okay, now we're going to see a captain that's got some brains. We're going to see a captain that has some sense. So this captain comes. He falls on his knees before Elijah, and he pleads with him. And he says to him, man of God, please let my life and the life of these 50 servants of yours be precious in your sight.

Now, what a wise person. The first 50 burn up, the second 50 come down quickly, burn up. He didn't learn his lesson. He just repeated the same stupid thing that the first captain had done. That's the point I'm making here. He repeated this, and he paid the price for it. Now, the third one did not repeat this stupid approach. He humbled himself, and he went before a third captain. He was a man of God, and he said, look, I don't want to die. And these 50 men, they don't want to die either. And you've got something to do about it. So what did Elijah do then?

Look, fire has come down. This is the captain. He says, look, fire has come down from heaven and burned up the first two captains. With their 50s, let my life now be precious in your sight. And the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, go down with him. Do not be afraid of him. So he arose, and he went down with him to the king. It wasn't that Elijah wouldn't have gone down the first time if he would have approached him differently. He knew he was a man of God.

So that's repetition. You know, don't repeat your sins. And don't do the same silly, dumb, foolish things that people have done for centuries.

Learn from others' mistakes.

The captain's arrogance in the second case caused his death. Now, the first one, I mean, he was somewhat arrogant, too, but the second one was more arrogant because there was already one example of people dying. And then he adds quickly.

He wasn't humble about that. He was arrogant. He said, get down here and get down here now. Sorry.

So these are ineffective, and they're counterproductive ways of responding to sins that we make. There are numerous wrong ways of handling sins. There's probably more than we've shared with you today. You could probably share with me some of the stupid things you've done that I felt to bring out today.

So, brethren, before looking at some better methods, let's ask ourselves, have we ever denied our sins? Have you ever played the denial game? Have you ever done that?

You know, we might make an analogy here between those who have become slaves of sin and those who are chemically dependent on things. In other words, they're addicted to things.

Those people who are a slave to the bottle, alcohol, or the needle, some kind of drugs, or a pill, some kind of a painkiller, or marijuana, a joint, something that they're addicted to, maybe pornography. Another thing, they can never get started on the road to recovery unless they first admit that they have the problem. As long as they deny that they have a problem, they're never going to overcome it.

So, you won't make any progress in delving your life until you get over the denial stage and stop denying.

None of us can even begin to conquer sin by ignoring or denying our problems, our sins.

Do we ever hear something in a sermon, or a sermonette, or a Bible study, or read something in God's Word that really pricks our conscience? But we don't want to look at it too closely, so we push it out of our minds. We deny it. We push it out. We don't want to deal with it. We don't want to dwell on it. Because maybe we're not doing something we should be doing.

Or maybe we're doing something we ought not do, and we should stop. But we kind of push it away and don't deal with it. Do we ever have a friend or mate or a minister approach us about the very same problem or issue that came to our attention by a message, perhaps, that we've heard on the Sabbath or in our own personal Bible studies? But we're still reluctant to look at it honestly. If you have things like that, you should deal with them. And not just continue to push, you know, kick the can down the road, so to speak. But face up to these issues. If your conscience is working with you, then follow your conscience. If it's a godly conscience and it's spirit-led, then you should follow your conscience and let your conscience be your guide. So are you playing the denial game? What about the cover-up? Have you ever done that?

Maybe you've realized you've done wrong, and you hope no one will find out about it. Perhaps you will be embarrassed by it if you're caught in a sin and others hear about it.

But is that what should concern us most about our sins? That people will find out that we will be embarrassed, that people will know us as we truly are?

As humans, we sometimes become very adept at hiding things from our friends, from our family, from the minister. We can indeed sometimes hide things from others by carefully covering our tracks, so to speak. But can we really hide anything from God? We can't do that. We've all played that game, though. We've all covered our tracks. We've covered up. But again, Numbers 32-23, be sure your sins will find you out.

Again, we can't possibly hide from God, so running from God isn't going to work. God is everywhere. Psalm 139, I'm not going to go there, but God is everywhere. He knows everything. He sees everything. He's omnipresent. He's omniscient. He's all-powerful. He knows exactly what's going on.

