Man, the title of my sermon this morning
is doubling down on sin.
Doubling down on sin.
Many people make the mistake of thinking
that when they mess up,
that it's just too late to fix it,
so they kind of just double down on the sin.
An example that easily comes to mind is like,
you blow your diet by eating one cookie or something,
and it's, ah, I'm just gonna eat the whole box or something.
And everybody can relate to that illustration.
After years and years of sobriety,
someone will just take one drink and then just think,
oh, I blew my sobriety.
And then they just kind of just go on a bender and go crazy,
get totally drunk or high or whatever.
Maybe a girl loses her virginity and then just decides,
oh, I lost my virginity.
Might as well just go out and just become totally promiscuous
and just go out and commit all kinds of fornication.
But what we need to realize is that God is merciful.
So do not go all the way off the cliff.
And if you have gone off the cliff,
don't go further off the cliff.
Don't just keep doubling down on sin,
no matter what point you're at.
It's always the right move to turn around,
repent, straighten things out, get right,
get back on track.
And when you're on that downward spiral,
don't just do even more damage
by doubling down on the sin.
The Bible says if we confess our sins,
he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We can straighten up, we can get on the right path,
and God can get us going in the right direction.
I'm gonna give you a bunch of examples of this
from the Bible, some good examples and some bad examples.
The first example that comes to mind
is the story of Samson,
and that's why we read Judges chapter 13 there.
Notice the instructions that are given
to Samson's mother by the angel.
It says in verse four, "Now therefore,
"beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine, nor strong drink,
"and eat not any unclean thing.
"For lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son,
"and no razor shall come on his head,
"for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb,
"and he shall begin to deliver Israel
"out of the hand of the Philistines."
Jump down to verse 13.
"And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah,
"of all that I said unto the woman, let her beware.
"She may not eat of anything that cometh of the vine,
"neither let her drink wine or strong drink,
"nor eat any unclean thing.
"All that I commanded her, let her observe."
And so, as we go through this story,
we see that Samson is a special case,
because usually, a Nazarite vow was something
that people would do temporarily.
It was just a short period of time.
Whereas, he's a special person,
because he's gonna be a Nazarite lifelong,
so from his mother's womb all the way to the day of his death.
And there are pretty much three components to this.
I'm gonna out yell that baby, okay?
I'm just gonna keep getting louder.
But here's the thing, is that there's a component of A,
they're not supposed to drink any wine or strong drink,
but if you go back into the law and read the details,
not only can they not have wine or strong drink,
they can't even eat a grape.
They can't even eat a raisin, right?
So nothing to do with grapes, wine whatsoever.
And then number two, they're not supposed to touch
any unclean thing, which is especially like dead bodies
or other things like that that are unsanitary.
And then number three is that they're not supposed
to cut their hair during that time.
So it's like a short period of time,
they don't touch any grapes, they don't touch any grape juice,
they don't touch any alcohol, they don't touch a dead body,
anything unclean, they don't get a haircut and whatever.
And I'm not gonna spend the whole time on that
'cause it's not really that relevant to this sermon.
But these are the rules that Samson is supposed to live by
life long as a special case.
And so he ends up violating one of these rules
in a big way.
Look at chapter 14, if you would, verse number five,
it says, then went Samson down and his father and his mother
to Timnath and came to the vineyards of Timnath
and behold a young lion roared against him.
And the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him
and he rent him as he would have rent a kid.
And he had nothing in his hand,
but he told not his father or his mother what he had done.
So he basically is attacked by a lion and he grabs this lion
and tears it in half, basically,
like he would have rent a kid, basically like picking up
a goat and just kind of just breaking the thing apart.
He's doing this with a lion, okay?
And he didn't tell his parents about this.
I would have told my parents about this, you know?
I would have told everybody.
It's kind of a cool story.
But anyway, he ends up doing this.
The Lord gave him mighty strength.
And of course, Samson's gonna go on.
He's famous for being this man whom God endows
with superhuman strength over and over again.
So this is not something that ordinarily a human
would be able to do so kids don't try this at home.
But the Lord's spirit came upon him
and he was able to do this.
Rent means tour.
He tore him as he would have torn a goat, a baby goat.
That's what a kid is, right?
And it says he went down and he talked with the woman.
He wants to marry this Philistine woman.
She pleased Samson well.
And after a time, he returned to take her.
And he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion.
So, you know, I don't know if he's wondering,
man, did that really happen?
That was crazy.
He wants to go see the trophy of his handiwork
of destroying this lion.
And so he goes back and looks at it
and it says halfway through the verse,
behold, there was a swarm of bees
and honey in the carcass of the lion.
And he took thereof in his hands and went on eating
and came to his father and mother
and he gave them and they did eat,
but he told them not that he had taken the honey
out of the carcass of the lion.
Now, normally, maybe we would think in the New Testament,
2026, that this isn't really a big deal,
but some of you are probably already thinking
that this is a little gross
and that maybe if mom and dad knew
that the honey came out of a dead body
that had been sitting out in the sun for a long time,
maybe they wouldn't have wanted to eat it.
But that's not even really the significance.
The significance is that they are not supposed to do this.
They're living in the Old Testament
under these laws of cleanliness
and these physical ordinances of don't touch this,
don't eat that, don't do this, don't do that.
And so this is a violation of God's law at that time.
But even more importantly,
this is a big violation of his specific holiness
being set apart as a Nazarite to God lifelong.
He's not supposed to come near any unclean thing.
And you know what, it's one thing to touch a dead body,
it's another thing to use a dead body as your honey pot,
as your container for eating your food,
and then even gives it to his mom and dad,
probably snickering in himself thinking,
ha, if they only knew where this was from.
But you know why he's not telling them where it's from
is because he knows it's forbidden.
He knows it's not allowed, right?
And you should always stop and check yourself
when you're hiding things from your parents, right?
