Sowing and Reaping
by John Grosboll

I have often wondered about the name of the town in New Mexico that is called, Truth or Consequences, because you actually get consequences even if you do tell the truth.  It is just different consequences.

Something that many people have forgotten that I want to study with you this morning is how do you know what is right and what is wrong?   H. M. S. Richards, Senior put it very well several years ago.  He said that people do not want to believe that we live in a moral universe.  Now what does it mean to live in a moral universe?  Moral is a word that refers to right and wrong, and it also has to do with the concept of justice, or equity.  And you all know what equity means.

There are still some courthouses today where you can go and up above they will have engraved in stone the picture of a woman with a scale.  The woman is blindfolded, signifying that in justice there is to be no bribery or favoritism.  A blindfolded woman holding out a scale.  There are still some courthouses that display that symbol of justice, or equity.  The scales represent equity.  What is on one side is to be balanced by what is on the other side.

The concept of equity means that you are going to be rewarded for your works, whatever they are, good or bad.  Now some people think that in the Christian religion we do not believe in equity.  Let me show you where they base some of that belief.  We will read a text about equity.  Turn in your Bible to Matthew 5:38.  Jesus is going to quote from the law, and incidentally, this statement is found in more than one place in the law.  It is found in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Matthew 5:38  says, “You have heard that it has been said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’”  Now that is equity.  Equity means that if I knock your tooth out, I am going to get my tooth knocked out.  That is equity.  You see, equity works either good or bad.  If I do something bad to you, I am going to get equal bad done to me.  If I do something good to you, I am going to have something good come back to me.  That is equity.  That is what the concept of equity means.  It is part of justice or morality.

Now people believe that we do not have equity any more.  They believe Jesus erased that and so we just confess our sins and they are forgiven, and that is all there is to it.  Now it is true that by confessing our sins to Jesus, His blood can deliver us from the eternal consequences of that sin, which would be eternal death.  So, by confession, we can be delivered from the eternal consequence of that sin.

But what I want to study with you today is the fact that confession and forgiveness does not do away with the consequences.  Both man and God suffer consequences as a result of sin.  To begin our study I would like to invite you to turn to a familiar text in Galatians about the concept of equity.  This is Galatians 6:7–9.

It says, “Do not be deceived [deceive yourselves], God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”  Now those of you who are in the farming industry know that not only are you going to reap what you sow, but also generally you are going to reap of the same thing, more than you sow.  Is that not the way it works?  Whatever you sow you are gong to reap, but you are actually going to reap more than you sow.  That is the way it works. 

If you knock somebody’s tooth out, you get all of your teeth knocked out.  Well, that is worse, is it not?  You reap the same, but you reap more than you sow, because “For he [the one] who sows to his flesh will of the flesh [he shall] reap corruption, but he [the one] who sows to the spirit will of the spirit [he shall] reap everlasting life.  So as doing good, let us not give up, for in its own time, we will reap if we do not faint or if we do not give up.”

So, Paul says, whenever you have an opportunity, do good, because you are going to reap.  Sometime down the line, in due time, at the right time, you are going to reap if you do not give up.  Keep on doing good, because you are going to reap.  In both the old and the new covenant we sow and we reap. 

I want to go through four examples with you this morning that illustrate this principle.  Four examples from the Bible: 

The first one is Abraham.  Turn in your Bible to Genesis 16.  This story is referred to in the New Testament a number of times.  It is recorded in Genesis 12, and first of all, God renewed the promise of the Genesis 15.  God told Abraham, I am going to bless you.  And through you, through your descendants, through your offspring, through your seed, all the world is going to be blessed.

When God blesses you, when you sow, you are rewarded.  It is recorded in Genesis that when Isaac sowed seed, he reaped a hundred-fold.  That is the blessing of the Lord.  You sow and you reap, but you reap much more than you sow.  That is a divine principle.  The harvest principle, you reap more than you sow.  But when Abraham got to the Promised Land, to Canaan, God made that promise to Abraham when Abraham was about 75 years of age.  Sarah was about 64 years of age. 

