In this powerful episode, we delve into the concept of sin-proofing your life. Sharon Knotts takes us on a journey through biblical prophecies and teachings from Matthew 24 and Hebrews 12, encouraging us to take personal inventory and prepare ourselves spiritually. As we approach a new year, it’s vital to leave behind past mistakes and look ahead with a heart aimed at higher spiritual aspirations.
Greetings friends and new listeners and welcome to The Sound of Faith. I’m Sharon Knotts thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Today’s message is good old-fashioned preaching we all need but don’t often hear. Sin proof your life. Have you noticed sin is not what it used to be? And this is a fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy from Matthew 24. Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. The Greek text actually means because lawlessness or a disregard for God’s laws shall abound, many shall gradually lose their love for biblical truth, making sin a minor issue. It’s time for all who represent Christ to sin-proof your life. I trust that everyone had a blessed Christmas. Amen. Hallelujah. And we’re getting ready to go into the new year. We’ll be having communion service Thursday night. Amen. And I think it’s a good time for us to take inventory of our lives. Amen. Because when we go to the communion table Thursday night, we want to make sure that we’re not dragging anything from the old year. That was any kind of a hindrance in our lives. Amen. We want to leave all that junk behind us. Amen. Forgetting those things that lie behind and looking onto the things that are before us. Now that means your failures, your mistakes that you made. And we all have made them. Amen. Let’s leave them in the old year. And not only that, if you’ve had some great victories in the old year, you’ve had some really pinnacle places of victory. That’s great. But now you can’t coast on them into the new year. Amen? You’ve got to look into the new year to go into higher heights. Amen? So this morning we have a message that will get us ready for communion. And it’s how to sin-proof your life. I had another message planned for today, but the Lord gave this one to me yesterday, and I put it together very quickly, so we’ll see how it pans out. But turn with me in Hebrews, the 12th chapter, Hebrews 12, and we’ll read verse 1. Wherefore, seeing we are also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Now, this is a powerful verse, and we preach about it a lot, and I have many times myself, but I’d like to look at it today a little closer, just this one verse, and focus in. We’re foreseen, we’re accomplished about by a cloud of witnesses, a great cloud of witnesses, or great witnesses. So who are these people, this great cloud of witnesses? They would be the people that are listed in chapter 11. which is Faith’s Hall of Fame. And we see from Abraham to the other mighty men of God, all of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Sarah, amen, and Gideon, and others that even Noah is in there, all of these great men and women of faith. And God listed them in the hall of fame of the faithful. So they are the great cloud of witnesses that are surrounding us, as it were, in the heavens, perhaps looking over the portals of glory. I don’t know. I can only speculate. But they are looking down on us, and their testimony is urging us and cheering us on to the finish line. Because these people… went through great trials and tribulations. And the Bible lists some of the things that they went through. Amen? Talking about those who went through the fire like the three Hebrew boys. Amen? Talking about those who were slain by the sword and those who had their children that were killed and many of the catastrophes that happened to them. But nevertheless, they persevered. And now they’re up there urging us and saying even as we ran the race, we did so with victory and we finished with endurance. Amen? So we’ve got to run the race like they ran the race. And that means we’ve got to finish victoriously. It’s not enough just to run. You have to finish. Amen. You’ve got to finish the race. And the Bible says through the wise men in the Old Testament, the race isn’t given to the swift, but it’s given to him that endures unto the end. And where he says run this race with patience, that word means endurance. If you make it over the finish line, amen, that’s when it’s going to count. If you endure unto the end. Amen. Turn with me in Matthew 24. And this is the great chapter that Jesus gave right at the very end in answer to the disciples’ questions about what the signs would be of the end times. And amongst these signs, he said in chapter 24, looking at verse 12, And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many… Amen? Iniquity shall abound. Are we seeing that today? Absolutely. And what does that word iniquity mean? Well, for one thing, it means a general disregard for the law of God. And if ever we live in a time