A Transcription of Tim Keller's "Sin as Slavery"

Transcription:

This is God’s word and it’s really a very dark passage and I have not been really happy with it. After last couple weeks, in fact some of the other passages we’ve looked at in this series on the subject of sin, last week on the passage on Naman and the little girl and the servants, there’s lots of heroes and this passage, there’s absolutely not one person that’s a good example. And I didn’t even really have the heart to you know, continue to print but let me just tell you how the story goes. God brings a whole multiple, a huge migration of quails and the children of Israel go out and they just gather huge amounts of meat, and they begin to stuff themselves and some of the people become violently ill and die. And they are buried and the place is called kibroth hattaavah which means the graves of those who crave and that was the story and nobody lived happily ever after. Now the reason that it’s a downer and yet it’s a necessary passage to look at is because each week we are looking at what is wrong with the human race. What is wrong with us, why we can treat each other the way we treat each other, why our sins are, why are problems so intractable. And one of the most important questions to ask about human beings is this question; why is it, when we know what is right to do, we still do it? In the back of C.S. Lewis’ little book The Abolition of Man, he compiles a series of saying in the different world religions to show when it comes to behavior, when it comes to the behavior that religions ask and demand and urge upon us, there’s almost absolute complete uniformity and universal consensus. We’re not supposed to tell lies, we’re not supposed to break our promises, we’re not supposed to rob or murder each other but respect each other in that sense. We’re supposed to live with justice and equity, we’re supposed to live by the golden rule. We’re supposed to be generous with our possessions, there’s you know, several of these things, every religion, everybody understands that we should live that way. There’s universal consensus that we should live that way. And then of course, on top of that we know that the main reason, the main reason for all the misery in the world is that we don’t live that way. The main reason for all the problems of our society is because people don’t live that way. Now when everybody agrees what we should be doing, it’s right there! There’s no doubt. And everybody agrees that the reason that we are miserable is because we’re not doing it. Here’s the question, what is there about the human heart, what is there about the human condition that we could know exactly what we should do, we can even know the consequences of not doing it, and yet we do it. Over and over and over, no matter what kind of government, if it’s a liberal government or a conservative government, whether it’s fascism or communism, whether it’s democratic or republican, no matter what kind of therapy, no matter what we do, all the trends, all the philosophies they come and they go and we all still do the same things! We know what we should do, we know the consequences and we do them anyway. How do you explain that? Give me an explanation? And the bible’s explanation is that the human heart is sinful but beyond that we are slaves to sin. Sin the bible says is not just an action, it’s a power. Let me put it to you this way; a sinful action is a power, every sinful action is a suicidal, has a suicidal destructive power upon the faculty that put that action forth. In other words, when you sin with the mind, that sin shrivels the rationality. When you sin with the heart and the emotions, that sin shrivels the emotions. When you sin with the will, that sin destroys and dissolves your willpower and your self-control. Sin is the suicidal action of the self against itself. Sin destroys freedom. Sin is an enslaving power, sin shrivels us up. That’s what the bible teaches. Now you can see it right here, look at the fact of it. The children of Israel say, we had a wonderful time in Egypt, let’s go back. This isn’t the only time they say that. As you all know, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt and through God and through Moses and the leadership and the goodness of God and Moses, they’ve been led out so they no longer political captives, they were no longer slaves socially, politically or economically. And yet at many times, this isn’t the only place, this is just one of the most memorable, they say we had it better in Egypt, why don’t we go back to Egypt, we want the comforts of Egypt and the civilizations of Egypt, we want to go back. Now any reader reading this looks at that and says “what idiots, what total idiots”. How in the world can they remember they got free fish in Egypt and say, “remember the fish was, without cost!” You see that? “without cost!” Yeah it was free, you were slaves! They were slaughtering your children! They were whipping you! They were saying “bricks without straw, go get it!” Of course the fish was free. I mean what rational person looks and says “well, there was an upside. I mean the fish was free! I mean they fed us!” How in the world can you think about the free fish and say let's go back there for that and select out, forget all those other things, you say “what idiots! What fools! Don’t they know, if they went back now, they would not only be treated worse, but they might just be plain annihilated!” That the only right thing to do is to stick with the manna, it’s not appetizing as it was, and go forward to the promise land! It’s so clear what needs to be done. Any fool can see what needs to be done. And yet they see what needs to be done, it’s very clear but they can’t do it. They cannot do