You see, Abraham was only ten generations after the flood, and people lived longer in Abraham’s time than they do today.  So, Abraham and Sarah could still have children even though she was 65 and he was 75.

But when they got to the Promised Land, eleven years went by after God had given the promise.  Sarah was now 76, and even in those days, eventually a woman reached a point where she could not have children any more.  

So Sarah decided that she needed to help the Lord out and Abraham did not know any other solution.  He was a human being like you and me.  He knew that God had promised him that through his descendents all nations would be blessed and Sarah could not have children any more.  She was too old to have children.

So Sarah, being a product of the society in which she grew up, a society where polygamy was perfectly accepted, offered her handmaiden.  Read the book of Genesis; Sarah was not the only one who thought of doing something like this.  Leah and Rachel did the same thing.

And so Sarah said, I have a slave girl and I will give my slave girl to you as a concubine. She is young enough to have children, and that way I will get a son.  (See Genesis 16.)  Now as human beings we get into situations where we think that we need to help God out, but it is never right to help God out by doing something that is wrong.

By the way, what was wrong with this arrangement?  It was breaking the seventh commandment, that is what was wrong with it.  In Genesis 2 it very plainly says, “they two shall be one flesh.”  It does not say three or four, it just says two.  That is breaking the seventh commandment. 

So Abraham and Sarah were both at fault for breaking the seventh commandment, and God did not recognize Abraham and Hagar’s relationship as a marriage.  You can read the story.

Later God told Abraham to send Hagar away.  Now God did not ever tell somebody to send his wife away.  God said to stay with your wife, even if she is an unbeliever.  You can read that in I Corinthians 7.  But God told Abraham to send Hagar away.  So that shows that God does not recognize a polygamous marriage.  He does not recognize it.  It is adultery.

Was Abraham forgiven for committing that sin?  Yes, he was forgiven.  Were there consequences?  Well, if you go to the Middle East today, you will find a group of people all over the Middle East called the Arabs, and they all call Abraham their father.  They know that Abraham is their father.  And Hagar, of course, is their mother.  That sin of Abraham has had consequences. Many, many wars have been fought as a result of what Abraham did.

It has changed the entire world history, and the consequences of what Abraham did with Hagar will go on until the Lord comes, and it will even have consequences in eternity. 

That is just one, a first example.  Abraham was forgiven for what he did that was wrong, but the descendents of Hagar became enemies of God’s people and troubled them and warred against them over and over again down through the centuries, clear to the present time.

It is the descendents of Hagar who became the Islamic nations, the main Islamic nation.  There were consequences clear to the present time, consequences that we cannot even comprehend. 

You see, this is a subject that our children and our young people need to understand, because sometimes young people think, Well, I can go out and I can do this and I can do that, I can do whatever I want to.  I can come back to the Lord and I can confess my sins and I can be saved.

Well, you can come back to the Lord and confess your sins, but the consequences will still go on.  You can even be saved in the kingdom of heaven, but the consequences go on.  There is no such thing as a young person sowing their wild oats and then not having consequences.  That does not happen.

Let us look at a second example.  The second example is Jacob.  This is also in the book of Genesis.  Jacob also got into a situation, Genesis 27, where he needed to help the Lord out.  I read these stories and I say, This is human nature.  We think that God’s plan, His purpose, cannot be worked out unless we help the Lord out.  And the trouble is, if we help the Lord out by doing something that is wrong, the consequences of that wrong are going to go on.  God will not stop them.

God had promised Rebecca that Jacob was to be the greater of the two and they understood that Jacob was to receive the birthright blessing.  They understood that was God’s will.

But poor old, stubborn Isaac, he had other ideas.  So Rebecca and Jacob thought that they needed to help the Lord out.  Now we do not know what would have happened if they had decided that they were going to only do what was right.  We do not know. We know that God would have worked it out.  Isaac, or nobody, could do something contrary to God’s will and get away with it.  The Lord would have worked it out. 

Jacob still would have been the one through whom the Messiah would have come. We do not know how the Lord would have worked it out, it has not been told to us because they decided to take things into their own hands.  They decided to help the Lord out.  The problem was, when they decided to help the Lord out, their helping the Lord out involved breaking the ninth commandment.

