Satan Wants Me To Sin

When I was pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church in Covington, Kentucky, which is right across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio, we had a Saturday morning radio program answering Bible questions. And one Saturday morning, the program had just gone off the air when the phone rang in the church office, and I answered it, because I was the only one in the office that Saturday morning.

And at the other end was a lady who was crying. And she said to me, "I heard your broadcast," and it so happens we'd answered a question on that program about forgiveness. And she said, "Does God really, really forgive our sins?"

She said, "Now, here is my situation. When I was a teenager, I did some things I should not have done. Now I am a married woman. I have a family, and my pastor has come to me and he's asked if I would teach a Sunday school class. He asked me to pray about it. And as I have been praying about it, all I can think of is what I did when I was a teenager. Do you think I am qualified to teach a Sunday school class?"

I said, "Well, quite frankly, I don't know, because I don't know you, but I do know this: If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, if you've been born again by the Spirit of God, my Bible says God has forgiven you all your trespasses. And if I were you, I would look to Jesus Christ and stop looking at myself." I said, "Have you confessed your sins to the Lord?"

She said, "Oh, yes." She said, "I have." I said, "Why don't you just get busy serving God?" And she began to cry again. She said, "You know, all these years," I don't know how old she was, "all these years I have been on the shelf because I couldn't forget."

Now, that is not an isolated case. Those of us who are in pastoral ministry or media ministry often receive phone calls and letters like that. "Can God ever forgive me?" Or, beyond that, "If he can forgive me, can he restore me?"

In recent months we have been shocked and hurt by certain confessions. In some places there appears to have been sincere repentance, in other places perhaps not. The only difference between the media men and some others is the others have not yet been found out yet. Let's be very patient, kind, and loving. Satan is the accuser.

We've looked at three of the persons who had a personal confrontation with the Devil: Eve in Genesis 3, Job, David in 1 Chronicles 21. Satan, in each case, had a target at which he aimed, a weapon which he used, a purpose he wanted to fulfill, but God gives to us a spiritual defense. Let's review the other three very quickly.

In Eve's case, he aimed at her mind. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 11, "as the serpent deceived Eve's mind through his subtlety." His weapon: lies. "Yea, hath God said?" His purpose: to get her ignorant of God's will. Our defense: the inspired Word of God. The only answer to the Devil's lies is God's truth.

Job: Satan's target was his body, his weapon: suffering, his purpose: to make him impatient with God's will. James 5:11: "You have heard of the patience of Job," endurance. Whenever the Devil gets me impatient, he's going to lead me into iniquity. Impatient Christians do dumb things. And then they have their whole lives to say, "I wish I hadn't done that." Our defense: the imparted grace of God. "My grace is sufficient for thee."

David, Satan attacked his will. A blitzkrieg attack on David's will with pride. "You're important. Count the people. See how many there are. Issue a press release. Call in Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather, and let them know how big Israel is." Pride. His purpose: to make him independent of God's will.

Pride means, "God, I can take care of myself. I don't need you." That's the devil's lie, isn't it? "You shall be as God." God is independent. God doesn't need my help. I need his help. Our only defense: the indwelling Spirit of God. "It is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure," Philippians 2:13.

Now, Satan wants me to sin. If I use the resources God has provided, I will not sin. But if I do sin, then what? If you have the idea Satan is then through with you, you don't know much about the enemy. You see, first the devil comes and says, "You can get away with this," and so we do it. Then he comes and says, "You'll never get away with that," and he begins to beat away at us. Revelation 12:10, I am told that he is the accuser of the brethren.

Now, the one man in the Bible who had this confrontation with the accuser may be a new person to you. You know about Eve, and about Job, and many of you knew about David, but have you ever heard about Joshua the high priest?

Zechariah, the book of the prophet Zechariah, second to the last book in the Old Testament, chapter 3. "Then he showed me Joshua the high priest," not Joshua the general. This is Joshua the high priest. You see, when the Jewish people came back to their land after their Babylonian captivity, Joshua was their spiritual leader. He was the high priest. Zerubbabel was their governor. Haggai and Zechariah were their prophets.

Now, the people of Israel came back to the land having spent 70 years in Babylonian captivity. When they came back, they had been cured of their great sin of idolatry. From that point on, you do not find Israel worshipping heathen idols. God finally cured them.