Justifying. Have you ever tried to justify your sins? Make excuses for them.

Really, God doesn't like lots of excuses. He's like most parents. Most parents don't really like lots of excuses.

They like it a whole lot better when you just admit that you've done something wrong. We need to admit it as well and not play these games with God and try to justify or rationalize, like we've talked about already. Blaming others, that doesn't work.

This excessive guilt, that just brings us down. We've got to get back up on our feet. Repeating sins over and over again. I think we see that there's nothing productive in that. So we have to deal with our sins and stop repeating them and stop being so weak. God is the one that gives you strength, so you've got to go to God. You have to pray. You have to fast. Some things don't happen except by prayer and fasting. So those are the things you need to target in your life. Things that you haven't overcome. Things that you want to overcome and things that you will overcome if you pay the price.

And that is prayer and fasting and more diligence on your part.

Okay, let's go on to some effective ways of dealing with sin. I'm taking a long time on the other ways, but let me go through these quickly with you.

Okay, what should we do when we sin? How should we deal with our spiritual mistakes? We should confess our sins rather than denying. Confess our sins. A couple of the men already went to 1 John 1, verse 8, I believe. If you say you have no sin, you are a liar. The truth is not in you, so don't deny it. It doesn't work. Confess your sins. Be like the prodigal son who finally came home after realizing and after paying a huge price for his foolishness. He came back and he confessed. He went to his father, and his father was very, very accepting. He was very willing to accept him and to forgive him. That's what will happen. If you will admit your sins, confess them before God. Don't try to run from them. Don't try to hide from them. If a minister comes to you and the minister is correct and he gives you advice, listen to the advice. Don't try to deny it. Don't try to cover it up. Don't try to justify it. It's not in your best interest.

Again, confess your sins. David finally confessed to sins, but not until God sent a messenger to him. Not until Nathan came. But when Nathan came, finally, David admitted and confessed that he had sinned. Psalm 51 comes out of that. It's a psalm of repentance. David was very sincere, but he still paid a huge price for his sins, for justifying, for covering up. He paid a huge price for his sins, and his family was a wreck.

David numbered Israel, too, against God's will. He finally confessed his sins, but there was a price to pay. So we do need to confess our sins. We need to be sorry for our sins. Just confessing them isn't enough. You know, sometimes we confess our sins, like I was saying before. Some sins we continue to repeat over and over and over and over again. And we admit that we're sinners, and we admit it. Oh, I did it again, God. Sorry. Then the next night, oh, sorry, God. Did it again. Sorry. And then a couple days later, oops, did it again. Sorry. Are you really sorry if you repeat it that often? Have you really repented? Are you really that weak?

Or is it that you just haven't applied yourself? Is it that you haven't gotten serious enough about overcoming it? You have to answer that yourself. You know, you have to go to God and work these things out with God. It says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. So we all need to do this.

It talks about what true repentance is and what a real godly sorrow is in 2 Corinthians 7. Again, these are, you can go look these up later. We've covered them many times in the past, but it shows us what repentance really is and what true godly sorrow is. Not a worldly sorrow, but sorry that you broke God's law, God's holy and righteous law, that you broke it and you should treat Him better than that. He created you. He says, this is what you should do, and you should do it. And don't dishonor Him through your disobedience. Because that's what we do. We dishonor God through our disobedience. We honor Him by our obedience. Honor your Father through your obedience.

