Study – How To Deal With Dark Sin

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Short Summary
The study explores the concept of “dark sin,” defined as secret sins rooted in the heart and mind that cause shame and isolation, emphasizing that sin originates internally and affects all individuals. It highlights God’s abundant mercy and forgiveness, encouraging believers to move beyond guilt by trusting in divine grace, while also stressing the importance of addressing sin with compassion, humility, and a restorative spirit within the community. Practical steps for personal deliverance and supporting others include confession, gentleness, and creating safe environments for sharing struggles, recognizing that overcoming sin is a continual process requiring both divine help and mutual encouragement.

Long Summary
Detailed Summary of the Bible Study on Dark Sin, Its Impact, and Restoration

Introduction and Setting the Stage
– The study focuses on “dark sin,” defined as sin hidden in the heart or mind, shameful and isolating because it is unseen by others but fully known by God.
– Emphasis on the universal struggle with sin since the fall of Adam and Eve, and the continuous internal battle believers face.
– The goal is to explore scriptural insights on recognizing, addressing, and overcoming dark sin in ourselves and others.

Defining Dark Sin and Its Source
– Dark sin involves internal thoughts, desires, and secret actions that cause shame and isolation.
– Scriptures emphasizing the heart as the source of sin:
– Proverbs 4:23: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
– Matthew 15:18-19: “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart… out of the heart come evil thoughts…”
– Matthew 5:27-28: Jesus teaches that lustful thoughts are equivalent to adultery in the heart.
– The Bible Project analogy: sin begins as a stream in the mind, flowing into actions; the root must be addressed early.
– James 1:14-15 describes sin’s progression from temptation to death.
– Sin is universal and originates in the heart; it is not limited to outward acts but includes inner desires.

The Universality and Impact of Sin
– Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
– Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.”
– Galatians 5:19-21 lists acts of sinful nature and warns those who live thus will not inherit God’s kingdom.
– The study confronts misconceptions about “minor” sins or those hidden being less significant—sin is sin.
– Jesus’ teaching in John 15:1-2 (true vine and branches) shows God draws closer to struggling believers to prune and restore them.
– The Christian life involves continual overcoming and transformation, not perfection from the start.

God’s Mercy and Forgiveness
– Key Scriptures:
– Psalm 103:10-12: God does not treat us according to our sins but removes our transgressions as far as east is from west.
– Isaiah 43:25 and Hebrews 8:12 affirm God’s promise to forget our sins.
– 2 Samuel 12:13: David’s confession and God’s forgiveness of his sin.
– Forgiveness does not remove consequences but offers freedom from guilt and shame.
– God’s forgiveness empowers believers to move forward, no longer chained by past dark sins.
– Importance of trusting God’s faithfulness to forgive repeatedly without self-condemnation.
– Romans 6:7: Being “dead with Christ” frees us from sin’s power.

Dealing with Dark Sin in Others: Compassion and Restoration
– Scriptural guidance for responding to others’ sins:
– Galatians 6:1: Restore the sinner in a spirit of gentleness, watching yourself to avoid temptation.
– Matthew 7:3-5: Remove the “log” from your own eye before addressing the “speck” in another’s eye.
– James 5:19-20: Turning a sinner from error saves their soul and covers many sins.
– Emphasis on love, humility, gentleness, and restoration rather than condemnation or gossip.
– Recognizing the struggle and shame of hidden sin and creating safe environments for confession and healing.
– The danger of spiritual arrogance and the need for humility at all ages.
– Practical challenges include addiction (e.g., pornography), gossip, jealousy, and impatience.
– Importance of fellowship, mutual confession, and understanding that all are imperfect and in need of grace.
– Matthew 18 teaches on forgiveness and reconciliation; forgiving repeatedly as God forgives us.
– Elders and brethren should cultivate listening skills, compassion, and appropriate counsel, sometimes involving outside professional help when necessary (especially in delicate matters like marital issues).
– Creating safe, trusting, and confidential environments encourages openness and recovery.

Personal Deliverance from Dark Sin
– Key Scriptures:
– Matthew 5:29-30: Radical action (“pluck out your eye”) to avoid sin.
– 1 John 1:9: Confess sins; God is faithful to forgive and cleanse.
– James 5:16: Confess sins to one another and pray for healing.
– Romans 12:2: Be transformed by renewing the mind to discern God’s will.
– Steps to overcome dark sin:
– Acknowledge sin openly; sin loses power when brought into the light.
– Differentiate shame (covered by Christ) from guilt (which leads to repentance).
– Seek fellowship with trusted brethren or those with relevant experience.
– Accept that restoration is a process and requires humility and persistence.
– Encourage accountability and support within the community.
– Recognize individual differences in the restoration process; avoid rigid “one size fits all” solutions.
– Avoid shame-driven self-condemnation; embrace God’s promise to forget sins.

Closing Thoughts and Encouragement
– Sin’s cost was great—God’s only Son—but God’s forgiveness is abundant and complete.
– Believers are called to reflect God’s mercy by offering grace, gentleness, and restoration to others.
– Avoid gossip, condemnation, or judgment; instead, walk alongside those struggling.
– Build communities known for sincere repentance, trust in God’s forgiveness, and willingness to help others heal.
– The study encourages ongoing efforts to cultivate safe environments for discussing and overcoming dark sin.
– Emphasizes the need for compassion, humility, and practical support within the brotherhood.

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Key Bible Verses Mentioned:

– Proverbs 4:23 – “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
– Matthew 5:27-28 – Jesus on lust equating to adultery in the heart.
– Matthew 15:18-19 – Sin originates in the heart.
– Psalm 19:12 – “Who can discern his errors? Cleanse me from hidden faults.”
– James 1:14-15 – The process of temptation leading to sin and then death.
– Romans 3:23 – “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
– Romans 6:23 – “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.”
– Galatians 5:19-21 – Acts of the sinful nature and consequences.
– John 15:1-2 – The true vine and branches; pruning for fruitfulness.
– Psalm 103:10-12 – God’s mercy and removal of sin.
– Isaiah 43:25 – God wipes out wrongdoings and will not remember sins.
– Hebrews 8:12 – God’s mercy and forgetting sins.
– 2 Samuel 12:13 – David’s repentance and God’s forgiveness.
– Galatians 6:1 – Restore sinners in a spirit of gentleness.
– Matthew 7:3-5 – Remove the log from your own eye before correcting others.
– James 5:19-20 – Restoring a sinner saves a soul.
– 1 John 1:9 – Confession and forgiveness.
– James 5:16 – Confess sins to one another and pray.
– Romans 12:2 – Renewal of the mind and transformation.
– Matthew 5:29-30 – Radical action to avoid sin.
– Mark 3:28-29 – Sin against the Holy Spirit as unforgivable.
– John 14:3, 15:1-2 – Jesus as the true vine, God as the vinedresser.
– 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – “Such were some of you…” on repentance and transformation.
– Matthew 18 – Forgiveness and reconciliation process.