You can take people and move them and better them in some ways, but they'll still be people. When they came back to the land, you'd think that this crowd would have said, "Praise God, we're back home again, let's serve him, let's love one another." Uh-uh. No way.

When you read Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, you find out that the Jewish nation began to sin again. Not idolatry, no, they got cured of that. Greed: they began to charge each other exorbitant interest. The economy was poor. Some of the men saw heathen wives, who were apparently prettier than their own wives or more attractive in some way. They divorced their wives to marry heathen. Greed, treachery, disobedience, and here's Joshua the high priest "standing before the angel of the Lord." It's a vision that Zechariah had, "and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him."

So it's a courtroom scene. God is on the throne. Joshua stands before the judge, and at Joshua's right hand is Satan. The word Satan means the adversary. And the adversary is there to accuse. Now, why is he accusing? "And the Lord said to Satan, 'The Lord rebuke you, Satan.'"

By the way, it's interesting we don't find Joshua talking to the devil. Be very careful about that. Be very careful about that. Don't be dabbling in those things. Your best defense against the devil is the armor of God. Put on the whole armor of God by faith every day. "Put on the gospel armor, each piece put on with prayer," says the song. That's true.

Every morning in my devotional time by faith I put on each part of the armor, and I take the sword and the shield of faith by faith. I'd be afraid to walk out into my daily ministry and life without that protection. And I don't talk to the devil. I let God do that. I can quote scripture to him. Some demonic power begins to oppress me, I can quote scripture to him.

But it's God who speaks and says, "The Lord rebuke you, Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" That was John Wesley's life verse, because literally he was plucked out of the fire. His house— The house was burning down when he was a little boy, and it was only by the bravery of a couple of neighbors that this young lad was rescued who later became the great evangelist John Wesley.

Well, I hope you're a brand plucked out of the burning. That's what Jesus did on the cross, you know. He reached into the fires of hell to pull us out.

"Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and was standing before the angel." The word filthy there in the Hebrew language is the word for the dirtiest kind of dirt you can have. If a Jew wanted to use the worst word for dirt and filth, that's the word he would use.

The high priest was never supposed to wear dirty clothes, because the high priest represented the people before God. He wore clean clothes. He wasn't even supposed to let them get stained with perspiration. He wore clean garments. He wore a turban. On the front of that turban, you'll remember, was a golden plate that read, "Holiness unto the Lord." And as long as he was wearing that, he was— he was accepted before God.

But here stands Joshua, dirty, dirty, before God. We wouldn't go to a birthday party in dirty clothes. We might go to a hayride, bonfire. We wouldn't go to a birthday— a wedding. Wouldn't go to a wedding in dirty clothes. We wouldn't stand before God in dirty clothes.

Now why was he wearing dirty clothes? Because he represented the nation. Why dirty clothes? The nation was dirty. Satan knew it. And so Satan is standing there pointing to Joshua and talking to God and saying, "Look at him."

You see, when Satan talks to me about God, he lies. When he talks to God about me, he tells the truth, but he does it so that he can lie. Let me explain. Joshua stands there in dirty clothes. You can go through the whole Bible and find the same experience.

Abraham lied about his wife. Abraham, the man of faith, lied about his wife. Did you ever notice that the people in the Bible who failed, failed not in their weak points, but in their strong points? What was Abraham's strong point? His faith. Where did he fail? His faith. Didn't have faith to trust God to take care of him and his wife. He lied about his wife. And Satan says to God, "Look at him. There's Abraham, great friend of God. Fine friend you've got. He just lied about his wife."

Isaac lied about his wife, may have learned it from his father. Jacob lied about everything, almost. Jacob was the schemer. And so Jacob does something he shouldn't do, and Satan says, =="There—There he is. Jacob. Jacob, yeah. Israel, prince with God. Sure, there he is."

Peter, what was Peter's strong point? His courage. He was a brave man. I mean, he pulled out a sword going to fight the whole crowd. Where did he fail? His courage. A little girl comes up and says, "Aren't you one of them?" He says, "No. Never heard of him." That's where he failed. Peter denies the Lord three times. Satan says, "There he is, the rock. The sand dune." You get the point?

