Opening The Door To God's Mercy Series

F. They are seeing their sin for the lie that it is. They are seeing how deceiving it is.

1. Which is such an accurate description of sin, but especially sexual sin. It deceives us. It makes us think that it will bring life and pleasure and fulfillment.

2. But it never comes through on its promises. Which is why we often find ourselves continuing to chase after it--it never completely satisfies. We need a little bit more.

3. When we finally see our sin for the lying scoundrel that it is, it moves us to experience genuine repentance. Again, we are seeing our sin differently.

4. This seeing, this knowing is so crucially important. Suddenly the facade falls off and reality hits. This sexual sin isn’t bringing me any life. This thing is lying to me.

G. And not only that. It’s destroying me. To repent is to see the destructiveness of our sin. Look at the next verse. Vs 24 "From our youth shameful gods have consumed the fruits of our father’s labor--their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters."

1. Man what a vivid picture of what sexual sin does. It not only deceives. It destroys. It consumes. It consumes marriages, dating relationships. It consumes young people’s innocence and identity. It consumes ministries and joy. It’s like a wildfire burning fields that were ready to bear fruit. Now their toast.

2. Here’s what often happens. I’ve experienced it in my own life and I’ve seen it countless times in the lives of others. Until we get to this third aspect of repentance, many times we don’t repent.

3. Remember the Prodigal son is Luke 15. When does he come to his senses? Not in the midst of his wild partying. No. It happens when he has lost everything and is feeding pigs and realizes they are eating better than he is. At that moment, he comes to his senses.

4. Unfortunately, we don’t usually repent when we are getting away with our sin. When it’s not causing us any discernible pain or difficulty. Our porn habit, our sleeping around--we tuck it away in some closet. Maybe we casually confess it to God but we’re not really seeing our sin the way God does.

5. But what inevitably happens is we can’t keep it contained. It becomes a more dominant force in our dating r’ship or in our life. We find ourselves looking for more opportunities to sneak some peaks at porn or to rent a pay per view adult movie.

H. And then something happens. Our spouse catches us looking at porn and is deeply hurt. Or our employer discovers it and our job is on the line.

1. Or our boyfriend with whom we are sexually involved suddenly breaks up with us--and we are devastated. Or perhaps we find out that our girlfriend is pregnant, or we test positive for AIDS. Or we realize that we can’t stop thinking about pornographic images and wanting to see them more.

2. Suddenly the destruction has begun. You can’t keep sexual sin contained. It consumes. Now in those moments--no matter how dark they are-- we are very receptive to something we hadn’t been very receptive to before--repentance.

3. Suddenly we see the deceitfulness of our sin and the destructiveness of it. We see the devastation of our decisions--and it wakes us up to what is really happening.