Cleanse Your Hands

Cleanse your hands, ye sinners!

by David J. Stewart

 

 "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded." -James 4:8

       I have always loved this particular verse because it tells me how to get closer to God.  As a teenager, I wanted to be closer to God.  I claimed James 4:8 and drew near to God the best I knew how in prayer, Bible reading and thinking about the things of God.  I had grown up in an extremely abusive home.  My father was violent, even put my mother in the hospital.  My father would never go to church, but my mother would attend every once in a while (when my father allowed her to).  I was an emotionally starved young person.  I had no one to talk to.  I found the Lord at age 12 in a local Baptist church.  I accepted Jesus as my Saviour.  I began to read the Bible.  I remember my mother saying she had seen a change in me.  That encouraged me.  Unfortunately, most of what I remember growing up is my mother being drunk on the couch, smoking, and vomiting her guts out in the sink night after night.  She eventually had a stroke at age 53 and never walked again.

I love my parents, but to be honest, I wish I could have grown up in a different home.  I would never want any person to go through what I suffered.  I don't blame my parents for anything, but I was messed up when I grew older.  You don't traumatize a child for 18 years and then expect him to function normally in life.  Most of you don't know what it's like as a child to urinate upon yourself in fear while being attacked by a monster, you can't possibly understand what I went through or how I felt.  My father used to throw food at my mother and I'd see here crying night after night with food dripping off her head.  He'd run as fast as he could into the kitchen and just start hurting her.  All I could do is panic in fear.  He threw me up against the wall, kicked me and beat me more times than I can remember.  My nose is crooked on my face from being abused.  I have scares on my right wrist.   I could write a book, but you get the picture. 

My father was so mean that even after my mother was wheelchair bound from a crippling stroke years later, he poured a gallon of bleach over her head.  He hated her cigarette smoking and got mad at her one day because she asked him for for some cigarette money.  He blew up and said, "Here, I'll help you kill yourself."  I'm so glad my father is out of my life, but I love him.  I am now 37 years old and still have nightmares.  Thanks be to God, greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world (1st John 4:4).  I have Jesus to see my through!  Don't feel sorry for me, that's all water under the bridge now and I am moving on in Jesus' name.  For me to live is Christ.

I sure wish things could have been different growing up, but then again I realize that God works in very strange ways some times.  I would not be who I am if it were not for the abuse I endured when growing up.  Never underestimate the things God uses in your life to bring you to do God's will.  I learned this truth from Brother Jack Schaap while at Hyles-Anderson College.  There wouldn't be a www.Jesus-is-Savior.com if it weren't for the miseries in my life.  Romans 8:28 does NOT promise that things will be always good in our life, but it DOES promise that God will take all the events of our life (good and bad) and somehow make them all turn out for good.  Only God can do that friend!  I know what it's like to have paint stripper thrown on me as a child and to beg for my father not to kill my mommy while he was holding a steak knife against her throat.  It's devastating on a child's mind.  Violence learned as a child is truly a lesson learned for life.  Please don't forget that.

So James 4:8 was of particular interest to me as a young person.  I knew I could always draw near to a loving God in heaven.  I was afraid to draw near to my father, and I didn't trust my mother to draw near to her.  I once heard the Beatle's performing on TV and told my mom that I liked that kind of music.  I was only about 10.  She went and told my father and he exploded in anger.  I didn't understand why he could drink beer, curse in God's name and hurt my mother...but I couldn't like rock music.  At that age, I was very innocent.  I never told my mother anything after that because I feared she'd just go tell my monster father.  I was on my own, rock music became my very best friend.

I have shared a bit of my personal life's story with you for a purpose.  You see, my father was an ordained minister for most of his life, even before I was born.  I believe my father was saved, but he never did make it to the promised land (the victorious Christian life).  My father never did yield his life to the Holy Spirit.  My father eventually became a full-time neo-evangelical minister.  He made a living in the name of God, but he never yielded his heart to the Lord.  He lived his life his way, not God's.  He cared not for soulwinning or righteousness.  His God was his belly.