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Summary Keywords and Themes:

– Dark Sin, Hidden Sin, Secret Sin
– Heart as Source of Sin
– Universal Sinfulness
– God’s Mercy, Forgiveness, Forgetting Sin
– Restoration, Compassion, Gentleness
– Confession, Accountability, Fellowship
– Spiritual Humility, Overcoming Sin
– Practical Steps for Deliverance
– Support in the Brotherhood
– Biblical Examples: David’s Sin and Repentance
– Avoiding Shame vs. Accepting Guilt
– Importance of Safe Environments
– Role of Elders and Outside Counsel
– Radical Measures to Avoid Sin (Matthew 5)
– Ongoing Battle and Transformation by Renewing the Mind

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This study deeply explores the nature of hidden sin, the struggle believers face, and God’s abundant grace. It calls the community to foster gentleness and restoration, emphasizing that no sin is too dark for God’s forgiveness and no sinner beyond hope for healing.

Transcript

All right, now, does everyone have the handout? It is a single page, front and back. If anybody does not, I think there might be an extra one somewhere.

All right.

Well, brethren, it is a privilege to gather today and open God’s Word. You know, we live in a world that is absolutely steeped in sin.

A world where deceitful whispers of Satan constantly seek to undermine our faith and purity.

From the moment Adam and Eve fell, humanity has been wrestling with this internal struggle, the struggle of sin, sin, and all of the external temptations that surround us.

It is a battle we all face, often in silence and sometimes with sins so deeply hidden, we label them as dark sin. Those thoughts, desires and actions we might deem too shameful to ever speak aloud. Hidden away in the mind and in the heart where no one else can see them. Yet God sees everything and his Word offers profound insights, healing and freedom in dealing with these very struggles, both within ourselves and as we encounter them in others.

There’s a lot to discuss with regard to this topic and we’re going to try and focus it down. We might not get to laser focused, but we’re going to try. I first have to apologize in that I know maybe half of you in the room and the other half I’m not very familiar with. So for names, it’s not going to be easy. Especially when you’re sitting here, the first thing that goes is your recollection of names.

Please bear with me.

The way that I’m going to try and run this particular study is that we would like to have thought and then we’re going to read some scriptures, and after we read these scriptures with keeping that thought in mind, that’s when we’re going to start to ask the questions. The first part, first several questions, as you can see on page one, we are going to scoot through them. I mean, maybe three comments per question because on the backside, that’s the real meat. There’s only two questions on the back.

That’s where we’re going to spend the majority of our time. So I do again apologize in advance if you have a comment, and I, I cut it off to move on because I really want to focus on these other parts more to start off with, we want to think about what is dark sin. We deal with sin every single day. We’re kind of familiar with it at this point.

And we want to think about why it’s important to talk about this dark sin in particular and why it feels so shameful and so isolating right off the bat. Question one, Our Concept idea here is dark sin is a sin that others cannot see. It happens in your mind or in your heart, and it’s too shameful to talk about making us feel isolated.

I have three scriptures they’re going to ask right off here at the front, starting with Brother Ken. Can you get Proverbs 4, 23? Next we’ll do Matthew 15, 18, 19.

And then just taking one step back, can you do Matthew 5:27 28 when you have it, please? 4:23. Proverbs 4:23. Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.

Yeah. Matthew 15, 18, 19. But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts. Murder, adultery, sexual immortality, theft, false witness, slander.

It was Matthew 5, 27:28 that is correct.

You have heard the commandment that says you must not commit adultery. But I say anyone who even looks at. At a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Was it 27? That was it.

Thank you.

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the Bible Project. It is a fantastic resource, and they have an episode about lust, and they have a depiction of a. Of a stream, and it shows how adultery is at the end of this stream, where it starts in your mind and that stream goes back and forth and it leads down to something. All of these things that we might put at the beginning of that stream and how far down they come and where they lead, they always lead to the same place.

It is that ultimate sin. Our first question is based on these verses. What does Jesus teach us about the source of sin? How does this define dark sin in our lives?

Sister Julia, I think, you know, we need to be beware of little beginnings. Scriptures mention, you know, beware of the little foxes that spoil the vine, or beware of the leaven, because the leaven leavened the whole lump. It doesn’t stop. So you just want to avoid the beginning of it. Very good, Brother Dad, a couple scriptures.

The first one is from one of the Psalms of David, Psalm 19:12. Who can discern his errors? Clear thou me from hidden faults, and I think this falls into the definition you gave of dark sins, and we know that David particularly had one sin that tricked him up and led to other sins as well.

So I think that’s part of the fear that we should have about dark sin in our lives, that it leads to other things. The second scripture describes the process of sin. This is in James 1:14. But each man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. Then the lust when it has conceived beareth sin, and the sin when it is full grown bringeth forth death and boy.

Doesn’t that describe the sin of David as well? You know, it began with a sexual immorality, adultery, and included the death of Bathsheba’s husband as well. So all of us have thoughts that are not always as pure as we want them to be. That’s part of the imperfection that we have. Somebody once said that you can’t keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.

We’re in a continual battle against thoughts that are impure, thoughts that are not in accord with the love of God and obedience to his commandments. The failure comes when we start entertaining those, as it says there, the lust when it is conceived. Rather, we should put it off. Now, I know this doesn’t address the particular question, recognizing and acknowledge dark sin in ourselves, but I think if we start with the reality that we’re imperfect and we have not yet had. Have developed a perfection of desire, we have to watch very carefully what our desires are and make sure that they are only a desire to do what God wants us to do.

Anything contrary to that should be stamped out and dealt with early before it has a chance to develop over. Very good, Brother Paul, you have the last one on this.

I don’t know who came up with this topic, but, you know, sin is sin. It’s falling short, it’s missing the mark. But if I had to define dark sin, for me, I would have to go to first, John, there is a sin that leads to second, death, okay? And it doesn’t define what that sin is, okay? But we know that Jesus said everything can be forgiven except a sin against the Holy Spirit.

So that to me, is the darkest sin that you can have, and of course that’s turning around. That’s once having God’s spirit and then going against that, and that is such a dangerous thing.

So when I think of darkness, I have to think of Isaiah 60. Darkness covers the land, and gross darkness the nations, and believe it or not, brethren, that’s what’s happening around us today.

And so we should want to. The opposite of darkness, of course, is light. Light letting our light shine out of darkness, and of course, we all have hearts that are desperate. I often tell people I live a life of quiet desperation because I have so much sin and I have so many evil thoughts.

And so forth, and I’m fighting. I’m fighting and I want to be victorious and. But we have to live with this sin that we’re born with and keep on fighting over. Thanks.

How does understanding the origin of that sin in our hearts help us address it?

I saw Brother Brendan in the back and then Sister Julie, I like how you are zeroing in on, I think, the concept that was in mind when the studies were kind of doled out, essentially, because these are things, I’ll say, that to a large degree or are not dealt with head on in our movement, generally speaking. I know there are definitely brethren in classes and things out there, but I think more of us are becoming a little more and more aware and open to acknowledging and discussing these things instead of keeping it kind of at Victorian arm’s length, where we dress nice and we say, we couch our words in flowery language when we talk to each other. How are you tabernacling today, brother?

But on that particular question, how does understanding the origin of sin in the heart help us address it? And these are really interesting things because the pastor, there are a couple of good references. I don’t have them off the top of my head as far as where they are, but he has some good information, and then there are some other sources as well. But this whole thing is, you know, dark.

