What's in Your Wardrobe?, Part 2

The problem with sin is it doesn't show us the symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases. It doesn't give us pictures of broken homes, devastated relationships, the loss of money and integrity and character. It doesn't show us the pictures of wasted lives. It shows us pictures of people who have it together. Buy now!

Call now! The trouble is when you finally have it in your hands, you discover you are trapped in its hands. Sin never delivers on its promises. Sin promises you a good time, a happy life and freedom.

Does it give you any of that? Maybe in the moment, but what it really delivers is brokenness, destruction and despair. The Apostle Paul gives a warning about this in Romans 13 and that's the passage we turn to today here on Wisdom for the Heart. Today, Stephen Davey concludes a series entitled Live In Like You're Leaving. We've been looking at what it means to live now with the end in mind.

And here's the conclusion to this series, a message called What's in Your Wardrobe? You notice that Paul uses the full expression of the Lord's name. He says put on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord, because we're wearing the declaration of his deity, his sovereignty, his mastery over our lives. Jesus, we are declaring that he is truly the God-man, more than a prophet, more than a moral man, more than a good teacher. We are declaring that he is also Christ that is the only true Savior.

He is the Messiah come to deliver us. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, the fullness of his character, everything that he represents and now as little children walk through life growing up to be like him. This is the principle of a lifestyle. Paul also in the latter part of this verse gives us a prohibition, the prohibition of a lifestyle, make no provision then for the flesh in regard to its lusts. The principle of a lifestyle asks the question, what's in your wardrobe? The prohibition of a lifestyle asks the question, what's in your waste basket?

Not just what are you putting on but what are you throwing away? Make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. There are a couple of words in this phrase that I want to highlight. First is the word provision.

It's from the Greek original word pronoia which means to perceive in advance, to care for, to note beforehand, to take thought of. See, Paul is painting a picture of the believer that we'd probably not rather see. He's suggesting that every believer has the potential to think ahead in advance to sin, to note beforehand where sin is and go join it.

It's an honest picture. The famous painter John Sargent once complained, every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend. Likewise, we may not like the portrait that Paul draws and we'd like to say, well, he's got to be talking about unbelievers. No, this is to the Christian. We know how to plan sin which means none of us ever fall into sin by accident. We plan. We sin on purpose.

So don't hook up the cable movie channel and then wonder why. Don't plan to meet someone you shouldn't and then wonder why. Don't ignore godly counsel. Don't ignore the word or prayer and then wonder why the devout puritan preacher of generations ago Thomas Manton wrote, every corruption has a voice and they call out to you. Every sort of sin finds a way to bring itself, he wrote, to our minds and hearts. So don't leave the door of your heart unlocked.

If you do, you're making provision for the flesh. But in that is the good news. You can never be caught in a place you never visit.

You will never be trapped somewhere you never go. That's why Solomon warned his son of those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk and the ways of darkness. That's the warning here. Even to the believer whose paths become crooked, who become devious in their ways. Be warned so that you will walk in the way of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous. Proverbs Chapter 2.

Make no provision. The second key word is the word lusts. Make no provision for the lusts of the flesh.

The word is epithymia. It's used for both good things and bad things in the New Testament. It's used to refer to a hungry person longing for food in Luke 15 verse 16. It's used for a man desiring the office of elder in 1 Timothy 3.1. It's used of the angels longing to understand salvation in 1 Peter 1.12. It's used of Old Testament prophets who desire to see and hear the Messiah, Matthew 13.17.

Most often the word is used of evil things. Men lusting after other women, Matthew 5.28. People consumed by materialism, literally lusting after things, Mark 4.19. Furthermore, this word lust is used in relation to the lust of the body, Romans 6.12. The lust of the flesh, Ephesians 2.3. The lust of the heart, Romans 1.24. The lust of the eyes, 1 John 2.16. Worldly lusts, Titus 2.12. Defiling lusts in 2 Peter 2.10. And that's just the beginning of the use of the word.

This is just the beginning. But it is a word that paints a portrait of who we are capable of becoming. We were this.

We can still become that. No wonder Paul wrote to the Galatians warning them, walk in the spirit. That is walk by means of the spirit's enabling.