That maybe I'm breaking God's law,
that's why I'm hiding it from my parents.
Now here's the thing about this.
At this point, Samson has violated his vow.
Now at this point, he could have just thrown up his hands
and said, you know what?
I screwed up.
Let's go straight to the barber.
Let's get a haircut.
Let's just break all the rules.
Now that I've broken one, I might as well break them all.
Couldn't that have been his attitude?
But guess what?
After this, he continues to have superhuman strength.
God continues to bless him.
God's spirit still comes mightily upon him.
He doesn't end up losing his strength
until his hair is cut off,
when it's like he's violated possibly all the rules
at that point or something like that.
And the point that I wanna make
is that God will often give us grace and give us mercy.
And so if we goof up one time or we goof up two times,
you know what?
God is sometimes willing to let that go.
And so we don't wanna just despair
and just automatically think,
okay, I've committed one sin, might as well commit them all.
I broke one rule, might as well break all three.
That's stupid, that's foolish.
And Samson did not do that.
And so for two decades, he continues serving God.
Two decades, he's mightily used of God.
20 years of fighting the Lord's battles
after screwing up and messing with his vow.
But then it's in chapter 16,
when Delilah ends up cutting off his hair,
that he loses his strength.
And then his hair grows back, he gets his strength back.
Now look, this is not some kind of magic or voodoo
where he's literally getting his strength from his hair
or something like that.
This is just a symbol of his being set apart to God,
being a special person, being a Nazarite.
And so the touching of the dead body
and eating out of a dead carcass
is just as much of a violation as cutting the hair, okay?
But what it is is that we don't always know
where God's gonna draw the line,
where he's just gonna get sick of us.
Sometimes, and here's the thing,
sometimes, yeah, you will screw up one time
and God will just come down on you like a ton of bricks.
So I don't wanna embolden you to think,
oh, I get a few, you know, get out of jail free cards.
No, a lot of people, they screw up one time
and God comes down like a ton of,
they drink one time and it ends in catastrophe.
They take drugs one time and it's a disaster.
They commit fornication one time and it's a disaster.
But here's the thing, if you've already done it,
you can't go back in a time machine and undo those things.
But at any point, what you can always do is decide,
I'm not gonna go any further.
Whatever damage I've done in the past, I can't change that.
I can't get in a time machine and fix those things.
But what I can do is not go any further
and I can throw myself on the mercies of the Lord.
I can ask God for forgiveness.
I can confess.
I can do right from here on out.
And thank God, he's so merciful, so often.
And his mercies are new every morning.
And so we don't want to think that one screw up
gives us a license to just do everything.
And I'm telling you, I've seen this my entire life.
People doubling down on sin
and throwing good money after bad
instead of just realizing, okay, I messed up,
but you know what, today's a new day.
Let's get back on track.
Here's another example.
Go to Genesis chapter four, the example of Cain and Abel.
This is a really famous story.
Even if you didn't know the Samson story very well,
I'm sure that you know this story well, Cain and Abel.
And Cain offers an offering unto the Lord.
Abel offers an offering unto the Lord.
The colossal difference between these two offerings
is the blood.
You know, the Bible says without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission.
And so when people make an offering unto the Lord,
it's an animal sacrifice.
The blood of the lamb is a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the lamb of God,
which takes away the sin of the world.
Cain brings fruits and vegetables as an offering.
He brings a vegan sacrifice.
No animals were harmed.
And so he offers that to the Lord.
And God doesn't accept that offering.
God will only accept the blood of the lamb.
He'll only accept Abel's offering
of the first things of the flock.
And it says in verse five of chapter four there,
but unto Cain and to his offering, he had not respect.
And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
You know, wroth is already a strong word for anger.
Very wroth?
I mean, Cain is absolutely enraged
at the fact that God won't accept his offering.
And isn't it amazing when people become so angry at God
because God won't get on their program?
Folks, it's our job to get on God's program, okay?
Don't get very wroth because God reigns on your parade
and tells you how it's gonna be in his word.
Or the preacher gets up and uses God's word
and shows you, hey, this is what God said
that you get very wroth.
It's foolish, but Cain gets mad at God
and the Lord is merciful to him.
Now Cain has goofed up, Cain has disobeyed,
he's raging at the Lord, he's in a bad place.
But God is kind unto him.
God is compassionate and merciful and says to him,
why art thou wroth?
And why is thy countenance fallen?
Verse seven, if thou doest well,
shalt thou not be accepted?
Say look, you can still get this thing on track, Cain.
And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.
But he's saying if you do well,
unto thee shall be his desire and thou shalt rule over him.
And Cain talked with Abel his brother
and it came to pass when they were in the field
that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him.
Slew him means he killed him.
To slay someone is to kill.
I guess I don't need to explain that
all the young people, they love that word, slay.
But in verse number nine, it says,
"The Lord said unto Cain, 'Where is Abel thy brother?'
And he said, 'I know not, am I my brother's keeper?'"
Notice, he just doubles down on sin.
Instead of just getting his religion right,
realizing that his stupid Catholic religion
that he was raised with is wrong,
the stupid idolatrous, pagan, Orthodox cult
that he was raised in is wrong,
realizing that the Mormon church is wrong,
realizing that Islam is wrong, Hinduism is wrong,
Buddhism is wrong, atheism is wrong,
instead of just realizing,
hey, I need to straighten up my religion.
What does he do?
He just doubles down on it.
Well, we've just always been Catholic
and I'm just gonna die Catholic
and I'm just gonna keep burning incense
to the queen of heaven.
He doubles down on the sin of false religion.
He doubles down on the sin of work salvation.
He doubles down on that.
And what does it lead him to?
A bigger sin, murder, right?
Going out and murdering someone.
And guess what?
He's not the only person who committed murder
because he made this mistake.
'Cause guess what?
The Roman Catholic Church have murdered a lot of people too.
They don't like being told that their offering is wrong,
that their religion is wrong.