Sin doesn’t just have to be like gross immorality or you’re struggling maybe, and I’ll just name off a handful of things that are extraordinarily prevalent, probably even in this room, that would perhaps be shocking to some brethren. But right now it’s an epidemic. Not just in the brotherhood or anything like that, but out in the world. A big one is pornography, like you were talking.

That’s kind of the tentacle that can grab you and pull you into worse and worse, and from what Brother Paul said, sin is sin. So we don’t want to go out and start putting things in a hierarchy and saying, and like also Brother Paul said, always battling in the flesh against these thoughts and these things that we seem incapable of escaping, and the biggest part of it is because we’re trying to do it in our own power and our own shame.

So we’re flogging ourselves with our shame and our guilt and we’re having success and then failure, success and failure, and it seems to be inescapable, the. This attitude of, well, we’ll have some successes and some failures, but the origin, I think is important, that is this something that is covered under the blood and under the robe, something I came in with and something I’ve struggled with since, let’s say, birth. Or is this coming? You know, is this an external source?

And is there. Are there any practical ways? Like, let’s say, maybe somebody has an addiction problem of one form or another. Maybe someone’s addicted to evil. Speaking, talking about their brethren, talking about people out in the world.

Maybe they don’t even have to be brethren or their families.

Brother Homer and I were just briefly discussing. We’re talking about, and one thing came up. When you look at a group of brethren that you’re in with, whether it’s your ecclesia, Whether it’s here and you look around or whether it’s at a convention or just in your thinking, do you see all your brethren as perfect or do you go from, like, brother to brother and say, well, this one has this problem and this one has this issue, and I like this one about this one, but not this about this one.

You know, where is our heart at when we’re dealing with our brethren? So is it coming out of the heart or is it coming from our flesh? Or where are these things coming from? I think they’re less difficult to identify maybe, than most of us think over. Thank you.

Without going too deep into it with some of these questions, because I want to be able to move on, and that is, you know, understanding where the sin comes from.

That gives us a target.

You see where it comes from, and you have to be aware of it, and I think this is where we’ll transition into our second question, and that is the universality of sin and its devastating impact. We’re going to spend half as much time on this question as we did on the first one.

The idea I want you to have in your head when we get into this is that no one is exempt from sin, regardless of how hidden it may seem. Sin’s impact extends beyond the individual. It affects our relationships with God and with others.

Ken, can I actually. Have you read the first scripture, which is Romans 3:23? Brother Jeff, would you mind getting Romans 6:23, Jonathan, Galatians 5, 1921.

And then when we’re done with that, I’m going to come right back to you for the first comment.

Okay? Romans 3:23. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

My comment was, you know, earlier you asked, what is the origin? Sometimes I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. What I appreciate about Jesus’s teaching was under the law. You know, they say it was a Curse? Well, because once you violated it, then you had to atone for it.

Whereas Jesus taught us sin is a process. I like process, and he taught us, go to the origin of the process and deal with it there. Don’t let it grow to fruition. So whether it’s pornography, which I would link to sensuality, or overeating or gossip or whatever it is, money, if you surround yourself with that stuff, it’s harder to fight the origin when you’re letting it be at your back.

So if those things, like the Scripture said, flee from those, it’s not running away from the problem, it’s running away from the influence so that you can fight the problem. I’ll stop there. Excellent point, brother Jeff. Romans 6:23. Because the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Very good.

Galatians 5, 1921. The Acts of the sinful nature are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft. Hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Yeah, that last one is really direct. It’s pretty deep in there. How do these verses confront the idea that some sins are minor or hidden enough not to even matter? Hidden, Yeah. I think we’ll probably invest some more time in your future questions.

Maybe on the. On the back page there. But, you know, as Brother Paul mentioned, you know, sin is sin. But I think we still, subconsciously, in a social, you know, in a Bible student dynamic setting, we still set a hierarchy for sids, because if someone were to testify about an evil speaking that they had done, like, oh, well, and I ended up saying something at work, he’d probably laugh it off and probably wouldn’t think about it. But if there is something in your head, you think if someone would say, pick the largest convention you could think of, and they stood in front of a testimony and said that, and you could only see them.

You can’t see them differently. You see them completely differently after they share that. Brothers, sisters, I’m struggling with xyz, that you just gave a hierarchy, and so naturally we would say, you know, sin is sin. You know, we absolutely would agree with that.

And we can point out Scripture. But why is it then when someone is struggling with something and they’re openly coming to you, you as an ecclesia. Individual, you know, group, as a whole convention you know, that depends on the person’s comfortability to come to you. Then that we like, okay, that’s a little weird. You shouldn’t be struggling with that.

Because I’ve talked to, I talked to. It was funny a while back I talked to a brother and he’s like, you know, brother, that’s just, you know, once you get to my age, you don’t really struggle with sin. I was like, I was like, he’s like, maybe that’s for other people, and he was wholehearted, and so I was like, okay, I got levels, you know, I gotta catch up, you know, I got work to do is what I was thinking.

But I was a lot younger at the time. But the verse I have to bring up is John 14, verse three, I think. Let me pull it up.

14, three, John 15, two and one chapter later. I’ll read verse one as well. I am the true vine and my father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

And reading it at eye level, I think it sounds pretty straightforward. But I would argue this is kind of one of the worst translation errors known because that verse itself says for the word take away, I’ll just read it as is means to raise or lift up. I think a couple other. This has been brought up where it’s actually this vine dresser bringing them closer, and this is an actual thing with people who actually, you know, maintain these vines and vineyards that the ones that aren’t producing for that are struggling, he brings closer, bring closer to the source.

So if the heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus does that and brings, you know, draws you closer to them when you’re struggling with something, then why would we act differently and have an authority that, you know, we can say, no, no, no, I want to keep distant from that individual. If anything, I want to stay away from that brother or sister when that shouldn’t be the case. Is. Is the Christian life only external? Is it just.

Are we just. When we were talking about this in fellowship yesterday, from when I was growing up, I just thought brethren were just these trial facing warriors. Either ailments or persecution is all I ever heard. So if I struggle with sin or another person struggles with sin, is that an oddity? But I thought we were in the sin defeating business.

I thought it was overcoming the old creature. So doesn’t that require you to have some. You know, you obviously have failures at some points, but the eventual goal is you know, final permanent success. That’s a good one, Brother. Wonderful comment.

Absolutely loved it, and I want to incorporate in that second question, because I think you touched upon it there, on how acknowledging that all have sinned bring both a sense of humility and potentially community to our struggle with sin. Brother Homer, I see you. I’m gonna cut that one off because we really do have to move on to the next one. Oh, fine.

Sister Joyce, you’re giving me puppy eyes. I can’t resist. Brother Homer, brief comments.

Mark, chapter three, 28, 29, and I’m going to give you two references. I submit that one of the articles that you might be interested in is written by a discourse by Brother Benjamin Barton. It’s entitled the Sin that Hath no Forgiveness. It’s one of his discourses and some of the comments that Brother Russell has about that same concept.