Why does Satan accuse us before God? Well, let's just take our little outline. Number one, his target. What is Satan's target? His target is your conscience. Satan comes at your conscience, and his weapon is accusation. He says to us, "You have lied. You have stolen from your employer. You have cheated on an exam. You have read something filthy you should never have read. Yeah, and you're a Christian, sure." He attacks the conscience.

Let's talk about conscience. You don't hear much about it. Paul uses the word "conscience," oh, nearly 30 times in his letters. Con means together or with. Scio, Latin word that gives us science, to know. Conscience, to know with. What is conscience? Oh, what's it? "Conscience is your guide"? No, no, you got to be careful here.

Conscience is that inner judge everybody has, that when we do what is right according to our standard, it approves us. When we do what is wrong according to our standard, it accuses us. But conscience is only as good as the standard. You've got to remember that. We are born with an inner judge, but that judge is only as good as the standard. Conscience is not the standard. It's the judge that applies the standard.

It's like that window. That window brings in light. Now the dirtier that window becomes, the less light comes in. Conscience is not the light. Conscience is the window that lets in the light. The word of God is the light. What is a good conscience? A good conscience, a phrase that's used several times in the Bible, or a pure conscience, 1 Timothy 3:9.

What is a good conscience, a pure conscience? It is a clean window that lets in the light of God's truth. And as long as I keep that window clean and I'm reading my Bible, the light of God's truth comes in, and I can apply the word of God. If I tell a lie, my conscience bothers me and says, "You better go back and confess that." If I take something I shouldn't have taken, my conscience bothers me.

Now, among thieves, conscience doesn't work like that. Their standard's different. If a thief, a criminal, rats on one of his friends, his conscience will bother him. See, you and I, our conscience would bother us if we did not say, "Hey, he just stole something. Hey, he murdered somebody." If we didn't tell, our conscience would bother us, but with a criminal, his conscience would bother him if he did tell. That's why I'm saying, conscience is not the light, conscience is the window that lets in the light.

That's why in the Bible you'll find a pure conscience and a good conscience. You'll also find a weak conscience. Now what's a weak conscience? Well, a weak conscience is one that hasn't seen a lot of light yet.

For example, a Jew gets saved. He comes into a Gentile church. He's invited to somebody's house for dinner. They serve pork chops. Well, he says, "I can't eat that." His conscience has been trained to eat only kosher food. And someone says, "But brother, it says right here in the Bible all foods are clean. Jesus said it, and Paul said it, and Acts 15 says it" "Oh," he says, "I just can't eat that."

Now he's smart not to eat it, because you will defile your conscience if you go against it. He needs more light. As he grows in light and in obedience, his weak conscience gets stronger.

By the way, many people in our churches have weak consciences. They don't live up to their liberty in Jesus Christ. And those who have strong consciences, says Paul, should not go around condemning them. And the people with a weak conscience should not go around condemning the people with a strong conscience, Romans 14 and 15.

You can read that and you understand that already. Some people have a weak conscience. Not a whole lot of light is coming through, but as they grow in the word of God, their conscience is strengthened, not to do evil, no, but to know right from wrong and to be delivered from bondage and legalism.

There are some people who enjoy having others tell them what to do. Why is it that so many of our cults are populated with former church members? This is true. Many of our cults are just populated with former church members, people who picked up their Bibles every Sunday, went to Sunday school.

Why would they join a cult? Not because of theology. The average cultist doesn't know enough theology to even discuss it. It's psychology. They are afraid of life, and they want some father figure or mother figure to tell them what to do, what's right, what's wrong, where to go, what not to do. They want security. Cults are emotional security blankets for weak people.

So there's a weak conscience, and there's a defiled conscience, a window starts to get dirtier. If I sin against my conscience, it gets defiled. And then that defiled conscience can become a seared conscience. You've burned yourself, and that area doesn't have any feeling anymore. We can so sin against the truth as Christians that our conscience becomes deadened, seared, or finally, Hebrews 10:22 calls it an evil conscience.

What's an evil conscience? The opposite of a good conscience. A good conscience approves that which is good, accuses when we do that which is wrong. An evil conscience is just the opposite. It approves when you do wrong, and accuses when you do good. And there are people like that.