And so the scribes and the Pharisees
murdered the Lord Jesus Christ.
Murdered some of the apostles
and some of the early saints of the church.
Why?
Because they double down on their sin
when they get corrected,
instead of just realizing, okay, we goofed.
And what did the apostle Peter get up and tell them
in Acts chapter two?
He's saying, you guys crucified the Lord of glory.
Chapter three tells him again,
you have taken him with wicked hands and crucified him.
And he said, look, I know you did it out of ignorance.
So therefore repent now.
You goofed, you messed up.
Your leaders are wrong.
You guys are wrong.
Fix it.
And many of them did actually get saved.
But then there are the ones
that just double down on false religion.
And what do they want to do?
Kill Christians.
And all throughout the book of Acts,
they're trying to kill Christians.
They want Paul to be put to death.
They want Peter to be put to death.
They want Stephen dead.
They get what they want in that case.
And so do not double down on sin.
Because when you double down on sin,
you have to keep sinning to keep going down that road.
And then first it's false religion,
then it's murder, and then he has to lie about it.
Hey, where's your brother Abel?
He knew exactly where he is.
He doesn't move anymore.
So wherever he left him, that's where he's at.
Oh, I don't know, man, am I my brother's keeper?
Do not double down on sin.
Here's another example.
King Herod, go if you would to Mark,
chapter number six in the New Testament.
Four gospels right at the beginning of the New Testament,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Look at the gospel of Mark, chapter number six,
and we've got King Herod here,
and here's the thing about King Herod,
is that his brother Philip is married to a woman,
and he wants to be married to that woman,
so he ends up marrying his brother Philip's wife.
So apparently the brother divorces her,
and then he marries her,
and obviously that's not biblical, that's not right,
because the Bible says,
"Whosoever marryeth her that is divorced
commiteth adultery."
The Bible teaches that we should not be
just swapping wives around like that.
Marriages till death do us part,
and so you're supposed to stay married
to your original spouse,
and if your brother is married to a woman,
and then they're not married,
oh well I'm gonna marry her now,
that's off the table.
Well John the Baptist is preaching this truth,
and look what it says in verse 16,
but when Herod heard thereof he said,
it is John who might beheaded,
he's risen from the dead.
So Herod hears about Jesus doing all these miracles,
and preaching all these powerful sermons,
and he's like, John the Baptist has come back
from the dead to haunt me.
Why?
Because when John the Baptist preached against him,
look what it says in verse 17,
for Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John,
and bound him in prison for Herodias' sake,
his brother Philip's wife, for he had married her.
So he had married his brother Philip's wife,
for John had said unto Herod,
it is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife.
Now, the storytelling is all backward here,
it's just a literary style here,
where everything is told in backward order.
So really the sequence of events is,
he married his brother Philip's wife,
then John the Baptist preached against him,
his wife was super offended.
He was offended, but he can take it,
Herod can take it, Herod's a man,
but his wife is super offended
at being called out for adultery.
And so she gets mad, Herod, to make his wife happy,
ends up arresting John, putting him in prison,
and then ultimately the wife gets what she really wants,
which is John's head chopped off, beheaded.
And she actually gets John's head delivered to her
on a silver platter, right, on a charger.
And so here's the thing about that,
is that Herod had killed John the Baptist
and he feels bad about it.
He has a conscience about it.
He didn't even want to do it in the first place.
He's really just doing whatever his wife is manipulating him
to do in both cases, but he feels bad about this.
So as soon as he hears about Jesus,
even though Jesus and John the Baptist are pretty different,
if you think about it, John the Baptist did zero miracles.
Jesus is doing all kinds of miracles.
John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking.
Jesus came eating and drinking.
It's just a totally different style of ministry.
John's out in the wilderness, clothed in camel's hair,
eating locusts and wild honey.
Jesus in the city, sitting down at people's houses
and enjoying nice meals at tables and preaching
and just totally different.
But Herod's just so freaked out
about having killed John the Baptist.
He's like, oh, I knew he'd come back to haunt me.
He's back from the dead and everything.
So he's worried about this.
But this is a classic example
of doubling down on sin, right?
What was the sin?
The sin is he shouldn't have married
his brother Philip's wife.
There's the sin.
But what does he do?
He doubles down by arresting John the Baptist.
He doubles down again by beheading John the Baptist, right?
And then he doubles down again
by ultimately making fun of Jesus,
commanding for Jesus to be beaten and mocked
and spat on in his presence.
That's gonna happen at the end.
So King Herod just goes down a really dark path
and, you know, spoiler alert,
he's burning in hell right now.
Why?
'Cause he just doubled down on sin.
Instead of, you know, the preacher preached
and said, hey, it's not legal.
It's not lawful.
It's not biblical.
It's not right for you to marry your brother Philip's wife.
You know, he should have just said, you know what?
I'm sorry.
I goofed up.
It was wrong and just admitted it's wrong and just went on with his life.
He just said, Hey, I'm sorry.
I shouldn't have done that.
It was wrong.
But instead we got to silence the preacher, right?
Put him in prison.
Let his wife wear the pants in the family and manipulate him into doing these wrong
things.
Here's another example of this.
This will be the last.
Actually, I got to, yeah, I'm almost done, but go to second Samuel 11.
I'm almost done with the examples that is second Samuel chapter 11.
Here's another example is David, you know, doubling down on sin.
He commits one sin and instead of just checking himself and saying, okay, I don't want to
go down further this road.
He just keeps getting worse with it.
Look at verse number two of second Samuel 11.
It came to pass in an evening tide that David arose from off his bed and walked upon the
roof of the king's house and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself and the woman
was very beautiful to look upon.
Now look, what's the right thing to do in this situation?
You get up in the middle of the night, you're up on the roof, you look through a window
and you see a woman taking a shower, you see her nakedness, she's very beautiful.
What do you do at that point?