And the Bible has something very, very specific to say about doing evil in order that good may result.  Look in Romans the third chapter.  Paul says in Romans 3:8,  “And why not say, ‘Let us do evil that good may come’?—as we are slanderously reported and some affirm that we say.  Their condemnation is just.”  The Bible says that those people that say, “Let us do evil in order that good may come, . . . their condemnation is just.”

God never authorizes or condones us to do something evil in order that good may come.  But Jacob was afraid that God’s plan would not get worked out, so he had to help the Lord out.  And Rebecca thought the same thing, so Rebecca told Jacob, We will just take one of our own livestock here and sacrifice it and I will make him venison meat.  It will taste just the same.  I know how to season it.  It will taste just the same.  He will not be able to tell the difference.

And Jacob said, Well, he will feel me and I am not very hairy on my arms like Esau is.  He will say, You are a deceiver and I will get cursed instead of blessed.  And his mother said; Well, do not worry about that.  I will just fix that, too.  So she made from the goatskin, covers for his arms so that he would be as hairy as his brother.  She put some up around his neck so anywhere that Isaac would feel on him, he would feel just like his brother.

Jacob went in and he successfully deceived his father.  His father said, Your skin is like Esau’s.  Jacob was wearing Esau’s clothes.  Isaac smelled, and it smelled just like Esau, feels just like Esau.  The voice is like Jacob, but it smells and feels just like Esau, so his father blessed him.  Jacob deceived his father. 

Now was Jacob forgiven for that sin?  Yes, Jacob was forgiven for that sin.  But, did he pay a price for that sin?  He paid a price that we cannot even comprehend. 

Let us just start listing the prices that He paid for that sin.

1.  Within a few days he had to flee from home and he never saw his mother alive again.  That was the first price, but that was just the beginning.

2.   He got over to his relatives’ place, to Laban’s place, his mother’s brother, and his mother’s brother deceived him.  Jacob deceived his father, but now his uncle deceived him.  I have never totally figured out how this story worked, but Laban figured out how to get Jacob married to the wrong woman.  And how he pulled that off and Jacob did not figure it out until the next morning, I will never know.  I do not understand how that worked, but he did it, and Jacob was angry, but now he started to understand what it was like to be deceived.  The consequences of that deception went on for the rest of his life.

3.  Then he worked 14 years for Rachel, and during that time his uncle changed his wages 10 times. 

Finally, after he had worked there for 20 years, Jacob said, I just cannot put up with this any more.  Rachel and Leah were unhappy, too.  So Jacob decided to steal away, secretly, because he was afraid that Laban would not consent to let him go.  While Laban was away from home, he secretly sneaked away.  And when Laban found out, Jacob was a long way away.  However, he had a lot of flocks and herds going with him, he could not travel very fast, and soon Laban was able to catch up with him. 

He was really angry about it. However, the Lord appeared to Laban in a dream and told him not to say anything, good or bad, to Jacob.  So Laban caught up with him and they still told each other off.  Even though the Lord told Laban not to tell Jacob anything good or bad, he still had some pretty hard words with him. 

One of the things that Laban said was, Why have you stolen my household idols?  Why have you stolen my gods?

Laban was an idol worshipper and evidently some of the people in Jacob’s household were idol worshippers, including Rachel.  Rachel was the one who had stolen Laban’s household images and she had not told Jacob about it.

4.       Now Jacob was deceived again.  He did not know that the woman that he loved more than any other in the world had stolen her father’s gods, so he pronounced a curse on his own wife and he did not know it.  He said, With whomever your gods be found, let him die!

Did God honor his word?  Yes, God honored his word.  Rachel died.

Now if Jacob had known that Rachel had stolen Laban’s household gods, would he have said, Whoever stole them, let him die?  Would he have pronounced a curse on his own wife?  Would he have done that?  No, he was deceived.  Rachel had not told him. 

That was one of the many times he was deceived, and pronounced a curse upon his own wife whom he loved, and she received the curse, too.  She died!  That was not yet the end.

