35 "The Troublesome End of Living with Sin" Numbers 33:50-56 | Thursday, July 2, 2026

We'll take our Bibles and go to Numbers

Numbers 33 · chapter mention

chapter 33.

Numbers 33, once you found your place

there, you can stand as we read and

give honor to God's word.

We're coming down to the final

instructions of God. This series has

been entitled God's way in life's

wilderness and

I guess what you might call the main

idea of this entire book is that God

instructs Israel in his ways as he leads

them through the wilderness to Canaan

despite their failures. That's a loaded

statement because man fails, but God

remains faithful and patient and teaches

and instructs us in his ways if we would

but hear his voice. And now as we come

to his final instructions, he's

preparing them to enter the promised

land and preparing them for life in the

promised land. We saw last week the fact

that how you got here is how you get

home and that's by God's grace and

through faith in him and

uh then as we come to chapter 34 next

week, God's going to give them a little

taste of the future by showing them the

borders of what their inheritance will

be. But in between these two is our text

tonight which is a clear command from

God to them beginning in verse number

50. Numbers 33 verse 50.

Numbers 33:50

And the Lord spake in Moses in the

plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho

saying, "Speak unto the children of

Israel and say unto them, When you are

passed over Jordan into the land of

Canaan,

then you shall drive out all the

inhabitants of the land from before you

and destroy all their pictures and

destroy all their molten images and and

pluck down all their high places. And ye

shall dispossess the inhabitants of the

land and dwell therein. For I have given

you the land to possess it. And ye shall

divide the land by lot for an

inheritance among your families. And to

the more ye shall give the more

inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall

give the less inheritance. Every man's

inheritance shall be in the place where

his lot falleth, according to the tribes

of your fathers ye shall inherit. But,

if ye will not drive out the inhabitants

of the land from before you,

then it shall come to pass that those

which you let remain of them shall be

pricks in your eyes and thorns in your

sides, and shall vex you in the land

wherein you dwell.

Moreover, it shall come to pass that I

shall do unto you as I thought to do

unto them. I'm going to preach tonight

on the subject, The Troublesome End of

Living With Sin. The Troublesome End of

Living With Sin. May God bless his word.

You can be seated and we'll get into our

message.

>> [snorts]

>> We have recently learned

>> [sighs]

>> that our home has been invaded by

spiders.

We have about all of us woken up in the

morning with bites on our legs, our

arms, our necks, or wherever. Uh the

other day, Jenna felt something crawling

on her leg, and she captured that little

spider and showed it to me, and that's

the life we're living right now. I've

seen them climbing on the walls, near

the baseboards, in the bathtub. I've

I've washed a spider down the drain,

only to come back an hour later, and the

itty-bitty spider climbed up the drain

again.

Saw that as well.

>> [snorts]

>> It's creepy to know these things are

lurking in our home every single night

as we go to sleep and that they'll be

crawling all over me without me even

realizing it.

And of course, we all know of the tale

that you swallow eight spiders in your

lifetime, I think it is.

But spiders irritate you, they scare

you, they bite you, and if the wrong one

gets you, it can even kill you. Brown

recluse,

black widow,

those guys that are in the army in the

Middle East, they come across those

camel spiders. Have you seen those

pictures of them holding them out like

this and ah,

no, thank you.

>> [snorts]

>> When your home is under invasion,

you have one of two choices.

Live comfortably with them

or kill them.

And where I'm at is I'm ready to get the

smoke bombs and bomb those suckers out

of our home.

I don't know many people who are content

to live comfortably in a home full of

spiders.

But it seems that many Christians are

content to live comfortably with their

sin.

Much like spiders, sin can invade your

life.

It can breed other sins and spread

throughout your home, and it can bite

you, and if deadly, can even kill you.

Sin is deadly.

Can I just ask tonight without accusing,

ask for some self-examination.

How comfortable are you

living with the lust in your heart?

The constant diving into the impurities

of the internet or social media.

