Does the Sin have to Stop?

Today’s pastors and teachers are almost unanimous in favor of the sin NEVER stopping!

Some even say God DOES NOT expect the sin to stop ‘Before or After’ Salvation. Whiles others will hedge somewhat and say it will stop ‘eventually’ or the person won’t go on sinning indefinitely. Many even liken sin to an ‘Addiction’ that can never be fully cured. Therefore the sin ‘never’ stops, as many of them insist. The Convert is pre-disposed to sin from the beginning. DOING the Right thing by Faith Working by Love is the far removed from his thinking. He was told God will accept him ‘covered with sin’ and that HE DOES NOT expect the sin to stop, ever, so continuing in his sin is a foregone conclusion from the start.

THIS is the dilemma. Sin is Rampant in the churches. Immorality is overflowing. Repentance has NOTHING to do with forsaking of sin or reforming anyone’s conduct. The pastors cannot admonish immoral behavior because they themselves are confessed ‘sinners’ saved by Grace! NOT Repentant Saints living WORTHY of the Kingdom. Instead of love and good works, it’s sin and more sin. Excuses on top of excuses. They know NOTHING about Real Repentance, Godly Sorrow for sin or CLEANING of Wrong doing.

Even logic would dictate that a unfaithful husband could NOT possibly find Mercy from his scorn wife without FIRST Forsaking and Breaking all ties with his adulterous affair. How could he come to his wife still attached in some manner to the other woman and ask her forgiveness, claiming that her love for him will help him Stop ‘eventually’ if she will be patient and wait. Someday his desires will change and everything will be normal again. Hogwash, right? BUT YOUR doing this with GOD! Do you see the Fallacy?

That’s Why NONE of these Pastors or Teachers can say the sin has to Stop. ASK any of them, ‘Does the Sin have to Stop when Coming to Christ?” Their various replies reveal that they are wholly ignorant of Real Repentance that leads to Saving Faith.

1)      Most common among them: ‘If we had to be perfect before coming to Christ, no one could be saved!’ What’s this reveal? A COMPLETE vacancy of repentance! Being perfect is NOT the issue, COMING to Christ is and that happens in REPENTANCE, Godly sorrow and Clearing of wrong doing! They are bringing people in under the pretense that God will accept them ‘in sin’ and Change them later. WRONG assumption from the start. Just like the Scorned wife, GOD is LOOKING for a CHANGED heart and EVIDENCE of that Change in Zealousness to be CLEARED of the wrong doing! NOT perfection, but REPENTANCE! Anyone who raises this against the question of stopping sinning, is NOT Preaching that Repentance.

2)      Also Common: ‘The sin NEVER Stops or God Does not expect it to stop before or after Salvation.’ Here Repentance is not even mentioned, if eluded to, it’s a ‘Confession’ of sinfulness and that’s the end of it. To them sinning is not the issue with God, but RECEIVING Jesus. Once that is Done, the soul is secure forever no matter what. The Free Gift is NOT Power to live above sin the flesh and devil, but PERMISSON to go on sinning with impunity. Therefore the thief never stops stealing, the adulterer never stops his adultery. The lair never returns to the truth. No one ever makes restitution for his crimes and NOTHING is ever Cleared by a zealousness to DO what is Right!

3)      Not as Common, but dangerous: ‘The person will not go on sinning indefinitely, he will start to make a break from his sin, eventually he will sin less and be sanctified more!’  This is all Code for the ‘Sin NEVER stops!’ It just sounds correct because it fits into most so-called conversion experiences in the church today. THINK about it for a minute. The husband will ‘Start’ to make a break from his adultery? The Fornicator will ‘eventually’ return to chastely? The Thief will steal less than before? HOW is this Repentance? Even human law would not excuse these crimes unless ‘SOME’ effort was made to REFORM the conduct of the person committing them. WHY then is God any Different? He Expects your DEEDS to PROVE your Repentant heart, then you can ASK Him for Mercy! Stopping the sin eventually is NOT stopping it at all, which equals no salvation.

4)      The Cop out answer: ‘It DEPENDS on how you ask the question!’ Meaning, YOU are not making it clear, so everyone ‘thinks’ you are saying something else! What’s not CLEAR is What we are Addressing here. REPENTANCE, What is it? NOT ‘do I have to be perfect’ or ‘good enough’ to be accepted by God. IF you were Preaching Repentance and faith in the Proper Biblical manner in the first place you wouldn’t propose such a thing! It’s ONLY because you are somewhere between the sin ‘never stopping’ or ‘eventually’ stopping or it’s an ‘addiction’ they can’t help. The Bottom line: You are binging them into the Kingdom ‘IN THEIR SINS’ and telling them God will ‘Clean’ them later by ‘Changing’ their Desires and making them ‘Want’ to Obey Him! WRONG! Dead Wrong.

Let’s see HOW this was Preached by the EARLY Disciples. The ones TAUGHT by the Apostles themselves. Second Generation Saints. This will Blow your socks off!

QUOTE: “Do you, therefore, show me yourself, whether you are not an adulterer, or a fornicator, or a thief, or a robber, or a purloiner; whether you do not corrupt boys; whether you are not insolent, or a slanderer, or passionate, or envious, or proud, or supercilious; whether you are not a brawler, or covetous, or disobedient to parents; and whether you do not sell your children; for to those who do these things God is not manifest, unless they have first cleansed themselves from all impurity. All these things, then, involve you in darkness, as when a filmy defilement on the eyes prevents one from beholding the light of the sun: thus also do iniquities, man, involve you in darkness, so that you cannot see God. For the Lord says, "Ye are of your father the devil; and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it." But among the lies, the false prophets also told some true things. And in reality they prophesied "in an ecstasy," as the servants of the apostate. And the Shepherd, the angel of repentance, says to Hermas, of the false prophet: "For he speaks some truths. For the devil fills him with his own spirit, if perchance he may be able to cast down any one from what is right."

(Hermas was an early heretic, refuted by the Saints)

Quote: “Also, is what in each case the end of all cries aloud. So that even in the case of one who has done the greatest good deeds in his life, but at the end has run headlong into wickedness, all his former pains are profitless to him, since at the catastrophe of the drama he has given up his part; while it is possible for the man who formerly led a bad and dissolute life, on afterwards repenting, to overcome in the time after repentance the evil conduct of a long time. But it needs great carefulness, just as bodies that have suffered by protracted disease need regimen and special attention. Thief, dost thou wish to get forgiveness? steal no more. Adulterer, burn no more. Fornicator, live for the future chastely. Thou who hast robbed, give back, and give back more than [thou tookest]. False witness, practice truth. Perjurer, swear no more, and extirpate the rest of the passions, wrath, lust, grief, fear; that thou mayest be found at the end to have previously in this world been reconciled to the adversary.”

Quote: “He bade the baptism of repentance lead the way, with the view of first preparing, by means of the sign and seal of repentance, them whom He was calling, through grace, to (inherit) the promise surely made to Abraham. John holds not his peace, saying, "Enter upon repentance, for now shall salvation approach the nations"--the Lord, that is, bringing salvation according to God's promise. To Him John, as His harbinger, directed the repentance (which he preached), whose province was the purging of men's minds ,that whatever defilement inveterate error had imparted, whatever contamination in the heart of man ignorance had engendered, that repentance should sweep and scrape away, and cast out of doors, and thus prepare the home of the heart, by making it clean, for the Holy Spirit, who was about to supervene, that He might with pleasure introduce Himself there-into, together with His celestial blessings. Of these blessings the title is briefly one the salvation of man--the abolition of former sins being the preliminary step.”