And then what? You will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Galatians 5.16. And here Paul warns the Romans, not only will you not perform the deeds of darkness, but you must consciously then robe yourself with a light. Verse 12, robe yourself with Jesus Christ. You know, you go to the Christian bookstore today and you can find all kinds of books that give you the three quick ways to become godly. You know, how to become holy in a hurry. It does not exist. There's no such thing.

That's why the hymn needs to be sung again periodically. Take what? Time to be what?

Holy. Let me get as practical as I can and ask you questions I have asked myself this week. Throughout your typical week, take inventory. What are you watching? What are you reading?

What are you listening to? We cannot address this text and talk about the loss of the flesh in our generation without squarely and honestly looking at the media and the internet and print. Let me sort of pick and choose my way through these questions and I'll not address everything, but perhaps I'll touch on something that God wants to provoke in your heart. First of all, as it relates to making provision for the lusts of the flesh, what are you watching? Jeff Botkin, in an address he made not too long ago at Vision Forum's Independent Film Festival, made the case that Christian aesthetics, which is the biblical definition of what is good, true, and beautiful, he says it has been under attack in cinema and he documents it since the 1920s. He makes the comment, and he's speaking to other filmmakers by the way, that we as believers and especially parents need to wake up to the fact that even the most shallow television show is teaching lessons. Even the worst movie teaches by nature of its visual perception and impact a curriculum of values. We expect the world to produce dark values that are anti-truth, anti-good, anti-beauty, but for the believer we are to be guarded against them.

Jeff posed the question even in our culture, how do you go from Shirley Temple to Madonna in less than two generations? Part of the answer is that your world, ladies and gentlemen, is not in neutral. The doctrines of demons, Paul called them, have an agenda. The prince of the power of the air is not in the habit of napping.

He is not without a strategy, a scheme, Paul says. Why else would we be exhorted as believers as we are headed toward the tape the moment we are not living here and we are leaving for there to wear the armor of light? I speak in those terms that we are to robe ourselves consciously with the character of Jesus Christ.

Why? Because we have already learned from the apostle Paul that we should both expect and anticipate the siren song of the children of darkness. Benjamin Stein, whom he quotes, served as a speechwriter for Nixon and for Ford, entered Hollywood and acted himself in about 40 films. As an insider, he began evaluating the themes of cinema and has done so. He went all the way back to the 20s and came on up into our generation. He began evaluating thousands of scripts.

And he delivered the news, of course, that would be ignored by the children of darkness, but I think it ought to give us pause as children of light. He came up with 11 characteristics that he says dominate the cinema today, programs, sitcoms, whatever. Let me give you these 11. Number one, that sexual relations are inevitable before marriage. And this is the curriculum.

Sexual relations are inevitable before marriage. Number two, children are wiser than parents. Number three, successful businessmen are evil. Number four, clergy are uninformed and ineffective. Number five, government social workers are noble. Number six, homosexuality is genetic and should be celebrated. Number seven, the military are psychotic sadists. Number eight, fathers are stupid. Number nine, criminals are only the result of poverty or racism. Number 10, profanity is a part of honest reality.

And number 11, women who reject motherhood are heroic. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the predominant curriculum of a world dominated by the lust of the flesh. And you cannot allow yourself to spend time being educated by anti-biblical movies and media which move your emotions and shapes your perspective and then wonder at some point in your life, why are the truths of the Bible so narrow?

Why are you people so uptight? Maybe you've already bought into one of the 11 things the children of darkness produce. Maybe you're wondering why two people who love each other can't be intimate with each other.

Surely that's a beautiful thing. Maybe you're wondering why certain criminals shouldn't get away with their crimes. Surely they were disadvantaged. Maybe you're thinking the children ought to determine their own rules and lifestyle. Surely they have something to teach their parents. Maybe you're wondering why pornography is such a big deal.

Surely God made our bodies and he must have made them to be seen. Ladies and gentlemen, I have personally heard every one of those things in my study from the lips of people who are leaving the path of light and embracing the path of darkness. What are you watching? Secondly, what are you reading? What's the last book you purchased?

What are you thumbing through these days? Is it the curriculum of worldly aesthetics which is anti-truth, anti-goodness, anti-beauty? Oh, it really doesn't matter, would Paul say that today? Make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. Here's a book published not too long ago that reveals the disintegration of truth even within our own culture as it relates to marital fidelity. The book is called, if you can believe it, Affair, how to manage every aspect of your extramarital relationship with passion, discretion, and dignity. I learned about this book as I was reading a pastor's comments on the subjects of marital fidelity. The pastor quoted the publisher's review that said, quote, this is a thoughtful, detailed discussion of every aspect of considering, preparing for, beginning, and conducting a successful and emotionally fulfilling extramarital relationship.