it. They won’t do it. They don’t do it. Why? They’re slaves! They’re spiritual slaves! You see think about it for a moment. To be a political slave or an economic slave it means that you are powerless economically, or powerless politically, to do what’s best for you. You might know for example; that the best thing for me to do is not to make bricks but to be a dancer. But if you are a slave, you don’t have the political or economical, you don’t have the, you are powerless to do what would be the best use of your gifts. You are powerless to do what’s best for you, you are powerless to do the good thing for you, right? But you see? These children of Israel have been removed from political and economical slavery but there’s a more profound sense of slavery. There’s a more profound kind of slavery and what is it? They are spiritually powerless to do the right thing. They are spiritually powerless to do what’s best for them, they are spiritually powerless to do what’s good. And the bible says every human beings on the face of the Earth is spiritual slave in same way. Paul for example puts it this way, in Romans 7, a very very famous passage and remember this is Saint Paul saying this he says, this is Saint Paul; “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. So I find it to be a principle that when I most want to do good, evil is there with me, I am sold as a slave under sin.” Now that’s Saint Paul, did you hear that? He says, I found a principle that the more I want to do good, the less I am able to do it. The more I try to do good, the more I see I am unable, powerless to do what is good. Now if somebody out there says, “well that’s not my experience. I’ve never felt anything like that. This is overstatement, this is preacherly hyperbolely.” You see. “I have never experienced a powerlessness to do the good, I can do the good when I see it!” But didn’t you hear what Paul said! Paul says, “the more I try, the more I aspire, the more I am aware of my spiritual slavery”, which means if you are not aware of being a spiritual slave, your moral ambition is too low! For example, look, the golden rule, everybody agrees with the golden rule. I challenge you to do this, I challenge you to live the next 12 hours by the golden rule, think about it though. Do unto other, exactly you would want them to be, have people do to you. In other words, let me put it this way, I want you to meet the needs of other people with all of the strength, with all the joy and with all of the creativity and with all of the speed which you meet your own needs. 12 hours that's all, golden rule. We’ll just try it. I want you to be as excited about the success that other people experience that you would be if it would come to you. I want you to live by the golden rule and I tell you if you try within a few hours, maybe within a few minutes, you’ll be saying, “I see it to be a principle, that the more I try to do good, the more evil I sense in me.” As Paul said, “oh wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death!” We are spiritual slaves the bible says, we see what should be done but we can’t do it! And anybody who think they can hasn’t really tried very hard. If you’re a 45 year old man, like me and you really think basically “I’m as strong as I was when I was 25”, it means that you haven’t been tested, it means you haven’t had a run for a bus lately. And when you do, you say “I’m not 25 anymore” but you see it’s because you haven’t been tested, you say “I think I’m ok, I don’t feel any strong or any weaker than I was when I was 25, I’m still in great shape!” And anybody who says I’m not a spiritual slave isn’t trying to live by the golden rule. The bible says, you are powerless to do the good. Sin is not just an action but it’s a power. Now, the second thing we are taught here, and this is what is so astonishing is the structure of this slavery and you see it in verse 4,5 and 6. Now I’ve already said to you the basic fact and that is the bible tells us that when you do a sinful action, it’s not just an action, it’s just that you get some kind of dukey point in heaven, but when you do a sin, it has a powerful effect in which your own freedom, your freedom, to want the good, to will the good, to think the good or understand the good is being undermined so that you are being more and more by sin, losing your freedom. It undermines your mind, it undermines your emotion and it undermines your will. And you can see it right here, look at verse 4, first of all it says, “they began to crave”. Craving? They began to crave the comforts of Egyptian civilization. Then secondly you notice it leads to verse 5, now I’ll get back to that, in other words their emotions are being changed. And secondly in verse 5 it says, “we remember food without cost!” And we’ve already talked about how that’s a form of denial is it not. They’re craving is overwhelming their thinking, they are not reasoning, they are not thinking out! And then thirdly it says, now it says, therefore we have no appetite. But now literally in the Hebrew it says, “our strength is dried up.” They rationalize and denied truth and they find themselves in a position where they don’t want the manna anymore, they say we have no strength, we can’t obey, we can’t eat this, we can’t go on, we can’t. Their will is dried up, their strength is dried up, and in the end as God says, I want you to know that I will give you this thing that you want, but the more get of it, the less you will love it. And in the end, you will loathe it though it is coming out of your nostrils. Now what we have here, is astonishing because it is an addiction pattern. And what this teaches us, and I’m sure somebody is going to get after me in the question answer time, I’m not saying