"NO MONKEY BUSINESS"
SCRIPTURE: Isaiah 58:1-14

This is the third lesson in my series, "STRATEGIES AGAINST SIN."
I have entitled it, "NO MONKEY BUSINESS," for reasons that will become evident in a moment.

Unless a person is saved, he can never mortify ANY sin. Let me illustrate with an old anecdote. Finding himself desperately in need of money, a man went to the city zoo, hoping to get a job feeding the animals. Although no such opportunity was available, the manager, seeing the size and the strength of the applicant, suddenly got an idea.

"You know," he said, "there are few creatures that attract attention like a gorilla. Unfortunately, ours died yesterday. If we dress you in a special gorilla suit, would you be willing to imitate the gorilla for a few days until we can purchase another for our zoo?"

The unemployed man agreed to try. He was quite successful as he beat his chest, bellowed, and shook the bars of his cage-much to the amusement of visitors who said they had never seen a gorilla with such intelligence. The man was a natural ham.

He would swing on his trapeze out over the lion's den, but one day he overdid it, and lost his grip on the trapeze, and landed in the lion's den. The lion roared.

The impostor in the gorilla suit squealed, "HELP!"

Immediately the LION whispered, "Shut up, or you'll get us BOTH fired!"

Merely to ACT like a monkey and PRETEND to be a gorilla, doesn't make you one. People who ACT like Christians--go to church, try to renovate their lives to be respectable--but lack the genuine presence and power of the Lord Jesus Christ in their lives--are NOT going to be able to kill indwelling sin. This work of mortifying sin is no monkey-business.

There is no mortification of sin except by BELIEVERS, and there is no mortification of any one PARTICULAR sin without a universality of OBEDIENCE.

Let me explain. There must be hatred of sin AS sin and not just annoyance over some PARTICULAR sin. If a person's swearing, for instance, bothers him, and takes away his peace, and fills his heart with fear, and he determines to beat THAT sin; he will probably not succeed if he tolerates OTHER sins which he enjoys too much to give up.

If a woman, for instance, wants to give up the sin of gluttony, so as to look more beautiful, but is not interested in giving up flirtatious temptations, do you see how it would be spiritually disadvantageous for her to succeed in killing the sin of gluttony only to increase the other danger? She must seek total obedience and hate all sin in her life.

Will God give you victory over that particular sin that TROUBLES you unless you are seeking victory over ALL sin?

"No," says God.

"If this fellow could be rid of this one sin, I would never hear from him anymore. His prayers would greatly diminish. Let him wrestle with THIS, or he is lost."

You see why there must be a UNIVERSAL sincerity for the mortifying of EVERY lust or NO lust will be mortified?

In our Scripture from Isaiah 58, we see how the Israelites, under a sense of their sin, drew near to God with much diligence and earnestness, with fasting and prayer. Verse 2 says, "Yet they seek Me daily, And delight to know My ways, As a nation that did righteousness, And did not forsake the ordinance of their God. They ask of Me the ordinances of justice; They take delight in approaching God."

Yet God REJECTS their endeavors to be healed. He says that their FASTS will NOT heal them, and he tells them WHY. It was because they were too NARROW in their attention to this duty while NEGLIGENT about other sins. Thus in verse 5, God asks, "Is it a fast that I have chosen, A day for a man to afflict his soul?

Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, And to spread out sackcloth and ashes?

Would you call this a fast, And an acceptable day to the LORD?" and verse 6, "Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke?" and verse 7, "Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not hide yourself from your own flesh?"

It will be of little use for the drinker to try to get his ruined LIVER repaired if he won't give up his DRINKING. It will be of little use for the coughing CANCER victim to get his LUNGS repaired if he won't give up his CIGARETTES. It will be of little use for the chronic WORRIER to get his ULCER repaired if he won't change his life HABITS. VICTORY in any battle against a PARTICULAR lust depends upon a general LOYALTY to the KING and HATRED of ALL sin.

In World War II, it wasn't enough for the military to plan the defeat of Fascist Mussolini, without a similar determination to defeat Hitler. He who would plot against Italy but befriend Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan would not be a loyal American. No more can you be loyal to Christ your King if you do not plan your strategy against ALL sin, though at the particular MOMENT you may be doing battle PRINCIPALLY against one BESETTING sin.

