I wish you would take your Bibles and turn to Second Corinthians chapter 12, because the text this morning will not be on the overhead due to some technical problems. So you're going to have to use your bibles today and follow along, or your little machines with the Bible on them. However it works for you, I've entitled my discourse to you this morning "The Danger of Lingering Sin." And as you will see, this will speak to each of us. So let me read the text in Second Corinthians 12, beginning in verse 20, the apostle Paul says,

"For I am afraid that perhaps when I come, I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you wish; that perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances;

I am afraid that when I come again, my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality, which they have practiced."

Like all biblical truths, the concepts of sin and repentance are utterly foreign to our culture. In fact, they are politically incorrect to even talk about. After all, we live in a world where there is no fear of God, no fear of judgment, and therefore people think that they can do whatever they want and there are no consequences. But as we examine the Scriptures, we learn very quickly that man does not act wickedly because of nurture, but because of his very nature. His very nature is evil. Our culture will say, well, people do bad things because bad things happen to good people. The reality is, there's really no good people. There was only one good person, and that was Jesus. But more often, the reality is, people do bad things because they are bad people, and I would include myself in that context. The consistent theme of Scripture is that although there may be a number of forces that exert themselves upon us, we will naturally be ruled by what Paul said in Ephesians, two, three, "...the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind." And he says we are, "...by nature, children of wrath." In verse five, he says we are "...dead in our transgressions." We are in desperate need of God's mercy, who can alone make us, as he says in verse five, "...alive together with Christ."

As we look at the word of God, we see that because of Adam's sin in the garden, the entire human race was plunged into sin, Romans five and verse 17 or verse 12. And therefore, every child is conceived in a state of sin; in a state of depravity. The Psalmist put it this way, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin, my mother conceived me." Psalm 51, five. So, as we look at Scripture, and as we honestly examine our own lives, we see that sin is a state, or a disposition, of the very soul of man. It is an intrinsic part of the very essence of who we are. Solomon concurred in Ecclesiastes nine, three saying, "...the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives." Jeremiah tells us in Jeremiah 17 nine that, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?" Sin corrupts every aspect of man's nature. It manifests itself in every aspect of our being. For example, it is manifested in our thinking. We see this in God's prohibition against things such as covetousness and hatred and lusting in our heart, all sins of the thought. Scripture makes it clear that unbelievers have no capacity to comprehend spiritual biblical truth. Paul says to Titus, chapter one and verse 15, that, "...both their mind and their conscience are defiled."

Sin not only affects our thinking, but it affects our will, making us, as Jesus said, "...a slave to sin," in John 8:34. And because our will is in bondage to sin, man is absolutely unable to change his nature. And this is depicted in the vivid analogy that God used when he spoke through the prophet Jeremiah, saying in Jeremiah 13:23, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good, who are accustomed to doing evil." And for this reason, Jesus said in John 3:19, "'This is the judgment that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light." Why? Because "their deeds are evil."

Sin can manifest itself in omission, in what we don't do, the unwitting failures that are a part of us to do what we ought to do. In fact, sin has permeated the whole of our being and corrupted us so thoroughly that that we frequently sin without any awareness that we are doing so. And for this reason, the Psalmist prayed in Psalm 19:12, "Acquit me of hidden faults." And James said in chapter four, verse 17, "Therefore to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it to him, it is sin." And David acknowledged in Psalm 40 and verse 12, "For evils beyond number have surrounded me." Well, I can identify with that, can't you? And he says, "My iniquities have overtaken me so that I am not able to see they are more numerous than the hairs of my head and my heart has failed me."

Dear friends, we can therefore conclude, as we look at Scripture, that sin is man's innate inability to conform to the moral character and desires of God. Apart from God's grace, and apart from him doing something to us, there's no way that we can overcome sin. Every man is capable of committing the very worst of sins, and apart from God's transforming grace and salvation, even when the unsaved man does right, it is for motivations other than the glory of God; and therefore, his actions are displeasing to Him. Basically, what we see in the Word of God is that all that we are and all that we do are fundamentally dishonoring to God, until we come to saving faith in Christ, and then everything begins to change. The unsaved are so utterly bereft of that love of God necessary to fulfill the most basic requirement of the law, God's moral law, to love him supremely, that they simply cannot do that. They have no desire to do that. And the unregenerate will continue to descend and spiral downward in morality, and he has no possible means of salvation or recovery in himself.