when people have lost all respect and all regard and all reverence for God’s words and God’s laws, it is now. In the first generation since the beginning of human history, we now have legalized same-sex marriage. An absolute disregard, rebellion, if you will, against God’s law. And therefore saith he, a man shall leave his mother and father and shall cleave unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man put asunder. This is the law of iniquity. When people disregard the laws of God. And saints, it only gets worse with every generation. It increases. And the law of iniquity, the scriptures tells us that with every generation, it increases. Let me give you a few verses. You don’t have to turn there, but I’ll quickly give them to you. Jeremiah 7, 26. They hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but they hardened their necks. they did worse than their fathers. Jeremiah 9, 3, they proceed from evil to evil. Jeremiah 30, verse 14, I have chastised thee for the multitude of thine iniquity because thy sins were increased. And even Hosea is another good one, 13.2. And now they sin more and more. And we know the New Testament that Paul said in 2 Timothy 3.13, but evil workers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. Amen? And Jesus even gave us, while we’re in Matthew, just flip over to the 12th chapter, verse 43, 12 and 43. And when the unclean spirit is going out of a man, he walketh through dry places seeking rest and finds none. Then he says, I will return into my house from whence I came out. And when he is come, he finds it empty. swept and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself. And they enter in and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation. Amen. So this person was delivered and set free from the power of Satan. The unclean spirits had gone out. But that’s not good enough. You can’t remain empty. There is no neutral in the spirit. You’ve got to be filled with the spirit. That’s what Paul said in Ephesians 5.18. Do not be filled with wine wherein there is excess. Don’t be drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. Amen. And so someone who’s delivered out of Satan, no matter how great the bondage was, the Lord can set a person free. But they’ve got to stay filled with the Spirit of God. Because if they do not, that same Spirit that once had them in bondage is going to come back and see if there’s an opportunity to return to that house. And we’ve got to be careful no matter how long you’ve been saved. Amen? As long as you’re in this body of flesh, you’re going to deal with flesh. And you’re going to deal with certain temptations. And if you’re not careful, you will fall back into that. But if you stay filled with the Spirit of God, when the enemy comes to probe and see if he can get in, he’s going to see a big sign. No vacancies. I’m all filled up. Amen. I’m sold out and I’m all filled up. No room, no vacancies. We have to stay filled with the Spirit. That’s how people get worse, is they play around. They’re in and they’re out. They’re in and they’re out. And every time they go out, they get a little more bound and a little more bound. And then Satan, he adds to their misery by saying, there’s no point in you even trying to be saved because you’ve done failed so many times, you’ll just mess up again. And everybody knows it, so why do you even want to go there? And so then they lose hope. And the devil wants to try to take them out in that condition. We’ve got to pray for people that are out like that. When we see them in that state, we’ve got to pray for them. We’ve got to encourage them because we know the devil’s trying to take them out. Amen? So the danger of leaking out, a verse that dovetails with this is 2 Peter 2.20, a powerful one. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.” That’s really a scary thought, isn’t it? You don’t want to become entangled again. No matter how discouraged you may be, no matter how down you may feel, and the devil is lying to you 24-7, you have got to fight with all that you have. Amen? Because if you fall back into the world, you’re going to become entangled again. And if you don’t get out quickly, that condition that you’re in is going to be worse than before. This is how people become deceived. You know, I’m thinking about Judas, the one that betrayed Jesus. He was a disciple. He was a minister of the gospel. When Jesus sent the disciples out two by two, we don’t hear him saying, oh, everybody but Judas. He sent them all out. He gave them all authority. He anointed them all. They all went out and preached. They all prayed for the sick. They cleansed the lepers. They had miracles. They all came back absolutely thrilled saying, guess what, Jesus? The demons come out in your name. I’m glad you’re rejoicing that you can cast out devils, but rather let your rejoicing be because your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life. That tells me that as of that time, Judas’ name was in