And I would submit that it is not the sin unto death that in fact, you could ask the question, to sin against the Holy Spirit is something that will not be forgiven, but you could sin against Christ. Think about that. Very good, Sister Joyce. The reason I was so eager to say something is because my comment comes from Sister Donna Mitchum, who is with us eagerly in spirit and was unable to make it here physically, and she says, for us to remember, sin came from Adam.

We are born in sin, and we must ask for forgiveness daily, and sometimes more often than daily, hourly. But I would also add to what Brother Vivin said. When we share sin with our brethren, we have to be careful that the person we’re sharing with is able to bear with compassion what we’re saying, and that is something that does come with some age and some experience in the way, and quite the contrary to the older person. That said, we don’t struggle with that as we get old.

Now, as we get older, and our physical mechanism isn’t as reliable as it used to be, we struggle even more with sin, and particularly the sin of spiritual arrogance, which gets worse with age, and we really, those of us that are of a certain age, need to check ourselves daily that are we developing a superior attitude because we’ve been in the way, and that pun is intended for a longer period of time. That would be my comment. Well put.

Thank you very much. I think that’s going to be a perfect segue into our next question, and along with your comment there, humility does play an extremely important part in this. If you sin and then go, well, I can fix that.

You miss that humility part. Only, only with God can you actually overcome These things. Question number three. Our key thought. God’s character is one of abundant mercy and steadfast love.

Through Christ he offers complete forgiveness, separating our sins from us and choosing to remember them not no more. I don’t remember where we ended in the line. Oh, it’s right after Jonathan. The next Scriptures. Can I have you read Psalms 103, 10:12, and the next one after that will be Isaiah 43:25.

And then going right back to dad. Hebrews 8:12, Psalms 103, 10:12. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our guilty deeds. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our wrongdoings from us.

Very good. I want to comment a little bit on that one right there. Because that scripture, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, have you heard that anywhere else? Does that sound familiar?

It’s how far God’s thoughts are above from our thoughts. How far are the heavens from the earth. How far does that go?

Right now we don’t even have an answer. They’re still counting. That’s how far he puts these iniquities, these sins from us.

Sorry, continuing on. Next scripture, Isaiah 43:25. I I alone am the one who wipes out your wrongdoings for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Very good, dad. Hebrews chapter 8, verse 12.

For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins will I remember no more. Very good, and I think that’s a quote from Jeremiah. Mom, can I have you read 2 Samuel 12:13, 2nd Samuel 12:13? David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord or against Jehovah.

And Nathan said to David, jehovah also has put away your sin and, and you shall not die. Very good. Can I comment on it now? Yes, absolutely.

Go for it. Okay, well, again, now it’s forgiven. But if you go down to the next couple of verses, you see, there were consequences. So this isn’t a case of you can just go, oops, I did it. Okay, and go on.

There are consequences that do occur with it. So the loss of that child was part of his consequences. Over. Yeah, these are great. Our question that we’re going to be thinking about regarding this is how does God’s act of remembering our sins no more empower us to move forward in freedom rather than being chained by past dark sense?

Sister Kathy, I See your hands up. Go on, take it away. Yeah, I appreciate the comments and I guess I’m similar to what Brother Paul indicated with regard to this dark sin you’ve mentioned in Underneath. Number one, the dark sin is a sin that others cannot see and it’s a sin that happens in our mind and in our hearts, and now when I’m reading the points under question three about God, I am just wondering whether or not God regards the thoughts of adultery as being a dark sin as opposed to acting out adultery.

So if someone is thinking about it, it’s dark sin, but if someone acts upon it, I guess we’re saying it is not a dark sin. That was something that went through my mind. Thank you. Very good. If anybody wants to touch upon that, this is your moment.

I just want to do one thing here and that is if you drop a ball and I put my hand underneath it, am I telling you that I knew it was going to hit the floor? It hasn’t hit the floor, but I’m going to catch it before it does. God sees that stream. He knows where these things lead. As we commented on before, who has a comment directly?

I see Brother Brendan in the back real quickly. I mean this was said before. Lets don’t get caught up in dark. I think it’s secretive sin that is in our life that we keep from our spouses, the brethren. That’s what I think we’re talking about here and how to address that because we know it’s there.

The others may not know it, but we know it. How are we addressing it with our Lord. Right, yeah. Secret is another good word to use for dark in being that it’s not something that easily seen. Like if somebody is doing something wrong and you know it’s wrong, you can see that it is right there in broad daylight.

There’s no second guessing it. But things that happen in your mind, that’s the opposite. We don’t know whatever thing is going on in somebody else’s mind, we can’t read their hearts. Brother Brendan, I know you’re getting to some of those, so I’ll try not to suck up any time on what’s coming down the pipe here. But that question, how does God’s act of remembering our sins no more empower us to move forward in freedom rather than being chained by past or even current dark sins.

And I added the current obviously, but, and that’s something I struggled with for a very long time for up until about four minutes ago.

And that was being facetious, but it was very Recent, and I’ve had regular dialogue with a brother down in Florida who has just been. I mean, it’s like, I almost can’t wait to talk. We talk at least two or three days a week, and he just has such a keen insight.

And when I speak to him, he’s kind of like, what is it about it is finished that you don’t understand?

And then he says this other one. That’s one of my new quotes, and now another one is, Jesus didn’t come. Jesus did not come to make good people better. He came to make dead people alive.

So if we remember that, that we were dead in our sins when he came, before we, you know, before we even reached out, we were dead while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us, and this, the last one I’ll give you is that he says, you know, every time you pray to God, you don’t have to keep reminding him of the same sins you’re committing, and this question that you have is key to that, that if he doesn’t remember them anymore, then we should be able to say, okay, and this gets back to Gabriella’s question.

Gabriela, sorry.

Or comment, rather, that is this just something I have to claim as being like, it’s a precious promise. It is a precious promise. God, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, but we refuse to believe it, and we keep on flogging ourselves with our own shame and our own guilt. We keep on throwing the same thing up in front of God every time.

Please forgive me for this sin for the 800,000th time, because we don’t believe or trust that he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins because we can’t forgive ourselves. So I think that’s a big thing, and not in the sense of just dismissing it as not being a problem or an issue, but in the sense that on the eternal scale, God’s cleaned that off. He’s not keeping a scorecard, and he’s not holding that against us, and that’s a big step for any of us to take who are really sensitive to these kind of things in our own lives, that God, if we ask that he is faithful and just to forgive us, and he will forgive us, and chances are he already has. We don’t need to keep reminding him every single time we come before the throne of this particular thing and beating ourselves up with it over.

Thank you very much, brother. I’m only going to take one more comment on this one because I do want to move on to these last two Questions, Brother Paul? You’ve got it. Yeah, I can see your dad trying to get your attention.

What Brendan said is a very direct scripture. It’s Romans 6, verse 7. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now, of course, if any one of us takes our last breath today, we’re freed from sin. That’s not what he’s talking about.

He’s talking about being dead with Christ in the process of baptism or consecration or. Or sanctification. Why? Because we have what’s called in this chapter, the highest motive for us to be dead with Christ, and that is so that the body of sin would be eradicated from the universe, so that sin would be taken away through the glorification of the church and the blessing of all the families of the earth.