You know, what you're supposed to do is say, "Oh, shouldn't have seen that, I better get
out of here."
You know, instead of just becoming a peeping Tom and just being up there and just indulging
in that, right?
You walk away.
You say, "Oh, I screwed up, shouldn't have seen that," but instead he lingers.
He indulges that, right?
So that's the next sin or the first sin really on this downward spiral because sometimes
we can't really prevent what we accidentally see.
You know, we can give the benefit of that, "Hey, it's an accident."
He's not just looking for, "Hey, you know, is there any window I can look through or
something like that?"
Sometimes, you know, sin just comes to us.
Unfortunately, we live in a world of temptation where we're just going about our lives, just
living our lives, trying to do the right thing.
And then something pops on the screen out of nowhere or some billboard or some magazine
or some person, you know, confronts us with something and offers us something.
I mean, look, when we were kids, especially, we dealt with this at school with people offering
us maybe alcohol or drugs or pornography or whatever.
And you know, these things will sometimes come at you and you're not ready for them.
You're just going about your business and sin comes at you.
You're offered sin, some girl throws herself at you young man and just hops into your lap
or whatever.
That happens.
Okay.
It's just the world that we live in and you got to be prepared for that and you got to
flee fornication.
You got to run screaming in the other direction from these things because sometimes it's not
you going out and seeking the temptation, but the temptation just comes at you.
You know, and so when that happens though, you've got to get away, but instead he indulges
in that.
The next step is that he involves other people in his sin and of course we kind of see that
as a theme.
Samson involves his parents in his sin of eating the unclean food.
Okay.
People, it's like misery loves company.
When Eve sinned with the forbidden fruit, right, what's the first thing she does?
She gets Adam involved as well, gets him to eat the forbidden fruit as well.
But it says here in second Samuel 11 verse three, it says David sent and inquired after
the woman, right?
So now he's Googling her, you know, instead of just, oh, he saw her.
He thought a bad thought.
He looked for too long.
He lusted in his heart after his neighbor's wife and so forth.
Then he goes on to, you know, start researching and talking to other people and he asks about
her.
And one said, is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?
So you can see the premeditation here of looking at her, checking her out, then he's asking
around, and then he makes the decision to actually send them to go get her.
Verse four, David sent messengers and took her.
I mean, he's involving other people in this.
So now they're participating in his sin.
Oh, go get this other guy's wife and bring her to me.
What the?
That's terrible, right?
One said, is not this Bathsheba, David sent messengers, verse four, and took her and she
came in unto him and he lay with her for she was purified from her uncleanness and she
returned unto her house and the woman conceived and sent untold David and said, I'm with child.
So again, sometimes one sin can have catastrophic consequences.
As I said earlier in the sermon, you know, one drink, one, you know, hit from that drug,
one time fornication, one, I mean, he commits adultery seemingly one time and she's pregnant.
You know, this is a bad situation.
But at this point he should realize, wow, I screwed up.
This is really bad.
But he decides to try to cover up his sin.
And you know, his plan seems like it's going to work.
Bring Uriah home because Uriah is out of town, her husband's out of town.
Bring him home and get him to be with his wife and then he can pass the kid off as Uriah's
kid because, you know, the kid's conceived around this time when Uriah is out of town
for months.
It's going to be obvious that this is the product of adultery.
So therefore in order to cover this in, he says, well, let's just get Uriah back here
and get him to sleep with his wife and then Uriah will think it's his kid, you know, and
so you can see that he's trying to cover this up and try to cover his tracks.
But here's the thing, it's almost comical reading about Uriah's unwillingness to come
home or go home and it seems crazy.
I don't know about you, when I'm reading the story I'm like, what's wrong with you Uriah?
What are you doing?
Like what kind of a dude are you?
Because he just won't go home.
And then he's like, okay, I'm going to get Uriah drunk.
I'm going to get Uriah so drunk since he doesn't want to go home and be with his wife.
I'm going to get him super drunk and then just kind of send him home and hopefully the
alcohol will kind of just, you know, speed things along here.
And of course he gets him super drunk and he still won't go home.
He still won't be with his wife at this point.
And like I said, it's almost comical.
It's almost bizarre how he can't get Uriah to go home even though he's telling him to
do that.
But you know what's going on there is that's God at work saying, no, I'm not going to let
you cover this up.
That's what that is.
It's not just a coincidence that Uriah just happens to just, you know, be willing to skip
that.
What it is is this is God's hand at work saying, I'm not going to let you off that easy.
You're not going to get away with this.
I mean, if David were smart, he would have realized like, okay, you know what?
God wants me to get caught, right?
Wouldn't that be the logical conclusion?
If you're trying to cover your tracks and it's just totally not working, wouldn't you
just realize, you know what, apparently it's God's will that I get caught here.
And at that point, come clean, just confess, just realize you can't fight against God.
God is obviously angry at what I did and I've got to face the music and so I'm going to
have to confess to this and beg for mercy and get things right.
But is that what he does?
No.
Instead, because I think this is a key moment here, he should have realized covering it
up is not working, God wants me to face the music for this, I got to confess this.
But instead, what does he do?
He doubles down and he says, no, I'm going to cover this up all right.
And so he ends up murdering Uriah.
Look at verse 14, it came to pass in the morning that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent
it by the hand of Uriah.
And he wrote in the letter saying, set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle
and retire ye from him that he may be smitten and die.
So put him in the most dangerous spot and then everybody retreats.
And it's just Uriah versus everybody.
So Joab puts him in a very dangerous area.
He ends up being killed.
Look at how God interprets this in chapter 12 verse 9 when God sends the prophet to
rebuke David.
It says in verse 9, "Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in
his sight?
Thou has killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword and has taken his wife to be thy wife
and has slain him with the sword of Ammon."
God calls David a murderer and God says you killed Uriah even though you used someone
else to do it, you murdered Uriah.