all addiction is sin but here’s what I’m saying the bible says, “all sin is addiction”. I’m not saying, “all alcoholism is just sin”. “It’s all it is!” But what I am saying is, “alcoholism is slavery.” And the bible says, every sin, whether it’s bitterness, whether it’s envy, whether it’s laziness, whether it’s impurity, every sinful action becomes an addiction. Every sinful action, actually brings into a power that operates exactly like addiction cycles and addiction dynamics operate. In other words, in a little specific addictions of alcohol or drug addiction or voyeurism or exhibitionism or sexual addictions or that sort of thing, you actually a microcosm of sin works in your life in the large, in the macro as I like to say, in general. Look, you know how addiction works? You start like this, there’s a distress in your life, some kind of disappointment or distress, and as a result you choose to deal with that distress with an agent, now it might be sex, it might be drugs, it might be something like that, it might be alcohol. The agent promises transcendence. The agent promises freedom. A sense of being in control. A sense of being above all this. A sense of being liberated. A sense of escape! And so you do it. But when you do it, when you take the addicting agent, as a way with dealing with life, the trap is set, and it’s set because three things begin to happen and everybody who knows anything about addiction knows these three things begin happen. First thing is, you get trapped in a, number one, you get trapped in what the experts call, you get into something called a tolerance. There’s a tolerance dynamic. In other words, the tolerance effect is, that today this amount of alcohol, or this amount of drug or this kind of sexual experience, tomorrow it will pale. Tomorrow it won’t give you that anymore. And you will find that you need more, and more and more, and the more you give it, the more you need. In other words, your emotions are shriveling up! That you brought you joy yesterday won’t be enough to bring you joy tomorrow because you emotions are shriveling, your emotions are numbing, there’s a tolerance effect. At first, if I had just this, and after while, it can be coming out of your nostrils. And it can’t get your heart going anymore, you have to have more and more and more. So first of all the addiction destroys you with a tolerance effect. Secondly addiction destroys you because of denial. We all know that part of addiction patterns is that your craving makes you rationalize and justify it, it makes you not think straight. You are selective in your reasoning, you are selective in your memory, you see. You’ll do all sorts of tortured rationalizations, you refuse to think clearly, and you refuse to think objectively, you can’t! And the third thing, is that it dissolves and destroys your willpower and here's why. Because you know you’re an addict when you are trying to deal with your distress with the very thing that cost your distress. You are trying to escape your distress with the very thing that brought your distress. And when you are in that, you are stuck forever, down and down and down. Now you know what the bible is saying here? It is trying to say to you that sin in general operates like that. That when you think that to disobey God is going to bring me freedom, that very act that promises freedom that promises freedom is taking the freedom. The very act that you think is putting you in the driver seat in your life is taking you out of the driver seat of your life. Well you say, I’m not an addict, now some of you probably are. Some of you have got an addiction, there are incredible number of them. And some of you are kind of sitting and thinking about this right now. But a lot of you, that’s not your experience, but the bible says, it is the experience of every human being to some degree and here’s why. First of all, if you live for anything but God, and that’s what sin is you know. You know what the bible says what sin is. Sin is craving something more than God! Sin is making something more important than God. Sin is living for something more than God! If God is the periphery of your life, if you're just religiously occasionally, if God is sort of the outskirts of your life, that is sin! That is the essence of sin! But listen, don’t you see, an eternal tolerance effect in your life. Don’t you see, aren’t some of you old enough to see it I hope. You thought, “if I get into this career”, but you know it's paled, at first it was “what a rush! I’m a lawyer now. It’s over isn’t it.” Or you’ve always wanted to marry somebody good looking, smart, sharp and now I happen to know from sheer demographics that most of you haven’t done that. Most of you are not married, is what I meant. But those of you who have not married somebody very sharp, somebody very smart, somebody connected, at first it’s such a rush and after a while there’s a tolerance effect, it pales. It pales! Don’t you know what’s going on? Why are you continually empty, why aren’t you satisfied, why aren’t you never happy? Why is that what you think is going to, don’t you see what it is? Well somebody says, “what’s wrong with wanting a good spouse, what’s wrong with wanting a successful career? I thought you were talking about sin?” Don’t you see? When you live for anything more than God, that is sin and it is an addictive dynamic! Because when you live for anything besides God, you will find that the more you get it, the more you need it, the less satisfying it is and your mind, your heart is shriveling and your emotions are shriveling. And then your mind shrivels. I’ll never forget what Aldous Huxley said, every so often I quote it, Aldous Huxley said “when I went off to college” and lot of you are college