Have you grown

comfortable living in sexual sin?

Has it become so common to you that you

don't even resist anymore?

>> [snorts]

>> Have you grown comfortable with your

anger?

Does it seem like it's no big deal? Do

you treat it like it's just who you are

and that you'll never change?

Have you grown so comfortable with the

perversions of society that everything

is just a joke now?

Do you tolerate filthy communication as

the Bible calls it?

Profanity or using God's name in vain?

>> [snorts]

>> Have you grown

so comfortable with materialistic

idolatry called covetousness

to where you're always pursuing what you

don't have?

Are you comfortable with the sin of

discontentment?

>> [snorts]

>> You see, when we reach a point where we

are calling these small sins

or little white lies or just a quick

glance,

I'm concerned that we have grown too

comfortable

living with sin.

>> [snorts]

>> When it comes to sin in your life,

you have two choices.

Let it stay

or drive it out.

And that's the choice that Israel is

faced with as they come into the

promised land.

God promised to give them the land of

Canaan,

but to take possession of the land,

they've got to first dispossess the

inhabitants of the land, namely the

Canaanites.

The Canaanites have already been

condemned under God's judgment for their

immoral practices, their idolatry, their

child sacrifice, and what God is doing

is he is using Israel to judge them.

While [snorts] God instructs them to

kill all the men in battle, he tells

them here that they need to drive out

the inhabitants of the land.

That he says, "Don't live with the

Canaanites.

Don't get comfortable around their

practices and around their worship, but

to be they he they are called to drive

them out and to destroy it all."

Now, you and I do not wage holy war

against nations,

but we are called to wage a holy war

against sin in our lives.

Why can't we get comfortable

living with sin?

Why is it important for us to put sin

to death, as the Bible says, to drive it

out and to destroy it from our lives?

And it's for the same reason that God

instructs Israel to drive out the

Canaanites in this text.

God brought Israel out of Egypt into

Canaan for a redemptive purpose.

A redemptive purpose.

I first once again want to point out the

literary context on both sides of this

text. We covered last week that Moses

recorded the journeys of Israel, their

journey from Egypt to Jordan, where they

are on the banks of the promised land.

And on the other side, chapter 34, is

the tracing of the boundaries of their

inheritance. And so, if you get the

picture here, Moses has this account

sandwiched between where God's brought

them from and where God's bringing them

to.

And what this text does is it reminds

them that God did not bring them out of

Egypt and into Canaan so that they could

live with the Canaanites.

That's not what it was about.

Rather, God brought them out to redeem

them from bondage.

He didn't want them to He didn't bring

them out of the idolatry of Egypt and

the oppression of Egypt just to bring

them to Canaan where they could practice

the idolatry of the Canaanites and be

oppressed by the Canaanites. That was

not God's plan and so the Lord commands

them here to drive them out. It says in

verse number 15, the Lord spake unto

Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan

near Jericho. We see this repeated

throughout this book as they have

reached the final leg of their journey.

That they're in the plains of Moab.

They are by Jordan. They're beside the

Jordan River and they're near Jericho.

Jericho is the first city that they

conquer in the promised land. What all

of this is telling us is they are almost

there.

But before they can go in and conquer,

they need to heed God's instruction and

God's instruction to them here is in

verse 51, "Speak unto the children of

Israel and say unto them, when you are

passed over Jordan into the land of

Canaan, then you shall drive out all the

inhabitants of the land before you and

destroy all their pictures and destroy

all their molten images and quite pluck

down all their high places and you shall

dispossess the inhabitants of the land

and dwell there in for I have given you

the land to possess it." He tells them

to drive them out and dispossess it.

Those are the same exact Hebrew word.

The idea is to take possession by

dispossession.

What exactly is God talking about? I

want you to imagine with me for a moment

that you own a home and you've been

renting it out to some renters for quite

some time. But the time comes when

you're ready to pass that home on to

your son or daughter as an inheritance.