5.  Jacob gets to the land of Canaan and finds out what it is like to have children who deceive you    and deceive each other.  He has two sons, Simeon and Levi, and they got upset. (See Genesis 34.)  They were extremely angry with Shechem and his father.  So they deceived them.

Shechem wanted Dinah to be his wife and the brothers told them, We cannot do that unless all the men in your village will be circumcised.  But if all the men in your village will be circumcised, then we will give our sister to you.  So they agreed. 

Shechem and Hamor, his father, were the chief men of that village and they persuaded all the men of that village that is what they should do.  The Bible said on the third day, when they were in pain, when they were sore, Simeon and Levi girded their swords on and they went into that village and killed every man in town.  They saved the wives and the women and the cattle.  They wanted the cattle.  And it says that they plundered the city.  They wanted the money; they took the women and children and killed every man in town.  And Jacob said to his sons, All the people around are going to hear what you have done and they are going to come and they are going to kill us all.  So Jacob had sons who were deceptive.

6.  His oldest son committed incest with Rachel’s servant girl.

7.       And then to cap everything off, they decided to kill Joseph, but then Reuben talked them out of it and they decided to sell him as a slave instead.  Then they were afraid what Jacob would do, so they decided to deceive their father and they deceived their father into thinking that Joseph had been killed by a wild beast.  They showed him the coat of many colors all torn to shreds and in blood.  They dipped it in the blood of a kid of the goats.

And Jacob saw that and he said, My son has been torn to pieces by a lion or some wild animal, and it says he mourned for his son many days, and he said, I will go into the grave mourning for my son.  In the Bible, it says that all of his sons and all of his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he would not be comforted.

How big a price did Jacob pay for deceiving his father?  He was deceived over and over and over and over and over again, clear up until the time that he was 130 years old.  Now he will be saved, but did he suffer the consequences for deceiving his father?  He suffered the consequences of that as long as he lived.

So we live in a moral universe.  Our sins can be forgiven so that we do not reap the eternal consequences of eternal death, but we still reap consequences.  And this is one of the major truths that the Bible teaches.  Our children and our young people need to understand that whenever we say something, or do something that is wrong, there are going to be consequences.   Even if we are forgiven, there are going to be consequences.

If all of our young people could understand this, how much different would they act?  How much differently would they live?

The third example: One of the most well-known examples in the Bible, that has completely changed the history of the world, is the experience of David. 

David made a whole bunch of very serious blunders and mistakes.  But the most serious mistake of all, that he made, was when he committed adultery with Bathsheba, the daughter of Sheba.  And then, in order to cover it up, Uriah, her husband, a captain in the army and one of his most valiant and trusted officers, was called home.

The reason David called Uriah home was because Bathsheba was pregnant.  If David called Uriah home and Uriah went and lived with his wife for a few days, when the child came, everybody would think that it was Uriah’s child, and nobody would know that it was David’s child.  That was the purpose. 

The trouble was, that Uriah was so faithful in the king’s service that, because there was a battle going on with the Ammonites, Uriah said, I will not even go and lie with my wife while the rest of my comrades are out fighting the war.  I will not do it.  And he would not even enter inside his house.  He slept outside the door.

Now David was in a terrible spot.  Bathsheba was already pregnant with his child, and their secret was going to get out. 

Uriah, being an officer in the army, was a person who, if this was found out, would be able to raise an insurrection, who would be able to lead a civil war, who would be able to topple the government.

David was very afraid of this happening.  Uriah was not just some ordinary person.  So David decided he had to take drastic measures. 

He wrote out Uriah’s death certificate, sealed it, and Uriah became the bearer of his own death certificate to Joab.  David instructed Joab, You set Uriah the Hittite in a place where you know some of the most skillful of the enemy army is located, and then retire away from him so he is left alone, and gets killed.

Joab did it.  Uriah was killed.  Joab sent back a report to David. So that nobody would be implicated, he sent a general report of everything, and right at the end he just mentioned casually, Your servant Uriah is dead also.  Everything was fixed up.  Bathsheba mourned for her husband, and after the 30 days of mourning were up, David sent for her and married her.

