Faith Is the Victory, Part Two

1 John 5:1-5
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, March 26, 2006
Copyright © 2006, P. G. Mathew

The Aphids of Unbelief

Faith is the one thing God demands from us for salvation-living, persevering, obedient, saving faith, the faith of Abraham, who is the father of all Jewish and Gentile believers. Such faith is created within us by God himself when we are regenerated by the Holy Spirit. This faith is not dead faith, but saving faith, a faith with which we trust God daily and persevere in that trust to the end.

Yet Satan daily attacks us to destroy our faith. I used to have very beautiful, large, multi-colored roses in my yard. One day I noticed that the rosebuds were covered with aphids, that eventually sucked the juices out of plants and destroyed the beauty of the flowers. Satan attacks us through the aphids of an unbelieving heart, and we must learn to fight such unbelief.

The writer to the Hebrews warns, “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” An unbelieving heart fails to combine God’s promises with faith, preventing us from entering into the hope, joy, peace, happiness, and rest of God’s salvation.

Instead of trusting God and his promises, the Israelites were characterized by the aphids of unbelief. We are told several times that these people, who had experienced divine deliverance from slavery to Pharaoh, murmured against God as they encountered divine trials of faith: “They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? . . . Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, “Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians”? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!'” (Exodus 14:11-12). Exodus 15:24 relates what happened when the Israelites came to Marah: “So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What are we to drink?'” In Exodus 16:2 we read, “In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt!'” And Exodus 17:1-3 says, “The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So they quarreled with Moses and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses replied, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to the test?’ But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses.”

Such evil hearts of unbelief merit God’s anger. In Hebrews 3:10-11 the Lord declares, “That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray.’ . . . So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.'” The greatest insult we can give to God is to not believe in him. It is to say, in effect, “You are a liar! You are untrustworthy, undependable, unreliable.”

God is not pleased when we do not believe in him. It brings out his wrath and fury against us. Thus we read in Hebrews 3:17, “And with whom was he angry for forty years?” and we are told that he killed that entire unbelieving generation; not one unbeliever entered into God’s promised rest.

So we are warned against unbelief, for it calls for the outpouring of God’s judgment. In Hebrews 10 we read:

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ and again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (vv. 26-31)

How many times have the aphids of unbelief destroyed those who seemed to be believers! Their hearts grew increasingly hardened until they ended up serving Satan with great passion. So beware of the aphids of unbelief, and fight against them at the first sign of infection. Early detection and treatment are essential. Ask your spouse, your parents, your children, your friends, or your pastor to help, for they may be able to see the early signs of unbelief if you do not.

Daniel P. Fuller deals with these issues of faith and unbelief in his book, The Unity of the Bible. At the first signs of “aphids”-signs that include confusion, irritability, worry, loss of peace and joy-we must deal with the infestation severely. We do so through putting faith in God’s specific promises, through prayer, and through singing. These aphids of unbelief must be destroyed for us to grow strong in faith and enjoy heavenly peace.

The Treatment Plan

How, then, do we fight the aphids of unbelief? Let us look at three steps.

1. Understand who God is. First, we must acknowledge that our God is good. Deuteronomy 7:9 reveals who our God is: “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God.” There is no other God. To worship anything else is to worship an idol, a demon.

God is faithful in his being and, therefore, in his promises. Deuteronomy 7:9 continues, “He is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.” Elsewhere we read, “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). Our God is good to us! In Jeremiah 32:41 God says, “I will rejoice in doing them good . . . with all my heart and soul.” He is saying, in effect, “I will summon all my capacities and power to save you and to do you good.” This is not the commitment of a devil or a sinful man; it is the commitment of the holy, eternal God to us. But we must understand that God has put certain conditions upon believers. Colossians 1:22-23 says, “But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation. . . .” That is God’s purpose for us. But then God gives a requirement: “if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.” We are likewise commanded in Revelation 2:10b to “be faithful, even to the point of death.” Saving, persevering, living, obedient faith will follow Christ in the narrow way to the end.

2. Trust in God’s word. Second, we should look to Jesus as our role model for fighting the devil’s seduction. Jesus loved, believed, and obeyed the word of God, and used it as his primary weapon to resist temptation (Matthew 4:1-11).