Keep a marker in Zechariah 3. This may seem like a detour, it is not, and turn to 1 John 1. How does one develop an evil conscience? Well, 1 John 1 tells us. You know, because you are good Bible students, that in 1 John 1, three times you find the phrase "if we say." One of John's arguments about the Christian life is it's not just talking, it's walking.

1 John 1:6, "If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth." Now, here we're lying to other people. We're lying to other people. "Oh yeah, I have fellowship with him." "How's your Christian life going?" "Oh, great. Have— you— fellowship with him."

In verse six, we're lying to other people. Now in 1 John 1:8, we start lying to ourselves. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Now verse six is hypocrisy, play-acting. I am pretending to be more spiritual than I really am. I want to impress you. But if you keep this up, you move into verse eight, which is not hypocrisy, it is duplicity.

Now I'm lying to myself and starting to believe— It gets worse, 1 John 1:10. "If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." Now we're lying to God. That's serious business. This is how character deteriorates, and it starts with fooling around with your conscience.

His target? The conscience. His weapon? Accusation. Satan is the accuser of the brethren. By the way, he has a lot of help. The brethren do a good job accusing the brethren. What's it mean, accusing the brethren? Well, when God looks at us, he sees us accepted in the beloved one, robed in the righteousness of Christ. He also sees our daily lives. My position with Christ is perfect. My practice is imperfect. Satan comes along as the accuser. By the way, the word devil means accuser. Satan means adversary.

And I've sinned. Let's suppose I lost my temper. Got angry, and I lost my temper, and I told somebody something I shouldn't have said, and I go off. Now, one of two things or both will start. The Holy Spirit will begin to convict. That's the beautiful thing about having the Spirit of God within you. The Holy Spirit begins to convict.

If we have a good conscience, a pure conscience, an exercised conscience, a conscience that is void of offense before God and men, then the Spirit of God begins to convict in love. Why? The Holy Spirit begins to convict in love because he wants to restore me to fellowship. But at the same time, the devil will start to accuse in hatred, because he wants to expose my sin to me, make it look terrible, and get me discouraged.

Now, I'm not minimizing sin. No way. All I'm saying is this: when a Christian sins, it's serious. So serious the Spirit of God in love begins to convict by doing what? Revealing the word and revealing the Lord Jesus Christ, and wooing us in love and saying, "You're not happy, you don't have peace. Confess that sin."

But along comes the devil, who does not convict in love. He accuses in hatred, and he takes that sin and he magnifies it. He picks it up like a baseball bat and begins to beat you with it, accusing and discouraging.

You can always tell the difference between the Spirit's conviction and the devil's condemnation, because the Spirit convicts patiently in love and encourages us to repent and confess. The Holy Spirit is not a discourager. The devil is.

When you find yourself depressed, discouraged, accusing yourself, looking at yourself, performing one autopsy after another, repeatedly saying to yourself, "How could I have done that?" Well, that's the beginning of trouble right there. Anybody could have done that. "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately" what? "Wicked."

That Hebrew word wicked means - it's like Jacob. It's sick. "Who can know it?" You say, "Well, if I know my own heart." You don't. Anything you read about in today's paper you are capable of doing, inwardly, outwardly. So the devil comes along to— to accuse us, to bring remorse and regret. The Holy Spirit comes along to convict us, to bring repentance.

By the way, that's the difference between Judas and Peter. A lot of preachers, when they get to glory, are going to have to apologize to Peter. They have made him into a buffoon. Peter was a great man. Great man. All it took to bring Peter to repentance was a look from the Lord Jesus. My Bible says, "And the Lord looked at Peter." That's all it took. Peter went out and wept bitterly. What does it take for God to bring us to repentance? Dynamite. Sickness, auto accidents, all kinds of things. With Peter, just a look.

Now, Peter repented and was restored. Judas did not have repentance. He had "the sorrow of the world" that "works death" that Paul writes about in 2 Corinthians. His was not repentance. It was remorse, regret. He was working with the devil, and the devil killed him. Judas went out and committed suicide.

By the way, there have been instances of Christians committing suicide. I mean, born-again people. Hard to understand, but you know the devil's a destroyer. Not only is he an accuser, he's a destroyer, and he loves to have us destroy ourselves. His weapon, accusation. He takes what we have done, adds to it all the venom he can find, fills it with poison, and just lets us have it.