John says sin is "lawlessness," First John three and verse four, which is not only a failure to obey God's law, but it's living as though his law doesn't even exist. And all we have to do is look at our culture today, and we see that most vividly; sin is primarily a manifestation of self will. Man prefers to obey his will, rather than God's will. And again, this is portrayed in Scripture as quote "the deeds of the flesh." And Paul speaks of these in Galatians five, beginning verse 19, he gives a little list. It includes things like "...immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing and things like these... those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

And because man is innately a slave to sin, again, he has no recovery in himself and sadly, however, I would submit to you that there is perhaps no greater example of beguiling deceit in the church today than the distortions surrounding the doctrine of sin and the power of the gospel to save. When sin is whitewashed, the Savior becomes insignificant. Yet the very first word recorded when Jesus spoke out in public ministry was the word "repent." Matthew 4:17, "'Repent,'"he said, "'for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" And as we look at Scripture, and we're going to see this this morning, genuine repentance is a hatred of sin. It includes a turning from sin and a determination to forsake sin that is so strong that it dominates every thought and every action. It begins at salvation, but dear friends, it continues throughout the life of a believer. In fact, the more we mature in Christ, what happens? The more we see our sin, don't we? And therefore, the more we run to the Lord and confess those sins and repent of those sins, and the more we celebrate grace. For apart from grace, we would be doomed. From the very first moment of conversion until his final breath, a Christian is always examining his heart before the Lord. First John one and verse nine, "If we confess our sins..." "Confess" in Greek is a is a compound word "homologeō" - "homo" homo means the same, “logeō" to speak - unless we say the same thing about our sin that God says - or when we do that I should say - what happens? "When we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." And if we say that we have not sinned, John says, "we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." So indeed, the more we grow in the grace and the knowledge of Christ, we understand more fully the depth and the breadth of our sin, the more discerning we become. And there's this hatred of sin that grows deep within our soul, and we become increasingly more vigilant to root out those pockets of rebellion in our heart, and we seek more opportunities to turn from that which God abhors.

And of course, all of this, again, is utterly foreign to our culture, and sadly, it's all too foreign to many Christians. The USA Today is probably one of the most pagan countries in the world. Stop and think about it, we promote the barbaric dismembering of unborn and unwanted babies. I can't think of anything more hideous than that. We are the leading producer of pornography. We actually celebrate various forms of sexual deviancy that God calls abomination. And we do this under the banner of pride. Incomprehensible, absolutely incomprehensible. We elect leaders who systematically legalize unrighteousness and criminalize righteousness. We flaunt our sin, as did ancient Judah, causing him to curse them. And we read about this, for example, in Isaiah five, beginning in verse 18, he says, "Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood and sin, as if with cart ropes; who say, 'Let him make speed, let Him hasten His work, that we may see it; and let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come to pass that we may know it!'" In other words, we dare you God, if you're there, we dare you to punish us. Ha, what a joke. He went on to describe why he cursed them. "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight!"  Because they had no fear of God, he indicted them in Isaiah, chapter one and verse four. Here's what he said, "Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned the LORD; they have despised the Holy One of Israel. They have turned away from Him."

What a perfect description of America, a country that is already experiencing the wrath of divine abandonment as he gives us over to the consequences of our iniquities; a wrath that will ultimately bring us to destruction. Yet what's wonderful to note is that in his loving kindness to ancient Judah, he called them to repentance, as he does all who rebel against him, offering them forgiveness according to the riches of his grace. And therefore, in verse 18 of chapter one, he says, "'Come now, and let us reason together,' says the LORD, 'though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow, though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool. If you consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.' Truly, the mouth of the LORD has spoken." And sadly, they chose to rebel, and they were destroyed.