Matthew 4:1-11 tells how the devil tempted him to command the stones to become bread. Jesus refused, stating, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God'” (Deuteronomy 8:3). In other words, man lives by obeying God’s authoritative word. Although he was hungry, Jesus refused to change stones to bread without divine sanction. Then the devil told him to throw himself down from one of the pinnacles of the temple, saying the Lord would take care of him. Again, Jesus resisted Satan by quoting Scripture, this time from Deuteronomy 6:16: “It is also written: ‘Do not put the LORD your God to the test.'” The devil was persistent, so he said, “Worship me, and I will give all the kingdoms of this world to you.” Jesus dealt with this seduction again by quoting Scripture: “It is written: ‘Worship the LORD your God and serve him only'” (Deuteronomy 6:13). Finally, the devil left him. The Bible says that when we resist the devil, he shall flee. Such faith is the victory that overcomes the devil and the world. It defeats and demolishes all unbelief, arguments, and pretensions. The fortresses of unbelief will be pulled down by the powerful weapon of faith.

3. Know the enemy’s purpose. Satan wants to destroy our faith because it is the one thing God requires of us for salvation. In fact, he knows that if he can destroy it, we will have believed in vain, as Paul acknowledges in 1 Thessalonians 3:5: “When I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter might have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless.”

First Peter 5:8-9 warns, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” Our enemy is an invisible, spiritual, demonic being who is ever looking for an opportunity to destroy, seduce, and corrupt us with the aphids of unbelief. Never think the devil wants to give us happiness; he wants to eat us alive! His hook is the pleasure of sin. What can we do? Resist him! Resist him by trusting in the word of God and declaring it at the right time. Say to the devil: “It is written.” Resist him by standing firm in the gospel and in the promises of God. James 4:7 tells us, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Notice, we must first submit to God; when we do so, we can resist the devil, and he shall flee from us. Brothers and sisters, the object of our faith is the living and true God and his promises. “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind” (Numbers 23:19). God is faithful to do what he promises. Thus, we must trust in him, especially when circumstances are unfavorable, knowing that God is able to give life to the dead and calls into existence things that are not as though they were. As Christians, we are to walk always by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 1:1). And the time is soon approaching when our faith shall be sight.

The Aphids of Guilt:

1. The Source of Guilt

What, then, are some of the aphids of unbelief? First there is guilt, whether real or false. Guilt sucks the vitals of our faith. So we must wage war against it. Revelation 12:9-10 says, “The great dragon was hurled down-that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. . . . For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.” The devil’s job is to accuse us. Satan, the dragon, the old serpent, the great deceiver, the accuser of the brethren, is constantly accusing us before God, even though we are not aware of it, just as Job was not aware of Satan falsely accusing him before God. Sometimes the devil’s accusations about us are true. We have sinned in the past, we do sin in the present, and we will sin in the future. We do not claim perfection. We commit sins of commission as well as sins of omission. We may openly transgress God’s law and fail to love him as we ought. Now Satan wants to put this unbearable load of guilt on us. Recall how he stood at the right of Joshua the high priest and accused him of his sins and defilement (Zechariah 3:1-5). Satan was implying, “God, this man is unfit to be a priest. He is unclean! He is guilty!” But just as God took care of Joshua’s problem, he takes care of ours as well. Not only does Satan accuse us before God, but he also accuses us in our consciences. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:11 that we are not ignorant of his thoughts. So when a thought comes into our heads, we can discern whether it is from God or the devil. Satan accuses us with false as well as real guilt. He may say, “How can you claim to be a Christian? You are not holy; you are a sinner! In fact, you can never be holy, so turn away from Christ and come back to me. Can’t I give you pleasure? Come back! There is no God or judgment. So just trust in yourself, as I do, and enjoy your life.” Just as Pharaoh and his army pursued the Israelites, so the devil and his agents pursue the children of God, ever attempting to turn them away from God and back to Satan. Satan is happy when we are proud, self-trusting, egocentric, and pleasure-loving. He wants us to enjoy the short-lived pleasures of sin rather than the eternal joy of serving God.

2. Defeating Guilt

How, then, can we deal with this guilt Satan heaps upon us? The only way is through faith in God’s word. We must fight the devil with the double-edged sword of God’s promises. It is not enough to have a Bible: we must read it, understand it, believe it, and put it into practice. It is not enough to have the double-edged sword of the word in our hand; we have to transfer God’s promises into our hearts, believe them, and speak them at the right time to the devil. The following are some scriptures we can hide in our hearts and use at the first sign of guilt:

Exodus 34:6-7. Here God reveals his true nature: “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.” This scripture tells us that God is slow to anger; he is long-suffering. Thus, he does not take away our forgiveness, justification, adoption, and union with Christ the moment we falter and sin. Nor do we forfeit God’s temporal blessings. Our God is the one, true, covenant Lord, the compassionate and gracious God who is full of grace and truth, abounding in love and faithfulness. That is why he doesn’t tell his children, “I am taking away all the spiritual and physical blessings I have given you, and I am going to kick you out of my kingdom. I no longer want to have relationship with you.” Additionally, it says that our God forgives wickedness, rebellion, and sin. What more could we want? Three different words are used to describe sin; he is able to forgive any and every sin we may commit. His grace is greater than all our sins. Nevertheless, this scripture concludes, “Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.” Persistent sinning without godly repentance shows that a person did not have true faith to begin with. If you are persisting in sin, you are in great danger. You are bringing the anger of God on yourself, and you will fall short of his rest, unless you repent.

First John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” God is faithful in his being; therefore, he is faithful to his promises. He is also righteous. He came up with the plan of redemption, so that if we trust in the atonement of Christ, he will forgive us. Were he not to do so, he would be unrighteous. So when we are feeling guilty, we must tell the devil, “Yes, I sinned. But I confessed my sins to God based on the atonement of Christ, and now I stand forgiven.” To confess means to repent and forsake, to make restitution, and to believe in Christ’s atonement. The only sin God cannot forgive is the sin of unbelief in God and in his promises. Unbelief is the greatest insult we can give God. Unbelief declares that God is a liar. But no one can be saved in his unbelief. When a sinner asks, “What must I do to be to saved?” the answer is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.” Thus, the only sin God will not forgive is the sin of unbelief. It is also called the sin against the Holy Spirit, whose function it is to reveal Christ to us that we may believe him.

Revelation 12:11. Here we read that God’s people overcame the devil “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” The objective basis for our victory is the atonement of Christ; the subjective basis is our faith in that atonement to forgive our sins. We are also told these people died for their faith. True faith defies death and every temptation. True faith will not surrender to sinful desires; rather, it will wage war and overcome everything that opposes it, even the devil. Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, and 21 all contain promises to those who overcome (PGM). If we are Christians, we will overcome, for the gates of hell cannot prevail against the church of Jesus Christ. We are on a war path, and we will win, conquering, subduing and taking captive every thought to the obedience of the victorious Christ.

Romans 8:33-34. All of us have sinned; therefore, we have guilt. Is God going to destroy us and throw us out of his home? No! This verse makes a profound argument: “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-more than that, who was raised to life-is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” No one can successfully charge us before the court of heaven, where God the Father sits as the final just Judge. Why? Jesus Christ our Lord is ever standing there to intercede for us, and his advocacy is always effectual. He wins all his cases. Then Paul asks, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” What is the answer? No one and nothing! No devil, no demon, no world, and, let me dare to say, not even our failures and sin, can separate us from the love of God. This is why we take advantage of the provisions God gives us. We lay hold of the horns of the altar and declare, “Christ died for my sins.” One may be tempted to argue: so let us therefore sin all the more. But that is not the response of a true believer. As Paul declared in Romans 6:1-2, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!” How could we continue in sin, in view of Christ’s love and death in our behalf? The right conclusion is: “If this is the love God showed for me, I am going to love him and keep his commandments even more zealously. Yes, I may falter and stumble, but if I do, I will thank God for the provision of his atonement.

The Aphids of Regret:

1. The Source of Regret

A second manifestation of unbelief that will suck the juices from our spiritual lives is the aphids of regret. We have all made foolish, unwise, regrettable-yea, sinful-decisions in the past, and many of us continue to be haunted by these decisions. The devil takes advantage of this, telling us that we can never enjoy the fullness of God’s blessings; that we will ever remain third-class citizens in God’s kingdom; that God will never approve us; that he will never smile at us; that he will never embrace us; and that he will be always angry with us. If only we had not made such bad decisions: sexual immorality; walking out of a marriage; having an abortion; dropping out of school; quitting a good job in a huff; leaving home as a teenager because we did not want our parents telling us how to live; using drugs of destruction; being lazy in college and choosing silly majors; not listening to our parents and pastors who counseled us several times how to live; not loving our spouses; not being model parents to our children; not disciplining our children in their early, formative years; marrying someone we were warned not to marry; and so on. We can list many more such regrets. And then we think, “If only I had not made those decisions, what my life might have been like! What can I expect now? At best God will accept me only as a hired servant.”

2. Defeating Regret

As we did with guilt, let us consider a few scriptures that can liberate us from the shackles of the regrets that imprison us. The Bible is full of people who made bad decisions. Examining the outcome of their actions will help us break free from our own prison of regret and move into the glorious sunshine and freedom of God’s great love for us.

The prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). This young man did not like his father’s government; he did not want his father telling him what to do. So he went away to a far country, where he wasted his money and his life. God sent a great famine, but no one gave the young man anything to eat. Finally, he came to his senses and reasoned, “‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father.” What was his father’s response? “While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.” Best robe, ring, shoes-these are all symbols of a beloved son, not a servant. “‘Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and was found.’ So they began to celebrate” (vv. 17-24). Embraces! Smiles! Kisses! Best robe! Ring! Shoes! The fatted calf killed for this grand occasion! Singing! Celebration! Dancing! Inexpressible joy, that his son has come home. This is the attitude of God toward every believer who repents. God invites us to come to him, not as hired servants or third-class citizens, but as sons and daughters. There is great celebration in heaven when a sinner repents. The word of God is a word of love, forgiveness, mercy, and grace-a grace that will wipe away all our regrets. Even the very memory of them disappears as we are embraced by God. And he will smile at us and say, “This my son was dead, but he is alive.”

Zedekiah (Jeremiah 38). Zedekiah was the last king of Judah. Born at a time of great revival, he was the son of good King Josiah; thus, I am sure he grew up learning about God. Yet, as an adult, Zedekiah turned his back on God and acted wickedly. King Zedekiah would often invite Jeremiah to consult with him, but he would not follow Jeremiah’s advice. Finally, the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, and his army surrounded Jerusalem (Jeremiah 38). Jeremiah had long prophesied that the people of Judah should surrender to Babylon, for that was God’s will. In verses 17-20 we see God again making an offer of mercy to Zedekiah through Jeremiah: “‘This is what the Lord God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared and this city will not be burned down; you and your family will live. But if you will not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be handed over to the Babylonians and they will burn it down; you yourself will not escape from their hands.’ King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, ‘I am afraid of the Jews who have gone over to the Babylonians, for the Babylonians may hand me over to them and they will mistreat me.’ ‘They will not hand you over,’ Jeremiah replied. ‘Obey the Lord by doing what I tell you. Then it will go well with you, and your life will be spared.'” How many wicked things had Zedekiah done! Yet God was saying, “In spite of it all, if you obey me, believe me, trust me, and do what I say, it will go well with you.” That is what God says to us as well. In spite of all the evil things we have done, he says, “Now trust me. Now obey me. Now believe me.” Then Jeremiah warned Zedekiah: “‘But if you refuse to surrender, this is what the Lord has revealed to me: All the women left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon. . . . All your wives and children will be brought out to the Babylonians. You yourself will not escape from their hands but will be captured by the king of Babylon; and this city will be burned down'” (vv. 21-23). Did Zedekiah finally obey? Oh, what tragedy! He refused once again to listen to Jeremiah. So we read in Jeremiah 39:4, “When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled; they left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and headed toward the Arabah.” I am sure Zedekiah thought, “I can save myself. I’ll just escape and prove God to be false.” But read on: “The Babylonian army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They captured him and took him to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced sentence on him. There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes and also killed all the nobles of Judah. Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon” (vv. 5-7). In spite of the things we have done in the past, God is still speaking to us through his word. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart” (Hebrews 3:7). If we return to him, it will go well with us. He will receive us, save us, bless us, and accept us as sons and daughters. Just believe his word! Zedekiah refused to believe, and the last thing he saw was the murder of his own children. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God, for our “God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29).

Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33). Manasseh was perhaps the worst king of Israel. Yet he was a covenant child, brought up as a believer in the household of his godly father, Hezekiah. In 2 Chronicles 33 we read, “But Manasseh led Judah and the people of Jerusalem astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites. The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention. So the Lord brought against them the army commanders of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon” (vv. 9-11). Manasseh had done many wicked things. Now, as he sat in prison, he was full of regret: “I should not have done those things. What my life might have been, if I had not acted so wickedly!” But notice verses 12-13: “In his distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.” And if we read on, we see how he proved his repentance with deeds. So it does not matter what we did-God is willing to forgive. When we sin, we are guilty of our sin. But Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification. If we confess our sins, he will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What, then, should we do when these thoughts of regret and guilt crowd into our minds? We should tell Satan, “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me from all my sins.”