Someone else did your dirty work but it was you who killed Uriah.
And of course at this point finally David realizes okay I need to repent, I need to
get right with God and thankfully he is able to get right with God.
He is able to continue his service for God.
He ends up facing severe consequences but here's the thing, imagine an alternate universe
where David stops at some point in this process.
Maybe he stops at just looking.
Maybe he just does zero sin, don't want to look at that and goes in.
Or maybe he even sits there and indulges and looks but then he just you know, I'm done
with this.
Or maybe at the point when he sends to inquire and they say this is Uriah the Hittite's wife
and he's like Uriah the Hittite is one of my best warriors.
She's married, she's not even single.
At that point he could say you know what, I'm done here.
I'm going to go be with my lawfully wedded wife and I'm not going to sit here and pursue
another man's wife, right?
I mean think about the heartache that could have been prevented if he would have stopped
at that point.
But then no, no, no.
He's going to go to the next step of actually committing full blown adultery.
And now he's way off the cliff at that point.
This is a horrible sin.
It got the death penalty in biblical times in the Mosaic law.
And so then after he does that, you know, what if he at least would have acknowledged
it and admitted it and confessed it, but no, then he goes a step further and murders Uriah.
And it just keeps getting worse and he's just digging himself in deeper.
And you could see all these points where he could have bailed, but nope, he just goes
further and further.
But he probably felt like, well, now that I've committed adultery, I got to keep going.
Might as well murder.
And look, obviously the adultery was super wicked, but adding murder, I mean, you've
pretty much doubled it now.
You've doubled the judgment that's going to come down on you.
And you know what?
It's not like David was a horrible person going in because here's what I think is so
interesting about verse 9 that you just looked at there in chapter 12, "Wherefore hast thou
despised the commandment of the Lord?"
This is the guy who's known for loving the law of the Lord.
How many times does he say under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost in the book of Psalms, "Oh
how love I thy law, it's my meditation night and day."
His delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law that he meditated day and night.
Just over and over again, just love the law, love the commandments, love the statutes,
love it.
It's sweeter than honey.
How many times?
If anybody loved the Bible, if anybody loved the rules,
if anybody loved the commandments,
if anybody loved the law of God,
in the whole Bible, it's David.
And you know how I know he's telling the truth
is 'cause he's writing under the inspiration
of the Holy Ghost.
It's in the Bible, it's the book of Psalms.
And yet, the man who loves the Bible so much
gets to a point where God says,
you know what, you despise the commandment of the Lord.
You have no respect for God's commandment.
You don't give it its proper due.
You don't love it, you don't respect it.
You've killed Uriah, the Hittite,
after committing adultery.
Because he thought, well, if I just kill him
and then I'll marry the girl,
and then people won't realize, you know,
a one month discrepancy, you know,
we can hide it and whatever.
Of course it didn't work.
He ends up getting exposed anyway.
But doubling down on sin is something
that people tend to do, you know,
and they just keep going further down that road.
Look at John chapter eight in the New Testament.
John chapter eight, we got Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Look at John chapter eight.
This is the famous story about the woman taken in adultery.
John chapter eight verses one through 11.
And in verse 11, at the very end of this famous story,
it says in verse 11 of John eight,
she said, "No, man, Lord."
And Jesus said unto her, watch this,
"Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more."
So here's the thing.
Here's a woman who committed adultery.
Again, full-blood adultery, horrible sin, awful sin.
But you know what?
Jesus gives her mercy and says,
"Go thy way and sin no more.
"Neither do I condemn thee, sin no more."
So what's the point here?
Don't double down on the sin.
Don't think, "Oh, I already committed adultery.
"I'm gonna go commit adultery again."
No, no, no, sin no more.
Don't keep going down that road.
Here's something similar.
A couple pages back, if you go to John chapter five,
look what Jesus tells this guy that he heals
in verse 14 of John five.
Afterward, Jesus findeth him in the temple
and said unto him, "Behold thou art made whole."
Watch this, don't miss this.
This is probably the keyist scripture this morning.
Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.
Do not miss that phrase.
If you get one thing from the sermon,
remember that when you sin, don't sin more,
because if you sin more, something even worse will happen.
See, there's always consequences for sin.
There's consequences for the first drunken episode,
consequence for the first hit of the marijuana joint,
consequences for the first time of fornication or adultery.
Don't ever do these things even once.
If you do them once, something bad will happen.
But here's what he says, "Sin no more,
lest a worse thing come unto thee."
He's saying, look, but if you double down,
you're doubling the punishment.
You double the judgment.
So he's saying, look, don't sin more
because then something even worse will happen to you.
None of us can control our past, right?
We've all screwed up in the past.
We've all come short of the glory of God.
We've all made mistakes.
We've all goofed up.
But here's the thing, you know,
we've goofed up to varying degrees.
You know, some people have only goofed up very minorly
in their lives.
Maybe they grew up in a Christian home,
lived a pretty straight-laced life,
and their mistakes and foibles have been smaller.
Other people's mistakes have been larger,
and they have gone out and gone all the way off the cliff
and been out drinking, partying, drugs,
fornication, adultery, you know, you name it.
Maybe even, you know, criminality of robbery
and maybe even murder or something terrible like that.
But here's the thing about that,
is that no matter what level or degree
you've gone down those dark paths in your life,
whatever it is that you have done or haven't done,
don't sin more because something worse will happen to you
if you sin more.
Even if you've already done a really bad thing,
don't do something else bad or it's gonna be even worse.
And if you've only sinned a little bit,
well, let's keep it that way.
Don't double down on sin.
Last place we're gonna turn, Revelation chapter three.
Revelation chapter three.
But this is the mentality, unfortunately,
that people have of doubling down.
Well, God's already mad at me.
So I just throw up my hands and quit and just give up.
Well, I guess I'm just a terrible person.
I guess I'm just a bad person.
I guess I'm just rebellious.
This is what people think.
