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“Lesson 04 - The Character of Sin”
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Lesson 4
The Character of Sin
Introduction:
For the last sixty years, our nation has found itself inside an immense struggle. Emanating from academia and Hollywood, ungodly forces have united to tear down traditional values and belief in God. Now, across every media platform, godly values and principles of right and wrong are openly and defiantly assailed. Atheists are prominently heralded as courageous heroes,?1 while those who stand for godly values are discredited.?2 From social media, to cable television, to print media, and network sitcoms, there is a constant drumbeat against those who hold to the values of traditional marriage, abstinence, pro-life, and belief in God.
Forty years ago, the hit network TV series All in the Family pioneered in setting a template that is still used today. The aim was to use humor with the fictional Archie Bunker to portray conservatives as foolish, intolerant, judgmental, and?3 racist. While Carroll O’Connor defended the show as only “joking” about these things, the rest is history. Now, that show looks tame, compared to the nightly lineup found on networks today. The limits are continually being pushed back. For example, here are the plot-lines of three popular sitcoms that have appeared during the fall of 2011:
- The November 8, 2011 episode of Glee called “The First Time,” featured a homosexual couple struggling whether to “go all the way.”
- The September 19, 2011 episode of Two and a Half Men featured jokes referencing prostitution, homosexuality, testicles, drunkenness and suicide. Characters say "b??ch," "a??," "freakin'" and misuse God's name.
- In the November 30, 2011 episode of I Hate My Teenage Daughter, conservative, Bible-based upbringing is mocked without respite.?4
We have come a long, long way since Leave it to Beaver and The Andy Griffith Show. Many of us have personally watched the decline and feel powerless as things grow worse and worse.
As the assault on traditional values continues, and new generations come along, our country no longer sees the danger in sinful behavior. They do not realize there is a metaphorical pipeline of sewage just waiting to empty into their home in the form of a computer, television screen, iPod, or e-reader. The stench and stain of ungodliness is just a mouse click, remote control button, or power switch away. The relentless and aggressive tactics of Satan and his forces have resulted in a moral implosion. What we’ve taken in through media over the last four decades is now reflected as the cultural norm. If history is any indicator, these things may very well contribute to the eventual destruction of everything Americans hold dear.
The darkness of socially progressive culture has permeated even in places where it would be least expected: inside our religious organizations. A large segment of church-going Americans are being lulled to sleep by a pseudo-gospel that is made up of nonjudgmental and soothing content that concentrates more on the physical than the spiritual. Many of the most liberal denominations have caved on the issue of homosexuality, abortion, and now actively promote social justice.?5 With some segments of our religious culture - the only sin is to refer to sin as sin.
Sin is unpleasant to talk about. Many avoid it at all costs. While culture may have tried to rationalize it away, it is still there wreaking havoc in lives everywhere. Because sin is insidious and deadly, we must always be on watch. We must always be committed to decisively and swiftly deal with it, lest it take hold on our hearts. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God, Hebrews 3.12.
Seeing Sin For What It Is
Chrysostom once said, “I fear nothing but sin.”?6 Sin is a blight on our world. In fact, it radically altered everything about God’s creation. Sin brought with it pain, worry, sadness, fear, fighting, sickness and death. None of these were part of the world God created in Genesis 1-2. Can you imagine how Adam and Eve must have felt the first time they experienced these emotions and woke up with the first ache and pain? Can you feel their sadness as the animals they once could approach without fear now wanted to eat them? At every turn they would have been reminded of the cataclysmic effects of sin. The consequences of that first sin in the garden remain with us today. We live inside a world of sin and death and all kinds of hardships leading up to that death. With the exception of Enoch, Genesis 5.24, and Elijah, 2 Kings 2.11, every human being has died. James Gibbons has written, “This earth is a graveyard. And the hardships experienced in living are all part of the equation of death.”?7 It is this that Paul wrote about: the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, Romans 8.22. The pain of creation Paul mentions there is described in detail in Genesis 3 after Satan’s victory: Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return, Genesis 3.17b-19. There is nothing joyous about sin. John MacArthur has written, “Sin is the monarch of man. Sin is the lord of the soul. Sin is the king of humanity.”?8 Sin devastates society. It is seen in every broken marriage and home, every wayward child, and every shattered friendship. It is behind prostitution, witchcraft, murder, theft, brokenheartedness, and unrelenting sorrow. God aptly described sin in Joshua 7.13. Here God calls it an “accursed thing.”?9
Scripture is not coy in its description of the devastation of sin. We read how:
- Sin stings, 1 Corinthians 15.55-56.
- Sin is an abomination, Proverbs 15.9; Jeremiah 44.4.
- Sin is filthy and polluted, Proverbs 30.12; Zechariah 3.3; 1 Kings 8.38; Isaiah 30.22.
