THE NATURE OF SIN

Adam and Eve may not be born of woman’s womb like we were but our circumstances are similar. Let’s take a look.

God created Adam and breathe life into him. He created Eve from one of Adam’s rib and they both lived in the Garden of Eden, a holy place watered by the Divine Creator. Physically it was man’s home; spiritually it was a place of innocence where there was no sin and God felt free to visit [Gen. 3:8]. This Eden - Eden only, not the whole earth- we could assume then, was God’s kingdom; a kingdom on earth but no less, God’s Kingdom. So, Adam and Eve belonged to God’s Kingdom, lived with God and as soon as they brought sin into his house he threw them out; Adam and his sin could not remain.

How is this similar to us? Well the Bible says; in fact let’s read Matthew 19:14

Matthew 19:14 ESV

14 but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

I happen to know this is the reason that the Church of Christ does not baptize children. Yes, from the day that you come out of your mother’s womb to some day, I don’t know, God knows, all of us belonged to the kingdom of God. Then one day, I don’t know God knows’ we reach the stage where we know right from wrong and have to leave the kingdom of God until we access his grace and be covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. Then in that context it may be safe to say that both Adam and us belonged to the kingdom of God in our early life; and when we both knew right from wrong, we lost our place in the Kingdom. God may have said something similar about us as he did with Adam in Genesis 3:22, 23

Genesis 3:22 ESV

22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—”

Genesis 3:23 ESV

23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.

Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden aka Kingdom of God.

I made this comparison so that I can tell you a little bit about myself. For 50 years I did not know this about children. In fact for 50 years I believed that when young children died without being baptized, churched, christened or offered up they became “douens”. For those who are not familiar with the term, a “douen” is some offspring of Satan doing Satan’s work one of which is leading people away into the forest.

Brethren and friends for 50 years Charlton Heston was my preacher and the movie The Ten Commandments was my Bible. I believed that Moses did not know he was Hebrew until he found his baby blanket. I believed that he was in a pit of mud making bricks. For 50 years I believed that Pharaoh called the destruction of the firstborn on himself. Added to that brethren and friends, for 50 years I believed in the Shroud of Turin and that Veronica wiped the face of Jesus. To add insult to injury, there was a time I felt that since I made 1st Communion and Confirmed, I was sure I was not going to go to hell.

All of this really happened because for 50 years I listened to men rather than God. For 50 years I rebelled against God. For 50 years I had itching ears and heap up myself teachers, turned away from truth and turned aside to fables just as the Bible predicted in

2 Timothy 4:4.

2 Timothy 4:4 ESV

4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

What ended my 50 years of darkness and doubt? Thanks be to God my wife (sorry Honey, I did you a disservice. I need to follow the tradition of all preachers before me) my beautiful wife Patricia, planted. Brother Parker Henderson watered and God gave the increase. And Ta Da! I opened my Bible and my life changed. As one preacher I know is accustomed to saying “With the Bible closed, anything goes”. Now I don’t know when my day of knowing right from wrong came, God knows. That is when my time in Eden ended but I know it happened. You see brethren, The same snake that deceived Eve deceived me.

I was the brightest in my whole primary school – I gave God no glory. I had half of a diploma and still got a great job – I gave God no glory. I did not have a degree and got a great promotion; I thought I was lucky; my hard work had paid off. I thought it was all me. I did at times think of God and searched for Him but I did not think that he was the one shaping my life. I was made to believe that God did only good things; so for 50 years, I gave myself more glory than I gave God. In hindsight I thought that Psalms 51:5 [“Behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.”]

was a good excuse for my unbelief. And unbelief in the divine word and denial of the truth.

In opening my Bible however I came to know that while I may not consider myself responsible for being born in sin or to sin Romans 6:16 taught me that I am answerable to God for becoming a slave to sin.