the Lamb’s book of life. So that means your name can get blotted out. I know people say once it’s in there, that’s it. You’re home free. You can go, whatever you do, that’s okay, you’re home free. Now, it looks to me like Judas’ name was in the Lamb’s Book of Life. He was one of the disciples. He was a minister of the gospel. How could he have gotten to the place where he would betray Jesus? He got deceived. I really believe that he thought that Jesus was going to disappear like he had other times, and he would have that money. Ah, the money, yeah, it’s the money thing. Yeah. Oh, now I get it. Because the scripture tells us that Judas was covetous. And not only was he covetous, because he didn’t get delivered from covetousness, he became a thief. The scripture says right out, Judas was a thief. And here’s the thing, he held the bag. In other words, he was the treasurer for Jesus Christ and the 12 disciples incorporated. He was the treasurer. Amen. Imagine Jesus letting Judas, the one who had the problem with covetousness, to be the treasurer. But you see, the Lord will give you every opportunity and he will show that he’s got faith and confidence in you and let you be the treasurer. He would be the last one I would let be the treasurer. Amen? But you see, the Lord knew his heart and the Lord was saying without saying, Judas… I’m going to put my trust in you. Because you know a lot of times when somebody puts their trust in you to do something that you know you’re not that great at, but they’re saying they’re going to let you do it, it kind of makes something rise up in you like, I’m going to do this. If they had enough confidence to ask me to do it, then I’m going to do it. Amen? Maybe that’s what the Lord had in mind. I don’t know. But we know that the problem with Judas was he had a covetous heart. He didn’t get the victory, so he began to steal from the bag of money because they would have had to have some money to live off of, and they had people giving them contributions. And he began to steal from that bag. That is why when one of the women who came to anoint the feet of Jesus and poured out that costly ointment of the alabaster box that was worth a year’s worth of wages, that he protested and said, you should not do that. You ought to give that to the poor. And Jesus said, you let her alone because he knew that Judas didn’t care about the poor. He had a covetous heart and he was a thief. So because he did not get the victory over covetousness, it led to the sin of thievery. And because he did not get the victory over that, it caused him to betray the Son of God. And because he betrayed the Son of God, he could not forgive himself, and he went out and committed suicide. And it all began because a little fox of greed in his heart, he did not get the victory over. Amen? So we see that we’ve got to make sure we stay filled with the Spirit and the Word of God. Turn in Romans, the sixth chapter, verse 16. Know you not that to whom you yield your servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, that’s past tense, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you. Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness.” Verse 19, but I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. The word infirmity here is not talking about physical illness or sickness. It means weakness. Because of the weakness of your flesh. Not talking about you’re weak and that you’ve got a disease or you’ve got an affliction. The weakness of your flesh is that that’s where we battle with temptation and lost. The weakness of your flesh… Amen. For as you have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity. Now there’s the law of iniquity clearly stated. From iniquity unto iniquity. From one thing into a greater thing to a greater thing just like happened to Judas. Amen. Even so now yield your members as servants to righteousness unto holiness. Amen. So we see here that iniquity will increase in your life. If you yield to sin and lust, it’s going to get greater. No matter what the sin is. If you start off, you know, at a low level, you start off in sitting on your computer watching pornography. If you don’t get the victory, it’s going to go further and further, and eventually you’re going to act it out, and eventually you may end up having an affair or something. Amen? A lot of times when they look at these mass murderers who kill all these women and do all these horrible things, when they go back at the beginning, so many of them started off with pornography. They got exposed at a very young age, and that thing just grew inside of them and grew and grew and grew. Amen? And right here we see that. He says, and at one time you yielded your members to uncleanness because, you know what? You didn’t have a choice. The motions of sin were in your flesh. Amen? You could not say no to sin. But he says now, now you can yield your members how you want to yield them, and you can yield them to righteousness. Amen? Because