And so you give them the keys, but

there's a problem. The renters won't

leave.

They've become squatters at this point.

And your plan when you give that home to

your son or daughter is not for them to

move in with the squatters and just kind

of settle in with them. No, you've got

to evict them.

And that's the idea of what God is

talking about here. He has a land of

inheritance that he wants to give to his

firstborn son as he called them back in

Egypt, the nation of Israel. But the

problem is right now is there is a

wicked people dwelling in the land and

God says, "I don't want you to just go

in the land into the land and live among

the Canaanites and learn their practices

and and become a part of their system."

No, you need to drive them out. You need

to destroy their sculptures and destroy

their idols of gold and silver and you

need to knock down their their

mountainous high places where they

worship their gods and offer their

children as sacrifices. All of that

needs to be brought down and destroyed.

Why?

God didn't bring them out of Egypt for

them to live amongst the Canaanites.

He says, "Here's the keys.

Now go and dispossess them.

Go and drive them out and take

possession of the land that I am giving

you." God brought Israel out for a

redemptive purpose, to free them from

bondage to Egypt, to separate them as a

holy nation that can display the glory

of God to the heathen around them that

they too might believe that the Lord, he

is God.

Is that not what we've seen in Exodus,

Leviticus, and Numbers?

It's God's purpose for them.

But can I also tell you

that God's redemptive purpose for them

is God's redemptive purpose for you?

That God sent his son to pay the price

for your sin to bring you out of bondage

to sin. That you would not live under

its reign and its dominion any longer,

but that you would be freed from it.

He did not free you from sin so that you

could live comfortably with your sin.

That wasn't his plan.

He redeemed you from it by the blood of

Christ. He freed you from the tomb of

sin by the power of his resurrection. He

freed you from your flesh and from the

dominion of Satan so that you would no

longer live there.

Just so you'd be free.

He separated you

to be part of his chosen people and he's

called you to display his glory to the

lost around us so that they might

believe on his son and become part of

his people as well.

You've been saved for a redemptive

purpose.

And listen, when God saves you, he calls

you by his spirit to mortify the deeds

of your flesh. Mortify means to put to

death. To drive it out.

See, when

when I want you to listen to some of the

things that Paul calls believers in

Colossians to mortify.

Fornication, uncleanliness, inordinate

affection, evil concupiscence. Those are

all big words for all forms of sexual

immorality and purity.

He speaks about mortifying covetousness,

which he calls idolatry.

He says, "You need to put off. You need

to mortify anger, wrath, maliciousness,

blasphemy, filthy communication, and

lying." He mentions all those things. To

the Ephesians, he calls them to put off

theft, bitterness, slander, rioting, and

violence. I mean, there's a lot of sin

that the scripture calls us to put off,

to put to death in our lives, and to

drive out of our lives. And I'm

concerned

that we have become so scared of being

legalistic that many churches refuse to

preach about our responsibility

to drive out sin from our lives.

A lot of times the gospel that is

preached today is simply the fact that

God's going to do all the work for you.

But in the Bible, we actually see God

working with us to rid us of sin.

You see, because some might say, "Well,

only God can do that." And that is that

is partly true, but I would say to you

that God already has done and is

continuing to do his role in your life.

He sent his son to pay for your sin, to

break the chains of sin, to renew your

heart. He gave you his spirit who causes

you to walk in his ways, but God works

by his spirit with your will, which is

why Paul calls believers

to mortify the deeds of their flesh.

It's why he calls them to put off the

filthy rags of unrighteousness that we

just mentioned here. Why would Paul call

believers to do something that they

cannot do at all?

No, we see God working with fallen man

to demonstrate his spirit's power to

enable us to do what we could not do

without him.

But it doesn't leave us without

responsibility, and I believe this is

consistent

in the scripture and particularly with

our text.

Because you might Well, you probably

don't remember, but back back in Exodus

23, it's been a long time ago,

God promised that he would send the

hornets

ahead of Israel.