That’s what we have to have as the highest motivation in our life and to look at ourselves as dead with Christ as he was crucified. We are crucified with him because we’re justified by Him. It’s such an awesome thing. We should think about it all the time. I would know nothing.

I would know nothing among you, brethren, except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Thank you very much, Brother Paul. That’s well put. All right, question number four. This.

This is our main course here, brethren, dealing with sin in others. This is our call to compassion and restoration. The thought idea is that when we encounter sin in others, especially those dark sins or secret sins that cause deep shame, our response should be guided by love, humility, and a desire to restore, not condemn.

We’ve got three scriptures, starting with Sister Kathy, Harp, Brother Randy, and then Sister Julie. Kathy, can you get Galatians 6:1. Brother Randy, I’d like you to read Matthew 7:3 5, and Julianne, can you please read James 5, 19 and 20?

Dad, can you move that microphone down?

Brothers, if anyone is caught in a transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you to be tempted.

Matthew 7:3 5. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly.

To take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Gems 5, 19, 20, ESV. My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back Let him know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. Very good. Now, we’ve got the questions up there, and I don’t want to limit it down by. Read this first question and then answer it.

If you see an answer to any of these questions, have at it.

Brother Vivian?

Yeah, I just wanted to read something that I found, like, a few years back that I found was pretty applicable because I think this ties in into what is the ultimate kind of equalizer when it comes to our perception of someone else’s struggle with sin. Saying, oh, that’s not a thing you should be struggling with as a new creature. Which if you kind of already addressed in the previous comments, that that’s not really a thing you should be struggling if there’s no struggle. It’s like, yeah, every sin is overtaking me. That’s the problem.

But if the thing is, like, I’m. I’m trying my best here, you know, and we talk about this, that the heavenly Father’s approach and perspective is come as you are, then change, and there’s all these verses that talk about the peace that passes all understanding and the unspeakable joy. But then the life that you live and the consecrated life just doesn’t feel like that for some reason. It just feels like a constant struggle.

And so I think for our perspective, when brother or Sister XYZ mentions something or comes to you personally. Group convention. Understand how God treated us. You know, it’s the aspect of how our sins look to him, and I just wanted to read this because I thought that was really interesting.

It caught my eye a few years ago. Looking at the environment in which we find ourselves, it seems the answer is often yes. I’m struggling with a lack of patience or a little jealousy here and there. I’m on social media or TV a little bit too much. But I take comfort that I have the truth.

I’m still married to my wife. My kids usually respect me, and I rarely yell at anyone. We think we are overcoming because of the relative pureness of our beliefs or the activities of our spare time or the lack of offense we cause brethren, and this was an excerpt about Martin Luther on how he saw, you know, faith and overcoming sin. Martin Luther’s answer was different.

He said that if God chose the most precious substance in the world to pay for our sins, then we must not be even close to overcoming those sins. These sins must be huge. They must be insurmountable. If Martin Luther had seen the Grand Canyon, he would have said, my soul’s need is like the Grand Canyon. It is so deep, so wide, so empty, that I could never gain the hope of life if it were not for the blood of the Lamb.

Luther would not take comfort in comparative goodness. He would not be satisfied that the standards of behavior we see in any gathering of the Lord’s people are a substitute for. For the virtues of partaking of the Lamb of God continually, and so when I read that, I thought that really hit the, you know, kind of the nail on the head when what it really takes that, you know, my sin is a little bit better than yours, brother. You know, that’s not that.

Not that big of a deal compared to yours, clearly. But I think the issue is that all of our sins took a large payment on behalf of the heavenly Father, a perfect son to cover for it, and so I agree with all the elements in those verses about the desire to welcome somebody with open arms, consecrated brother, whatever, consecrated sister to say, we want to help you. The desire is to see everyone succeed, and that’s what the prodigal son, the first thing the Father had said was when he saw his son return, was, all right, let’s clean yourself up first and then I’ll give you a hug.

You’re a little gross. But he hugged him up right away and you know, received all that love right away. Wow. Very well put. All right, I’m going to start on this side and then we’re going to go to Brother Homer after you got the first one.

I’ve had the.

Do I. If you get really close to the microphone, they’ll let the volume down and you’ll be fine. I’ve had the privileged to get to help support an addiction group, and I really love Galatians 6:1, and speaking of the spirit of gentleness and not condemnation, a lot of these people are struggling with addictions and trying to give it up and draw close to God.

They are already often in a place of where they have shame, unworthiness and they think they’re of no value to God at all. So I love that Galatians speaking to doing it in a spiritual spirit of gentleness. Very good. Thank you, Brother Homer.

Just a couple observations. Number one, this is this. These scriptures are addressed to brethren spirit begotten. That’s number one. Number two, the last time I had a perfect day was never.

We don’t believe that, Brother Homer. The third comment is we should not try to out righteous God.

And my last comment is found In a scripture, First Corinthians 6, 9, 11, it talks about and such were some of you, and I don’t know who the some are, and the point is that if you may still struggle with some of these things, but you can’t act upon them through the power of the Holy Spirit, you will not act upon them. You will strive to be obedient and faithful so that you can indeed become a more than overcomer. End of comment.

Thank you very much, Brother Homer. Brother Keith, I’ve got you first, and then we’ll go back to. I saw two hands back there. Was that Paul and Dad? Okay.

I was glad Brother Homer brought up First Corinthians because, and this goes to the Galatians, you know, kind of the two questions together in Corinthians, you know, there was a brother that was having a sexual relationship with the wife of his father, and they were accepting that, and he came down hard on them, basically told them, you know, excommunicate that brother. Well, they did. Most of them listened to him, and they did. But I think Paul came to, you know, he had some growth here because that brother responded favorably and he repented and he desired to be back into the fellowship.

And apparently, you know, they were being difficult on him. Hard on him. I should put it that way, and so in Second Corinthians, Paul is saying, hey, you know, be more gentle and forgiving. Accept him back if he desires.

And I think by the time he wrote Galatians, you know, he learned that lesson that there’s got to be a balance, and if the person responds favorably, we need to be sensitive to respond back, and I just thought that that was important because sometimes that’s the fear you brought up earlier about the brethren sometimes hiding sins from others, and they’re not always out in the open, and that fear is that they’ll react without gentleness, and, and their view.

Other people’s view of you might be. You’re afraid that that might be diminished, and we need to try to overcome that with love, and so we don’t feel that way on either side of the issue. Very good.

Yet sin is not a competition in God’s eyes. It doesn’t matter. There is only. There is only one result for sin, regardless as to what level of value we place on it, and we live in a world where we cannot escape it.

Our own worst enemy is just us. When we see our sins and we acknowledge them, that sin is the worst one compared to everybody else. But there is compassion, and there is that willingness to restore within the Brethren. All right, I’m going to go. Paul.

Dad. Jeff. So if I had to summarize these three scriptures with another scripture, I would go to Matthew, the 18th chapter, and I think a lot of times we don’t see the ultimate lesson in that chapter. We see a process that we try to put into practice, and most of the time it ends up in sin.