Now, what is his purpose? Well, it's pretty obvious what his purpose is. He wants to bring an indictment against us from God. He wants us to feel so condemned and so done for that we say, "What's the use?"

By the way, if this is an average, typical, normal congregation of saints, I would say that 15 to 20% of the people here now are not living joyful Christian lives. They're under a guilt. You've done something, you've said something, there's been failure, there's been something come along, and you don't have the joy of the Lord.

Your relationship to your Father is strained because you're listening to the accusation of the devil. He's saying, "You're no good. You're done for. You cannot be restored." And so you lose your joy, your zeal for the Lord. You don't see the blessing of God as you'd like to. Start to drift.

And in my own pastoral ministry, you call upon people who used to be faithful to church. This happens so many times, and you go into a new church situation, the elders will say, "You know, here's a list of people who used to come, but they don't come anymore, and we're worried about them. We've tried to help them. Maybe you can do something."

You go to see them, and if they finally get confidence in you and know you aren't going to blab it in the next sermon you preach, which some preachers do, they will say something like this: "Pastor, I know I used to teach Sunday school class down there, but you don't know what I did. And because of what I've done, I just feel so dirty and so unclean and such a failure. I'm just not fit. And so, rather than go down there and make a big mess, I'm just not going back." Then you say, "Well, have you ever thought of getting restored?" "Well, it's too late."

So often, I get phone calls from people, frantic phone calls, because they have committed some unpardonable sin. Or they have done whatever Hebrews 6 is talking about. I don't know why, when people sit down in the Bible, they decide to sit down on a tack. They ought to find a pillow to sit down on rather than a tack. They want to sit down on Hebrews 6, or 2 Peter 2, or someplace like that.

And the devil's got them bound. Their mind has become so obsessed with what they have done that they quit. And the devil says, "Well, I got another victim." The battlefield of life is strewn with victims like that. Say, "Why doesn't the devil kill them?" Well, then they'll go to heaven. They do him more help, give him more help by being right where they are, doing what they're doing. They're great advertisements against the church and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why Zechariah 3 is in the Bible. Satan's purpose is to bring an indictment by God's will: "You are finished."

Now, what is our defense? Well, at Joshua's right hand stood the accuser, but at God's right hand stands the advocate. Zechariah 3, "Now, Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the angel. Then he," the angel, "answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, 'Take away the filthy garments from him.'"

That's forgiveness. "And to him he said, 'See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes.'" That sounds like Luke 15:22, "Put the best robe on him." And the prophet got so excited about this, he said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head." Because he needed that turban. You know, it said, "Holiness unto the Lord." And so, they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him, and the angel of the Lord stood by.

Now once again, keep a marker there, and go back to 1 John, because the Old Testament and the New Testament illustrate and apply and work together. 1 John 2, "My little children," that means Christian people. John is writing to the saints. "These things I write to you, that you may not sin."

The Bible was not given to us to encourage us to sin. If you have found a verse or a doctrine in the Bible that makes it easy for you to sin, you're misinterpreting the Bible. "And if anyone sins," you are done for. No, it doesn't say that. "We have an advocate." That's just a good old Greek word for lawyer, a representative at court. "An advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Now, what right does he have to be my advocate? "He himself is the propitiation," the sacrifice, "for our sins, not for ours only, but also for the whole world."

Well, that completes the scene then, doesn't it? I would not want to go to court without a lawyer. Oh, traffic court, that may be a different thing, but I wouldn't want to go to court without a lawyer.

Fella came to our door in Chicago one day, and he said, "I see you put a new fence up." We said, "Yes." He said, "Do you have a fence permit?" I said, "No." He said, "Well, you can't do that without a fence permit." I said, "Well, we checked into that, and they said it was perfectly all right." He said, "Well, you've got to have a fence permit."

Had I slipped him 20 bucks, that may have taken care of the whole thing, but I wasn't about to do that. He said, "We'll see you in court." Sure enough, we got a summons to go to court. So, I called Marvin Beckman, the chief counsel of the Moody Bible Institute, who used to be a federal judge. Marv said, "I'll go with you." Took care of it.

Now, I can't fight Satan in court. He knows too much about me. Don't get the idea that God the Father's angry at me, and every time I sin, he wants to get to me, and God the Son says, "No, don't do it." Huh. Not like that at all. What the Father does, the Son does. What the Son does, the Father does. They always work together. "I do always those things that please him," said Jesus.

