Can I ask you a sincere question?

Suppose you were sitting in a prison cell, maybe even on ‘death row’ with no hope of ever seeing the light of day again (freedom), and the warden himself came to your prison door, with a key, opened it up and told you that you had been pardoned and are now free to go...all charges are dropped. Would there be any logical reason for you to remain in there? Unless of course, you loved the darkness and bondage more than walking out into the light of freedom?l

Friends...that is exactly what Jesus did when He came to set the captives free. (Luke 4:18)

You are ‘free to go’, free to ‘take up your bed and walk’; free to ‘go and sin no more’. He did not come to condemn you. He came to give you a new life. (John 3:17; Rom. 8:10-12; Acts 16:26) So how shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? (Rom. 8:2)

“Oh, but we are sinners and will always continue to sin until we get to heaven!”

Really? Who told you that? (Gen. 3:11)   

“But Tony, it says right there in our Bible that “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)

Yes indeed, it says that in my Bible as well. So can we take a few moments and examine what that is saying?

It’s one thing to say you ‘have no sin’; but that is not implying that you continue to ‘practice sin’.

Allow me to illustrate it this way: You probably know what an IED is; an ‘improvised explosive device’, or more commonly known as a ‘homemade bomb’. Many soldiers in war zones have been severely injured, if not killed by them over the years.

There are specialist who are trained to disarm these explosive devices when found, rendering them powerless. (Do I cut the red wire or the blue wire?).

Now if we can take this illustration a step further: imagine being taken captive by some diabolical and evil person who then rigged multiple IED’s all over your body, sort of like a ‘booby-trap’. (I know you’ve seen those movies too.). Trying to escape your captor with all those devices attached to you would lead to certain death as you for sure would detonate multiple bombs and that... would be the end of you.

But suppose your liberator arrives on the scene, deals with your captor by disposing of him first, then turns his attention to you. Your prospects for living have just improved exponentially, and in a good way. But...you are not out of the woods...yet. There might be a dozen or more of these lethal devices still attached to you, but fear not – because your liberator is an expert in disarming them. You are just going to have to take a deep breath, trust him, and then do exactly what he tells you to do, or else. (John 2:5; Acts 3:22-23)

And one by one, he begins to do just that. (Deut. 7:21-23). Now please pay attention to this next point:

To allow those devices to remain on you, attached to your body, would nearly guarantee a certain and premature death; but...as they come off one by one, the prospects of you living a long life continue to increase. Now let’s imagine that only 2-3 of these IED’s remain attached on you. That is a lot better than having ten hanging on you ready to go off at any second, but that is no reason to declare yourself safe and free from all harm. In fact, how foolish would you be to tell your liberator that all is good as you feel great and then ask if you are free to go your own way now (Matt. 22:5). Maybe you thought they had all been removed but did not see the remaining few attached to your backside. To claim you have no devices any longer would be presumptuous, especially if the one who is freeing you told you otherwise.

A bit overly dramatic for an illustration? Perhaps, but hopefully you can see where I am going with this. Think of those individual IED’s as specific areas in your life where you are prone to sinning. Think in terms of those ‘evident deeds of the flesh’ as Paul list in Gal. 5:19-21 and then in Romans 1:29-32. For some odd reason, in both of those passages, we tend to miss that serious warning in the last sentence where he writes ‘those who practice these things will not inherit the kingdom of God and ‘those who practice such things are deserving of death’. And please read Romans 8:13 again? Oh, even Jesus even points out for us where these ‘evil things’ reside too- in our hearts. (Mark 7:21-23)

Prior to our ‘Liberator’ arriving on the scene, we are told that we were held captive by the wicked one-Satan. (1 John 5:19; Acts 26:18; 2 Tim. 2:26; Jer. 13:17; Eph. 2:1-3). You really need to look up each one of those verses I just gave you so you have a better understanding at what you are dealing with here. (Eph. 6:12)

When Jesus died on the cross, He ‘made an open show of the devil (Col. 2:15) rendering him incapacitated as He triumphed over him. But...in some ways, you are not ‘out of the woods’ yet because even though the prospects of you living a long life (eternally) have risen exponentially, you still need to be ‘sanctified’ or made pure. Many of these ‘lethal devices’ most likely still reside within you and they need to be individually ‘removed from the land’ (heart).

If you don’t allow your Liberator (Jesus) to lead you to ‘disarm’ and eradicate these ‘deeds of the flesh ‘once and for all, you can still...surely die. (Rom. 8:13). This is what the walk of faith and salvation is all about. He came to purify our hearts so that we might be ‘perfected in His love’. (1 John 4:12,17). That is the goal or purpose of the commands...’love from a pure heart’. (1 Tim. 1:5). And as long...as you cooperate with your ‘Liberator’, you will have nothing to worry about. (Matt. 24:13)

This...is eternal security, my friends. (Col. 1:21-23). He came to lead us out from the bondage of sin (which is lethal-Rom. 6:23). And you can’t do this on your own. You have...to surrender to His Lordship. (Luke 6:46). So if Jesus says to follow Him, you can rest assure that those ‘undetonated devices’ will not go off and harm you as long as you continue to do what He tells you to do. This is what it means to ‘abide in Him’ and ‘no longer sin’. (1 John 3:6) For the sake of this illustration, think of ‘sinning’ as disobeying Him by doing something foolish that would set one of those bombs off. You know...sort of like: “Go and sin no more or something worse will happen to you”. (John 5:14)

Now maybe Paul’s admonition to ‘working out our salvation with fear and trembling’ (Phil. 2:12) makes more sense now? But IF you are serious about trusting and following Him, which is what His ‘sheep’ do, (John 10:27) then you can walk free from sin while...still having other ‘devices/issues’ that need to come off at the same time. Does that make sense? Because, we don’t even know what is in our hearts. (Jer. 17:9-10). But God does, and that is why He even allows tests to come our way to expose and show us our hearts so we can let Him deal with those other ‘hidden sins of the heart’ as well.

Hence...to say you ‘have no sin’ simply reveals your foolishness and blindness. But that does not mean you will continue to sin during this process of having your ‘land’ cleared.

I know... some of you want to ask this question: “So what if...you do something stupid while you are walking with Jesus and He has not finished removing all those bomby-things I’m talking about, and they ‘blow up’ and we die; we are still ‘saved’, right?”

And once again I will tell you, that we are missing the point when we are more pre-occupied with this question of whether we are ‘saved’ or not, when the far greater question we need to be asking is: Are we abiding in Him? And this, I can tell you: IF...you are abiding in Him, and you ‘stumble’ by sinning, you have an advocate with the Father who is quick and faithful to forgive you. (1 John 2:1) But please make note there that the scripture reads “IF”...you sin, not ‘when’. You will certainly suffer the consequences of that sin, and be chastened by God which can be rather unpleasant and even painful, (Heb. 12:11), but He is not going to let you be destroyed IF...you are committed to loving Him and following Him with all your heart.

In fact, you can be confident in Him that He who began a good work in you will finish it... (Phil. 1:6) provided...you continue to walk with Him. Not everyone opts for that. (John 6:66). Why would you not want to ‘endure till the end’ (Matt. 24:13) unless there is something you are loving more than Him?

Two of the most destructive lies ever passed down to countless church members over multiple generations...is- 1) We cannot be set free from sin ‘on this side of heaven’ and 2) – One can receive all the benefits of ‘accepting Christ as personal savior’ without surrendering to His Lordship. Friends...Lordship is not an option. The ones who will enter the eternal kingdom of God, are not the ones who simply ‘say Lord, Lord’, but those “who do the will of the Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21). His words, not mine.