Well, my parents already have it in for me.
So, you know, might as well just act how I want,
do what I want.
My parents are mad anyway, you know?
Nothing's ever good enough for my husband.
I can never please my husband anyway.
So I might as well just quit trying
'cause nothing's ever good enough.
Isn't this the attitude people get all the time?
Well, this is just how I am or I messed up
and I don't care who you are.
I don't care what you've done.
I don't care what downward spiral you're on.
The right answer is always to turn it around, you know?
And hope that it's not too late.
And you'll realize that God is often merciful
and he's got plans for you
and he's got things that he can bring into your life
that'll be good for you down the road.
But sin no more unless a worse thing come upon you.
Look, no one's ever gonna be perfect.
I don't think Jesus Christ is saying,
hey, just, you know, you just never sin again.
Don't ever sin again.
I mean, look, everybody is gonna make mistakes.
And we often say this.
I say this when I'm outshoning people all the time.
I say to people, I probably sin every day.
Why?
Because the Bible says the thought of foolishness is sin.
Even just thinking something stupid is a sin.
How about this?
To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not,
to him it is sin.
So we're all going to sin.
But you know what?
We're not all gonna go out and commit fornication.
We're not all gonna commit adultery.
We're not all gonna get drunk.
We're not all gonna take drugs.
We're not, no.
Everybody's not doing that stuff.
Everybody's not going to do that stuff.
The majority of husbands in America, saved or unsaved,
the majority of husbands are not ever
going to cheat on their wife ever.
Look at the statistics.
The majority of wives will never cheat on their husband.
So here's the thing.
We all sin.
But here's the problem.
The problem is that when you do goof up in a small way,
because even if some of us are not going to goof up in a massive way,
aren't we all going to goof up in small ways all the time, every day,
not doing something we should do, thinking a stupid thought,
saying something stupid, right?
Looking at something that we shouldn't look at.
I don't think that there is a man in this room
that has not taken that second, third, fourth look
that they shouldn't have taken.
Oh, Pastor Anderson, how dare you say that, you know?
Now we know something about you.
That tells you nothing about me, because guess what?
Every single man, I'm just being honest about it,
every single man is gonna be out and about
and take that second look, third look, fourth look.
It's just the reality that that is,
and I'm not saying it's right,
and I'm not saying everybody's doing it all the time,
but I'm saying virtually every man in this room
is gonna make that mistake from time to time.
I got like three amens,
but everybody in their heart's saying amen.
Okay, you don't wanna say amen too loud
'cause your wife's gonna be like, what the heck?
You know, like (laughs)
but the bottom line is,
it's just nobody's perfect in this area.
I don't know, maybe you're the exception.
You're Mr. Perfect.
But in my opinion, like,
I think this is something that every man struggles with,
their eyes.
That's what I think.
I think that every single man is.
I mean, I remember talking to a missionary
and he was talking about,
I don't even know if I should tell this story,
but he was just, you know,
he was mentioning that, you know,
that he had a mentally disabled guy in his church
and he caught him checking out this babe
and looking, and he's just like, dang, even this guy,
who he thought is like too, like mentally disabled
to even be thinking about that stuff.
And he just, he said he looked at this mentally disabled guy
and just said, dang, everybody is struggling with this.
Guess what the Bible says, my friend,
there is no temptation taking you,
but such as is common to man.
You know, this is something that men struggle with, right?
They struggle with looking at things
that they shouldn't look at,
looking at scantily clad women, you know what?
And sometimes we're just going about our lives
and it's just right there in our face.
And you know what?
We're not always going to just right away
have the perfect reaction that we should have.
But let me tell you the difference
between the people that go all the way off the cliff
and the people who don't.
Because you know what?
Everybody's gonna sin and come short of the glory of God.
Everybody's gonna make little mistakes.
But here's the thing, when you make the little mistake,
here's what you do.
You check yourself before you wreck yourself, okay?
I just made that up right now.
It's kind of catchy.
That's original with me.
You can quote me on that, okay?
You check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Maybe somebody will make, I don't know,
something out of that.
But the point is that the stupid thing to do is say,
oh, well, you know what?
Now that I looked, I might as well go to the next level.
You're an idiot.
Look, you looked, you made a mistake.
I mean, picture David again.
David's up on the roof.
He looks, he screws up, he makes a mistake.
Okay.
But look, I guarantee you that if David would have just after like, let's say 30 seconds,
30 seconds of doing wrong and sinning and looking at this other man's wife and committing
that sin of lusting after his heart.
If he would have after 30 seconds slapped himself in the face that, "Oh, I'm an idiot.
Stop."
And just went inside.
We wouldn't be reading the tragedy that we're reading right now.
It probably wouldn't even make it into the Bible.
Agreed?
Okay.
The idea is, it's just, it's taking that next step and taking that next step and taking
that next step.
And look, I'm not condoning any sin.
All sin is unrighteous.
All sin is wrong.
But what I'm saying is, inevitably, you will sin.
I will sin.
But let it stop small.
Don't double down and say, "Oh, well, you know what?"
And look, you know, and I hate to even bring up these things because they're so unwholesome.
But this is preaching that we need in our day and age.
And it keeps being proven over and over again that we need this preaching, unfortunately.
But here's the thing, don't just think to yourself, "Oh, well, you know, I looked at
these babes online, well, I might as well just start chatting with them."
What the heck?
That's a big jump there.
That's a huge, I mean, that's a leap here.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
It's like, "Oh, well, you know, I already, oh, I'm, you know, I'm so wicked.
I already looked at this crap, you know, I wish I hadn't looked at it.
But now that I did, well, you know, I might as well start chatting, might as well start
communicating with these whores.
What, what in the, are you insane?
If you're a married man and you are communicating with sleazy women online, you need to get
right with God.
That is super wicked.
You are way over the line and you are on a bobsled into the worst kind of sin.
You need to get out of that.
That is wow.