Romans 6:16 ESV

16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

then James 1:14 taught me

James 1:14 ESV

14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

And this was my life for 50 years. I feel it is my duty therefore to inform those who don’t know and remind those who do about the nature The Nature of Sin. If you are one who likes titles then you can take the nature of sin as the title of today’s lesson.

Sin Cannot Be Camouflaged

There is no fact as evident and no subject so important as that of sin which is as old as man, nay, older still, since it originated in the mind of Satan before the creation of man [1 John 3:8].

1 John 3:8 ESV

8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

And, it is only as we discover the heinous nature of sin that we can rightly extol or vehemently praise and glorify Him who came to save us from its curse and condemnation .

In these apostate days Brethren, there is an instance to be politically correct; you know what I am talking about. Adultery and fornication has been replaced by the word “sleep”. People talk about “same sex relationships” instead of homosexual relationship. The terms sin, being lost, hell bound, saved by the Blood are no longer intelligible to the modern cultural mind. Old truths are being given a modern dress, but no matter how we try to camouflage sin, it is still sin.

It is our obligation to study sin not from the world’s standards but from God’s stand point.

The Bible makes us to understand that sin originated with the devil before he became a devil and entered the world through Adam universally as shown in Romans 5:12

Romans 5:12 ESV

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Sin can be defined in many ways.

1. For instance, sin is the transgression or trespass of a divine command.

You know sometimes walking through the neighbourhood or the bushes you see a sign saying “Trespassers will be prosecuted”. Meaning, if you find yourself within the boundary you are guilty. Well allegorically, Adam overstepped such a command except that command was a divine one. And this is the view of sin consistently maintained in the Bible, viz (a) In overstepping he committed the Act of Sin – A violation or the want of obedience of the revealed word of God.

(b) In overstepping he entered into the state of Sin – That state is the absence of righteousness.

(c) He found that Enmity towards God, was his very nature.

2. Sin is the denial of the divine right to command

Man began his downward career when he overstepped divine limits, and went on to deny the right of God to impose such limits. Rebellion led to rejection, and the man found himself at enmity with God. Yet supremacy, absolute and unconditional, is an integral part of the idea of God's sovereignty. If we deny God His supremacy, we deny His right to be. "If He is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all," as one Hudson Taylor used to express it.

3. Sin is the failure to attain to the divine standard.

That is the same as saying missing the mark or as Romans 3:23 says: “…falling short of the glory of God.” .. a deviation from the divine will. The question is, can man reach this divine standard. We hear a great deal about the "divine" in man, or the possession of a "divine spark" needing only to be fanned into a flame. But the sinner is unable to evolve out of himself a standard pleasing to God. The best of men are sinners and must begin at a new center, which is the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit within the life.

How Do We Really Identify Sin

What is this sin that man lives in and lives for? The Bible gives us answers to such a question. Let’s find out if it illuminates us.

1. Sin is a lie

Not just a lie, but a blasphemous lie that has questions the veracity of divine statements. The first of those questions being, ‘Did God say you should not eat of every tree of the garden?’ Sin maintains hold on mankind by asking men to believe lies. Isaiah 28:15 says: “We make lies our refuge and under falsehood we have hidden ourselves”. Ananias and Safira in the book of Acts Chapter 5 did just such a thing; they tried to conceal their deceit by generosity thinking that they were dealing strictly with people. One can only imagine how their heart stopped when Peter told them that they were lying to God.

Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ confirms the lying nature of sin when speaks of the devil as a stranger to the truth in John 8:44:

John 8:44 ESV

44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

2. Sin is a delusion

Through cunningness, craftiness and deception sin affirms what is fictitious and full of make believe, making sin naturally treacherous and full of guile or delusion. A guile that cruelly betrays men.

Another way of putting this is that sin offers itself as a F-R-I-E-N-D and when it catches you in its clutches, it drops the ‘-R-‘ to become a FIEND. Or it arranges itself differently to be a snake and if men would listen carefully before they make a step they might hear the hisses. Colossians 2:8 warns us to “…beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the traditions of men according to the basic principles of the world”.

