Torch, Fall 1994

pick up your pen. I want you to write a little exposition about Proverbs 28:13. I want you to write about covering sin, about confessing sin, and about conquering sin." You find it in 1 John 1:5-10. Verse five states, "This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all." That is a description of integrity. Integrity means wholeness. God has integrity and God wants me to have integrity. He wants my heart within and my conduct without to be one. Alas, that's a problem sometimes. "If we say.. .." That's the way verse six begins; but so does verse eight, "If we say... ," and so does verse 10, "If we say...." How do you cover your sin? By saying. "If we say," says verse six, "that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth." Now in verse six, we're lying to other people and the name for this is hypocrisy. We can lie to each other. Somebody says, "How's it going?" "Terrific!" "How are you and the Lord getting along?" "Great!" But I'm not. I haven't read my Bible for weeks. I don't really pray. So, if I want to cover my sins, I do it with words and lie to you . That's hypocrisy. Now, if I keep that up, it gets worse. Notice verse eight. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." Now I'm not lying to you, I'm lying to myself That's not hypocrisy, that's duplicity. You see, integrity means I am one person. Duplicity means I am two people. Sometimes these two people inside me don't even know each other. When I descend from hypocrisy into duplicity, I'm really in trouble. It's bad enough if I lie to you , but if I start lying to myself and saying, "Well, I can get away with this. This sin is all right," then I'm really in trouble. The third step is even worse. Verse 10: "If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar." Now I'm lying to God! You see, it's possible to go through this erosion of character and still carry on religious habits. I can pray and say, "Oh Lord, bless this day." I'm not really concerned about that. "God, help me today to be a good witness." I have no intention God has integrity and God wants me lo have integrity. He wants my heart within and my conduct without lo be one. of witnessing. The word for this is apostasy. I have sinned against God, I'm covering it up. I make Him a liar and His Word is not in me. That means I can read my Bible and get out of it anything I want. I recall counseling with a man who had sinned against his family. Every verse I pointed out to him, he would say to me, "Ah, but that's your interpretation." Really, no interpretation was needed. It was pretty clear. So, here we have the erosion of character. It begins with lying to you-hypocrisy. It descends to lying to myself-duplicity. That opens the door to lying to God and making the Bible say whatever I want it to say. Verse six says that, if I lie to you , I don 't practice the truth. In verse eight, if I lie to myself, the truth is not in me. I can hear the Bible preached, I can hear the Bible read. It doesn't touch me. In verse 10, if I lie to God, I make Him a liar. Then the truth becomes a lie. You see, the devil can use the Bible to tempt you. He did it to Jesus . It's possible for the enemy of your soul to twist Scripture in your mind so that you believe a lie. Have you ever studied the three men in the Bible who began well but they ended up in the dark? All three of them committed suicide. The first was King Saul. Samuel, the prophet, sent King Saul on a mission to slay the Amalekites. Saul came back and said to Samuel, "I have obeyed the will of the Lord." Just then Samuel heard animals lowing. Samuel said, "What's that I hear?" "Well," said Saul, "the people saved the best of the flock to offer to God." If God says something is to be slain, you can 't say it's the best. Saul lied to Samuel and he lost his kingdom. Torch 7