And then, or how about this?
Oh, well, you know, I'm looking at these pictures anyway, might as well physically
go down there and go down to the gentleman's club and check it out in person.
Well, I'm already here.
It's super sinful.
God doesn't approve of me being here in the first place.
Might as well move on to the whatever the next step is.
You know, I don't want to say it, you know, but just whatever, you know, tactile thing
there is to offer at that environment.
I've never been there.
Thank God.
So I don't know.
But I'm telling you something.
None of it's right.
It's all wrong.
It's all wicked.
I'm telling you something, nip it in the bud while it's small, right?
And I'm not saying, hey, just stay parked at the small sin.
No, no, no.
Get rid of the small sin because the small sin, inevitably, if you keep feeding it and
fostering it will lead to the bigger sin, ultimately.
You know, you got to, but you got to nip it in the bud.
But don't ever think, well, I'm at level one.
What's the difference if I go to level two?
Oh, I don't know.
Twice as much punishment from God.
Twice as much judgment.
Twice as much harm to your loved ones.
Twice as much pain and suffering that you cause other people.
When you go from level two to level three.
Level three to level four.
Level four to level five.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
Look, it's insanity to think, well, I've already done this, so heck, I might as well
just do the next thing.
These things are...
And look, don't let these bozos lie to you and tell you, well, all sins equal.
You know why that's such a dangerous doctrine is because of what I'm talking about right
now.
Well, all sins equal.
But if you're going to look at them, you might as well talk to them.
If you're going to look at them, you might as well chat with them.
If you're going to chat with them, you might as well touch them.
If you're going to touch them, you might...
It's like, "Wah!"
Crazy!
And this is the downward spiral that people are on today that men all over America are
on, unfortunately.
And you know what?
You've got to stop it when it's small.
Deal with it when it's small.
Fix it when it's small.
And don't just double down on sin.
Well, I guess I'm just a bad Christian.
You know, this is how people think, right?
I've done this sin.
I must be a bad Christian.
I guess I'm just, you know, I'm just, I just am terrible.
And then, so I'm going to go act terrible.
No, fix it.
Don't despair.
Don't give up.
Don't throw in the towel.
Keep fighting temptation.
Keep struggling to do what's right, okay?
Every day is a battle.
I mean, don't we wake up every morning and the Bible says we have to daily deny self
and take up the cross and follow Jesus?
If our self didn't want anything bad, then why do we have to deny self daily?
If self doesn't want to do and say and indulge in stupid things?
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
And let me just tell you something.
You know what?
If you are a married man and you are chatting with babes online, you are way over the line,
way over the line.
You are going to do horrible damage to your marriage, to your family.
You got to stop immediately.
And you know, if you're looking at crap online that you shouldn't be looking at, stop that
too.
Get under control, okay?
And look, obviously the relationship with your wife takes work, put in the work, okay?
Figure it out.
You know, you got to deny self.
But I'm telling you, if you get to these levels where you're going to these places and you're,
you know, you're, it's just wow.
Anyway, I don't want to spend any more time on that.
Last thing I want to do here is just Revelation chapter three quickly in the last remaining
moments.
It says in verse 15, "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.
I would thou work cold or hot, so then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot,
I will spew thee out of my mouth, because thou sayest I'm rich and increased with goods
and have need of nothing.
And knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked."
Now look, it sounds like these people are in a really bad place spiritually, doesn't
it?
I mean, I would hate for the Lord Jesus Christ to look down from heaven on me and say, "Wow,
Pastor Anderson, you are just wretched, miserable, poor and blind and naked spiritually."
I mean, that sounds horrible, doesn't it?
Would you like God to look down at you and say, "Wow, that's how I see you."
These people are in a bad, bad place.
God says, "I'm disgusted with you.
I want to spit you out of my mouth."
But he says in verse 18, "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou
mayest be rich and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed and that the shame of thy
nakedness do not appear and anoint thine eyes with eyes salve that thou mayest see."
Notice, it's a checklist of what to fix.
You know, when the pastor gets up and says, "You're wicked, you're way over the line,
you need to get right with God, you're involved in grievous sin, you know what, why don't
you take it home as a checklist of things to fix instead of just saying like, 'Oh, how
dare you?
Oh, it's terrible.'"
Look, even though these people are way over the line and have serious problems, what does
God say?
"Fix one thing at a time.
I counsel thee to buy of me gold, triad in the fire that thou mayest be rich, white raiment
that thou mayest be clothed and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear and anoint
thine eyes with ice to have that thou mayest see."
Obviously this is all metaphorical and symbolic language.
He's not talking literally, "Hey, go buy some Visine or something."
That's not really what they need.
But the idea here is that God is saying, "You have these listed serious spiritual problems,
so work down the checklist and fix them."
Oh, it's just too much.
Five severe problems.
Fix all five.
Fix them one at a time.
You say, "Oh man, my life is so messed up.
I got the substance abuse problem.
I've got the marriage problem.
I've got the financial problem."
You know what?
You fix it.
You just work down the list and you keep going.
And you know what?
It seems like Christ really wants to help these people out.
He says, "What I want to do is I want to spit you out."
But does he spit them out ultimately?
No, because he says, "I want to.
I will spew you out of my mouth.
That's what I want to do."
But what does he actually say?
He says, "No, no, no.
Let me give you advice.
I counsel thee to fix A, B, and C, and D."
Do you see what I'm saying?
Is Jesus throwing these people in the trash?
He's not throwing them.
And it's so funny to hear sometimes this passage preached as if Jesus is throwing these people
in the trash.
I don't see him throwing anybody in the trash.
I see him saying, "Here, let me give you some advice, idiot.
Fix A, B, C, and D."
And then look what he says next, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.
Be zealous, therefore, and repent."
He's saying, "I love you.
Yeah, I want to spit you out of my mouth.
Yeah, you're making me mad.
