I've had two conversations this
morning.
- Both had to do with sin of the most unspeakable
sort
- Both involved a professing Christian as the
offender
- Both parties asked how they should respond to
such sin
In the one conversation my
inquirer had been the one to lead the offender to a profession of faith. He
said to me that he was confused; how could he be a saved person and still
commit such atrocious sins?
- Is the offender a saved man?
- Had he really gotten saved?
- Did my inquirer make some sort of mistake in how
he went about leading him to Christ?
My answer was this:
First, there are, in the Bible, such things as false professors of
faith and such things as Christians who are sinners.
Second, we can never know the heart of a man, whether his is saved or
not.
A false professor, we are told,
will go back to his wallow. A Christian who lives in habitual sin will either:
- Come under conviction or turn from the sin
- Be chastened of the Lord until he repents of the
sin or else
- Be removed from this life that he may not sin
again
Because we do not know the heart
of men, we can never know which a person is. Some who appear to have gone back
to the wallow may come under conviction and return by and by. Some who we think
are the hardest of hearts may be struggling with their sin more than we could
imagine.
Third, we make a mistake when we focus too much on the results or the
fruit of Christian living.
Ours is to remain faithful to the
truth regardless of the absence or appearance of fruit. If we focus on people,
- Whether they are faithful to the Lord or not,
- Whether they are seeing glorious amounts to
reward for their service
- Whether they have somehow become something
different than what we thought
we will always be disappointed.
Men are unknowable to us. We will always only guess about what is or isn’t true
in their hearts. But if we focus on the Lord, the truth of His Word, the
purpose He has given us, we can never be disappointed. He only is our Rock. He
alone is constant and unmovable.
