WHAT IS SIN......Its Nature, consequences and Remedy



WHAT IS SIN?


Introduction

God loves the righteous because of his consistent right-standing lifestyle.  The scriptures say that righteousness exalts a nation and sin is a reproach. Everyone can live above sin, and become the beloved of the Lord if we determine to live godly.

The only time sin overcomes a person is when the person decides to live holy by his strength.  If we love the Lord and want to live godly, the scriptures say we should depend on the strength of the Lord.  We should confess our weaknesses as humans and align our lives with the Word of the Lord and surrender to the leadership of the Spirit of God.

Sin stirs us in the face every day.  It is the reason why many people are far from becoming who God created them to be.  Sin makes God keep His distance from us.  A sinner is separated from God and spiritually dead, while he lives. The person cannot hear the voice of God, and neither can he discern spiritual things.



A man can be a favourite child of God and operate with so much grace, but the moment he lifts his hands and touches sin, God departs from him.  Every child of God should hate sin and every appearance of evil, not only because God hates sin, but because of the consequences of sin.  Sin brings sickness, affliction, bondage and death.  Sin is a killer, destroyer of destiny and harvester of souls of men.  You must deal with the sin question before sin deals with you.

Sin is a reproach to man, even a Nation, but righteousness cannot be attained by human efforts, it is achieved by the help of the Spirit of God.  What you call sin is a well-orchestrated attack from the devil, who sees in the spirit to know what a man is lusting after and to tempt him in that thing.  Sin does not just come, you are tempted, when you have lusted after something in your heart for a long, and are drawn away by the lust.  So,  we all need the Holy Spirit to caution and guide our thoughts and action.

The desire to live right comes from the love of God.  If we love the Lord, then, we will want to please Him in all things.  This is why people who are conscious of what Christ did at the cross, and who walk in the righteousness of Christ, devote more of their time to the things of God and prayer.  By so doing, they are able to stay righteous in their thought realm and keep away from touching the unclean things surrounding them.

What then is Sin?

Sin is any thought, word or action that falls short of God's word and standard of holiness. James tells us that if we know to do good, and we recognize that we ought to be doing certain things, the failure to do them is a sin. There is open and secret sin, the sin of the heart and sin of the flesh,  There is also, the sin of iniquity.


What is Sin? is an important question that believers should understand because sin is the major cause of death.  It starts with spiritual death, the person is not sensitive to the things of the spirit, cannot hear the voice of God and cannot resist the devil and afflictions.

Sin is described in the Bible as a transgression of the law of God (1 John 3:4) and rebellion against God (Deuteronomy 9:7).  Sin started from heaven, when Lucifer, an angel thought in his heart to be like God and desired to be higher than God.  That was the beginning of sin, which led to his downfall because God saw pride in him and he was chased down from heaven -  (Isaiah 14:12-15).  The sin of pride that corrupted Lucifer was before the fall of man. 

Behind every sin is a temptation. When there is a temptation, the conscience immediately senses danger. It interprets the situation and shows you the implications.  The conscience helps to restrain you from committing sin.

The word of God is written in the conscience ( heart) of every human being according to Romans 1:20.  Your conscience is the custodian of your knowledge of good and evil.  It guides you and prompts you when there is a danger,  so through the conscience, everyone knows right from wrong including children up to a certain age.  

If a person ignores the promptings of his heart and instead chose to do things his own way, that person is committing sin.   When a person refuses to abide by the word of God and His instruction, such a person is rebellious.  A sin is an act of rebellion against the Word and standards of God. Sin is not only doing what is wrong but the failure to do what you to be right - James 4:17.


How sin entered the world

It is important to understand the origin of sin and how it entered the world.  Sin originated from Satan, called Lucifer originally before pride was found in him and he was chased down from heaven with a gang of rebellious angels.  Sin entered the world when Adam and Eve believed Satan’s lie and disobeyed God.  