students, “so when I went off to college, I saw all these wonderful philosophies”, you know he was raised in a traditional, anglican, you know home, he was raised in Christian home. And he went off and he saw, here’s atheism, agnosticism, and all these various philosophies and he said you know what? I realize I wanted there to be no God because I want to sleep around. He says, “don’t you dare think that philosophers are objective when they look these things over”, he says “I chose my atheism an act of sexual liberation.” But it’s more than that. If you want to hold a grudge against somebody, what if you just decided, I know I’m supposed to forgive but I’m going to hold a grudge. You know what that will do to your mind? It will rot your mind. Because first of all, in order to hold a grudge, you’ve got to feel morally superior to that person. You cannot see yourself as yourself guilty of anything that person has done. And so when you act, when the evidence comes that you are a sinner, when the evidence comes that you are weak, when the evidence comes that you are weak, you’ll screen it out! You won’t be able to because you can’t hold on, because you can’t crave vengeance and still be rational. You’ll have to screen it out any evidence that says “hey you’re as bad as that person” and not only that, you’ll have to screen out any evidence that that person isn’t as bad as you thought they were! You’ll say, “well yeah he did do that very nice thing for his mother but there was probably a prophet motive in it!” You see! Sin will not only, destroy your emotion into an eternal tolerance effect, but it will destroy your mind! You will not be able to think. And in the end, your will is gone. And here’s the reason why. In the heart, do you see, in verse 4, at the very heart of their hearts, they’re are saying something to themselves, they are saying, if only, if only, we had meat. Now that is, the thing in your heart of hearts, that’s burning. Jonathan Edwards said sin turns heart into a fire. He says “just as there been never been a fire that said, “enough fuel I’m fine now”, there’s never been a heart, there’s never been a sinful heart that said, “I’ve had enough success, I’ve had enough love, I’ve had enough approval, I’ve had enough comfort.”” Oh no! He says “the more fuel you put into the fire, the higher it burns and the more it needs!” The more oxygen it’s sucking, the more fuel it’s got to have! And this is the heart of the fire. Next time you’re crabby, next time you’re grumpy, next time you're irritable, next time you’re scared to death, really scared, next to time you’re in the pits, ask yourself, “what am I telling myself, would make me happy, if only I had it.” There’s an “if only” at the bottom of this. Whatever you tell yourself that about, what you say to yourself “if only that” becomes your slave master. It destroys your will. It completely destroys your will. When you lie, lies necessitate other lies. Envy necessitates more envy. Racism necessitates more racists thoughts. You know that? Jealousy necessitates more jealousy thoughts. Bitterness necessitates more bitter thoughts. In the beginning, when you first tell a lie, you still have an appetite for the truth, but not, it won’t take long. Sin is a power! And the things you crave become your slave masters because in your heart, those things burn with this idea, “if only”, “everything would be fine if only that”, and that creates a suction in your life like a fire that says, “I’ve got to have more approval, I’ve got to have more of this, I’ve got to have a better spouse, I’ve got to have this, that’s the reason why I’m unhappy!” But the more you throw in there, the more it wants. Sin enslaves, we are all addicts. Not all addiction is sin but all sin is addiction. Now how do we get out? How are we healed? And unfortunately, there’s lots of say about this and there’s not a lot of time. But what’s intriguing is, unfortunately there’s not many good examples here are there. But here’s some, there’s couple of very important insights. Here the, let me just give you two or three. First of all God does an intervention of course, He comes in and says, “you’ve rejected me”. They say, “we’re just asking for meat.” Right? What do you mean we rejected you? We’re asking for meat. But in verse 20 it says, “you’ve rejected me”. Somebody has to come in when you’re, and tell you, you think this is your problem but your real problem is this. Somebody's got to wake you up, somebody’s got to slap you around. It’s gotta happen. You’ll never going to wake up to yourself. If somebody right now is coming after you and saying, “you think this is your problem but your real problem is a spiritual one. You think this is your problem but your real problem is a spiritual one! Your real problem is that God is not burning at the center of your life!” See the bible says if God is not the center of your life, you’re a slave and you don’t even know it! There’s no bigger slave than the person who doesn’t know that he or she is a slave! All the twelve step movements know this, the person who says “I have the power!” is a powerless person! And the person who says, “I am powerless! I need help!” is getting power for the first time. Every twelve step person knows that. Apply it spiritually. If you say, “I am not terribly lost, I am not horribly wicked, I am not enslaved to my passions I’m not powerless to do good, I’m a pretty good person!” You are absolutely powerless, you are terrible slave, you’re the worst kind of slave because you don’t know you are. On the other hand, the second thing. Unfortunately the english translation doesn’t bring it out, but literally the hebrew says, in chapter 20, “you will loathe the meat because you have loathed me.” It doesn’t