The trouble was, of course, that it was only going to be a few months now until she was going to have a baby.  It takes time for all these things to happen, you know.  There is still a little bit of trouble,  and David was living with a troubled conscience.  He did not know what to do. 

Have you ever been in a situation where it is so complicated that you did not know what to do?  David did not know what to do.  You see, if he should make an announcement about all this, it still could cause a great deal of trouble.  It would weaken his moral influence.  In fact, it could destroy his moral influence. 

The greatest influence that anybody has over another person, whether it is a father or a mother or a friend or an associate, the greatest influence a person has is their moral influence.

Your moral influence is whether people, after they have watched you or dealt with you or been with you, see that you are honest and that you tell the truth, that you are honorable and law abiding.  And so they develop some confidence in you that you will not take advantage of them or do something wrong.  You have moral influence and people have confidence that you will not take advantage of them or do something wrong.

David saw he could lose his moral influence and he was afraid of what could happen.  Well, it happened. 

Finally God sent Nathan the prophet to him and the prophet told him a story.  You have heard the story.  The man that had exceedingly great flocks and herds and then there was another man, a poor man, and this other poor man, all he had was one ewe lamb.  One female sheep.

A visitor came in, Nathan said, and this rich man, who had exceeding many flocks and herds,  did not kill one of his own animals to provide food for the stranger.  He went and took the one sheep that the poor man had, and killed it and offered it to the stranger. 

When David heard that, he was so angry.  He said, The man that has done that should die, a man who does such an unjust thing as that.  And he should restore four-fold to that man for doing that.  He pronounced his own sentence. 

Nathan said, You are that man, because you have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the children of Ammon and you have taken his wife to be your wife.  David realized that he had pronounced the death sentence on himself, and God decided. . . .  In these kinds of situations, God decides, God is the final judge.  God decided David’s sin was forgiven and he, himself would not die.  He are going to go through something worse than death.  He was going to go through  something that would hurt him worse than dying.

Remember, David pronounced sentence that the man should repay four-fold.  That sentence was carried out.  David was to see four of his sons die.  That happened.  The first one was the illegitimate child by Bathsheba.  The prophet said, That child is going to die.  When that baby was born, David looked on the baby and he thought, Oh, no, I am the one who is at fault, why does an innocent person have to suffer because of my sin?

But the Lord had pronounced sentence, and David fasted and fasted and prayed until that baby died. 

The second one was Amnon.  He was guilty of incest, but what could David do about it?  He was guilty of adultery and murder, so what could he do about it?  How do you tell your son not to smoke, if you smoke?  How do you do that?  How do you punish your son for doing something that you have done?  How do you do that?

You see, David had lost his moral influence.  So Absalom said, This is enough.  Absalom took charge of the situation himself, and he had Amnon killed. 

That was the second son that David lost, he was half way. 

The third son that David lost was Absalom himself.  Absalom caused a civil war.  David had to flee from home, did not know when he would ever be back again, and thousands of people of the children of Israel lost their lives in that civil war.

Do you know why they had that civil war?  It was because of what David had done.  That was the cause.

David did not want to lose Absalom, so he told the soldiers, Whatever you do, please save him alive.  But when Joab saw Absalom hanging from the tree, he thought, this man has caused thousands of the most courageous men of Israel to fall, there is no need to save this man alive, and he killed him.

When David heard about it, he started crying.  Joab came into him and he said, I take it from the way you are acting that you hate your friends and love your enemies.  I suppose that if all of us had died and he had been saved alive, then it would be all right with you.  Then David realized that Joab was telling the truth.  That was the third son that he lost.

The fourth son that David lost was Adonijah.  He lost four sons.  But that was just the beginning of the pay back.  That was just the beginning of the consequences.  Do you realize that in the kingdom of heaven, David will have to face the consequences, not just face Uriah the Hittite, he will have to face the consequence of that sin when he gets to heaven, because do you know what Nathan told him? 

He said, You have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, to speak evil.

More than any other sin of that kind in the Bible, what David did has been used by sinners to justify breaking the seventh commandment ever since that time,   right up to the present day.

