159: Sin's Bitter Root

To the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it. The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy.

Christ is king. You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. It's August in Arkansas. Well, I guess technically it's August everywhere, right? But August in Arkansas is particularly hot, muggy, humid. I don't even know if this podcast's gonna come out in August, but at least whenever you hear it, know that I recorded it in August.

And August is so great in many ways. We're almost to fall, but you're not there yet. You gotta hold on just a little bit longer. Makes me miss Wyoming and those beautiful non-humid days that we had this summer.

But that's not why you tuned in. Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. I am your host, Alan Nelson. I'm one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church. We're a Reformed Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas.

Today I want to begin with an analogy. You heard, well, if this comes out, you would've heard it in the last episode, but this could be one of those episodes that comes out later. But some point when you heard about my trips this summer, you heard me talk about the sewer situation that we had.

And I want to mention that as an analogy that I hope you'll find helpful and maybe even convicting and maybe it helps someone out of a situation. But let me set up what happened and then I'll explain the significance.

So like three or four years ago, I guess, I don't really know the timeframe, but a company was hired out to bore lines under the ground for fiber optic. And I don't know all the pros and cons of everything they did, but I do know this, that somewhere while they were doing this, they nicked the top, actually bored through the top of our sewer line.

And what happened at the beginning was not that big a deal. In fact, I wonder like a couple different reasons this could have happened. It could have just been like lack of competence. It could have just been, they knew they were doing it and they didn't care.

Or what I'd like to think is they thought they were drilling deep enough underground that they weren't even really worried about anything. And they did it, they didn't even realize they did it and they just pressed on.

But this is important to keep in mind. When they did that, there was no immediate consequence. Nothing blew up, no one was hurt. It's very possible they didn't even know that they did it. So there was no problem, no obvious problem.

Nothing happened in their life. They went home, ate supper, everything was fine. And unbeknownst to our home, it happened, but we didn't know either. So no problems with the shower, no problems with the toilets or the sink or any such thing.

We all went about our happy way. Everything kept going on as though nothing had happened. But here's what did happen. If you know anything about, so if you don't, I'll try to explain it. If you know about sewer lines and you'll know what I'm about to say.

But once you compromise that line, once you put a hole in it, it will not take long for roots to find it. So over the next months and years, the roots found it. And what'll happen is, you're gonna be like, how does that work in a sewer line?

Well, what happened is those roots will get down in the sewer line and they'll grow. Now they're not gonna grow like big obvious roots. I mean, I guess that can happen, but more often than that, it's like a root ball.

It's like these tons of just little bitty fibers that they begin to get bigger, bigger, bigger. And what happens is they'll start, I mean, ah, this is gross, I'm sorry. But they start catching the stuff that comes down the drain.

Whatever's coming down the drain, it's supposed to be a four inch clear pipe. And now whatever's coming down the drain, it's gonna catch. And that happens. It's so far, this was like 48 feet from our second clean out.

So from the house, probably another 20 feet. So this was probably 68, 75 feet from our house that all this was happening. And we had no clue. But see, it's far enough down there that what'll happen is the water will get down there, it'll get backed up, but then it's got time before you even notice it to kind of drain out.

And it can keep doing that for a very long time. It can do that for months and years. Well, now you fast forward, and I believe this was in May of this year. Somebody was in the shower, and I heard the toilet gurgling.

Like, bleh, bleh, bleh. By the way, if you ever hear that, that's not good. I knew exactly what was going on. I was like, okay, something is stopped up in our line. So I went, and we have two clean outs.

I went to the first clean out, sure enough. So we have a little pressure hose thing that we use. So I took it, did it, and everything back to normal. Like, okay, I don't know what it was. Could've been anything.

All right, when we bought the house, we knew that there was one little turn that was kind of an issue. And periodically, I've lived in the house 10 years, periodically that kind of stuff's happened. Anyway, went to bed, all's good, it's great.

Then, this summer, on my second, of course, we're out of the house. I just now thought about that. We're out of the house for two weeks, not using it. So that's probably why we didn't begin to notice it more.

But on my second trip to Mexico, this begins happening more and more. That's where my middle son is helping and all that. And we finally figure out that the problem, you know, I'm not bored with the details, but we finally figure out where the problem's at.

And then it was a mess. It was a mess to clean up. And remove that, replace the pipes, all that. Okay, yeah, that whole story probably took longer than what I was thinking. But there's a really important analogy that I thought about as all this happened.

And that is the destructive, subtle nature of sin. There's many passages that we could think about. You reap what you sow in Galatians. I was thinking about Ruth. So, I don't know, for some people, like, well, it's not definitive if Elimelech really, you know, was he right, was he wrong?