Now I got to tell you, even though a pastor was saying that, I was still suspicious. So I went to Amazon.com and there it was. I pulled it up, I clicked open the table of contents and there were chapters entitled like these, getting ready to meet that special someone.

Guidelines for pre-extramarital courtship, situations that serve as an appropriate basis for having an affair. I scrolled down to the reviews. There were a lot of them, people gushing their praise. One wrote, this book was a lifesaver for me. It helped me find and keep my special friend to help me through until my children are older. Another wrote, I wish I had known this information sometime back. I could have avoided a considerable amount of emotional pain by not selecting the wrong person. Another obviously experienced adulterer wrote, and I quote, this book is filled with common sense. This will greatly help those wanting affection from outside their marriage. If an affair is something that a person cannot avoid, then this is the guide to have. And when I read that, I couldn't help but think of this guide.

This is the guide which says that unrepenting adulterers will not enter the kingdom of heaven. What's in your wardrobe? What's in your waste basket? What are you reading? What are you watching? One more question.

What site are you logging onto? What about the Internet? Any medium can have a powerful potential for the spread of the Gospel.

Can it not? You're like 100 years, not quite, and there were preachers preaching against the radio, missing a great opportunity for a medium that could deliver the Gospel. But perhaps by far the most powerful and far-reaching tool today for the Gospel is the World Wide Web. Many of you know we partner with Bible Broadcasting Network and our radio program. They are using the Internet to spread the Gospel into many languages. We're now in Spanish, but they are also sending the Gospel via the Internet into China in the Mandarin language. They're getting one million hits every week. People by the dozens who are writing them saying, we have heard the Gospel and we have believed. What a great use of the Internet. They have also trained some of their staff here in this country to go into chat rooms and interact with people, looking for opportunities to share the Gospel. In fact, on one occasion, one of them went into a chat room for atheists and just typed in, I know God is alive.

I talked to him this morning. And the chatting fired up and people were coming from all over. With all the potential of the Internet for the spread of the Gospel, it is also an incredible messenger of darkness.

It is also a great and terrible trap. Over a year ago, ABC News Primetime conducted an extensive poll and found that the number of adults who visit adult-only websites in a typical week now exceed 11 million people. Mind you, these were the 11 million that admitted it. I know of one survey that I've read that 34 percent of pastors polled admitted to going on adult-only websites. And I can tell you as a fellow human being, it is a temptation for me, too. A couple of months ago, I was sitting at my computer, working on my sermon, no less. Saturday, polishing up the manuscript and suddenly the screen went black and then boom, a full-color picture of pornography. I'm in the middle of my sermon. I clicked the little X button, went 10 more minutes, boom, I'm working on my sermon here. Clicked X. How fast did I go to click X?

That happened a dozen times that day. The evidence of its power is seen simply by virtue of the number of pornographic websites that are seeming to grow exponentially. I read recently in the Leadership Journal for pastors that in 1998 there were 71,000 adult-only websites. Three years later, there were 311,000. Today there are 1.3 million. Whatever your lust is, there are sites.

This doesn't include sites for Internet gambling. They're there as well, false religions, occultism, a host of other dangerous traps. I don't believe I'm exaggerating in this generation at this moment in time to say that the Internet is the single most dangerous trap for the believer today. Are you making provision for the flesh?

The truth is temptation always comes packaged with a promise. It tries to rob the definition of Christian aesthetics. It says, this is beautiful. This is good. You are entitled to it. And it appeals to our base nature.

It comes packaged as something wonderful. A beer commercial will never show you a picture of somebody throwing up at the party. I can remember as a kid with my missionary parents downtown Norfolk shutting down the service center every Friday night. We went as a family.

That was our family night before we ever talked about family night. That service center where all the sailors would come in in downtown Norfolk. There were bars all around that center. And we'd shut down the center at 11 o'clock, and we'd be going out there with my dad, my three brothers and I, and we'd walk by this certain alley every time. And every time we walked by, there'd be somebody in there throwing up. And my dad would say, guys, they'll never show you a picture of that.