Isaiah was given an unpopular message for the house of Jacob. He was to sound the alarm, like a trumpet call. "Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your voice like a trumpet; Tell My people their transgression, And the house of Jacob their sins." That's verse 1. These people THOUGHT they were very religious, as the succeeding verses show.

"Yet they seek Me daily, And delight to know My ways, As a nation that did righteousness, And did not forsake the ordinance of their God. They ask of Me the ordinances of justice; They take delight in approaching God." This second verse may be satire. The people were attending the temple worship regularly. They were as religiously meticulous as their later ancestors, the Pharisees.

Verse 3 shows how they offered their sacrifices and even fasted, and thought God should pat them on the back for it. Then in verses 4 to 7, God explains why he has REJECTED their religious acts.

They were going around with long faces, bowing down the head like a bullrush, a heavy-headed sprig of wheat, trying to ACT holy. But God says he wants to see kindness, justice, and honesty. Look at verse 7. "Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not hide yourself from your own flesh?"

What if God would blow the trumpet while we were worshipping and say, "Stop it!

Why are you going through this ritual? You are not pleasing ME. You are living loose lives, turning your backs on the poor and needy. Your religion is cold as the north side of a tombstone in January!" That's the way J. Vernon McGee puts it. You see, they didn't have a heart for God.

God does more than blow the trumpet. He also promises light and healing for those who respond and repent. Verse 8, "Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard."

God promises that He will hear their prayers, if they will help the hungry and afflicted people. He promises to bless them, and to guide them, "Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, 'Here I am.' `If you take away the yoke from your midst, The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, If you extend your soul to the hungry And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness, And your darkness shall be as the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail."

The chapter concludes with reference to the Sabbath, and how God wants to bless his people by means of the weekly rest which we should regard as a DELIGHT.

I have said that there is no mortification of any one PARTICULAR sin without a universality of OBEDIENCE.

When it comes to overcoming temptation, you can learn something from your dog. If you place a tempting piece of meat on the floor and give the command, "No!" The dog won't even look at the meat. The dog seems to sense that if he did LOOK at it, the temptation to disobey his master would be too great. So he looks steadily at his master's face. That's what we need to do. Always look up to the Master's face. God will not tempt us to do wrong.

I had a Scotty dog unimaginatively named Scotty, and I used to try that myself. Scotty would look away to one side, and instinctively avoid the temptation. However he didn't look at my FACE. I wondered why, until I looked in the mirror myself. Smart dog.

But the point is, when we encounter any temptation, if we will turn our eyes away from the temptation and keep focused on the Lord Jesus we will be able to overcome the temptation.

The mortification of sin is a work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of BELIEVERS only. The Bible does not exhort UNBELIEVERS to do this. The Bible calls on UNBELIEVERS to REPENT and BELIEVE in Christ. That is their first and most urgent duty. It is a simultaneous duty, to REPENT (by turning FROM their sins) and BELIEVE (by turning TO Christ).

An unregenerate person may do something LIKE mortification. He may SEEM to overcome some sin in his life by exercising self-discipline, but he can never really accomplish it in any way acceptable to God. Such a person may even PROFESS to be a believer, and for a time he LOOKS genuine. You know that a good picture of the sunset can LOOK realistic, or a MOVIE of the sun blazing forth in the blue sky can LOOK bright and beautiful in the theater. But when the sun is merely painted on canvass or captured on a piece of movie film, it is not the same as the actual sun which God created. Such PICTURES of the sun do not WARM UP the theater, for instance.

So also, the unregenerate man may LOOK and SOUND like a Christian, for a TIME, like the impostor pretending to be a gorilla, but if the person is not really IN CHRIST, he will never be able to kill sin within.

So what am I saying? Is it all right, then, for the unbeliever to commit adultery, to steal and murder, and live however he pleases? No. God calls on all men everywhere to REPENT.

It is the sinner's duty to repent of EVERY sin, but it is not the sinner's IMMEDIATE duty. It IS his duty to do it, but to do it in GOD'S WAY. GOD'S way calls for the sinner to receive the Lord Jesus Christ FIRST. God doesn't want us to try to clean up our life by our own efforts as if we could do it without Christ. God doesn't want us to think we can please him on our own initiative by remodelling our lives. He wants us to accept His grace and become a new creation through the regeneration Christ alone can accomplish FOR us.