But I might add that the problem of man's refusal to repent has existed in every church since its inception at Pentecost. Remember, five of the seven churches in Revelation two and three, were called to repentance. Remember, the church of Ephesus, God called them to repentance because they had forsaken their first love of Christ. The Church at Pergamum was called to repentance because they were following a false teacher who led them into sexual immorality. The church at Thyatira, God says, "You tolerate the woman Jezebel," a pseudonym for some false prophetess that was in the church who called herself a prophetess, "and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols" Revelation 2:20. The church at Sardis, he says, "'I know your deeds, that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead." And then the Church at Laodicea, a wealthy church that thought they had no need of anything, but God, says, "'...you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked...'" It was evidently a church filled with self-deceived hypocrites that sickened Christ; made him want to spew them out of his mouth, and at the end of that section, he says, "...be zealous therefore and repent.'"

Now I want to remind you, in the context of where we're at here this morning, that the church at Corinth was exceedingly sinful and the culture was exceedingly sinful, it was plagued. The church was plagued by divisiveness. There were factions in the church, people aligning themselves with their favorite preacher, "I am of Paul, I am Apollos." You remember that whole section. Each person and each little group thought that their group was better than the other group. They were filled with jealousy and strife. They were all trying to seek the showier gifts. They were running around, making up their own tongues, so to speak. You remember that they had sexual immorality going on in the church. They would get drunk in their love feasts. They were abusing the poor, rejecting them. They were trying to outdo each other. I mean, it was, it was just chaotic in the church, and they tolerated these false apostles that had come into the church, and that's where we come here today. I mean, you might say the chimpanzees were running the zoo, and Paul was concerned about this just staggering immaturity combined with phony believers. In fact, Paul said in First Corinthians three, beginning in verse two, he described them as "men of flesh." Later on, he said they're babes in Christ, "I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not able to receive it. Indeed, even now, you are not able for you, you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?"

Now, again, with this background, we can understand Paul's defense of his apostolic authority and his character that we we see here in Second Corinthians 12, and especially, actually inverses 20 and 21. And here I wish to draw your attention to just two simple dangers of lingering sin. The outline is real simple, even though you don't have it on the overheads, I think you can remember it unrepentant sin destroys the unity of a church, and it will destroy the testimony of a church. And obviously the Apostle Paul was very concerned about this, as we all should be. In fact, Paul's priority as a pastor, you will recall, was summed up in verse 19. It was for their "upbuilding," their edification, their spiritual growth, their strengthening. He wanted to see them come to Christ's likeness.

I think of the words in Proverbs. It says that a child left unto Himself will bring his mother to shame where there's no discipline. That's what will happen. Well, the same is true of baby Christians. They've got to be built up, they've got to be disciplined, they've got to be edified. They've got to be encouraged and strengthened in their faith. And certainly, one of the greatest frustrations of pastors is that of immature Christians within the church. And by the way, I might add that maturity has nothing to do with age. Many times there are old believers who are very immature, and sometimes young believers that are very mature. As you've heard me say before, some people will say, Well, I've been a Christian for 37 years, when, in reality, they've been a Christian one time, 37 times. They've never grown up. People will believe things that are absolutely crazy, demonstrably false. I look at this whole woke movement within the church, it's just staggering that anybody can buy into that; people too ignorant to know they're ignorant.

But immaturity will also manifest itself and in a person's interpersonal style of relating, even though they may appear quite spiritual on the outside, when things don't go their way, you will begin to see how immature they really are. It reminds me of the danger of the horse that somebody wants to sell you and says, "Oh yes, this horse is so safe, kids just get up on it and ride it." And I know from experience that that can be the most dangerous horse in the world, because if you know anything about horses, they love to be in control. They love to just have a passenger, but you put an experienced rider on that horse and ask that horse to yield to pressure, and all of a sudden, oh, mild mannered Mabel will turn into Widowmaker, and you will find yourself on the ground.

