Praying for Sinning Christians #2

Welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello again, I'm Bill Wright. It is our joy to continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word. Today Don is continuing with the second part of a message we started last time.

So let's get right to it. Open your Bible as we join Don now in the Truth Pulpit. But there's an exception to it that he goes into. It's the exception to effective intercession. You have the expectation of effective intercession. If you see your brother sinning, ask, God will give him life.

God will restore him. And so you pray that way. But John goes on to say there's an exception here. In this overall context of confidence, of answered prayer, the spiritual dimension to our prayer lives, John gives this very interesting and difficult to understand exception at the end of verse 16. Look at it with me. He says, there is a sin leading to death.

I do not say that he should make request for this. Now, this is obscure and commentators differ widely over its meaning. And I was reminded of something as I was reading the different ways that commentators have treated this, and I want to give you a little insight to reading commentaries if you are of a mind to do such things. When you come to a passage that where there are widely divergent views and supported in different ways, watch out, in fact you can almost expect commentators in the midst of that to deny the complication of it by saying something like, it's perfectly obvious what John means here. Well it's not perfectly obvious and the fact of the matter is if it's perfectly obvious, you could just explain it without in a sense pounding your fist on the desk saying this is obvious. Well if it's so obvious, why are there so many different interpretations about this?

Why is it so difficult? And, you know, people say, well it's clear that this is what he means. Well it's not clear what he means, and you're only saying clear in order to cover for your own lack of, you know, ability to be fully persuasive on your own view. And so the fact that a commentator tells you this is perfectly clear doesn't mean that it actually is, you just kind of have to look beneath the surface there and realize that this is a writing convention, not necessarily a manner of explaining exactly what the passage means. This is a difficult passage and I'm not going to pretend that it's clear when it isn't.

Now what are some of the possible views? We're talking about the exception to effective intercession. He's obviously making an exception here. He says you see a sin not leading to death, ask and God will give him life, but then he qualifies it. He says there's a sin leading to death.

I don't say that you should make requests about this. And so he's made this broad statement, God answers prayer, God answers prayers when we pray for sinning believers, but then he steps back a bit and says, but realize that there's a sin that leads to death and I'm not really talking about that. So there are some ways we can understand this.

Well this is a sub-point, possible views, views which I don't personally believe are accurate, but here are some possible views. First of all, some say that when John talks about the sin that leads to death, he's referring to the Old Testament classification of sins that would require the death penalty, blasphemy and adultery and things like that. But there's nothing really in the context of 1 John to support that, he hasn't been going back and forth on the application of Old Testament Law, so I don't find that view very persuasive. Others think that John is referring to a sin that leads to eternal spiritual death, eternal spiritual death. So some have suggested that it might be blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Look over to the gospel of Mark for just a second. Gospel of Mark chapter 3, beginning in verse 28, Mark 3 verse 28, this is what some have suggested is a possibility of what the sin unto death might be. Mark 3 verse 28, Jesus said, "'Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemies against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin.'"

Because they were saying that Jesus had an unclean spirit. And so obviously there's no forgiveness for this, it's an eternal sin, maybe that's the sin leading to death that John's talking about. Turn back to 1 John now. Still others think that perhaps when he talks about the sin of death, and this is a more persuasive possibility, John is speaking about the false teachers that he's been refuting throughout the letter.

Those false teachers who abandoned the faith, then they're pursuing a course that leads to spiritual death. Look at chapter 2 verse 22, stay with me here. Chapter 2 verse 22, John says, "'Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?'" This is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. And so in the context of 1 John, these people believe that John is referring to the false teachers who were once inside the body, but they have left and departed and now they are denying Christ.

That is the sin of death in the context of the letter of 1 John, and that's a view that several more recent commentators would hold to. Now, let me say that those views are not unreasonable. The false teacher view is particularly attractive in some ways, and that's why I say they are possible views of this passage.

But when it's all said and done, I think that those views are mistaken. I don't think that John is talking about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit here. I don't think he's referring to false teachers in this context.

Those things are deadly sins, they do lead to spiritual eternal death, eternal destruction, but that's not the question as to whether those sins are like that. The question is what is John talking about here? What is he talking about in this context? We'll go back to verse 16, chapter 5 verse 16, as we've taken a little side view, a little side tour of the possible views of this passage. Look at verse 16 with me again. He says, "'If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death.'" He's talking about the brother, if anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death.