- Sin is filled with iniquity, Isaiah 59.3, Psalm 90.8.
- Sin is evil, Matthew 15.19; Jeremiah 44.11.
- Sin is deceitful, Hebrews 3.13
- Sin is presumptuous, Proverbs 19.13.
- Sin brings death, Hebrews 9.27; Joshua 23.14; 1 Kings 2.2.
In scripture, sin is described as being extremely powerful, sinister, and dominating. If we are to be successful against it, we must have the courage to pull back the wrapping in which Satan has disguised sin. We must begin to see sin for what it is. In short, it is the sum of all bad things. It will destroy your life and your eternity. It is hideous, despicable, and base.
How the Bible Defines Sin
In three short words, God’s word gives us a simple definition: sin is lawlessness, 1 John 3.4. Later in the same epistle, the beloved apostle said, all wrongdoing is sin, 1 John 5.17a. The first passage, 3:4, discusses the matter of sin in a positive manner (sin is a violation of a command of God). The second passage, 5:17, speaks of the matter in a negative manner (sin is a failure to keep or obey the commands of God). There are two other passages that set out to define sin. Paul wrote, whoever has doubts is condemned, Romans 14.23, and James said whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin, James 4.17.
What law does sin violate? God’s. His standard of righteous is the ultimate, inalterable way. His laws are based on what is right, holy, just, and good. God’s way is the only way. As His creation, we are subject to it. Any violation of His law leads us into evil. It separates us from Him and makes us unholy.
As we try to wrap our mind around the deadly seriousness of sin, the Bible describes sin as rebellion. Think back to 1 John 3.4 - sin is lawlessness. From almost the beginning, mankind has had a propensity to willingly transgress against God. In Leviticus 26.27, God described lawbreakers as those who walk contrary to (Him). When we sin, we move in opposition to God. One of the Hebrew words for sin is Pasha, which means to “trespass, apostatize, quarrel: offend, rebel, revolt, transgress.”
Sin is a matter of the will. Think of the countless times God called a rebellious, idolatrous, and stubborn people to return. His people has been further described as belligerent and unbending. This is perfectly illustrated in Jeremiah 44, where God once again indicated His willingness to restore His relationship with them - if they would only turn to Him. To this Judah said, As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you, Jeremiah 44.16. God’s people had become hardened to the point where nothing would prick through the callousness of their heart. They simply were not interested in anything God had to say. As we discussed in our previous lesson, this is one of the awful effects of sin - it hardens and causes one to only pursue darkness with an even greater hunger. Any thought of returning into the light is met with the strongest of resistance. They go on to say we will do everything that we have vowed, make offering to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no disaster, 44.17. The queen of heaven, was a name for Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love and fertility. Nothing, not even God Himself, could persuade the people to return to Him. Before we came to Christ, we rebelled against God. Paul writes, that we were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, Colossians 1.21. We were in the midst of a very grave situation.
Sin is pictured as an incurable disease. Isaiah described the sin of the people of his day in this way: Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged, Isaiah 1.4. Isaiah continues by describing the people being full of sin - as a person who becomes full of disease: The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint, From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil, 1.5b-6. God’s people found themselves in a desperate situation. Sin had completely overtaken them and there was no way they could extricate it. The same is true for people of all time. The only cure for sin is to begin a relationship with the Great Physician, Luke 5.31.
If people really understood their plight, they would immediately seek a remedy. But darkness has a way of blinding individuals to the point that they cannot see anything - including that which is right in front of them. And the longer a person stays in this situation the more comfortable it becomes. A few years ago I visited the home of a person who had fallen prey to a life altering illness. For years, she had raised chihuahuas and sold them to people in the community. As her health declined, the lady could no longer care for the eight dogs inside her home. When I came by for a visit, it was obvious the dogs had had free reign of the home for weeks. Feces and vomit were scattered throughout the home. Warm, humid weather with no air conditioning made matters worse. You could smell the inside of the home before you walked onto the porch. It was an awful experience. I couldn’t leave fast enough, but as I was leaving - I was overtaken by an overwhelming sadness. This was not the way I had remembered this person from my youth. We may wonder how any person could ever live in such conditions - and the answer is simple - you get used to it and no longer see things as the way they really are. This same thing happens all the time with those caught in sin. They have been blinded to the way things really are and cannot see they have been condemned to death by the most insidious disease known to mankind: sin.
Sin is Hard Work
In a sermon many years ago, John MacArthur made a powerful point concerning the great effort people make to engage in sin. It is worthy of our consideration. Jeremiah spoke of those who weary themselves committing iniquity, Jeremiah 9.5. Sin isn’t easy. We have to expend effort to do it. Despite the pain, it is amazing to see how hard people work at being sinners. It is expensive. It causes people to run around, stay up all night, carouse, get drunk, get high, get arrested, wreck their car, lose a wife, destroy a family, get sick, and go to the hospital.