The nation of Israel (1 Samuel 12). What was the sin of Israel? They rejected the Lord. They did not want God to rule over them; they wanted to be like other nations, led by a human king. In 1 Samuel 12:19 we read, “The people all said to Samuel, ‘Pray to the Lord your God for your servants so that we will not die, for we have added to all our other sins the evil of asking for a king.'” These people understood that they had done something very terrible in rejecting the true king of Israel, the Sovereign Lord. Yet hear what God said to them through Samuel: “‘Do not be afraid,’ Samuel replied. ‘You have done all this evil, yet do not turn away from the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless'” (vv. 20-21). We may think happiness flows from the devil. But he comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. Only in God’s presence is there fullness of joy and on his right hand, and pleasures forevermore. Satan is the deceiver of the whole world. Satan seduces us to sin that we be loaded down with regret. In verse 22 Samuel continued, “For the sake of his great name the Lord will not reject his people.” Isn’t that wonderful? “For the sake of his great name.” What is that name? It is the Lord-the Lord, slow to anger, the compassionate and gracious God, the God who abounds in love and faithfulness, who forgives wickedness, rebellion, and sin. The Lord desires to do good to us-not because we are good, but because he is good, and he loves us. “For the sake of his great name the Lord will not reject his people, because the Lord was pleased to make you his own.” Out of all the peoples of the world, he set his love on us, a love that will not let us go. Samuel continued, “As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right. But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you. Yet if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king will be swept away” (vv. 23-25).

Infestation Cured!

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Paul says, “in all things,” which I believe includes even our own sin. We must think carefully here, because some people may want to twist what we are about to say. God is almighty, all-wise, and all-sovereign. As such, he can work in such a way that he can bring good even out of our hardness of heart and sin. Only he can do such a thing. This should give us great hope. God’s ultimate purpose is to save us, and not even our sin can frustrate his purpose.

Paul poses a question in Romans 8:35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” And the answer is given: No one and nothing! Even our own sin cannot frustrate God’s plan to save us. God’s purpose shall be fulfilled. That is not to say we will experience no pain. God will do whatever he must to save us, but he will save us without regret. I heard it said God transforms stumbling stones into stepping-stones. God is able to bring good out of our own failures, stupidity, and, yes, even our sin.

One could argue, “If God is able to bring good out of my sin, why don’t I sin more so that more good can come?” To do so would be perversion, wickedness, and unbelief. Paul himself made this point in Romans 6:1-2.

Are you plagued by guilt? Then meditate on 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come!” When we trust in Jesus Christ and unite with him by faith, all the sinful things that we did are wiped away by God himself. The old is gone, and we are a brand-new creation. Armed with this truth, we can fight our regrets.

Ephesians 2:10 also speaks about being a new creation: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do.” We are God’s handiwork. He took those who were nothings and made them new creations in Christ. And Galatians 6:15 says, “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.” That is what we are-a new creation, washed clean, made brand-new, gleaming and glistening and shining in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 5:25 tells us, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (vv. 25-27).

We are the church, the bride of Christ. He loves us and we love him; he is our treasure and we are his. So forget about regrets. They are all gone now. We are new creations. We are God’s treasure. He has a plan for us, and it is a good plan. He is at work within us, and he will not quit until we sparkle as his glorious, resplendent jewels.

God’s love for us is always greater than all our sins. None of us has sinned beyond God’s ability to save us. God is speaking to us now. This is our Today, our kairos, our opportune time. Let us come to him, that he may comfort us. May he remove our heavy, crushing burden of guilt, regret, and anxiety. Jesus longs to give us rest. Behold, the crucified, risen, and reigning Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! May he forgive our guilt, cleanse our defilement, remove all our regrets and embrace us. May he comfort us by driving away all our anxieties. He loves us and cares for us, for he is our Savior who daily bears our burdens.

I hope we will believe what God is saying to us and combine the word with faith. Zephaniah 3:14 says, “Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem!” Why should we sing and shout? The reason is given in verse 15: “The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm.” How could he take away our punishment? “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53).

Our only response to this is: Sing! Shout! Be glad! Rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Zion! Zephaniah 3:16 continues, “On that day they will say to Jerusalem, ‘Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you,'” as the father took great delight in the prodigal son. “‘He will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.'”

Brothers and sisters, we are sinners, and God knows all about our wickedness, rebellion, and sin. Yet he loves us. May we therefore fight the aphids of guilt and regret, because the old is gone; the new has come. Our loving, long-suffering, faithful God has removed our punishment by punishing his own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in our place. May we therefore trust in his promise: “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Faith Is the Victory, Part Two

The Aphids of Unbelief

The Treatment Plan

The Aphids of Guilt:

The Aphids of Regret:

Infestation Cured!

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