It ends up missing the mark. But to me, the most important words in Matthew 18 is when Jesus said, again, I say unto you, what’s next? If two of you agree about anything, it shall be done for you by my Father in heaven. My goodness, Brother David, let’s ask God for a million dollars right now.

What is he talking about? What is this chapter about? Well, Peter got it because after Jesus said, four, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst, Jesus said, and I mentioned it yesterday, but, Lord, how often do I need to forgive? Up to seven times, and of course, we know what Jesus said.

No. 490 times. What is he saying? We have to be ultimately forgiving, like God is, and so what’s the bottom line?

He goes into the parable of the debt and the debtor and the bottom line there. So shall my Father do unto you if you cannot from your heart, forgive your brother. What did the Father? What did the King do to the debtor that didn’t forgive? Put him in prison and tortured him.

See, Paul, now you’re getting into spoilers because as you know, tomorrow at this time slot, I have a second study on forgiveness. Oh, okay, forget it. So we’re going to try and focus on these particular questions. Forgiveness is a part. But honestly, we’re going to dive into that one tomorrow.

Dad, what did you have? I wanted to make a comment on this spirit of gentleness in dealing with others that are coming forth to sin. Perhaps many of you have had the experience where a brother or sister will come up and they want to talk to somebody about a dark verdict and sin. As an elder, I’ve had it multiple times. Okay, sorry about that.

Brother Homer has been an elder much longer than I have, and I’m sure that he’s had many experiences along these lines as well. I once asked brother Carl, how do you counsel? What do you say? He says, well, the first thing he says, you will have brethren that will come up that will confess sin to you. Don’t say you did what?

Not helpful. He says, just keep your faith stoic and listen carefully. It’s very good that they’re coming up because they have Guilt. They want to resolve this. This sin.

It’s a hidden sin. It’s a dark sin. They want a resolution to it, and they come to you, and again, this is not true.

Just of elders. Any of you can have that experience. So how do you restore? In the spirit of mildness, of gentleness, sorry, number one, someone that comes and confesses sin. This is a good thing.

This is what guilt is intended to do. To bring about a confession and a correction of the action. So that’s what they’re looking for. Sometimes the guilt is so hard, you don’t know exactly what to say. But let me shorten my comment and quote this scripture from First John, chapter 3, verse 20 and 21.

I really love this scripture. If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Beloved. If our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God.

To anyone that’s caught up in dark sin, remember that God understands the weakness of the flesh. If your desire is to restore that relationship, he can get it done. Do not allow guilt to become bad guilt. Good guilt is short term. It’s intended to bring you to confession and repentance.

And then remembering what we said earlier, God is going to put your sin away from you. Bad guilt comes from Satan. Satan is the accuser of the brethren. He wants you to remember forever what you did 12 years ago, 17 years ago. He’ll never let you forget it.

Don’t let him achieve that. When we have God’s forgiveness. Go on over. All right. Thanks, Ted.

Jeff, you’ve got the next one. Then I’m going to go to Kathy. I’m going to go to Brendan.

I like what the brethren have said about our sins and having tender compassion for each other and for those, all of us, who have these weaknesses in the flesh. I especially like this context in James, chapter 5. James is such a practical book with such beautiful life lessons. It’s really a beautiful study. But in James 5:14, the question is asked, is any among you sick?

Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray with him, and this word sick. Is any among you sick? This is the word weary. It’s used only three times in the New Testament.

So he’s asking, are any of you weary? Right when we, you know, we’re all different members of the body. If we break our arm, we don’t amputate it, we don’t cut it off, we don’t disfellowship. We put it in a sling and we tenderly care for it. So it can heal and grow back together.

Brethren, let’s not get weary. Let’s not give up. I think that’s the theme of this weekend. Very good. Thank you, Brother Ben.

I like the way you worded the third question where you said, practically speaking, how do we prioritize the spirit of gentleness over our perceived right to correct a brother or sister? I have to admit that I have perceived inaccuracies about my brethren, but I never approached them about it. But I learned later on, oh, I was wrong, because I thought one way and it was really another way, and I know brethren have done the same with me. They perceive certain things with me and they realize later on we’re wrong.

They were wrong. I like to take the position of if indeed I feel it’s necessary for me to approach a brother or sister with a Matthew 18, which I’ve never done, but if I did, I want to witness something because I do not want to correct my brethren and then be told, you know, how dare you correct me? I think someone mentioned that I never did that. So I would want to be more accurate. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you, Brother Brendan.

Also, Jude. Having compassion, making a difference, and others who. Plucking them from the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. This is part a portion or a significant part, I’ll say, of our consecrated life that all of us need to take more seriously and be.

You know, because again, I don’t think as a whole, and I’m not just talking about us, but generally speaking, I think it’s been something that’s plagued the church down through the entire gospel age, that we just don’t deal with these things well. We’re not really equipped and we haven’t dug deep, I’ll say, enough, and so like Brother David was saying, and others, other brethren, they’re confronted with things, I’ll say, the seedy underside of our flesh in our consecrated lives, and you bring this up in how can we create environments that we should absolutely strive to create environments that any brother or sister who’s going through these, any issue, really, but especially these ones that are crushing loads on brethren, that the other thing is identifying the root cause rather than the symptom. Let’s take a big one now, is pornography, because it’s so readily available.

I mean, it’s almost like you have to avoid it on the Internet. You know, it’s like you’re walking in a minefield sometimes. It’s so available and so prevalent and so even, I’ll say, accepted out in the world that. But what is it? You know, is pornography is an expression, you know, it’s not the source.

Why are you addicted to it? You know, why? What drew you to it? What’s that? That’s the thing that we need to identify.

And these are, and again, that’s just one of 10,000 different variables. But again, getting back to creating an environment amongst our brotherhood, and it was also brought out about, I think Jeff brought it out and you quoted some of the James scriptures that we typically don’t really use or we describe them as well. Those are more spiritual or this, that or the other thing.

But the reality is we’re given a lot of scriptures on how to deal with each other after the flesh and deal with the practical sins that are in all of our flesh, and rather than recoiling in horror when we hear or like it was said, I forgot who said it, oh, I can’t fellowship or I can’t shake hands of this brother or sister, I can’t do this, I can’t do that because they committed sin X, and that’s the exact worst thing that we could do and the most unscriptural thing we could do as well. So I’m not saying sin in and of itself should be treated lightly. Of course we’re not condoning or saying that that should be a thing.

But getting back to, we should all feel a desire to recover. Anyone, whether it be yourself or whether it be other brethren, and a lot of times a number of brethren experiencing different things as a group can be very helpful to each other. So the getting together, the confessing of our sins to one another, the calling the elders, even the anointing oil. I know that sounds a little strange to our typical Bible student thought process, but all of these things are information that we’ve been given in the scriptures that we’ve by and large been pretty not really good at employing and handling.

And hopefully this is the start of something good as a group and getting together that this will go out, and brethren should feel not just safe, but also that they should be running. There is salvation, there is recovery, and it’s going to require help from other brethren. So they should know that they can run to brethren and say, hey, I’ve got a real problem with this, I need your help and can you help me out? And we should all be willing to do what we can to recover any brethren.