And that the hornets would drive out the

inhabitants of the land. And And And I

went back and read Exodus 23 today. Time

after time after time, God says, "I will

drive them out. I will drive them out. I

will drive them out." But, in the very

same paragraph, he says, "Thou shalt

drive them out."

See, God doesn't come into you and just

remove all of your sinful desires and

remove all of your flesh right now. No,

what we are in right now is what we

might call the wilderness of life. We're

not yet in the land of rest where sin is

eradicated, where our flesh is totally

gone. No, right now we are in a testing

period where God's spirit is working

with our will to purify us and to

conform us to the image of Jesus Christ.

And therefore, we can't just sit back

and expect, "Well, God's just going to

clean up all my life." No, God convicts

you,

and you must choose to drive sin out of

your life.

It's what God calls Israel to do. It's

what God calls us to do. He enables us

by his power, but he also calls us to

own our responsibility to drive out sin.

Maybe we could put it this way. Our

Father has given us the keys to the

house in his son and in his spirit, but

he calls us to evict sin with what he's

given us.

Now, the question is, why?

Why must we drive sin

out of our lives

just as God called Israel to drive out

the Canaanites?

Well, in the last couple of verses here,

beginning of verse 55,

God warns Israel that if they let the

Canaanites stay,

it will make them pay.

Would you look at verse 55?

"But if we will not But if you will not

drive out the inhabitants of the land

from before you, then it shall come to

pass that those which you let remain of

them shall be pricks in your eyes and

thorns in your side, and shall vex you

in the land wherein you dwell.

>> [snorts]

>> Now, I have stepped on some goat heads

in my life,

and I have even stepped on some nails in

my life,

but I have never taken a goat head or a

nail in the eye.

I can't imagine that is comfortable in

any way whatsoever.

God says, "If you let these nations

stay,

do you catch that?

If you let them remain, if you let them

stay, if you live comfortably with them,

if you do not drive them out, then they

will be like pricks in your eyes and

thorns in your sides, and they will vex

you." The word vex means to treat with

hostility. They'll treat you as an

enemy.

This is how it works. If you let them

live, and you let them stay, they will

not reciprocate the same kindness to you

that you showed to them.

That's what he's telling them.

They're going to rise up against you.

But, here's a particular reason why.

Because they will continue to worship

their gods.

And they will continue to practice their

immorality,

their idolatry. They will continue to

burn incense in their high places, and

they will teach you the ways of Canaan,

is what God warns in other places. He

said that they will be a snare. They'll

be like a bear trap to you that will

snag hold of you and pull you back. The

warning here is that just like we saw

with the golden calf at Mount Sinai, and

just like we saw with the Midianites,

Israel's heart will be turned toward

those who are living among them, and

they will learn their ways and walk in

their ways, and the result is they will

treat them with hostility and attack

them in the process.

But, then you have this in verse 56 that

will bring them also

under the discipline of God.

Moreover, it shall come to pass that I

shall do unto you

as I thought to do unto them.

See, God's judgment against the

Canaanites

is not because they were Canaanites.

This is not an ethnic cleansing because

God hates a people group.

These people were wicked.

And no one ought to find themselves on

the side of defending child sacrificers

and and and people who practice I mean

unspeakable forms of of immorality.

God says if my people

begin to practice their ways,

I will judge them

as I am judging this people now.

It'll bring God's discipline.

>> [snorts]

>> See, God told Israel to drive out the

Canaanites

because if they let them stay,

it'll make them pay.

They will pay the price.

They will be judged. They will fall

under God's discipline. They

will end up with these pricks and thorns

vexing them.

And so I say to you that for the very

same reason, you've got to drive sin out

of your life.

Why?

If you let it stay,

it'll make you pay.

>> [snorts]

>> You won't lose your salvation.

That's already bought and paid for for

by the blood of Jesus Christ.

But nevertheless,

sin has serious consequences

to pay.

We can be brought under the discipline

of our heavenly Father.

