Join us in this thought-provoking episode where Dr. J. Vernon McGee explores the challenging concept of how doing good can sometimes be considered a sin. Drawing from James 4:17, Dr. McGee encourages listeners to rethink their understanding of sin and righteousness. Through real-life illustrations and poignant biblical insights, we learn about sins of omission and the consequences of inaction in our faith journey.
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith.
SPEAKER 01 :
When going good is wrong. Well, that’s the subject that our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, is discussing in our Sunday sermon on Through the Bible. I’m Steve Schwetz, inviting you to open your Bible to James 4, verse 17, and get ready to think about sin differently as Dr. McGee challenges us to consider not just the sin we commit, but the opportunities for good that we ignore. Together, we’re going to learn that faith isn’t passive. It’s meant to be lived out in action. And we’re going to get started with this great study in just a moment. But first, here’s a letter from a fellow passenger in South Africa who’s putting his faith into action. And he says this, I have been called by God to visit hospitals and prisons. I use this program to conduct Bible studies for those in prison, and they are very interested. I also provide your notes for them to read. It’s encouraging for them to be able to study the Bible with others in prison who don’t usually join us for fellowship. Each day I see God at work and I am grateful He allows my participation. Next, we have the life of this gentleman in Gujarat, India, who was changed by the faithfulness of his coworker, and he writes this. I work at a company, and a coworker recently told me about your program on YouTube. He encouraged me to watch this program, and I started following it. I like it very much. It’s a simple and easy way to explain the teachings. From it, I have learned the true meaning of repentance from the heart. I have given my life to the Lord, and my spiritual foundation is becoming stronger each day. I now try to share it with others as well. Please pray for me as I do. And let’s do that now. Let’s pray for this gentleman and all those on the Bible bus who are sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with those that God puts in their path. Heavenly Father, thank you for the important lesson that we’re about to hear today. And we ask that you’d help to keep our ears open and our minds and hearts open as well as we listen to your word. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen. Here’s the Sunday Sermon on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
SPEAKER 02 :
Our subject this morning is when doing good is wrong or when doing good is sin. And today we depart from our usual custom. We have a text. We ordinarily do not have a text. It’s James 4, verse 17. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. When doing good is sin. Our subject today appears to be a contradiction of terms. Doing good is the opposite of sin. Right is always the opposite of wrong, and there’s no way in the world of reconciling the two. I’m willing this morning to concede that our subject is a paradox, but I’m not willing to concede that it is a contradiction. If it is a contradiction, then our freeways today are a contradiction, and I’m sure there are those that agree to that. But driving down the coast, Coming into San Luis Obispo the other Thursday morning, I noticed that as we approached San Luis Obispo, coming over the hill there, it says, next off-ramp, San Luis Obispo to the right. And I’ve known for years that San Luis Obispo is to the left of the freeway. And my friend, you can’t get a greater contradiction than that if the town’s on the left-hand side and you’re told to drive off on the right-hand side. It does seem that we’ve got a contradiction. But as you well know, the minute that you go off on the off-ramp, it turns and then you come on an overpass and then you come into San Luis Obispo. I’ll admit that’s confusing for our freeways are very confusing today. but it’s not a contradiction. Now, our subject today is not a contradiction, but the difficulty here, I think, is in our limited notions of sin. Actually, we confine sin into the personal area, that is, personal sins, not realizing that that’s only one-fourth of the definition of sins as the Word of God gives it. But even in this realm of personal sins, our thinking is confined by limited barriers. Each one of us have a peculiar notion of just what sin is. And it’s not what we think sin is. It’s what the scripture says that sin is. Let me give you this morning some scriptural definitions that we’ve put together. And these are not exhaustive by any means, but there are a few. First of all, in 1 John 3, 4, I read, Whosoever committed sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. Now, that’s a definition of sin. The breaking of the law is sin, and that is what is known as sin of commission. But you drop on down in this