iniquity and sin is going to increase in sin, but if you will yield them to righteousness and holiness, you are going to become more sanctified. And you’re going to walk in a greater revelation of what holiness and righteousness is. Amen? But either way, either way a person goes, it’s predicated on their will. It is on our personal will. Who am I going to yield this body to? I get to say, it’s my choice. When I was a sinner without the Spirit of God, without the new nature of Christ, without the divine nature and partaking of that, and the seed, the incorruptible seed of God’s Word in us, we don’t have a choice. Jesus said in John 8, 44, you’re of your father the devil, his lust you will do. You cannot consecrate and sanctify a sinner. You’ve got to get them saved. They’ve got to have the new nature. They’ve got to be born again. Amen? But when we are born again and we have the divine nature, then we get to choose who we yield our members to. Because we read in verse 13 in Matthew 24, he that endures to the end… the same shall be saved. So we’ve got to run this race to finish. Paul wrote to the Galatians. He said, you did run well. Who hindered you that you should not obey the truth? He said, you were running well. You were off to a great start, but who hindered you? Whose influence have you come under? What kind of teaching are you sitting under that has gotten you off course? Amen? And in these days that we live in, you’ve got to be careful. You can’t just get on the internet and read every last prophet and prophetess prophecies and words for you. If you’ve got time to do that, you’ve got time to read the Bible. Amen? You can go to the Bible and read it for yourself. You can get in God’s Word, and because you have the Holy Spirit, He’ll speak to you. He will preach to you right then, right there. He’ll give you a personal sermon, a personal prophecy. Amen? If you go on and expose yourself to all of these doctrines that are out there, you’re going to have nothing but confusion. Now, it’s different if God has sent you to somebody in false doctrine and you are to be a vessel of the Holy Spirit to try to get them out and help them. Then, of course, you’ve got to go study that doctrine so that you can have the message. But he’s not going to give you that job if you’re not up to it because he don’t want you to get destroyed trying to help somebody else because you don’t know what you’re talking about. Amen. So if the Holy Spirit puts someone in your pathway like that, of course, then you’re going to have to study some things. But that is not going to be the everyday thing situation for our lives. We got to stay in this word. Amen. So what sin is it that’s besetting you? Because whatever it is, you’ve got to lay it aside. Lay aside every weight and the sin. It could have just said every weight and sin. It would have made perfect sense. Lay aside every weight and sin that doth beset you. I don’t know why, but for some reason, the Holy Spirit wanted to be more specific and put the definite article in there, the determiner, the, the sin. Amen. Amen? Now, I want you to put your thinking caps on for just a moment here because we’re going to have a little Greek lesson. I’m going to try to simplify it. But the reason why I’m going to give it to you is because if you can see this the way it is in the Greek, you will never forget it. Because one, the first time that I’ve read this many, many, many years ago, it has stuck with me ever since. Now, I know some of you are groaning and you’re saying, Sister Sharon, I don’t even like English, much less Greek. But how many know, whether you like them or not, there are laws that govern grammar? Amen? You know, we know certain laws. Certain things, they’re easy for us. And other things, after a while, we don’t care about them. I care about them, but I realize everybody doesn’t care about them because I do. But here is, this is going to help you so much. Lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us. In the Greek grammar, it is what they call a past participle. A participle always ends in ING. ING. And how many know that if I say it’s past, it means it happened in the past? The action is in the past. So… Here’s how it should have been translated. Not lay aside every weight, but having laid aside every weight and the sin that does so easily beset us, let us run the race with endurance. Because having laid aside refers to an action that was completed in the past. And not only was that action completed in the past, it had to be completed before the action of the main verb in this sentence. Having laid aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us, let us run this race with patience. Who thinks they know what the main verb in that sentence is? The main verb is run. All that other stuff, we could take that away. The main thing is let us run the race. Right? The main verb of that sentence is run. Now let me back up to what I said a minute ago. If the past participle, having laid