He's referring to a Christian there. Look at the way that he uses the term brother elsewhere in the letter, chapter 2 verse 10. Just a quick and incomplete word study of brother here in the book of 1 John. Chapter 2 verse 10, John says, "'The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.'"

It's a reference to a Christian. Look at chapter 3 verse 14, "'We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren, not our biological siblings, but our brothers and sisters in Christ. We love the brethren.

He who does not love abides in death.'" Chapter 4 verse 21, "'This commandment we have from him that the one who loves God should love his brother also.'" The brother, the brother, the brother in the context of the body of Christ. Now going to chapter 5, go to chapter 5 again, keeping all of these things in mind, "'These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God.'"

This whole paragraph opens with, he makes it clear who he's addressing. I'm addressing those of you who believe in the Son of God, the name of the Son of God, those of you that have eternal life. And now if you see your brother, look, he's talking about Christians here. He's talking about the body of Christ here. And so it seems to me that the context is that he is talking about Christians who sin. And when he talks about the sin leading to death, notice in verse 16, if anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, then he says there's a sin leading to death. Notice that he doesn't change the subject. He doesn't say there are people outside of Christ who commit sins that lead to death.

He doesn't say that. He's just continuing on the same train of thought where he's been addressing Christians' life in the body and how we pray for other believers. Now if that's true, my whole interpretation of this passage I'm free to acknowledge hinges on my understanding of the word brother there.

If you disagree with that, you're not going to agree with my interpretation of what follows. But if that's true that he's talking about a Christian sinning unto death, then the sin unto death cannot be blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. It can't be because that's an eternal sin that Jesus says isn't forgiven. It can't be referring to false teachers who abandon the faith. John says in chapter 2 verse 19, those people were never Christians to begin with.

They went out so that it would be shown that they were never of us. And so he can't be talking about false teachers. He's not talking about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

And so what does he mean when he talks about the sin that leads to death as an exception to effective intercession? Well, subpoint B here, we looked at possible views, now we're going to look at the preferred view. Subpoint B, the preferred view. And what John is referring to here as I understand the passage and other good commentators, it's clear, okay?

Good, you're tracking with me, that's awesome. That's just so awesome that you caught that and realized what I was doing. The preferred view, thank you for that, amen.

I hope that gets picked up on the tape. The preferred view here in my judgment is that John is referring to the physical death of a sinning believer. He's looking at the physical death of a sinning believer.

Now let's step back for a moment here, I'll put my glasses back on, so that we can look at the big picture. We need to keep a big picture in mind as we consider what he means here. God takes holiness seriously, that's the big picture here. First John 1.5, God is light and there is no darkness in Him. God takes holiness seriously because He Himself is holy and He takes the holiness of His people seriously. Matthew 18, as you well know in this church, Matthew 18 gives us a process by which we deal with professing Christians who sin in the church. And there's a process of increasing confrontation to deal with that sin so that holiness would be provoked rather than sin being tolerated in the church. God has established that, Christ established that as a means of protecting the purity of the body. Holiness is serious to God.

That's important. Now, with that in mind, remember Hebrews 12, and I want to take you to Hebrews chapter 12 here. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 5, please turn in your Bible so that you can see this on the page of your own Bible, even as I read it. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 5, you must remember that God takes sin seriously and He disciplines His children.

Chapter 12 verse 5 of Hebrews says, "'You have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him. For those whom the Lord loves, He disciplines and He scourges every son whom He receives.'"

Look down at verse 9, we'll save just for the sake of time. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but God disciplines us for our good so that we may share His holiness. Verse 11, all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful, yet to those who have been trained by it afterwards, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Here's all I'm saying, God takes holiness seriously and He disciplines His children when they fall short of His holiness. Believers that start to stray into sin are going to feel the providential rebuke of the hand of God with painful circumstances, or rebuke from the Scriptures, or confrontation from other believers. They're going to feel a pushback which comes from God to slow them down in their sin, to turn them away because God takes holiness seriously. God disciplines His people. I think that's the overall biblical context that underlies what John is saying here. There's a sin that leads to death. God disciplines His people. But unto death? I mean, physically dying as a result of the discipline of God? Is that what Scripture would teach?

Yeah, in an answer. You remember Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira? They came and they lied. Let's look at the passage here, Acts chapter 5.