same epistle to 1 John 5, 17, and it says all unrighteousness is sin. Well, unrighteousness is the opposite of transgressing the law. The thing about unrighteousness is that it fails to meet the standard of God. It’s a failure to do, and that’s a sin of omission. And we find that there are sins of commission and sins of omission today in the realm of personal sins. But now will you notice there are other definitions of sin. In Proverbs, the 10th chapter, verse 19, it says, in the multitude of words, thou wanteth not sin. In other words, excessive talking is sin. And you could not listen to a conversation over a period of about an hour without somebody sinning in the use of their lips. I heard this delightful story the other day. I think it was given on the news of where a man was in a restaurant and there were two ladies in the booth next to him. They were having lunch. And when the ladies got ready to go, the man had already left. And the waiter was asked for the check, and the waiter says, why, it was already taken care of. Well, they said, who took care of it? I said, the man sitting in the booth next to you. I said, we don’t even know it. Why did he take care of it? Well, he said to tell you that he was delighted to sit next to two ladies and listen to them talk for over an hour and not say an unkind word about anybody. and therefore he felt it a privilege to be able to pay for the check. May I say to you, excessive talk in Scripture is called sin. Then there is another area of personal sins. Romans 14, 23, And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith, for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. That is, anything that a Christian does. And if he doesn’t do it in faith, that’s a sinful thing for him to do. That’s in the realm of doubtful things. And by the way, that conditions or should condition Christian conduct. When you and I have a question about any matter of conduct, if we have a question, it’s not a question of right or wrong, but if we have a question, it’s wrong for us. I don’t care what it is. That may even be going to church. Then there’s another area that we have, and James mentions that. We’ve had that before us back in the second chapter. Verse 9, it says, But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin and are convinced of the law as transgressors. And the writer to the Proverbs, of course, confirms that. when he says this, that he that despiseth his neighbor sinneth, so that today it’s a sin to have respect of persons, and that is a very grievous sin in this present hour, as you know. Then again, there is another area that we can move in, the thought life, if you please. In Proverbs 24 9, the thought of foolishness is sin, and the scorner is an abomination to men. Just the thought of foolishness. So we have now sin in the thought life. No act at all, but just the thought of the foolishness is sin. Then let’s move down a little bit farther. Again, the writer to the Proverbs says, a high look, a proud heart, And the plowing of the wicked is sin. Now, the high look and the proud heart, pride and vanity are two things that the word of God condemns above everything else, even more than drunkenness, by the way. And it puts something with it, though, that seems to me there might be some question. The plowing of the wicked is sin. And I can’t think of anything more innocent and worthwhile and less conducive to sin than plowing. And yet the Word of God says the plowing of the wicked is sin. In other words, when he does good, he’s a sinner, if you please. Then we have our text today, Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, To him it’s sin. Failure to do good is a sin of omission. So that we have here the breaking of the law of sin of commission. Failure to do good is a sin of omission. Therefore, we have personal sins now in two categories. One in the category of doing and the other in the category of not doing. One is an overt act of breaking God’s law. The other is of failure to act when we should. Therefore, sin is not just not in harming. A great many people say, well, I never harmed anyone. But did you fail to help someone? May I say to you, in God’s sight, that’s just as grievous a sin. We all were shocked, I’m sure, when in New York City, The night air was rent even asunder by the screams of a woman being murdered. And those screams were heard by many occupants of apartments in that neighborhood. And they did not do anything. Several actually opened their windows and looked out and continued to listen. And the answer they gave was, we just did not want to become involved. And some of them merely turned over and went to sleep. And all of these people, as far as we know, were law-abiding citizens and not one of them was wanted by the FBI. But it was a horrible thing that they did. To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it’s sin. In upper New York State, a family, an entire family, was driving down the freeway and the car went out of control, went over the embankment And two