aside, is an action in the past that must be completed before the action of the main verb, which is run, what does that tell us? What does all that mean? It means that before you can run… you have to lay aside. How many see how important that is? Even if you forget all the grammar I just told you, do you understand? You can even put in the margin of your Bible, having laid aside. Because having laid aside the sin, having laid aside the thing that besets me, now I can run the race. Amen. With endurance. I won’t faint. I won’t quit. I won’t fall by the wayside. I won’t get weak. I won’t get weary. I won’t fall into that sin again because I’ve laid it aside. Action completed in the past. There’s a whole lot of them. Oh, there’s a lot of those past participles in Paul’s writings. And you can’t see it in the English. And every time I come across one, I’m like, oh, wow. Because it’s much more powerful. How many agree that that makes it more intense? And you really can see it. Amen? Because if you don’t complete the action of laying aside, you’re not going to be able to run and endure. Because you’re always going to have that thing besetting you. Amen. it’s always going to be in your way you’re always going to be tripping over it it’s always going to be pulling you down The word beset, we don’t use it very much. It means to be surrounded by something. Everywhere you turn, there it is. It’s surrounding you on every side. In fact, the Greek word is huperstastos. And the word huper, we bring it over to the English and we say hyper. What do we mean when we say somebody’s hyper? Hyper. It means they’re to the ultimate degree. Whatever we’re talking about, it’s ultimate. They are hyper. They are, we even sometimes bring it over and say super. We bring hooper, we call it hyper, we bring hooper, we call it super. We get the idea. It means it’s intense. And so the word stastos there means to stand. Stastos, to stand. So what are you talking about? They’re standing around me. Yes, they’re standing around you and they’re hyper, they’re hooper, they’re super. That means these things that are surrounding you are very strong. and trying to get you out of the race. Amen? These things that you’re not taking care of in your life, if you don’t deal with them, if you don’t lay them aside, if you don’t get rid of them, they will continually always be surrounding you and preventing you from running your race. Amen? How many see that just this verse alone is so powerful? Amen. This is a powerful, perhaps not popular, but necessary word of the Lord. Sin proof your life. The Christian world is bombarded with sermonettes of grace and favor to the point that if you preach against sin, you’re labeled as a Pharisee and legalist. It has opened the floodgates for sin to run rampant in the church, including the ministry. And habitual sin has consequences. Sin is not static. It increases. Paul said that when you yield the members of your body to sin, you become servants to uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity. Iniquity is the disregard of Scripture, and it increases sin. Today, the Bible is mocked and desecrated by the world and deluded and ignored by many in the church. It’s time to call sin what it is. It’s the only way to get free and stay free. Paul said, make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. If you’re a parent or grandparent of a toddler, you know you have to childproof your home to protect them from harm. And in like manner, we must sinproof our lives proactively by removing ourselves from all situations that open the door for us to fall into temptation and sin. Paul said, lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets you, that causes you to stumble and knocks you off course in the Christian race. Sin Proof Your Life can be ordered on CD for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request offer SK199 and mail to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. or shop online at our e-store. at soundoffaith.org, where you can also order on MP3s. But to order by mail, request offer SK-199, send a minimum love gift of $10 to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. And Saints, even if you do not wish to order the CDs, we’d love to hear from you. Let us know that you are listening and what station you’re listening to. Encourage us And if the Lord speaks to your heart, tuck in a special love gift to help us with the cost of airtime. You may mail your request for prayer to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Until next time, this is Sharon Knott saying, Maranatha.
In this powerful episode, we delve into the concept of sin-proofing your life. Sharon Knotts takes us on a journey through biblical prophecies and teachings from Matthew 24 and Hebrews 12, encouraging us to take personal inventory and prepare ourselves spiritually. As we approach a new year, it’s vital to leave behind past mistakes and look ahead with a heart aimed at higher spiritual aspirations.