We'll have to go through these two or three examples rather quickly, so forgive me in advance. Acts chapter 5, the believers were selling property, bringing it to the Apostles and donating the proceeds for the good of the whole church. And you know the story, Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of property, kept some of the money for themselves and then told the Apostles that they were giving them the full price. And Peter said in verse 3, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land? While it remained unsold, wasn't it yours?

And after it was sold, it was under your control, why are you coming in here lying to us about how much you're actually giving? You've not lied to men, but to God. Verse 5, as he heard these words, Ananias fell down, breathed his last. Great fear came over all who heard of it.

A couple of three hours later, Sapphira met the same fate. Turn to 1 Corinthians 5, 1 Corinthians 5, Peter told Ananias, you just lied to God dead. 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 1, where gross immorality was pervasive inside the walls of the church. Paul said, it is actually reported that there is immorality among you of such a kind that doesn't even exist among the Gentiles.

Someone has his father's wife. You've become arrogant and have not mourned instead so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. God takes holiness seriously.

Why haven't you acted on this? Paul says, for my part, I have already judged Him who has so committed this as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus and I with you in spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus. Paul says, and this is very sobering, we're on very holy ground here. Paul says, the time for praying is over. It's time to purge this sin out of the church. And so I'm handing this man over to Satan so that his flesh will be destroyed.

Pretty serious stuff. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 11 in a place where many people wouldn't expect to find the Lord's discipline ending up in death. Verse 28, in the context of taking the Lord's Supper, chapter 11 verse 28, he says, a man must examine himself and in so doing eat of the bread and drink of the cup, for he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.

For this reason, many among you are weak and sick and a number sleep, using a metaphor for death. Some of you have died as a result of the casual flippant way that you approach the Lord's table. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.

So this discipline happens so that you won't encounter the eternal judgment that those in the world experience. Now, taking those three passages together, the one from Acts and the two in 1 Corinthians, what I want you to see is that the sin that led to death in those instances, it was not one specific sin that they had committed, but rather all of these situations, it reflected a defiant believer who had deliberately insulted the holiness of God. There was a defiance in the face of the holiness of God and it resulted in physical death to them. Now, go back to 1 John with that little context in mind, in 1 John chapter 5, and we'll see if we can't wrap this up. What does John say about that kind of sin?

There's a sin leading to death. He says, I do not say that he should make requests for this. Notice that John does not forbid prayer in these situations, but he's telling us not to be surprised if that kind of intercession in that particular situation doesn't turn out like you had hoped. You see, he's inculcated to us in verses 13 through 15 to expect God's answers to our prayers which are according to God's will. Our working assumption, if John didn't give us this qualification, this exception, would be, well, I'm praying to see the holiness of God manifested in this person's life, that surely is consistent with God's will and therefore I expect that result to be manifest some point in response to my prayers.

John says you can't take it that far. Yes, God hears our intercession favorably, but oh, follow this cause I think this is so helpful. God hears our intercession favorably, but He reserves to Himself His sovereign prerogative of divine discipline. We do not override God's sovereign prerogatives as He deals with individual believers in the body of Christ. And in God's wisdom and judgment and by His sovereign prerogative, even though we are praying for this person, God may bring them to physical death despite the way that you've been praying.

It's very sobering. And all of a sudden when you realize that when we're praying and engaging in prayer in this level, this is really serious stuff. This is sobering, serious principles that the Word of God brings out for us. Why does John say that here? Why does he allude to this kind of divine sovereign prerogative of discipline for a sinning believer here?

He's doing it for this reason. He is guarding you through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He is guarding you from discouragement and despair. When you pray for a sinning believer and that person somehow dies without visible repentance, you should not think that God has broken His promise to always answer these kinds of prayers to you. You should not think that God has failed you on a human, personal level.

Follow me here because some of you have lived through this. You should not think that you didn't pray enough. This relieves you from the sense of guilt that comes from saying, if only I had prayed more, then maybe this wouldn't have happened.

Maybe the result would have been different. No, what John is saying here is that God will not always do what you want in these kinds of extreme situations. You would prefer to see repentance.

God very well may prefer to see death in order to remove that blight from the body of Christ and to vindicate the holiness of His own name. Notice here, John really doesn't give us much detail about this. He doesn't give us an idea, he doesn't give us qualifications to say, here's how you can recognize when a person has stepped into that realm. And we need to learn from that. We need to be humbled here on this holy ground. John does not tell us about the sin that leads to death.