Another, so the first point again is to confess that you send. Own up to it, admit it. Secondly, seek God. Seek Him with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and with all of your might. Seek Him out when you send. Don't run away from Him. Remember, that's the wrong way to deal with sin. Seek Him out when you send. Go to Him and admit that you allowed yourself to get far from Him and that you send against Him. So seek Him out. Admit it. It's natural to feel cut off to some degree when we send and we know we're living in sin. That's natural to feel cut off. There is the sense of a damaged relationship with God when we're doing these things. So we have to seek God then, don't we? We have to begin to seek Him with all of our heart and soul. Again, Psalm 51 shows someone who is seeking God. He asked for mercy in Psalm 51. He talked about God's mercy and God's grace and He went the guy. He threw Himself at the mercy of God. He said, God, don't take your Holy Spirit from me, but stir up your Spirit within me. He said, I have sinned. I've done evil in your sight. So He went and He sought God. He didn't run away from God. Humbly, intrigued God when you sinned, don't avoid Him. So don't be afraid to seek God. Again, God knows that you sinned. It doesn't make sense to avoid Him and run away from Him. He is a loving and merciful Father, even if He does have prodigal sons and adulterous daughters and sons and daughters.

He still loves us, just like you would love a son or daughter who committed these things. You would still love them.

You know, if you can love like that, how much more does God love you? So don't run from God. Seek Him with all of your heart. God's mercy is great. Remember the prodigal son.

So again, when we sin, we need to turn to God. We don't want to condemn ourselves. God has not condemned us. God is quick to forgive us. The Scripture says He's quick to forgive us. He doesn't condemn us if we sin. No, He knows that's why He sent His Son to die for us. So He's not going to condemn us when we sin.

Otherwise, why send your Son to die for everyone? It wouldn't make any sense, would it? He's not willing that any shit perish. It's His desire that we all repent, that we all come to a knowledge of the truth. That's the God that you serve. He's on your side. So go to Him when you sin. And another way to positively deal with sin is to forsake the sin. Forsake it. Put it behind you. Get serious about it. Forsake it.

That is what true repentance is all about. It is forsaking the sin.

It's not simply seeking God's forgiveness. That isn't enough. You've got to forsake the sin.

Be grateful God is forgiving, and He's forgiving you this time. But don't take Him for granted, thinking that I can go on sinning and sinning and sinning and sinning, and it doesn't matter, because it does matter. Forsake the sin. That's a positive way to deal with your sins.

That's how you should personally deal with your sins. Remember, Christ told the woman called an adultery in John chapter 8. He said, go and sin no more. He didn't condemn her. That's what the men wanted to do. They wanted to condemn her. Stoner. Let's get rid of her. Instead, He told her to go and sin no more. So, forsake the sin.

So, we have to confess our sins. We have to seek God's forgiveness for our sins. So, we have to seek God, and then we have to turn from our sins. That's what repentance is all about. Confessing our sins, seeking God's forgiveness for our sins, and then turning from our sins. Now, let's go on to a fourth way to correctly deal with our sins. And that is to correct the wrong as much as we possibly can, to make some amends, if possible, for what we've done. So, this is an attempt to correct the wrong, not that you can make it go away as soon as it's sin. And you can't make it go away if you sin, but perhaps you can do something. Perhaps you can heal a breach. If it has to do with other people, if you sin against another person, then you can go to them and you can ask their forgiveness. You can admit that you sinned against them.

Zachary said he would restore four folds of the money that he had stolen as a tax collector.

You know, if there's something that you can do if you have stolen from somebody, take it back and give them four or five times as much. And try to make amends for your bad behavior and for your sins.

If you've stolen from God, perhaps you need to do that. You know, if you've stolen from God in tithes and in offerings, isn't that what God says? You robbed me. Then give more back. That's the only way to make up for it, is to give more. Not to give less.

So that's the fourth positive way. And the last one is to learn from the sin. That's a positive way to deal with your sins, to learn from the sin. You learn from the mistake of the sin that you made. The final thing we all need to do when we make mistakes is to learn from those mistakes, to learn from those sins. Even though we should be getting rid of the spiritual leaven in our lives, we can learn from the times that we do sin. In fact, sin can be very educational. It can be very educational. That's how we learn. When we sin, we should learn. Now, I don't recommend that you go into advanced studies in leavening your lives so that you can learn in that way. That's stupid. And we don't want to be stupid, do we? We want to be spiritually smart.