Well, this was Paul's concern with the immature believers in Corinth. They were used to doing their own thing. They were not used to submitting to authority. So with this background, notice verse 20, he says, "For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish, and may be found by you to be not what you wish." In other words, I don't want to come this third time and have the same kind of chaos that I experienced the last time, where I was filled with so much sorrow because I was publicly humiliated. There still may be pockets of resistance, in other words in the church, pockets of resistance, against his apostolic authority, against the gospel that he preached, all because of these false apostles that had come into the church. As I say, there were still snakes in the barn, and he was concerned about that.

I probably need to pause. A young lady asked me a few weeks ago, evidently, I used that phrase. She said, "What do you mean snakes in the barn?" So let me tell you where that came from and why that's so powerful to me. As a young boy, I was riding one of my horses on the farm, came out of the woods, and all of a sudden, I noticed a large tractor with a big in loader on it going across the field rather slowly, and nobody was on it. And then I watched it crash into the ditch, and the tire still turning. So I went running around the barn where they had torn down a house, and evidently the guy that was moving the debris from where the house had been torn down had moved the chimney, and there was a den of copperheads in there, and one of them had come up the arm of the tractor, and he hit the eject button, and he was out of there. And I remember my grandfather hollering at me, "David, get off that horse, grab that shovel, some of these snakes are coming in the barn!" So I got off my buckskin, grabbed a shovel, and I went snake hunting with my grandfather for about an hour. That's really fun. So you understand what I mean when I say, "there's still some snakes in the barn." And I remember my grandfather telling me, after that, the next day, "Son, you be careful when you go down there, because there's still some snakes in the barn." Now you know where that phrase comes from. That's what Paul was experiencing. He knew that there were still some snakes in the barn.

John MacArthur said, 'Sin and error die hard, and the false teachers were still around spouting their deadly heresy. As Paul well knew theological error inevitably leads to sin in practice." And so that's why Paul is saying, "I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you wish." So Paul is warning them that when I come again this next time, I'm going to deal forthrightly if there's still sin. This is the hand of loving discipline. That's why he said in First Corinthians four, verse 21, " What do you desire? Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of gentleness?"

And so again, if you look at verse 20 at the end, he says, "I am afraid... that perhaps there will be..." and then he gives this list, "strife, jealousy, angry, tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances." And here, my friends, we have a representative list of dangerous, lingering sins that must be dealt with, because Paul knew number one, that unrepentant sin destroys the unity of a church. Let's look at these terms that he uses here.

First, lingering sin would be that of strife, "eris" in the original language. It speaks of those who are habitually involved in bitter conflict, contentious debate, violent dissensions. It's one of the deeds of the flesh in Galatians 5:20, these are the people that are always looking for a fight, and they're always creating one. They're the "my way or the highway" kind of people. They have the gift of discord. This kind of person leaves a trail of broken relationships. They are absolutely toxic in a church or in a family. They're sickening in small doses, and they're lethal in large doses. Paul's afraid that I'm going to come there, and I'm going to still find some of this stuff. And of course, this was characteristic of the false apostles. Proverbs 10:12 says "Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all transgressions." In chapter 13, verse 10, we read "Through insolence comes nothing but strife." Of course, strife is common among unbelievers who have been given over to a "depraved" or a worthless mind, according to Romans one. You will recall that whole section of scripture in Romans, one, tells us that when a man rejects God, God rejects man and gives him over to, first of all, sordid immorality, secondly, to shameless homosexuality, which leads finally to shocking depravity, a disposition of godless corruption.

And in this regard, Paul provides his own list of evils that characterize the ungodly, a list that includes strife, along with a number of the other ones that he uses here in Second Corinthians 12:20. Let me read that passage in Romans, one beginning in verse 28, "And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them."

I might add that this is similarly stated in Titus one, beginning in verse 15. Paul says, "...to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their deeds, they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed." Our culture's obsession with transgenderism is a classic example of this very thing.

The second lingering sin, first strife, secondly, jealousy. This is also one of the deeds of the flesh in Galatians five. This speaks of a greedy grasping, a prideful longing for something that belongs to someone else. By the way, jealousy and strife are very often mentioned together in Scripture. Remember, the Corinthians were jealous of other people's gifts. They wanted the showy gifts. They were jealous of status. And we see this all the time. Haven't we all dealt with jealousy in some way or another? You're jealous over the way someone else looks, or their career or their material wealth or their intelligence or whatever; always suspicious of other people who may pose a threat. That's a lingering sin, and if that exists in your heart, you need to deal with it. James three and verse 14, "But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic." I mean, you don't get any more serious than that. "For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing." But he goes on to say, "The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."