You see, because of his influence, the sin of an upright man is different than if an evil man does it.  David was a man who had been an upright man, a servant of God.

We have a book at home called, Vicars of Christ.  It is very interesting.  Clear up in the Middle Ages, over and over again, when people acknowledge that they had committed adultery, they said, Oh, well, I am no better than David is.  That is what they said.  That is the way they excused their sins.  If you read down through history, that sin has had consequences millions and millions of times right up to the present day, and it is not over yet.

David is going to have to face all of that some day.  He will be saved, but there were consequences! 

Not only that, but are you aware of the fact that was the beginning of the problems in David’s household, which eventually resulted in the rending of the kingdom?  That was the beginning right then, because you see, David did not have moral authority to properly discipline his children after that time.

It resulted in the demoralization of all of his sons and eventually resulted, by the time of his grandson, in the rending of the kingdom.  That completely changed world history.  Now he will be saved, but there were consequences.

The last example that we are going to study is Jesus.  When man sinned, because we live in a moral universe, there are consequences for sin.  And the devil said, You cannot redeem man and not redeem me, too.  You cannot save him and not save me.  The devil claims that forgiveness is impossible, if God’s law is going to hold.

Look in your Bible in Romans 3 23.  It talks about how all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  It says, “Being justified [made righteous] freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth [foreordained] as a propitiation by [in] His blood through faith, to demonstrate [show] His righteousness, because [through the passing by of the sins which had been committed before by the] in His forbearance [of] God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate [in order that He might show His righteousness in] at the present time His righteousness, that he might be just. . . .”

What does it mean to be just?  It means that you have equity.  It means that God can be just, or righteous, and that He is the one making just those who have faith in Jesus, or have the faith of Jesus. 

There was only one way that God could be just and still forgive your sins and make a way so that you and I could have eternal life, because we live in a moral universe.  And that would be if somebody would pay the price.  And it could not be a human being, because human beings were created under the law.

Adam and Eve were created under the law.  The angels were created under the law.  The only one who could pay the price was one who was not under the law, one who was above the law.  That is the only one who could pay the price.  And so the only way that could be devised so that you could be forgiven and have eternal life and God still have a just and moral universe, the only way, was if somebody paid the price.

Jesus was that somebody.  He was the only one in all the universe who could do it, and so He did.  And because He did it, we still live in a moral universe.  There would be no other way for God to retain a moral government in a moral universe and forgive the sinner, without the death of His Son.

Look what it says in Deuteronomy 32:4.  “He is the rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice.”  Justice implies equity and that is what justice is, equity.  “Righteous and upright is He.”  Psalm 97:2 says, “Clouds and darkness surround Him; Righteous and justice are the foundation of His throne.”

Oh, friend, if someway we could help everyone understand.  A lot of older people do not understand.  They say, Oh, you can just confess your sins and it will erase it.  No, it will not.  It will not erase it.  The blood of Jesus will cover it, but it will not erase it.  There will still be consequences in this world, and for some sins there will be consequences that even go on through eternity.

The sin that David committed, did that have consequences that will go into eternity?  It certainly did.  Jesus came because we live in a moral universe and the only way that you and I could be forgiven is if somebody paid the price for our sins.  And when we look at the cross, we find what the price of sin really is.  It results in misery, suffering, guilt, shame, loneliness, and finally in death.

This is the result of separation from God.  When Adam and Eve sinned, they were driven out of the Garden of Eden and none of their descendents have ever gone in there again.  None of their descendents ever are going to go in there again until the restitution of all things when God delivers His children from their evil sinful natures.  You cannot go into the kingdom of heaven, by the way, with a sinful nature.  You cannot do it.  You have to be delivered from death.  That is going to happen.

So the whole plan of salvation teaches us that, although we may be forgiven and we can have eternal life, there are consequences to sin that go on.  And those consequences to sin occur every time that a person sins, in their mind, with their speech, thoughts, their actions, and causes consequences.

I have been studying a book written by a physician.  It is a book about homosexuality.  It is called Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth.  This physician is a psychiatrist and he documents how people develop an addiction to a certain thing.  And it is very fascinating to study.  It is a book not only about science, but also religion.