I would argue that he was wrong for leaving the Promised Land and going into Moab and dragging his family there. And, but here's the, so the analogy's like, he goes, let's just take Elimelech for a second.

He goes to Moab, and on the first day that he goes to Moab, like, what does he, what's different about their lives? They don't really notice anything, right? It's like, their family's there, the family of four.

Elimelech, Naomi, Malhan, and Kilian, they're together. Everything's okay, there's no real, nothing's different. And it goes on and on, but then Elimelech dies. And then they're in Moab for 10 years, and the boys die, and it's like, okay.

So, the analogy, I'll put it this way, is sometimes you can sin, and secretly, or maybe even openly, but you sin, and nothing blows up, you know? Your marriage is intact. You don't notice any immediate consequences.

Like that boar through the sewer line, it's like, boom, it happens. On the day it happens, on the day it happens, it guaranteed the result that would happen a couple years later, because there's no way.

There's no way for us to know, right? So, the day it happened, it guaranteed the result, but there was no real warning sign or anything like that at the beginning. So, what I'm trying to say is, you can sin sometimes, and you can lull yourself to sleep because you don't see the immediate consequence.

So, you begin to kind of, you begin to kind of flirt with that coworker, and it's like, okay, well, no one said anything. Like, no one's treating you any different. Your wife doesn't know about it. Okay, this is, okay, it's not that big a deal.

You begin to look at pornography on the internet, on your phone, or whatever the case may be. You begin to, you know, ladies, you begin to, you know, confide in that male friend more than you should, or you begin to gossip a little bit, you know, more than you should.

You begin to maybe spending money you shouldn't, or, you know, you're nagging your husband. Whatever the case may be, listen to me. What I'm saying is, you begin to sin in some sort of secret way or different way, and no one calls you out on it.

You don't really think about the consequences, but you just kind of live in that moment, and you think, like, you don't have that great, so when we think about sin sometimes, we think about, like, Genesis 3, and the man and woman, Eve and Adam, they, Adam and Eve, they eat the forbidden fruit, and it's like, immediately, their eyes are open.

Like, oh, you know, we've done something wrong. Well, sometimes, with sin, not that you don't know you're doing something wrong, but you're like, you don't have necessarily that ah-ha moment, and what happens is, is that it just festers.

It festers. Nothing happens in a month. It's okay. Nothing happens in a year. It's okay. Nothing happens in two years. Hey, everything's okay, but meanwhile, meanwhile, what happened down in that sewer drain, where the roots just began to grow and grow and grow until they eventually choke out all the usage there, completely closing that sewer line, that's what's happening to your heart, or to a person's heart.

They press on in sin. They press on in disobedience, or maybe they just, maybe it was like this one-time thing, or just this little fleeing-type thing, but it just stays there. It's like, no one knows about it.

It's never, maybe it's kind of been like, oh, yeah, I'm sorry, personally, but it's never really been brought out in the open to confess and to repent, and so this whole time, what's happening is, these roots are growing.

They're growing stronger. They're growing stronger. They're growing stronger until what happens? Well, until you will face that consequence. You will face that blow-up. You will face that bitterness that's growing in your heart, and you could have exposed it long ago.

You could have repented of it long ago. You could have cut off the arm of the flesh, as it were, metaphorically speaking, long ago, but you gave into it, and now, it's gotten a hold of your heart. Now, it will, so here's the reality.

If we want to think about Malchon and Killian and the consequences from Malchon and Killian and then Elimelech, there will be consequences for your sin, and beyond that, I want to say, let's talk to husbands and wives, but husbands, if on the side, you think, well, I can dabble in sin like no one's gonna notice, like there's no, I'm not seeing an immediate consequence, so that means everything must be okay, so I can have the affair, I can look at pornography, I can embezzle a little money from the work, I can be sinfully addicted to video games or movies or sports or whatever, like even hunting, things in and of themselves, those things, not bad, but men can become addicted to these things, taking time, like if you think that you can sin, involve yourself in these things, and because you don't see the consequences immediately, if you think that there will be no consequences, then you're foolish, and if you don't understand that when the consequences do come to bear, your family will be broken, your wife will be left undone, if you don't think that sin will destroy your family and that you won't be held accountable before God, you are foolish, and the response is to see the destructive and evil and subtle nature of sin, it's just like immediately, you might not know the consequence, you might not see the consequence, but I'm telling you, man, it's coming, and it will destroy you and your family, and of course, ladies, it applies to you, and you're not the head of the family, but still, your sin will not only affect you, it'll blow up your whole family.