God had instructed them to eat the fruit of every tree in the garden, except one.  He warned them not to touch or eat of the fruit, for the day they shall eat the fruit of the tree, they shall surely die.  

But Lucifer went and deceived the woman and made the two of them disobey God.  They ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and their conscience was awakened, and they became aware of right and wrong and knew that they had sinned. 

Lesson from the fall:  
The first lesson from the fall of Adam and eve is that we are fighting a spirit that knows more than us.  He has accurate spiritual information we may not have.  So we need the help of the Holy Spirit to overcome the devil. 

The Serpent removed the fear of death, which the Lord had warned them about, by saying they will not die, but instead, they will become as wise as God.  With the fear of death gone, Eve looked closely at the fruit and moved closer to it and touched it.  But God had told them not to touch the fruit.  So, after the touch, the next level was to eat the fruit.  The second lesson is that sin has consequences.  The wages of sin is death. Whether it is done secretly or openly, there will be consequences sooner than you think.  

Nature of Sin

Behind every sin is a temptation.  Temptation is part of everyday life and children of God are warned to flee from every appearance of evil.  That's a mild way of saying people should run away from every temptation and evil thought.  If an evil thought is not expelled immediately, chances are that the person could later be persuaded to do what he did not want to do.

According to Apostle James, sin is committed when a person is led away by the lust in his heart.  He continues by saying that when the desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” James 1:15. This scripture teaches that there can be no accidental sin.  No, the person would have meditated on it for some time, before the act is committed.  This is why it is not good to meditate on evil, because after some time if the thought is not dismissed, the person will eventually fall into error.

Here we see that temptation doesn’t become sin until a conception takes place. This conception is when your mind consciously agrees with lust. The result is sin, whether in thought, word or deed. and you will be held accountable.  

John writes: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” 1 John 1:8. The sin that you have is this sin in the flesh – lusts and desires – that you have inherited. You are born with them, they are in your flesh, pushing you to desire evil things, selfish and worldly. 

Types of Sin

Inherited Sin - Lucifer became the Serpent that deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden, and caused man to sin. With the fall of Adam, sin entered the human race, passing down through all the generations of mankind, including our generation and the ones after us.  Adam’s descendants inherited sin from him, which is why Romans 5:12 tells us that through Adam sin entered the world, and so death was passed on to all men because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

Inputted Sin - The next type of sin is known as imputed sin.  God used the principle of the imputation of sin to transfer the sin of the world to the account of Jesus Christ, who had to pay the price of sin, which is death.  Jesus paid the penalty for the sins of the world, though He never committed any sin. He took them to the cross and nailed them there, once and for all, to give us victory over sin and Satan. At His resurrection, God also inputted the righteousness of Christ upon all that will receive Him as Lord and Saviour.

Personal sin - The third type of sin is personal sin, which is committed every day by people due to the nature of sin inherited from Adam, and man's own lust and desires of the flesh.  They are also called individual or personal sins and range from small lies to murder.  Believers who are sanctified can resist sin of any kind and succeed, because of the help of the Holy Spirit working in their lives, but unbelievers cannot resist sin and the temptation of the devil because they are under the control of the devil, who they cannot withstand.

Unforgivable Sin?
According to Jesus, there is one sin a person can do for which there is no forgiveness or pardon either in this age or in the age to come: blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. But what does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit?”

Jesus addressed the topic in Mark 3:20-30, a passage that ends with these words:  “Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation” (Mark 3:28-29).

The sin of the heart?
Jesus Christ revealed that sin includes not only our physical actions but also our thoughts and attitudes.  He says if you look unto a woman and lust after her, even without speaking a word to her or knowing her name, you have committed adultery with her in your heart.  In Mathew 5:27-28, He explains: “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  That brings me to the sin of the heart.  