or three members of the family killed. The husband and father crawled back up to the highway. And car after car stopped. Then he tried to call their attention to the bodies lying down there. And they were in plain view. And nobody was willing to stop. We think it is a terrible thing. I heard on the newscast out of San Francisco say that a man in Michigan, he fell on the snow there. And they’ve had plenty of it back there. And he broke his leg. It was right near the highway. He crawled up to the highway. He could get no one to stop. He crawled out in the highway. And it delayed traffic. And people would pull around him. And he would try to tell them his condition. And they did not want to become involved. Some said, we’re in a hurry. And they went on down the highway. And finally, some men at a filling station noticed that traffic was being blocked. And they wondered what caused it. Then they went up. And they got this man and got him to the hospital. We think today that that sort of thing is an awful thing. Well, my beloved, may I say to you, that’s exactly what James is saying. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin. James is summing up here in verse 17 in our text today, that which is gone before us. And our subject, if you’ll remember last time, two weeks ago, was what is your life? And at that time, we saw that the greatest failure in this world is human life. That life that is lived apart from the purpose of Almighty God and out of the will of God becomes the most colossal failure in all of God’s universe. God has a plan and purpose for every life here today and everyone listening in. And to miss that plan and purpose is a tragedy of tragedies, my beloved. And outwardly, the individual may be a success. According to the standards of this world, he may have attained fame and fortune. But in God’s sight, he’s a failure. And somehow or another, it comes out. Several years ago, a very successful young man in the business world was voted by the Junior Chamber of Commerce as the Outstanding Young Man of the Year. Many Christian groups across this country invited him to come and speak, and he became quite an authority. Last week, the penitentiary at Leavenworth closed behind Billy Saul Estes. He was a success. for a while according to the standards of this world. Another Hollywood character this past week attempted suicide. The commentator said she’d worked hard and she had in order to attain success and she was famous. My beloved, God says human life apart and away from his plan and purpose is a colossal failure. Now he takes up specifically here this meat and potatoes subject of making money. Notice what he says. Go to now. Come now, he says. Ye that say today or tomorrow we’ll go into such a city and continue their year and buy and sell and get gain. Well, there’s nothing actually wrong in getting gain. good business. And God commends the businessman. This man that had the pounds or the talents and had doubled it, he was commended for doing it. But you see, the making of money is not sinful in itself. The Scripture says the love of money is a root of all evil. But the important thing was to say that I’m going to make money apart from the will of God. Regardless, That’s the thing. For that ye ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. In other words, whether it’s to make money or whatever we do, we ought to do that in the will of God, if you please. God’s will must be paramount. And therefore, not only the getting of money and material things, but the giving of money and material things should be in the will of God. Someone has said today there’s more anxiety about how to make a living than about how to live and how true that is. We’d rather make money than to actually to live for God today. So that that is the thing that this man is discussing. Everything should come in under the will of God for the child of God. Now let’s bring this right down to where we are here to our own personal life. You know this morning that you ought to give more to missions, but you don’t. To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it’s sin. It’s sinful to know that we should do more and not do it. You know that you ought to support the building fund, but you’re not supporting it. May I say to you that sin today in God’s sight. You know that you ought to get involved in the work of the church. You know that you ought to be coming to Bible school. You know you ought to attend Christian endeavor. You know that you ought to be coming to Thursday night Bible study, but you do none of these things. May I say to you, God says that’s sin. Somebody says, well, I don’t get arrested. I don’t hurt anybody. Of course you don’t. That’s not what he’s talking about. To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it’s sin. When I got back there, Well, I think it was Thursday night this man, when he went out, handed me a check for $45 and some odd cents. And with it was a note. It was quite interesting. He says, you know, when I first got this, it was