But Satan is there, and Satan's got a pretty good case. He says, "Why should you choose Abraham? He just lied about his wife." "Why Jacob? You're going to use Jacob to create a nation? That liar? Look what he's done to his brother, to his father, to his father-in-law."

I always laugh when I get into these churches where they sing this Mizpah benediction. Ever sung the Mizpah benediction in your church? "The Lord watch between me and thee while we are separated one from another." Better read your Bible. That was said by two enemies who didn't trust each other.

Now, there are some churches where that benediction applies perfectly. But here is Laban, and here is Jacob, and they're walking away from each other, and they're afraid to turn their back. They might get a knife in it. And so they say, "I can't watch you, and you can't watch me, but the Lord's going to watch between us."

Satan knows a good deal about us. So, I stand before God in dirty garments. I've disobeyed him. I can't run away. Satan stands and accuses me, and my defense is the interceding Son of God. It's rather interesting to notice how song writers— now, I'm not being hard on song writers, but song writers use the word scars talking about Jesus.

Not one word in the Bible about Jesus having scars. It's wounds. Wounds. Now, granted, it's easier to rhyme scars than wounds. But a singer has no more right to sing a lie than I have to preach a lie. They do it all the time, some of them. But you know your Bible, so you separate the wheat from the chaff.

My Lord went back to heaven with a glorified body, still bearing the wounds of Calvary. Now, when I get my glorified body, it's going to be perfect. No more trifocals. No more bridges. All of these problems. No more pills to take. No more weighing yourself and saying, "Oh, I gained 2 lb." No more cholesterol counts. We're going to have perfect glorified bodies.

He went back to heaven still carrying wounds. The only work of man in heaven today, the wounds on the body of Jesus. Why? Oh, he argues my case. He stands before the throne with the Father. And Satan accuses, and my advocate steps up and says, "Shut up. The Lord rebuke you, Satan." Number one, this whole situation is not law, it's grace. "I have chosen Jerusalem." That's grace.

See, if I wasn't saved by my good works, I can't be lost by my bad works. That makes good sense. If he saved me by his grace, he can keep me by his grace. If I'm saved by his death, I'm surely saved by his life.

He ever lives to make intercession for me, and so he steps up, and he says, "Satan, I want to present to you the evidence that you had better shut up, and he is not going to be condemned. Here it is." And those wounds of the cross silence Satan. What does it say in the book of Revelation? "They overcame him," Satan, "by the" what? "blood of the Lamb."

Now, all the details are not given here, of course. We must confess our sins. To confess does not mean to admit. Only an idiot would not admit sin. To confess means to say, "Yes, I did it." Not to say, "Lord, if." "Lord, I lied. Lord, I lost my temper." And to judge it. To try to look at it as sin, and to claim his promise of forgiveness.

Now, what did he do? He took off the dirty clothes. Puts on the clean clothes. He removes the iniquity. Puts the clean turban, "Righteousness unto the Lord." "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just," not merciful and gracious. That's how you're saved, mercy, grace. Faithful to his promise, just to the sacrifice of the cross. If God does not forgive my sins when I confess them, he is not being just, because the Savior says, "Father, I died for him."

Now, this is Romans 8. "Who is he that condemneth?" And Paul waits. No answer. "It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God," and makes what? "Intercession for us," not against us, for us. And then Paul says, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" And again, no answer.

Now, in this matter of being cleansed before God, as we close our study, I want to suggest to you that there are three little, just simple little phrases in the Bible that point the way to cleansing. They're very simple.

Number one, "Wash me." You know that, Psalm 51:7. David said, "Wash me." That's the Old Testament version of 1 John 1:9. When I'm sinning, the Spirit is convicting, the devil is accusing, that's when I should be confessing. "Wash me." And he does. Oh, he does. That's the first phrase, "Wash me."

Maybe somebody here tonight, there's something on your conscience, the devil's having a heyday. Every unconfessed sin in my life gives him a foothold to get in. And, boy, he can go to work. "Wash me."

But don't stop there. Isaiah 1:16, God says, "Wash you." That parallels what Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 7:1. "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves."