Or if we’re those, if we’re the ones that need that help, then we should feel safe and we should be able, willing and able to go out and at least seek the help or the assistance that we need because that’s how the Lord is going to handle it. It’s not always going to just be one on one between you and the Lord over. Very well put. That’s a two part thing in there. One on the side of where we have a sin going to the brethren.

The other side is you are the brethren. You have to have that spirit of gentleness when it comes up, when you are confronted with it. Now, I do want to make sure that we cover this last question here. Does the application change if we are very close with the person, in other words, spouse, and it’s a delicate matter in which confiding in others would feel uncomfortable or wrong.

What advice can we share on handling this type of situation? And I do want to say that there are some times where in these particular situations outside counseling is not a bad avenue to go through. There are professional services out there. This is their entire job and they have one purpose. It is that restoration.

Just some thoughts there, Gabriella. Did I see your hand up?

I mean, yes, but I wasn’t on that one. Did you have something? Yes, I’ll try to keep it quick. I actually I had two comments. One was about having discernment in when we come to someone to correct them.

And I was just going to point out Paul mentioned Matthew 18 and when I read it, my keywords that I like to focus on are against you if your brother sins against you. Not if you see something you don’t like in your brother or if he sinned against someone else and you saw it, that’s not your right to go tell him, and if you think about it, if someone is caught in a very public sin and everyone in the Bible student movement thinks that they need to tell them about it, that is not going to go well for that person. That’s not going to encourage them to be able to fix it. That’s going to put them in a really hard place.

So I think Matthew 18 is very specific to someone sitting against you and sometimes it can be applied incorrectly in that way. Likewise, the log and spec analogy is brought up in here. You need to be very careful about when you have that perceived right to correct or rebuke someone. But at the same time there are appropriate times to do that. The Scriptures also tell us that we should do that.

So we kind of have this sort of like, be careful, don’t do it and also like, but make sure you’re doing it. Which feels sometimes contradictory, but I feel like there’s A lot of that in Scripture, and it’s very case by case, and that’s why Jesus doesn’t tell us exactly. Like, it’s a very.

You have to have spiritual discernment. Which also goes back to the Holy Spirit study that we were having just in deciding whether or not you should even come to that person, and I think the Galatians scripture which says you should restore him in a spirit of gentleness, I don’t think that was meant as a scripture. You know, see, I have permission to restore the person. Paul probably knew that people are going to try to restore others, right?

Like he was. Like, you’re all going to try to correct each other. So the purpose of that scripture, I think, was the spirit of gentleness, not you have permission to correct everyone. The other comment I had was about creating environments where people feel safe enough to confess dark sins and find help toward restoration. That’s a tricky one, I think.

First, having that spirit of gentleness can. Obviously, that’s like a prerequisite. You have to have that in order for people to feel comfortable opening up. But then I was also going to add, like, having. Setting the example of being vulnerable and confessing your own sins can help produce that environment.

It’s tricky because you kind of like don’t want to be vulnerable until everyone else is. But somebody has to do it first, I guess. I don’t know, and then another sort of subtle thing that I thought might be wise in creating those environments is to watch how we talk about others who sin. Including other groups, maybe, or just other.

Even just in the world. Like the way that we talk about others or present others can.

Can either make you a safe person to come to with confessing sins or make you someone where people might not feel comfortable.

Okay, very good. Thank you very much, Brother Homer. I saw your hand first and then Brother Vivin, and then I do want to move on to our last question.

So I think one of the things that if something is brought to our attention or even if we have an issue, sometimes it’s helpful to speak to others in terms of hypothetical situations so that you’re not specifying who it is that’s involved in the other. The other question I would ask and something to think about and why I say it’s important to fellowship and know your brethren.

The matter of outside counseling to me is a tricky one, because outside counselors may recommend things that you would say are not appropriate, and so the real question is, are we saying that within the brotherhood there is nobody that is sufficiently qualified to Give you counseling if you need it. That’s just a hypothetical question. Sure, sure. I.

And I think it’s a valid question. I think that there’s always the possibility. It’s a little scary, but there’s always the possibility that the advice you give someone is not the correct advice. We are human. Whether or not you come to any other human being, the possibility is always there.

The only thing that we can hope and pray for is that God’s overruling power, his grace, is a key part in that restoration and healing.

Brother Vivian, you had the next comment.

Sister Joyce had her hand before me. I don’t know if you still had a thought. I saw yours first, but my vision might not be. All right. No worries.

Yeah, I think just to tie it in, because I think it’ll tie in with your next point, because at least on these discussion questions, it talks about creating an environment. So I think part of practical steps for dealing with this, it talks about small groups of church communities. I do find it odd on just being blunt on. Personally, for me, it feels more superficial than it does, you know, vulnerable or actually intimate. When it’s among any fellowship with brethren, I think that’s how it naturally starts off.

And I think Gabriel, Sir Gabriel talked about that a little bit about, you know, someone has to break the ice almost to get things started. But. So let me get that straight. If our duty on the other side of the veil is to be a sympathetic high priest, what does sympathetic mean? Is that not sharing our struggles and how we overcame on this side of the veil to help them.

And so that environment will exist in the kingdom, but it doesn’t really have to exist on this side. You know, that’ll just magically happen, and then things will just kind of take care of itself. So, I mean, I kind of had that as, like, a question, like, why doesn’t that happen more among the brethren? Because I personally, when you hear comments or even testimonies or even general fellowship, you hear of brethren. They’re happy to see each other.

They share something that they learned, and how’s the weather? How’s the kids? How’s the family? How’s your parents?

We’re on our way. So I could have just been at work, and I could have just shared most of that stuff with people at work. So there has to be something special to which you come to fellowship with brethren that, like you said, if our whole job here is to develop to be a sympathetic high priest, to know one another’s struggles and to how we can best help each other, then that’s something that has to be developed, is an environment, a general environment that is, yeah, we come to each other. You know, it doesn’t have to be, you know, for the person comfortable, doesn’t have to be in front of everyone. But that the fact that, okay, in a general sense, the group that I meet with, the collegiate I meet with, I know if I shared something that they would be there for me.

And if your initial thought is, I don’t know how they’d react, then that’s a problem. Very good, Sister Joyce, I’ll give you just a couple minutes here. Okay. I don’t know if I’ll even take a couple minutes. All right.

I did want to address directly the comment, the question about if there’s something going on within a marriage, because, and you touched on this too, that there are times when it is good to go to a completely neutral source who is a professional, and I know of more than one incident where situations within a marriage were tried to be handled by highly respected elders with absolutely no ability to handle the situation, and it caused terrible rifts and in some cases it caused at least one member or both members of the couples to leave the fellowship of the truth altogether. So really, as elders caution, when someone comes to you with a marital problem and you know, assess. Can you really say this?

And again, I think somebody did mention if you go to an outside source, you’re really, you know, putting yourself in a very strange position. But there are professionals out there whose only job, as you said, Brother Ben, is to deal with these situations, and because we’re human, these situations within marriages might be more common than people would think, and people with professional abilities, years of experience, can help more than a well meaning elder or an elder and their wife that really has no idea what the issue might be be at the source.

Very good. All right, our final question, and man, did that time get away from us?