a profit from some deal he had. He said, I was going to buy myself some new fishing gear this year. And then I got thinking about it. My old fishing gear is good, so I’m going to use it and giving this to the radio. May I say to you, friends, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it’s sin. Let’s bring this down where we live today. Let’s put it in shoe leather today. This is something that should be real, if you please. We know we should witness to a friend, but we’ve never witnessed to him. We know that we should bring a relative of ours to church, but we’ve never done that. Remember the Lord gave a parable of these men that took their talents and they used them. But one man took that talent and buried it and he protected it. And he ought to be commended for it, should he not? He did not want to lose it. He wanted to be able to return it to his master. And he was a good man. But our Lord called him You evil and wicked and faithless servant. You should have been using this. You should have been doing something. Failure to do. The sin of failure to act is greater than the overt sin of doing something. May I again illustrate this. And we get these from life. In the paper several weeks ago, there was a Young man who brought his young family here to Southern California. He couldn’t get a job. He says they were hungry and he got desperate. He held up a liquor store. May I say to you, he was wrong. He broke the law. No question about that. But I don’t know. I have a certain sympathy for a man who has a hungry family. And I believe in God’s sight, he’s less guilty than some of us here today who know that we ought to be doing something and we’re not doing it. The fellow that did this, he has, what do they call it, mitigating circumstances. But he did wrong. Nobody can say it. The judge will have to sentence him. But there will be a certain amount of mercy granted to him. What about the man who knows what he should do and does that not? May I say to you in the sight of God, I think the man who fails to do is more guilty than the man who sometimes breaks over. Now will you notice this? Somebody’s saying to me this morning, yes, what you say, I see it. But how does this work out in your subject? When is doing good sin? I don’t quite see that. Will you follow me on down now if you have not yet seen what I’m moving toward? Let’s move toward it. There are two words that are translated in Scripture by our English word, know. One is the word genosko. It occurs many times in the word of God. And it is the word that’s used in reference to salvation that you might know that you have eternal life. And that word is a word that means to know by observation or experience. It’s the laboratory word. It’s the word you take in the laboratory and you say that this element is a certain kind of an element because you tested it in the laboratory and you know what it is. That’ll be Ginosko. But the word used here is adoti. Adoti means to know by reflection, or the psychologist uses the word cogitation today. It’s that which you turn over in your mind and you know it because you have reflected on it, you have certain facts, you put them together, and you come to a certain conclusion today. May I illustrate? You do not need today to have anyone to tell you, or you do not need to go to India today to know that last night multitudes of people went to bed hungry. You know that this morning, do you not? You do not know that because of observation. You haven’t been there by experience, but you know it because of the information that’s been brought to you. You know it that way. May I say to you, I’m not trying to make the illustration that there are hungry people in Los Angeles. I do not believe actually that anyone in Los Angeles in this affluent society with all the different relief agencies need be hungry in this city. But my beloved, as you sit here this morning, you do know and you do not have to have someone to tell you. And you do not have to go into the streets of Los Angeles at this very moment to know that many people without Christ are walking this morning into a lost eternity. Aren’t they? We know that. In every neighborhood, in your neighborhood, you know that there are people without God and without Christ. In your place of business, you know there are people without Christ and without God. You know that about you today there are needy people. They are without Christ, without God, and without hope in this world today. Last week, with two other preachers, I went out to the golf course, and the manager of that course is a Christian, and he got us right on. We started out, and there were sitting there very fine-looking gentlemen, very fine-looking You could tell he was an executive. And he said to us in a very gracious manner, he said, do you mind if I join you? And we all agreed it would be fine for him to. And I said, but I think I ought to tell you something. I said, we are three preachers, and maybe you don’t want to play with preachers. Well, he says, I’ll just have to