Now, the blood of Jesus Christ takes care of my guilt before God. God washes me clean, and I stand before him in robes of righteousness. But God's not going to come down and clean out my library or my magazine rack or my VCR collection. God's not going to send an angel down to turn the dial or push the buttons of my TV set. "Wash you."

Oh, I know you heard about the— We love to go to— We love it in Scotland. I love to preach in Scotland, because the dear people know the Word of God, and they love it. Remember the little Scottish church at the prayer meeting, and there was one man— Maybe we're all guilty. We have the same thing we say in our prayers, you know.

And this one man would always end his prayer, "Oh God, please take the cobwebs out of my life." That's the way he always ended his prayer. One of the members of the church got kind of tired of that. So, one prayer meeting night, Patty ended his prayer, "Oh, God, please take the cobwebs out of my life." Fellow in the back row hollered, "And God, while you're at it, kill the spider." That's Isaiah 1:16, kill the spider. If there's something in your home, in your car, in your office, shouldn't be there, "Wash you." Get rid of it.

There's a third statement. John 13:14, "Wash one another." Wash one another. Jesus washed their feet. Wash one another's feet. What does it mean to wash somebody's feet? It means to serve them, of course. It also means to make them feel better, make them cleaner.

I hope that after you've been with me for a few minutes, you're cleaner. I hope so. Am I the kind of a Christian— Are you the kind of a Christian who, when people are with us, they go away cleaner? Or do they go away a little bit sullied, a little bit spotted by something we said, or the way we said it? Wash one another's feet.

In Acts 16:33, they washed the wounds. That jailer got converted, and got baptized, and he said, "You know, I whipped you fellas. I'm sorry about that. Now, I'm a brother in Christ. Let me wash the wounds." Have you ever washed the wounds?

Oh, I remember when I was a teenager. I got converted as a teenager at a Youth for Christ rally, and I went back to my home church. And of course, young Christians know how to run everything. Oh, I did some things I shouldn't have done. I know I broke my pastor's heart, and I left that church for more reasons than one, but went to another church.

And two years later, God dealt with me. He said, "You better go back and wash those wounds." And I remember going to the pastor's house, and knocking on the door, and going in and washing the wounds. Sometimes our children have difficulty because we haven't washed the wounds.

Satan is the accuser. His target, your conscience. His weapon, accusation. His purpose, indictment. Live under a dark cloud of guilt. Our defense, the interceding Son of God, the advocate. We can come and say, "Wash me." And He says, "Take away the dirty clothes. Put a crown on his head."

And He says to us, "Wash you. Clean up your life. Kill the spider. Wash one another." You gossiped about that lady, you hurt her, go wash the wound. You lost your temper with that grandchild, and he's deeply hurt, go wash the wound. What happens to wounds that are not washed? They fester, they breed poison, bitterness. The only thing that will silence the voice of the devil is the voice of the blood of Jesus Christ. And what a powerful voice that is.

Gracious Father in heaven, thank you for the Holy Spirit of God, who tenderly, lovingly, patiently uses the Word to deal with our hearts. Give us the discernment we need to separate the Spirit's conviction from the devil's accusation.

Help us, Father, to confess tonight if there's something that needs to be confessed. Help us to cleanse ourselves and take out of our lives those things that defile. Help us to wash one another, especially the wounds we may have caused.

I pray, Father, as the result of the application of this message, people will get off of the shelf and get back busy for the Lord. Father, tonight, reclaim some of the casualties, all of the casualties. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your faithfulness.

While we're bowed together, and God sees our hearts before we close, are there those here tonight who say, "Yes, I have been listening to the devil, but tonight I do want to confess my sin to the Lord. I do believe he'll restore me. I want to wash me, and if necessary, wash one another."

Now, don't invent some sin, and don't manufacture something, but if God is saying to you, "Yes, this is the night," then do it. You don't have to tell me or anyone else, just tell God. Confess that sin to him. Forsake it. And then if he says to you, "Go wash the wounds," do it. Perhaps you've never been saved at all. Ask the Lord to save you. Just say, "Jesus, come into my heart and save me."

Apply your word to our hearts, Lord, not just in this moment, but throughout the hours that follow, and may not a one of us be a casualty. Help us to be more than conquerors through him who loved us. This is our prayer together through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.