Yeah, you're cheesing me off.
But you know what?
I love you.
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.
Be zealous, therefore, and repent.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock."
Does this sound like they're being thrown in the trash?
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him."
And he says, "Hey, fix it.
Let's have fellowship.
Let's get along.
I love you.
I'm rebuking you and punishing you because I love you.
Get your crap together."
And you know what?
When your parents are telling you to get your crap together, get it together.
"Oh, the parents, oh, they just hate me.
Nothing I do is ever good enough."
You know what?
I've been there.
I've been a teenager, and I'm ashamed to say this, but yeah, I was a dumb teenager too.
And when I was a dumb teenager, you know what?
I said, "It's impossible to please my dad."
That's what I said.
I remember telling that to my brother.
I remember saying to my brother, "Our dad's impossible to please."
I said, "If Jesus lived in this house, he'd get yelled at every day."
That's what I said.
It was a stupid thing to say.
It was a blasphemous thing to say.
It was a wrong thing to say, but that's what I said.
And I just thought, "Oh, my parents are impossible to please.
They're super unreasonable."
But you know what's funny?
Is that as soon as I got into a good church and started listening to the preaching of
God's word at Regency Baptist Church, which is still around by the way, still soul winning,
still preaching the gospel, still a good place.
But I started going to Regency Baptist Church and heard the preaching, got right with God,
and you know what?
I changed my behavior and immediately, immediately my parents were no longer lecturing me, yelling
at me, mad at me.
My parents were just like, "Steven, is there anything we can do for you?"
I'm not even joking.
I remember my parents just being so happy and so thankful that I had, you know, changed
my attitude and that I was helping around the house, and like I remember one time they
just caught me doing the dishes.
They're just like, "What are you doing?"
And I said, "Well, you know, I said I'm working at Round Table Pizza and I do the dishes
at work and I'll do the dishes for hours.
Why would it be hard for me to just come home and spend another 15 minutes doing dishes
if I did them for hours at work for other people?
I want to help you out, mom."
And they're just like, "What the heck?
They didn't even know what's going on."
And they're just like, "Hey, is there anything we can do for you?"
And that's the same people that I said, "Oh, just can't please them.
Nothing makes them happy.
Nothing's good enough."
You know, this whole thing of, "Nothing pleases my husband.
Nothing pleases my mom and dad.
Nothing pleases the boss at work."
You know, that's what people say who just don't want to take responsibility and fix
their own problems.
Because you know what?
I believed that and I was wrong and as soon as I fixed my behavior, my parents attitude
toward me was night and day and I've had a great relationship with my parents ever since.
I have a great relationship with both my parents right now.
I love my parents and I'm super thankful and every year that goes by, I'm more thankful
and I'm more appreciative thinking back to the sacrifices that they made.
But as a teenager, that's not what I was looking at.
I was just obsessed with myself like teenagers are.
I'm not thinking about what my dad's going through, not thinking about what my mom's
going through.
I'm just thinking about what I'm going through.
When in reality, my parents are living a difficult life and they're having issues and they're
struggling.
But I'm just me, me, me because that's how a child is.
But you know what?
When I became a man, I put away childish things.
And you teenagers need to grow up, you young adults need to grow up and realize that life's
a little more complicated than you think and pleasing your parents is possible.
Pleasing your job is possible.
Pleasing your husband is possible.
You just don't want to do it.
That's the true story.
And you know, I love this passage because I love the fact that Christ just basically
rips them a new one in verse 17, but then he turns around and says, fix, fix it one
at a time.
Fix this, fix this, fix this.
I love you.
That's why I'm punishing you.
That's why I'm lecturing you.
I'm at the door.
I want to be your buddy.
I want to dine with you.
I mean, folks, don't double down on sin, answer the door, let Christ, you know, fix your problem.
And by the way, it's not a salvation passage.
People are already saved.
This is not a salvation passage.
This is about fellowship.
He says, if you open the door, he'll come in to you, not into you.
This is not into INTO.
This is in space too.
He's going to come in.
He's going to fellowship with you.
He's going to hang out with you.
You know, you say, "Oh, I want to have a good relationship with my spouse.
I want to have a good relationship with my parents.
I want to have a good relationship with this person."
You know, then fix it.
Fix your problems.
And you know, that little sin in your life, you know, work on it when it's small and nip
it in the bud when it's small and before it spirals.
And don't ever think, "Well, might as well just go all the way to the big sin."
You're stupid because you know what?
I'm not telling you to eat honey out of the lion's carcass, but if you're going to eat
honey out of the lion's carcass, at least don't get the haircut.
You know what I'm saying?
You got to draw the line in your life.
And then, you know, as you grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ, you can, you know, keep raising that standard in your life.
But for now, maybe some of you are newly saved or just getting back in church or something.
You know, maybe for you, it's just like scaling back sin that needs to happen.
You know, and at least you say, "Oh, what's the point, man?
I might as well..."
No.
Scale it back.
You know, when somebody says to me, "Hey, you know, I quit taking the drugs, now I'm
just smoking cigarettes," I'm not thinking to myself, "Yo, you're wicked, you're smoking
cigarettes."
I'm thinking like, "Great.
Now you went from smoking dope, smoking crack, to smoking cigarettes.
You know, now let's get you, you know, off the cigarettes eventually, obviously.
Yeah, okay.
But you know what?
I'd rather see somebody smoking a cigarette than smoking crack.
Amen?
Or is this all equal?
Just, "Oh, I smoked a cigarette, might as well shoot up heroin."
Stupid.
"Oh, broke my sobriety, drank a beer.
All right, time to snort some cocaine."
No.
All right, I've said enough.
Let's buy ourselves another word of prayer.
Father, thank you so much for your word.
Help us not to double down on sin, Lord.
Help us to keep these things contained and work on them when they're small and keep trying
to grow and get better as Christians, Lord.
Bless us as we go our separate ways.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.