You know, that's probably why I never tasted beer one time in my life, because I can't get the picture of that guy throwing up out of my mind. The problem with sin is it doesn't show us the symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases. It doesn't give us pictures of broken homes, devastated relationships, the loss of money and integrity and character. It doesn't show us the pictures of wasted lives.

It shows us pictures of people who have it together. Buy now. Call now. The trouble is when you finally have it in your hands, you discover you are trapped in its hands. When you finally have sin cornered, you discover that sin has cornered you. Sin will never keep its promise.

And you can learn that by the Word and be warned and walk away or learn it by experience and pay a heavy price. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put him in your wardrobe.

Make him the central piece. Don't be lured by sin's promise and the lusts of the flesh. I just read yesterday, I couldn't help but laugh, I read that in New York City there are eight million cats. I knew there was something about New York I didn't like. This is definitely one more thing. Those of you that love cats, just hang with me.

This New York City is basically cement and concrete. When you have a pet die, you can't go out in the backyard and bury them. So you've got to take care of them. The city authorities decided that for $50 they would dispose of your deceased pet. This article talked about one lady who was rather clever. She placed an ad in the newspaper that said, when your pet dies, I will come and take care of the carcass for you for only $25. It's a good deal.

Half the price. Then this lady would go to the local Salvation Army and buy an old suitcase for a couple of bucks. Then when someone would call about their pet, she would go to the home and put the carcass in the suitcase. Then in the evening, she would take a ride on the subway and set the suitcase down and act like she wasn't watching. Sure enough, at some stop when the doors opened, a thief would rush by, steal her suitcase and run out the door.

And she would say, stop. Thief. The truth is, we Christians can become like New York thieves, grabbing something we believe we've got the goods now.

But it's only decay and corruption. Paul says, run from the deeds of darkness and don't leave a forwarding address. Don't negotiate with it. Don't talk with it. Don't give it your business card. Don't log on to it.

Run. I received an email from a man who was responding to last Sunday's vase of marbles. He wrote me and said, Stephen, I took your example of the marbles in the vase and I modified it a little bit. I put a vase on my desk with only one marble in it. When I look at that single marble, it reminds me that today it could represent my last month, my last week, my last day, my last hour, even my last breath on this earth.

That's living like you're leaving. Consider this final thought as I was looking through the scriptures at this idea of apparel. I came across this verse that is very familiar that just sort of stood out in light of our study.

Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers who were looking for the day. Paul thought that he was going to be alive and he said, we will cast off our mortal and we will place upon us what? Immortality. We will be clothed with immortality.

Guess what? We have an entirely new wardrobe waiting without sin, without the propensity toward evil confirmed in our holiness in the presence of our Lord, clothed in that glorified state with the robes of immortality. Let's live in the light of that day. With that, Stephen brings to a close this teaching series from Romans 13 called Live In Like You're Leaving. This is wisdom for the heart. Stephen Davey is your Bible teacher for this daily program and he's the president of our ministry called Wisdom International. This practical series has been turned into a set of CDs. If you'd like to have it in your library of biblical resources or if you'd like to give it to a friend or loved one, we can make it available. You'll find it on our website in our online store. Before you search for it though, I want to point something out to you. The series is called Live In Like You're Leaving. The title of the series is spelled just like I said it.

In other words, it's spelled L-I-V-I-N without the G at the end. Again, it's available in our online store, which you'll find at wisdomonline.org. If you prefer, we can help you over the phone. The number here at our office is 866-48-BIBLE. That's 866-48-BIBLE or 866-482-4253. Either way, this resource makes a great addition for your library because it's filled with practical wisdom for your life. If you have a comment or a question about our ministry or if you have a question about the Bible that you'd like Stephen to answer, our email address is info at wisdomonline.org.

You can use that address any time to send Stephen a message. I hope we hear from you very soon. I'm excited to be able to tell you about something pretty new here at Wisdom International. We've rolled out new technology that allows our website to be experienced in multiple languages. We're going to be working over the next several months to upload more of our foreign language content. We have a little bit there already, and we want to offer all nine of our current languages. And the exciting thing is that this technology will work with every language on earth. So, as God enables us to develop more languages, we'll be able to present those to a global audience. Visit wisdomonline.org to see what I'm talking about. On our next broadcast, Stephen begins a brand new message from the Book of Luke. It's called, Ministering to the Multitudes. Join us next time here on Wisdom for the Heart.