Chain Sinning

In Hebrews 12:13, “and make straight paths for your feet” refers to feet as they represent the principle of service for the believer. The present active imperative of the verb ποιέω (poieō) means we are to continue make straight paths as long as we live on this earth. This has to do with wheel tracks and refers to the road to God’s will for your life. Stay with God’s plan and do God’s will in your life.

“and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.” (Hebrews 12:13, NASB)

God has a personal plan for your life. You are in full time Christian service. He formulated this plan billions and billions of years ago. You get off God’s plan because of carnality. When you stay on this road to spiritual maturity, you gain perfect inner peace and happiness.

“So that the limb which is lame” is χωλός (chōlos) and means to be obviously crippled such that normal walk is obviously affected. Normal walk is in fellowship. This phrase is a reference to a crippled Christian. This means that the lame do not swerve or turn off of a road. This is chain sinning, failure to isolate sin and failure to ever confess sins to God the Father to regain fellowship with God and the filling of the Holy Spirit whereby you can grow spiritually.

“But rather be healed” is the aorist passive subjunctive of ἰάομαι (iaomai) and means healed or restored. After you confess sins, you must forget the sins, and then isolate them. It is up to you. Are you going to stay restored or not? You receive fellowship restoration with the Holy Spirit when you use 1 John 1:9.

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9, NASB)

The greatest danger one second after confession of sins to God the Father is to enter into mental attitude sins. This perpetuates chain sinning. All chain sinning is perpetuated in what you think, not what you do. Chain sinning is a mental attitude reaction to a sin that has already been forgiven because you confessed it.

Most Christians are not orientated to the Christian way of life and the grace of God for one reason. They react to a sin which is dead. This keeps them perpetually out of fellowship. They are reactors instead of responders.

The Pattern of Chain Sinning

There is a problem of snatching or grabbing at some system immediately to get yourself back into God’s good graces. The conflict is between the reality of the believer in fellowship versus the pseudo-reality of the believer out of fellowship.

For the believer in fellowship, they learn or take on the inner happiness produced by the Lord. It is a combination of joy and contentment. You may have made many people unhappy, but you haven’t ever made God unhappy. God has never lost His cool even for a minute. When you have gained some of God’s happiness, you gain a relaxed mental attitude. This gives you a capacity for love in all the categories - toward God, toward your wife or husband, toward people, toward the details of life, and an orientation to grace.

For the believer out of fellowship, they experience self-induced misery. They always react to things. Such people are always unhappy. When you find a believer who is always miserable, they always want the happiness, blessings, joys, and testimonies they hear messages about. Unfortunately, it is always around the corner and over the next hill. They try harder and become legalistic. They try some system of human good ascetics like reading their Bible an hour a day or praying more. They try some system of emotionalism like going forward and dedicating themselves or doing something without thinking like marching in a mob.

Then someone tells them about a Bible conference or a deeper life retreat or a victorious life conference, so they go do that. Someone says there is a special speaker in town and he’s got the answer to life’s problems, so they go to that. Then someone says there is a great experience they can have, so they try that. Then someone says, “You’ve tried all these things, and you’re still miserable, so why don’t you get drunk?” So they try that.

The next step could be the psychiatrist and they do what they suggest. Then they have a nervous breakdown and a certain therapy is suggested so they try that. Then someone suggests making points with God by attending a church where you get ten points for bringing a visitor, tithing, being on time, or going to a youth group. Then someone comes along and says they need to get married so they try that and end up in divorce. Someone says, you need to move or get a different job and so they try that.

This is not the plan of God! However, these people are loved by God. The pseudo (carnal believer) and the real (spiritual believer) both have personal plans for their lives authored by God. The difference is that the pseudo believers are off the road. Both groups know how to confess sin biblically, but the pseudo believers are spiritual babies and they react. The others are responders and once they get into fellowship, they forget the sin and move on.

The believer on the road is the responder. The believer off the road (out of fellowship) is a reactor. The reactors never get straightened out unless they can understand what this lesson is teaching. Remember that the reaction is always in the mind. It is not physical. You are wrong to react. The right kind of thinking is response.

Mental attitude sins are the worst because they are subtle. They not only get you off the highway, but they get you to go for every stupid, ridiculous, legalistic system that has ever existed. Some have tried everything from pleading the blood which is sheer heresy, to praying to the Holy Spirit, to trying to “get the Ghost,” to trying to have a super ecstatic experience, to sublimating, seeing a psychiatrist, having a nervous breakdown, and having a change of environment. You get worse and worse and worse. The more desperate you become, the more straws you grasp at and every straw you grasp at is pseudo-spirituality.

You need to have enough faith-rest to decide to confess your known sins to God the Father and trust that that sin is gone, behind you, forgiven by God. You confess the sin, an awful sin, a horrible sin and all are forgiven. Then you begin to think how could God forgive such a horrible sin. It was so horrible, you want to make up for it in some way and then you start in resenting anyone involved in the sin. Reaction sets in, then you project the sins onto others, then you become bitter. You are perpetually out of fellowship. You are so miserable you would try anything.

No believer should have a true close friend in an unbeliever. But, you don’t reach this conclusion until you have spiritual growth. Once you become a believer, all category three friendships are with believers. There is no question but that a lot of your unbelieving acquaintances are a lot nicer than your believing friends for a lot of reasons.

A lot of people say that confession of sin doesn’t work. The problem is with you, not with the grace principle of confession of sin. There has never been a case when confession of sin using 1 John 1:9 didn’t work and a sin was not cleansed. Out of the mental reaction comes psychosomatic swings. So you have self-induced misery from mental attitude sins and divine discipline because you are out of fellowship. Now you are looking for a patsy and start maligning. Then you receive their discipline (triple compound discipline). This is all a prelude to the sin unto death. You are a walking grenade with the pin out. You blow up and other people get hurt.