So what can we learn? Let's go through very, very quickly, and I do mean very quickly, some quick points here. Number one, we are reminded of just how much we need the sacrifice of Christ for the remission of our sins. That's what we can learn. That when we sin, we are reminded how much we need Christ's sacrifice. That's why we need to pass over every year, because we're all sinners and we need to be renewed. Secondly, we become more aware of just how much we need the Spirit of God to help us overcome our sinful nature. We need God's Holy Spirit dwelling in us. We need to be able to stir up the Spirit within us so that we can overcome and put sin out. Another thing that we can learn is humility. Look at the man with the third captain. I mean, that man learned from the mistakes of others before him. He went humbly before Elijah. And when you have sinned, learn that you need to be humble, too.

Fourthly, we also should learn to be less judgmental of others. Don't be so judgmental of others. You know, we all have our problems. We all have our issues. And he who is without sin, you cast the first stone.

Now, that doesn't mean you should not discern right from wrong, because we are told to practice righteous judgment. And we need to be able to do that. But again, get the plank out of your own eye so that you can see clearly to help someone else get a speck out of their eye. And if they have a plank in their eye, then you better be especially humble. Because that's even more of a challenge, isn't it? Someone really does have a plank in their eye. You know, you need to get as humble as possible to approach a person like that. And number five, perhaps most importantly, we can learn how not to repeat these sins again.

By sinning, hopefully we are really sincere about seeing the damage that this sin can do.

And we don't want God to take his Spirit from us. And so, let's avoid sinning the next time when a similar situation presents itself. When Satan comes along and tempts you in the same manner, be strong. Don't give in.

So don't put yourself into circumstances where it's likely for you to fail. You know, we talked about that and the biggest loser, that was one of the main points. You know, don't allow yourself to be tempted in this way. Don't make provision for the flesh. Make some good decisions. Mr. Hopper talked about that in his message.

Make some good decisions in your life. You know, put a hedge around yourself to a degree so that you won't be tempted to sin. So, brother, here we are. We're here at the last day of Unleavened Bread. It's been a whole week for all of us to concentrate on getting rid of the sins in our lives. But as long as we're in the flesh, we will continue to make some mistakes. We will continue to sin. We have seen from the scriptures numerous examples of ineffective ways of dealing with sin. There are many ineffective ways. We've reviewed some biblical instruction as to the best methods of dealing with a sin that will inevitably come into our lives from time to time. Hopefully not often, but it's going to happen. And as a final scripture, let's read a verse from the Proverbs. Let's go to Proverbs 28 verse 13. Proverbs 28 and verse 13. Proverbs 28 verse 13.

He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. He who covers his sins will not prosper. You're not going to prosper if you don't deal properly with your sins. You cannot cover them. You can't hide from them. You can't run from them. And if you're determined to go in that direction, you will pay a price for it.

He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. God will be merciful. So in the past seven days, we put a considerable amount of thought, time, and energy, hopefully, and putting the sin out of our lives. We concentrated on it. We thought about it. So let's also put the same amount of effort into responding properly when we do sin. Now, when you do sin, you've got to respond properly to that sin. Otherwise, you will sin all the more. You won't learn the lesson that you need to learn.

So let's focus upon how to best deal with our spiritual mistakes, our sins, rather than using the ineffective and counterproductive methods that we all too often use. Again, don't cover up, confess, and forsake your sins. So, brethren, are we learning to walk in the spirit more fully as we approach Pentecost? Because, guess what? The countdown has begun. We're already on our way to Pentecost. God gives us His spirit so that we can walk in the spirit. And that's how you're going to handle properly any sins that you commit in the next 49 days, or whatever it is. I didn't stop and count it, but I know it's 50 days from the way she's offering with the day after the Sabbath, and it's coming up Sunday, which would be seven weeks from yesterday, or something like that. You know, it's going to be Sunday. So, the point I'm making now is that you are on a timetable. The countdown has begun. What are you going to do in the next 49 days?

Are you going to walk in the spirit, or are you going to walk in the flesh? Are you going to stay unleavened, or are you going to go right back into sin? So, brethren, how do you deal personally with your sins? First of all, those sin. But if you do, follow what instructions you were given here today. Deal with your sins, deal with them properly, and you will overcome, and you will be in God's kingdom forever.