When a person accepts Christ as personal Saviour, God comes into that person's heart forever.  But hear me out...Just because you have God in your heart doesn't mean that God has YOUR heart.  That's a good statement.

"Just because you have God in your heart doesn't mean that God has YOUR heart."

I believe my father was a believer, but he never gave God his heart. 

Notice the words in James 4:8, "...cleanse your hands, ye sinners..."  I never really quite understood what that meant until years later.  One day it just came to my mind...God is willing to clean our heart, but only we can clean our hands.  You can ask God to help you live right all you want to, but you must "clean your own hands."  You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink it.  God will forgive and help you to change, but ultimately you have a free will.  It is your personal decision.  By the way, no one ever "falls" into sin.  Rather, we choose to "go" into sin.  I learned that truth from my hero, Dr. Jack Hyles. 

If it weren't for Brother Hyles, I would have hated my father's guts.  You see, when I first came to Hyles-Anderson College, Brother Hyles taught me something in chapel one day.  Dr. Hyles said, "The best Christian in this chapel room today may have recently smoked a cigarette."  I was shocked.  Brother Hyles then said, "The best Christian in this room today may have recently drank a beer."  Was in in the wrong college?  What in the world?  Then Brother Hyles explained something to us which I shall never forget...He said, "How good of a Christian you are is not determined by where your at, but by how far you've come on the road to get to where you are at."  Isn't that deep!  Isn't that great!  What a truth!  Some people grow up in good homes, with good parents and a strong church.  Another person grows up in a horrible home, has abusive parents, and with no church.  Who has farther to go?  The guy who recently smoked a cigarette may have come ten times farther than the guy who would never even think of smoking a cigarette, but he grew up in a great home.  Isn't that a great truth!  This is why we must not judge who's the better Christian by what we see, God sees the heart which we cannot see.  So I don't hate my father, he grew up in an Orphanage in Escanaba Michigan in the 1940's.  Still, he has no excuse for his abusive ways.  We cannot blame our parents or society for our sins and faults.  God's grace is sufficient.  I cannot blame my father if I'm mean to someone.  My father always blamed his mother.  Though his mother may have caused him much sorrow and grief, my father had a freewill of his own.  He chose to be cruel and mean.  No one made him pick up that steak knife.  No one made him send her to the hospital.  We are accountable to God for ourselves.  Oh to God things could have been different, but God can make good come out of bad things.  Only God can do that!

My father chose to remain a mean and cruel person.  He could have changed, but he really didn't want to.  My father had Jesus in his heart, but Jesus didn't have his heart.  If you're saved, you have God Almighty LIVING in your heart 24/7.  What a beautiful thing!  God loves us so much that He chose to come live in our heart as the Holy Spirit.  I sure am glad God made it that way.  I love God and am glad that He's with me when I need Him, but do you know what?  God loves you and me so much that He wanted to be with us every second of the day, month and year.  The Bible even reassures us of this fact in Hebrews 13:5.  What a Saviour!

If you're a believer, then God lives in your heart.  Your heart has been changed.  There's no such thing as a believer who didn't have a change of heart when they got saved.  You can't even get saved unless you've repented in your heart of your sins and unbelief.  What do I mean by repent?  I mean that you came to the realization that your sins were horribly vile and wicked.  You realized that you deserve to burn in the fires of hell for all eternity.  You realized that Jesus Christ is the Saviour Who died for your sins.  You turned around in your heart to God.  Repentance is a turnaround.  Whereas you were living a life of sin and unbelief, you finally confessed your wicked sinful condition to God and believed upon Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, asking Him to forgive all your sins. 

