The Penalty Of Sin
Updated October 2025
We pray for kings and all in authority, Paul urges, so we can live quiet and godly lives. That prayer is not for ease. It is for room to be holy. The same God who wants every kind of person saved also wants them set apart, and those two desires never clash in the heart of the Triune One.
I am the worst of sinners, Paul says, and I say the same. Yet the foundation is Christ. On that rock we build, some with gold, some with straw. Fire will test every life. Some will walk through singed but saved. That is grace. Grace is not permission to keep feeding the flames.
Your body is a temple and the Spirit of God lives in it. Why drag Him into the mud? The flesh is weak, but it is not sovereign. God ordains the struggle. We choose the surrender. That is compatibilism: His decree, our decision, His glory, our guilt or gratitude.
Sin is sin. Homosexuality stands on the same list as adultery, theft, and drunkenness, not because culture decides, but because God wrote it. Rape horrifies us. Drug addiction grieves us. Yet when the same flesh acts out in a bedroom we are told to celebrate. That is not love. That is inversion. Calling evil good does not heal the conscience. It hardens it.
We are accused of condemnation the moment we name the sin. Condemnation belongs to God alone, and He has already shown the way out: repentance and faith. To warn a brother is not to damn him. It is to love him. To stay silent while the temple is defaced is to hate both the brother and the God who dwells there.
Love your enemy, yes. Hate his evil, absolutely. The two are not at odds. Light does not negotiate with darkness. It exposes it. The homosexual who turns to Christ is my brother, clothed in the same righteousness that covers me. The act itself remains an act of the flesh, and I will not call it holy any more than I would call my own lust holy. Both of us are saved by grace. Neither of us is improved by lying.
The church is bleeding from a thousand compromises. We have mistaken acceptance for love and love for applause. We bless what God curses and curse what God blesses, then wonder why our children walk away. The conflict in their hearts is not condemnation. It is the Spirit refusing to call evil good.
So we preach the whole counsel. We discipline the unrepentant. We guard the walls of home, school, and nation, not to earn salvation, but because salvation has earned us. We fight the flesh, resist the culture, and love the sinner by refusing to lie about the sin.
This is the responsible Christian.
This is the compatibilist life.
This is the gospel in action.
The Responsible Christian
Updated October 2025
We pray for kings and all in authority, Paul urges, so we can live quiet and godly lives. That prayer is not for ease. It is for room to be holy. The same God who wants every kind of person saved also wants them set apart, and those two desires never clash in the heart of the Triune One.
I am the worst of sinners, Paul says, and I say the same. Yet the foundation is Christ. On that rock we build, some with gold, some with straw. Fire will test every life. Some will walk through singed but saved. That is grace. Grace is not permission to keep feeding the flames.
Your body is a temple and the Spirit of God lives in it. Why drag Him into the mud? The flesh is weak, but it is not sovereign. God ordains the struggle. We choose the surrender. That is compatibilism: His decree, our decision, His glory, our guilt or gratitude.
Sin is sin. Homosexuality stands on the same list as adultery, theft, and drunkenness, not because culture decides, but because God wrote it. Rape horrifies us. Drug addiction grieves us. Yet when the same flesh acts out in a bedroom we are told to celebrate. That is not love. That is inversion. Calling evil good does not heal the conscience. It hardens it.
We are accused of condemnation the moment we name the sin. Condemnation belongs to God alone, and He has already shown the way out: repentance and faith. To warn a brother is not to damn him. It is to love him. To stay silent while the temple is defaced is to hate both the brother and the God who dwells there.
Love your enemy, yes. Hate his evil, absolutely. The two are not at odds. Light does not negotiate with darkness. It exposes it. The homosexual who turns to Christ is my brother, clothed in the same righteousness that covers me. The act itself remains an act of the flesh, and I will not call it holy any more than I would call my own lust holy. Both of us are saved by grace. Neither of us is improved by lying.
The church is bleeding from a thousand compromises. We have mistaken acceptance for love and love for applause. We bless what God curses and curse what God blesses, then wonder why our children walk away. The conflict in their hearts is not condemnation. It is the Spirit refusing to call evil good.
So we preach the whole counsel. We discipline the unrepentant. We guard the walls of home, school, and nation, not to earn salvation, but because salvation has earned us. We fight the flesh, resist the culture, and love the sinner by refusing to lie about the sin.
1 Timothy 2:1–4 (ISV)
“First of all, then, I urge you to offer to God petitions, prayers, intercessions, and expressions of thanks for all people, for kings, and for everyone who has authority, so that we might lead a quiet and peaceful life with all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who wants all kinds of people to be saved and to come to know the truth fully.”
“First of all, then, I urge you to offer to God petitions, prayers, intercessions, and expressions of thanks for all people, for kings, and for everyone who has authority, so that we might lead a quiet and peaceful life with all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who wants all kinds of people to be saved and to come to know the truth fully.”
1 Timothy 1:15 (ISV)
“This is a trustworthy saying that deserves complete acceptance: To this world Messiah came, sinful people to reclaim. Of this I am the foremost.”
“This is a trustworthy saying that deserves complete acceptance: To this world Messiah came, sinful people to reclaim. Of this I am the foremost.”
1 Corinthians 3:11–15 (ISV)
“No one can lay any other foundation than the one already laid—Jesus the Messiah… If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss. Yet he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”
“No one can lay any other foundation than the one already laid—Jesus the Messiah… If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss. Yet he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”
1 Thessalonians 4:3–8 (ISV)
“It is God’s will that you be sanctified… For God did not call us to impurity but to holiness. Therefore, whoever rejects this rejects not man but God, who gives His Holy Spirit.”
“It is God’s will that you be sanctified… For God did not call us to impurity but to holiness. Therefore, whoever rejects this rejects not man but God, who gives His Holy Spirit.”
Romans 13:12–14 (ISV)
“Put on the armor of light… Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus the Messiah, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”
“Put on the armor of light… Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus the Messiah, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”
This is the responsible Christian.
This is the compatibilist life.
This is the gospel in action.
The Responsible Christian
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