The third lingering sin he mentions is that of "angry tempers." The term "thymos," it speaks of fury, of rage, of an outburst of anger. Again, one of the deeds of the flesh in Galatians five. These are the type of people that that just go apoplectic with rage when things don't go their way. They are the meltdown people. They are the ones that get red faced and scream and yell and veins are bulging, and you've seen the whole deal. Obviously, this was happening in the church. By the way, there is no place for that ever in the Christian life, in a church, in a marriage, in a family, there's no place for that. Boy if that's going on, if that characterizes you. You have serious spiritual issues that need to be dealt with on multiple occasions, I have had ungodly hypocrites, both men and women in the church, that have gone, as we say, medieval on me. I know what it's like to have them spray saliva all over my face as they scream at me about something that didn't go their way. It's a strategy that is obviously served them well and their settings over the course of their life, where they are used to intimidating other people, and other people acquiesce to that. Their idea of conflict resolution is whoever screams the loudest the longest wins. But like every bully, they don't know what to do with people that aren't afraid of them and stand up to them and lovingly confront them with their sin. Well, Paul was afraid that this was still going on. He had experienced it. We can't have this type of thing.

The fourth, lingering sin is that's of that of disputes. It could be translated selfish ambition, another deed of the flesh in Galatians five. This speaks of a strong desire for personal success without any moral inhibitions. It leads to factiousness. It leads to rivalries and divisiveness and partisanship. This is political jockeying, like we see in politics, turns into mudslinging and spinning things and all of that. And of course, we know, according to First Corinthians 11, Paul says that there's going to be factious, divisive people in every church. So you have to guard against this. It's considered to be "earthly," "demonic" in James three, verse 14 and 16. This is the opposite, by the way, of what Paul said in Philippians two and verse three. "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interest of others."

Ah, but there was yet a fifth lingering sin, that of slanders, "katalalia" in the original language. It's evil speaking; it's speaking publicly but saying something that is false; saying something publicly with the motivation of intentionally attacking and demeaning that person. Proverbs 16 verse 26, "A perverse man spreads strife and a slanderer separates intimate friends."

Dave Harrell  

But not only does this happen publicly, but at times, it will happen privately, and that's why he uses the word "gossip" next, which is the sixth lingering sin. "Psithyrismos" in the original language; a quiet, secretive, yet malicious, report concerning someone's behavior. It's usually done in low tones and whispers. In fact, psithyrismos is an onomatopoetic word in the original language. In other words, it suggests the sound it describes, and it's used to describe the soft hissing buzz of a snake charmer. I mean, just listen to it in Greek... psithyrismos.... It’s from a derivative of "psithurós" which means a whisper. And the verb "psithurízō" means to speak in a low voice or to mutter, to mumble. And the cognate noun of it describes a person who, in a very clandestine way, attacks another person's character, which is in contrast to "katalalia" - slander.

So you have slander being the public defamation of a person's character, gossip being the silent, the secret one - psithyrismos, which, again, would be just a surreptitious, secret, quiet speech of a critic. That's why it is so rude. And some of you may not know this, so let me tell you, it is rude to be in the context of other people, and to suddenly reach over to someone and to start whispering something in their ear, right? That's rude, because you don't know what they're saying. But evidently, this was going on in the church, and to be sure, slander and gossip fueled the backbiting and the insinuations that were being used to discredit Paul.