If you send an employee to the bank to make a deposit and tell him to bring you a cup of coffee when he comes back to the office, you are not pleased if he simply goes out and buys the coffee and forgets about the deposit. It was his DUTY to do BOTH, but the DEPOSIT was to be done FIRST. So also, it is the FIRST duty of the SINNER to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, and thus the work we are studying is a work for those who have done that. Mortification is the work of BELIEVERS ONLY.

I previously pointed out that that although sin aims at the utmost sin of its kind, it proceeds by DEGREES. The lustful thought would become outright adultery if you did not resist it, but it doesn't jump to the utmost sin immediately. It proceeds gradually, and once it has conquered a PORTION of your life, it hardens you to accept that AMOUNT of sin. It secures its conquered territory before advancing to take new territory.

It advances inch by inch. It is very helpful for you to examine yourselves to see what sins may have taken over a little territory in YOUR life, sins you are tolerating and which you THINK are little and unimportant.

I also said that sin is not dead just because it ACTS dead for a time. OCCASIONAL conquests of sin do not amount to MORTIFYING of it. I said in my last message that sin, when discovered, sets off the soul's alarms. Then sin shrinks back and plays "possum." It is quiet for a while when once it has STARTLED the CONSCIENCE, but later when your guard is down, it arouses itself again and gets as busy as ever in its evil work.

People who go to LIBERAL churches and don't even know about the necessity of the new birth often become frustrated in their effort to live the Christian life. They try to ACT like a Christian and try to give up various sins which they know are wrong for a Christian. No sooner have they given up one sin than another sin arises. They begin to get discouraged and think their struggle against sin is hopeless. Like the mythological monster Hydra which grew two heads every time one was cut off, the enemy seems unbeatable. Finally, they may just GIVE IN to sin, QUIT the church or take up the permanent role of a pious HYPOCRITE.

Thus does the attempt to mortify sin without first being saved cause delusion, discouragement, and spiritual BURN OUT.

Here is a man trying to repair a broken step in his house. The broken step may cause an accident. He SHOULD fix it. But you can rightly to call him away from that work if you find that a fire is consuming the whole house. He needs to attend to the fire first, before fixing the broken step. So it is for the poor soul who is fighting to overcome some particular sin in his life, but he does not consider that his WHOLE LIFE is nothing but sin in God's sight UNTIL he receives CHRIST.

This underscores once again why we must give ourselves PRIMARILY to the greater work of proclaiming the GOSPEL ITSELF on Sunday mornings and of reaching any UNREGENERATE among us, and visitors, and children coming to the age of discretion; while on Sunday EVENINGS we can engage in this study for BELIEVERS ONLY.

For instance, to preach against drunkenness or any particular sin would be insufficient if the SAVIOUR is not proclaimed who says, "Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters;" "If anyone thirsts, let him come unto ME, and drink."

If any reader is an unrenegerate person pretending to be a loyal Christian, let that one know that his urgent duty is to REPENT of ALL sin and BELIEVE in the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the Cross for our sins. Receive Christ, and THEN you can join us in this STRATEGY AGAINST SIN.

The closer you get to the Lord, the more you will recognize your need of the Holy Spirit's help in combating daily sin. The less you will feel that you have almost reached perfection. The higher you climb up a mountain, the more convinced you become that you are not about to reach the stars. The little boy from the city may think that if he could climb yonder hill he could touch the stars, but the mountain climber who has been up there knows better.

If you have ever hiked up a mountain yourself, you know that the sky and sun do not appear any closer as you progress. The higher you go up the mountain, you don't notice the progress, until you look back down. Similarly, the holier you get, you don't notice it, as you keep looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of your faith. There is still so much distance between you and God, that you know you haven't "made it" yet spiritually, but you are on your way by God's grace. And if you are making progress, you can tell it by looking back on your life and noticing the difference Jesus has made. What a difference between what you USED to be and what you are NOW that Jesus is your Saviour.

I pray that these studies from God's Word as John Owen so clearly taught it will contribute to actual unconscious holiness in our lives while simultaneously increasing our humility and dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

Here are some good links to information about John Owen. Click on the blue words and you will go to those sites.

<Biography

J. I. Packer on John Owen