Where he allows judgment in our lives or

he perhaps just allows us to go our own

way until it ruins and destroys us. Why

does he do that? Because he loves us and

he wants to correct us and he wants to

turn us back to him.

See, when you live comfortably with

sinful and selfish anger, it can quickly

turn into a wildfire that burns your

life to the ground.

Your temper can cause you to lose your

job.

Your Your verbal abuse of your wife can

beat her down to the desperate spot

where it ends your marriage, destroys

it.

When anger makes itself at home in your

life,

it can even lead you to lay your hands

on your kids

or on your wife.

Sin

is brutal.

It's an attacker.

It festers. It spreads in your life.

It brings you to ruin.

What about bitterness?

Is bitterness really a sin?

It's something Paul said you need to put

off.

See, the Bible calls bitterness

a root.

What is a root?

A root

is underneath the surface,

buried, where no one can see.

But when it is fed, it sprouts forth

with a trunk and leaves and fruits.

This bitterness

can become so deeply rooted in your

life, it can become very difficult to

uproot from your life.

>> [snorts]

>> And what can happen

is before you know it, that hurt from

your past,

that painful experience, that deep

betrayal that you experienced, it can it

it can lead you to uh being a very

skeptical, cynical, and critical person

of everyone around you.

It can lead you to uh a person who has

very deep-rooted anger issues, a lack of

empathy and compassion toward others,

an inability to rejoice with others.

It can poison your relationship.

It can

It can embitter your your bitterness

toward God can embitter your husband, it

can embitter your wife and your children

toward God as well, and you certainly

don't feel like walking with God in

those moments.

You don't feel like reading His word or

praying or or worshipping Him at church.

Bitterness is a spreading thorn in your

side that vexes your soul

if you live comfortably with it.

>> [snorts]

>> What about lust?

When you treat it like it's no big deal

because everybody has done it, and it

can poison your mind to where you can't

look at a woman, not even in church,

without a lustful thought.

It can poison your marriage and perhaps

even end it

as it continues to spread and breed

other sins in your life.

You can find yourself caught up in a web

of lies

that gets so out of control

that when it blows up, nobody can trust

anything

you say.

So, do we understand

the danger

of getting comfortable

with sin?

When you let it stay,

it makes you pay.

Whether it's the

the natural fallout of the consequences

of your sin,

or if it is the direct discipline that

God brings in your life,

that's the effect sin can have on you.

It's a destructive

force,

and it brings you under God's

discipline. Therefore, you must drive it

out.

Drive it out.

Put it to death.

Rid your life of it.

Bury it 6 ft under.

Pluck it down, destroy it, exterminate

it. Whatever kind of verb that God uses

here, he's saying you need to obliterate

sin from your life. And you say, "Well,

how in the world can I possibly do

that?" God has broken you free from the

chains of sin through his son.

This is why Paul could say in Romans

Romans 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6, "Let not sin therefore reign

in your mortal body that you should obey

it in the lust thereof." It's not your

captain. It's not your king anymore. If

you choose to sin, you have no excuse

other than you followed the desires of

your heart.

You have no excuse other than to say, "I

sat comfortably in my sin. I was content

to let it live there with me and get up

close to me on the couch and to just let

it roam through my home and and roam

through my heart and do what it wants to

do."

It was your own choice. Why? How can I I

possibly know that? Cuz Christ has made

you free.

Christ made you free.

How do I rid my life of sin? How do I

drive it out? Well, let me just say that

first of all, you need to come clean

about sin in your life.

Continuing to pretend

like it's not there

will allow it to just continue to be a

thorn in your eye.

Prick in your side.

>> [snorts]

>> You can repent. You can confess. You can

forsake that sin by the grace of God.

You can experience his forgiveness

and his enabling grace.

Then you need to draw from the provision

of his strength

in the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you've been comfortable living with

sin,

you need to pray more.

>> [snorts]

>> Because a consistent prayer life

will not allow sin to fester

in your life.