These are sins committed in our inward man through evil imagination.  There is the fornication of the heart, which occurs when a man lusts after a woman in his heart.  There is coveteousness, which also happens in inside when people are envious of the goods of their neighbours and wish those luxurious cars were theirs.  Sin starts in the mind. When we allow evil thoughts to enter our minds and stay there, eventually these evil thoughts can spring into action, leading us to sin. 

“All unrighteousness is a sin.” - 1 John 5:17:  Unrighteousness here means wrongdoing, all dishonesty,” all wickedness,” and all unfair treatment to cheat, hurt or harm to someone are all considered by God to be sin.  The Lord Jesus later explained that unrighteousness goes beyond physical actions.  It includes the evil thoughts and imaginations of the heart.  

Failure to do what you know is right is a sin.”- James 4:17: Perhaps you have heard of sins of commission, sinning by the actions we take stealing, lying, committing adultery and so on. But this verse tells us that some transgressions involve sins of omission, sinning by things we refuse to do.

“Whatsoever is not of faith is sin”. - In Romans 14:23:  When we do something that goes against trust and faith in God, that’s a sin. “Whatever is not from faith is a sin.” Here we see a third standard that defines sin and made it clearer.  Whatever is not by faith is of the flesh and carnal.  If it is not by faith, it is not by grace, and it is then by works. 

Brief Description of Sin:

Lust of the Flesh - Galatians 5:19-21 - The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;  idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

1.  Adultery:  Unlawful sexual relationship between men and women, married or single 1 cor 6:9
2. Fornication:   Includes adultery, incest, sexual immorality, prostitution sodomy 2 Cor 21:11
3. Uncleanness: Anything that is not pure like sexual perversion, bestiality
4. Lasciviousness: Lustful behaviour, unchastity and lewdness and filthiness.
5. Witchcraft:  Spirit of satan that manipulate people to do evil. Gal 5:20
6. Hatred:  Bitter dislike, holding malice and grudge against someone
7. Variance:  Dissension, discord, quarrelling
8. Emulations:  Envy, Jealousy, striving to excel at the expense of others
9. Wrath: Determined and lasting anger, rage - Luke 4:28
10. Contentions:  Strenuous endeavour to revenge an evil done to you
11. Seditions:  Factions, stirring up strife against a person
12. Heresies: Rejecting sound doctrine and accepting the fallacy

Lust of the Eyes
1. Lust for the opposite sex
2. Adulterous looks to seduce people - Eyes full of adultery  2 Peter 2:14
3. Covetousness 2 Peter 2:14

Pride
1. Arrogance
2. Self-righteousness
3. High position, high looks 3 John 9


Consequences of Sin

All the problems in the universe–physical problems, spiritual problems, moral problems, social problems, economic problems, political problems–have their origin in sin. When God completed His perfect creation, it was “very good.” There was no evil, no disorder, no chaos, no conflict, no pain, no discord, no disease, no decline, no death. But now we live our whole lives in a perpetual struggle with all of those things. Frankly, everything in our world now is anything but good.

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, sin entered our world, and everything went from being very good to being very bad.  From that time wickedness and evil thought and action entered the earth.  We all became sinners from birth, having the nature sin, and always thinking evil, disobedient to God and rebellious.  

Greed entered the heart of man and other sinful natures of the devil. With inherited sin, man became insatiable, and discontent with what he has, ever asking for more, seeking knowledge without end.  People who have money are not content, those that do not have are struggling to have it, so every man is striving to have more of whatever he has.

Many married people are not content with their spouse, they are looking for more relationships, seeking an opportunity to cheat on their spouse.  People are telling lies at random, even children are telling lies, without anyone teaching them how to lie.  The nature of sin is so strong that children can think evil against their parents, their sisters and brothers, and as I write this piece, children have started committing suicide.  Inherited sin is responsible for them.  King David recognized this nature and lamented against it in Psalm 51:5, saying: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

With the fall of man came a curse on the ground, and the entire humanity is still groaning under the curse pronounced on the ground by God as a result of the sin of Adam.  This shows that the sin of a person can affect generations of people.  Adam's sin wiped away the dominion God gave to man, and removed him from the Garden of Eden, where there was abundance to bare land to suffer before he can feed.  It also brought a curse on the land, which the universe is still suffering until now.  Desert encroachment, erosion, earthquakes and similar disaster are still with us.