He goes on to a seventh lingering sin, that of arrogance. It's just speaks of pride, the idea of being puffed up. This is the know it all in the church. This is the person who's always the hero of his own stories. This is the person that is the one that dominates the Sunday school class and has all the answers and all of this type of thing, whatever you've done, they've done better. Whatever you know, they know more. They're the type of person that would say, "If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you." So evidently, this was going on in the church, a lingering sin. This refers to those characterized by feelings of unwarranted importance. They considered themselves superior to others. Proverbs eight and verse 13, "The fear of the LORD is to hate evil." Then he says, "Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverted mouth, I hate." What's interesting is arrogant, narcissistic people will inevitably use deception to discredit others, and they will also use profanity, vulgar language, to show their contempt of others that they can consider beneath them.

And of course, the final lingering sin is that of disturbances. And this is where it all leads. It just speaks of upheaval, group disturbances and disorders. We see this in our country all the time. I mean, when you have all of these sins, ultimately, what's going to happen is going to produce disturbances. Is going to produce upheaval. We see that today in our culture. Liberals call these people protesters. In reality, that's a misnomer. Most of them are criminal anarchists like Antifa and Black Lives Matter and so forth. James four and verse one says, "What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have: so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel.

So with all of this talk about disunity in the church, Paul was very concerned about this, and I would be too. By the way, I'm so thankful we don't have that here. I mean, there's been times where we have, every church is going to go through those seasons, but my goodness, I mean, this is like junior high drama we're talking about. I mean, it's just crazy. What was going on in the church, and this is the danger of lingering sin. And by the way, it will also cause disunity in your marriage, and it will cause disunity in your family and in the workplace. Sadly, immature Christians cannot see their sin. They will justify their behavior. They will justify their interpersonal style of relating. They will rationalize what they do. And isn't it true that we can all see the speck in our brother's eye, but we can't see the log on our own. Jeremiah 17, verse nine, tells us why. It's because, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it?" And God Himself answers this, "'I the LORD, search the heart. I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.'" To be sure, the Lord can see what we cannot.

So Paul was afraid of these lingering sins that were still there, were still snakes in the barn. An unrepentant sin not only destroys the unity of a church, but secondly, the testimony of a church. I mean, stop and think about it. Why would anyone want to believe the transforming power of the gospel to save and to sanctify when people who call themselves Christians conduct themselves in this way? No wonder people will say, "Oh, that church is full of a bunch of hypocrites." That's why he says in verse 21, "I'm afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you." As we study this in context, we see he's basically saying, Look, I came to you and I gave my life to help you understand the gospel, I am your spiritual father, and because of God's grace, you were saved, and you're going to act like this? Of course, I know firsthand what it feels like to be humiliated by people in your church. Suddenly, you see them doing and saying things that bring such dishonor to the Lord.

By the way, this is why the Lord goes to such great lengths to describe the process of church discipline in Matthew 18 and other passages. In fact, Paul will discuss this more in the first few verses of chapter 13. But oh, the sorrow, dear friends, the sorrow, the heartbreak that we all feel when we see people who name the name of Christ living as though he doesn't even exist. This is what Paul was concerned about. These kinds of people hop from church to church, leaving a trail of broken relationships, or they don't go to church at all, or they are they apostatize. They succumb to the lust of their flesh. They end up living a double life. I've seen this even in pastors. They live a double life. They're having an affair with another woman. They leave their wife; they leave their children. They destroy their testimony. They destroy the testimony of their church they once attended, or the church they once pastored. It's a hideous thing. No wonder Paul would say, "I'm afraid that when I come my God may humiliate me before you." I just don't want to see this again. In verse 20 at the end, again, "I am afraid that when I come again....I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the..." and he gives a little list here, "...impurity, immorality and sensuality, which they have practiced." It's interesting, he shifts here from the unity of the church to the purity of the church. And of course, the people of first century Corinth were exceedingly immoral, as I alluded to earlier. In fact, you will recall that the most prominent edifice in Corinth was the Acropolis, a temple to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of beauty and love and procreation. And in that temple, there, there was all kinds of ritual prostitution and other vile forms of religious degeneracy that was part of their so-called worship. And their debauchery was so pervasive that it even caused the pagans to blush. And they adopted the phrase to "Corinthianize," in other words, to behave like a Corinthian; to express the very grossest kinds of sexual immorality and drunk in decadence.