It will allow not allow it to breed

further sin in your life

because your close contact with God will

eventually bring you to a place where

you know the sin stands between you and

him.

Where you know if you're allowing sin to

root take root in your life that you

can't genuinely come before God without

being a hypocrite and act like

everything is just fine. No, if you will

spend more time in prayer and in close

communion and fellowship with God, your

close proximity will with him will begin

to drive sin out of your life. You need

to spend more time with the Lord.

You might need to take drastic measures

if necessary.

Get counseling.

Read a book about your particular sin.

Get off social media or off the internet

all together if that's what it takes for

you to be free.

If that's what it takes for you to

display God's glory to your family, you

need to you need to go to work with

God's help and with the Holy Spirit on

that anger that's deeply rooted in your

heart. And yes, you may consider it to

be generational because your dad was mad

and your grandma was mad and and you

have a history of anger and violence in

your family. Listen, you can continue to

let those things be an excuse for your

anger or you can trust and obey God's

word and accept the fact that the

problem is not in what your parents did

and who they were, but the problem is

that your heart is not surrendered and

submitted to God and his word.

You've got to be real with yourself

and acknowledge that the sin is wrong.

That God's power can bring victory in

your life.

God would not call us

to drive out and mortify sin

if he did not enable us to do just that.

You've got to trust him.

Many of us are okay knowing

spiders are in the house.

Long as I don't see them.

As long as they're not crawling on me

and I don't feel them,

I'm okay.

But your own you might even say I can

live with a few a few bites in that

case.

But only

until you get the bite

that finally kills you.

>> [snorts]

>> Many Christians are okay living with

their sin.

As [snorts] long as no one sees it, as

long as no one finds out, I'll be good.

But the problem is you never know when

that particular sin will bite you that

leads to your destruction.

Drive it out.

Don't let sin stay

lest it make you pay.

>> [snorts]

>> But of course, without Christ, you'll

never

win the victory over sin.

>> [snorts]

>> It will dominate you.

It will ensnare you and enslave you. It

will be your king

until you have a new king.

See, in the if you die in your sin

without Christ, you will perish

in eternal destruction in hell.

But when you trust in the finished work

of Jesus on the cross,

when you believe on him,

you call upon His name and He saves your

soul and redeems you out of that

bondage. He breaks those chains of sin

and he gives you his Holy Spirit who

renews your heart and renews your mind.

And friend, you can discover a whole new

power that you never had before to drive

drugs out of your life and to drive

alcohol out of your life and to drive

porn out of your life and bitterness and

anger and gossip and every single sin

that you've always struggled with your

entire life. It can come to an end

through Jesus Christ if you will believe

on him.

If you have believed on him,

there's really no excuse

for our sin.

It's time to just confess it,

repent, forsake it, and draw from his

strength

to drive out sin

so that we don't have to pay

the cost of its consequences.

I encourage you with the power of Christ

and the help of his Holy Spirit drive

out sin.

Heavenly Father,

I thank you for your enabling grace

and the strength that you wield in our

lives [music] to break

us free from these shackles of sin.

Thank you for the gift of eternal life

and the grace that you show to us when

we repent

and seek your forgiveness.

And I want to pray for your people

tonight

that they would not

be comfortably at home

with sin.

That they would recognize,

believe, and accept the reality that you

brought them out of it to free them from

it.

And I pray that they would seek your

face,

find forgiveness,

and move forward

from this sin that seemingly has them

bound. [music] Help them, oh Lord, to

experience freedom in Christ.

And I pray for those who do not yet know

the power [music] of Jesus.

I pray that they would believe

in his death and resurrection

as the

>> [music]

>> solution

to their problem.

That they would believe, trust, call

upon his name even tonight.

God, I've already said it once tonight,

but I'll say it again. Our eyes are upon

you because we recognize that

driving out [music] the sin in our lives

can only be done with your help.

And so we ask for it tonight in Jesus'

name.

Amen.