Some people try to justify themselves by saying, “At least I’ve never killed anyone or cheated on my spouse.” Jesus does not accept these excuses. In the Sermon on the Mount, He teaches that anger is just as bad as murder and lust as bad as adultery. Sin is sin, and the punishment is absolute. “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Worse still, no one who is controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God” - Romans 8:8.

The Ten Commandments - Reasons

The reason for the Law that God gave Moses can be summarized as follows:

1. The people of Israel were unique and peculiar people chosen by God, to be sons and daughters of God.  Some of them did not know the truth.

2. They had lived too long in a foreign land, under pagan behaviours and culture.

3. Their years in Egypt exposed them to pagan gods and idol worship, behaviours that are contrary to God.

4. God saw they were behaving like the Egyptians and practising their ways of life, which was not acceptable to God.

5. God wanted them to know they have a Living God, and their God was not the god of the Egyptians.  

Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments were not given to everyone on earth at that time, but to God's children, the Jews.  God made it clear that those who do not abide by the Laws, statutes and ordinances He gave them, are to be stoned to death.  

The Commandments are summarized thus:  
1. Do not have any other god before God
2. Do not make yourself an idol
3. Do not take the Lord's name in vain
4. Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy
5. Honour your mother and father
6. Do not murder
7. Do not commit adultery
8. Do not steal
9. Do not testify or fear false witnesses against your neighbour
10. Do not covet

God told them in Exodus, that they are His children and He is their God.  He told them He is in their midst to take them to the land He promised their forefather Abraham to give to them.  He called on them to be holy because He the Almighty God is holy.  

He told them, that He is a God of justice and judgement, who will visit the iniquities of the father on his children, even to the fourth generation of those that hate Him.  Apostle Peter caught this revelation and declared in 1 Peter 2:9 that the Jews,  and descendants of Abraham are royal priests.  He says correctly:

"But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.  Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy" - 1 Peter 2:9.

Lesson 2: 
Anyone who has received Christ as Lord and Saviour is no longer part of the world people, you are 'called out and peculiar to God.  Don't continue to compare yourself with the world, because you can no longer behave like the world.  You should not miss this point.

There are people in the world who will reject the gospel, reject the Word of God and be careless about eternity, they don't want to be controlled by anyone, they are rebellious, they are the world.  There were many people like them when God gave His people the Law and they will always be there.  But, you that have accepted Christ, walk like a child of God, abide by His Word and instructions, so your journey on earth will be easy and eternity is secured with the Lord.

Remedy for Sin

The first remedy for sin is to repent of sin and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour of our lives.  When we do that, He forgives our sins and cleanses us of all unrighteousness.  Additionally, He gives us the power to be called sons and daughters of God.  That power is the Holy Spirit of God, whom the Lord will send to us to help us amend and be transformed.

1. Do not cover your sin - When you fall into sin, confess and repent of it immediately. If you confess your sin, the Lord will forgive you.

2. Study and practise the Word of the scripture daily.  Ask the Lord to help you always, you are not relying on your strength.  No flesh can win over a battle with the devil, so you should depend on the help of the Holy Spirit, and victory is sure.

3. Guide your heart diligently.  Watch what you see, hear, speak and meditate on.  Make sure your heart is pure, for every sin springs from the heart and from what we meditate on.

4. Restrain your foot from evil places and all other ungodly places.

5. Flee from every appearance of evil. Do not start asking questions about why that person is doing what he or she is doing.  When you can discern temptation, the bible says you should flee.

Once we do all these, we are no longer slaves to sin. We are walking by the Spirit and there is no condemnation for us, according to Romans 8:1-2: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death”.


FIRE...




Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post