be careful of my language. And I said, don’t mind that a bit, because I said, whether we are here or not doesn’t make any difference, because we don’t amount to much, but God would hear you all the time. And so we started out, and you could see he was very much reserved at first. But after you play with the fellow a while, and he saw that we were human beings as well as being preachers, we got calling him by his first name, and it was Charlie. And I always say when he came up, I said, let Charlie do it. Or George. I said, oh, his name was George. It wasn’t Charlie. It was George. He said, let George do it. Because I called him Charlie a couple of times and he laughed. And he says, if you don’t mind, my name’s George. Well, I said, let George do it. And we’d always let him go. So he got very close and familiar before we finished up. We were way back. It’s a lovely place up there. Back of the hills on the 15th hole. We had to wait. We sat down. And this man opened up his heart. He’s apparently a man that’s well-to-do. He drives a Cadillac at least. And then he told about the problem he was having in his home and the problem with children, grown children. And then he told about an accident that he’d had a few weeks before. And then he said, you know, I think God must have been with me. Here’s a godless man now. And my, the burdens and the problems that this man had. And he just opened up and talked. And before we finished, we’d invited him to the service. He wasn’t interested. And then when we finished, he said, by the way, where is this church? And he came to our service. We do not know what decision he might have made in his heart, but we do know this, that about us today, and as we drove away that day, we said, you’d never look at a man like that, a successful businessman, now at the time of retirement, with all those burdens upon his heart and all the problems that he had. Around us today, friends, are many people that we could help. To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it’s sin. You know that you could speak to someone that no one else could speak to. No one will be able to reach this individual, but you can. That individual has confidence in you. so easy today to shut ourselves up in this church, or any church for that matter, and let the rest of the world go by. A man said to me here, sometimes he says, you know, McGee, I pray every service for decisions. For 17 years, he’s never brought a person with him to church. I don’t think God hears prayers like that, my beloved. I think God is quite realistic. Many of us today are in a Sunday school class or we are in a Christian endeavor group. These can become exclusive little clubs and we can shut the world out. We can cold shoulder visitors. Someone has said the Lord taught us that we ought to wash our brother’s feet, but too many of us are either using boiling water or ice cold water to do it. My beloved Oh, today, to know to do good and then to do it not. We think this morning of a wall running down through Berlin as a dreary thing. And it is a dreary thing, but there is a wall running down through the churches of this land today. It’s the wall of silence, the wall of indifference, the wall of doing nothing, if you please, nothing for God today. We hear a great deal of the do line in the north. I don’t know anything about that do line in the north, but I do know a great deal about the do nothing line that’s in our churches today. Oh, I know I should be doing something, somebody says. Will you listen to me now? Doing good in the mind is sin when it goes no farther. When we retire into our ivory tower, oh, we’re not really bad, we’re good folk, respectable people. But we’ve forgotten the world out there. You know, Judas was the first missionary of the disciples, of the apostles. I do not mean Iscariot now. John in the upper room discourse in the 14th chapter tells about him. Judas, he says, not Iscariot, sitting in the upper room listening to those wonderful words of the Lord Jesus. He says, how is it that you’ll reveal yourself unto us and not unto the world? What about the world out there? And what about the world out there? This man knew to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it’s sin. I read as a college student Joseph Conrad’s book, Lord Jim. I’m told they’re making it into a movie. I hope they stick to the book because it is a wonderful story. It tells the story of a man who failed at that crisis moment. He was an officer on a ship carrying a bunch of coolies out of India. And one night on the hot deck There came off of that rusty old ship that they didn’t think could stand a storm. And as the storm began to blow in, there came this great big hunk of rust as it burst off of it. And they knew at any moment the water would come rushing through that. This officer, together with several others, they crawled in a little ship and left. And they deserted the ship, which is the worst thing that an officer could do. did nothing at the moment when he should have been doing something. And