One little error that you just think, oh, it's no big deal, I'm gonna press on in this, over time, it affects the whole family, it's an emotional manipulation or nagging or even your own sexual sin, or like I said, gossip, overeating, whatever the case may be, sin brings death, and your sin, ladies, can destroy your family just like your husband's sin, but again, this is the false assurance that we have, and that is, since you don't see an immediate consequence, you think, well, this isn't so bad, and so, this is just a reality in the Christian life, which we're really bad about doing, and that is, we tend to see truth based on how we feel about it, based on how we feel, so our feelings become our truth, so this is what people say, like your truth or whatever, like Oprah Winfrey, you have your truth, I have my truth, here's what they're actually saying, what they're saying is, this is how you feel, this is how I feel, they're talking about feelings, and there's a mixture, there's a temptation to have a mixture here of feelings with your feelings being the arbiter or dictator of truth, and so, you can commit a sin or fall into a pattern of sin, and you know what, it's like, okay, yeah, maybe I feel a little guilty, but it's okay, it must be okay, because I'm not seeing any outward consequences, maybe even I'm still going to church, things at home are still okay, everything's okay, but this whole time, the whole point of the analogy is, it's not okay, the breach has been made, the roots are beginning to grow, and if they're not dealt with, things are going to get worse and worse and worse, and this may go on for weeks, it may go on for months, it may even go on for years, maybe even heard of stories where things have gone on for decades, you look up to this man or you look up to this woman and finds out, for the last 20 years, they've been secretly doing this or that, and the reason is, you think about, you ask this question, how did that person become so arrogant to think that they could get away with it?

Well, I'm not the first person to say it, but it's a very simple reality that sin makes a person stupid, and again, it's this whole idea of, I can sin, I don't see any immediate consequences, therefore, I guess I can press on in this, and then, of course, what happens too is, the thing about sin is a little sin is never enough, and so people will be doing a little sin, so it starts out with the flirtations, and then it increases to inappropriate conversations, and then it increases to physical connection, increases to a full-on affair or whatever, that's the nature of sin, and a little only increases our appetite for it to press on and on and on, and the whole time, you think, oh, I can just keep this away from everybody, but it will never affect just you.

When this comes out, it will blow up not only you, but your whole family, and your church, your community, those around you, your friends, but see, it doesn't have to be that way, that's the point, that's kind of where we're laying the plane on the episode, it doesn't have to be that way, why?

Because Jesus Christ saved sinners, you're like, well, I feel like a failure, well, here's the bad news, you are a failure, but here's the good news, Jesus came to save failures, so repent, and let's just speak a strong word like husband, if you repent, you're held accountable before God to be the husband and the leader of your family, like don't be creating in yourself this root of ungodliness and rebellion that's just gonna, just a ticking time bomb, like take it before the Lord now, confess your sin, repent, ladies, same for you, you're always saying, well, I'm not the head of the family, so my sin's okay, it's not that big a deal, everybody tells me I'm great, like stop, your sin is gonna blow you up, it's gonna blow your family, and your relationships, and your children, and most important to both the men and the women, it's dishonoring to God, and it brings reproach upon the name of Christ, so do not let that root of sin build, and build, and build, and build until it's too late, what we should do with sin, here's how we choke it out, here's how we kill it, is when sin is exposed in our lives, we repent of it, whether it's another brother or sister lovingly coming up to us and say, hey, you know, I think what you said there was inappropriate, or you know, you're out of line in this action, we should repent of it, or if the Holy Spirit pricks your conscience, it's like, hey, I can't press, just because I don't see the consequences, that's not the truth, what must be the truth is what the word of God says, so if the word of God says, this is wrong, this is the law of God, this is what you must do, this is what you must refrain from, and then you say, but I can do it anyway, and it feels okay, your feelings are wrong, and the word of God is right, and you must repent, and you must press on in God's truth, because that's the only truth there is, you don't have a truth, I don't have a truth, there is only the truth period, and all truth is God's truth, and so kill sin, as John Owen said, or it will be killing you, it will grow, it will grow, it will grow, until it's a mess that cannot be untangled, and we're so dumb sometimes, just like I said, sin makes you stupid, but we think, you know, I sinned, and so here's how I'm going to undo the sin, I'll undo the sin with more sin, that never works, and it's never right, you know, I heard, I was gonna mention from 1 John 1, 9, but I heard the other day someone say that, you know, the more that we grow in Christ, you know, the less we repent, but I disagree with that, I think the more we grow in Christ, the more we realize certain things we saw that weren't that big a deal in our lives, actually, it's actually habits that need to change, it is sin, we need to kill those things, not run roughshod over our conscience, and just press on in them, but the closer we get with Christ, and as he reveals things to us through his word, and through the preaching, and through the body, and life, and the church, we should repent, but to encourage me, I was thinking about chapter 1 John 1, 8, 9, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us, and so I read through verse 10 there, but this is one of the things about, if you're in Christ, confess our sins, God's faithful and just to forgive us, how is he just?