But let me ask you a question...God cleansed your heart from all unrighteousness (1st John 1:9), but have you cleansed your hands?  God promised to cleanse our heart, to "justify" us, just-if-I'd never sinned.  Now it's up to you to live right.  The Holy Spirit will help you live right.  As a matter of fact, you can't live right without the Holy Spirit's help.  However, He won't force you to do the right thing.  God never forces a person to repent.  Never!  He may chastise a person like He did Jonah, but Jonah could have still refused to submit to God.  Some people would rather live in the belly of a whale than to do the right thing.  Lot chose to live in Sodom.  The Israelites chose to remain in the wilderness.

My father could have been a godly man, but he chose to remain in the whale's belly.  He could have seen the promised land, but he chose to wander in the wilderness.  I chose to use my father, not to be unkind or seek any sympathy; but because he is the perfect example of what the Bible is saying here.  My father never cleansed his hands of sin, he continued living in sin.  God gave him a new heart, but he eventually went his own way and forgot what manner of man he was (James 1: 23-24).   He was not a doer of the Word, only a hearer.  My father came out of the world, but the world didn't come out of him.  Some people believe that a Christian could never continue living in sin if they were truly saved.  However, we learn differently from Bible Christians such as Lot, Samson, Solomon, and Demas.  They were all believers who lived lives of sin.  Yes friend, you can be saved and still live in horrible sin...but you will have to give account to God someday at the judgment seat of Christ.  No one has a license to sin.  Though we won't have to face God in criminal court (at the great white throne of judgment) because we are saved, we will face him in civil court (at the judgment seat of Christ) where our rewards and happiness will be at risk of loss.  Some believers will be weeping bitter tears of sorrow.  Get busy witnessing for God and start loving people is you want to be happy!

CLEANSE YOUR HANDS, YE SINNERS! 

King David had sinned horribly.  He had commit adultery with another man's wife, impregnated her, and then conspired to have the husband successfully killed.  Nearly one year had passed and David had not repented.  Nathan the Prophet had to confront David with the reality of the evil which he had committed.  David did repent.  Psalm 51 is David's prayer to the Lord.  Look at verse ten...

"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." -Psalm 51:10

David begged God to give him a "clean heart," ...and God certainly did.  But David had to clean his own hands.  David didn't want to sin again which is why he asked God for a new heart.  What if David went out and did the same thing again?  It surely has happened with many believers.  You see friend, God will forgive you but He won't make you live right; God will give you a new heart, but you must obey his leading.  You will never be able to draw nigh to God as a Christian until you purpose in your heart to start cleaning up your life.  Sin separates us from closeness with God.  God will help you to think right, but He won't force you to live right.  You alone must do that.  God will renew a clean heart within you, but you've got to purpose in your heart not to defile yourself.  Listen to the wise words of young Daniel

"But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself." -Daniel 1:8

Daniel was preventing his hands from getting dirty in the first place.  This is what we need to do.  Jesus warned his disciples to "pray," that ye enter NOT into temptation.  David declared to God, "Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee."  If we are to live for Jesus, then we must do our part to keep our lives clean of sin.  We will sin at times because we are only human, but we must not willingly allow sin to exist in our life.  It will eventually hurt us and/or our loved ones spiritually, emotionally and oftentimes physically.  God will give you a clean heart, but what you do from that point on is up to you.  If you decide to go into sin, God won't stop you.  He has given you a freewill.  God gave you a new heart when you got saved, but did your heart grow cold over time?  Were the seeds which were planted in your heart choked by weeds as they began to grow?  I hate to say it because I think Star Wars is a heathen movie, but my father and Darth Vader have so much in common.  They were both good at one time, but were overcome of evil.  The son chose the right path and the father became his enemy.

I love my father very much, but he chose to stay afar off from Jesus like Peter did.  Peter eventually matured in the Lord, my father never did.  Many believers are "following afar off" from Jesus.  They claim the name of Christ and know all the right religious words to say, but they have no desire for righteousness or truth.  They care not for holy living.  Their god is their belly.  Soulwinning is an offensive term to them.  They live for the moment.  Please don't be one of those people.  I pray that God has spoken to your heart as my words have spoken to your mind.  Thank you for reading this sermon.

In Jesus' name,

Dave