It is imperative that men speak the truth, for “he that speaketh the truth sheweth forth righteousness,” and his lip “shall be established for ever.”
God knows everything, but this does not eliminate man’s responsibility to confess his sins. Failure to do so forfeits God’s practical forgiveness.
There are two categories of sin: sins against God and sins against man. By default, every sin is against God. Yet, not all sin is against man.
Conviction testifies of guilt and transgression. It testifies that God is just while man is vile. It testifies to the gap of righteousness that exists between the two. If men were righteous apart from the Lord’s help, the Lord would never need to convince men that they are transgressors of His law. When men violate or transgress the law of God, the Spirit of God uses that law to convince those guilty that they are wrong and need to make things right with the Lord. The very presence of conviction confirms man’s guilt. It cries out that I am wrong and God is right. Perhaps this explains why in these last days, fewer seem interested in experiencing the convicting work of the Spirit of God.
The Bible says that pleasure-seeking breeds poverty. The more men require amusement and seek pleasure, the more they are willing to carelessly spend to have both. Proverbs 21:17 says, “He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man.” Proverbs 29:3 speaks of the desire for evil pleasure when it says, “he that keepeth company with harlots spendeth his substance.” The prodigal son, who left home with his inheritance, offers one of the most well-known cases. The Bible says of him that he “wasted his substance with riotous living” (Luke 15:13). All pleasure is not sinful, but all pleasure can become costly and sinful when not properly balanced with the right level of wisdom and discretion. There are other pleasures which are directly sinful and should be completely avoided.
When men follow after vanity, they themselves become vain. An individual must make a conscious decision to turn from walking after the Lord to pursue vanity (Jeremiah 2:5). Those who follow after vanity are void of understanding (Proverbs 12:11) and end up in poverty (Proverbs 28:19), sometimes both spiritually and physically. David expressed his concern in this area when he said, “I have not sat with vain persons” (Psalm 26:4). He knew the danger of following vanity and declared that he refused even to sit with vain persons. In Psalm 119:37, the penman pleaded with the Lord for help in turning away his eyes from beholding vanity. God desires and wills for the saints of God to cease from following after vanity.
Life is a journey. Oftentimes, people spend far too much time and strength traveling in the wrong direction. To some degree, this is the psalmist’s testimony. In Psalm 119:59, he says, “I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.” At some point, the psalmist examined his “ways.” In doing so, he found that he was heading in a direction contrary to the will of God. Upon his consideration, he determined to turn his feet unto the Lord’s testimonies. Had he never taken the time to think upon his ways, he would never have repented and turned in the right direction. This truth is confirmed in Lamentations 3:40 where the Bible says, “Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.” The Bible frequently warns man not to be deceived.
The Bible clearly teaches that no believer is sinless. As such, each believer experiences times when he is rebuked of the Lord. It is a natural part of the Christian life. At the same time, there will be circumstances which will bring about rebuke from other believers (Ecclesiastes 7:5). These are healthy elements of Christian growth. Yet, the goal of every believer should be one where he lives a life beyond rebuke. Paul’s desire for the Philippian believers was that they “may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation” (Philippians 2:15). He then admonished Timothy to keep God’s commandment “without spot” and “unrebukeable” (1 Timothy 6:14).
A slothful man hunts and even makes a kill but considers it too much work to prepare and roast that which he killed. He would rather see the meat go to waste than to put forth the effort necessary to preserve the food. However, a diligent man considers his substance to be precious. He has no desire to see something go to waste. Interestingly enough, the Lord Jesus made a point along these lines at the feeding of the five thousand. After He fed the multitude, the Lord Jesus told the disciples to “Gather up the fragments that remain[ed], that nothing be lost” (John 6:12). It was important to the Lord that His followers made full use of the substance given to them of the Father. Nothing was to go to waste. A diligent man considers every part to be precious, even those things the world would allow to spoil.
Before leaving home, the prodigal son asked his father for all of his inheritance. He left town with everything that would have been his upon his father’s death. Certainly his father had hoped that he would make wise decisions in the use of this money. Yet, the Bible says that the prodigal “wasted his substance with riotous living” (Luke 15:13). The next verse further confirms the extent of his waste by saying that “he . . . spent all” (Luke 15:14). The prodigal son asked for his inheritance and then compounded his problem by refusing to wisely spend that inheritance. No doubt when he found himself in that pigpen, he reflected on the fact that he could not offer an accounting for his loss. The substance his father had tirelessly laboured to obtain was squandered because of a foolish son’s lust for living unruly.