Consider the story we find in Genesis 19. Angels came to visit Lot at Sodom. Sodom was one of the wickedest cities on earth - full of all sorts of debauchery and sexual perversion. When the angels arrive, Lot invites them to stay inside his house. He extends hospitality to them. Before retiring, the men of Sodom gathered outside Lot’s home and demanded he send the angels outside so they could have sex with them. Lot refused. In fact, he offered his daughters to them. (Even the hint of this offer by Lot, shows he had become desensitized to sin.) The men outside refused and began to use violence to enter Lot’s house to assault his two visitors. They were literally going to break down the door of the house. The angels struck the men with blindness, but not even that extinguished their illicit desires: they wore themselves out groping for the door, 19.11.
We see similar examples of this throughout Scripture and even today:
- Psalm 7.14 - In the years Saul pursued David, wishing to take his life, Cush served as Saul’s agent - seeking David’s life. David described him as being pregnant with evil, conceives trouble, and gives birth to deceit. No matter how difficult it was, or how much pain it caused him, Cush would not relent against David.
- Ezekiel 24.12 - This passage is concerned with Jerusalem who had wearied herself with toil, its abundant corrosion does not go out of it. Jerusalem was so busy with sin, she had worn herself out with it.
- Proverbs 4.16 - For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong; they are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. It has been said, “Sin is hard work. People go to hell sweating.”?10
It Starts With Just One Sin
Paul wrote: The wages of sin is death, Romans 6.23. In James 1 we read, Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death, James 1.15. In both passages “sin” is used in singular form. In other words, one will bring about death. Going back to Genesis 2, God said that the sin of eating the forbidden fruit would bring about death. By one simple act, Adam and Eve willingly chose to give up what they had in the garden. Satan’s methods have not changed and his deception is that effective. He constantly tells us, it won’t matter this one time, and no one will ever know. One sin does matter, just ask Adam and Eve! One sin has the ability to separate us from our relationship with the Father.
With all seriousness, we must give attention to holiness and the need to walk in the light. Peter said, prepare your minds for action, and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy,” 1 Peter 1.13-16.
Conclusion:
Our nation has long since crossed the line and fallen down a slippery slope. We have actually reached a point now where forty year old sitcoms like All in the Family look tame. What is truly scary is that our descent into the moral abyss will only gain speed as we travel through time. What future generations face may be unimaginable to those of us presently alive.
Can we turn things around? Certainly. With the power of God all things are possible. May we realize that change begins to happen when each person and each family determine to make God’s way their way. Change will happen when we thoroughly acquaint ourselves with a true and accurate understanding of sin. Only when we see it in its true form will we be steadfast in making every effort to avoid it at every turn. Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God, 2 Corinthians 7.1.
Questions for Discussion
1. Describe the media influence on the morals of our nation.
2. Why do so many avoid a discussion about sin at all costs?
3. Who are the only two human beings who have never died?
4. List eight ways the Bible describes sin. Discuss.
5. In what four ways does the Bible define sin? Discuss.
6. In what ways do you see similarities to Jeremiah 44 in today’s culture?
7. What is the only cure for sin?
8. How does sin blind us to our surroundings?
9. How is sin “hard work?”
10. Do you feel there is any hope for our nation to “turn things around?” Why?
_____________________________
1 Skate (2011). “Christopher Hitchens Remembered.” Retrieved 12/17/2011 from http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/12/tributes_to_the_journalist_and_intellectual_from_julian_barnes_anne_applebaum_james_fenton_and_others_.html
2 McClelland, S. (2011, December 17). “Tebow backlash now in full force.” Dayton Daily News. pp. C2
3 O’Connor, C. (2000). Personal Interview. Retrieved 12/17/2011 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daZ0aKB9jng
4 Sitcom reviews from Plugged In Online. Retrieved 12/17/2011 from http://www.pluggedin.com/tv.aspx
5 Duke, B. (2011, September 27). “Church billboard war sparked by the gays. The Free Thinker. Retreived 12/17/2011 from http://freethinker.co.uk/2011/09/27/church-billboard-war-sparked-by-the-gays/
6 MacArthur, J. (1989). Freedom from Sin. Retrieved 12/17/2011 from: http://www.gty.org/resources/Positions/P13/Freedom-from-Sin
7 Gibbons, J. (2011). “The Awfulness of Sin.” The Sword and Staff. 49:4. p. 4.
8 MacArthur J. (1977, January 9). “Sin” Grace to You. Retrieved 11/15/2011 from http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/1247/sin
9 As seen in the KJV and NKJV. The NASU says, “There are things under the ban in your midst.”
10 MacArthur J. (1977, January 9). “Sin” Grace to You. Retrieved 11/15/2011 from http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/1247/sin
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