Those sins have been atoned for, there is therefore now no more condemnation, Romans 8, 1, for those who are in Christ, one of the greatest ways, most important ways to kill sin in our life is to confess it, and another thing about killing sin, is to constantly let ourselves be, whether we want to or not, to constantly let ourselves be exposed to the word of God, this is important in your daily habits with the Bible, and regular Bible intake, reading the scriptures, but it's also quite important in sitting under the preaching of the word of God, regularly sitting under the preaching, which is one of the reasons, one of our commitments at Providence, is while we have, we still kind of traditional I guess, in the sense that we have two services, Sunday morning, Sunday night, but one of the things that sort of leads us in, a desire to have two services, is greater opportunity for people to sit under the preaching of the word of God, there's so many sermons after the day, and I'm not talking about Christian sermons, I'm talking about the world is preaching sermons, companies are preaching sermons, TV shows or whatever are preaching sermons, movies are preaching sermons, books are preaching sermons, we need to sit under the preaching of the word of God, because what happens is, it's the preaching of the word of God that exposes our hearts, that brings the darkness to light, that shines down on those roots and say, hey listen, you got a problem, and it needs to be dealt with, so to keep us from continuing on in sin, and then of course you have Hebrews three, talks about to exhort one another, every day as long as it's called today, that there not be in any of us an unbelieving heart, so this idea of constant encouragement, and exhortation, and accountability, and being involved in each other's lives, because again, sin is so deceptive, that we'll just look around and say, no one's being hurt, it's just me, everything's okay, nothing's wrong, and what happens is the whole time, in the recesses of your heart, this bitter wicked root is going, growing, growing, growing, and it could be there for a while, and then all of a sudden, life is choked out, of course not that a believer, could ever lose their salvation, but there is the reality, there is the reality in the scriptures of being deceived, and the thing about being deceived is, a person who is deceived, doesn't realize they're deceived, otherwise they wouldn't be deceived, if you know you're deceived, then you're not deceived, so that's a scary thing, but the antidote to that, is what I said to constantly be exposed to the scripture, to constantly be under the word of God, to constantly be in fellowship with the church, it is these things, okay we left ourselves, in our own conscience, without outside influence, can be a dangerous place, to let those rotten roots, just grow and grow and grow, without any light, without any exposure, to God's word and to truth, and by the way, when I say by yourself, so even going to church, there's a lot of Christians that can go to church, but are really just by themselves, you understand what I'm saying, they show up to church like they're supposed to, they go through the songs like they're supposed to, they listen to the sermon like they're supposed to, but nobody's really involved in their lives, they can go to church for 25 years, and people don't even know, really much about them at all, what their birthday is maybe, if it's on the church calendar somewhere, what their kids are like, their grandkids or their, you know they just don't know much about their life, because there's no intentional time together, and you need to be, number one, you need to be careful for yourself, you can't be like that, number two, you need to not let other people, slip in and out of the church like that, because sin is real, and these little root balls, will grow and grow and grow and grow, if they are left unchecked, so that's kind of a gross analogy I know, I'm sorry for having to deal with that, but I think it's an important analogy, a sobering analogy, maybe one of those things, you need to turn off the podcast and call somebody, talk to them about what's going on in your life, or to repent, or maybe there's someone in your life, that you know about something going on, but you're just like, you know what, they'll figure it out, I'm gonna leave it unchecked, you know, I know my brother-in-law, or I know my cousin, or I know my coworker, yeah I know they're doing this thing, but you know, they'll figure it out, what you're doing is, is you're helping set them up, for catastrophe, so maybe this is one of those episodes, you need to reach out to someone, or maybe you personally, need to call your pastor, or if you are a pastor, that's the thing about pastors, you've got well, but if everyone knew this, then I'd have to, you know, I'd have to resign, or I'd have to step away, well like here's the deal, like you press on in this, you grow on that root, it's gonna blow up, it's just gonna be worse, it'll be hard now, it'll be worse if you press on in it, and so brothers and sisters, let's be serious about sin, let's fight it, let's expose sin to the light, let the light dry it up, confess it, and let us live in the light of the gospel, Jesus Christ came for sinners, Jesus Christ justifies the ungodly, it's of course not an excuse for you, to continue to live in sin, it's just a reality, it's like you're broken, you've fallen, what are you gonna do, like yeah, you're gonna confess it, repent of it, and see God restore you in his mercy, and his grace, so I hope this is helpful, something to think about, be killing sin, or it'll be killing you, don't let the root grow in your heart, let it be exposed, fight sin, let us love the Lord Jesus Christ, and walk in his way, rest in his gospel, catch you guys next week, on the Rural Church Podcast.

If you really believe, the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what God's doing, this is his work, if we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poemos, the masterpiece of God, how are you gonna respond?