In fact, in temple excavations in Corinth, they have discovered 1000s of terra cotta votive offerings presented to the mythical god Asclepius, the god of healing, and his daughter, Hygiea. You may remember in the temple of Asclepius; the people would go in and they would lie down and allow snakes to crawl over their bodies. They are not poisonous snakes, and they felt like that would bring healing. By the way, that's where we get the medical symbol with the snake going around it, it's all rooted in that; and clay molds have of various body parts have been found in these excavations, including various limbs, fingers, hands, feet, lips, noses, ears, breasts, male and female genitals, etcetera. They found these in the ancient chambers of Corinthian temples. You can go there today and see them and clay copies of human body parts were hung all around the temple when they worshiped, and they were in need of healing. But sadly, they did not know that these diseased body parts were the result of that dreadfully, that dreadful sexually transmitted disease, syphilis. And like idolaters today, the pagan people refused to worship the one true God. And so what happened? As we read earlier in Romans, one, "Therefore God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them." And I believe that that macabre scene of hanging body parts in pagan temples influenced Paul's imagery of our bodies being the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that we are individual members of the body of Christ. What a glorious thought.

But I must say that beyond the power of unrestrained lust, in the unregenerate, the profligacy, the depravity of the culture greatly influenced the nascent church, the first baby church in the first century, as it does in well-established churches today. Moreover, the Corinthians were heavily influenced by Plato's philosophical dualism, you will recall, they perceived that matter is evil and spirit is good. The human body and all matter was therefore inferior. It's bad, it's evil. They insisted that whatever a person chose to do with his or her body was no big deal. It was meaningless. It was therefore not considered immoral to indulge the appetites of the body. Sothis is going on in the culture; and these people get saved out of that culture. They come into the church, and naturally they're thinking this way. And if you read the New Testament epistles, you'll see how, how the Spirit of God is telling them this is wrong. This is how you need to conduct yourself. These are lingering sins. No wonder, Paul would say at the end of verse 20, "I'm afraid that when I come again... I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced."

Look at these closely with me for a moment, impurity. It speaks of the filth of sexual sin, moral impurity in Ephesians 4:19, Paul described the character of the unregenerate as those who have, "having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of.."  here's the term, "impurity." Impurity. "Akatharsia" in the original language; impurity, the same thing. Ephesians five, three, "Impurity," he says, "must not even be named among you as believers." I love what Paul said in First Thessalonians, four, verse seven, "God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification."

Not only the lingering sin of impurity, but he uses the term immorality - "porneia." We get our word pornography from that. It refers to any kind of sexual act that is outside the bounds of marriage. And he uses the third term sensuality, "aselgeia." It carries the idea of sinful, shall I say, abandon, unrestricted public sexual immorality. Peter associated these kinds of public sinswith that of drunkenness in First Peter four, three, "carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatry." This is the kind of gross immorality that's exhibited in things like strip clubs, the degenerate booze fest and nudity that you would see in spring break parties; certainly, you see it in the unspeakable atrocities, immoral acts that occur in these gay pride parades. This is what he's referring to.

I might add that the term "sensuality" in the King James and some other translations can be translated as lasciviousness. We don't hear that word very often, lasciviousness, wantonness, licentiousness. And it's used in Second Peter, two, seven. Peter uses the same term in describing just the appalling evil of homosexuals in Sodom, who tried, you will recall, to molest the angels even after they had been blinded. Here's what Peter said, God, "rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men." "Oppressed," referring to the idea of a man that is suffering, he's being persecuted by the sensual conduct of unprincipled or lawless men. And then in parens, "(for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),..."-  sensual conduct. He was oppressed by the sensual conduct. That's the same term that Paul uses here in First Corinthians 12.

So again, the end of verse 21, "I'm afraid that when I come again, I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced." Oh, dear Christian, would that we all get serious about repentance. Charles Spurgeon said, "Repentance is a discovery of the evil of sin, a mourning that we have committed it, a resolution to forsake it. It is, in fact, a change of mind of a very deep and practical character which makes the man love what once he hated and hate what he once loved." You will recall how Paul called them earlier to repentance. In Second Corinthians, seven, nine, he says, "I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God, produces repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death." You see, there's a big difference between a godly and a worldly sorrow when it comes to repentance.