The concept idea here is that God provides practical steps for personal deliverance from sin and equips us to be agents of grace and healing for others.

I’ve got a couple scriptures here and I’d love to go ahead and hand these out and have somebody find them and then read them and then we’ll get into the discussion questions. But my printout actually has these scriptures with them written out. I’m going to read them very quickly here, and while I’m reading them, look at these questions.

Read these questions while I’m saying these scriptures. See what comes to your mind. Matthew 5, 29 and 30 and all of mine are from the ESV. Just as a side note there. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.

For it is better that you lose one of your members than that you lose. Then your whole body will be thrown into hell, and if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body likewise to go to hell, and we could dive down into the understanding of this word hell.

But that’s another study. The second scripture, John 1:9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. James 5:16.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working, and Romans 12:2. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Our questions here. What are the key steps necessary for us individually to deal with dark sin or secret sin in our lives? Based on 1st John 1:9 and Romans 12. 2.

You have the first one. Brother, can you. Okay. Thank you. I wanted to.

You know, when we think of sin, it’s an archery term, means to miss the mark. So you’re pulling back the bow, you’re aiming towards something, you miss the mark. We all do that. We all do that. We all fall short of the glory of God and we miss the mark.

You know, in your scripture, 1 John 9, 5, 10 goes over that and it talks about the message we have heard from him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. So there’s the disc. That’s what dark sin is. Dark sin is that has not been brought into the light. Sin loses its power when brought into the light.

And it says if we say we have no fellowship with him and walk in darkness, that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness. We lie and do not the truth. So if we’re hiding something in our heart, if there’s a dark spot in our heart, then that is an untruth that we need to overcome. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

So we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. We are cleansed through the blood of Christ. You know, there’s a saying that some will say, will say, if you hear something about what someone’s done, you go, shame on you. Shame on you. I would suggest that the way we should handle something is shame off you.

You know, shame. We are all flawed, and that is the shame. With that there is none righteous. No, not one. But we are also guilty of things.

And sometimes when we are in these dark places where we aren’t convinced in these sins, then we are so full of shame that we can’t perceive the guilt and what needs to be taken care of in this situation. Shame and guilt are different things. We can deal with guilt in shame. We are covered through Christ. Our shame is covered through Christ.

Christ. So maybe we have more shame than we need and we need to accept a little more guilt, you know, and to the coming of it says, therefore, confess your sins one to another and pray for one another. When we let people know what we have done and how sin and the world has affected us is when, when we feel comfortable enough to do that, it’s because we have overcome that sin, and if we don’t share that, we don’t share that, then no one will know because everybody will think, oh, I’m going through this and I’m going through that alone. But if they know that others have gone through these same things, then they can come to someone.

And there’s also a statement that says, you don’t have to dance with everybody, but you have to dance with somebody.

And so the thought of that is that I don’t need to let you know. If there’s a sin that is so dark and deep in my heart, I’m not going to be able to let everybody know about it. But I can confess it. If I hear and I know of someone that’s gone through that and they’ve overcome it and they’re to a point where they’re comfortable enough to talk about it, then that may prevent, persuade me to go to that person and say, man, I’ve done the same thing. I’ve done the same thing.

And then that experience that that person has and how they overcome that, and we have lots of examples of that in our fellowship, and I’m not against outside counsel, and I think it needs to be done carefully. But I think there also is that in our fellowship, we, we need to be open enough to let everybody know what has gone on in our lives, and then if you are to a place where you have mentored, if you’ve taken the spec out of your own eye, then you can help your brother. Anyways. Very good.

I’m going to take a couple more comments before I move on to the closing statement. But I do want to say that, brethren, we can agree that we are for restoration. We want people to be restored. We want them to come back into this. Now, are we against someone else’s idea of how to get there?

We know which one we like. We have our preferences. Are we so against it that we would advise against anything else except for the one that we have, the one that we believe is correct. God meets us where we are, every single person as an individual. There is no one way that is a blanket accepted.

This is the only way. You can only do this one and that’s it. If somebody else has a process, the fact that they are striving for it should be encouraged, and before I take those next couple of comments, I do just want to talk about this last question that’s written down here. What is one practical step each of us can take this week to either address dark sin in our own lives or to be a safe and restorative presence for someone else who is struggling with it.

Now, this question is not necessarily one that you have to raise your hand and give an actual answer to. A lot of it is going to be something that I want you to hold in your heart and in your mind. Just saying there doesn’t require to be an answer for this. But I do have two hands in the back and I’m going to give it to you guys.

I’ll Karen first and then I’ll, and remember, we’ve got like two minutes. So I just wanted to say with your Matthew 5 scripture that we tend to neuter that scripture and say, oh, it doesn’t really mean to pluck your eye out. It’s showing. We need to take drastic measures.

When we are in this position, we don’t sugarcoat it. We take drastic measures, and I think one of the things that we can do is be that safe place. We hear something, we don’t need to share it with other people over.

And maybe this will make it. It’s a question a little more real, actual event.

I would just put it out there. How would the brethren here, or anyone that’s listening, if a brother came to you and said, I’m responsible by my hand, another brother lost his life by my hand, what would you do? I mean, that’s a dark. About as dark as it gets when you, you know, for grading things. But if one brother is responsible or feels responsible for the death of another.

Then how would you address that? That would be, you know, a practical example. I’ll say one of the places. One of the things in here where we talk about making sure it’s a safe environment is to understand your own limitations. Understanding your own limitation is one of the things that’s a requirement for creating a safe environment.

If you are ill equipped to help out with this, acknowledge that in yourself first.

I think Paul the Apostle did struggle with that exact thing.

We know that it was a struggle for the rest of his life.

We are already over time. I wish so much that I could have gotten in there, and so I do want to say some closing statements here, and while I’m saying this, I have another part of this hand down right. This particular part is one that I was not going to talk about because it is supplemental.

This is resources that I want to give everyone here, resources for addressing these kind of difficult sins within ourselves. It is something just for you to look over. It is on both sides. You know, we have explored the uncomfortable but vital topic of sin, especially those dark or secret sins that often live in the hidden corners of our hearts and minds.

We’ve seen that God, in his infinite wisdom and mercy, sees everything. Yet he responds to our confession.

It is not condemnation, but a complete forgiveness and forgetting.

The cost of sin is great. We talked a little bit about plucking out your eye or cutting off your own hands. This is not to make light of it. The cost of sin was God’s only begotten Son.

We have that complete forgiveness through the sacrificial work of Jesus, and just as he did not hold David’s greatest sin against him once he repented, he does not hold our sins against us. Therefore, as followers of Christ, we are called to reflect this same grace. When others, whether in our lives or those we encounter, stumble or are caught in sin, especially the sin that is hidden and shameful, we are not to hold it against them. We are not to gossip, condemn, or stand in judgment.

Instead, we are called to help in this healing process. We are to walk alongside them in gentleness, in pointing them in the same compassionate God who has forgiven us. We should be communities and individuals known not only for our purity from sin, for we all do fall short, but for our sincere repentance, our trust in God’s astounding forgiveness, and our willingness to extend that same restorative grace to others in participating in their healing process as God has participated in ours.

That is, it.

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