just say you’ve rejected me, that’s the way it’s translated I know, it says “you will loathen me because you have loathed me. You will lose your appetite for everything else you have lot your appetite for me.” Now here’s what I’m trying to tell you. If you’re a Christian and you’re dealing with enslaving habits, it’s not enough to say, “bad Christian, stop that.” And it’s not enough just to beat yourself up, it’s not enough to say “I’m going to try harder and harder and harder.” Now here’s the answer. The real reason that you’re having a problem with an enslaving habit is because you don’t have an appetite, you’re not tasting God. I’m not talking about believing, I’m not talking about even obeying, I’m saying tasting, tasting! What do you mean when you tasting? Here’s what I mean. I mean the solution, the way to get out under enslaving habits, the secret to freedom is this, you’ve got to worship. You’ve got to have great worship, you’ve got to have weeping worship, you’ve got to have glorious worship, you’ve got to sense the greatness, sometimes be so moved, moved to tears, moved to laughter by what God is, who He is and what He’s done for you. And this has to happen all the time. And you say, how does that happen? One of the things Kathy and I noticed recently is, you can’t say, I’ve got half an hour for my son on Tuesday night, we are going to sit down and have quality time. Can’t do it. You can’t do it, you can’t sit down and say “well honey, tell me something deep. Pour your heart out to me. Tell me that you’re really upset about something and you really have real fears of about whether you are going to make it in life and then I’ll put my hands on you and say, you’re really going to make it, I’m with you and you’re great.” And then you’ll say, “dad I just don’t know how much, I can’t tell you how much this means to me.” Tuesday night, 8 to 8:30. People don’t work that way. Personal relationships don’t work that way. What you have to do is to make sure when you are working on your parents, when you’re working on your taxes, when you’re writing letters, when you’re writing the bills, you’ve got to do it out where the kids are. Because you never know when one of them will sit down and say “I’m scared.” The only way to get quality time is to have tons and tons of quantity time and wait for the quality time to sort of hick up. And that’s the way it is with God. You have got to spend time seeking Him, you’ve got to spend reading his word, you’ve got to spend time in corporate worship, you have to. And you give him enough time, if you’re seeking Him, if you’re reflecting on Him, you’re worshipping, you’re praying to Him, of course you’re not going to get these incredible times of weeping and glorious worship but that’s the only way you’ll get them and that is the only thing that will replace the little fire burning in your heart that says “if only”. You need a new fire that says, “if only I saw the Lord. If only I was close to my heart. If only I could feel him to be as great as I know him to be! If only I could sense his grace and taste his grace as sweet as I know it to be! If only I had that” and when that’s burning in your heart, you’re free. Because you say if I have Him who cares if they snub me, who cares if I’m not married yet and I’m 35, who cares. I’m free I got this! If that is what, and the only way that burns in your heart is worship, worship, worship worship. Appetite, taste and see the Lord is good. The reason nothing else tastes is because you haven’t tasted that the Lord is good. And if you tasted the Lord is good, the tolerance effect is completely reversed. Don’t you know, his mercies are new every morning. And nobody else’s are. They are all, the rest of them are old. They get old, yes they are, they were great today, now they are old. Jesus’ mercies, don’t you know why, haven’t you seen it Christian friends, a verse that you’ve known all your life. It’s absolutely new today! A verse that you know, you brought, that got you excited, now it’s totally, it’s amazing! I’ve always known it but how could it been new because He’s the only master who doesn’t enslave. He’s the only master that forgives, He’s the only the one whose mercies are new every morning. Everybody’s else’s are old. But last of all, you know what you need? You need somebody, you need a real Moses. A better than Moses. Moses said, I am not willing to die. To put it this way, “I’ll rather die than bear the burden taking these children to the promise land. I’ll rather die than bear the burden”, that’s what he’s saying isn’t he? He says in order to help these people, their sins are falling on me all the time. These are sinners! They’re infants, they’re babies! And their sins are falling on me, I’m their spiritual leader! And I can’t take, I’ll rather die than bear the burden. I’ve taken them to the promise land. Hebrews chapter 3 it says, there’s a better than Moses who died in order to bear the burden and take us to the promise land. The one who took the burden of our sins and was willing to die. Didn’t say, “I’ll die rather than to bear the burden” he says “I’ll die and thereby take the burden.” Jesus was, He lost his freedom so that we could be free. He was nailed to the cross so that we could be sprung. He was chained into the dungeon, into the darkness so that we could be free to fly. We could run and not be weary, we could walk and not faint, we need a better Moses but we’ve got one. They didn’t have a good one. See no good examples. But they all point to the one whose mercies are new every morning. The one who took the burden. The one whose services perfect freedom. The one who said, anyone who sins is a slave of sin. But if you know the truth and continue to my truth, the truth will set you free.