He went on to say, "For behold," in other words, this is what I'm seeing in you, "what earnestness, this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter."  Describing the context there, again, repent means to essentially change your mind, go in a different direction. It is not reformation, just a resolution to do better, to turn over a new leaf. That's not what repentance is. I might add that it's not even contrition, merely feeling sorry for the results of your sin, feeling sorry because you've been caught in all of the horrible things that come from the misery of sin. But true repentance, dear friends, is a God induced hatred of that which is displeasing to him. It's a turning from sin, and it is a Spirit empowered forsaking of sin resulting into a turning to God. It's turning from sin, turning to God. In verse 11 of that text, he speaks of what it looks like, what genuine repentance looks like. He says, "...what earnestness..." it means to repent and pursue holiness. For "...what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you..." And the earnestness speaks of just this, this solemn sincerity about true repentance. It includes an eager an aggressive seriousness about making things right and being restored to God and to those you have sinned against. "What vindication," he says. This speaks of a desire to go back and make things right, a desire to prove yourself as trustworthy, a desire to remove the stigma of your sin, to make a new name for yourself that glorifies God.

He says, "What indignation..." true repentance means that you are going to be outraged over your sin. That's the point. You'll have a loathing over your sin, a sense of anger over the ways that you have offended a holy God, and you've sinned against other people. You're going to feel this in the core of who you are. This is what Paul wanted for them. Oh, he says, "...what fear..."; a fear of God, a fear for the believer of divine chastening, of the forfeiture of divine blessing in your life, and even the loss of eternal reward.

"What longing..." a reference to a longing for restoration. I think of Psalm 51 how David longed to be restored to God. Longed to be restored in that fellowship; a longing, a passionate yearning, to enjoy sweet fellowship with the Lord. He says, "what zeal," referring to a zeal for holiness; a passionate desire to please God at all cost. And then he says, "what avenging of wrong..." a reference to one's commitment to make things right that you have wronged, to be reconciled with those against whom you have sinned and with those whom you have sinned. This is what Paul longed for in the Corinthians.

And I might add that this is what we should all long for in our own lives when it comes to repentance. Oh, the danger, dear friends, of lingering sin. Please hear me. It will destroy your life. It will destroy your marriage. It will destroy your family. It will destroy a church. But pastor, what must I do to rid myself of indwelling sin? Well, that's another sermon or two or 20, but I'll answer it with two words, kill it. That's what Paul says. Romans 8:13, "If you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit, you are putting to death the deeds of the body, then you will live." Dear friends, sin cannot be domesticated. It must be exterminated in your life. You cannot tame your sin. You cannot keep it under control. You must kill it. Charles Spurgeon used an analogy I'll never forget. This is a bit of a paraphrase, but he said, for some people, sin is like having some pet up lust in a jar that you keep in your coat. And every now and then, when nobody's looking, you take the jar out, you undo it, and you take out your sin and you play with it. But every time you do, it gets a little bit bigger, and one day it's going to get too big for you to put back in the jar, and it will destroy you.

Dear friends, never doubt God's desire to show mercy to those who plead for it in repentant faith. Please hear me on this. You say, ah, but pastor, my sins are too great, I believe that I am beyond the reaches of God's grace. No, dear friend, never is a man closer to grace than when he is quite convinced, he does not deserve it and he cannot have it again. Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool. Oh, the glory of God's saving and sanctifying grace, right? How sweet it is to the guilty soul, longing for what he cannot earn and what he does not deserve. Thank you, Lord for the gospel. Amen. Let's pray together.

Dave Harrell  

Father, thank you for these eternal truths that weigh upon each of our hearts because the lash falls upon all of our backs. None of us are without sin. I pray that each of us will be vigilant in destroying whatever snakes are still in the barn; those lingering sins that rob us of fellowship, rob us of power, and ultimately bring us to destruction. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for the power of the Spirit to bring conviction, to bring healing, to bring encouragement. Thank you for your grace, for it's in Jesus name that I pray. Amen.