Whenever I think about delusions I always think about King Saul, the first king of Israel. He not only disobeyed God’s instruction twice but to compound it all he sought out a seer instead of God’s prophet. And to make matters worse, he hounded down God’s anointed like a common criminal. Somewhere in between all that, in fact to be truthful, 1 Sam. 16:14 said that God gave him a spirit of delusion. Do you know what happens when God gives you a spirit of delusion? 2 Thess. 2:11 says that you start believe lies.

3. Sin is Darkness

Sin comes from, lives in, and loves darkness. It is a fundamental ignorance of God, who of course is light and sin shuns the light. Ephesians 5:11 tells us to expose darkness. John 3:20 speaks of a light-test; a test we should all pass or try to pass. It says everyone practically evil hates the light and does not come to the light-lest their deeds should be exposed. Jude warns that the darkness already has some residents – Cain, Esau, Balaam and Korah.

4. Sin is Separation from God

Sin has been likened to leprosy; one has to be separated from the main population when one has this disease. Some men have to be separated from God if they have sin. Isaiah 59:2 could not be clearer, it says: “Your iniquities have separated you from God and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear”.

5. Sin is Perversion

Well, not only perversion but pollution that works for the destruction of the human soul. Man’s thoughts about God’s law are perverted and Proverbs 16:28 speaks about a perverse man sows strife and verse 29 & 30 speaks about a violent man who devises perverse things and brings about evil. When you consider perversion and separation one name should jump to the front of your brain; the only thing is, that name is never alone it is always accompanied by four other words “who made Israel sin”. King Jeroboam almost single-handedly cause the eradication of the ten tribes of the northern state of Israel. His perversion of worship of God bred people, the likes of Ahab and Jezebel.

6. Sin is Servitude and Emptiness

Even though the Bible takes pains to teach us that indulgences in sin means grievous toil and bondage men still go on and serves sin getting nothing for it but emptiness, hollowness and vanity. While the wages of sin is death, the rewards and bonuses are confusion and dissatisfaction.

7. Sin Ensnares the Soul

Sin ensnares the soul, corrupts the soul and defiles the soul and all this results in distortion.

Romans 7:19-20. Paul makes this clear “…

Romans 7:19–20 ESV

19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Ultimately sin renders the soul guilty before God.

So why all the fuss about sin? And,...What is the remedy for sin?

I. Well for one thing, if man doesn’t have a scriptural view of sin’s nature you can’t have a view of sin’s remedy.

II. It is only as we discuss the heinous nature of sin that we can rightly extol/exalt Jesus who came to save us from the curse and condemnation of sin. Galatians 5:10-13

III. Man’s root, branch and fruit are incurably sinful. Thus there is a necessity for a new birth, so much insisted upon by Christ if we desire to enter heaven. John 3:1-4.

IV. The undoing of sin is redemption and what is exceedingly glorious is the manifest way he dealt with the havoc wrought by sin.

V. According to Galatians 3:13 – he became a curse for us; I John 2:2 – he became propitiation for our sin; I John 1:9 – he cleansed our sin and I Thessalonians 5:23 – he keeps the cleansed clean; John 10:28 – he is our healer and our deliverer. According to Jeremiah 18:1-4 – he is the potter that remakes us. He produces goodness. He is the way, the truth, the life and the light.

INVITATION

The question for us is; Shall we continue to be ignorant of sin and its consequences? For those not yet in Christ; shall you continue to be deceived and deluded by the apparent success, happiness and righteousness of the world? Would you not like to experience a true F>R>I>E>N>D? then walk towards the light, Learn this name, Jesus Christ.

There is a way out of the gloom and despair of sin, and there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we may be saved. (Acts 4:12)

If salvation is neglected there is no escape from the righteous judgement of God.