The thing that you do today, the sin that you commit today, is easier to commit tomorrow and it becomes a habit on the third day, and eventually becomes not just a habit, but an addiction and a compulsion.  When that happens, only the power of divine grace can deliver you from that.

My dear friends, we are living in a world in which almost all of us have some addiction or compulsion with which we are dealing in our lives.  Almost all of us.  With some people it is something to do with food; with some people it is something to do with some type of sensuality; drugs, or some kind of substance.  We are living in a world where the majority of the people in our world are dealing with the consequences of something that they have done over and over again until it has become such a firmly engrained habit that they will never get loose from it unless the Lord delivers them.

Solomon talked about this in the book of Proverbs.  It is very interesting if you look at the context of this verse, you will see it is talking about sexual immorality.  We are not going to look at the context, we are just going to look at the verse itself.  It says, in Proverbs 5:21–23.  “For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, And he ponders all his paths.  His own iniquities entrap the wicked man, And he is caught in the cords of his sin.  He shall die for lack of instruction, And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.”

Notice, it says the iniquities of the wicked man will do what?  They will trap him, they will bind him.  Oh, friends, we are living in a world where people are bound in chains.  Those chains of addiction and compulsion are just as strong as chains of steel.  And we have people in the church who are in chains of compulsion, chains of addiction, sinful addiction.

They are never going to get free unless the Lord delivers them.  By the way, this is what the Bible calls a besetting sin, an easily entangling sin.  And, Oh, friend, if you are caught like it describes here in Proverbs 5, you will never get free unless the Lord helps you.  But that is what the gospel is about.  That is why Jesus came, because people in those days were caught in these chains of sin, too.

Look what it says in Luke 4.  This is Jesus speaking in Nazareth.  He is going to read from the book of Isaiah what is the work of the Messiah.  Luke 4:18.  Jesus here is reading, describing His work, the work of the Messiah.  He said, “The spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because he has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed.”

Notice, part of His work was to proclaim liberty to the captives and to set at liberty those who are oppressed.  Who are these captives that He was going to set free?  Do you read anything in the gospel story about Jesus setting anybody free who had been a captive?  Have you read any stories about that?  Have you read the story about those two devil possessed men who met Jesus after He crossed the Sea of Galilee and they cried out and they said, What have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of God?  Have you come here to torment us before the time?  And He said, What is your name?  And the spirit said, Our name is legion for we are many.  And what did Jesus do?  He cast those spirits out and He set those two men free. 

You know, when we become Christians, especially when we are children, we read these stories and it is just a story.  And they are wonderful stories to read just as a story, but these are not just stories.  These are stories to explain what Jesus wants to do for other captives, for other sick people, for other blind people.

Friend, if you have an addiction in your life, if you have a compulsion in your life, if you have a sinful habit in your life that you cannot break, Jesus is the One that you need.  If you come to Him, this is what He has promised to do for you: “As He spoke these words, many believed in Him.  Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” .  John 8:30.

That is the promise.  They said, Oh, we do not need to be made free.  We have never been in bondage.  If you have not been in bondage, you do not need to be made free.  Notice how Jesus answered them.  “Jesus [gave] answered to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, [that] everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.  And a slave does not abide [remain] in the house forever, but a son abides [remains] forever.  Therefore if the son makes [shall set] you free, you shall be free indeed.”

As a result of sin, that which once was an option becomes a habit, becomes a compulsion, becomes an addiction.  The man is bound.  He has done that thing so many times that it has become a part of his central nervous system and he cannot be free.  It is hard wired into his brain.  But Jesus said, I have come to set free the captives.  What kind of captives?  Jesus said, The one who commits sin is a slave of sin.  I came to set those people free.

The only people in heaven will be people who will be free, no slaves up there.  This world is a place where Jesus sets people free.  He sets them free from the consequences of their sins that have bound them until they could not get loose.  They could not free themselves.  Jesus said, I have paid the price for your sins and I have the authority and the power to set you free.  Do you want to be set free?  If you do, let us pray together that the Lord will fulfill His Word that we will be set free.

The End