the story is the story of a man who tried the rest of his life in full acts of bravery to try to compensate for that. I believe there’ll be multitudes of believers in heaven Oh, our Lord will not be able to point his finger and say, you did this and you did that. He will be able to point the finger and say, you did not do this and you did not do that. You knew that you should have done it and you did it not. Faith in the epistle of James is not a theory. It’s not a part of make-believe world. It’s not a will-o’-the-wisp. It’s a reality. This man puts faith in action. It works. And if it’s not in action, it’s not saving faith at all. The sin of doing nothing. Just good intentions. Hear a brother maligned and misrepresented and keep quiet and say, well, I don’t want to become involved. Well, my beloved, that’s not any different from these people in the apartments in New York City. are those motorists who went by and saw the man lying in the snow and ice. It’s not any different. To do nothing. Oh, I won’t do anything. My beloved, we should do something. And to refuse today to correct mistakes in our sins as believers and not confess them. I remember hearing this remarkable story concerning Dr. Arthur T. Pearson. He was a great man of God and one of the reasons he was was because of this. Dr. Chafer was a song leader at Northfield and Dr. Pearson was staying there. One Saturday afternoon they met in the post office and he said to Dr. Chafer, he said, Lewis, did you hear about this? And he told him an incident about a certain preacher that was there. It was not very complimentary. The next morning, Dr. Chaffer got up very early and he looked down the hill and he saw Dr. Pearson in his shirt sleeves with his suspenders exposed, down there hitching up his horse. He was driving out that day. It was Sunday morning to preach. And Dr. Chaffer watched him. And when he finished hitching up the horse, he came up the hill, rapped on the door of Dr. Chaffer’s cottage, and he said, You remember yesterday I told you so and so about so and so? And he said, yes. Well, he said, last night I found out that’s not true. I want you to forget it. I made an awful mistake for even repeating it had it been true. But I ask your forgiveness. Do you know what Dr. Pearson had been doing? He’d been taking a spiritual bath that morning before he went to preach. And he was cleaning the deck, cleaning up his life. And he recalled he’d said something unkind, something wrong, something detrimental to a brother. And my friend, he could have driven out that morning and just kept quiet and not have said he’d made a mistake. But that man wanted to preach that day in the power of the Spirit. And my friend, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not. To him, it’s sin. Somebody says here this morning, but I’m not a Christian. So I couldn’t commit that sin. May I say to you this morning that you have, if you are unsaved today, you have committed the greatest sin that any person can possibly commit. You know what that sin is? I’m turning this morning to the 16th chapter of John’s Gospel, and will you listen to this? If you are unsaved, you have committed what the Lord Jesus said is the sin that the Holy Spirit will convict of today. Listen. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not away, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, will not come unto you. But if I depart, I will send him unto you, and when he’s come, he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin? What, sin of lying? Sin of stealing? Other sins? Yes, I think so, but that’s not the one our Lord mentions. Of sin, because they believe not on me. The greatest sin, the one sin that the Holy Spirit convinces of and convicts of is the sin of rejecting Jesus Christ, doing nothing about him. Just do nothing. A man was drowning. An expert swimmer, a lifeguard, swam out to him. He said, I’ll take you in. He said, oh no, no, no. I’m going to try to make my way back and I think I can do it. The lifeguard says, it looks like you’re going down now. And he says, well, I don’t want you to touch me. The lifeguard says, I risked my life to come out here to get you. The man says, that’s all right. I don’t want you to help me. The lifeguard goes back. The man goes down. Why is he drowned? Because he can’t swim now. He’s drowned because he refused to accept the offer of help of the lifeguard. My friend, Jesus Christ left heaven’s glory. He came down to this earth. He shed his blood. He went through hell for you on that cross. He was buried and raised from the dead, went back to heaven, and he’s saying to you this morning, I can forgive every sin under the sun except this one thing. If you continue to do nothing, if you continue to to reject me. If you continue to turn your back on me, if you have nothing to do with me, you’re lost. Go down. That’s the greatest sin that you can commit. Aaron Burr was a student in Princeton University, not Princeton Seminary, the university. His grandfather came there to whole