Follow me. John isn't telling us this so that we can evaluate how far someone has gone into sin and then decide whether we should stop praying for them or not. That is not the point of this discussion at all. If that was the point, he would have clarified and then he would have said, once you recognize this, I forbid you to pray this way. He doesn't say that. He's simply saying he's giving a gentle qualification saying, I'm not saying you should make requests about that, one way or the other. What he is doing here, rather than giving us a weapon of judgment to make against other believers, he is giving us an instrument of protection for our own spiritual confidence which is the whole context of verses 13 through 17. He is protecting our confidence by telling us in advance to expect sometimes different answers to our intercession than we otherwise would have expected. And he's saying, when you see that different answer, don't let your confidence be shaken.

Understand that there are limits. God has reserved a sphere of prerogative to Himself that even your prayers don't enter into. But you can still trust Him the same because He's always acting according to His holiness and goodness when He deals with His people.

That's the idea. And so, we are expected to pray when we see believers in sin. We pray for them to repent. We pray for God to work in their lives, to enlarge the sphere of their spiritual capacity so that they would walk in greater holiness. But as we do that, we realize that there may be times where we see an unexpected answer and we don't get to see visible repentance before that person dies, physically dies. John says, God orders things this way and so don't let that shake your confidence. There are limits to God's promise to respond to these kinds of prayers.

That's the exception. Now final comment here on verse 17. He's taken a tangent into this exception, now He brings it back in verse 17 to close the thought of the paragraph. He says, all unrighteousness is sin and there is a sin not leading to death. What He's saying here is I've made a distinction between sins that don't lead to death and sins that do. He says, don't make the mistake of thinking that some sins aren't serious then. He says, all unrighteousness, comprehensively speaking, all unrighteousness is sin. And so don't get careless about other sins simply because there are some sins that lead to death. All unrighteousness is sin and a true Christian tolerates no sin in his life.

We don't grade it and say, okay, this isn't so bad so I can make room for this. No, all unrighteousness is sin to be expelled like a cancer from the body. And so He gives His final assertion, there's a sin not end to death, simply to bring us back full circle to the encouragement to pray. All sin is serious, but it's not beyond the reach of prayer. We need to intercede for the saints. And so as we respond to this passage, our concern should not be curiosity with the exception, we need to see the big picture of what John is saying. And what he is saying is, is that our prayer lives should be marked by fruitful intercession for fellow Christians because we ourselves have an assurance of eternal life. If you see a Christian in sin, if you see someone in your family dealing with sin and their sin begins to grate on you, don't get discouraged or frustrated by that.

Don't let yourself give in to a fleshly response. The godly response is to love them and pray for them. Take advantage of your favored position with your heavenly Father in order to benefit your brothers and sisters in Christ.

That's what this is teaching us. We pray at a serious level about serious things for brethren whom we seriously love. And when we do, this passage promises us that God will answer our prayers and bring about a spiritual result that is good and fruitful and will be pleasing to you and pleasing to the one for whom you have prayed.

Speaking of which, let's pray. Father, as we come before You today, we thank You for this difficult passage. We respect Your holiness as we come before You. And Father, as we come, we love the brothers and we realize that each one of us falls short in one way or another. Father, I pray for each one under the sound of my voice. I pray for them as they deal with sin in their lives, some having come in here harboring it and holding onto it.

Father, I pray that You would grant them repentance and a spirit of life that would cause them to have a softened heart and to turn from it. Father, help us all to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May this all be for Your glory and for our eternal good. We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, my friend, thank you for joining us for yet another podcast from The Truth Pulpit. And we wanted to let you know that in addition to these audio resources that you are enjoying, that there are also written resources from my ministry. The Lord has given us opportunity to put some of the things that I've taught over the years in print.

And I have one book in particular that I would want to call your attention to. It's the most popular book that I've published so far called Trusting God in Trying Times. It's a book born out of deep personal sorrow and is brought into context, you might say, through the Word of God. How to trust God when you are going through the deepest valleys and the most sorrowful things in life. How do you trust God through those times when you can't see your way forward?

I've been there, my friend. And the book Trusting God in Trying Times speaks to that spiritual experience in the life of the believer. You can find all of my books at thetruthpulpit.com. That's thetruthpulpit.com. Just click on the link there.

You'll find links to different books and you will find that they take you to an easy place to purchase them for your reading enjoyment. So thank you once again for joining us on The Truth Pulpit. We'll see you next time as we continue to study God's Word together. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's Word.