meetings. That grandfather was Jonathan Edwards, if you please. Jonathan Edwards preached in the power of the Spirit of God there. And this young fellow, Aaron Burr, came under conviction. He went to a professor one night and he said, you know, I’m under conviction. I think I ought to make a decision for Jesus Christ. My grandfather, every time he speaks, And so the professor said to him, he said, I don’t think you ought to make a decision under this emotional meeting that we are having. Wait till after the meeting and calm reflection. Then you make the decision. And so the young man Aaron Burr decided he’d wait. And he waited. And he kept on waiting. And he went on to betray his country and to murder a great American man. And when he was in prison as an old man, a young man came through the prison one day and he said to him, Mr. Burr, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine. I just met him. And Aaron Burr looked around and he says, I don’t see anybody. Who is your friend? He says, my friend is Jesus Christ. I just met him the other day. He’s my savior and I’d like to introduce him to you. Aaron Burr thought for a moment, beads of perspiration came out on his brow and he said, young man, when I was your age, I said to Jesus Christ, if you’ll let me alone, I’ll let you alone. And Jesus Christ kept his word. My friend, he came from heaven’s glory and he’ll knock at your heart’s door and he won’t come any farther. And you this morning can commit a sin An awful sin. Doing nothing. What must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. The apostle said to a jailer at midnight. What must I do to be lost? Nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just sit there. Do nothing. May I ask this question before I pray? Are you here today in one of those who’ve done nothing? You could even have gone so far as join a church, even go through a ceremony, do many things, but you’ve never really taken that step of faith, of trusting Christ as your Savior, the one who’s done so much for you. And you could not leave here this morning and ever come into the presence of of the Lord Jesus and say to him, I didn’t know you died for me and I didn’t know that I should trust you. I’ve been trying to work this out myself. You couldn’t do that because I’m no longer your friend if you walk out of here without him because he’d have to remind you that you did have an opportunity and you turned it down. Doing nothing, just doing nothing. Greatest sin in the world is doing nothing for a Savior who did everything for you. But heads bowed, eyes closed, God’s people praying for you. I’m wondering if you’re here this morning and you’d like to say, Preacher, pray for me because I want to take this step of faith. I want to do something. I want to believe. They said to him, what must we do to have eternal life? And the Lord Jesus said, this is what you are to do. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe. Believe on him. Trust him. Are you here? Shall we pray? Our gracious, loving Father God, we do pray that thou wilt not only see the hand as we’ve done, but thou dost see the hearts of these individuals. And we do pray that thou will bring them with this step of faith toward him, the one who’s done so much for us, who died for us. He died that we might live. And we pray that there may not be anyone here today that will turn his or her back on Jesus Christ and commit this awful thing, this terrible thing of just doing nothing. And oh God, many of us have done those things we should not have done. But worst of all, we’ve left undone the things we should have done. Cleanse our hearts, we do pray, and send us from this place to do and to live for Jesus Christ. For we pray in his name. Amen.
SPEAKER 01 :
If you’d like to share this message with a friend, you can send it to them right from our app. And if you don’t already have it, you can get it in your app store. And of course, you can always find us at ttb.org. And if you need a hand locating a resource, including the downloads or the printed editions of our Bible Companions, you can call us at 1-865-BIBLE or visit ttb.org or email us at biblebus at ttb.org. Now, as we go, let’s pray Proverbs 8, verses 20 and 21, and ask the Lord to help us walk in the way of righteousness and along the paths of justice.
SPEAKER 03 :
All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.
SPEAKER 01 :
Today’s study with Dr. J. Vernon McGee is brought to you by Through the Bible, and it’s made possible by the generous prayer and financial investments from listeners like you on the Bible bus all around the world.
Join us in this thought-provoking episode where Dr. J. Vernon McGee explores the challenging concept of how doing good can sometimes be considered a sin. Drawing from James 4:17, Dr. McGee encourages listeners to rethink their understanding of sin and righteousness. Through real-life illustrations and poignant biblical insights, we learn about sins of omission and the consequences of inaction in our faith journey.
